Taking Lives - Director's Cut (Widescreen Edition)

Amazon.com

While it doesn't rank with such grim classics as The Silence of the Lambs and Seven, D.J. Caruso's Taking Lives offers similarly heavy atmosphere, beginning well before fizzling into absurdity. Freely adapted from the novel by Michael Pye, and set in Montreal (although it was filmed in Quebec City), the plot trades in several familiar tropes of the serial-killer genre, beginning with the FBI agent (Angelina Jolie) who brings her unique skills (and brooding, low-key demeanor) to the vexing case of a killer who, out of apparent self-loathing, steals the identities of his victims and lives their lives until it's time for the next gruesome murder. Ethan Hawke plays the killer's alleged next victim, and in a film filled with twists that grow increasingly unconvincing, Keifer Sutherland is menacingly cast as a shifty suspect. Caruso's previous film was the creepy drug thriller The Salton Sea, so he's well-qualified to infuse Taking Lives with a darkly stylish sense of dread and at least one good shock to keep your adrenaline flowing. The second half essentially betrays the promise of the first, but there's enough going on to hold your interest to the end. --Jeff Shannon

Description

A psychological thriller, Taking Lives is the story of an FBI agent who becomes involved with her key witness while tracking a prolific serial killer who assumes the lives and identities of the people he kills. She finds herself surrounded by numerous suspects and no one to trust.

DVD Features:
Additional Scenes
Documentaries:Four probing documentaries with the Cast and Crew. * The Art of Collaboration: How the filmmaking team came together * Profiling a Director: Inside D.J. Caruso's Mind * Bodies of Evidence: Stars confess their secrets of working on an ultra-intense thriller * Puzzle Within The Puzzle: The teamwork of Caruso and veteran editor Anne V. Coates
Outtakes
Theatrical Trailer

Customer Reviews:

Could have been ..........2007-08-14

I like Angelina Jolie despite the controversy she has generated through her personal life. She is a great beauty, as well as a very good actress. She has, however, not appeared in a high caliber movie since she had her breakthrough in Girl,Interrupted and been cast as the lead. This movie was good, but it slowly but surely discintigrates into a ridiculous ending.

Angelina Jolie plays an FBI agent looking for a killer in Montreal. A la Clairise Starling she puts herself in every situation possible (laying in the hole in the earth where one of the victims was found on a construction site, for example), and tries to know her killer this way. She even battles the male dominated police force being one of if not the only woman on the case. She is clearly haunted by her past, just like Clairise, and becomes so closely attached to her victims / witnesses that she almost faulters. Just like Clairise. It was inevitable that she will become involved with one of the suspects (Ethan Hawke), and they will end up on a false lead (Keifer Sutherland, whose preformance is underrated). The ending, however, was too hoaky to be believed.

It's been done before with Silence of the Lambs, but really REALLY screwed up the end to make this from a fair to a good movie. Nice to see once, but not a favorite.

angelina jolie - angelina jolie.......2007-07-25

If you like Angelina Jolie you'll love this movie. If not.. don't buy it.
Contrived story (you can read the "surprise" in the middle of the movie).
But Angelina is worth the price of admission.

Taking a Twist.......2007-07-10

If you caught Jolie in "Bone Collector" and liked it, you probably want to see her in this one. Fairly effective FBI investigative story. While searching for clues of a murder she finds changes in her personal life may cause a conflict of interest. Nice twists make it a keeper I think. Fans of "Along Came a Spider" and "Kiss the Girls" should enjoy it.

Brilliant, but not as the typical thriller.......2007-05-13

In terms of the question, "who is the killer really?", this film was completely predictable, so I wouldn't recommend it as entertainment for people who love to solve murder mysteries themselves.

I give it five stars for two main reasons, the lesser of which is the brilliant character development and acting by Jolie, and Hawke's equally chilling performance.

But mostly, Taking Lives managed to grasp that last star because it is a complete master of psychology. Sure, I knew where the film was going, but watching it happen was the fascinating part. The interplay of the characters and the storyline, the well-paced plot, the looks on peoples' faces. My eyes were riveted to the screen. Taking Lives does delve into the psyche of the villian like most other thrillers, but what sets it apart is the deeper analysis of the protagonist. That element, and Jolie's haunting portrayal of it, were what really caught me.

Then, to secure itself among my top five, the movie ended with a fantastic sequence playing off the starkness of human emotion and twisted mind games. The final conclusion is completely satisfying, neither happily-ever-after nor dismally pointless.

I might have given this movie the average three stars if I was basing my review solely on plotline. But the complex nature of the heroine and her relationship with the killer make this into a horribly, compellingly beautiful masterpiece.

Taking Lives.......2007-05-12

This is an excellent movie but I didn't find it to be up to angelina Jolie's work on other movies I have seen.

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