Twisted

Starring: Ashley Judd, Samuel L. Jackson, and Andy Garcia
Directed by: Philip Kaufman

Bluntly speaking? Twisted is nothing more than a run-of-the-studio-mill, blatantly dumb anti-thriller with smirking talent playing waifer-thin characters who's breadth of emotion is portrayed with oddly volatile spurts of feeling they've hung on their sleeves. It's a heaping helping of celluloid poodle poo folks.

Story goes.... Jessica Sheppard (Ashley Judd) has just made homicide detective. Her mentor is the police chief (Samuel L.). In fact when Jess' deranged cop father went berserk killing a few folks, her mother, and himself, it was the chief that took the little girl in...

She's all grown up now and kickin' some butt. Well, fighting off her fellow detectives in a 1970's pre-equal rights in the work place version of a police headquarters. Her gruff partner, Det. DelMarco (Andy - looking unusually greasy here kids) immediately takes a bit of smit-juice and starts to look beneath her badge...

And this horn-dog may just get a peak at her frilly Victoria collection, because Jess' recreational sport is sex. She enjoys drinking and picking up men in bars - off duty of course. See, she's a sex addict - no - a woman who digs sex without the strings...you know like a guy? But, again we are dealing with Sarah Thorp's antiquated and generic script so women who have premarital sex have a "problem." Yes, I said Sarah - a woman wrote this anti-woman ickety blech. Though Thorp's males were awful typecast pigs too. So she's an equally bashing writer at least.

Oopsie, back to our tail, err, tale...

Suddenly the men Jessica's been fornicating with start showing up ddddead. They've been brutally beaten, marked with a delicate "X" and "signed" with a cigarette. Oh, forgot to tell you...Jess, who's about five foot two inches, also has a vicious temper. She likes to explode and pummel - picture Tinker Bell in a rage. She smokes like Keith Richards, and she's continually seen downing a bottle of wine by her sour-pussed neighbor lurking in the window. So, naturally she's the insta head suspect. Though, if you're watching while awake, the plot rears its head in about the second scene...

Sounds stoopid? Yep, it is dear readers - painfully. The talent, if one can call them that here, are horrific cookie-cutter emotions atop moviestar faces. Andy Garcia who plays Jess' new partner in homicide - the police division not the crime - is the worst. He smirks and throws away his scenes like a child that was defiantly cleaning their room during a grounding. When exactly was this guy good? I've forgotten...

Sammie L.? Whaddya doin man? I haven't seen a waste like this since Ordinary Decent Criminal (a film I chose not to review …). My stomach aches; all that talent wasted like a quart of forgotten Thai Chicken leftovers on the second shelf.

As for little Ms. Pixie, Ashley. She's always beautiful and believable as "the tough" doll. But here the conflicting abilities she possesses made you disconnect and start to heckle the screen. For example? Jess can describe a guy she's glanced at - down to his button style and sock color - but, after several nights of "blacking-out" after sipping a glass of wine, she doesn't for a nanosecond wonder if, perhaps, there's something funny going on! Especially after dead men start sprouting up that she's ballyhooed!

Folks, there was actual laughing in the room during its "climatic" conclusion, and it wasn't just me...'nough said?

Snack recommendation: Tosca's swell martinis and a side of Gravlax, before you head out to see practically any other film