very overrated

Rating: Null/10 (6 August 2004)

SPOILERS
Every few years there appears a certain director who creates a series of films which are heavily praised. M. Night Shyamalan is one of these directors, a man who creates these mystic, emotional thrillers which are designed to grab the attention and then reveal a sinister twist which appears obvious. In "The Sixth Sense", Shyamalan wrote and directed his first famous feature, which sadly is inferior to his later work and grinds on the skin a bit too much.
In this popular film of 1999, Bruce Willis plays psychiatrist Malcolm Crowe. Treating Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment), Crowe discovers a child with apparent mental problems, but who will in the end help himself and Crowe too.
Perhaps the personal problem with "The Sixth Sense" is that like so many others I had the twist told to me before witnessing the film. Told on Channel Four's "Eleven O'Clock Show", I lost all chances of being shocked at the end. At the same time, this film does build up to the scene well. Even if it does appear predictable when looking back on it.
On a wider scale, the key problem with this film is that Bruce Willis is not good in it. Grinding on the nerves, Willis is infuriating as the psychiatrist with apparent marital problems. Sadly he isn't alone in the awful acting.
Whilst it feels entirely likely that Haley Joel Osment will one day become a first rate actor who demands ridiculous films for movies and wins countless Oscars, as a child actor, he gives off an aura of annoyance as personally I feel the urge to slap him round the face. Certain children are annoying, it's part of a childs development, but Osment is so annoying that it's a wonder he's lived to the age of sixteen. Perhaps not as bad a performance as his role of David in 2001's "Artificial Intelligence", Osment's role as Cole still causes me discomfort and makes me wish pain upon him.
The question regarding "The Sixth Sense" is whether the actors or the characters are the annoying ones. Willis and Osment annoy me constantly, but Willis is often superb in different films, so potentially it could be the scripting for the character. Unlike his later films, Shyamalan seems to have written characters which are neither appealing nor interesting.
Ultimately, this film is just a bit too disappointing. With intended tension, maybe it possesses this to those who have absolutely no idea of the plot before viewing, but to anyone who has even the slightest idea why this child is suffering, it suffers hideously. Improving slightly towards the end, by the time we are given one answer to our questions half way through, any interest has disappeared and the film becomes irrelevant. Shyamalan has a nice idea here, and for it to feature so highly in the internet movie database shows it appeals to some, but personally it feels slightly too monotonous and daft. Over-rated and disappointing.