TAKING LIVES
US, 2004, 103 minutes, Colour.
Angelina Jolie, Ethan Hawke, Kiefer Sutherland, Olivier Martinez, Tcheky Karyo, Jean- Hugues Anglade, Gena Rowlands, Paul Dano.
Directed by D.J. Caruso.
Most people enjoy a police thriller, the kind of story you find in the American best- sellers, especially if it contains an eccentric detective on the track of a serial killer. Taking Lives is like that. It has a play-on-words title, not only the murderer taking lives or the police taking criminals' lives, but the serial killer assuming the lives of his victims, moving from one character to another, escaping detection and flaunting his cleverness to the police.
One reviewer remarked that Taking Lives was a historical film in the sense that it is an American production filmed in Canada but actually using Canada as it setting. It takes place in Montreal and uses a variety of locations to great advantage as well as introducing some French stars as Montreal detectives, Tcheky Karyo as the sympathetic supervisor, Jean- Hugues Anglade as the diligent worker and Olivier Martinez as the tense and hyper-sensitive officer who resents a woman's presence on the case. This is especially so because she is FBI brought in to assist and do a psychological profile of the killer - which she does by eccentric behaviour (like getting into a victim's grave to empathise), loner attitudes and investigation and habits of intuition. She is played by Angelina Jolie (who played the on-the-spot investigator to Denzel Washington's eyes and intuitions in The Bone Collector). Jolie is much more in control in this film.
The male lead is Ethan Hawke as a sympathetic gallery owner who has seen the killer and is trying to assist the police. Kiefer Sutherland again looks sinister (A Time to Kill, Eye for an Eye, Phone Booth). Gena Rowlands has a cameo as the killer's mother.
It is easy to dismiss this kind of film as just another bit of pulp fiction and analyse it and its clues and red herrings as if it had literary aspirations. Rather, it follows the accepted format of murders, suspects, investigators, twists and melodramatic final confrontations (and this one is unexpected just when you thought it was obvious).
1. The popularity of detective stories, the FBI? Serial killers?
2. The Canadian settings, the city of Montreal, the use of the city, precincts, homes, art galleries? The surroundings? The Philip Glass score?
3. The title, the reference to the serial killer, this serial killer assuming other people's lives, taking them? The police and the FBI, Ileana and their taking lives?
4. The detective work, forensic evidence, the nature of the investigation, psychological profiling, the use of intuition?
5. The prologue, the boy, the boy and his music, the killer and his getting a lift, pushing the boy under the car, taking his card, taking his identity, starting a new life?
6. The credits, the collage of the victims over the years, the site for the dead bodies, the finding of the body on the building site?
7. The trio of police in Montreal, their French- Canadian attitudes, resentment towards the FBI? As types, different, their reactions? Seeing them at work? Leclair and his interest in having Ileana, supervising, easygoing? The tension and the action? Paquette and his hypertension, resentment of Ileana, criticising her, the slap? Duval and his being sympathetic, collaborating, their detective work, being the chauffeur - and being killed?
8. Seeing Ileana in the grave, the first site, her first-hand work, the appreciation, working on intuitions? The body, the reconstruction of the head? The autopsy evidence?
9. Ileana and her working alone, an internal and introverted person, working on intuitions? Her being alone, eating alone, studying the grim photos? Her logical work? Her profiling and its accuracy? Her interest in James Costa, discussions with him, attracted, inappropriate behaviour, the reaction? The consequences? Her being under a cloud?
10. Costa, the interrogation? The three Montreal police and their taking turns in interrogation? Ileana and her testing Costa? His being the immediate suspect? His explanations, his civil duties? The situation, Costa being released, his saving her from Paquette's aggression? His work, the gallery, his fears, the set-up with the microphone, going to the bar, waiting two hours? In the toilet, aborting the plan? The gallery and the exhibition? The chase? The aftermath? The attraction towards Ileana, their spending the night together? The arrangement for him to move, Duval and the suspect? The police chase, Duval being killed? The stitches, the blood? His mother and the previous stories about the murderer, her not identifying the dead man? His leaving, his reappearance? As a character, his being a chameleon?
11. The suspect, the sketch on Costa's evidence, the house, the body in the roof? At the exhibition, the pursuit? The irony that he was an art thief? Costa's victim?
12. Ileana and progress in the case, the watch, Costa moving, the chase, the bridge? Her relationship with him, the aftermath, the interview with the mother?
13. Mrs Asher, the initial information, Ileana visiting her hat her home, the irony of Costa being present, the almost-discovery? The recognition in the elevator after the visit to the autopsy, her being murdered by her son?
14. Ileana returning home, the pregnancy, alone in the isolated house? Costa arriving, the pregnancy? Audience response to her danger, her situation as pregnant? The cat-and-mouse games, the scissors? The reversal of roles - his stabbing the baby - and finding that she was not pregnant at all? Her trapping him?
15. Audiences being entertained by thrillers, detective work, forensic work? The human element? Mystery and twists?
