Along Came a Spider

Plot synopsis:
The daughter of a United States Senator is kidnapped from her private school under the nose of her Secret Service agent Jezzie [Monica Potter]. The kidnapper is a teacher who uses the girl's habit for "passing" encrypted notes to her friend, the son of the Russian President, as a pretext for getting her away from other students to repremand her. He drugs her and flees the campus with her in tow.The kidnapper, Mr. Soneji, contacts the famous profiler Alex Cross [Morgan Freeman] to initiate the chase he has so dramatically laid out in his mind, The Secret Service agent, Jezzie Flannigan, who let the kidnappers get away with her charge, Megan Rose, pleads with Cross [Freeman] to let her help retrieve the girl so she can redeem herself. They both follow the clues that allude to the famous Lindbergh kidnapping case. They realize that the kidnapped Megan is being used to lure the real intended target away from his tight security; the son of the Russian president.Meanwhile Megan is being held on a boat and taking an active role in her own rescue, trying to escape and cleverly creating havoc; she takes the battery pack out of the intercom, asks to go to the bathroom, dropping the battery pack onto the stove next to the open flame under the teapot. It explodes, & while Soneji battles the blaze she runs out & jumps overboard. She catches the attention of a fisherman on shore; just as he is about to reach Megan, Soneji shoots him. He hauls Megan back on board...Soneji 1, Megan 0.After Alex & Jezzie are rejected when trying to warn the Russians, they decide to stake out the place anyway & Soneji makes his move against Demetri by tricking him into thinking he's corresponding w/ Megan. Demetri evades his security & goes to a phone booth. Meanwhile, Soneji has killed the 2 patrolmen & commandeered their car. He exits the car, moving toward the phone booth, but Alex & Jezzie see him. Gunfight ensues, Demetri is saved, but Soneji gets away. He returns to the boat to find that Megan is gone.Our erstwhile heroes get a phone call, saying the plan has changed & he wants $10mil in diamonds. There follows a lot of rigamarole w/ Cross carrying around a load of diamonds, following instructions from the voice on the phone. Unaware that Soneji no longer has the girl, Cross is running all over Washington DC, answering phones and running through train stations with the diamonds in a thermos for the complicated "drop", only his new partner on his tail for backup. Defeated, after having handed over the diamonds and getting no girl, the duo returns to Jezzie's apartment to discuss the case when there is a knock on the door. It's Mr Soneji with a Tazer in the Hall! He zaps Jezzie and she falls to the floor. He draws a gun on Alex who must give up his own gun or never find out where Megan Rose is. After a discussion of his miserable childhood & why he is the way he is, Soneji says he's taking Jezzie w/ him, but she wakes up and stabs him in the leg, allowing Cross time to load a shotgun and put an end to him. Jezzie sobs that they will never find Megan now. But Cross reveals to Agent McArthur (Dylan Baker) that Soneji had failed to react to a comment made by Cross about the $12mil ransom, from which he has concluded, since the ransom was $10mil, that Soneji had no idea what he was talking about, Megan is no longer with him & there are other kidnappers in play.Cross & Agent McArthur go over the school tapes, & Cross deduces that Soneji was hoodwinked by the new kidnappers. Meanwhile, we see Megan in her new kidnapper's abode. A faintly familiar face appears in a dimly lit room and is offering food to Megan. It's another Secret Service agent from her school and LO & BEHOLD! it's Agent Devine! He leaves her in her barn location, returning to the main house. & HOLY BETRAYAL! JEZZIE! They had followed Soneji around for a year & divined his plans. She demands to know where Megan is and is annoyed to learn she is still alive. She asks to see the diamonds and explains that Soneji is dead and Cross had twigged on the notion that he was not the sole plotter in the kidnapping. Divine asks if she thinks Cross is onto them. Jezzie says they are not onto the two of them, and blows a hole in her boyfriend's head commenting that Cross is onto HIM.Meanwhile Alex has timed the surveillance tapes from the day of the school kidnapping and puts it together that Agent Divine was essentially an accomplice. He runs to Jezzie's apartment and finds files on her computer that only the plotter would have! Things start to happen fast. Jezzie goes to the barn to get Megan, who initially is glad she's there but soon gets suspicious that there's no one else w/ her...smart girl! A nasty 1-sided gunfight ensues, with Jezzie chasing Megan all over the barn & Megan cleverly evading her. Alex catches Megan & keeps her from yelling while Jezzie slowly enters the trap. Alex comes up behind her, telling her to drop the gun. She doesn't, playing on Alex's guilt over his partner's death, thinking he won't shoot her...big mistake, as she raises her gun, & he does. Alex & Megan walk out of the barn together, his promise to return her to her parents puts smiles on all around.

