Twisted - movie review

Twisted is a title I came up with for the novel that later became Take My Breath Away (though it also had a brief incarnation as Guilty Creatures). The feeling was that Twisted wouldn't work, because there was another book - not crime of that title. I felt a bit surprised about that at the time, and my belief that it was a decent title was reinforced when Jeffrey Deaver used it as the title for a collection of his short stories, and then for a follow-up volume. And now I've watched a film with the same title. So one thing is for sure, it's not a title I can now use any time soon! No matter - but what about the movie?

Twisted didn't enjoy critical success - quite the reverse, I'm afraid. I've read one review describing it as a "career killer" for Ashley Judd, the star, and it's fair to say that this very appealing actor hasn't been quite as prominent in subsequent movies as her gifts deserve. But Samuel L. Jackson and Andy Garcia haven't done too badly. And I do not think the film is anything like as unsatisfactory as many of its detractors suggest.

The premise is that Ashley is a cop whose father, also a cop, went on a killing spree when he learned of the infidelity of his wife  who was one of her victims. Jackson plays her dad's partner, who has taken her under his wing. When she is promoted, she starts working with Garcia, with whom she has an equivocal relationship. Things go rapidly downhill when a man with whom she had a one-night stand is found brutally murdered. The pattern of Ashley's lovers meeting bloody ends then begins to repeat itself. Is Ashley so troubled that she has turned into a deranged killer?

We can all, perhaps, guess the answer to that, but despite weaknesses in the plot, I thought this was a reasonably watchable thriller. I'd bracket it with another Ashley Judd film, Double Jeopardy, which had similar failings, but passed the time pretty well. What I'd really like to see is a crime movie that made the most of Ashley Judd's vulnerable quality. Twisted failed to do so, but the setting in San Francisco is quite nicely evoked, and reminded me how keen I am to visit that city one day.

Double Jeopardy

There will never be a film about an insurance scam to match Double Indemnity, but the 1999 movie Double Jeopardy was, I discovered the other evening, an enjoyable time-passer. It stars Tommy Lee Jones at his edgiest, and the glamorous Ashley Judd. They are a rich couple who seem to have it all, but there are questions about the reliability of Tommy (surprise, surprise) and when they go off sailing, Ashley wakes to find a trail of blood, a sharp knife…and no husband.

Ashley, it turns out, was to benefit under her husband’s insurance policy, and she is arrested, though no body is found. She arranges for her beloved child to be adopted by her best friend, and is sent to prison. I have to say that it struck me as amazing that her guilt would be so easily established on pretty flimsy evidence. And the concept of ‘double jeopardy’, as explained in the film, doesn’t really stand up in the context of the facts of the story-line.

However, if you can overlook the plot holes (not everyone can, I realise) what follows is a pretty exciting action thriller. Ashley is determined to retrieve her child, and exact revenge, and stops at nothing to achieve her goals. Needless to say, she does one or two pretty stupid things which expose her to grave danger when she comes face to face with a ruthless killer. But that’s not too unusual in crime movies, is it?

I enjoyed this film. It is so well made that you can suspend your disbelief for a hundred minutes or so. Not a classic, but not bad, either.