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Two Sides, All Parts Awful

Del Keyes | In The Middle of the Sunshine | 06/16/2010

(1 out of 5 stars)

"As a movie title, "I Know Who Killed Me" doesn't make a whole lot of scene after watching it. First off, 'Me' is rather off-put, since the movie deals with Dakota (Lohan) being mistaken for the missing victim Aubrey (same actress) and stubbornly persisted that she's not Aubrey; it was near the end of the movie where she quoted the movie title, which given she didn't want to compare herself to Aubrey and the situations that occurred, saying 'me' contradicts her identity. Second, 'Killed' is a false use of the verb, since after the movie went through the most ridiculous plot twists I've ever heard, the 'Killed' portion never happened. The most logical title of the movie should have been "I Know Who Captured Her" or "I Know Who The Killer Is", but I presume those suggestions don't roll off the tongue so the movie is stuck with a title that's both incongruous and misleading. Complaining about the title is just the tip of the crap-stained iceberg.

Lindsay Lohan is troublesome throughout the whole movie. She played the normal bespectacled Aubrey, which I thought she was phoning it in as being sophisticated, and then she played Dakota, the bottom-playing hostess who's raunchy attitude actually fits Lohan. Still, Lohan as Dakota came off as very gaudy; I know she's suppose to be street bad, but she came off as whiny. Her rudeness and inconsideration makes herself rather selfish, not to mention very pervasive as in the scene where she slept Aubrey's boyfriend; she had no taste and little concern for the people. I guess her unappealing personality would be excused if she has the sex appeal, but Lohan doesn't even have that. There were flashbacks where she pole danced at a nightclub, and she might be the most boring stripper I've ever seen, and not because she doesn't expose herself: she's dances so slowly, and she always appeared to be on depressants; her catwalks were so unsexy, even the customers in the movie weren't pleased. Plus, what's wrong with her voice? She sounds like she had a ton of smokes, which made me think she's gonna sound like Kathleen Turner after a few more years.

Irrelevant is the key word of the whole movie. It had some questionable artistic directions, like the constant fading to red or blue, pulling the "Schindler's List" black-and-white-with-color-in-certain-objects design, or shaky-cam jump-cuts, but none of these designs are either significant or subdued for the story; the director seemed like he's trying to be stylistic without making a substantial point, so it's visually like an amateur version of "Natural Born Killers". Worse than Lohan's acting is the godawful soundtrack: the songs are mainly indie junk and are poorly placed; the electro song being played during the sex scene makes '70s vintage porn music sound classy. The sub-plots progressively get ignored, such as the FBI interrogation after the half-way point of the movie. The serial killer who caught Aubrey had no real motive and is just there, and I must say he has an unusual method of using tools made of stained-glass; I'm not sure if that's creative or pretentious. The main story is the real culprit, as for most of the film, I was convinced Dakota was just Aubrey being in denial, but the film pulled a plot twist regarding 'stigmatic twins' and mind-reading that's nothing short of insulting. It never shown how that was revealed, and the twist adds a surreal element that's totally out of place, making the film even less believable.

"I Know Who Killed Me" could possibly be, nay, IS actually worse than "Showgirls". At least in "Showgirls", the trashiness was actually fun and the plot was consistent: it began as a striptease, it goes on as a striptease, and ends as a striptease. In this film, it starts with a crime, goes on as torture porn, continues as a mystery, leading to an astronomical supernatural thriller and ends as an art film. It all equals up to a baffling mess."