Although Bruce Willis has starred in some of the biggest hits of the past 15 years, his best performances are usually found in movies that turn out to be relatively uncommercial. In blockbusters such as "Armageddon" or "Die Hard With a Vengeance," Willis seems to be going through his paces with a minimum of enthusiasm, but he was unforgettably creepy in director Alan Rudolph's "Mortal Thoughts" and did a superb job playing a shattered Vietnam vet in "In Country," both of which are currently languishing on a dusty shelf at a video store near you.
The fact that Willis is exceptionally good in "The Sixth Sense" cannot bode well for the film's prospects at the box office. Neither does the picture's deceptive ad campaign, which seems to promise a gruesome thriller. Instead, "Sense" is a slow-building drama with some sharp acting, a few shocks and a devilishly clever final twist.
In "Sense," Willis is cast as Dr. Malcolm Crowe, a Philadelphia-based child psychiatrist with "a gift for teaching children how to be strong," according to his wife Anna (Olivia Williams of "Rushmore"). His skills are put to the test when he takes on the case of Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment), a 9-year-old social outcast suffering from acute anxiety and symptoms of schizophrenia.
After some gentle prodding from Crowe, Cole finally reveals the reasons behind his bizarre behavior: He's an unwilling medium who can see and hear troubled spirits. The apartment Cole shares with his slowly unravelling mom Lynn (Toni Collette) is frequently visited by the spectres of people whose lives ended tragically, such as a little girl who was poisoned by her mom and an abused wife whose husband drove her to suicide.
Unlike the psychic hero of "The Shining" however, Cole is not being threatened by these visions. In fact, one of the flaws of writer-director M. Night Shyamalan's screenplay is its inability to decide exactly what Cole's ethereal friends want or why they've come to him. Even the author doesn't seem to have an answer.
What Shyamalan can offer instead is a quietly unsettling atmosphere, which sets "Sense" apart from most contemporary suspense films. That the movie works as well as it does is due primarily to Willis and Osment, an exceptionally expressive young actor who never resorts to cuteness. Willis effectively underplays Crowe's trepidations and dwindling self-confidence while Collette, the heroine of "Muriel's Wedding," is convincingly distraught in what turns out to be a rather underwritten role.
"Sense" is also extremely well-produced, using its City of Brotherly Love setting, an elegiac score by James Newton Howard and excellent editing to enhance its somber mood. Shyamalan's film proves sometimes silence can create a much more powerful impact than a steady bombardment of crashes and booms. James Sanford
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