At a seemingly never ending 103 minutes, Taking Lives is aptly named due to its ability to waste over an hour and a half of the viewer's precious life with nothing more to offer than a few gore scenes and some brief Jolie nudity. With credible movies like Kiss the Girls, Along Came a Spider and Silence of the Lambs readily available for rental, Taking Lives should be the last movie on your wish list when it comes to viewing psychological thrillers.

Jolie plays Federal Agent Illeana Scott, who is called in to Montreal by a former Quantico co-worker to assist detectives in a serial killer case that has claimed the lives of persons over a 19 year span. We are immediately introduced to her new partners, headed by Paquette (Martinez), a sexist cop resenting assistance from an American woman. The trio dive into the case after a duo of bodies are dug up in obvious areas of Montreal, left by a killer who wants to be caught (for some unexplained reason). Following the standard CSI format, evidence is collected over a period of time and Agent Scott has a few brushes with the killer along the way.

Adding a "twist" to the story, Agent Scott starts to fall in love with the witness to one of the brutal killings (Hawke) even though it is against her better judgement. Hawke plays an art gallery dealer who's pursuit of Agent Scott is almost as offensive as the retail price for this film. Honestly folks, I didn't see how Scott fell in love with Hawke's character, unless you call an undeserving sex scene towards the end of the movie "love".

For all of the hype this movie received prior to its theatrical release, and the fuss created by Caruso to release an "unedited version" of the film on DVD, the product is just simply lacking of creativity and stimulation. Often, the film drags along lifelessly and offers little to no insight as to how REAL federal agents crack cases of serial killers, unlike the Alex Cross films which adhere to strict profiling guidelines and procedures. Taking Lives really falls into the shitter with a lackluster ending that is both anti-climactic and predictable, worse off dragged out longer than the ending to LOTR: Return of the King. Also, I believe that Ms. Jolie ignored the memo issued to her stating that she is not Jodie Foster and to check her "Agent Starling" act at the door. Jolie is a poor man's Ashley Judd at best in this film, utilizing her sex appeal as the only drawing point to garner interest in her character.

As if enduring this mess of a thriller wasn't enough, the geniuses at Warner tacked on a 4 tiered documentary on the making of the film, including a film team introspective, a D.J. Caruso profile, a segment where stars of the film disclose the "secrets" of making a *cough* "ultra-tense thriller", and a featurette on Caruso's teaming with editor Anne Coates. Also included in the extras is a gag reel, which if I didn't know any better, would have assumed be the feature film itself.

Taking Lives is a perfect example as to how female stardom will not guarantee the makings of a successful thriller. Only a select few actresses can pull off the role of hard edged agent/ cop, and Jolie proves to the world that she isn'tone of them. Slowly but steadily, Jolie is climbing the ranks of the overrated and undertalented and should perhaps stick to the roles that require little or no character development like Tomb Raider. Leave the real acting to the Fosters, Moores and Judds of the Hollywood Realm, who may not sport as much sweater meat, but instead carry a heaping mass of the other "t" word - TALENT.