TWISTED is a psychological cop thriller in which a female detective finds herself on the trail of a killer whose identity may be closer to home than she realises. It was made by Phillip Kaufman, the director responsible for quite possibly my favourite movie of all time - INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS - so I did have some hopes for it, but sadly they were dashed on watching. This is one of those early 2000s movies that has a TV movie feel to it, with well-telegraphed events you see coming a mile off and a generally tired air to the proceedings. Ashley Judd is a star who shone briefly for a decade or so, but I'm not really impressed by her performance here, and the likes of Andy Garcia and Samuel L. Jackson seem frankly bored by the material. By the time of the twist ending, I was looking at my watch...

Jessica Shepard (Ashley Judd) is an up and coming San Francisco police inspector after catching a killer. Her mentor John Mills (Samuel L. Jackson) is the commissioner who is also her father's former police partner. She has a dark sexual side and her psychiatrist Dr. Melvin Frank (David Strathairn) wants to dig into her father's series of killings including her mother and himself. Her ex-partner and lover Jimmy Schmidt (Mark Pellegrino) is possessive of her. She get promoted into Homicide with new partner Mike Delmarco (Andy García). She faces a hostile group of detectives. Then she starts blacking out and losing time. Her sexual flings starts getting murdered by a serial killer.

It starts as an OK creepy noirish dark vibe. It pushes too hard sometimes but it's not bad. First off, she shouldn't be passing out like she's been drugged. It takes away the possibility that she is actually the one doing the killing. There is a paranoia with that possibility that is completely missing. The audience assumes that she's not the killer. The movie would be better without that assumption. Then the twisty thriller lacks the execution. It's all dark. The mystery isn't there. None of the characters are compelling. It's a thriller without thrills.

In San Francisco, the promiscuous, but very efficient and violent Detective Jessica Shepard (Ashley Judd) is promoted to the Homicide Department with the support of his superior John Mills (Samuel L. Jackson). Jessica has a trauma, with the death of her parents in her childhood, and has a drinking problem, abusing of the use of alcohol. Her new partner is Detective Mark Delmarco (Andy Garcia),and when they start working together, they find that a serial killer is torturing and murdering all the one night stand lovers of Jessica, and she questions whether she might be the chased assassin. "Twisted" is a reasonable entertainment, with a great cast and magnificent photography in San Francisco. However, the screenplay is very weak, predictable and full of clichés, and the story is very short, being "stretched" to last 97 minutes running time. The character of Jessica is very inconsistent, and the story does not show her great features to be promoted, and in the end she looks more like a whore. "Twisted" looks like a TV movie and I feel that the great cast was wasted in a common plot. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "A Marca" ("The Mark")