The Bone Collector
USA 1999. Director: Philip Noyce
Cast: Denzel Washington, Angelina Jolie, Michael Rooker

You just know it. Every time you see Michael Rooker (Henry) in a movie, you just know he's the bad guy. And even if it turns out that he isn't (which actually happens), you have just spent two hours assuming he was and the filmmakers know it. In this movie from the director of Dead Calm, Rooker plays second fiddle as the police chief in a case with another inventive serial killer. Denzel Washington is Lincoln Rhyme, some kind of crime venue expert who has broken his whole body in an accident and is now forced to spend the rest of his life in bed. Enters a dedicated street-cop shaped in the form of Angelina Jolie (once in Cyborg 2, now an Oscar winner, my my), who becomes Rhyme's extra hand and eyes in field work. The game can begin.

The Bone Collector is actually a rather good little serial killer movie, based upon the popular novels by Jeffery Deaver, but not much more. As if that shouldn't be enough. It's very well made, with some very exciting set-pieces. I've praised Denzel Washington before so let's not do that again (other than that he spends the entire movie in bed, but still manage to give a warm and strong performance using more or less only his face expressions). The rest of the cast does a fair job as well, most notably Ed O'Neil, Al Bundy in TV's Married With Children in a straight role. O'Neil is a excellent character-actor who is not often enough given a chance to prove his ability, so his fairly big supporting role here is welcome. And Luis Guzman (Traffic)... the greatest. Always in good form, always underused. Back to this film, the writers doesn't really offer anything special other than what we have come to expect from movies such as it. A handful of imaginative and bloody killings, a collection of clues and a bunch of nice suspects. There's not much you haven't seen before in Silence of the Lambs, Seven, Jennifer 8 or other movies more successful than this one. And the ending is just too banal to even mention. Nevertheless, it's a safe, good thriller. One to rent, not buy.

© The Inzomniac's Movie Madness Review.