Opens
Friday, Feb. 27
Combining the ludicrous with the lurid, "Twisted" is twisted all right. Characters get distorted and motivations warped in this police thriller in order to keep bodies piling up and clues pointing in all directions. This movie also marks one of the strangest portrayals of a police department ever in a Hollywood movie. The San Francisco P.D. here is populated with short-tempered, predatory psychos and drunks on the prowl for constant fights or sexual gratification, and at least one of them is a serial killer. Even a solid cast of Ashley Judd as a police detective who sleeps around, Samuel L. Jackson as the police commissioner with a personal stake in her career and Andy Garcia as her enigmatic partner can't bring credibility to the nonsensical story.
Veteran director Philip Kaufman gets maximum tension from the twists and turns in Sarah Thorp's woeful screenplay, but its sheer silliness ultimately defeats him. The Paramount release will have only a quick look in theaters before moving on to the greener pastures of the ancillary markets.
What's remarkable about Judd's Jessica Shepard is not her promotion to the homicide division by commissioner John Mills (Jackson), but her being on the force at all. She drinks herself into a nightly stupor, punches out fellow cops as quickly as she does perps in handcuffs and suffers psychological torment from the murder-suicide of her mother and dad years before. She also displays little moral sense as she will pick up the first man she meets in a bar for casual sex.
However, Jessica is less a character than a walking provocation for a series of crimes. In her very first case as a detective, she is shocked to realize that every butchered body belongs to a former lover. Which explains the need for her multiple sex partners. Her daily drinking leads to blackouts, which explains her inability to account for her whereabouts at the time of each murder. And the trauma of her promiscuous mom and her jealousy crazed dad explains the "bad seeds" of sexual irresponsibility and homicidal rage in her blood.
Mills raised her following the death of her father, his partner, and has shepherded her career with the SFPD. Her new partner, Mike (Garcia), immediately falls for her, but the other detectives develop an instant dislike, presumably preferring to keep the homicide division all male. Meanwhile, in a series of awkwardly written and staged scenes, police shrink Dr. Frank David Strathairn) struggles to get to the bottom of her mental disarray.
Thanks to Jessica's intimate connection to each victim, she is suspect No. 1. The viewer, on the other hand, scrutinizes the behavior and body language of all the male cops around Jessica to determine which one is following her and beating to death her sex partners once they leave her sweaty embrace. With logic on holiday and the filmmakers feeling the need for a new twist every few minutes, this proves a fruitless exercise. Basically, it's the last guy standing.
The movie at least looks slick. Cinematographer Peter Deming plays with shadows and fog and dark exteriors to make San Francisco nicely eerie. Peter Boyle's editing propels the story along even when the narrative stalls. Mark Isham's score is rich in atmosphere and dread.
TWISTED
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures presents in association with
Intertainment
a Kopelson Entertainment production
Credits:
Director: Philip Kaufman
Screenwriter: Sarah Thorp
Producers: Arnold Kopelson, Anne Kopelson, Barry Baeres, Linne Radmin
Executive producers: Stephen Brown, Robyn Meisinger, Michael Flynn
Director of photography: Peter Deming
Production designer: Dennis Washington
Music: Mark Isham
Co-producer: Peter Kaufman, Sherryl Clark
Costume designer: Ellen Mirojnick
Editor: Peter Boyle
Cast:
Jessica Shepard: Ashley Judd
John Mills: Samuel L. Jackson
Mike Delmarco: Andy Garcia
Dr. Frank: David Straithairn
Lt. Tong: Russell Wong
Lisa: Camryn Manheim
Jimmy: Mark Pellegrino
Dale Becker: Titus Welliver
Ray Porter: D.W. Moffett
Running time -- 97 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
Friday, Feb. 27
Combining the ludicrous with the lurid, "Twisted" is twisted all right. Characters get distorted and motivations warped in this police thriller in order to keep bodies piling up and clues pointing in all directions. This movie also marks one of the strangest portrayals of a police department ever in a Hollywood movie. The San Francisco P.D. here is populated with short-tempered, predatory psychos and drunks on the prowl for constant fights or sexual gratification, and at least one of them is a serial killer. Even a solid cast of Ashley Judd as a police detective who sleeps around, Samuel L. Jackson as the police commissioner with a personal stake in her career and Andy Garcia as her enigmatic partner can't bring credibility to the nonsensical story.
