Written by Tyrone Bruinsma
SILENCE OF THE LAMBS AND SE7EN In 1991, The Silence of the Lambs was released into the world-becoming an acclaimed, award winning, pop culture grabbing, box office hit. While it reignited mainstream studio horror films, it wouldn’t be until 1995 that a clear sub-genre was formed with the release of David Fincher’s Seven. Seven was also a critical and box office hit despite the harrowing content and tone. A much bleaker, nastier and more aesthetically confronting film than Silence of the Lambs-Se7en helped bolter audience’s love of disturbing killers in media. In the 21st Century, CSI popularized that style further into a tv show format that could be enjoyed every week. Ultimately, I believe Silence of the Lambs and Se7en invented the “Horror Noir” sub-genre as I dub it. Crime films that focus narratively or aesthetically on the horrifying ways people day or how nightmarish people can be. After Seven, there was an influx of films trying to imitate its tone and recreate its success with Kiss the Girls, The Bone Collector, 8mm and Mindhunters. You had some interesting genre bending takes with The Cell or Fallen, but the most successful imitator of Seven’s style was 2004’s Saw. Unfortunately, the sequels wouldn’t retain much of that style outside of Saw 2 and the recent Spiral. While 1996’s Scream also got studios thinking of how to create self-aware slashers too with I Know What You Did Last Summer, Urban Legend, Valentine and Cry Wolf coming out in that film’s success-it’s clear the “Horror Noir” genre was primarily pitched as horror for adults. The trend continues today with shows like Criminal Minds or cinematic disaster The Snowman. However, in 2004-a forgotten film would be released that I think epitomizes what Seven started and makes a mockery out of it. That film, was Taking Lives. PRODUCTION HANDS The film was adapted from a 1999 novel of the same name, and the script was originally written by Jon Bokenkamp. While he’d go on to write the lacking Halle Berry thrillers Perfect Stranger and The Call, he has done well in recent years-creating the hit tv series Blacklist. When the production was announced in 2001, Jennifer Lopez was cast as the lead female investigator and Tony Scott was given directing duties. I think that at the time, this was a decent start. Jennifer Lopez had proven herself with Anaconda, Out of Sight and The Cell-so casting her made sense. Tony Scott also made sense has he’d just made hits like Crimson Tide, Enemy of the State and Spy Game. However, by 2002-Jennifer Lopez was replaced with Angelina Jolie after the likes of Cate Blanchett were considered. Likely this was due to the poor release of Jennifer Lopez’s Enough. Coincidentally, the writer of Enough-Nicolas Kazan had been brought in to script doctor the screenplay. Many writers took turns modifying the script, with David Ayer fresh of writing Training Day and The Fast and the Furious being the final script doctor in 2003. A few months later, Tony Scott was no longer attached. It wouldn’t be the first time Scott had left a project-being the initial choice for the film that would eventually become Gemini Man in 2019. For directing duties, Warner Brothers turned to DJ Caruso. He initially started out doing 2nd Unit Directing for 90’s thrillers like Drop Zone and Nick of Time. His early directing efforts were rough as they were not very successful with audiences or critics, including Taking Lives. He took a turn for the better with 2007’s Disturbia, a well-reviewed sleeper hit that modernized Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window for a new generation. He followed it up with a decently successful Hitchcockian thriller in Eagle Eye and the modestly successful I am Number Four that unfortunately failed to kickstart its series. He finally achieved “blockbuster” status by directing the 3rd xXx film that saw Vin Diesel return as Xander Cage. The film earned the best reviews and box office return of the franchise, lining him up to direct the 4th xXx and possibly the next GI Joe film. Unfortunately, Caruso was clearly still getting used to being the creative lead on a film-leaving Taking Lives stylistically hollow at times. At this rate, I think we should cover the film itself. THE FAILINGS OF TAKING LIVES The prologue of Taking Lives is easily the best scene of the film, having a young Paul Dano start our unknown identity stealing serial killer’s journey. It’s a legitimately great scene that’s paced well, aside from the rather overdone car crash it concludes on. We then jump to an opening credit sequence that blatantly rip-off the opening credits of Seven. Unfortunately, it’s very hollow in terms of style and does little to set up anything we don’t already