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