director
Lee Tamahori
screenwriter
Marc Moss
based on
the novel by
James Patterson
producers
David Brown
Joe Wizan
cinematographer
Matthew F. Leonetti
music
Jerry Goldsmith
editors
Nicolas De Toth
Neil Travis
cast
Morgan Freeman (Alex Cross)
Monica Potter (Jezzie Flannigan)
Michael Wincott (Gary Soneji)
Dylan Baker (Ollie McArthur)
Mika Boorem (Megan Rose)
Anton Yelchin (Dimitri Starodubov)
Kimberly Hawthorne (Agent Hickley)
Jay O. Sanders (Kyle Craig)
Billy Burke (Ben Devine)
Michael Moriarty (Senator Hank Rose)
Penelope Ann Miller (Elizabeth Rose)
Anna Maria Horsford (Vickie)
Jill Teed (Officer Tracie Fisher)
mpaa rating: R
running
time: 104m
u.s.
release: 4/6/01
video
availability: VHS -
DVD
official
website
other lee
tamahori films
reviewed on this website:
- die
another day
- mulholland falls
|
Great
filmmaking is sometimes found in the unlikeliest places. I would
like to refer you to the first five minutes of the otherwise
dull-as-dishwater Along Came a Spider, five minutes that
play like a brilliant short film. True, this prelude (which has
little to do with the rest of the film) derives from a time-tested
cliché -- a cop's traumatic loss of his partner, setting
him up to be hesitantly pulled back into action later -- but
we have to recognize skill where we find it, especially in this
dead and dreary movie season.
The cop in question is forensic psychologist Dr. Alex Cross (Morgan
Freeman), who's trying to nab a serial killer; his partner (Jill
Teed, who makes the most of her few minutes) is a decoy in Cross's
sting operation, riding in a car with the suspect. The plan goes
spectacularly bad, and director Lee Tamahori stages everything
-- the dread that develops when the partner's cover is blown;
the resulting unplanned bit of violence leading to a cataclsymic
accident -- with a sadist's eye for detail. I am something of
a connoisseur of scenes featuring characters who realize they're
about to die -- it's a test of any actor (will they overplay
it? underplay?) -- and Jill Teed does it as well as I've seen
it done. The set-up, the violent climax, the bleak ending --
this prelude is almost a terrific noir film in miniature.
I've gone on so long about the opening of Along Came a Spider
because the remainder of the film offers little to talk about.
Even if I were inclined to deal with the plot at length, this
is one of those thrillers -- the kind that you can't review
without contorting yourself into pretzels to avoid spoiling the
"surprises." After eight months of mourning his partner,
Cross is drawn back into the game when a remote evil genius (Michael
Wincott) kidnaps a senator's little daughter. Joining Cross on
the case is Secret Service Agent Jezzie Flannigan (Monica Potter),
who had been assigned to protect the girl and now feels bad about
it. Many cat-and-mouse games follow, accompanied by many scenes
of the usually fun-to-watch Michael Wincott growling into a phone
being all diabolical and ingenious. Is there some school where
movie evil geniuses learn all their neat tricks?
Name three other movie series wherein a 63-year-old African-American
gets to play a recurring hero. There are no others; Morgan
Freeman has the only one -- Alex Cross previously headlined 1997's
Kiss the Girls, based, like the present film, on a novel
by James Patterson. I don't begrudge Freeman his own hero-man
franchise -- hey, bring on the Alex Cross action figure if you
want to -- but I do wish the movies worked harder to be worthy
of their central star. Freeman, a co-producer on Along Came
a Spider, looks mildly bored in it; he scarcely smiles (hell,
even the grim-as-a-rainy-funeral Seven
gave him a fine hearty laughing scene). Maybe he's as uninspired
by his co-star Monica Potter, with whom he trades most of his
lines, as I was; Potter, very obviously being groomed as Julia
Roberts Jr., is almost perfectly bland until her final scenes,
when she tries too late to be interesting.
Remember a paragraph ago, when I said "Many cat-and-mouse
games follow"? There's your review; that's Along Came
a Spider in a nutshell. My code of honor as a reviewer prevents
me from spoiling the plot twists that aren't worth preserving
in the first place (and the plot, upon later deconstruction,
makes no sense whatsoever). Oh, well. At least we have those
first five minutes -- encouraging evidence that the director,
Lee Tamahori, isn't completely dead yet. Tamahori had, with 1994's
Once Were Warriors, one of the strongest and most original
debuts in recent memory; his films thereafter (Mulholland
Falls, The Edge, and the final 99 minutes of this
film) have eluded recent memory. Tamahori's handling of
violence, though, is as vital and painful as ever. What he needs,
like all directors, is a script that actually means something. |