know. The story proper has Angelina Jolie as Illeana Scott and Montreal police tracking down our serial killer as bodies show up. Ethan Hawke’s art dealer James is the only one to get a glimpse of the man. Eventually, they discover their suspect swaps with the identities of victims to anonymously move around the US and has set his sights on James. They investigate bodies, Illeana goes through psychological predictions and they find out through the killer’s mother that he was a twin. After Kiefer Sutherland kidnaps James and is killed, it’s revealed that James (real name Martin) was the killer this entire time. This is incredibly shocking for Jolie’s character as she and James had fallen in love and even had sex. James ends up escaping, with Jolie being fired for improper conduct. The epilogue sees Martin track down a pregnant Illeana months later to propose starting a family. She refuses, he tries to kill her and their baby-only for Illeana to kill him and reveal she’s not pregnant. The entire firing and months of fake pregnancy were a sting operation to take down Martin. The problem with the film is everything between the opening and the reveal is entirely boring. The story does not progress through investigation, but coincidence. Many films like Zodiac, Chinatown or the aforementioned Seven-make the process of criminology fascinating to get into and narratively important. Unfortunately, Taking Lives shares a lot problems with The Snowman-wherein reveals just happen and not by any reasonable logic. The reveal that James is actually the killer Martin isn’t done through any intricate means, he just reveals it to his mother randomly before he kills her and Illeana sees the results. And while the film desperately tries to emulate Seven, it forgets that one of the appeals of Seven was seeing the grizzly aftermaths of crime scenes. Seven gave your imagination chills in thinking what happened to these people. But Taking Lives either gives sterile explanations or just cuts out scenes that sound far more interesting to watch. There’s also inconsistencies and details that I just don’t buy in the film. For instance, Jolie’s character is displayed to be pretty much numb to the macabre. But her character bounces between social awkwardness and a smart mouthed quip-machine. My theory is the moments of her witty remarks were David Ayer additions. I also don’t buy the romance she and Ethan Hawke’s character develop. First, he starts out as just a witness, but then they believe he needs to be protected and she gets closer to him-to the point they sleep together and she’s left traumatized knowing he’s the killer. I don’t buy it because they don’t spend enough time together or have the kind of meaningful conversations where I’d believe that they grew this genuine connection. The ending phone call they share where he claims she and him are alike and she fell in love with the “real him” instead of the persona he played comes off either as incredibly hollow by the writer or just bland villain talk. Unfortunately, I believe it’s the former as either the writer thought that speech at the end would retrospectively make their relationship deeper or give the film more gravitas. It’s frustrating because the psychological trauma of falling in love with a monster and knowing you might have fallen in love with who they really are would be great. The story just doesn’t execute it properly. The film overall has this pretentious vibe of taking itself way too seriously in trying to rationalize the identity stealing serial killer. While many horror noirs take themselves very seriously like Seven, they do so appropriately. Taking Lives feels weak in having an insubstantial mystery, lacking genuine horror and not doing enough to make its psychology or relationships work. Instead of terrifying horror scenes, we’re given mostly generic fights and chases that leave much to be desired. I can see how someone like Tony Scott could make them function better, but the lack of any real aesthetic makes them feel sterilized. Despite having the cinematographer of Bad Boys 2, Lord of War and Man of Steel, plus the legendary editor Anne V Coates who assembled Lawrence of Arabia…it just doesn’t have much going for it. The acting was average, which is especially disappointing by the wonderful Jolie and stepping back to examine the plot…it makes very little sense. It’s about a twin who is jealous of how his mother loved his brother more and drowns him. He runs away, swapping identities and killing people before seeming to randomly come back to his mother just to kill her. I know serial killer fiction can be ridiculous sometimes…but this is almost farcical. I can somewhat theorize Martin’s motivation being that he wants to be part of a