If the first paragraph "spoiler" doesn't dissuade you from seeing this sucker, how 'bout this: Andy Garcia plays Judd's partner and pseudo-"love interest" Detective Mike Delmarco, a boiler plate grizzled cop caricature with the emotional range of citrus fruit. You're supposed to think that maybe he might be the bad guy, even though it's obviously Sam Jackson. Still going, huh? Okay, how about having to endure more shallow explorations of the human potential for violence than an entire Friday the 13th marathon, including Freddy vs. Jason? Still renting it? How about this: yes, I did mention that Ashley Judd's character is into anonymous sex but there's no nudity in Twisted. That's right, just simulated screen sex sans skin. I knew that'd get ya.All in all, Twisted tries really hard. The latest thriller formula -- "let's take the most unlikely character in the script and make him or her the bad guy whether or not it makes any sense" -- is faithfully, ploddingly executed to the letter. Twisted is a genre paint-by-numbers that does everything it can to "throw you off guard" so that the final "revelation" is "shockingly unexpected," even though you've seen the same thing done a hundred times before. And even though retarded protozoa knew the bad guy had to be Sam Jackson over an hour ago.
Forget the cheesy sound effects, lighting tricks, obvious plot devices, and stilted dialogue. Forget the cookie-cutter characters, forget that the script could easily have been written by an automated screenwriting robot and I wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised. Forget all that and Twisted... well, that's pretty much the whole movie. And Sam Jackson is the bad guy. Yes, you're supposed to think that Ashley did it herself, then Garcia was guilty, but you already knew it was Sam. Once again, Sam Jackson is the murderer.
Okay so Sam Jackson is the bad guy, a police commissioner who's killing Judd's sexual partners because... ahh, well because the plot demands it. He's the least likely candidate, and therefore inevitably the bad guy: he doesn't need any motivation, there's nothing to understand, there's no "statement" to make. Sam tries and tries to develop a plausible understanding of the character, but the script openly hates him, preferring stock ideosyncracies (he flips his lighter open and closed all the time) over actual character delineation. In short, we have no idea why he's the bad guy, just that he is, in fact, the bad guy. So choke on it, audience.
By the time the credits are finally rolling -- Ashley having neatly dispatched the bad guy, Sam Jackson -- all you're left with is the disappointing reality that Ashley Judd just played a promiscuous, kinky character and all you saw naked and wet was her back, and Sam Jackson was a bad guy more poorly developed than Hans Gruber in Die Hard. But Die Hard never professed to be a dramatic thriller either.
Just one more thing: Sam Jackson is the bad guy.
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