Product Details

• Actors: Angelina Jolie, Ethan Hawke, Kiefer Sutherland, Gena Rowlands, Olivier Martinez
• Format: AC-3, Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Subtitles: English, Spanish, French
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Warner Home Video
• DVD Release Date: August 17, 2004
• Run Time: 103 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (178 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00005JMWP
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #13,860 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Taking Lives - Director's Cut (Widescreen Edition)" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

While it doesn't rank with such grim classics as The Silence of the Lambs and Seven, D.J. Caruso's Taking Lives offers similarly heavy atmosphere, beginning well before fizzling into absurdity. Freely adapted from the novel by Michael Pye, and set in Montreal (although it was filmed in Quebec City), the plot trades in several familiar tropes of the serial-killer genre, beginning with the FBI agent (Angelina Jolie) who brings her unique skills (and brooding, low-key demeanor) to the vexing case of a killer who, out of apparent self-loathing, steals the identities of his victims and lives their lives until it's time for the next gruesome murder. Ethan Hawke plays the killer's alleged next victim, and in a film filled with twists that grow increasingly unconvincing, Keifer Sutherland is menacingly cast as a shifty suspect. Caruso's previous film was the creepy drug thriller The Salton Sea, so he's well-qualified to infuse Taking Lives with a darkly stylish sense of dread and at least one good shock to keep your adrenaline flowing. The second half essentially betrays the promise of the first, but there's enough going on to hold your interest to the end. --Jeff Shannon

Product Description

A psychological thriller, Taking Lives is the story of an FBI agent who becomes involved with her key witness while tracking a prolific serial killer who assumes the lives and identities of the people he kills. She finds herself surrounded by numerous suspects and no one to trust.

DVD Features:
Additional Scenes
Documentaries:Four probing documentaries with the Cast and Crew. * The Art of Collaboration: How the filmmaking team came together * Profiling a Director: Inside D.J. Caruso's Mind * Bodies of Evidence: Stars confess their secrets of working on an ultra-intense thriller * Puzzle Within The Puzzle: The teamwork of Caruso and veteran editor Anne V. Coates
Outtakes
Theatrical Trailer

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars IDENTITY CRISIS, August 27, 2004

By 

Michael Butts (Berkeley Springs, WV USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Taking Lives (Full Screen Edition) (DVD)

Angelina Jolie is to be commended for taking on so many different kinds of characters from her Oscar winning turn in GIRL INTERRUPTED, to the athletic Lara Croft in those two movies, to this suspenseful, if predictable, serial killer thriller. She plays an FBI agent/profiler called in to help the Montreal police in trapping a serial killer. This particular nasty has been killing for over 20 years, and we find out early in the film who he is when he's a youngster, but what about now? Who has he metamorphosized in to?
Director D. J. Caruso gives us a probable suspect, but it's really a red herring, and the true identity should be detected early on. That doesn't spoil the movie, though; it actually makes you feel like a detective because you figured it out.
Along with Jolie's competent performance, Ethan Hawke does well as artist James Costa; Gena Rowlands gives a good performance as Mrs. Asher; and Kiefer Sutherland, looking a little older and heavier, does a usually good turn as a mysterious neighbor of Hawke's. There's a couple of jump out of your seat scares and overall, despite the predictability, TAKING LIVES is a good entry in the ever growing serial killer genre.

38 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Potentially Good Film Ruined By A Lousy Ending!, October 4, 2004

By 

Jana L. Perskie "ceruleana" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Taking Lives - Director's Cut (Widescreen Edition) (DVD)

"Taking Lives" stars Angelina Jolie as FBI profiler Illeana Scott who is assigned to Montreal, and the case of a particularly vicious serial murderer. The killer has been taking lives for 20 years, since his teens, assuming his victims' identities with each crime. There's a line in the movie to the effect that he's "like a hermit crab - when he grows out of his shell, (home), he moves on." OK! So it's not brilliant dialogue, but until we reach the film's halfway mark it is forgivable. After the 1st hour, or so, this scary, chiller-thriller loses its edge in a serious way. The last scenes are really contrived - just not believable by any stretch of the imagination.

Jolie is her usual sexy self as the loner, fast-track agent from Washington, DC. She is welcomed by her old friend and colleague, Captain Hugo Leclair, (Tchécky Karyo), of the Montreal Sûreté, but is resented by macho detective Paquette, (Olivier Martinez), who is handsome in a surly kinda way. Illeana's approach to crime solving is extremely intuitive and unconventional, to say the least - but her unorthodox methods get results, and this case is no different. She quickly comes up with some leads that her Canadian counterparts have missed. Then art gallery owner James Costa, (Ethan Hawke), an actual murder witness, steps in to help the detectives. Costa, who has some artistic talent, is able to sketch the suspect. The hunt picks up speed, and the plot begins to twist, turn and occasionally surprise. I had at least one major scare! There's a decent car chase, a steamy love scene, (super steamy in the Director's Cut), and an unusual take on Illeana's character - all pluses.

