The Sixth Sense
Director:M. Night Shyamalan
Screenplay:M. Night Shyamalan
Starring:Bruce Willis, Toni Collette, Olivia Williams, Haley Joel Osment and Donnie Wahlberg
John's Review
Something should be said for thrillers that actually make you think. The Sixth Sense is one of those rare bread of films, I think the last film I saw in this vain was Dead Again, a taught physcollogical thriller which made you think and had a kind of twist of an ending.
The story revolves around a child psychologist, Malcolm Crowe (Willis) and a young boy, Cole Sear (Osment, of Forrest Gump fame) who, as the trailers so tactfully told us, "can see dead people." The story opens with Crowe and his wife (Williams), celebrating a recent award that he received from the mayor for his help with troubled children. There is a break-in, by a former patient of Crowe's, Vincent Gray (a very unrecognizable, Wahlberg). Claiming that Crowe was wrong about him and didn't help him, he shoots Crowe in the stomach and proceeds to kill himself. Cut to several months later Crowe, filled with guilt, is waiting to meet his newest child client. A boy whose symptoms are remarkably similar to Gray's.
The story starts off a little slow, with the introduction of the two main characters. From here we build a strong conclusion that ever since Crowe has been shot his life hasn't been the same. His relationship with his wife is strained, he forgets appointments and has a longing to help this boy, to perhaps redeem himself with his failure with Gray. We then start to feel the goosebumps and the hairs on the back of our necks rise, just as Sear suggests, "that's them." A couple of "make you jump out of your seat" scenes and then we begin to find out just what it is that Crowe has to do to help little Sear.
Writer-director M. Night Shyamalan is clearly fascinated with the idea of exposing children to death, his first movie, Wide Awake, was about a 10-year-old Catholic school boy searching for the meaning of life after his grandfather dies. Bruce Willis' role was a little off center from his usual roles, he's so self-consciously serious in this film that his performance consists of nothing more than pursed lips, blank stares, and whispering. Toni Collette is touching in a rather un-heralded role as Cole's working-class mom. Williams, so charming in The Postman, is reduced to a series of soft-focus close-ups. She's passively pretty and quiet in that nice "wifey" sort of way.
As I said before, the filming is similar to Dead Again, and much like that film, if you pay attention, you'll figure out the ending about half-way through the film. One of the few thriller's that actually makes you think. I enjouyed this movie and strongly recommend it to anyone wanting a good thinking-man's film.
Grade: A-
