Taking Lives (2004)
Directed by D.J. Caruso
Recruited to assist Montreal police in their desperate search for a serial killer who assumes the identities of his victims, FBI profiler Illeana Scott knows it's only a matter of time before the killer strikes again. Her most promising lead is a museum employee who might be the killer's only eyewitness.
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Good thing, too, for the French Canadian police involved in the case, especially the detective played by handsome Olivier Martinez ( Unfaithful ), resent Scott being called in to help them.
When the team of Montreal Surete-generale (Canada's elite investigative agency) cops realize that a recently discovered corpse is as unidentifiable as at least one other on their books, director Hugo Leclair (Tcheky Karyo), an old time friend of FBI profiler Illeana Scott (Jolie), calls her in for her brand of investigative wizardry despite the turf protests of his men, detectives Paquette (Olivier Martinez - "Unfaithful") and Emil Duval (Jean-Hugues Anglade).
Director D.J. Caruso ( Taking Lives ) patiently builds suspense, but when the killer shows his hand, the film deteriorates into a typical slasher, complete with jerky angles, blurry footage and ridiculous, near-supernatural chases.
Director D.J. Caruso ("Two for the Money," "Taking Lives," "The Salton Sea") is searching for a mixture of wacky teen skepticism and taught suspense machinations.
Who isn't disturbed by the prospect of D.J. Caruso ( Taking Lives !) helming a Rear Window rip-off for the MySpace generation?
Director D.J. Caruso, who has helmed forgettable fare such as Taking Lives and Two for the Money, strikes all the right keys as the picture makes its transition from comedy to romance to thriller.
Writers Christopher Landon and Carl Ellsworth and director D.J. Caruso (Taking Lives) take the time to develop the characters (with the exception of Ashley, who comes off as a rather one-dimensional fantasy girl).
Caruso’s slide began with the predictable 2004 Angelina Jolie serial-killer sex thriller Taking Lives; the descent quickens with this Rear Window redux that lacks the good grace to acknowledge its source.
Titles like Fallen , Kiss the Girls , The Bone Collector , Taking Lives , and Suspect Zero , just to name a few.
The director, D.J. Caruso ("Disturbia," "Taking Lives," "The Salton Sea"), working from a screenplay by Dan McDermott, John Glenn, Travis Adam Wright and Hillary Seitz, weaves a tale designed to incite paranoia and anxiety.
Hack director D.J. Caruso ("Disturbia"/"Taking Lives"/"The Salton Sea") takes the Michael Bay route in filming a non-stop action thriller and comes up with the same preposterous big explosion nonsense.
Director D.J. Caruso ("The Salton Sea," "Taking Lives") teamed up with LaBeouf last year for the "Rear Window" rework "Disturbia," a pretty good movie with an overblown last act.
His previous big-screen efforts have almost always disintegrated at the soldering points between disparate genres -- Disturbia is tolerable until it turns at the end into a Lucio Fulci zombie movie, and Taking Lives spins off the rails the second it tries adding "erotic" to "thriller" -- and Eagle Eye is no different.