Taking Lives (2004)

Plot of Taking Lives: The Canadian police in Montreal ask for the help of FBI profiler Illeana Scott to solve a case of a serial killer who takes on the identity of the people he kills. During the investigation the killer strikes again but is seen by artist James Cosmo, who the police believe will be the next target. He and Ileana become close. Meanwhile a possible sighting of the killer results in a car chase with Cosmo being take hostage, but he manages to escape before the car blows up. The investigation has determined that the killer is Martin Asher, said to be evil even by his mother, but when the mother is asked to identify to body taken from the car fire she says it is not her son. Asher is still alive, and as the mother leaves the morgue in the elevator she is greeted by her son. He kills her and goes on the run, taking on a further identity, but it is not all over.

Content: Illeana and James Cosmo have enthusiastic sex, with some female nudity. Yes, I was surprised as well. We see the young Asher kill another teenager by pushing him in the way of a truck. Illeana joins the team of Canadian detectives and spends a lot of time looking sultry. It turns out that she gets the feeling for the criminals by lying in places they have been. When they find out where Asher had an apartment they raid it and find a decomposing body stowed in the ceiling. Illeana breaks into Asher’s mother’s house and finds a secret room in the cellar. They also dig up a corpse which is supposed to be Martin Asher, but it turns out to be someone else. There is a chase on foot of Christopher Hart, who they think is Asher, and a car chase with Illeana in a Ford Mustang.

A View: Well, no-one really liked this outing although in the end it might have broken even. Angelina Jolie was nominated for the Razzie for Worst Actress, but was beaten by Cat Woman star Halie Berry. It may not have been all her fault. If one thinks carefully about the script some of it really did not make any sense, so the director may have thought he could have got over it by showing lots of close-ups of AJ’s face, and other bits. I have tried not to create any spoilers, but one of the problems is that you can see where it is going very early on. So you could have it on for nothing while doing your knitting if you are a fan of Angelina Jolie or Ethan Hawke.

Fun Fact: The French actors used for Montreal police apparently did not sound like French Canadians. One commentator said it would be like using Canadians to play Americans!