family who loves him, so when he finds that in Illena-he removes his mother to cut off his old life. But even then, I’m putting in more work than the screenwriters did for that to come clear. Stale, lifeless and lacking in thrills or kills-the film didn’t receive much praise and only made $65 Million against a $45 Million budget. While Roger Ebert gave it a positive review, the film’s own star Ethan Hawke called it terrible. The film likely failed due to steep competition from Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, the superior thriller Secret Window and the box office juggernaut The Passion of the Christ. Since then, the film has faded into obscurity and would largely be ignored by all those involved as they moved onto better projects. DIRECTOR’S CUT? Now, there is actually a director’s cut. But this isn’t a Blade Runner, Heaven’s Gate, Kingdom of Heaven or Justice League scenario. There wasn’t a public feud between studio and director, and even looking up online-Wikipedia doesn’t even mention a director’s cut. My theory is that thanks to DVDs and the lucrative offer director’s cuts and extended editions had to film buffs got the studio to make a slightly longer and more explicit version. Most director’s cuts are different in tone, style, pacing, editing and narrative-but the differences between Taking Lives in its theatrical and directors cuts are tiny. However, I will say the tiny differences do make the Director’s Cut slightly better. It’s exactly the same plot, sequence of events and the same ending. It’s only longer by 6 minutes, and some scenes are just done the same with different camera angles. The smallest notable moment is where Jolie’s character is sitting in public with murder pictures and a young girl sees it, similar to a scene from Michael Mann’s Manhunter. One scene ACTUALLY adds in a decent bit of investigation, but it’s two particular moments that stand out to me. One is the sex scene in the film. In the director’s cut-the runtime is extended and displays more open nudity. In the theatrical cut, it’s rather rushed and barely shows the nudity of Jolie. The other is the death of Martin’s mother in an elevator. In the theatrical version, we just see a little bit of blood on Martin’s hands and his mother’s neck. In the director’s cut, the entire elevator is coated in blood as an equally drenched Martian is finishing cutting off his mother’s head and picks it up. Needless to say, it’s a much more shocking and impactful on-screen death than the weak sauce version in the shorter cut. The director’s cut extensions give more a pure vibe of what the film should’ve been; an exploitation thriller. It should have doubled down on the disturbing violence and nudity of its lead actress. Instead of trying to legitimize its pretentions of psychological horror, it should’ve just indulged in grizzly murders and sexuality like Basic Instinct did so effectively. Thinking on it further, I now have a theory-both relying on the fact both of these are versions released in Australia. Because I’m genuinely starting to believe the Director’s Cut was theatrically released in American cinemas. When it comes to films, tv broadcast or airplane released versions are always cut for content reasons. For instance, the tv broadcast version of Jaws cuts the opening death by more than half the sequence. And on the airplane version of 2017’s Justice League, they cut off Batman’s “son of a bitch” line. My theory is that Warner Brothers distributed both the tv censored version as the normal version and the American theatrical cut as the “Special Edition Director’s Cut”. If that’s not the case, then I believe the studio just made a slightly different and slightly nastier cut to make a bit of extra money on this box office flop. CONCLUSION Ultimately, what’s my thesis? I’m not sure. Despite the 104-minute version being the better version of the film, I still don’t think it’s a good film. It has moments I liked and I desperately wanted to enjoy this film…but it’s just boring. As a storyteller, if you’re going to make a dark, murder mystery, serial killer story-commit to a procedural crime tale like Zodiac or commit to pure exploitation horror with something like Saw. Unfortunately, trying to balance them won’t earn you points for both. Many films have shown how trying to be opposite ends of the stick don’t work. If you’re desperately curious to watch it, even if it’s just for Angelina Jolie nudity-it isn’t the worst film in the world. Just make sure you watch whichever version is listed at 104 minutes. If any non-Australian film buff wants to help me understand how the film was properly released, please feel let me know in the comments.
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