I see dead people....

Rating: 8/10 (17 January 2003)

Here comes Bruce Willis again in the skin of a rescuer! But unlike "the fifth element" and "armageddon", he mustn't save the whole wide world. Neither, must he save a group of persons from a terrorist threat as it was the case with "die hard. No, he simply must save a little boy called Cole, haunted by morbid visions and Willis, a reputable psychologist tries hard to heal him... With "fight club" and "the blair witch project", "the sixth sense" ranks among the best movies made in 1999. It also ranks among the movies that you must watch several times before really appreciating it. If you're watching this movie for the first time, you might be disappointed because there are numerous details that can escape your attention and however, they are important for the development of the story. The same thing can also be said for a few scenes, especially the one when Willis is in a restaurant with his wife facing him... Because the main strength of the movie is its screenplay. Rarely, a movie has been so well served by a watertight screenplay. It's disconcerting, disturbing and however perfectly coherent. For a long part, the movie is a beautiful "trompe l'oeil". On another hand, it's a pleasure to see Bruce Willis get out of his usual roles where he mostly plays the he-man. In "the sixth sense", it's obvious that he's between the hands of a conscientious and well-organized director. But he isn't the main center of the movie. This place goes to Haley Joel Osment. His performance in the role of a tormented and neurotic boy is extraordinary. Besides, he can be considered as a faraway cousin of Danny, the little boy in Kubrick's "shining" because they've got a common point: an odd power supernatural and all in all, the dead people who haunt Cole aren't so terrible as they look like: they're simply asking him for help... At the end, a fascinating movie held up by two great actors.