Expected more

Best movie ever!

A Masterpiece!

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

FBI allegedly super-profiler Jolie (her character is named Illeana, but this is just Jolie playing Jolie) is shipped to Montreal to help a bunch of French-Canadian cops solve a serial killer case. They succeed after a most irregular and deranged investigation and a very long third act.The only original part of the plot is that the killer is focusing on male victims, instead of the usual young female fodder.The psychopath angle is played as an excuse to show some really gruesome events, such as the first murder. We get also the cellar scene, where the light switch never works and cops are "forced" to use torch-lights. Everybody knows something scary will happen and it sort of does – twice….Add some corny dialogue, such as Jolie shouting "F..k you" and her male sexual partner answering "We already did", Jolie switching half-way from hard boiled smart cop to whimpering damsel in distress, her huge lips quivering in shock and wrap it all in a bleak winter landscape. The result is this overlong, predictable mess.

Taking Lives (2004) *** (out of 4)FBI profiler Illeana (Angelina Jolie) is called to Canadia after a string of bodies are found. It turns out that a serial killer has been mutilating men for nearly two decades and a break happens when a young artist named Costa (Ethan Hawke) witnesses one of his acts. Soon Illeana begins to have feelings for Costa even though she's putting him and herself in danger when the killer comes after the witness.TAKING LIVES is a rather interesting film. I say that because it kept me entertained from start to finish but at the same time it was the most unthrilling thriller that I've ever seen. In fact, as I was watching the movie and being entertained by it, I couldn't help but question myself on why I was being entertained. After all, I guessed who the killer was very early on in the picture and usually this means that the rest of the picture is going to drag. It turns out I was right about the killer and I predicted every single twist that the picture threw at me but at the same time I had fun watching it.Why? Because the cast was so great that it was okay to simply turn your brain off or at least not laugh at the stupidity that was surrounding them. For starters, Jolie was simply excellent here and really delivered an extremely strong performance and one where she made you believe that she was this brilliant mind. I believed the toughness that she brought the character and I thought she worked extremely well with Hawke. As for Hawke, he really gets to play a wide range of emotions as this artist who finds his life in danger and he pulled it off. Gena Rowlands, Olivier Martinez, a young Paul Dano and Kiefer Sutherland are all good as well.As I said, I found the identity of the killer to be easy to figure out and in fact none of the twists were all that good. The film offers up some stylish direction and there's no doubt that on a technical level it's impressive. The film desperately wants to be on the level of THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS and SEVEN but falls well short of that. TAKING LIVES was a very entertaining movie thanks to the cast but there's no question that had the actors not been so great that the movie itself would have been a complete bomb.

Taking Lives (2004) for it's time was a very well made film, even looking at this film lately I still enjoyed it. Angelina Jolie has always been an amazing actress and to have Ethan Hawke just made it even better. Now in comparative to other films within this time and of course on the same genre and similar story Taking Lives still stood up to the rest. For the most part the story was fairly good, a few wholes in the dialog, and of course a few of the cast there could've been better but all and all the film was a fair one.I've always liked these type of stories in a movie, and of course the thriller based suspense murder films have always got my attention, this is one that I can say I thoroughly enjoyed for what it was.

Taking Lives was screened on TV last night and, since it was late, I recorded it. I'm glad I did.Apart from starring Angelina Jolie, who I have the utmost admiration for, not just as an actress but as an all-round wonderful person, the action was "ordinary" with Keifer Sutherland taking a very minor part.It is difficult to review this movie without including spoilers and to do that would be somewhat pointless because there are so many twists and turns. Maybe the smarter viewers saw them coming but, personally, I had no idea with the result that I was on the edge of my nice comfortable La-z-boy for much of the movie.Whilst I was pretty confident that the guilty one would get his due deserts in the end, almost right up to the last minute, I was fooled (you'll see what I mean). And let me add that I was VERYT pleasantly fooled because, by that point, I was actually seething with anger.I suppose Taking Lives was, in the final analysis, just another whodunnit movie but I enjoyed it and, as I say, I'm glad I recorded it.