Taking Lives

Serial killer genre takes a hit with ‘Taking Lives’

Warner Bros.
TCHEY KARYO and Angelina Jolie in “Taking Lives.”

There’s nothing quite like a good a good serial killer film.
There just aren’t that many around. Maybe they have reached the saturation point.
Such is the trouble with 2004’s “Taking Lives.”
It starts out with promise several years ago.
Two young men sit together on a bus, headed for Canada. But it breaks down so the two visit a raggedy shop and buy a junker to take them on their journey.
When a tire goes flat, one man has never changed a tire, so the other takes over. That doesn’t mean the young man who can’t change a tire wasn’t busy. He spends the time pushing the new friend into the path of a speeding truck. It causes the truck to flip over, obviously killing the driver. The young friend needs a bash with some asphalt to finish him off.
Fast forward to the present where an excavation site reveals a body and we learn a serial killer is on the loose in Quebec.
There to help investigate is the lovely-lipped Angelina Jolie, playing the role of FBI agent Illeana Scott.
So you wonder why an FBI agent is investigating murders in Canada? My theory is it’s because it is cheaper to film there.
There are some intriguing aspects to the film. First off, there’s the talented Gena Rowlands who informs police the son she thought had died years ago is still alive. She says she spotted his eyes in a crowd and she’s positive it is him. Oh yes, and he’s very dangerous. That statement comes back to haunt her.
That brings a sense of wasted foreboding to the plot.
Another highlight is we see Jolie’s breasts in a rather graphic sex scene. Hey, you gotta take what you can get in a pedestrian film like this.
Finally, while the ending, what might be described as the epilogue, is satisfying and suspenseful, it is also highly predictable.
The rest of the film is pretty much void of originality. Honey, this isn’t any “Silence of the Lambs:”
An apparent witness to a killing is Costa, an artist who tried to rescue a victim. By the time he got there, the serial killer did his work and things weren’t pretty.
So Costa, played by Ethan Hawke, is grilled by police who ask questions like, Why do you have blood on your shirt? The Hawke character replies when you are trying to save someone’s life who is bleeding to death, you get some blood on your shirt. Yeah, you get the idea, this film is stretched a bit.
Hawke at least does well in a difficult role.
Jolie seems a bit too subdued part of the time. We get a $1.95 explanation as to why she does what she does. I guess it replaces a real character.
Also, she likes to sit and lie at a crime scene, complete with photos of the blood and gore, maybe in hopes information will simply flow to her. It doesn’t work to solve the crime and it doesn’t work for the plot.
Besides Jolies’ um, anatomy and a few flashes of suspense, the best this has going for it is the theatrical release was only 103 minutes. The unrated version, with the decent sex scene, is 109 minutes.
So the film isn’t terrible and remains relatively short.
Not a whole-hearted endorsement. But then, this is a half-hearted kind of film.

TAKING LIVES • Directed by D.J. Caruso • Written by Michael Pyle and Jon Bokenkam • Rated R for strong violence including disturbing images, language and some sexuality • Runtime: 103 minutes, unrated version 109 minutes • 2 stars out of 4

Indictment: The McMartin Trial

Movie plot difficult to believe but true

HENRY THOMAS plays an outcast wrongly accused of child molestation in "Indictment: The McMartin Trial."

You will find the plot of “Indictment: The McMartin Trial” difficult to believe.
Imagine, a day care center where the children are routinely molested, where animals are killed in front of the children.
A seemingly upright family, the oldest in her 70s, are arrested amidst the bright lights of television and hauled into court.
There is so much hatred toward this family, the day care is burned. There are reports at other day care centers of molestation and cruelty.
The case lasts seven years and costs Los Angeles County $13 million. And the whole story is a hoax.
Yes, hard to believe. But sadly, it is true.
This movie stars James Woods as Danny Davis, an attorney who agrees to take the unpopular case. Wife and others are disturbed he would agree to represent such perverts, but Danny says they deserve a defense like anyone else.
The defendants include Henry Thomas, who you may remember as the little boy in “E.T.” He is Ray Buckey, a reclusive young man who lives with his mother and likes to look at nude photos of women and relieve himself.
When authorities find cut up nude photos he tries to flush down the toilet, it is a sure sign he is guilty of molesting kids.
Lolita Davidovich plays Kee McFarlane, a self-proclaimed social worker without any training. She is alerted to possible child abuse after a woman whose child is at the center reports her son has been sexually abused.
McFarlane records each of the sessions she has with the children. She uses puppets to make the interviews less traumatic for the kids.
The recordings show at first the children deny they were molested. But slowly, the McFarlane character tires them out. Her puppets ask the children’s puppets if they won’t “join” the others and agree they were molested. The children, wishing to please the woman, finally agree they were molested.
Now the prosecutors don’t view all of the tapes. McFarlane writes down the VCR numbers so they can forward to the parts where the kids describe being “molested.”
This case goes on for years and elderly day care owner must submit to sick cavity searches in prison. Yet so much about the children’s stories don’t jive.
First off, they say they were molested in closets. But there are no closets.
The Thomas character, who spends more time in prison than any person in California in history without being convicted, is accused of actions before he even worked at the center. That didn’t stop the case from being prosecuted.
The children, used to lying, sit on the witness stand and tell bizarre stories. One child says they were taken to a church where animals were killed on the altar and the children were molested. But a priest at the church says the doors are always locked. There is no way anyone can bring children there and kill animals.
One child describes being molested in a carwash, but then changes his story. They were all taken to the airport and placed on a plane so they could be molested. But the plane doesn’t leave the ground.
The Woods character learns the mother who initially filed charges of molestation later says the child’s father also molested the boy, as did a neighbor and finally her brother. She eventually ends up in a mental institution. But the prosecutor maintains she went crazy AFTER making the initial charges against the day care center.
Yes, lives are ruined and money wasted. It is a compelling but so sad of a story.
You can watch it unfold over 135 minutes on DVD. Prepare to be appalled.

INDICTMENT: THE McMARTIN TRIAL • Directed by Mick Jackson • Written by Abby Mann and Myra Mann • Runtime: 135 minutes • Rated R for graphic language and disturbing visuals • 3 1/2 stars out of 4