Review of Taking Lives (2004) by Luc L — 06 Apr 2015

A rash of films appeared in the late nineties and early aughts that had beautiful women facing down serial killers. Like Jolie's earlier "The Bone Collector" and the Sandra Bullock's "Murder by Numbers," "Taking Lives" follows a female law enforcement agent getting into the psyche of a killer.

The entire film is thoughtless from beginning to end. They don't know the identity of this killer, or even if he actually exists, and yet they find his identity based on a tip from an elderly woman, which seems like an innocuous claim.

The action is predictable, the twist isn't presented very well, there's really strange instances of adult content for no reason other than they needed nudity, our main character is completely one dimensional except that she's morbid, the ending is thoughtlessly horrible, and none of this film makes any sense.

It's just really horribly done, all around. Nothing makes any sense, whatsoever, which is a serious problem, especially when the entire film revolves around the logic in solving a decade's long set of mysteries.

Even as a time waster this is not a good choice, as its endless reign of immaturity will anger anyone who deems to watch it.