Veteran director Philip Kaufman gets maximum tension from the twists and turns in Sarah Thorp's woeful screenplay, but its sheer silliness ultimately defeats him. The Paramount release will have only a quick look in theaters before moving on to the greener pastures of the ancillary markets.
What's remarkable about Judd's Jessica Shepard is not her promotion to the homicide division by commissioner John Mills (Jackson), but her being on the force at all. She drinks herself into a nightly stupor, punches out fellow cops as quickly as she does perps in handcuffs and suffers psychological torment from the murder-suicide of her mother and dad years before. She also displays little moral sense as she will pick up the first man she meets in a bar for casual sex.
However, Jessica is less a character than a walking provocation for a series of crimes. In her very first case as a detective, she is shocked to realize that every butchered body belongs to a former lover. Which explains the need for her multiple sex partners. Her daily drinking leads to blackouts, which explains her inability to account for her whereabouts at the time of each murder. And the trauma of her promiscuous mom and her jealousy crazed dad explains the "bad seeds" of sexual irresponsibility and homicidal rage in her blood.
Mills raised her following the death of her father, his partner, and has shepherded her career with the SFPD. Her new partner, Mike (Garcia), immediately falls for her, but the other detectives develop an instant dislike, presumably preferring to keep the homicide division all male. Meanwhile, in a series of awkwardly written and staged scenes, police shrink Dr. Frank David Strathairn) struggles to get to the bottom of her mental disarray.
Thanks to Jessica's intimate connection to each victim, she is suspect No. 1. The viewer, on the other hand, scrutinizes the behavior and body language of all the male cops around Jessica to determine which one is following her and beating to death her sex partners once they leave her sweaty embrace. With logic on holiday and the filmmakers feeling the need for a new twist every few minutes, this proves a fruitless exercise. Basically, it's the last guy standing.
The movie at least looks slick. Cinematographer Peter Deming plays with shadows and fog and dark exteriors to make San Francisco nicely eerie. Peter Boyle's editing propels the story along even when the narrative stalls. Mark Isham's score is rich in atmosphere and dread.
TWISTED
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures presents in association with
Intertainment
a Kopelson Entertainment production
Credits:
Director: Philip Kaufman
Screenwriter: Sarah Thorp
Producers: Arnold Kopelson, Anne Kopelson, Barry Baeres, Linne Radmin
Executive producers: Stephen Brown, Robyn Meisinger, Michael Flynn
Director of photography: Peter Deming
Production designer: Dennis Washington
Music: Mark Isham
Co-producer: Peter Kaufman, Sherryl Clark
Costume designer: Ellen Mirojnick
Editor: Peter Boyle
Cast:
Jessica Shepard: Ashley Judd
John Mills: Samuel L. Jackson
Mike Delmarco: Andy Garcia
Dr. Frank: David Straithairn
Lt. Tong: Russell Wong
Lisa: Camryn Manheim
Jimmy: Mark Pellegrino
Dale Becker: Titus Welliver
Ray Porter: D.W. Moffett
Running time -- 97 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
Attorneys for Intertainment Licensing asked a federal jury Wednesday for $115 million in damages to compensate for film budget fraud allegedly committed by Elie Samaha's Franchise Pictures. Franchise in turn argued that the entire case was a ploy by Intertainment -- a German production/licensing company -- to get out of a multipicture agreement that it could no longer afford. The nine-person jury is expected to begin deliberations as early as today after closing arguments are concluded in the Santa Ana, Calif., courtroom of U.S. District Judge Alicemarie Stotler. Intertainment attorney Scott Edelman accused Samaha of being a con man who was already ripping off foreign distributors before he went into business with Intertainment Licensing CEO Barry Baeres. "In Elie Samaha's Hollywood world, not even the bank or bond company mind if you screw all the foreign distributors, but, as we saw in this case, they will even help you do it," Edelman said.
