In What Ways Does ‘Taking Lives’ Conform to or Subvert From What you Consider to be the Forms and Conventions of the Thriller Genre?

The typical forms and conventions of a Thriller involve the protagonist who achieves great tasks, puzzles and mysteries which surround the story which create a need to find in both the protagonist and the audience, psychology and human nature which intrigues the audinece into finding out bout our basic instincts, action sequences to excite viewers and suspense to make the audience want to keep watching.
The protagonist in 'Taking Lives' subverts from the normal convention of starting off as an average, normal looking man, as seen in Edward Norton in 'Fight Club'. Instead Angelina Jolie stars as an FBI profiler drafted in to help catch a serial killer. The convention of a normal man is because it allows the audience to sympathise with the character. When a character starts off extraordinary, the audience finds it hard to feel connected to them. This is why in a typical thriller the protagonist will start off normal, then become extraordinary in order to overcome the challenges they face - when they do extraordinary things, the audience can sympathise with them better. However in 'Taking Lives' Angelina Jolie's character starts off already extraordinary - an FBI profiler, and both beautiful and clever. Also it is unusual to find a female lead character, possibly because there is a larger male audience and the director/scriptwriter believes they will empathise better with a male character, so here again 'Taking Lives' subverts from the thriller genre in terms of forms and conventions.
Puzzles and mysteries feature heavily in the thriller genre, and as 'Taking Lives' is about an FBI agent trying to find a serial killer, it clearly conforms to this idea. Puzzles and mysteries faeture in thrillers because they allow the audience to get drawn into figuring it out along with the protagonist, allowing for more empathy. The mystery in this film is to figure out who the serial killer is, which not only conforms to the genre in having a mystery, but is a very standard mystery featured in many films. Almost all thrillers feature murder, perhaps because it evokes strong emotions of sympathy in almost any viewer, which allows the film to feel more effective and suspenseful. A thriller without a mystery would likely feel slow and dull, therefore puzzles and mysteries are naturally a part of thrillers which must be conformed to , and 'Taking Lives' is no exception.
Thrillers often focus on human nature and psychology, and 'Taking Lives' conforms to this aspect too. Angelina Jolie's character is brought in to assess the murder and make a profile of the killer. During this she draws out certain character traits to expect from the killer, showing a focus on psychology as she puts herself in his shoes. Through her investigation, the killer is shown to have become a killer because his mother loved his twin brother more. This twisted his mind, and he became a murderer, living the lives of his victims for a while before killing again and moving on. This shows a focus on his psychology, and therefore 'Taking Lives' conforms to the thriller genre in terms of psychology.
Thrillers often have action sequences, however 'Taking Lives' is quite short on these, having only a car chase and an on foot chase through the city centre. Thrillers have action sequences because it allows for shows of physical finesse, showing extraordinariness in the characters. They also heighten the tension, showing that the 'good guys' are close to catching the 'bad guys'. The chase scenes in 'Taking Lives' are quite good, as they are fast paced and make good use of effective camera angles. However, they're short lived and the film would lose none of its effectiveness without them, so in terms of action sequences, 'Taking Lives' subverts from the forms and conventions of thrillers.
Thillers must have suspense and tension, otherwise they're just not thrilling as such, and so 'Taking Lives' does conform to the conventional thriller here. In one particular moment the tension is slowly built up until the killer attacks Angelina Jolie. The tension is also built up by the stories told by the mother, which is very effective it creating suspense. When Angelina Jolie is exploring the hidden basement, it is poorly lit. This plays on the human fear of the unknown, as the mise-en-scene allows us to see very little scenery. In these scenes, tension is slowly built up and layered until the audience is very tense and then the climax occurs. This shows that 'Taking Lives' conforms to the thriller genre with tension and suspense.
From this we can see that in three of the five criteria I chose, 'Taking Lives' conforms to the thriller genre, and only in the criteria of the protagonist and action sequences does it subvert, although not in the way the action sequences are done, but in the quantity of them. Therefore we can see that 'Taking Lives' conforms to the forms and conventions of the thriller genre.