MasterChugs Theater: ‘I Know Who Killed Me’

I Know Who Killed Me feels like a deliberate exercise in cinematic ineptitude. When movies are released theatrically, they carry with them an obligation to at least appear professional and possess some kind of virtue to entice the audience. With its amateur presentation, “I Know” is better suited as a direct-to-DVD release, or perhaps as a midnight movie on the USA Network back in the early 90’s. It shouldn’t have been made this way at all. Many times, it’s been said about some movies by other people that “pornos have better plots.” I don’t know about better plots, but in regards to this movie, perhaps higher standards.

Given Lindsay Lohan’s colorful public behavior and continuing legal difficulties, playing a stripper with a crackhead mom might not have been the best way to distract from her tabloid image. Fortunately, in the attempted psychological thriller I Know Who Killed Me, Lohan also plays a wealthy college student who writes fiction, excels at the piano and refuses to sleep with her boyfriend. That’s all right, then.

As the student, Aubrey Fleming, Lohan wears serious glasses and lank, black hair. She taps on her computer and tickles the ivories while her parents watch fondly and her boyfriend, Jerrod, drools on the sidelines. As the stripper, Dakota Moss, Lindsay flaunts Daisy Dukes and a spangled bra, bouncy curls and platform boots. She seduces a pole and does nasty things with her customers’ cigarettes. No prizes for guessing which performance is more believable.

One night, after the big football game, Aubrey is kidnapped. By whom, we do not know, but the scene where her friends and Jerrod deduce she is missing may be one of the most incompetent and poorly acted scenes I’ve witnessed in a movie. Listen to the way these young actors talk and pretend to be fearful. Director Chris Sivertson shows he has little-to-no grasp on what it takes to generate tension and unease, nor does he demand much from his cast.

When she awakes, the girl in the hospital bed claims she’s not Aubrey. She’s Dakota Moss, a stripper and self-proclaimed delinquent with a potty mouth who happens to look like Aubrey. Dakota has no recollection of who did this to her. The police feel Aubrey may be imagining herself as one of the characters in her stories and the movie tries to build intrigue by making Aubrey appear delusional. Is Aubrey faking it? If so, what’s her motivation? I tried to ponder these questions and give the movie the benefit of the doubt, but it’s so poor with its performance that I found it hard to given any part of myself over to it. If I did, I’d feel like I was betraying myself.

Instead of being a movie made with effort and skill, I Know Who Killed Me feels like a half-assed assignment from a flippant film student. It’s something the cast and crew have thrown together just to get it over with. Throughout the movie, basic techniques like lighting, composition and editing seem grossly amateurish and give off a pungent aroma of inadequacy. To say it resembles a student film is an insult to student filmmakers.

The scenes seem to be haphazardly spliced together in the general pattern of the plot, but nothing ties together all too solidly to form an actual movie. Sure, there are some shots that look really nice, but they are the exception rather than the rule, and again, those shots have little to do with the story and more to do with a nice composition.

The screenplay tries to play itself off as being tricky, but it is rather straightforward and kind of bland. It offers up the possibility of Dakota being a character created in Aubrey’s head in response to the torture, but the hints and clues that are offered to suggest this are little more than red herrings. None of the plot elements are back up by anything else in the film. It is not like, say, the reveal at the end of The Sixth Sense, which had us going back to see if we were cheated. Now this is not the same type of trick, but those of you who have seen the movie will know what I am saying. It has all the hints, but it doesn’t pay off — it doesn’t inspire the desire to go back and watch again for the clues.

This is just a poor movie. It’s pieced together in a maddening fashion, the acting is sub par, the screenplay doesn’t click, and in the end you are left wondering “why?” I still think Lohan may have some talent, she has hinted at it in past roles, but I am still waiting for it to be realized. As for this genre-bender, you would better be served waiting for the next Saw outing. You know, if you’re already into poor movies like the Saw series.