The cast is excellent. Ms. Jolie is good here and she develops her character well. If you're an Angelina Jolie fan, you will enjoy her performance. Kiefer Sutherland, Gena Rowlands and Ethan Hawke also bring some bright moments to the screen. I just wonder why all these talented artists agreed to make this film. Director D.J. Caruso made some really wrong turns, which is sad because he had such a great cast to work with, a potentially good plot, and the wonderful scenery of French Canada to assist him toward success.

I was entertained by much of the movie for reasons mentioned above, but the poor resolution soured me on "Taking Lives."
JANA

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Relative experience?, October 17, 2004

By 

koldkase (Georgia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Taking Lives - Director's Cut (Widescreen Edition) (DVD)

I just saw this movie last week, and it stunned me in ways I never expected. Reading many of these reviews, I think it must simply be where you are in your own interests and experience in life when you see this film. It disappointed on some levels, but it astounded me on others. In the end, the acting and chemistry of Hawke and Jolie are so delicious I have to give it 5 stars.

Warning: SPOILER follows, so if you don't want to know, stop here.

A true crime buff who has studied serial crime for about a decade, I viewed the film from that perspective and found it wanting. Profilers don't "intuit" so much as was implied here by lying in graves. They use solid data culled from 30 years of studying and interviewing actual criminals. So Jolie's character is somewhat misleading in how she "represents" that whole process. I found the direction wanting in the cheap thrills stolen from a litany of classic thrillers. I also agree that the sound editor should have been replaced before this movie was released. I think some of the disappoints of the film are based in not understanding much of what is being said (though I got a second copy and the sound was much better, so maybe there was a bad run of dvds). The most jarring false note in the movie is after the car chase, before the car blows up. Not plausible.

But on another level, the acting is sublime. The arc of Hawke's characterization is the real pleasure of watching this film. The killer's transmutation is mind-bending. The final scene, in which his inner life is revealed, is breathtaking. It is the whole point of the movie, a major plot twist you don't see coming: in order to conceal the true identity of the killer, the director obscures the killer's pathology for most of the movie, reducing it to a few sound bites. Anyone looking for a well-developed movie could be confused by the turn of the last 30 minutes.

I have seen little of Hawke's work before, but scene by scene, I consider this performance as good as any I have ever seen on film. The chemistry between Hawke and Jolie is palpable. The sex scene that offends so many was, to me, unique in cinema: the walk across the room alone is a dance of eroticism. The raw animalism, the vulnerability of the actors themselves stunned me. This all peaks in the phone call to the agent from the train: the killer explains the heat of his attraction to the agent. For the first time the agent hears the killer's true voice. She first sees him unmasked in the elevator, but here, she hears him, his voice shimmering with intensity as he drops the veil of the life he was living and delights in confronting the agent with his bared soul. In contrast to the last scene in which we heard him speak as Costas, at the hospital, with passion and hope and love for the agent, it's riveting.

The last scene of the film mirrors the love scene in the hotel, but here we find that sex and death are enmeshed in the killer's psyche. This is where the actual brutality of the killer is seen in full, because we know the entire relationship between him and the agent--and waiting to see what he has in store for her is compelling. Played with exquisite subtlety by both Hawke and Jolie, it's an original in film, as memorable as the shower scene in "Psycho." Hawke's acting instincts are unpredictable, and you cannot wait to see what he will do next. He plays against expectations. The caress of his voice is menacing, each movement frightening in its stark minimalism, the mundane contrasted with the deadly: deftly disarming guns; pouring a cup of tea; a sweep of the hand across the tabletop; a bruising slap; a tender plea; a whispering strangulation. The killer's total domination and control of the agent illustrate his skill and erotic pleasure in killing. The real mystery then is what is in the soul of such a human being.

As stunning as Jolie is in this role, this is Hawke's movie. He delivers a finely nuanced and complex character. Jolie's reserved agent is the means by which the killer's heart is revealed.

And for anyone who does not feel the heat between Jolie and Hawke...the movie will not work for you. That kind of sexual tension is dangerous, it's unpredictable, and that's why it drives this movie, ultimately. It comes from a place we cannot define, at a time we cannot predict, with someone whom we do not choose. It's visceral, primal, and it's the real pulse of this movie. If you have never made irrational, dangerous decisions based in just such a passion, you may not get the movie.