Morgan Freeman plays Alex Cross, a retired forensic psychologist pulled back into action after a brilliant criminal kidnaps a senator’s young daughter. The film wants to be a tense thriller about a clever villain and a desperate hunt, but it keeps losing focus.
Trailer, via KinkyCyborg.
Gary Soneji’s Game
Gary Soneji, played by Michael Wincott, is the film’s main villain. He has spent years working as a teacher to get close to his target, and he demands ransom while also pushing a scheme involving the son of the President of Russia. That second plot thread is supposed to raise the stakes, but the movie never quite connects the two threads properly.
Cross teams with Jezzie Flannigan, played by Monica Potter, a Secret Service agent who shares blame for the security failure that let Soneji through. Together they follow a trail of clues, but the story keeps circling back to the same ideas: Soneji’s past crimes, his desire for fame, and the ransom demand.
Where the Film Goes Wrong
The biggest problem is pacing. The middle stretch drags heavily, with repeated scenes of Cross and Flannigan following clues that lead nowhere new. The film keeps promising a bigger reveal about Soneji’s full plan, but it never delivers one that feels earned.
There are other issues too:
- The ransom demand is never fully explained, leaving the audience wondering why Soneji chose diamonds and how he expects to collect them.
- The character of Senator Hank Rose, played by Michael Moriarty, gets almost no development beyond being a worried father.
- The chase scenes feel rushed and hard to follow, with little sense of danger or urgency.
The film is at its best in the early scenes, where the setup is clear and the stakes are easy to grasp. Once the second plot involving the Russian boy enters the picture, the whole thing starts to fall apart.
Cast and Craft
Freeman anchors the film with his usual calm presence. He makes Cross believable even when the script around him stumbles. Monica Potter matches him well as Flannigan, bringing a sharp edge to her role. Michael Wincott plays Soneji with a quiet menace, though the script gives him less room to move than it should.
The film was a commercial success, grossing $105.2 million worldwide against a $60 million budget. That success is hard to square with the quality on screen.
This is a film that knows how to set up a villain but struggles to pay off the setup. The ransom demand, the Russian boy, the FBI’s failure to catch Soneji — none of it lands with the weight the script promises. Along Came a Spider is a disappointment, and it earns a score of 4.2 out of 10.
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