Robando Vidas

Taking Lives is a police procedural about a serial killer whose M.O. is to `take' his successive victims' identities as well as their lives. He does this because he doesn't like who he is. His mother (a campy Gena Rowlands) preferred his twin brother and he vents his resentment about this over and over in his life of gruesome crime. This approach to sequential murder is the point of originality in what otherwise in most ways is a quite conventional film. It's directed by D.J. Caruso, a director of many TV cop flicks whose previous full-length movie, The Salton Sea, was a tweaker saga with Val Kilmer and Vincent D'Onofrio that was rich in cheesy atmosphere. This one makes more sense and carries some respectable thrills, but it's not certain it's altogether an improvement.

The movie begins with an intriguingly stylized prologue that shows the young teenage killer on his maiden voyage. He has probably already killed his twin brother. Now he has hit the road armed with a big wad of cash acquired by selling his mother's stolen jewelry, though we don't know all that till later. All we see is a sly, strange boy who meets another youth on a bus, hears his life story, and when the bus gets stuck on the highway, buys a cheap used car for them to continue traveling in. While they're fixing a flat, he pushes his traveling companion in front of a passing truck and his life of murderous identity theft begins.

The staging of this segment is edgy, the lighting baroque, the boys and the landscape vivid. While the filmmakers have our attention they create an original atmosphere that's not ever quite equaled when the story skips forward to the present.

For those of us weaned on Miss Marple, it's a bit of a shock to have a head dick as distractingly pretty as Angelina Jolie, she of the lips. Whether this was a smart career choice for Ms. Jolie is debatable. She works hard to be convincing. Another wrinkle - hardly a new one, though - is that once the killer has been `made', he constantly points out his similarities with her. She's FBI, but she's as focused on killing as he is. She dines and sleeps with photos of bashed heads and lopped limbs perched in front of her: she's a bit ghoulish in her obsession with her work. But serial killers and their chief investigators always bond, if we're to go by the Hannibal Lector stories.

Iliana (Jolie) has been called in by French Canadian homicide detectives, one of whom, Olivier Martinez, has lips as voluptuous as hers. His boss, Tchéky Karyo, is suave and European; but the best of the three, Jean-Hugues Anglade, is merely beat-up looking and real. It's another minor twist that this movie was not only shot in Canada, but is actually set there, though the filmmakers insist on perversely saying it's Montreal, while constantly showing views of Quebec City as establishing shots. All three French actors speak an English that's hard to understand. I could have done without Martinez's glam looks in favor of someone with clearer diction. His mumbles may have worked for him as Diane Lane's Euro-hunk lover in Unfaithful, but for a police procedural, they don't.

As time goes on the baroque cinematography, which casts three quarters of every scene in deep shadow, begins to be as murky as the staccato Frenchified dialogue. Nonetheless the movie is stylish and watchable, up to a point. Ethan Hawke appears as a nervous witness who tries to save one of the murder victims and makes a drawing of the killer. His role evolves into one of the edgiest things he's done. Already ravaged and gaunt from his impending breakup with Uma, poor chap, he gives this his tortured all. It's been a long way from the bland schoolboy role in Dead Poets Society that first brought him notice. Kiefer Sutherland does a turn that has become a cliché for him. The obvious surprises nonetheless still seem surprising, though the finale is pure camp, shameful really. A sudden car chase is irritating and unnecessary, though happily brief.

Since we began with a close look at the killer, throughout the rest we miss his point of view. Even when we get close to him we're teased into thinking we don't know who he is. The audience is left longing for a more intimate picture of the criminal psychopathic mind (à la Highsmith), the sort of thing that the flashback opening sequence hinted at. Throughout one feels that director Caruso is reaching for something a little bit original. He even has a score by Philip Glass, which used to be a distinction. It hardly is any more. There are three movies with Glass music showing right now: this, Secret Window, and The Fog of War. Taking Lives has been widely reviled by critics whose impatience with the genre makes them overlook the fact that it's really a bit above average - if we ignore the crappy final scene.

