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Movie Review : Taking Lives (2004)


Call me insane or whatever, but I've never thought Angelina Jolie was all that. I remember, back when I lived at the Université de Montréal dorms, there was a rumor she was shooting a movie on Mont-Royal, right behind the campus. Legions of horny young men flocked up there, to find out if there was any truth to that rumour, but I stayed in my dorm room to play video games. I was surprised this year, to find out that the rumour was true and that the movie exists indeed today. It's a generic serial killer movie called TAKING LIVES  that means well, but that manages to leave for only calling card an hilariously wrong representation of French Canadian people. Of course, it's only a generic, flavourless movie if you're not from here.

Ileana (Angelina Jolie) is a sexy and eccentric FBI profiler (oh yeah) brought to Montreal, Canada in order to help catch a dangerous and elusive serial killer. Since the local police force is full of dimwits, she figures something critical out right off the bat: the killer steals the identity of his victims and lives as them for a period of time. That broadens the search quite much, but there's a pattern the killer can't quite obfuscate: the victims are all males he could potentially impersonate. All they need is to figure out the common physical traits between his victims and maybe a lucky break. The confrontation is inevitable though, serial killers (especially in such cliché movies) have this visceral need to get caught. What is the point of showing such artistry without an audience, right?

So yeah, TAKING LIVES is oddly hilarious if you're French Canadian because it doesn't even bother figuring us out. The two local cops are played by Frenchmen Olivier Martinez and Jean-Hugues Anglade, who really are fine actors in other contexts, but they fit the purpose of their part in the same way actors with a Scottish accent would play the part of Texas natives, you see what I mean? It's also hilarious to see popular local actors such as Emmanuel Bilodeau and Julien Poulin play barely speaking parts, like they were extras picked off the street. These things you'll get if you're from here and used to the benevolent contempt French Canada is usually treated with, but if you're not, they're a good chance you'll get super bored watching TAKING LIVES. We're talking ''did not finish'' levels of bored here.

There is a logical explanation to this scene, or almost.

I'll give to TAKING LIVES that the motivations of its serial killer are original. There's very little sex-oriented stuff for him, outside of borrowing the charm of his victims in order to get laid. Otherwise, it's painfully sticking to the genre's formula. Sexy, oddly vulnerable female FBI profiler. Dumb cops. A mysterious and quite charming killer. Lots of explosion and hollow moments of tensions. It's not even trying to have an identity of its own. I suppose the Olympic level of storytelling laziness TAKING LIVES is displaying could be considered fascinating by some. Shit, I can't even say the screenplay (based on a novel, believe it or not) is a dirty roll of toilet paper because it's not even poorly written. It's just a series of ideas borrowed from other movies/novels of the genre without a cohesive direction that would make it its own thing. It's just...soulless?

I would've probably never bothered to watch TAKING LIVES if it wasn't tied to this strange memory I had from college. I don't know what to tell you about it, except that it's a waste of your time. Even if you're really into serial killer movies (which I am not), it's going to make you feel hollow for wasting two hours of your existence on it. I'm not sure who exactly was the target audience of TAKING LIVES, but I can tell you it had one. This is a cynical, corporate movie that was born in an Hollwyood office, because the production company wanted to come up with the next serial killer flick and re-ignite the dying interest of the genre. It's the movie equivalent of someone rummaging through sofa cracks for quarters and dimes. 


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