'Taking Lives': Jolie adds glamour and gloss to gruesome thriller

By Moira Macdonald
Seattle Times movie critic

	TAKASHI SEIDA Angelina Jolie plays Special Agent Illeana Scott, who has a "reaction" to art dealer/witness James Costa (Ethan Hawke) in "Taking Lives."
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"Taking Lives" is, in other words, yet another serial-killer thriller, featuring a glamorous woman agent with strong intuitive gifts for solving gruesome crimes. (Sound familiar? Ashley Judd did it just last month in "Twisted.") This movie, directed by D.J. Caruso ("The Salton Sea"), owes quite a bit to "The Silence of the Lambs," but not enough — Clarice Starling would surely have had enough sense to keep her "reactions" to herself.

And while Caruso steeps the movie in atmosphere — it's shot in elegant blue-greens and murky light, and it always seems to be raining in this Montreal — "Taking Lives" is often style over substance. Watch how he shoots Gena Rowlands, playing the mother of the suspected killer: In a scene in her home with Agent Scott, the camera's on her like static cling, zooming in on her chin, her red lipstick, catching her from odd angles, even giving us an olive's-eye-view of her martini glass, with its lipstick imprint. Interesting stuff, but it's all show: Rowlands promptly drops out of the movie, red lips and all.

Movie review Showtimes and trailer ** "Taking Lives," with Angelina Jolie, Ethan Hawke, Kiefer Sutherland, Olivier Martinez, Tcheky Karyo, Gena Rowlands. Directed by D.J. Caruso, from a screenplay by Jon Bokenkamp, based on the novel by Michael Pye. 100 minutes. Rated R for strong violence including disturbing images, language and some sexuality. Several theaters.

Speaking of lips, Jolie gives the movie much of its limited supply of oomph, gazing serenely at corpses and delicately rolling her eyes when the Montreal cops (including the dishy Olivier Martinez, who deserves more than what he gets here) get on her nerves. Jolie plays Scott as a quiet observer, and the camera loves the swooping angles of her face. (Don't be fooled, though, by that wedding ring. I thought perhaps we were getting a female heroine, like Starling, whose work and smarts were the focus of the story, rather than her love life. I thought wrong. )

Best not to go into the convoluted "Taking Lives" plot too much; screenwriter Jon Bokenkamp (working from Michael Pye's novel) busily introduces numerous plot elements and red herrings, only to have to spend time later backtracking to explain why those red herrings were there in the first place.

There is at least one genuine, unexpected scare — I just about dropped my Diet Coke, which ranks pretty high on the scare-o-meter — but mostly "Taking Lives" goes through the motions, wading gamely through gruesome crime scenes and severed limbs, creeping us out but never making us think.

Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725 or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com

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