Review: Kiss the Girls (1997)

People in the Movie:  Morgan Freeman, Ashley Judd, Cary Elwes

Director:  Gary Fleder

Pigeonhole:  Mystery / Suspense / Thriller

The Basics: Based on the popular book by James Patterson.  Alex Cross (Freeman) is a street wise Washington DC homicide detective, who is also a doctor of forensic psychology.  His niece Naomi (Gina Ravera) is a college student in North Carolina, gets kidnapped, so Alex immediately responds.  Upon his arrival and making contact with the local police, he discovers that multiple women in the area have been kidnapped; several are still missing, while some are now dead.  The case quickly turns when one of the women, Dr. Kate McTiernan (Judd), escapes her captor and now is aiding Alex’s investigation to free the other girls and catch the killer who calls himself Casanova.

Recommendation:  A good little mystery, with Freeman’s performance making it worth a viewing.  ‘R’ rating is for violence and language.

My Take:  It is always difficult to reconcile when an excellent book like Kiss the Girls is made into a movie and basic elements are changed in such a way as alter the overall feel of the story, yet in this case the film can still stand as enjoyable, mainly because of casting.  Beyond Freeman and Judd, Cary Elwes, a very underrated actor in my opinion, shines a Detective Nick Ruskin.  If you did not know his background (he is from England), he plays his character so well that you could genuinely believe that he was a born and raised a Southerner with his mannerisms and drawl.

**spoiler alert**

The bad: Where this movie succeeded in giving us a story with the smart detective Cross, the tough survivor Kate, and the southern detective Ruskin, it failed to develop Casanova.  This serial killer is highly intelligent and has eluded the police and FBI for some amount of time, while continuing to kidnap more women right under their noses.  While Fleder took great lengths to hide the killer’s identity until the end, we still do not know much about him, when all is said and done.  Casanova’s torture and assaults on his victims was much more detailed in the book, and while the on screen violence would not have been needed, his obsession to collect and interact with the “exceptional” women was better laid out.  In addition, we are given almost no information about the other victims besides Naomi.  The audience should have been made to feel truly afraid of Casanova, but this just did not happen.  When it is finally revealed that Casanova is Ruskin, I think the director felt that was enough of a shock (it wasn’t) to satisfy the need to know how and why Casanova was able to pull off these crimes, like he did. 

On the fence: It is worth noting the Alex Cross character in the book is younger, more athletic, and engages the suspects physically (chasing them on foot and fighting), as well as the mental chess match.  He is also a bit of a player, and becomes romantically involved with Kate in the book.  Obviously that would not have worked on screen with Freeman and Judd, at least not in a believable way.

The good: Morgan Freeman took the Cross character and made it his own.  He came off as the smart detective, as well as the worried uncle, and while different from the book’s character, still a great on screen performance.  Ashley Judd also brought the right mix of toughness, vulnerability, and drive as a doctor who survived and escaped from Casanova.

Overall the story unfolds well as a police/investigative style drama.  A few red herrings are thrown in, and the subplot with the Gentleman Caller serial killer working on the west coast is also explored as well as to be expected in a screenplay under 2 hours.

   

Final Thought/Extras/For Fun:  Denzel Washington was slated to star as Alex Cross but dropped out due to scheduling conflicts.  While Freeman made Cross his own, Washington could have brought more of the Alex Cross from the book to life, in my opinion…