Along came a detective

Human Events, Apr 23, 2001 by Pearcey, J Richard

Morgan Freeman Nabs a Two-Legged Spider

Spiders show up in the strangest places, often unannounced. If you're in a James Bond flick, a tarantula might appear in your bed, an eight-legged creature placed there by the henchman of an evil genius. If you're shaving and getting ready for work, that itchy feeling you feel on your stomach could be-"What! It is! A spider! Get off me!"

Morgan Freeman's latest film, Along Came a Spider,. is about the two-legged human variety of the species (homoarachnidus). These are the worst kind of spiders, and like their octo-legged cousins, they come in many varieties and show up in places where you'd least expect. The movie is based on a best-selling novel by James Patterson, who has an affinity for mining nursery rhymes as sources for the titles of his books ("Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet, eating her curds and whey, when along came a spider . .").

Freeman, who gives yet another masterful acting performance, reprises his role of Dr. Alex Cross, the D.C. homicide detective/psychologist who first appeared in the 1997 film Kiss the Girls.

In Along Came a Spider, his job is to catch -Gary Soneji (played by Michael Wincott of The Three Musketeers and The Crow), a criminal who can shoot to kill, kidnap, cover his tracks and apply disguises with the best of them. And he can handle the computer curves of Al Gore's (remember him?) superhighway at Mach 1.

The story begins in earnest when Soneji kidnaps the daughter of a U,S. senator, taking her right out from under the noses of the Secret Service. Cross is brought into the case when the kidnapper contacts him-to draw him in so that the master criminal can have a worthy opponent.

The agent in charge of security (and who failed to protect the girl) is Jezzie Flannigan (played by Monica Potter, from Patch Adams and Con Air). She becomes Cross's new partner, and midway through the movie you hope the real Secret Service has no agents as apparently slow on the uptake at this doe-eyed blond appears to be. That perception of Flannigan changes by the end of the film, and how it changes you'll have to see to believe.

The film rushes on across plotholes bigger than D.C. potholes, but with Freeman as the center of gravity, this matters not. Around Freeman's Dr. Cross whirl knives and tazer guns; surprise silencer shootings (tap, tap, tap, you're dead-from a boat at sea no less); a fisherman who should have stayed home; the adventures of the son of the Russian president; a shoe-leather tour of Washington, D.C. (very reminiscent of Clint Eastwood's hoofing it around San Franciso in Dirty Harry); the calmest, smartest kidnap victim ever; naive American policemen; an even more naive Russian security detail-and, and-a surprise ending.

Speaking of surprises, here's a wonderful one: There's no sex in the movie. (Memo to ex-President Clinton: Stay home and watch Oval Office videos instead.)

In fact, it's a relief when Cross tells the worried senator and his wife that it's unlikely that the kidnapper will sexually assault their daughter. Maybe someone in Hollywood realizes that audiences aren't flocking to theaters to view detailed reminders that, oh yes, in real life the horror of the sexual assault of children happens-as is plainly the case in the homosexual murder of Jesse Dirkhising (see "Pro-Homosexual Media Spiked Story of Murdered Boy," HuMAN EvENT's, April 9, page 16). (Note, however, that if the spiders at NAMBLA-North American Man Boy Love Association-have their way, parents who want to protect their children from sexual assault by homosexual adults may well in the future be deemed "sexual racists" or such by the networks and mainstream press. By then Detective Cross may be going after "unenlightened" parents.)

In one scene, Cross is asked by Soneji for an explanation of what's gone wrong to make him such a bad guy. Is it nature or nurture? Cross breaks through the psychobabble we've all heard since high school and tells Soneji that he has an "inordinate desire to bum in Hell"-to the evident approval of the movie audience.

Some might think this is a throw-away line used to get laughs. Could be.

But on a deeper level, Cross is giving Soneji (and the audience) excellent psychologicalspiritual counsel: Stop trying to escape your guilt for your behavior by blaming nature (I was born this way-my genes made me do it) or nurture (my mamma made me do it).

Cross is confronting Soneji with the reality that he is a choosing being, and that means he is responsible, and that his choices in time have consequences in the hereafter. As Maximus says in Gladiator before the opening battle, "What we do in life echoes in eternity." Soneji is responsible for making himself who he is, and he is responsible for his ultimate destination.

In the nursery rhyme about Little Miss Muffet, children are taught what to do when a spider sits down beside them: Don't let the spider get you! Run! (Just in case they have to be told.)

. In the world of Alex Cross, life may be more complex, but the basics that give rise to that complexity are much the same. There is a real difference between good and evil ("spiders" exist)and that noble creation we know as Man can both be great and cruel. That's the ontology of why a mind can be "a terrible thing," as Soneji" says with glee.