Imagine Silence Of The Lambs being slapped across the face with the feminist movement, and you'll get something close to what director D. J. Caruso was striving for in Taking Lives, an overcooked potboiler that is about two hours too long.
It would be nice to be able to say that Oscar-winner Angelina Jolie should have known better than to star in this movie, but after Tomb Raider 2, Beyond Borders, and Life Or Something Like It, well, the girl just can't seem to stop herself. She's like a super-conductor for movies that are sure to fail, pitiable but eminently laughable; watching Jolie is like watching the female version of Ben Affleck crash and burn.
Set in the sprawling urbanity of Montreal, Lives is dark and soggy – if it ever rained this much in real life, Canada would have become the fifth ocean a long time ago. After a few bodies turn up without any leads on a culprit, the Canadian police force calls in FBI profiler Illeana Scott (Angelina Jolie). As she investigates a killer who murders victims only to assume their identities, she finds herself attracted to artist Frank Costa (scruffy, man-child Ethan Hawke, switching between flustered and more flustered), who may be the killer's next victim.
Jolie pouts and struts her way through the movie as Scott, some sort of super-empowered female Rambo who doesn't accept dates from men (not live ones anyway) because it interferes with her work.
Nothing to disagree with there, except in the manner in which director Caruso handles the feminist angle. Jodie Foster's calm-and-collected Clarice Starling in Lambs was such a treat because she was cooler, smarter, and better in gunfights than her male counterparts. Jolie's character is intended to be smarter and stronger than the oafish Canadian detectives helping her (including the always unlikable Olivier Martinez), but she comes off as easily manipulated and weak.
Hawke takes after a disconcerted Johnny Depp from Sleepy Hollow. Costa is innervated by all the killings, anxious to return to his simple life as a painter. Hawke is talented, but you get the feeling that, like Jolie, he was hired because the studio needed some beautiful people to slap onto publicity posters.
Lives really takes a turn for the worse when a Canadian detective has to tell Scott that breaking into a witness's home is illegal in Canada (as opposed to where?). The detective informs Scott that she cannot unlawfully enter a person's home. "How about a headstrong FBI agent who doesn't know the rules so well?" asks Scott. You know the movie is in trouble when the characters start talking about all the clichés they are dancing through.
Taking Lives is rated R for strong violence including disturbing images, language and some sexuality.
John Visclosky. John Visclosky is, suffice it to say, "hardly the sharpest intellectual tool in the shed," which is why he has stupidly chosen to here address himself in the third person. He's a mellow sort of guy who enjoys movies and sharing his feelings and innermost … More »
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