TWISTED. Paramount Pictures, 2004. Ashley Judd, Samuel L. Jackson, Andy García. Director: Philip Kaufman.

   Apparently people don’t like this movie very much. In fact, it currently has a 2% positive – that’s right two percent positive – rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The question then becomes: is it really that bad? My resounding answer is no. Not at all.

   Directed by Philip Kaufman, whose work I generally admire, Twisted is a paranoid thriller in which newly minted San Francisco detective Jessica Shepard (Ashley Judd) finds herself in a precarious position. Her lovers and one-night stands alike are turning up dead with cigarette burns on their hands.

   This is especially traumatic, given her parents’ death in a murder-suicide years ago. Luckily, she has a mentor in Police Commissioner John Mills (Samuel L. Jackson). But whom can she really trust? Her new partner (Andy Garcia), her psychiatrist (David Strathairn), and her ex-boyfriend (Mark Pellegrino) all seem like viable suspects. Eventually, Shepard (Judd) begins to doubt her own sanity and casts suspicion on herself.

   The main problem – and it’s a glaring one – with Twisted is that its resolution really doesn’t make a lot of sense. It’s cheap and tawdry and strains credulity to the nth degree. But that doesn’t mean the rest of the movie is worthless. It’s an extremely watchable lowbrow sleazefest with a coterie of great character actors and a director who did his best with the deeply flawed source material.

   How’s that for a recommendation?