“Alex Cross” looks like your typical cop-chasing-serial-killer kind of movie, but it turns out to be more than that. I got to see a special sneak preview of it on October 5, 2012, and it surpassed my expectations as to what it could be. The movie serves as a reboot of the character writer James Patterson created years ago, the same one which was played by the great Morgan Freeman in “Kiss the Girls” and “Along Came a Spider.” But here we get an Alex Cross which is much closer to the way he appeared in Peterson’s books, and that’s saying a lot.
Like many franchise reboots, this one takes us back to the character’s origins. We meet up with Alex Cross, this time played by Tyler Perry, when he is a police detective investigating an especially sadistic set of murders. It soon turns out that those murders were perpetrated by Michael “The Butcher” Sullivan, a.k.a. Picasso (Matthew Fox like you’ve never seen him before), and when Cross and his team end up double crossing Michael and keep him from eliminating one of his targets, he ends up coming after Cross with a severe vengeance which will leave a heavy emotional scar.
Tyler Perry who himself has created quite the empire for himself from his character of Madea and all those other movies he has written, produced and directed. Idris Elba was originally supposed to play this famous literary character in this reboot, but for whatever reason it didn’t work out. But in the end it doesn’t matter because Perry literally kicks ass in this role. Look we all love Freeman as an actor, but Perry proves to be much closer to the character in the way Patterson conceived of him originally. Many heads were rolling when it was announced that Perry would be taking on the part of Alex Cross, but those doubters will quickly be silenced once they see him here.
Michael “The Butcher” Sullivan is portrayed by Matthew Fox, and he creates one of the scariest psychopaths you could ever hope to see in any movie released in 2012. The actor lost a serious amount of weight and shaved all the hair off his head, and the dedication he shows in portraying this character is never in doubt. He ends up seducing one of his victims and cuts off her fingers one at a time with relative ease, and from there you know this is one nasty opponent that will not be easily defeated. Fox is light years away from his work on “Party of Five” and “Lost” as he digs deep into the nastiness of his character, and he will leave you floored as “The Butcher” literally shows no mercy on anybody.
Directing “Alex Cross” is Rob Cohen, the same filmmaker responsible for bringing us “The Fast and The Furious.” This marks the first movie he had made in several years, the last being “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor,” and here he revels in working on a film which doesn’t have the budget of your usual summer blockbuster. With limited resources, Cohen infuses many scenes with raw emotion like when Perry has to console his devastated daughter or match wits with his strong willed mother (played with a no-nonsense intensity by Cicely Tyson). This is a movie which could have just coasted on “CSI” theatrics, but it instead works on the strength of its characters.
Other terrific performances to be found in “Alex Cross” come from Ed Burns who plays Detective Tommy Kane, Cross’ partner and friend since childhood. While Tommy could have been your usual dumbass cop who’s better at shooting himself in the foot more than anything else, Burns imbues his character with a lot of heart and rage which he shares with Perry when things get really dark. Burns, who continues to make significant waves in the independent film community, could have just sleepwalked through this role with ease but he did not. As a result he proves to be every bit as good as Perry.
One other actor to take note of here is Rachel Nichols who plays Cross’ and Kane’s fellow partner Monica Ashe. Nichols has appeared in a number of movies like J.J. Abrams’ “Star Trek” where she appeared as the green Orion girl and in “Charlie Wilson’s War” among others. Here she creates a very strong presence that is impossible to forget as her character matches wits with Burns’ with little to no ease. The only major downside of her character is that she disappears from the movie much too soon.
Alex Cross” is one of those movies that could have just coasted on delivering the requisite suspense and action scenes, and we usually enjoy them as long as we don’t demand too much from the finished product. But director Cohen and company have taken pains to make this particular cop-chasing-serial killer movie stand out from others like it, and their efforts do show in the form of inspired casting choices and scenes of real emotion. Don’t go into it thinking that everyone involved was in it for an easy paycheck because that was not the case. And after watching this movie you will never look at Tyler Perry (or for that matter Matthew Fox) in the same way ever again.