Tags: plot twist, mystery, murder

Review:
And as everyone knows, that is about the highest compliment a film like this can be paid.Directed by Lee Tamahori, "Along Came a Spider" hits the ground running with a bravura sequence in which a federal sting goes horribly wrong and a good agent dies.
Det. Alex Cross (Morgan Freeman), the leader of the sting, goes into brooding isolation, but a year later, the daughter of a U.S. congressman (Michael Moriarty) is kidnapped from her prestigious Washington boarding school by a brilliant madman, and Cross, a mental wizard with the ability to see into the mind of the maddest psychopath, is the only one who can track the criminal's M.O. and save the girl.Standard thriller territory, and it's given more or less standard treatment, albeit with a fair share of stylistic spark and energy.
Detective Alex Cross(Morgan Freeman),on sick leave recovering from the lose of his partner, is called back into action when the daughter of Senator Rose(Michael Moriarty) is kidnapped from her private school.
ALONG CAME A SPIDER / (2001) ** (out of four)By Blake French:	In 1997, a big year for serial killer movies, Gary Fleder's "Kiss the Girls" enriched the genre with a sense of splendid atmosphere, mystery and intrigue.
So I question: why do killers always want to play elaborate cat and mouse games with detectives?Unlike "Kiss the Girls," "Along Came a Spider" lacks suspense and thrills because there is little tension in its structure.
Precocious kids, computers, and a famous kidnapping figure into this elaborate thriller set in Washington, D.C. A guilt-ridden detective (Morgan Freeman) and his Secret Service partner (Monica Potter) try to catch a psycho who abducts the child of a prominent family.
Yes, it has a few holes and gets bogged down a bit in the middle, but Freeman as always is a delight to watch and the film is about as good a thriller as you'll find in modern times.
"Along Came a Spider", with Freeman leading the way as a super sleuth cop who sets about to solve the kidnapping of a Senator's daughter, is strictly Hollywood formula film-making.
Such twists normally occur towards the end of the film, and often involve the disclosure of information about the identity or motivation of one or more of the characters.The modern fashion for the pseudo-intellectual criminal, who commits crimes so that he can play a sort of mental chess with the detective, seems to have started with "The Silence of the Lambs" (in itself a reasonably good film).
The title of the film derives from a comparison made between Soneji and a spider.The investigation of the crime is entrusted to Alex Cross, the Washington Police Department detective originally contacted by Soneji, and Jezzie Flanagan, the female Secret Service agent who was assigned to protect the girl and who failed to prevent her kidnapping.
In both cases the female character has an Irish surname (Donaghy in the earlier film).Morgan Freeman is a highly talented actor, as he showed in films such as "Driving Miss Daisy", "Glory" and "Unforgiven", but his talents are often wasted in routine thrillers; "Along Came a Spider" is an example, and his next film "High Crimes" another.
Monica Potter gives a rather wooden performance as Jezzie; she is not as good as Angelina Jolie, who played the equivalent role in "The Bone Collector", and certainly not as good as Jodie Foster in "The Silence of the Lambs".I won't say what the twist is that occurs near the end of the film, as I don't want to write a spoiler, although I must say it is not a credible one.
