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Rated R
Directed by Chris Sivertson
Review by Dr. Royce Clemens
Have you ever walked out of a bad movie and instead of being deadened or saddened or angered, you were actually impressed? Walking out and saying to your friends “WOW! That REALLY, REALLY SUCKED!” In these moments of tear-down reverie, one could actually get more animated and impassioned than had one seen their new favorite film.
I KNOW WHO KILLED ME is such a movie. Finally, a film so ostentatiously and grandly bad that it requires its own magician’s assistant. Just some broad in sequins for when the lights go up to reflect the general shock of the audience.
“Guh..? HOW THE HELL DID THAT HAPPEN?”
I KNOW WHO KILLED ME “tells” the “story” of one Aubrey Fleming (Lindsay Lohan). She’s a pampered high school overachiever who’s Yale-bound. One night she’s abducted by torturous abductor #33,936 and is horrifically maimed. She escapes and is found on the side of the road.
The kicker is, when she wakes up, she’s not Aubrey Fleming. Now she’s Dakota Moss, ex-stripper, daughter of a crack addict and general hardcase. She, with a lack of irony, calls the police “the fuzz,” and not in the uber-cool way Timothy Dalton did it a few months ago. Maybe she stills says “am-scray” and refers to marijuana as “hop.”
What else is there..? Ya got me. I KNOW WHO KILLED ME is the directorial debut former film editor and Lucky McKee acolyte Chris Sivertson, (MAY) which is surprising given that for a guy who trimmed the fat off of other movies, he lets his own fall into stylish excess. So much so to the point that we rarely, if ever know what’s happening and what to focus on. When something major happens, he fails to punctuate and it blends in with the rest of the movie. When you’re watching loosely connected stylistic pablum so pretentious that it should have the fucking Moody Blues playing over it, your brain tends to cannibalize itself and you go off onto your own tangents. It’s not like the movie gives you anything else to do.
I’ll give you a for instance. There comes a point where ex-stripper Dakota, who had a hand and part of a leg cut off, is presented with a robotic replacement for her hand. You know, like Luke Skywalker had. I saw her put it on and I could only think one thing…
“Lindsay Lohan… Is… ROBO-SKANK!”
And honest to God, I missed the next couple of minutes of the movie because I was writing the treatment to the ROBO-SKANK movie in my head. She fights crime AND dispenses prophylactics. She lives in a trailer and strikes fear in to the hearts of evil-doers everywhere by convincing them that they got her pregnant.
I’d actually pay to see that. And DAMMIT YOU WOULD TOO, if your only alternative was I KNOW WHO KILLED ME.
There’s plenty to laugh at with I KNOW WHO KILLED ME. It makes horrific use of blue and read lighting that screams “SYMBOLISM!” the same way Swiss dudes scream “RICOLA!” It plays like warmed over Lynch and DePalma, knowing the notes but not the music. You could actually make a film geek drinking game out of “spot the poorly done reference.”
I must make a note that Neal McDonough (MINORITY REPORT) and Julia Ormand (LEGENDS OF THE FALL) play Aubrey’s parents. They are both fine actors and they both embarrass themselves here. And I’d make jokes at their expense, except that it’s not nice to laugh at the less fortunate.
Which brings us to Lindsay Lohan. I think anyone who knows me remotely well knows that I’ll be a fan of Lindsay Lohan at about the same time Michael Vick becomes a PETA spokesperson. Which is why it brings me no end to pain to say that… I actually didn’t mind Lohan this time out. I was expecting to crack jokes like I usually do, but I can’t. She did okay. There was appoint where Dakota did an impression of her goody-two-shoes alter ego in front of a mirror that actually drew an honest laugh. Credit where credit’s due.
But kiddo… Don’t pick out your scripts the same way you drive.
I must point out that the best role model for teenage girls and the WORST role model for teenage girls came out with movies the same day. The best being Lisa Simpson and the worst being… Well… You know.
I must also point out that another editor who worked on MAY was one Rian Johnson, who made a brilliant movie last year called BRICK. His next movie has a damn fine cast and looks like it will do well. But BECAUSE of Lisa Simpson, Lohan’s legal troubles rendering her uninsurable and the general crappiness of I KNOW WHO KILLED ME, we won’t see Lohan OR Sivertson for a very long time.
And they say there’s no justice.
1 out of 4
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