#Jean-HuguesAnglade

[adamwatchesmovies]

Taking Lives (2004)

An easy way to make yourself feel like a genius is to watch Taking Lives. This serial killer thriller is so predictable you'll look like Sherlock Holmes as you deduce every single development.

A serial killer is roaming Canada. After each murder, he disfigures the body, then steals the victim's identity. By the time the police are onto him, he’s taken someone else's life. Our mounties are overwhelmed and bring in FBI profiler Illeana Scott (Angeline Jolie) to crack the case. She catches a break when the latest murder is interrupted by a witness: an art salesman named James Cost (Ethan Hawke).

I frequently get duped by thrillers but even my idiot brain foresaw about 90% of everything coming. Even the casting telegraphs what's around the bend. Take for example Angelina Jolie as Illeana Scott. She’s mega sexy; the kind of woman that would make you push your girlfriend into moving traffic if you thought you had a shot with her. Why are attractive women detectives in bad thrillers? To get seduced or to sleep with someone involved in the case. Either a coworker, suspect, or witness. Maybe even the killer if the movie's really bad. It doesn't matter how many hoops the story has to jump through, you're going to get a passionate love-making scene.

The killer’s methods of stealing identities and staying ahead of the police shouldn't work, at all. The premise is intriguing but in a modern-day setting like this? It simply doesn't work. When everything is revealed at the end, the story is ludicrous. It would've required professionals to ignore glaring evidence and Illeana to be unable to connect two and two together several times.

In an attempt to keep you entertained, Taking Lives uses multiple cheap tricks. In one scene, Illeana is attacked while exploring a spooky-looking room. She never announced to anyone she was going in, which means the attacker must've either read the script or waited there for hours for her to come in and miss where they were hiding for the sake of a cheap jump scare. It’s one of those movies where conversations between people are worded very precisely so they can be misinterpreted by the audience. You know that old cliché where someone walks into a room, the camera shows them from the back so you can’t see their face and the victim says something like “Oh, it’s YOU.” before being gunned down? It’s that bad.

I didn’t hate Taking Lives - probably because of the brief eye candy - but this movie’s got nothing going for it. It’s not particularly clever. The characters and their actions are not believable. No one- not even the serial killer captures your attention. It wants to be all twisty and filled with revelations, but whatever was so good about the novel that made it worth turning into a movie must've been lost in translation. I'll give you fifteen minutes to figure out the film's ending and you'll be able to with ease. (On DVD, December 31, 2014)

[film-book]

Contest: BETTY BLUE (1986) Blu-ray (The Criterion Collection): The Jean-Hugues Anglade & Béatrice Dalle Romance Film https://tinyurl.com/yaqvco5c