And like Kiss the Girls, Along Came A Spider is directed by a man who started in independent films and has graduated to making indistinct run-of-the-mill Hollywood thrillers.
Morgan Freeman has done better things in his hugely successful career, but performs to his usual high standard.Monica Potter is a glamorous woman, her beauty taking precedence over her strong character portrayal.
She seems a quiet lady, but Jezzie Flanagan's personality might be misleading, and could hide an angry and deeply hurt conscience, while the revengeful side to Michael Wincott works exceedingly well, such was his performance in the film Metro, and he convinces thoroughly.A thriller like Along Came A Spider does its best to keep the viewer interested, with tautly directed scenes and strong acting.
Even so, this movie is not the best ever made, and may leave you wondering what the point was in making it in the first place.If you do watch Along Came A Spider, stick with it and enjoy what it offers - I certainly did.
Taking on Secret Service agent Jezzie Flannigan as his partner, Cross tries to work out enough about Soneji to profile and catch him.It has been too many years since I saw Kiss The Girls for me to be able to comment on the quality or lack thereof in the first film but I decided to give this sequel a try anyway.
So many things didn't work, I don't really know where to begin.First, plot: this is a pretty average kidnapping movie that contains nothing we haven't seen a million times before.
But It Didn't Sit Beside Her, It Kidnapped Her. Based on James Patterson's best-selling novel in his Alex Cross series, Washington, D.C. detective/psychologist Alex Cross (Morgan Freeman, reprising his "Kiss the Girls" role) and Secret Service agent Jezzie Flanagan (Monica Potter) search for a senator's missing daughter, who was kidnapped by a truly brutal man (Michael Wincott).
They discover that the crime is more complex than either of them thought.Good, suspenseful scenes and endless plot twists make this a true mystery-thriller (especially the ending).
Wincott plays a terrific villain, and Freeman delivers the goods once again as Alex Cross.Fans of James Patterson's Alex Cross series should not find this movie difficult to like..
Great movie."When you said you do what you are".The way Morgan freeman says it defines the entire movie.Suspense ,thrill ,action .You just don't get bored at all.The movie offers you so much be it great acting ,exceptional screenplay and a great story line.Of course it has its own glitches where a police officer is more capable than the entire FBI but then again if every thing was realistic in our movies they wont be called works of fiction.Its definitely worth a watch and its just not a "kill time" movie.Go for it!Highly underrated going by the ratings it has received!.
If you, like me, never mind a good Morgan Freeman detective movie (there are lots of them), then you might get along with this just fine--with expectations in line with reality..
The studio re-shot the ending (and boy does it show) but when the film is good, it's great: Morgan Freeman can do no wrong and the cinematography is slick and Monica Potter is a real find.
Along Came a Spider is a decent movie with a good storyline that has several plot holes but still contains plenty of enjoyable scenes and a good cast.The movie certainly isn't as good as the previous Alex Cross movie Kiss the Girls,it just wasn't as exciting and there wasn't really any mystery as to who the kidnapper and other criminals were,they made the audience aware of everything so there was never a scene where you would be shocked or surprised.Morgan Freeman still does a good performance,but he's definitely done much better and I think he knew himself that about 90% of this script was far fetched and basically ridiculous.After watching this you will definitely be asking yourself a lot of questions,you'll be wondering how one thing happened,how did this happen,etc, you will definitely be confused because the writers clearly didn't develop this story enough.Along Came a Spider has it moments,but it's mostly just a mediocre crime movie and unless you want to see every movie that stars Morgan Freeman,I wouldn't recommend this movie.Forensic psychologist Alex Cross,teams up with secret service agent Monica Potter to track down a psychotic kidnapper.Best Performance:Morgan Freeman Worst Performance: Dylan Baker.
I'm a big, BIG fan of Patterson's Alex Cross books, and I don't think it's really fair to link this film (or 'Kiss the Girls') to them, because they're COMPLETELY changed, COMPLETELY different.
