Taking Lives

CinemaSerf 9/4/2023 5:12:05AM 8.4

Angelina Jolie does her best here and Ethan Hawke injects just a touch of menace but otherwise it's a rather far-fetched crime thriller set in Montreal. "Martin Asher" leaves his home and by systematically killing men as he ages - and assuming their identities - has left quite a trail of corpses over almost twenty years before FBI profiler Jolie is drafted in to try and help them get to the bottom of it all. The acting is ok, by and large, but a few "guest appearances" from Kiefer Sutherland, Gena Rowlands and probably the briefest of roles in his career for Justin Chatwin, can't really develop the rather dreary writing nor give it much sparkle as we lumber towards an ending that is just plain daft. In theory, the story is complex and has enough about it to keep us guessing, but the overall execution is flat and proves pretty uninteresting after about ten minutes. Pity - had potential.