Kiss the Girls (1997, R)

As reviewed by James Brundage

In Loaded Weapon 1, William Shattner said : "Irony can be pretty ironic, can’t it?". Before, it was simply a statement that lodged itself in my mind because of its utter absurdity. Now it has entered my repertoire of quotations that can actually be used for something.

What possible use can something that stupid have? Good question, with a mediocre answer. The only use I could come up with was to help describe my loathing for a movie a million times more idiotic than the … unique quote. And what idiotic movie is it that I describe? The one that evoked such pity for having to put that on an actor’s resume?

The movie, without further ado, is "Kiss The Girls", a new serial killer movie on the market. Its just your standard killer-sees-girl, killer-stalks-girl, killer-abducts, tortures, and murders-girl story that we’ve seen a million times before, and, believe me, this ain’t "Silence of the Lambs".

Question number two : why all the irony? The fact is, I had every reason to love this movie : I lived in the area where it was filmed, I read and loved the book, and I respect and admire the actors, actresses, and director. But, hey, its just the death throes of this years Summer of Irony (movies that we all thought would be good but were really horrible). The simple fact is that this is a movie that I wouldn’t see again if it was on HBO on a summer Saturday (and I'll watch anything on TV on a summer Saturday).

What made it so bad? Was it the cliché? The complete failure to make characters who I cared about? The dearth of a villain I either hated or liked? Or was it the fact that the movie was so downplayed that it annoyed me completely? It was actually a combination of all of these wretched attributes that made me focus my antipathy through the lens of rhetoric and set my target sight on writing a disparaging review of this idiotic movie.

The movie opens nice, actually, giving an eerie title sequence in which the killer talks to one of his victims about his first three murders, a sequence so well done that you can’t help feel a chill down your spine (looking back, however, the newest preview of "Titanic" sent more of a chill, buy, what can you do?). This single sequence, if placed in the middle of the movie, could have turned around my opinion and made me pack up my sniper’s rifle.

Sadly, this is the beginning and from there it degrades into nothingness, going well past zero. It has great action sequences (kudos to the cinematographer, Aaron Schnieder) and good performances from the actors (Morgan Freeman as Alex Cross, Ashley Judd as Kate McTiernan), but that’s all it has to offer me as a viewer.

But then there was the worst part, the absolute zero of the movie. The fact prevails that it downplays the sensationalism that ran rampant in the book: one of the only things that just shocks you into continuing reading. That’s the final straw, the bullet loaded and the safety off. Ready. Aim. Fire.