Take my life away

The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist." \nSo says Verbal Kint ne´ Keyser Soze played by Kevin Spacey in the modern classic "The Usual Suspects." That film is about a masterfully constructed deception; the payoff comes in the final moments when everything unravels and the viewer must disregard two hours worth of information. "Taking Lives" attempts a similar sleight of hand but fails to pull it off as skillfully.\nIn 1983, a teenage runaway murders his companion and adopts his identity. Cut to present day Montreal where a rash of murders leads Canadian police to call on FBI profiler Special Agent Illeana Scott (Angelina Jolie). Olivier Martinez and Jean-Hugues Anglade play French-Canadian cops wary of the American interloper. An artist named James Costa, played by Ethan Hawke, interrupts a murder which appears to fit the pattern. Montreal police question Costa, and Agent Scott works up a profile for a psychopathic killer -- although Scott's cold demeanor and detached study of corpses and brutal crime scene photos made this reviewer wonder if she herself had sociopathic tendencies. \nVisually, director D.J. Caruso borrows from "Seven" and a handful of other predator/prey thrillers of the recent past. Jolie finds herself in many dark rooms lit through one dirty exterior window or a weak light bulb here or there. The surprise does not come when someone leaps from the shadows, but instead, when no one does. "Taking Lives" relies heavily on the conventions of psychological thrillers, but it does not live up to the standards of the films it apes. The screenplay is based on an interesting idea -- that a serial killer would not just take another's life, but must live it in their place. However, an interesting idea can't carry a feature length film, and the story is a few drafts shy of excellence. There are too many "huh?" moments in this movie, too many transparent plot devices and too many easy answers. \nI would normally give a movie this weak and derivative a crappy grade, but the cast turned in good performances from top to bottom. Without the committed performances of the people onscreen, this movie would go straight to video. "Taking Lives" is not a total waste of time, but I would not recommend anyone spend two hours with it since there are numerous excellent films in theaters right now.