Ashley Judd did a fair few of these crime thrillers and all of them easy watching, this one is no different.

From the middle tier of what we know as being Neo-Noir, Twisted is a frustrating experience. Right off the bat the cast list boasts weighty worth, giving us the promise of a dramatic thriller, filmed on location in Frisco, with misty lenses, lamp lights, waterside moods etc, it's set up a treat. As is the premise...Ashley Judd stars as a newly promoted hot-shot police detective, who in quality noir traditions has a whole heap of problems going on. Her family back story is shattering, she herself is heavily reliant on alcohol and she likes casual sex with strangers, strangers who start turning up dead, the kicker of which sees her basically investigating herself as a the prime suspect! Unfortunately with everything in place the pic never shifts out of first gear. The red herrings stack up, but nothing with any real conviction, and the whole premise starts to get monotonous, worse still the big reveal really isn't a surprise. There was a raft of these type of films in the 80s and 90s that were done much better, and on completion of viewing this effort one hankers for those pics - not to mention for the film noir of old!Ashley Judd always frustrates, one can see a very good actress in her body of work, but she's more often than not starring in so so thrillers. It can possibly be argued that her co-star Andy Garcia is a great actor who hasn't reached the heights he should have, the days of The Untouchables and Godfather III seeming to be fleeting glimpses of talent. Here he gets a thankless role that's poorly written, while both Samuel L. Jackson and David Strathairn add nice touches but aren't asked to extend themselves. Directed by Phillip Kaufman who as with Rising Sun, here also looks out of his comfort zone with the genre. But the presence of Mulholland Dr. DOP Peter Deming is noticeable and one of the pics strengths. 5/10

Where to start. First off, Ashley Judd is definitely a beautiful lady but to cast her as a tough and always drunk cop who can't get enough sex is a laugh. The scenes she's in trying' to pull off bein' a cop are a joke. She's better off playin' the girlfriend/mother roles. Seeing her trying' to pull this role off was very painful. Andy Garcia was cast OK but man, I think I could see him a few times in this laughin' at the lines he had. You talk about corny lines. Straight outta the ole 30/40's crime movies and boy they don't fit in here. This thing needed a seriously talented screenwriter to pull this off and they didn't get one.Samuel Jackon. Now to me this one was the reason I titled my intro for this review...workin' for a paycheck. He was so bad and stupid in this it's transparent. No way in the world anyone in this film was doin' anything else but workin' for a paycheck. If they thought any of this bottom feeder was sharp and witty in the beginning, by the end, they were laughin' all the way to the bank.I can't actually believe I finished this one. I think I did so I could write this review lol. Save your netflix cue and skip this one.

Considering this film for entertainment, it's good. It has the mystery, the intriguing plot and we pay attention to the whole movie.Despite that, I have no good thing to say. The story is always the same, a police officer trying to discover who is the serial killer and ends up being someone you didn't have a clue. That's the most unfair part of these films: they give you thousand clues and none leads to the real killer. So what's the point, making fun of the spectator?And the first fight scene was completely amateurish, it wasn't even close to look real. That's a shame, but anyways the movie is entertaining and giving it a watch doesn't waste anybody's life.