Twisted (2004)

With a tawdry plot and a short list of suspects, Twisted gives armchair detectives an easy chance to figure out whodunit. Critics roasted this pulpy potboiler, in which Ashley Judd (attempting to repeat the thriller success she had with Double Jeopardy and High Crimes) plays a San Francisco homicide detective who is her own prime suspect in an ongoing serial murder case, in which all of the victims are men she recently slept with. These one-night stands, and a problem with alcoholic blackouts, make Judd's wine-drinking character the loose cannon on the case, and her partner (Andy Garcia) and police commissioner mentor (Samuel L. Jackson) have their own reasons for wanting the case to close. Apparently nobody bothered to point out numerous weaknesses in Sarah Thorp's B-movie screenplay, and with no apparent interest in the proceedings, director Philip Kaufman (The Right Stuff) allows Judd to look silly, Garcia to overact, and the whole movie to unfold in murky darkness and dimly lit rooms. Kaufman, Judd, and her costars are capable of better. --Jeff Shannon Amazon.com

So inept, it's ALMOST intriguing...

TERRIBLE script with no thrills AT ALL, and a "least likely suspect" you see coming a mile away (since there are only three principal characters in the movie.) Ashley Judd is, at best, mis-cast, playing a hard-bitten SF cop like she was auditioning for the New Mouskateers. An utterly mediocre movie by a good director - the only real mystery. April 13, 2008

nice little crime drama/murder mystery

pretty good for the genre.it has suspense,plot twists,a nice
creepy,dark atmosphere.it drop some nice tantalizing clues as to who
the killer may be.Ashley Judd make a real good heroine.she's
certainly credible in he role,as a new homicide inspector with a more
than a little baggage.Sam Jackson is great(once again,as her mentor,as
well as the commissioner.Andy Garcia plays her new partner.he was
OK,but i didn't really feel he completely fit the movie.there was just
something...i really liked David Strathairn,as a police shrink.his role
wasn't that big,but i thought he was impressive,none the less.i also
liked the great Jazz soundtrack.despite all the good things about this
movie,i wouldn't call it great.for one thing,it lacks any intense
action,it's not really riveting or harrowing.so i wouldn't classify it
as a thriller,but more a straight crime drama/murder mystery.i would
have preferred it to be a bit more exciting.for me,Twisted is a 4/5 March 3, 2008

Old Spy Loves This Movie

I caught the first half of this movie on cable, and rented the DVD to see how it ended. I was enchanted, not just by the three actors (Judd whose latest is De-Lovely; Garcia from the Godfather etc; and Juckson from Pulp Fiction, The Negotiator et al), but by the over-all concept and execution.

Ignore the detractors--this is a superb story ably acted and I loved it. We in the clandestine service are quite proud of having the very highest rate of alcoholism, adultery, divorce, and suicide (I have 18 professional suicides in my professional history). I don't carry a badge, I do carry a Walther PPK Limited Edition (with a permit).

All three of these actors are gifted, but seeing Judd in this film, in contrast to her performance and complete make-over in De-Lovely, persuades me that she is one of the greatest female actors of our time and will be offering us many more superb acts with world class male actors for years to come.

This is a lovely first-rate film, and if you have lived with death and dishonor and fear including panic from time to time, this is a homecoming of sorts. Those that do not like it do not understand reality. However, to end on a humble note, spying is 90% boredom, including hours spent in hotel rooms waiting for agents to show up, and the most important skill in spying is typing--four hours for every hour of agent meeting--more if you have to transcribe the required recording of a meeting with a terrorist.

Other spy and cop/firefighter movies I have really enjoyed:
Seven (New Line Platinum Series)
Blown Away
High Crimes
The Hannibal Lecter Collection (Manhunter / The Silence of the Lambs / Hannibal)
The Departed (Widescreen Edition)
Breach (Full Screen Edition)
The Lives of Others
Pulp Fiction (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)
Firestorm
Ladder 49 (Widescreen Edition)

and of course anything with Alec Guiness in it (George Smily) and anying with Jason Bourne as the protagonist. February 5, 2008

Plot Twisted

Twisted starts well but gets looser when it should get tighter and increasingly improbable just when plot twists should have us wondering how we could have missed the clues. Instead we wonder, did the writer of this screenplay paint himself into a corner so tight that he had to have workers saw off the top of his house and lower a rope to extricate him from his predicament? In this regard Twisted is like No Way Out in which Kevin Costner was out-acted by his uniform. Costner, if you recall, is pulled deeper and deeper into espionage and intrigue. It's quite good, despite Costner's involvement, until the very end. The reveal, the explanation behind every devious turn we've seen up until that point, is virtually impossible - it has the statistical likelihood of discovering an honest lawyer.

