Kiss the Girls

When his niece disappears from a North Carolina university campus, Washington detective and forensic psychologist Alex Cross travels to Durham to look into her case himself. He learns that several other young women have also gone missing, and that two bodies have been recovered. Local authorities resent his interference, but Cross continues his own investigation. A breakthrough comes in the form of Kate McTiernan, a doctor who managed to escape from the place where she was held captive. She is the only person who has seen the abductor, a man who signs himself Casanova. Together, Cross and McTiernan pursue the case from the small towns of the South toward the California coast, and they come to suspect that the man they are hunting may have a partner. The film is based on James Patterson's novel of the same name and is the first screen appearance of the character Alex Cross.

Gary Fleder directed, following his 1995 debut, Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead. Morgan Freeman plays Cross and Ashley Judd plays McTiernan, with Cary Elwes, Alex McArthur, Tony Goldwyn and Jay O. Sanders in supporting roles. The screenplay is by David Klass, and the credited cast and crew number 62 and 187 respectively.

Made for a budget of 27 million dollars, the film took about 61 million dollars worldwide. On IMDb it holds a rating of 6.6 from around 100,000 votes, while on TMDB it has 6.5 from just under 2,000 votes, indicating a generally moderate audience response. A critics' rating of 5.6 from 34 reviews places it close to those audience scores.