Kiss the Girls is a 1997 thriller about two serial killers competing and collaborating with each other.
6 out of 10 stars. The film is much better than the novel by James Patterson. Morgan Freeman and Cary Elwes were awesome. Ashley Judd not so much.
Kiss the Girls is the second novel in the Alex Cross murder mystery series by James Patterson about two serial killers from the south who end up competing and collaborating until they make two mistakes–letting Dr. Kate McTiernan escape and kidnapping Alex Cross’s niece Naomi. In the novel, which is very different, the story spans the lives of both Casanova and the Gentleman Caller. In the film, they start the story when Casanova beings abducting college students from Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina and the Gentleman Caller abducts similar women from his new home in Los Angeles.
There are scenes in this film that are done really well (when Kate jumps off the cliff to escape Casanova, when Kate fights Casanova in her home at the end, and the club scene with Kate, Alex, and the Gentleman Caller). Other scenes are acted so poorly they’re cringeworthy (when Kate wakes up in Casanova’s lair, when Kate operates on a little girl, when Kate orders a child’s book at the bookstore).
The plot for the film is much simpler and much more believable than the novel. Kate and Alex team up and eventually figure out the clues locked in Kate’s memory to find the missing girls. One thing they did that really hampered the movie was that they had a different actor (Tony Goldwyn) say the lines for Casanova (Cary Elwes) in the beginning, deliberately misleading the viewer and sending them down the wrong road. That’s just rude.
6 out of 10 stars. The scene where Kate is kidnapped form her own home is terrifying and Casanova planned it that way–for maximum fear. Few serial killer movies show that. That fear is what keeps the film’s momentum going.
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