The Canadian film industry has an illustrious history of producing subsidized documentaries and rather slow, thoughtful commercial movies. This one doesn't fit the mold.

The killer offs one victim after another and assumes their identities because he can't bear the fact that his Mom preferred his twin and he can't stand being himself. (Got that?) Angelina Jolie is Illeana, an FBI agent and friend of someone on the Montreal police force who is asked to help out in the case.

There has been a witness to the latest murder, a scared young man who is an artist, Ethan Hawke. Jolie falls for him. The police use him as bait to trap the killer. I'm not sure how that arrangement developed because I found myself a little confused on a few points, this one included. No matter. The man everyone believes to be the murderer, Kiefer Southerland, has about ten minutes of screen time, two of which he spends dead. Case solved, right? So Jolie and Hawke are free to consummate their mutual attraction. They do it in a raw scene in which it is unclear whether Hawke is consuming Jolie or the other way around.

But -- hold on. For some reason, and I say this only because this is another point that left me bemused and wondering if my synapses had shorted out, Hawke reveals himself as the murderer and traps his mother (Gena Rowlands) in an empty elevator. "All I ever wanted was your love," he tells her tenderly just before he slaughters her and saws her head off.

Jolie is fired from the FBI for "egregious poor judgment" and retires to an isolated and thoroughly desolate farm house outside of Carlisle, Pennsylvania. She appears to be preposterously pregnant with Hawke's child. Well, when a babe lives alone and helpless and a killer out there is interested in her, we know what will develop. The last ten climactic minutes turn into a woman-in-jep movie. Hawke shows up, throws Jolie around, and finally stabs her in her swollen belly with a pair of scissors. She promptly pulls them out and plunges the scissors into his heart. As Hawke is standing there looking puzzled at his protruding scissors, she reveals that she's not pregnant at all. It's just a foam rubber bladder or something. The whole thing was a trap set by Jolie and the police to catch Hawke. There's no explanation of why she needed the scissors when Jolie, the actress, could have simply vaporized her attacker with her sexual heat.

It's interesting to listen to what Philip Glass, my man, does with the score for an ordinary serial-killer flick. He stretches every ligament to suit his fulgurating minimalism to the demands of trash. A hand reaches out of the darkness and claps Jolie on the shoulder and the act is accompanied by a loud dissonant crash.

Jolie is magnetic. Not just because of her collagenated lips or her huge, knowing eyes, but because she's a presence whenever she's on screen, which is most of the time. Yet I can't think of a single outstanding performance from her, or an exceptional film that she's ever appeared in. I wish she'd get more demanding material.

Ethan Hawke is uninteresting. My judgment about these things is perforce humble but he doesn't seem handsome, and his acting is no better than adequate. And, my God, if this movie needs ANYTHING, it needs a great villain to make up for the ordinariness of the script and the other characters.

It's well photographed and good use is made of locations, and the supporting cast is pretty good. The opening scenes are nicely done too.

But the credits. How did this fad ever get started? Crudely typed letters jiggle on the screen, alternating with shots of a few words from a newspaper headline, and there is this loud, scratchy, metallic, buzzing, jangling music, as if recorded in a lumber mill, to set your nerves on edge in a cheap sort of way.

I don't know. Is it possible to see just one serial killer flick too many?

This starts in 1983 St Jovite, young Martin Asher (Paul Dano) viciously kills a man. After the opening credit, the movie goes to today in Montreal. The police have Costa (Ethan Hawke) in custody who says he's witnessed a murder that bares a striking resemblance to the one earlier. Olivier Martinez is one of the cops who suspects Costa is hiding something. FBI special agent Illeana Scott (Angelina Jolie) is brought in to profile. They eventually settle on another suspect played by Kiefer Sutherland.

The opening made a mistake. It's not clear enough that the first murder happened in the past. Flashing the dates for 2 seconds is not enough. I missed it, and I couldn't figure out the start at the first viewing. Paul Dano bears no resemblance to Ethan Hawke. So it was hard to figure out why the audience is given clues that Ethan Hawke is the killer.

And there are a lot of little mistakes. Angelina Jolie is trying too hard to be that quirky FBI profiler type with the far away stare. There are too many clues, and too many obvious clues. There is good mood being put down, but there are too many little problems to overlook.

The special FBI agent Illeana Scott (Angeline Jolie) is called by the Montreal police force to help in the investigation of a serial killer, who destroys the faces and takes the hands off his victims. Montreal Police Inspector Leclair (Tchéky Karyo) has met Illeana in Quantico along six months, and is aware that she can help detectives Duval (Jean-Hugh Anglade) and Paquette (Oliver Martinez) in their investigation. The artist James McKeen Costa (Ethan Hawke) is found with a victim in a park, and claims that he saw the killer. He gives a hint to the police through a sketch of the killer's face, and is protected by Illeana and the Canadian team force against any revenge of the assassin. "Taking Lives" is a very reasonable thriller, having many plot points, but being predictable with no innovations, and very similar to "Seven", "The Silence of the Lambs", "The Bone Collector", "Resurrection" and other "tales" of serial killers. There is a great manipulation of the viewer with one specific scene, when Illeana returns to Washington and which was also included in the deleted scenes (only with more details),but the last twist saves the movie. Further, the character of Illeana is overrated as a special agent sent to another country, being very fragile in many moments. Although having this great flaw in the script, the cast is excellent and the story is not bad, and in the end it is a good entertainment. The soundtrack of Phillip Glass, with the beautiful song "Bad" of the U2, is another good attraction. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Roubando Vidas" ("Stealing Lives")