Morgan Freeman, the brilliant actor he is, is just getting to old to play Alex Cross who is a middle age man having relationships with most of the women of the novels, and Morgan being older means having to leave that out of the movies, which actually takes away from the story.
It's a thriller, where Morgan Freeman brings back the role of detective/profiler/mind-reader Alex Cross, who you may remember from Kiss the Girls.
I'm sure she has a bright career ahead of her starring in straight-to-Lifetime movies like "She Walked Alone" and "Stranger With My Baby."  In fact, the only difference between Along Came A Spider and your standard Sunday on Lifetime is another great performance by Freeman, who is one of a few actors we can really count on.
I think the film makes for a mildly entertaining watch, and it has a nice twist in the end.Better then Kiss the Girls, but that isn't saying much.
A nice movie to watch if you are bored, don't go out of your way, unless you are a huge Morgan Freeman fan.Monica Potter makes quite the impression.
Morgan Freeman is one of my favorite actors and his role in "Kiss the Girls" as Alex Cross encouraged me to read more stories by James Patterson.
The same password could also have been written in a number of ways, with `and' instead of `&', with only capital letters, only small letters or a combination, but Cross gets it right in the first try.)Minor problem: Obvious use of computer graphics in the beginning.This kind of detective story, were the detective does not use conventional clues such as witnesses and fingerprints but have to find far fetched clues to make him look smart,  is very hard to make believable but the movie is still entertaining and well worth seeing.
The performances apart from Monica Potter are strong, with Morgan Freeman great as always and Michael Wincott solid as the kidnapper.
It would be could good to have a couple more movies about Alex Cross.He is a good character and Kiss the Girls and Along Came A Spider isn't enough in My opinion.
I had really good time seeing one of the last efforts of Lee Tamahori the same director of Once were warriors (his real first famous film) and later the "commercial":The Mulholland drive.If you think are going to see something like "Seven" or some other typical serial killer's films, forget it.This is in a way quite intelligent because the director brings the audience to a non expected end, full of surprises.The cast is good and Morgan Freeman is in His role.Rating: 6/10.
There are a few little things like he is slightly too old for the character and he has a few lines that fall flat but on the whole I enjoyed his performance.The plot of the movie is good as well and does follow very close to the excellent book it is based on.
I have been a fan of the Alex Cross series for a while and this movie does capture the Patterson style of suspense and thrillingness that we expect from anything relating to this series (thrillingness is not a word but screw you it is my review).The Problem with this film is every other actor involved is weak.
Where the $60,000,000 was spent I do not know but it is a shame that probably most of it went into Freemans pay.A GREAT film like Reservoir Dogs was made for $1,200,000 and that was shot better, looked better and had a better supporting cast than this movie.
Along Came A Spider is not a bad film, it certainly has it's movements and a legendary star, but if you're a fan of the Alex Cross novels, expect to be disappointed..
Morgan Freeman made his second appearance as police detective/profiler Alex Cross in Along Came The Spider.
Those other players in the game think they've got Freeman bamboozled, but he's far from that.Along Came A Spider is an intelligent action thriller with major kudos going to Morgan Freeman for his portrayal of Alex Cross..
We have a new crime fighting character in the second of the Jay Patterson books transferred to film- Alex Cross, and it comes off better second time around.
The film is some mystery – no doubt, and is certainly worth watching for movie lovers.The story is about a forensic psychologist named Alex Cross (Morgan Freeman) who retires after a disastrous sting operation that resulted in the death of his partner.
Morgan Freeman role as Alex Cross was simply brilliant in this movie: I don't think any other actor was capable of this performance.I give this thriller of a film a deserved 8, but only JUST.
Alex Cross, whom we remember from "Kiss the Girls", and portrayed by Morgan Freeman, is just the kind of cop you like best: sincere, sympathetic, intelligent, thorough and committed.
Alex Cross, whom we remember from "Kiss the Girls", and portrayed by Morgan Freeman, is just the kind of cop you like best: sincere, sympathetic, intelligent, thorough and committed.