The premise, and cast, of Twisted are first rate. Ashley Judd is the protagonist. As newly promoted Detective Jessica Shepard she combines two-fisted machismo - fetching in her black wife-beater t-shirt - and lonely vulnerability - haunted, alcoholic, and alone. But hey, no wonder she's alone, the apes she drags home for demeaning one night stands have a habit of ending up dead, and before long she's the prime suspect in her own murder investigation. How awkward! Quite the pickle for the new girl on the squad, no wonder her colleagues are so tough on her. But wait, she has a secret. Her dad, who was also a cop, developed cheese-slipped-off-cracker syndrome and went on a killing spree before doing himself in. She pores over newspaper clippings, or pours over them, and drinks herself into blackouts. Is it possible she's killing her lovers during blackouts and forgetting it? Is it possible she's inherited her father's cursed genes?

It's an interesting set-up, and better movies have been made out of less. Judd does a very good job, especially considering the improbability of the situation. Andy Garcia, another talent, is convincing as her partner - he's understandably concerned - for her and himself. David Strathairn, a terrific actor, doesn't get to help Jessica, or the movie, much. As her psychiatrist he does get to mention that she might want to cut back on her drinking a bit - $160 an hour for that scary insight?! But the loose canon in this movie is John Mills, played by Samuel Jackson. Mills took over in loco parentis when Jessica's dad died, with emphasis on the loco. As mastermind super cop he groomed the young Jessica. It shows; she is the grasshopper who now outperforms the big guys and is ready to leave the temple. But there is something about Mills that is oddly detached; he is both Jessica's staunchest defender and toughest critic. Don't fear, all is revealed in the third act.

Spoiler? I hardly know her! Let's just say that the denouement of this movie is so glib, facile, lazy, and unlikely that it would have been more believable if Kevin Costner and Sean Young had wandered onto the set wearing their No Way Outfits and confessed to the crimes themselves. December 15, 2007

Mediocre thriller

Given its director's status and the stellar cast audiences were entitled to expect a lot more than this movie actually delivers .It is mediocre rather than downright bad and is hampered by a repetitive plot structure ,a scarcity of suspects and too little actual action .It is not visceral enough to be strong thriller or cerebral enough to work as a whodunnit.
The setting is San Francisco ,a city where a number of deaths are being reported -men battered to death with cigarette burns to their hands . The protagonist is Jessica Shepherd a cop on the homicide squad .She is ambitious ,ruthless -borderline psychotic almost .Her family background was troubled ,her father having killed her mother and her private life is a little messy .She has a penchent for picking up starngers in bars ,having rough anonymous sex with them and walking away without any emotional involvement whatsoever.Her mentor is Police Commissioner Mills -played by Samuel L Jackson -who has steered her career till she becomes the first female member of Homicide (In politically correct San Francisco ? That is the most unbelievable part of the movie !)

Her colleagues are hostile apart from her new partner(Andy Garcia) .Her life begins to unravel -both personally and professionally -when some of the men she picks up and sleeps with turn up dead .The pattern of the movie begins to get very samey about this point in proceedings -she drinks to excess,picks up a guy in a bar ,passes out and wakes up to the news that a new death has been reported ,and in one instance to an actual body in her bed .She becomes a prime suspect in the killings

The question is -who is the killer ?Jessica ,maybe or the Commissioner whose interest in her and her career may have overstep[ped the bounds .perhaps its her partner mwho seems obsesssed with her;perhaps another cop on the force ,jealous of her advancement

You may find yourself too bored to care thanks to a trite and predictable script ,and acataing which is no more than OK and a dull working out of the conflicts.San Francisco looks lovely but unfortuinately some rather dull action situations preclude a proper enjoyment of the scenery!
Its not a dog-its just dull November 7, 2007

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