FBI profiler Ileana Scott (Angelina Jolie) is good at what she does. Damn good. Like, glance at a picture of a hamburger and tell you who slaughtered the cow type-good. She’s such a pro, in fact, that when the Montreal police enlist her to help solve a grisly murder (apparently the Canadians don’t have any comely preternatural sleuths of their own to call upon), Ileana need only lie in a victim’s makeshift grave for a moment to deduce that a serial killer is on the loose and that he’s “life-jacking” his victims. This is not to be confused with a “life jacket,” which would have come in handy whilst I was drowning in “Taking Lives” interminable silliness.
The film’s biggest mystery is not the identity of the killer, rather what an Academy Award-winner like Jolie is doing squandering her talent in a second-rate whodunit that even Ashley Judd would have turned down. Okay, might have turned down. And there are plenty of other head-scratchers in “Taking Lives.” Take, for instance, Scott’s inexplicable involvement in a Canadian homicide investigation. Montreal police chief Hugo Leclair (Tcheky Karyo) has some sort of prior relationship with the American agent, but neither it nor his lack of faith in his own detectives’ abilities are ever revealed. One of the French-Canadian cops, played by Olivier Martinez, is apparently as flummoxed by this slight as I was, and spends the bulk of his screen time directing insults and sideways glances at Scott. Not that she notices — she’s busy intimately investigating a local art dealer named Costa (a semiconscious Ethan Hawke), a witness who may turn out to be the culprit.
On the bright side, thanks to some fine cinematography by Amir Mokri (“Bad Boys II”) “Taking Lives” maintains an effective noir-ish feel, and director D.J. Caruso musters a few good scares. But overall, the film disappoints. (Rated R for strong violence including disturbing images, language and some sexuality.)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 19, 2004. Read the original PDF.