Kiss the Girls is a 1997 American neo-noir psychological thriller film directed by Gary Fleder and starring Morgan Freeman, Ashley Judd, and Cary Elwes.

Dr. Alex Cross, a forensic psychologist and detective from Washington D.C., is devastated to learn that his niece, Naomi, a college student in Durham, North Carolina, has been missing for four days.

Together, they visit a crime scene in the woods where the body of one of the missing women has been found, brutally murdered and tied to a tree, heightening Cross’s fears for Naomi's safety.

She wakes up in a stone-walled room, heavily sedated, and is told by Casanova that he admires her talents and promises she won't suffer if she complies with his rules.

Kate eventually manages to overpower Casanova during one of his visits and escapes into the woods, jumping off a cliff into a river to ensure her freedom.

Cross investigates further and discovers that a plastic surgeon in California, Dr. William Rudolph, had suspiciously ordered a large quantity of Sistol, a benzodiazepine drug, which was used to sedate the captives.

The police also discover a hidden freezer which contains mutilated body parts of his victims, distinguishing the Gentleman Caller's MO from Casanova's.

Back in North Carolina, with the help of Naomi’s boyfriend who is familiar with the area, Cross locates the hideout where the women are being held.

[5] The film was not shown in some theaters in central Virginia at the time of release, due to the unsolved murders of three teenage girls in the area.

The website's consensus reads: "Detective Alex Cross makes his inauspicious cinematic debut in Kiss the Girls, a clunky thriller that offers few surprises.

[8] Stephen Holden of The New York Times said the film "is cut from the same cloth as The Silence of the Lambs, but the piece of material it uses has the uneven shape and dangling threads of a discarded remnant.... [It] begins promisingly, then loses its direction as the demand for accelerated action overtakes narrative logic".

Holden writes of Morgan Freeman that he "projects a kindness, patience and canny intelligence that cut against the movie's fast pace and pumped-up shock effects.

[9] In the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert gave the film three and a half out of four stars and said, "David Klass, the screenwriter, gives Freeman and Judd more specific dialogue than is usual in thrillers; they sound as if they might actually be talking with each other and not simply advancing plot points.... [They] are so good, you almost wish they'd decided not to make a thriller at all - had simply found a way to construct a drama exploring their personalities".

[10] Rita Kempley of The Washington Post called the film "a tense, scary, perversely creepy thriller" and added that "David Klass ... blessedly deletes the graphic descriptions of torture and rape included in the novel.

He was more impressed by the film's stars, calling Morgan Freeman "compelling" and "a hero of extraordinary power that comes almost entirely from his unemotional, calculating calm", and stating that Ashley Judd "gives the sometimes plodding drama a dose of intense vitality.