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Dom Robinson reviews

Kiss The Girls

A detective is searching for a deadly collector.
His only hope is the woman who got away.

Distributed by
Pioneer Entertainment Europe

Cat.no: PLFEB 37441
Cert: 18
Running time: 117 minutes
Sides: 2 (CLV)
Year: 1997
Pressing: 1998
Chapters: 27 (16/10+1)
Sound: Dolby Surround
Widescreen: 2.35:1
Price: £24.99
Extras : Trailers for Event Horizon and Primal Fear

Director:

Gary Fleder

Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead

Producers:

David Brown and Joe Wizan

Screenplay

David Klass

Music:

Cast:

Alex Cross: Morgan Freeman

Amistad, Chain Reaction, Clean And Sober, Driving Miss Daisy, Glory, Hard Rain, Moll Flanders, Outbreak, Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves, Se7en, The Shawshank Redemption, Unforgiven

Kate McTiernan: Ashley Judd

Heat, The Passion Of Darkly Noon, A Time To Kill

Nick Ruskin: Cary Elwes

Another Country, The Crush, Glory, Hot Shots, The Jungle Book, Liar Liar, Robin Hood: Men In Tights

Will Rudolph: Tony Goldwyn

Ghost, Kuffs, Traces Of Red, Truman

Chief Hatfield: Brian Cox

The Boxer, Chain Reaction, Desperate Measures, Hidden Agenda, Iron Will, The Long Kiss Goodnight, Manhunter, Rob Roy, TV: "Inspector Morse", "Sharpe"

Kiss The Girls is a film about eight kidnapped women: all beautiful, all talented and all in danger of having their lives cut short if police detective Alex Cross (Morgan Freeman) and key witness Kate McTiernan (Ashley Judd) can't locate the elusive "collector" who calls himself Casanova. From the Deep South to the California coast and back, the hunt is on in this provocative race-against-time suspenser based on the best-selling novel by James Patterson.

Sounds good, doesn't it? Alas, this so-called thriller is about as gripping as a non-stick frying pan. The film tries too hard to be a sequel to Se7en and fails miserably. It also rips it off by trying to be dark in appearance and the case being solved is also the last one for Freeman's character. Hmm...

And of the rest of the cast? We're given to believe that Ashley Judd, who positively smouldered in Heat and A Time To Kill, is a no-nonsense surgeon who can kick-box her way out of any trouble, but it's a shame she doesn't use it before things get way out of hand. Zero tension is created in an early scene: You can tell long before the crucial moment when Ashley is attacked in her own home and the obvious is played to the full when she runs downstairs and stupidly runs into the strategically-placed fishtank at the bottom of the stairs. It's her house so she'd be perfectly aware of it. If the scriptwriters had used their brain, they'd probably have had her kick it down.

Another laughable scene comes when Ashley is locked up and calls out to the other encarcerated girls, resulting in what sounds like an impromptu Alcoholics Anonymous meeting as they each divulge their full name and length of lock-up, for those who can remember.

The once-good Brian Cox has made some odd choices of late, playing the bad guy in Hollywood actioners The Long Kiss Goodnight and the Freeman-co-starrer Chain Reaction as well as a police chief in this and the surprisingly good, Desperate Measures. In the long line of cheesy roles, here he just seems to ham it up as much as he can before collecting his pay cheque and getting out.

Sod's law sometimes dictates that it's the worst films which will have the best picture quality. Not this time though: something clearly went wrong in the laserdisc transfer, since white flecks make their presence felt at times and long black lines flicker all over the picture intermittently when it gets really bad. At least the good news is that the picture is framed at the cinema ratio of 2.35:1, so the well-composed scenes get a good look-in here, as opposed to the cramped look they'll have on the fullscreen video.

In the soundmix is an over-use of echoing loud gunshots and, at other times, camera clicks, thus cheapening the effect - definitely a case of less would be more, thus is loses a point for this over-indulgence.

26 chapters are spread throughout the film which is quite good, but all you get in the way of extras are two unrelated trailers for much better films, Primal Fear and Event Horizon.

Overall, take every ounce of what made "Se7en" great, take it out and replace it with the obvious and you have "Kiss The Girls". There'll be nothing you haven't seen before when you sit down to watch a film which plays like a TV movie on Channel 5 - just replace Ashley Judd with Donna Mills (!)

Use of slo-mo filming and bassy music score to 'over-egg the pudding' in terms of an effective music score, make it far less effective than it should be. Add to this an average-looking picture and unrelated trailers and being kidnapped by Casanova would be a far less painful experience.

FILM	 		: *
PICTURE QUALITY		: **½
SOUND QUALITY		: ****
EXTRAS			: ½
-------------------------------
OVERALL			: **

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 1999.

Check out Pioneer's Web site.

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