When Montreal detectives handling a local homicide investigation reluctantly ask for an outsider’s help to get inside the head of a cunning serial killer, top FBI profiler Illeana Scott joins the case. With meticulous insight, she theorizes that the chameleon-like killer is like a hermit crab assuming the lives and identities of his victims and using them until he has grown tired of the current shell he has been wearing and abandoning it for another life. Her seemingly cold demeanor alienates her from the territorial local police force as she’s at her best when she’s working alone. But when an unexpected attraction to a witness sparks a complicated romantic entanglement, the consummate specialist begins to doubt her finely honed instincts. The witness is there only lead to capturing the killer as he claims to have seen the killer commit his latest atrocity and even was able to sketch them a picture of this madman. The sketch leads them to the mother of killer whom she says has always been disturbed and who she thought had died nineteen tears earlier but that was only a ruse to hide his crimes. Now, alone in an unfamiliar city with no one she can trust, Agent Scott suddenly finds herself on a twisted and terrifying journey, surrounded by suspects in a case that has become chillingly personal and not sure whether she has the ability to solve the case before it becomes too late.

It seems there have been a lot of movies with big twists and surprise endings of late. The problem with the big twist is that it can make or break your movie. If the audience sees it coming it may just very well turn them off the movie. Taking Lives was that way for me as I was completely enthralled in the movie as it is very suspenseful and thrilling something I love in movies but then all of a sudden they threw the twist at me and I was highly disappointed because I saw it coming a fourth of the way through the movie. Some part of me hoped they would do something different than I was expecting for over an hour but alas it was not to be. This is the kind of suspense thriller that needs to grab you in the end because it is spending all this time building up for it and then when it fails to deliver that punch you cannot but help feel let down. It had all the right elements, the story was really good and enthralling, the acting especially Angelina Jolie was fantastic but in the end the movie failed to deliver on all its promise and that makes this movie mediocre at best. The ending is too important to muck up and that’s exactly what they did thinking they were being smooth and suave but instead being completely transparent. I would say the movie is worth the first viewing as much of it is very good and thrilling but be prepared to walk away disappointed.
2.5 stars out of 5