Ashley Judd needs to stop making these ridiculous thrillers, and that’s all there is to it.
“Kiss The Girls,” “Double Jeopardy” and “Eye of the Beholder” were malodorous enough, but “Twisted” stinks so exquisitely that theaters should be required to hand out nostril clamps. To get an idea just how ludicrous the storyline is one needs to look no further than Paramount Studios’ very own production notes: “Newly promoted police inspector Jessica Shepard (Judd) is searching for a serial killer and is shocked to discover that men she has recently slept with are the victims. The investigation becomes more and more twisted as her partner, Mike Delmarco (Andy Garcia) behaves strangely, and the police commissioner (Samuel L. Jackson) is being asked to remove her from the investigation as she is a prime suspect. All the clues point to her and Jessica begins to suspect that she might be the killer she is looking for.” Read that last line again, and see if you don’t begin to suspect “Twisted” is the real crime here, and that the prime suspects are the film-makers. Moviegoing Public Enemy No. 1 is screenwriter Sarah Thorp, whose laughably lame dialogue reads like something out of a “Naked Gun” spoof. Only, “Twisted” isn’t supposed to be a comedy.
The bodies begin piling up in San Francisco and Demarco learns that not only has his new partner had anonymous one-night stands with every one of them, but that she’s a drunk who blacks out and often wakes up with mysterious bruises and blood stains on her body. So he falls in love with her, of course. But he’s gotta get in line, because even though she’s a known tramp with well-documented anger-management issues, there are plenty of cops vying for Jessica’s heart, including a creepy patrolman she once bedded and her surrogate dad — police chief John Mills. As the evidence mounts against her, Jessica begins to suspect she might not be the ideal lead investigator on the case. She even has her own blood tested to see if it’s a match with the killer’s. And speaking of killers, turns out Jessica’s father was a cop who went loco and killed his wife and himself 25 years ago. Then again, maybe he didn’t.
It’s all too twisted to tell, really. After she assaults a perp and a fellow officer, Jessica is forced to see a shrink (David Strathairn) who speculates she may have inherited her father’s rage. Ya think so, Dr. Obvious? After yet another former fling — an attorney representing a guy she put behind bars — winds up dead in a hot tub, Jessica FINALLY becomes a murder suspect. Then the results of the blood test come back and things really get silly. (Rated R for violence, language and sexuality. Running time: 97 minutes)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 27, 2004. Read the original PDF.