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| Tookey's Review |
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| Pro Reviews |
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| Mixed Reviews |
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| Cast |
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| Released: |
2001 |
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| Genre: |
THRILLER
PREQUEL
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| Origin: |
US |
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| Colour: |
C |
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| Length: |
105 |
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We are expected to believe that a psychopathic kidnapper (Michael Wincott, sneering and posturing in the film's one bad performance) would be able to hold down a job as a "perfect teacher" in a top American school for two years. Not only this - he has gone unnoticed for the entire time even though he has worn obvious prosthetics and a phoney beard that resembles the one Griff Rhys Jones wears in those annoying car ads for Vauxhall. And - get this - the kidnapper goes to all this trouble in order to kidnap a Senator's daughter so that he can then use her as bait to kidnap her best friend at school, the son of the Russian President. Why not, I hear you cry, just kidnap the boy? In case you don't think that's far-fetched enough, the kidnapper himself is brought low by two other people who have concocted an even more absurdly elaborate scheme to rip him off and steal the ransom money.
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Reviewed by Chris Tookey
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Morgan Freeman radiates dignity, gravitas and common sense, which is just as well, because his latest thriller is just plain barmy. It's a good-looking, mostly well acted but preposterously plotted movie. It is a prequel to an equally forgettable thriller called Kiss the Girls, which also starred Morgan Freeman as forensic psychologist Dr Alex Cross. This time round, his sidekick is the alluring Monica Potter, who deserves better material than this dreck. So does director Lee Tamahori, whose New Zealand debut, Once Were Warriors, was a terrific movie about race and wife-battering. Since moving to Hollywood, he has made a trio of undistinguished movies - Mulholland Falls, The Edge and now this. Get back to Auckland, Lee!
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