Angelina Jolie: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked

2. Ileana Scott - Taking Lives (2004)

DJ Caruso has given us his fair share of disappointing thrillers. Disturbia was essentially Rear Window with none of the brains or skillful camerawork, and Eagle Eye was a hotch-potch of conspiracy theory stories barely strung together with explosions and needlessly histrionic acting. Before either of these projects, he worked with Jolie on Taking Lives, a film with a fair amount of promise but an abysmal execution. Based loosely on the novel by Michael Pye, Taking Lives begins in 1980s Canada, where teenager Martin Asher (Paul Dano) befriends another teenager (Justin Chatwin) before throwing him in front of a truck and taking his identity. 20 years later, Canadian law enforcement turn to FBI profiler Ileana Scott to track down Asher, who has been killing people and assuming their identities while travelling throughout North America. The rest of the film is the hunt for Asher, which entails drug dealers, escapes from hospitals and a gratuitous sex scene between Jolie and Ethan Hawke. Taking Lives is essentially what you would get if The Silence of the Lambs had been made by a 14-year-old boy with ADHD. The lighting is needlessly grimy, the dialogue is cheesy, the twists are over-the-top and the acting is without direction. Jolie is very one-note in a role more naturally suited to Jodie Foster or Hillary Swank, unsuccessfully grappling with all the exposition and seeming confused about her character for long periods. It's an all-round aimless performance, showing that she is at her best when paired with a quality director - though probably not the next one on our list...