The Sixth Sense Review
by "David N. Butterworth" (dnb AT dca DOT net)August 10th, 1999
THE SIXTH SENSE
A film review by David N. Butterworth
Copyright 1999 David N. Butterworth
**1/2 (out of ****)
The opening, very deliberate minutes of "The Sixth Sense," Bruce Willis' latest retread, sets up the oft-seen marital-celebration-interrupted-by-dangerous-threat situation, in which child psychologist Malcolm Crowe (Willis) and his wife Anna ("Rushmore"'s pretty but here pretty ineffective Olivia Williams) are toasting their success. Buzzed on red wine, the couple are admiring a plaque presented to Crowe by the mayor of Philadelphia when suddenly there's a crash in their bathroom. The frightened couple investigates to find a scary-looking man standing there dressed only in a pair of dirty y-fronts, very uninvited and very upset.
For a moment I was reminded of a Michael Winner horror film from the mid-'70s called "The Sentinel" in which Christina Raines' father appears also uninvited in her bedroom looking just like that, right before Christina slices off his nose with a kitchen knife.
In Philadelphia's own M. Night Shyamalan's psychological drama, Willis confronts the intruder a little less violently, but it soon becomes clear from the man's rantings that this is a former patient of Crowe's who's not very satisfied with his treatment. Crowe thinks he can end this standoff without bloodshed, but the crazy is having none of it and pulls a gun and shoots Crowe in the stomach before taking his own life. Crowe is left, quite literally, with blood on his hands.
Bummer.
Referred to by appreciative city officials as one of "Philadelphia's sons," Crowe is assigned to monitor an eight-year-old boy who, his crib notes tell him, has divorced parents and suffers from acute anxiety. Cole (convincingly portrayed by Haley Joel Osment) has a history of emotional problems, as well as some physical scarring, and Crowe sets out to try and help the boy. Oh, and Cole claims he can see dead people too.
1. Sight. 2. Sound. 3. Smell. 4. Taste. 5. Touch. 6. Interacting with the Deceased? It just doesn't have the same ring.
Which reminds me of something else I remember from "The Sentinel."
Since that film, with its all-star cast, had difficulty in making its paranormal horror credible, it threw in a number of gross-out scenes to try and compensate. And that's exactly what proves to be "The Sixth Sense"'s undoing.
My "favorite" scene in the film comes when Cole is once again hiding in his tent, shining a flashlight under his chin for the best possible horrific effect, and the camera suddenly pans to the right to reveal a pale young girl with bloodshot eyes who vomits up her morning oatmeal. Why worry about all that thoughtful, serious psychological stuff when you can cheat your audience with cheap shock scenes like that.
Toni Collette ("Muriel's Wedding") plays Cole's hardworking South Philadelphian mother and, alongside Osment, she's the best thing in the picture. Collette can't quite manage a "sarf filly" accent, but her look--from her floozy attire to her garish fingernails--is spot on. After many long, uninvolving scenes of Crowe trying to bond with the child punctuated by all those unwelcome scare tactics, Crowe finally tells Cole to confront his fears rather than be afraid of them, and Shyamalan wraps this rather obvious medical advice up with a nicely-loaded metaphor (Cole plays Arthur in his school's adaptation of "The Sword in the Stone"). That happens right before the film's spurious "gotcha!" ending.
Willis is no Olivier, but he's often fun to watch. Unfortunately, most of "The Sixth Sense" isn't. Even with its potentially interesting supernatural bent, it's still largely schlock footage.
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David N. Butterworth
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