COLUMN: ‘Taking’ your pick – ‘Lives’ and ‘Window’ both average horror
Grade: B-
You’ve seen it countless times in various thrillers: After the police come really, really close to catching the killer, but he manages to slip through their fingers again, he calls up his nemesis police officer, telling him/her, “We’re the same.”
Well, got that one right. It seems that nowadays thrillers are all pretty much the same. Unfortunately “Taking Lives” isn’t the exception, despite a promising beginning that reminded me heavily of David Fincher’s masterpiece “Seven.”
It starts out pretty much like your average teenage-road trip movie with two 1980s teenagers (long-haired nerd and handsome wannabe-musician) trying to get as far away from home as possible, accompanied by music from U2 and The Clash. Suddenly, the usual bad-things-are-about-to-happen orchestra soundtrack sets in and the long-haired nerd shoves his companion in front of a passing car, finishes the poor guy off by smashing his face with a stone and takes over his identity.
About 20 years later, after killing many more and continuing their lives for them, his murderous trail leads him to Montreal. This is where agent Illeana Scott, played by Angelina Jolie, comes in. We first meet her when she’s lying in a ditch, the site of his latest crime, to get a better insight into the murder and the killer. This scene is probably supposed to show us that she relies on her instincts and has some kind of sixth sense for killers. In fact, what it really shows is just Angelina Jolie, lying in a dirty, big ditch, looking quite silly.
For the rest of the movie, Scott goes through pretty much every cliché the thriller-genre has to offer which, of course, makes the whole thing quite predictable. From comically outwitting her constantly, but inexplicably pissed-off colleague Paquette (Olivier Martinez), to showing off more of her “instincts” when exploring creepy places with a flashlight, to finally falling for witness James Costa (Ethan Hawke), which first troubles her professional conscience until the hormones finally take over, it’s all there.
When she says “It’s over,” we all know it isn’t. When she says “I’ll be fine,” we all know she won’t be and unfortunately, neither will the movie. The movie finally falls apart when we find out that the end wasn’t really the end (uh, surprise, surprise!) and the killer turns out to be just a guy with an inferiority complex who didn’t get enough love from his mommy.
From a technical standpoint, however, this is by no means a bad movie. It is cleanly edited, the shooting is also very good, great at times, and director D.J. Caruso does a great job on those semi-lit, “X-Files”-like scenes. You even get some of those heart-attack scenes you can expect in such a movie, including a shocker that definitely made the Top Three of my scary-movie heart attacks.
So, if you are a thriller fan not yet too familiar with the several clichés of the genre and you always wanted to see Angelina Jolie’s breasts in a pretty steamy sex scene, this is your movie of the month (if not year).
But in the end, despite great shooting and a promising beginning, the script is mediocre at best. The script sends the movie right down the drain about halfway into it.
P.S.: If you were one of the people offended by Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction,” you might want to stay away from this one. In the scene mentioned above there is not much of a malfunction, however, because there is also not much of a wardrobe.
Matthias Petry is a senior majoring in print journalism. Comments can be sent to matthias.petry@gmx.net.