Thriller Genre Within Crime Fiction example essay topic

I am going to talk to you about the movie Kiss the Girls... Created from the novel by james Patterson. Kiss the Girls can be placed in the Crime Fiction genre. Then further can be placed in the thriller Genre within Crime Fiction, then furthermore can be placed into the psychological thriller and the Police Procedural branches within Crime fiction. To understand how exactly it fits into this genre, and how it contributes to it, we must understand first what Crime fiction is and then what the basic structure of this film and basic thrillers and Police procedurals may be. Crime fiction is incredibly vast and complicated and things cannot be simply categorized as Crime fiction and be easily understood as the area holds a whole world of sub genres, each one with a wide range of intriguing Crime fiction texts.

Kiss the Girls involves two serial Killers... one in North Carolina and the other in Los Angeles. The crimes that they are both commiting are very similar and the FBI thinks they might be connected or carried out by the same person. Even more, the killers seem to be talking to each other, or competing with each-other in their actions. Police psychologist, Alex Cross is our hero, as in all of James Patterson's novels. Cross is unintentionally involved in the case, when his niece Naomi is kidnapped from her university. After becoming involved, Cross discovers numerous women, all beautiful and accomplished have gone missing and two have been found dead.

This suggests the malefactor (who calls himself Casanova) is a "collector". We follow Cross in his determination to find the 7 girls including his niece as we try to beat him in figuring out who the murderer is and where he is keeping these young girls. Interesting facts unfold themselves as we realize the killers are infact working together and find secret places in their upmarket apartments. A beautiful medical intern Dr. Kate Mc Tiernan (Ashley Judd) is taken from her home in the middle of the night by this "casanova."..

She is taken into his underground nest and finally journeys her way out as we follow the thrilling scene as she fights for her life. Kate then becomes alex's sidekick for the rest of the film and assists him in solving the complications of the mystery. Crime fiction is for our purposes narrative fiction which deals in some way with a crime. This is a very broad definition, but the definitions change from context to context.

Police procedurals must be realistic depictions of official investigations. They emphasize teamwork, methodical pavement-pounding, lucky breaks, administrative hassles, and endless paperwork. Procedurals were until recently an exclusively American phenomenon; and they retain a working-class, down-to-earth, close to the streets feel -- including abundant profanity, irony, sick humor, and tragedy. Kiss the girls fits into the catagory of Police Procedural as it follows the detective and police force in trying to solve a crime.

It is set in some part in a police station and deals with the issues inside the police force. The way things take place in the movie is very realistic to the police force, therefore the audience remains interested. A Thriller is a text that holds a high level of action and particular type of plot: instead of solving a crime that occurs at or before the beginning of the narration, the thriller is built around a more linear plot device such as a chase, a showdown, a rescue, an act of vigilante justice, or a race against time to prevent a crime from occurring. There can also be a whodunit element, but it is subordinate to the main plot device. Almost all thriller protagonists are male, and they usually aren't the weedy, whiny, Woody Allen type either.

The average thriller is longer than the average mystery, which makes a rapid pace essential to success; when skillfully written, thrillers can also carry the load of bigger themes than strict realism will allow. A thriller will start with a serious problem, a protagonist (our hero) who tries to solve the problem only to find it gets worse and worse. The plot rises to a dramatic confrontation with the antagonist (bad guy), usually on the bad guy's territory & ends with a short denouement (wrapup). The plot usually will address life and death issues and nearly always put the protagonist and other characters close to him in danger. The antagonists are normally seriously malevolent. Kiss the girls fits into the Catagory of a psychological thriller as its protagonist, Alex Cross, is, infact a Police psychologist and he uses Psychological techniques to attempt to understand the Profile of the Killers and work out why certain things are taking place.

It is also defined as this because the killer is incredibly mentally unstable and believes he is Casanova and believes these beautiful young women are in love with him. Alex Cross shows us this perfectly when he says to Kate", however much you hate him, multiply that by a hundred... thats how much he thinks he loves you " It also follows the structure and has characteristics of a thriller. Alex Cross takes part in the chase of the Antagonist, casanova and his assistant, rudolf. It is a race against time to stop the murders of the remaining girls from taking place, for Alex, he is driven by the personal fact he is fighting to save his Nieces life.

The thriller starts with the problem of Alex's niece being taken, he trys to solve the problem but only finds out, like the structure of a thriller, that the problem only gets worse and worse and numerous women just like Naomi have been taken, eventhough she is the only black girl. The plot rises as Alex unravels the story with clever clues and ideas in front of our eyes until the moment of confrontation comes with casanova, who is infact a police officer we have trusted for the entire film at Kates house. Kiss the girls doesn't actually have one time of confrontation but begins with one time of confrontation between Rudolf and Alex Cross, at Rudolf house after the officers had followed him around all night. He gets away and Cross continues to try to solve the case. The next point of confrontation is where Casanova keeps his young women and rapes and abuses them. Cross gets inside and casanova and Rudolf get away.

He follows them, shooting Rudolf dead with Casanova escaping. The final point of confrontation is in Kates house, when "Casanova" goes to visit her at the same time Cross is realizing who the antagonist is. It is then a race against time as Kate is alone with this crazy man and Cross is driving to her house hoping he isn't too late. It is then wrapped up when we see the Antagonist shot and killed by our protagonist, the hero.

Kiss the Girls contributes to the Genre in many ways. When a text contributes to a genre it will either stick to the outline of its genre or it will subvert from it, expanding the readers views on the genre and expanding other writers views on it.