‘Taking Lives’ keeps audience guessing

Audiences who are still waiting for a good psychological thriller to come along this year will be mostly satisfied by the new film “Taking Lives,” starring Angelina Jolie, Ethan Hawke and Kiefer Sutherland.

Jolie plays Illeana Scott, an FBI profiler called across the border to Montreal to assist with a murder investigation. With the help of French Canadian police detectives (Oliver Martinez, Tchéky Karyo, Jean-Hugues Anglade) she digs deeper, coming to the realization that this is not an isolated case — there are in fact a string of unsolved slayings throughout Canada that date back more than 20 years. It soon becomes evident that the killer appears to be assuming the identities of his victims, stalking them, brutally mutilating them, and then taking over their lives.

When a bystander (Ethan Hawke) witnesses the killer’s next murder, Scott and the detectives are sure they are closing in on the case. The killer’s mother (Gena Rowlands) also surfaces, after reporting seeing her son — who she believed to have died in an accident 20 years before — while on a ferry ride.

That plot outline only scratches the surface of “Taking Lives.” Revealing any more details would ruin an effective thriller that offers several juicy plot turns to keep the audience guessing the killer’s identity. Appearances are everything — or so they seem — and the film delivers a number of jarring revelations punctuated by an eerie soundtrack by minimalist composer Philip Glass. Second-time director D.J. Caruso (“The Salton Sea”) continues to hone his adeptness with artful visual cues, leaving the audience feeling as though they’ve been thrust into a M.C. Escher illustration.

Jolie is persuasive as the profiler who puts a little too much of herself into her work. She’s joined by Hawke, Kiefer Sutherland and Oliver Martinez (“Unfaithful”) who support a complicated web of deceptions. Hold onto your seat.