"Silence of the Lambs" & "Se7en" will easily remain the peaks of the genre, but the 90's was also a time filled with mainstream films about serial killers - most rather yawn inducing. The two exceptions were 1995's "Copycat" & 1997's "Kiss the Girls" which both relied more on great performances by the 'heroic pairs' in each film rather than the disappointing killers they had. Sure they weren't as deep or psychological as 'Silence' & 'Se7en' but they worked as well-paced action thrillers. Like "The Phantom Menace" was to the original "Star Wars" trilogy, this 'prequel' to "Kiss the Girls" proves to basically not compare with 'Kiss'. In fact aside from the actors and a clever ending twist, this feels very much like a TV movie with lots of sequences done cheaply and on a much smaller scale than 'Kiss' - a good TV movie to be sure but that's about all. 'Kiss' included some wonderfully shot scenes and sequences, buoyed by Freeman's magnetism and Judd's bravura in what remains arguably her best role to date.
This time out Freeman seems to be doing a 'by the numbers' style tone to the role, a little too relaxed and certainly not as interesting whilst Potter is well, ordinary sadly. Even a great actor like Michael Wincott seems to be wasted here, though its always fun to see the likes of him and Dylan Baker in any movie. The old rule with sequels is to do things bigger and better, a philosophy Tamahori has followed as this prequel is much more drama-based and bears no connection with 'Kiss' aside from the Cross character himself (and his quaint black two-seater car) and a cameo by one of the Special Agents in 'Kiss'.
Thus after a quite astonishing opening, the action pretty much dies from there and things move slowly and methodically until the last 30 minutes or so. Indeed the last 30 minutes are quite good including a ransom drop sequence which is quite clever, and multiple twists (some expected, others quite a surprise). Still, there's various other problems such as the score which is way too much - blaring orchestrals in times when no sound would've been so much better.
In the end this is a step backward for the franchise, certainly for fans of James Patterson's novel only but I understand this film has ripped apart the original story of the novel so I doubt they'd be satisfied either.
