‘Twisted,’ the latest police thriller, lives up to its title, serving up a discombobulated mess of plot holes, one-dimensional characters and ludicrous revelations that will bore audiences who have seen this genre tackled before with better results.

Sarah Thorp’s script bobbles a contrived and ultimately ridiculous story line, and the derivative direction of Philip Kaufman (‘Rising Sun’) does nothing to redeem it. An episode of ‘Law & Order’ offers more suspense and surprise, all in half the running time.

Even the star-studded cast fails to save ‘Twisted,’ as Ashley Judd’s spunky portrayal of a tough female cop unravels early in the movie. Meanwhile, co-stars Samuel L. Jackson and Andy Garcia phone in bland performances in roles they’ve played one too many times.

The film opens interestingly enough, with beautiful shots of San Francisco blanketed in creepy clouds of fog that seem to be choking the life out of the city. It sets an eerie tone that quickly vanishes upon meeting our heroine, police inspector Jessica Shepard (Judd). In the opening scenes, the movie goes overboard in convincing us that Jessica is a man trapped in a woman’s body. She kicks a suspect in the crotch, does shot after shot of Jack Daniels and seduces a stranger into a one-night stand.

Unfortunately for that guy, he becomes one of Jessica’s many lovers to turn up dead. While investigating the murders with her new partner, the pointlessly odd Mike Delmarco (Garcia), Jessica finds that all the evidence points to her. She’s also begun having strange blackouts that coincide with the deaths and fears that she might be the one responsible after all. Prodded to continue digging by her police commissioner and mentor John Mills (Jackson), Jessica struggles to clear her name, leading up to a shocking final twist.

Not only can the ‘shocking twist’ be predicted 15 minutes into the movie, but ‘Twisted’ does nothing to justify the dredge that comes before it. The film falls into a pattern of monotonously recycling the same three scenes. First, Jessica angrily confronts one of the many men/conquests in her life. Then, she gets drunk off wine and has one of her mysterious blackouts. Finally, she wakes up and discovers a bloody dead body. This constant re-treading wears thin quickly and makes it hard to stay interested in the developing plot.

The weak story line also opens the door for some truly awful dialogue. One scene has Jessica dropping off a sample of her blood to be tested in the lab. She stupidly asks about the tests, ‘Can they tell you if they’re a good person?’ Later, Jessica tries to keep Mike from falling in love with her. She purrs at him with tears in her eyes, ‘All the men I kiss wind up dead.’ So, of course, Mike plants a huge, reciprocal kiss on her. These are just two examples of some of the preposterous moments sprinkled throughout the film.

Sadly, ‘Twisted’ wastes a lot of its potential, though it does attempt to scratch the surface of possibility. In a squandered subplot, Jessica deals with the difficulty of fitting into her all-male squad, not only because her promotion was secured by her mentor, but because she’s a woman. If ‘Twisted’ had shown Jessica rising to the challenge and proving herself to her peers, the premise would have been much more intriguing. Instead, the film chooses to turn Jessica into an overly violent caricature. Also disturbing are the implications that all ‘tough women’ are alcoholics with troubling pasts and that women should be punished for being sexually promiscuous.

In a crowded genre loaded with many more inventive and emotional films, ‘Twisted’ isn’t worth seeing – or remembering.

Published on February 26, 2004 at 12:00 pm