Taking Lives

Early on, some aspects of D.J. Caruso’s film — all that moody lighting, plus super-close-ups and sulky cops — suggest that there might be an entertaining and visually interesting thriller in the making. Montreal is beset with a series of ritualized murders, and the authorities bring in an FBI profiler (Angelina Jolie). She’s got a freaky side — she lies in the victim’s grave and sleeps with gruesome crime-scene photos — and finds herself drawn to a nervous witness (Ethan Hawke). Of course, one hot weird American chick is smarter than 100 Canadian cops; she susses out pretty quickly that the killer is “life-jacking,” assuming the lives of his victims. She skips over the obvious homoerotic aspects of the killings and by mid-film, Caruso drops that intriguing angle entirely, opting for a gratuitous boob shot, car chases and a highly implausible conclusion. Keifer Sutherland has a thankless role as a mere shadow, French cutie Olivier Martinez as a local cop pouts, and grande dame Gena Rowlands plays a … grande dame. There’s some undercurrents of messiness — the culpability of motherhood, women undone by sexual desire, men who just want to be other men so completely — but the film doesn’t stretch any further than being a Seven et al. retread.

This article appears in Mar 25-31, 2004.