Twisted (2004 film)

''Twisted'' is a 2004 American psychological thriller directed by Philip Kaufman, written by Sarah Thorp, and starring Ashley Judd, Samuel L. Jackson, and Andy García. The film is set in San Francisco.

Plot

Having solved a high-profile case involving serial killer Edmund Cutler that ended with her being taken hostage by Cutler but managing to overpower and arrest him, officer Jessica Shepard of the San Francisco Police Department is transferred to the homicide division and promoted to the rank of inspector. SFPD Commissioner John Mills, her foster father and her deceased father's former partner, also serves as her proud mentor. Shepard is an alcoholic and nymphomaniac, carrying the emotional burden of her father murdering some of her mother's extra-marital lovers, then Shepard's mother and himself.

When one of Shepard's former one-night stands is brutally murdered, Shepard and her new partner, Mike Delmarco, are assigned to the case. Shepard admits that she had slept with the victim yet remains assigned to the case. A few days later, another of Shepard's numerous one-night stands is murdered and soon the police come to the conclusion that the killer is stalking Shepard. At Mills' insistence, Shepard remains on the case to bait out the killer.

As investigations progress, Shepard keeps having alcoholic blackouts at night, having already had them on the nights of the two murders. She confides this to Mills, who encourages her to carry on.

Shepard discovers a third murder, Cutler's defense attorney Ray Porter, whom she also had previously had sex with, who had summoned her via note to meet him that morning. Inspector Dale Becker focuses the investigation on Shepard herself, due to Shepard's fleeting sexual relationship with the victims and her occasional flashes of violent behaviour in the line of police duty. Shepard begins to fear that she is becoming like her father and committing similar murders, especially after a fourth of her former lovers is murdered, SFPD Officer Jimmy SchmidtShepard wakes up with Schmidt's corpse in her bed. In each case, the murder seems to have been committed using a yawara. Shepard is skilled in delivering blows with a yawara, so she is arrested and questioned for the murders but is bailed by Mills after blood work evidence undertaken by pathologist Lisa reveals that Shepard's blood had strong amounts of rohypnol, which means she was incapacitated during the Schmidt murder and thus cannot have committed the crime.

Mills tells Shepard that he suspects Delmarco of being the killer, Delmarco having grown increasingly close to Shepard during the course of the investigation. The two turn up at Delmarco's quayside home to question him. Mills serves Delmarco wine laced with rohypnol to incapacitate him, upon which Shepard realises that Mills is the true killer based on how he says they're now "in this together", while he sets up the scene to look as if Delmarco will commit suicide, akin to how her father had looked when he supposedly committed suicide. Mills admits he killed all of Shepard's lovers, as well as her parents and her mother's lovers, because he considered it his mission to prevent her growing up to be a dissolute woman like her mother. As her father's partner, Mills had felt the responsibility to inform him that his wife was a nymphomaniac, which drove him insane. Furthermore, as he himself had an illicit affair with Shepard's mother, Mills felt the need to kill her lovers, ashamed that he helped destroy his partner's marriage and drove him insane. Mills then decided to put him out of his misery by killing him.

Shepard secretly transmits Mills's confession to other police officers on a mobile phone, allowing her old partner Wilson to track them down. When Mills tries to shoot her and Delmarco, Shepard shoots him in the chest, killing him and causing him to fall off a dock into the water.

Cast

Production

In February 2002, it was announced producer Arnold Kopelson and Paramount Pictures were in the process of negotiating a just under seven figure purchase of Sarah Thorp's spec script ''Blackout'' about the daughter of a serial killer who now works as a cop and comes to fear she might be a suspect in a rash of killings she’s investigating. In August of that year, it was announced Philip Kaufman was set to direct (and had provided some uncredited rewrites to the script) with Ashley Judd, Andy Garcia and Samuel L. Jackson as the leads with shooting taking place in San Francisco, California.

Reception

Critical response

Despite its well-established director and cast, ''Twisted'' was almost universally panned by critics. The film is one of the lowest-rated on the site.

William Thomas writing for ''Empire'' magazine described the role-reversal of the film as "contrived", while allowing that the film "may dole out a few guilty pleasures".

Box office

The film earned $25,198,598 in the United States and Canada and $15,756,005 in other territories for a combined worldwide gross of $40,954,603"Twisted (2004)"
Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2010-11-28.—well below the film's production budget of $50 million.

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Twisted (2004 Film)
2004 films
2004 crime thriller films
2004 drama films
2004 psychological thriller films
2000s American films
2000s English-language films
2000s mystery thriller films
2000s police films
2000s serial killer films
American crime thriller films
American mystery thriller films
American police detective films
American psychological thriller films
American serial killer films
Fictional portrayals of the San Francisco Police Department
Films directed by Philip Kaufman
Films produced by Arnold Kopelson
Films scored by Mark Isham
Films set in San Francisco
Films shot in San Francisco
Paramount Pictures films
English-language crime thriller films
English-language mystery thriller films