The good news is that "Taking Lives" isn't as bad as the reviews on this board would have you believe; the bad news is that there isn't much about it that's a) unpredictable or b) new. It sports a fine cast of Angelina Jolie, Ethan Hawke, Gena Rowlands, Kiefer Sutherland, Tchéky Karyo, Jean-Hugues Anglade and Oliver Martinez. Sutherland and Rowlands, however, are completely wasted.

The film begins in the '60s with a brutal murder and then jumps to the present. An FBI profiler (Jolie) is out to nab a serial killer in Montreal who takes on the identity of his victim. A witness to one of the killings, an art gallery owner (Hawke) is cleared of suspicion. While under special protection by the police, he falls for Jolie. A woman (Gena Rowlands) comes forward, claiming to have seen her dead son, which leads the investigation to the true identity of the killer.

As others have pointed out, it's fairly derivative stuff. The filmmakers would have been better off delving more into Jolie's character - a beautiful, unmarried woman who wears a wedding ring to keep the men away and sits in her bath staring at autopsy photos and also pastes them around her bed so she can study them. Jolie gives us the inability to read the profiler but the script doesn't offer much else.

There are a couple of Swiss-cheese sized holes in this film, but mentioning them would give away the plot. For all of its lack of originality, "Taking Lives" offers some suspenseful moments and some good acting.

Taking Lives is the story of a serial killer who murders loners and usurps their identities for a time before moving on to the next victim. The story centers around an FBI agent (Angelina Jolie) as she tracks the killer down.

I enjoyed this movie. It has the characteristic gore required for such films, but done in a far different way and in a manner that actually contributes to the plot, not just for the sheer shock value. It has the characteristic plot turns and twists designed to keep you guessing, but for the most part they are well thought out and not just gags from over-clever writers. And it does have a rather solid ending. Too many of these "keep you guessing" thrillers disappoint you in the end, this one doesn't.

Angelina Jolie is very solid in this role, redeeming her in my eyes after her stints in the horrible Lara Croft films. The supporting cast is good as well. Ethan Hawke (who plays a man believed to be the next victim) is less believable in his own role, sometimes he plays the character so obviously exaggerated it loses it's substance. This "obviousness" keeps me from giving it a 10, I can only give it an 8.

I am glad to finally have a film actually set in Canada with Canadian characters and locales, and not simply filmed there to save money.

This was a so-so serial killer movie with good and bad marks. The good marks were mainly for keeping the viewer's interest. You don't fall asleep watching this film. Angeline Jolie looks as good as I've ever seen her, facially and figure-wise.

The film loses marks for an easy-to-solve story, some credibility gaps especially later in the movie and too small a part for Keifer Sutherland to get third billing. He has a very short role in here, hardly worth billing which was a bit disappointing.

Also, the French accents by Jean-Hgues Anglade and Tcheky Karyo were hard for me to understand, forcing me to put on the English subtitles.

Taking Lives is entertaining but predictable from director D.J. Caruso whose admirable in making this thriller but there are flaws that weigh it down. Angelina Jolie and Ethan Hawke are good as the two leads. Oliver Martinez, Tcheky Karyo, Jean-Hugh Anglade, and Gena Rowlands are effective as the supporting characters but they lack screen time and development because most of the focus is on Jolie. Kiefer Sutherland is solid in a brief extended appearance before being written out of the movie rather quickly. The rest of the cast are okay in their roles but no one stands out. The movie does have a little suspense but it doesn't pay off because the eventual twist I sort of saw coming. There's a little action including a chase that's well executed but the movie could've used more of it. If there was more suspense, action, character development, and a different twist besides the one they went with the film would've have been that bad. Taking Lives starts off decent but after a while it becomes kind of obvious who the killer is and after the reveal there's no more suspense. The pacing was a little slow at times which didn't help either. Lucikly Caruos kept the running time down to 103 minutes so it's not a total waste of time. Overall despite it's flaws Taking Lives is an okay thriller with a little suspense, action, and solid performances by the cast who make this movie worth watching at least once but after it's over you can't help but feel a little disappointed.