It's a cat and mouse game where Soneji seems to be inspired by the Lindbergh baby kidnapping.Morgan Freeman reprises his Alex Cross role from 'Kiss the Girls' replacing Ashley Judd with Monica Potter.
This is a sequel to Kiss the Girls, once again starring Morgan Freeman as detective/psychologist Alex Cross, who this time loses his partner while on the case and cannot forgive himself of the incident.
This kidnapper calls Det. Alex Cross (Morgan Freeman) who is recovering from the loss of his partner, to solve this case.I liked this movie because of the plot and because this movie combines really well the mystery of a crime with the suspense for the solution of this case.
I also liked it because is a subversive movie and because of the interpretations of Morgan Freeman who plays as Det. Alex Cross,Monica Potter who plays as Jezzie Flannigan and of the bad guy Michael Wincott who plays as Gary Soneji.Finally I have to tell you that the interpretation of the little one Mika Boorem's who plays as Megan Rose was really outstanding.
The problem is this kidnapper has a grudge with the detective.The movie star Morgan Freeman and Monica Potter.
I still think his best film was Se7en.Monica also did a great job she was very convincing in her character and you feel sorry for her through the movie as it was her character that was supposed to be protecting the kidnapped girl.My favourite character was the bad guy though, played by Michael Wincott.
- 1970), and (The Organization - 1971) we didn't run into more black crime solvers in movies, and be that genius, for a long time until Dr. Alex Cross (by Morgan Freeman) in (Kiss The Girls - 1997).
Along Came A Spider is based on a novel by James Patterson, and has Morgan Freeman reprising his role as FBI psychologist Alex Cross.
This is film is not as good as Kiss the Girls, and is not as dark, but it does fill a spot and is decent viewing.The basic plot of the film is Alex Cross is called out of retirement after a Senator's young daughter is kidnapped from her school under the noses of the Secret Service.
The kidnapper picks Cross to be the main negotiator because he is damaged: he is suffering from grief and guilt after the death of his partner.The film is not the most well written, with some of the plot twists a bit unbelievable: but it does offer some gems like general politics and the politics within the Secret Service, the kidnap itself (the first 30 minutes are the best) and the general psychology of the characters.
The clever, late-coming plot twist is a bit too mechanical but effectively unexpected, making this a satisfying prequel to the hit thriller Kiss the Girls--based on the first of James Patterson's Alex Cross detective novels--and a welcomed addition to a promising movie franchise.
While the literary Soneji was an extremely scary dude (and really the star of the book), the cinematic one wasn't even intriguing, without background or motive.From the appalling CGI at the start, through to the end, this was a movie that really lacked any verve, and the few twists that were thrown in there seemed to be an attempt to make up for how little tension was being built by staying close-ish to the book's plot.Sure, Morgan Freeman can act, and Monica Potter is an attractive girl, but this film is collectively a waste of time (I went to see 'Exit Wounds' on the same weekend, and I'm not sure which was worse).4/10.
It proclaimed intelligence while offering only sub-witty dialogue and lackluster plot.The action scenes were done well enough; engaging, well paced, and not too over the top.The high point of the film, and it's only saving grace, would be Michael Wincott and Morgan Freeman, who were both excellent as usual.All in all, I walked out of the movie feeling a little ripped off.
"Along Came A Spider" is the sequel to 1997's thriller "Kiss the Girls", in which Morgan Freeman plays detective and author Alex Cross.
Granted Morgan Freeman and Michael Wincott were excellent in their roles, but the performances don't make up for the plot's lack of originality and the slow pace of the film.
My guess on how, after 400 viewers rated this film, the rating was 6.2 is that most of the votes that really count hadn't yet been cast.If you've read Patterson's books, then you already know that both Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider are fantastic stories.It's a shame, though, that Morgan Freeman is, by far, one of the most underrated actors in the past decade, and someone can't give him a good script in this case.While this film has a very definitive, and plausible, plot, there's just too many things that are not believable.