BONE COLLECTOR, THE (director: Phillip Noyce; screenwriters: Jeremy Iacone/ based on the book by Jeffery Deaver; cinematographer: Deam Semler; editor: William Hoy; cast: Denzel Washington (Lincoln Rhyme), Angelina Jolie (Amelia Donaghy), Queen Latifah (Thelma), Michael Rooker (Capt. Howard Cheney), Mike McGlone (Det. Kenny Solomon), Luis Guzman (Eddie Ortiz), Leland Orser (Richard Thompson), John Benjamin Hickey (Dr. Barry Lehman), Ed O'Neill (Det. Paulie Sellitto); Runtime: 118; Universal Pictures; 1999)
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
A mild thriller that has the glossy atmospheric look of a riveting horror film but not the impactful story to pull off this foolish sadistic killer tale in a reasonable manner, which results in one of the stupidest endings imaginable. It is a film that is done in the genre's formula mold, laying on all those mindless gory contrivances that horror fans have seen before, it is also a tale that has more holes in it than a New York City junkie.
For entertainment value, the movie forces the audience to look at how the police collect gruesome evidence at a crime scene, as an inexperienced policewoman, the former model, Amelia Donaghy (Angelina Jolie), assists a quadriplegic author and brilliant forensic expert, Lincoln Rhyme (Denzel Washington), in tracking down a serial killer who leaves arcane clues for them, as they are led around to New York City's underground sites, such as turn-of-the-century slaughterhouses and discarded subway stations. Her job is to be the first at the crime scene to insure that the evidence isn't trampled by the incompetent police and the 'pig' who is the police captain (Rooker). She talks with Rhyme by cell phone, as he leads her through the procedures of collectiving the evidence at the crime scene, with her bravely going into the dark passages to locate the victims, where the only light is from her flashlight.
The catch to this detective film being, that Rhyme can't get out of bed, that he controls his breathing tube, computer and TV from one click of his remote-control mouse, yet you know by the conclusion he will get the demented killer by outsmarting him. She is around to do all the physical work at the crime scene and to supply the film with a contrasting character who has a similar emotional problem: both are heroic and have to overcome something in the past that is blocking them -- in her case, the memory of her policeman father's suicide.
There is a twinkling of romance in their eyes, but he can't do anything about it because of his physical condition. The climactic romantic scene has Amelia caressing his index finger -- which goes for love in this film. Four years ago, while working a police case, he became crippled after a beam fell atop him while going down a shaft. He now suffers from seizures, has a full-time nurse (Latifah) taking care of him, and is concerned that any of these seizures could reduce him to a vegetable, in which case he plans to end his life rather than to live that way. We see him in close-up shots showing off his pearly white teeth while profusely smiling, acting petulant, displaying a genius for uncovering clues, while she looks at him with bouts of stubborness in between bouts of idylic sensual joy. The best part of the movie was the chemistry between the two. It's just too bad that the film was so manipulative, dull-witted, spewing bad dialogue as easily as steam that oozes out of a broken steam pipe, as the whole venture just seemed absurd.
The first murder victim is Mr. Rubin. His hand was found sticking out from the ground by the train tracks, as the beat cop Amelia was the first to arrive at the crime scene and did such a marvelous job collecting evidence, that her reward is to work with the master criminologist Rhyme, who works out of his home. The second victim is Mrs. Rubin, who was found later in a different location, scalded to death while in handcuffs.
When Amelia meets Rhyme for the first time, she says in a self-effacing manner that she learned what to do at the crime scene by reading his forensic text while at the Police Academy. Not wanting to be pulled from her new promotion to work with juveniles on a desk job, she tells him she wants out. He tells her some dribble about destiny, that destiny is what you make it -- if it's a gift you have for forensics, don't blow it. This dialogue is B movie material stuff, and that the stars talk this talk throughout the film, is a credit to them that they do it with straight faces. Their faces have star quality written all over it and even though this role doesn't determine if she can act or not, it does show that her face, like his, shines like a star, as the movie camera is very kind to the two of them.
The killer is disguised as a taxi driver, who picks up his victims at the airport or Grand Central Terminal, locks them in his car and speeds off into the thin air. There are a series of these killings besides the Rubins: an N.Y.U. student gets picked up for his cab ride to heaven and gets devoured by rats, and a father and daughter also go for a deadly taxi ride, but this time Amelia is getting good at reading the clues, and she gets to save the girl submerged in the East River before it is too late.
The film builds up to its hokey conclusion by firstly misleading the audience who the killer is, then it has the killer confront and attack Rhyme in a campy way, even biting him like a vampire in the neck. Its appeal might be that it is so absurd, so lacking in tension and quality filmmaking, that one might be lulled into its state of languor and accept it for what it is: another horror movie in a long line of such films that should be a staple at the drive-in or as a movie rental for insomniacs who choose not to rent porno to get their cheap thrills.
REVIEWED ON 9/28/2000 GRADE: C-
Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"
http://www.sover.net/~ozus
ozus@sover.net
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DENNIS SCHWARTZ
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews