Good movie, but not ingenious.

Rating: 7/10 (12 March 2015)

I had a good time watching this film. It had a good plot, and the acting was definitive. This and signs, which will come out two years after this film, are the only two shyamalan films that have impressed me. The plot summed up is that an impeccable child psychologist is gunned down by one of his old patients. A year later, the psychologist appears to have made a full recovery. He meets an emotionally unstable boy, who appears to have a few mental, and social problems. After meeting the boy, he learns that he has a secret dark gift: he is able to see dead people.
The acting was great. For being only 11 years old in this film, Haley Joel Osment did a fantastic job portraying an outcast, who is terrified of his own shadow. Definitely one of the more talented child actors of this era in film. Bruce Willis did a fantastic job of playing a workaholic psychologist, who is in some marital problems. His reaction to the uncovered secret at the end of the film was almost perfect, until after he calmed down. That one scene ruined his performance for almost the entire movie.
The cinematography was up to par, but up to par only. It really wasn't anything game changing, or ground breaking. These are the old cinematic tricks, and I feel that these are the only thing that Shyamalan knows. Close ups, hand helds, and gods eyes over and over again. It was done well with what he had, but it was really bland after a while. Considering most people don't watch a movie for its cinematography, I can't really take off a star for that.
The writing. Okay here we go. Some of you may hate me, some of you may love me. This is 16 years after the film was released. I will say that for the time, this was a good plot twist and almost something new. Just because the famous plot twist at the end was new, doesn't mean it was good. It really was kind of expected and didn't surprise me at all. We see a lot of clichés in this movie. Single mom with two jobs, emotionally unstable social outcast with a secret gift, workaholic with marriage problems, bully who is superior in every way ends up being the outcast in the end, and so on. It's fine that he uses them in his writing, but they just don't impress anyone in the end. Oh here we go again! The elephant in the room. The ending. The plot twist at the end. He was dead all along! Gasp!* but not really. Yes it was clever for him to be dead the whole time, but he made the clues too obvious. He never talks to anyone, his wife never makes eye contact, he almost always wears the same clothes, nobody acknowledges he's even there. I mean for gods sake, the dude was shot in his kidney. You pretty much knew he was dead when Cole said he saw dead people. The twist was delivered horribly as well. The ring falls on the floor. okay? So she had his ring? Who talks in their sleep like that anyways? You're telling me that in all the time that he spent away from his wife, he didn't notice that everybody was ignoring him? Nobody heard a kid talking to air since normal people can't see ghosts? This is a very noteworthy paradox that nobody seems to address. Why didn't the boy tell him that he was dead? Surely he could see that the counselor was dead, so why didn't he tell him? Why wasn't he afraid? Why was he scared when he said he was getting a new counselor? He wasn't talking to a counselor in real life anyways. Another thing, is this seriously the only case that a child psychologist deals with? You see at the beginning, he has a folder full of cases, and this is the only one he is dealing with?
Overall, I think the movie was a very creative, very fun ride from start to finish. I just see lots of plot holes. This was a great film for its time, but to me, this film is not something that I will remember forever, and it is not staple in film. For the repeated plot holes, and poor clichés, I take off 3 stars.