Review: Kiss the Girls

Called in to help North Carolina authorities catch a serial killer, forensic psychologist and detective Dr. Alex Cross (Morgan Freeman) has a personal stake in the case when his niece is abducted. Ashley Judd plays a kidnapped woman who managed to escape Casanova’s clutches and now wants to help the manhunt. Bill Nunn plays Cross’ cop brother, Cary Elwes plays a local detective, Brian Cox turns up briefly as the local police chief, Richard T. Jones is the ex-boyfriend of Cross’ niece, Jay O. Sanders is with the FBI, and Jeremy Piven plays Nunn’s partner on the force.

Whodunits/twisty thrillers tend to live or die on the strength of their central mystery/twist endings, at least for me. If I can pick the culprit/s before the film is over (or from watching the trailer before I see the film in the case of the dreadful “Twisted”), the film fails on first viewing. If the whodunit does not work in some other way, ditto. That’s why I’ll always champion 1992’s “Knight Moves” with Christopher Lambert. It was pretty much of a lower-budget straight to video flick, sure and it even featured the lowliest of the Baldwin brothers (Daniel). However, unless you were paying super-close attention, there was no way you were gonna solve that mystery before the mystery is revealed. It floored me the first time I saw it, ‘coz I didn’t think a movie could pull such a thing like that (If you’ve seen the film, you know what I’m referring to. No way you picked that culprit). This 1997 Alex Cross movie adaptation from director Gary Fleder (whose best films are “Don’t Say a Word” and the underrated “Runaway Jury”) and screenwriter David Klass (the disappointing “Desperate Measures” and the OK remake of “Walking Tall”) failed to fool me the first time around. I also vaguely recalled being a bit bored with the rest of the film. I decided to give it another go in early 2020 to see if perhaps while the twist didn’t work for me the first time, perhaps I failed to appreciate a good movie leading up to it, tuning out after I’d picked the conclusion very early on.

Well, I can indeed praise a couple of things this time out. Unfortunately, it’s not enough to really bump up my view of the film overall that much. It’s still a pretty stock-standard crime-thriller, and you’d have to be seriously dense not to figure out the deal here from very early on, especially if like me you’re a fairly experienced film buff. In fact, part of the mystery can be picked almost immediately, and the other part only requires one to remember Ebert’s Law of Economy of Characters. Casting is unfortunately counter-productive in this regard.

The film’s swampy scenery has been well-shot by Aaron Schneider, but there’s no doubt that this film would be pretty hard to sit through even for fans of this sort of thing like me, were it not for the presence of and performance by Morgan Freeman. James Patterson may have created the character of Alex Cross in literary form, but Freeman is the talented and charismatic actor who takes that enjoyable character and brings him to life on the silver screen, seemingly effortlessly. It’s the role Freeman was born to play, so it’s a shame that this and the ever-so slightly better “Along Came a Spider” weren’t terribly impressive vehicles that deserved such an actor and character at the helm. Freeman is immediately perfect as the detective and forensic psychologist whose own niece is targeted. It’s a shame that his character is far more intelligent than the story he’s at the centre of. Oh don’t get me wrong, whether it’s author Patterson or screenwriter Klass (or both), someone thought they were being awfully clever here, but they’re nowhere near as clever as they think. The script is neither surprising nor especially credible, and it puts a bit of a blemish on the lead character, really for not seeing what we see right away. Part of it is the abrupt nature of the finale where a certain someone turns into Jason Voorhees mode for 10 minutes. Then again, this is a film where a bunch of really solid character actors are seemingly instructed to act like the most suspicious red herrings ever, to the point where they’re obviously just red herrings, thus it’s ineffective. It’s not Fleder’s finest hour, I’m afraid. Even some of the shots of walk-ons catch a sinister look in someone’s eye just for the purpose of misdirection that doesn’t end up working. Also the casting of Brian Cox, who is quite clearly not going to be our culprit/s here is just trying to be clever. Yeah we get it, he played Hannibal in “Manhunter”. Cool, but he’s a red herring. Clearly.

Although 20 minutes is a bit too long for the leading lady to show up, you couldn’t find a more appropriately cast actress here than Ashley Judd. Playing a strong-willed and intelligent woman who survives an horrific ordeal to then want to help the authorities in their manhunt, you can see why Judd became quite popular after this. She’d been around before of course (she was better than Mira Sorvino as the other half of “Norma Jean & Marilyn”), but I think this was her biggest break. Once she arrives, she gives it her all.

A terrific pair of lead performances and an intelligent and interesting lead character aren’t ultimately enough when the story they’re situated in is both transparent and uneven. Well-acted and shot, but poorly written this one’s no “Se7en” much as it’d dearly like to be.

Rating: C+