Kiss The Girls [1998] [DVD]

Dr. Alex Cross, a Washington, D.C. police detective and psychologist is searching for his niece, who has disappeared from college in North Carolina, an apparent kidnapping victim. Dr. Kate McTiernan has information vital to unraveling the mystery and joins him in the hunt. While investigating, they uncover two serial killers on both coasts, one of whom is keeping a horrifying modern harem.
Kiss the Girls is a thriller about a collaboration between two serial killers, and, coming after The Silence of the Lambs and Seven, it feels like a pale attempt to cash in on the success of those earlier, better films. That’s a pity, because this film certainly has its strengths–particularly in the central performances of Morgan Freeman as a forensic detective and Ashley Judd as a would-be victim who escaped from one of the killers. Director Gary Fleder demonstrates visual flair and maintains an involving undercurrent of tension, but as this adaptation of James Patterson’s novel approaches its climax, familiar elements combine to form a chronic case of thriller déjà vu. It’s altogether competent filmmaking in the service of a moribund story of competing psychopaths, and by the time the serial killers reach the home stretch of their twisted contest, the movie’s dangerously close to Freddy Kruger territory, with a finale that could’ve been borrowed from any one of dozens of similar thrillers. –Jeff Shannon, store