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“Taking Lives”, the latest “bad girl” film is about Illeana Scott, a gifted murder detective who is on the case of a murderer who she can’t seem to find. He’s the best of the best. He leaves footprints and hordes of evidence, but only to confuse and to madden. So this is getting on the nerves of many detectives.
Ethan Hawk enters the picture when he becomes a witness to one of heinous crimes committed by this esteemed artist in the art of murder. But Hawk isn’t very effective in performance or in character, which, even though takes a vital twist in the plot, only hindered the visual style that made me enjoy the film’s already-used story.
“Taking Lives” is basically a rip-off of the masterful “Se7en”, except without a mind bending twist. What this film delivers is a plot so preposterous and over-the-top that I couldn’t figure out if they were suggesting reality or fantasy. Jolie is good, but nothing we haven’t seen before and nothing I care to see again if Hollywood can stand it. The whole film is just used and unneeded.
This is a sad description of the film, though, and I understand that I’m butchering it. I must admit that I loved the visuals. The cinematography by Amir Mokri is the only thing that surpassed my acknowledgments. It’s got fluidness to it that sways or glides through most of the film with beauty and grace.
When I see things like this, I try to figure out where it all went wrong. I look to see where the story could have (and should have) taken a different turn, but I was left speechless after “Lives” because it has no place to take a different route and, consequently, no way of redeeming itself. Nowhere is this more certain than in the ending, which is just plain silly. * ½