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The Bone Collector (1999) Denzel Washington .................... Lincoln Rhyme Angelina Jolie ............................ Amelia Donaghy Queen Latifah ........................... Thelma Michael Rooker .......................... Captain Howard Cheney Leland Orser .......................... Richard Thompson Synopsis Released in late 1999, The Bone Collector was originally promoted as a thriller in the tradition of The Silence of the Lambs and Seven, suggesting that it would earn a place among those earlier, better films. Nice try, but no cigar. The Bone Collector settles instead for mere competence and the modest rewards of a well-handled formula. With a terrific cast at his service, director Phillip Noyce (Dead Calm, Patriot Games) turns the pulpy indulgence of Jeffery Deaver's novel into a slick potboiler that is grisly fun only if you don't pick it apart. Noyce expertly builds palpable tension around a series of gruesome murders that lead us into the darkest nooks of New York City. Now a bedridden quadriplegic prone to life-threatening seizures and suicidal depression, forensics detective Lincoln Rhyme (Denzel Washington) gets a new lease on life with a sharp young beat cop (Angelina Jolie) who's a wizard at analyzing crime scenes. She does field work while he deciphers clues from his high-tech Manhattan loft, and as they narrow the search their lives are increasingly endangered. As this formulaic plot grows moldy, Noyce resorts to narrative shortcuts, using perfunctory scenes to manipulate the viewer and taking morbid pleasure in his revelation of the murder scenes. And yet it all works, to a point, and the cast (including Queen Latifah and Luiz Guzmán) is much better than the material. If you're looking for a few good thrills, The Bone Collector is a pretty safe bet. From Amazon.com Availability Video and DVD; should be easy to find. The Leland Factor Small but, well, important. He appears once at the beginning, once towards the middle, and at the very end. Allison's Review I thought it was a fairly good movie overall (I actually liked it better than the book). You can't go wrong with Denzel, and I've always thought Queen Latifah was a rather natural actress. She and Denzel have a good rapport. I don't mind Angelina Jolie, either, and while I found the rapidity of her connection to Lincoln a little unbelievable, it was still handled well. (Lincoln and Amelia were so together at the end of the movie.) Leland's character, Richard, is a medical technician who installs and repairs the quadriplegic Lincoln's assorted medical machines. In his first scene he's very personable and you can tell he and Lincoln are friends of a sort. I really like Leland's smile--he doesn't tend to get to do that very often in his roles, and I'm always glad when he does. The blondish highlights to his hair were nice, too. Plus I thought Richard was a pretty snappy dresser. :) If you're reading this page, you probably don't mind spoilers, so I'll come right out and say that Richard is the movie's villain. I found his motive to be pretty realistic, and I liked the movie's version better than the one in the book (in the book, the titular Bone Collector is an entirely different kind of character). I actually felt really sorry for Richard and what he had gone through because of Lincoln. Plus, there was something about Leland's performance that made me believe that Richard really was smart enough to have planned and carried out the murders the way he did. I found him absolutely mesmerizing in his final showdown with Denzel. Said showdown did get a bit campy towards the end (carrots? zucchini?) and I don't think that Richard was stupid enough to fall for Lincoln's ploy to get him close enough to pull a zombie maneuver--granted, the man was in some severe pain at the time, though. Plus Richard's last-ditch attempt to shuffle Lincoln off the mortal coil was a bit overdramatic. But Leland was still pure pleasure to watch. Verdict Recommended for fans of Leland and the serial killer genre alike. It's good, slightly brainless fun. /back |