- 6/10/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
More than three years after he sued Franchise Pictures, Intertainment Licensing CEO Barry Baeres finally got an opportunity to testify to the alleged fraud he suffered at the hands of Franchise's Elie Samaha. Baeres had quietly endured four days of testimony in which Samaha attempted to turn the tables by telling a U.S. District Court jury that Baeres willingly allowed the budget-padding scheme that cost his own company more than $100 million. Samaha's defense rests on a claim that he and Baeres had a secret oral agreement to inflate the budgets with false deferments to help ensure the availability of financing and artificially inflate the value of Intertainment's stock in the months after it went public on Germany's Neuer Markt in 1999.
Elie Samaha raised the stakes of his fraud defense Wednesday by claiming that he was blackmailed into carrying out the budget-padding scheme that ultimately cost Intertainment Licensing more than $100 million. Samaha, who is on trial for allegedly inflating budgets for the benefit of his Franchise Pictures, said Intertainment CEO Barry Baeres threatened to withhold financing on "Battlefield Earth" if Samaha did not sign a $500 million first-look distribution deal with Intertainment. Samaha said it was a tough choice because he and his wife had invested heavily in the sci-fi action picture starring John Travolta and did not want to see the project fail. "You don't sign this, you don't get a (letter of credit) on 'Battlefield Earth, ' " Samaha said Baeres told him. "He also told me, 'I promise you I will buy your company.' " Baeres sat in the front row of the Santa Ana, Calif., courtroom as Samaha testified for a third day in Intertainment's fraud, conspiracy and breach-of-contract jury trial.
Franchise Pictures' Elie Samaha testified Tuesday that there were any number of reasons to keep secret the oral agreement he says he had with Intertainment Licensing CEO Barry Baeres to inflate feature film budgets. "Mr. Baeres ran a public company, and he did not want to specify (the agreement) in writing," Samaha told the 10-member jury in the Santa Ana courtroom of U.S. District Court Judge Alicemarie Stotler. "(Baeres) did not want to tell the world that he was allocating extra money; he wanted to look like a smart guy." Samaha suggested that the oral agreement came close to being memorialized in an early draft of their first-look distribution deal when it was agreed that the definition of bonded budget would be "determined in good faith."...
Elie Samaha testified Thursday that it was not always necessary to get a financial agreement in writing, as he failed to do in an alleged secret agreement with Intertainment Licensing to inflate movie budgets. The purported oral agreement is key to Samaha's defense against claims that he overcharged Intertainment at least $100 million through its output deal with Samaha's Franchise Pictures. Intertainment's attorneys have denied that any such oral agreement was made between Samaha and Intertainment Licensing CEO Barry Baeres. Samaha did not directly address the alleged promise during his first day of testimony but was asked by Intertainment attorney Scott Edelman if he felt it was prudent to record major financial deals in writing. "I've had many oral agreements that people have performed on," Samaha told the jury in the Santa Ana, Calif., courtroom of U.S. District Court Judge Alicemarie Stotler.
- 4/30/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Rather than being a victim, Intertainment Licensing was a willing participant in a scheme to inflate feature film budgets on its co-productions with Franchise Pictures, a Franchise attorney told jurors Wednesday. A day after Elie Samaha's Franchise was accused of cheating Intertainment out of $100 million, Franchise attorney Bill Price struck back in his opening statement by saying that Intertainment Licensing CEO Barry Baeres not only knew the budgets were exaggerated but benefited from them by charging higher subdistribution fees in certain European markets. "This is an attempt to deceive 10 (jurors) who do not work in the independent film industry, an attempt to fool 10 people into believing that there is a fixed definition of 'budget' in the independent film industry," Price told the jurors in the Santa Ana, Calif., courtroom of U.S. District Court Judge Alicemarie Stotler. "From the beginning there was a discussion that there would be more than one budget."...
- 4/22/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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