Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Movie Review: I Know Who Killed Me

By Shawn Parikh

I Know Who Killed Me

The quiet suburb of New Salem is being terrorized by a brutal serial killer who abducts and tortures young women, holding them captive for weeks before murdering them. Aubrey Fleming, a talented pianist and aspiring writer, appears to be his latest victim when she disappears without a trace during a night out with friends. As the days tick by, the special FBI Task Force convened to track the killer begins to lose hope of finding her before it's too late. Then, late one night, a driver discovers the young woman by the side of a deserted road, disheveled and critically injured, pleading for help. The girl is rushed to the hospital, where Aubrey's distraught parents, Susan and Daniel, wait by her side as she slips in and out of consciousness. When she is finally able to speak, she shocks everyone by claiming to be a down-on-her luck stripper named Dakota Moss who has never heard of Aubrey Fleming. Convinced Aubrey is suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, her doctors, parents and law enforcement officials can only wait for rest and therapy to restore her memory. But after returning to her parents' suburban home, she continues to insist that she is not who they think she is, despite bearing bizarre wounds identical to those of the serial killer's previous victims. The FBI agents are further mystified when they search Aubrey's computer and discover a short story about a girl with an alter ego named Dakota. When Dakota begins to suspect she may be Aubrey's identical twin sister, Susan shows her a video of her pregnancy ultrasound clearly revealing there was only one fetus in her womb. Confused and terrified, Dakota starts seeing visions of a menacing figure slowly butchering his captive. Convinced that time is running out both for Aubrey and herself, Dakota confronts Daniel with a shocking truth that leads them on a frantic hunt for the killer.

Source: Cinema Source

• Showtimes and more on I Know Who Killed Me

I know who is judging me for seeing this movie. I know who is thinking, “You put yourself in this situation.” I know who is asking, “How bad was this movie, really?” Well let’s just say, I know who owes me two hours of my time and eight dollars back.

I honestly went to the movie because I knew it would be bad, and all the controversy surrounding Lohan made me feel like bashing her. So I want you to know that I am biased. And in case you are going to see the movie, I won’t reveal the anticlimactic twist.

The movie is a dark thriller (that unintentionally becomes comedic) about a murder of a young high school girl, and then of course, Lohan’s character, Aubrey, gets kidnapped. Once this happens, the movie gets so unnecessarily and horribly graphic with her limb mutilation that 3 people got up and left the theater. I love a good scary movie, and gore can help, but this was just unneeded and solely for shock value.

After Lohan’s body is found, Aubrey believes that she is not Aubrey, but Dakota, and everyone is questioning whether or not she suffers from multiple personality syndrome. Dakota is a stripper and a nympho, and of course, you realize why Lohan signed onto this movie. Once pieces are put together, the climax is revealed in such a casual, non-dramatic manner, that my friend missed the whole twist. And then, when the motives and kidnapper are revealed, the movie ultimately is like a really, really, really bad two-hour episode of CSI: Miami.

So the plot is bad, but the execution is even worse. The director or cinematographer tried to make the movie artistic by having dreamlike and twisted images pop up all over the place, such as a blue roses melting, owls hooting, and flashbacks to the red-lighted, seedy strip club. Seriously, if I saw another sequence of Lindsey Lohan on a stripper pole, I was going to throw up. But all of these images and sequences just prolonged the movie so much, and did not have any point in the end. It was just an attempt to make the movie have some quality.

I never have thought that Lohan was a bad actress, and even though she phoned-in some of this movie, she still tried to make the movie believable, although she is the most-clothed stripper I have ever seen in an R-rated movie. Julia Ormond, as the mother, was the best part of the movie, because she was the most credible and realistic.

But otherwise, this movie seriously has no logic, point, value, sense, or redeeming quality, unless seeing the Hollywood Rehab Queen gyrating and stripping turns you on. Only watch if you are curious about the pointlessness of this movie.

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Comments

viva_la_malcriada Anonymous

Sounds like 'Showgirls' meets 'Grindhouse.' See y'all at the video store!

11 months, 4 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )