Kiss the Girls

Plot

Alex Cross is a seasoned Detective in Washington, and a forensic psychologist. His niece Naomi, has just been kidnapped by a prolific serial killer called Casanova, who kidnaps and keeps women hostage. One of Casanova’s latest victims, Kate has escaped – and vows to help Alex bring Casanova down, and Naomi home.

Direction

The direction from – is pretty solid. There are some action moments throughout, but there are minimal moments of this throughout. There is more psychological trauma inflicted on the girls by Casanova, and some moments of quite realistic violence in what characters inflict on each other. The film is quite dark in both tone, and it is also dark in colour on screen too. Some techniques used I found well done was some first person POV and some deep focus towards the end of the film.

Cast/Characters

Freeman does a good job as Alex Cross, he is strong willed and comes across believable as the “Detective Dr”. Having read the novel of the same name, I actually preferred this version better – as it eliminated the sexual chemistry between Cross and Kate.

Judd on the other hand is exactly what I pictured Kate to be. Smart, strong and stunning. She was perfectly cast.

Some secondary cast members like Jeremy Piven and Brian Cox are underused.

Screenplay/Setting

The tone of the film is dark and edgy, but I felt the screenplay was rushed to get all of the story-points done in the 2hr time frame. Some pivotal moments are glossed over momentarily or forgotten about moments later – so I felt this could have been done better.

Overall

This was an okay thriller, which was strengthened by the screen presence of Freeman and Judd. However the screenplay was clunky and the arc was rushed compared to the source material. The score was almost forgettable. This gets a passing grade from me.

Followed by a sequel a few years later, which ironically was the previous novel in the Alex Cross series.

3/5