Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Kiss the Girls - A Non Love Story, September 5, 2004
One thing I've learned is that just because I love something that doesn't mean that everyone will love it. Heck they may not even like it. What's that old saying? "One person's Treasure is another's Trash"
Despite that I was genuinely surprised when I noticed that a few (just a few)reviewers actually trashed Kiss The Girls. One or two reviewers said it wasn't like the book while another said something really crazy, that it was just like The Silence of the Lambs, so it wasn't worth seeing. Well let me tell you, comparing Kiss the Girls with The Silence of the Lambs is like comparing the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Monument because they're both monuments. This reviewer took the common denominator, serial murderers, and said they're both the same. By extension, all movies about serial murders are like TSOTL and not worth seeing and then perhaps all action movies are like Die Hard also are not worth seeing and so forth.
As for the comments about not following the book, thats why they write screen plays. Every book cannot be put into visual form without some modification, some more, some less and Kiss the Girls was definitely less. Now I have read Kiss the Girls and Silence of the Lambs too. If something was left out, so be it. That's the case in most movies. You can't cram six hundred pages of story into two hours. Now I didn't read it just before or just after I saw the movie but as I remembered it, I thought it followed the book pretty well.
The Plot
The Durham Police Department has problem. Pretty college co-eds are disappearing from area college campuses. Additionally a couple of the women have been located in the wilds tied to a tree, exposed to the elements and wild animals. A note was found at each crime scene that said "Cassanova". Whether the remaining captives are alive or dead the investigators can only speculate.
The latest victim happens to be the niece of Dr. Alex Cross (Morgan Freeman) a well reputed forensic detective and author from Washington. He has assured his frantic sister in law that he will do everything in his power to find out what happened to Naomi.
When Cross arrives in Durham he gets a tepid response from the authorities, being a famous big city cop nosing around in their business. But since this is family, this is personal and Cross will not be deterred. He discovers that there are six other victims, two of which have been found dead and that there is already a task force investigating.
Dr. Kate McTiernan (Ashley Judd) is a remarkable woman. She is an Intern at a local hospital whose hobby is kickboxing. She is beautiful, bright and talented, just the way Cassanova likes them. Kate will make an excellent addition to his collection.
The investigation is going nowhere, the investigators are stymied and need a break, when words comes that two boys found a woman on the bank of a river. It is the break they needed for it is the newly kidnapped Dr. McTiernan who apparently escaped from Cassanova but she is in the hospital and something is wrong with her.
With the help of Alex Cross, Kate recovers from the drugs that Cassanova had given her, however she is of limited help.
She is able to tell authorities that the other victims are alive and being held at some undisclosed location.
Conclusion
Well let's see, the movie is based on James Patterson's greatest novel and Ashley Judd is my favorite actress and Morgan Freeman is my favorite actor. The acting by all is superb, especially Judd and Freeman but everybody did an outstanding job. The directing was great, the story flows well and is extremely suspenseful. The camera work is also excellent as were the sets and the setting. The movie has no flat or dull spots and keeps you guessing full time and there are some unique plot twists that I haven't mentioned, that is the real genius of the story.
Do I like the movie? Da.... are you kidding, I love the movie, in fact it's one of my ten favorites.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Spine-Tingling Thriller!, September 16, 2002
While others may argue that this action thriller was a "Silence of the Lambs' wannabe, I found both the plot and the characters to be far more compelling and plausible than in most contemporary suspense films. Of course, having someone as good at presenting the merits of forensic scientist as Morgan Freeman certainly helps, as does the strong performance by Ashley Judd, fresh from her star turn in "Heat" playing opposite Robert DeNiro and Val Kilmer. She is smart, sassy, and more than the match for the serial killer she must face alone here, and shows how well she can play an urbane, well-educated, and resourceful modern woman.And such talents are required by the somewhat convoluted plot spun from author James Patterson's gory novel of the same name. Filmed in somber tones, much of the action takes place in a makeshift subterranean lockup the serial murderer uses to such gruesome effect. Yet other scenes contrast this muddy environment by depicting the upscale area of the lovely area around the "Research Triangle" area of North Carolina near Duke University and the University Of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Since Judd's character is a surgeon also doing important pediatric research, it shows a number of familiar scenes that denizens of the area will certainly recognize. After Judd manages to escape from the killer and make her back to the world, she agrees to help Freeman find him. Of course, this is when all hell breaks loose, and a number of unexpected plot twists make this a suspenseful thriller that had me at the edge of my seat for the last half hour. It is a fast-paced movie, one that is fairly intelligent in its approach, and as relatively straight-forward `bang-em-up' entertainment it works quite well. Enjoy!
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
No! No! No! This is probably the worst thriller..., March 30, 2005
...I have ever seen! And I mean it! It makes "Taking Lives" look like a classic, and seriously -how many more of these uninteresting, predictable, bad-acted and full-of-flaws- thrillers will Morgan Freeman waste his talent on. He used to be my favorite actor, but now after seeing him in so many thin-plotted "look-like-made-for-tv"-thrillers I've changed my mind. And his contribution in Stephen Kings' "Dreamcatcher" was perhaps his biggest disaster so far (well, perhaps next to this). Not that he is the problem in any of these movies, it's simply just that not even Freeman can save a paperthin-plotted B(!)-thriller like "Kiss The Girls". The problem is not that it resembles you of previous famous thrillers like "Seven" and (especially here of course to) "The Silence Of The Lambs" because thanks to those "Kiss The Girls" starts out well. My first reactions after a well-functioning opening was "this will be good!" Already after the first 30 minutes you can tell it will be better than Morgans' previous "Along Came A Spider". Yes, the movie is great and slowly builds up until...! Well, one of the many girls cidnapped by a "serial"-killer (or whatever) manages to escape the prison-cave, good for her of course -but they make a big point of that this girl has been heavily drugged, and her legs did not carry her far. With the killer behind her she jumps into a waterfall, and is picked up by someone further down the river. Now the killers' "lovenest" located, right. He finds himself in these woods, right? Not far from that waterfall straight up that river right? So the policeforces send out a rescue-theme to find the other victims still trapped in that dungeon-like place that the now only alive witness who has managed to escape the killer not quite can tell is a basement or a tunnel, right? (Puh, this was a long sentence, sorry! But this is such a lowpoint!). No! Instead they keep fooling around, investigating various suspects -and the girl who managed to escape becomes Lara Croft, fearless it seems! Of course they find the tunnel before the credits starts to roll, but come on! So unrealistic it's not even entertaining! A child would shake its' head over this, and it's impossible to see through the fingers here. The movie is "butchered", and becomes like some parody on itself. I find no excuse for this from the moviemakers -and Morgan soon must start to be more "picky" about the scripts they keep sending him. This is embarrassing -and a waste of time. I wanted to turn the damn movie off -and after seing the ending, well, that would've been a clever thing to do! The killer is one of those you've expected as a possibility of course. Freemans' character suddenly looks like a fool, and you don't care if the killer gets away or not!
I will never watch "Kiss The Girls" again! A disaster!
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