Twisted
In Twisted, starring Ashley Judd and Andy Garcia, everyone acts their age. It’s not really that the stars are getting older—it has to do more with the fact that they are receiving roles that require them to be mature, to be strong or stronger then they have been in the past. The film is Serpico-like only because it deals with a strong cop who’s on everyone’s case. Because the question is put to the main character that maybe she was the one who committed the crimes, it’s a story that’s infinitely more complex.
The beginning of the movie shows Ashley Judd’s character being threatened by a man with a knife. That’s what the whole movie is about. Jessica Shepard is running throughout the entire picture from rapists. Being a cop, much less a woman turns men on. It’s the idea that they can take care of themselves and at the same time be vulnerable. Shepard feels like she’s being followed throughout the entire film. Sometimes when Jessica comes to her apartment, she likes to look at the apartment across from hers. The men that work with Jessica like to look at her. There are even moments of peaking into peepholes. The sexuality that is in this film comes out in basically every scene, since the spying that goes on is a form of play. Shepard’s sexuality never really amounts to gratification; it just keeps Shepard constantly on her toes in an alert way—drudgingly going through life. Mike Delmarco is played by Andy Garcia, who basically sleepwalks through the role. However, Garcia is an actor who has charisma—he likes to be watched. His character works at Homicide where Jessica is now working full time. The day before Shepard leaves regular police work, she has a get-together with some cops. She gets a little tipsy as do the rest of the police. You wonder if they do this every weekend. Samuel L. Jackson’s character joins them later in the night. He plays the police commissioner who also happened to have been Jessica’s father’s partner. He also trains Jessica to be the best that she can be.
Shepard has psychological problems. Jessica’s father died along with her mother supposedly in a car accident. She can’t get their deaths out of her head. She starts to see a psychiatrist who really doesn’t help her much. She in effect has a drinking problem. There’s copious amount of drinking in this movie; a lot of covering up your sorrows for your job. Ashley Judd plays the role well mainly because she has the strength for a cop. It’s not just that she is in good shape—she has this double side to her character. At one point she feels like she’s being followed in a building’s garage. She goes to her car and gets startled by a rat. However, when it comes to putting some guy behind bars— she doesn’t flinch. She’s also a smart character; she knows when she is close to death. The strength that’s present in this actress reminds me of Charlize Theron. When she notices that the cops are looking at her simply because of her beauty, she has a wink like Shirley Temple.
Later in the story, (the movie moves along at a fast pace), Shepard and Delmarco find a pattern in the murders they are getting lately. The victim’s hand appears to have a cigarette burn on it. Also the face is bashed in. Jessica starts to feel a connection with the murders and herself—she feels that she slept with all the victims. After that night with the cops at the bar, she met some guy and had sex with him. She really can’t remember much after that because she always boozes out. Maybe she’s the one that committed the murders?
The screenplay by Sarah Thorp is very well thought out in terms of plot development but not in terms of characterization. The problem is she can’t add any sustenance to her script; really, she only has an interest in plot necessities. What the director Phillip Kaufman tried to do with the material was loosen it up. Kaufman, the director of such movies as Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Right Stuff, and The Unbearable Lightness of Being, tries his best to make something worthwhile in all his movies. He tries to give whatever project he tackles conviction, whether it be a commercial film or not. To add a fillip to every single one of your films is no small feat. He’s a really great director. One who directs a sex scene like no other. And yet he doesn’t try hard enough on this one. The film does have a style; it breaths but it breaths heavily. Throughout the whole movie you get bashed with little flashbacks; two second shots that are superfluous. I don’t know whose fault it was but I did feel that this was a way to compress the film for the affect of suspense. What Twisted should consistently be is a stylish thriller.
What makes this movie unique is the fact that it does have a style. It has that glazed look dyed in blue. When Ashley Judd goes back in her mind to what happened one night, the bar is bathed in red. The style achieves the effect of expressionism. The movie does have that glazed look and yet the style of it is not glazed. If anything the movie has a drunk feel. (That stuff should be illegal for Shepard.)
Twisted ends up becoming towards the end an obligatory thriller. You can feel how flawed the script is; characters like Samuel L. Jackson’s simply disappear. Yes he is acting more grown up in this movie, yet he acts like a grouchy baby. He doesn’t want to be seen. The movie itself also follows the formula of the script; Veronica Cartwright appears for a brief instant. The triumphs of the movie are when you feel the fear that this strong woman feels. She’s in basically every frame. When the rapist is in her apartment you want to scream. You hate those lowlifes.
The flaws of the movie are what the studio likes in it. They like the fact that it’s presentable. It’s probably what directors like Phillip Kaufman hate in a movie. However, there are good ideas that appear throughout. There’s the idea that the hippie partying notion of life has been updated. Now it’s date-rapes; a much more dangerous concept to consider. I love the opening title sequence, with the
The fact is Phillip Kaufman’s not suited for the thriller genre. He just hasn’t had enough experience with it. I think Kaufman understands this and that’s why his sensibility seeps out of the movie at the end. It’s like a type of dovetailing action. Twisted is an episode of Law and Order directed by Kaufman. The reason the movie is important is because it shows what a valueless show Law and Order is. It’s really making fun of that type of quality of show, and it does this by out-classing it. In the end, Kaufman gets the last laugh. He’s laughing because by barely trying he made a good thriller.
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