ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ

An ideas-free thriller, Twisted stars Ashley Judd as a copper whose one night stands keep turning up dead. Her police chief mentor (Samuel L Jackson) is appalled, her new partner (Andy Garcia) bemused, and the audience bored, bored, bored. The killer might as well have a neon sign around their neck, while Judd frowns her way through routine investigations, presumably wondering why the hell she agreed to star in yet another woman-in-peril picture - especially one which makes the dumbly efficient Double Jeopardy look like labyrinthine masterpiece Chinatown.

To call Twisted lobotomised would be to suggest it once had a brain with an original thought in it. It's as if director Philip Kaufman has fallen victim to the aliens from his brilliant 70s sci-fier Invasion Of The Bodysnatchers - becoming a workaday Hollywood hack, sleepwalking through schlock designed to leave audiences screaming.

The sex-related slayings suggest an erotic thriller, but the only thing aroused here is anger. Although the killer is obvious, in the tradition of idiotic whodunnits every character is set up as a suspect - all given equal malice and motivation, so come the conclusion it could be any of them with equal (im)plausibility.

"CRETINOUS"

Flirting with a split-personality gimmick, the script doesn't spare the star, either, whose detective is so cretinous it's hard not to want her offed. A supposedly quick-witted crimefighter, she's thicker than cement, passing out on plonk every night without wondering why Cabernet Sauvignon is suddenly as strong as absinthe.

Jackson, meanwhile, is fast becoming the new Christopher Walken: prepared to lend his strong screen presence to pap in order to keep himself busy. Perhaps he's tired of waiting for roles that require his talent; perhaps he stalks the studios with a sign saying: "Will work for food."