KISS THE GIRLS (1997)
Label: Paramount Pictures
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: R
Duration: 117 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: Dolby Vision 2160p HD Widescreen
Director: Gary Fleder
Cast: Morgan Freeman, Ashley Judd, Cary Elwes, Tony Goldwyn, Jay O. Sanders, Gina Ravera, Brian Cox, Alex McArthur, Jeremy Piven, Bill Nunn
Late 90's thriller Kiss The Girls (1997) is directed by Gary Felder (Don't Say A Word) and is based on James Patterson's best-selling 1995 novel of the same name. In it Morgan Freeman (fresh of the superior thriller Se7en) portrays Alex Cross, a forensic psychologist whose law school student niece Naomi (Gina Ravera, Showgirls) has gone missing, and is feared to have become the latest victim in a string of kidnappings in North Carolina, credited to a multi-territory serial kidnapper/rapist/killer known as "Casanova".
Cross travels from his home base in D.C. to NC and is begrudgingly brought in to consult on the case by local police chief Hatfield (Brian Cox, Manhunter), is less than welcoming. His assistants, Detectives Ruskin (Cary Elwes, The Princess Bride) and and Det. Sikes (Alex McArthur, Rampage). Soon after a woman is found dead bound to a tree, and soon after that Dr. Kate McTiernan (Ashley Judd, William Friedkin's Bug) is kidnapped from her home, awakening in a subterranean dungeon where multiple women are being held by the captor(s), but manages to escape her captor, leaping from a cliff into a river below First Blood style! Afterward she teams-up with Cross and the cops, including Cross's cop pals Det. John Sampson (Bill Nunn, Do the Right Thing) and Det. Henry Castillo (Jeremy Piven, Very Bad Things), to find the missing women and capture the killer.
I remember seeing the trailers for this in the 90's and thinking it just seemed like a too-slick cash-on on stuff like The Silence of the Lambs and Se7en, and I never did catch up with it until this release arrives on my doorstep. Honestly, I still feel pretty much the same after having seen it, it's a fairly crass and ineffectual 90's thriller, too slick for it's own good but still pretty well acted, especially from our two leads Freeman and Judd, who do good work, but what they're working with did not impress me. There's some interesting set-pieces once we get down in into the lair of the killer, a decent twist that changes things up a bit, and the cast is largely quite excellent, but it's all a bit too clean and sanitized, an edgeless thriller, which was pretty de rigueur in the late late 90's and early 00's. I'm only just now realizing that there is a sequel to this one, Long Came A Spider from 2000, which I remember seeing the trailers for, and avoided for pretty much the same reason. But I will tell you what, now that I have seen this I will probably have to see that, too, just for the sake of closing the circle.
Audio/Video: Kiss the Girls (1997) gets the 4K upgrade from Paramount Pictures Home Entertainment in 2160p UHD framed in 1.85:1 widescreen with a Dolby Vision upgrade. I never have watched this film previously, I remember when it hit the cinema I thought it looked a bit too slick for me to want to see it, so this was a first time watch for me. The source is in immaculate shape, film grain is tight and well-managed, and depth, clarity and color saturation look solid throughout. Having never seen the previous Blu-ray I cannot really compare it and say how much of upgrade it is, but I was certainly quite happy with it on it's own merits. Audio chores are capably handled by an uncompressed English DTS-HD MA 5.1 with optional English subtitles. The track is clean, free of hiss or distortion, and dialogue is delivered without issues, plus the Mark Isham (The Crazies) score has some nice oomph to it, with plenty of low-end.
Surprisingly this is the most barebones UHD I have ever comes across, we get nothing, aside from a Digital Copy of the film that redeems in UHD. The single-disc release arrives in a black keepcase with a single-sided sleeve of artwork, inside is the digital redemption code for a UHD copy of the film.
Special Features:
- Digital UHD Copy
