Twisted
**
R, 97 m Starring Ashley Judd, Samuel L. Jackson and Andy Garcia. Directed by Philip Kaufman Opens tomorrow.
It is easy to tell what kind of Samuel L. Jackson movie you are about to watch once you see his introduction. When Jackson's character shows up in a sleazy bar scene and says, "Guys, move away, you're breathing my air," the viewer knows to expect something more akin to "Deep Blue Sea" than "Pulp Fiction."
In "Twisted," Jackson plays John Mills, police chief and mentor to homicide investigator Jessica Shepard (Ashley Judd). Upon her promotion to the homicide circuit, she faces many personal issues that are heavily displayed throughout the film. These are not helped by the fact that she is struggling with alcoholism and seems to sleep with every shady male character in the movie. Shepard's first assignment is a serial murder case, and it turns out that all the victims are people she has slept with.
The movie begins and ends without the audience really understanding what kind of character Shepard is supposed to be. Judd does a fairly good job of playing the strong female role, but she does not come off sleazy enough to be the philandering heroine that she is supposed to be. A movie based around scores of sleazy characters - including Andy Garcia's portrayal of her cop partner Mike Delmarco and Jackson as her loudmouthed chief, always ready to dispense hot-shot advice - creates a problem. Delmarco follows Shepard around San Francisco, including to several bars, acting as sleazy as possible with a cheesy smile to match.
The actual plot of the movie is more than adequate, despite the fact that the eventual outcome of the movie is fairly obvious. "Twisted" turns out to be more interesting because of the Shepard character and her laughably large number of problems than it does in terms of the purported "mystery" that it attempts to unfold. Any viewer will figure out within the first half-hour who the killer is.
The locations are also an issue. The film is based in San Francisco, and the filmmakers seem to think this means that they must only show massive amounts of fog, wharfs and sea otters, instead of any interesting part of San Francisco. For good measure, a murder scene at the much-loved Pacific Bell Park baseball stadium (now SBC Park) is thrown in. To be fair, "Twisted" is meant to have a "shady" feel to it, and the camera work and locations help.
"Twisted" is by no means a bad movie. It is just a crime movie that tries too hard to be deep without seeming serious enough. The acting and script make it worth watching, but the characters should have been less cheesy.
