Competently-made and acted, solid plot

Rating: 8/10 (13 January 2000)

While it now seems to be impossible for any film - good, bad or indifferent - to escape the hype machine that declares it the greatest movie ever made, "The Sixth Sense" nonetheless holds up well. It is an intelligent, well-made thriller that can be genuinely frightening and moving by turns. Bruce Willis acquits himself honorably in a demanding role that requires him to do more than grit his teeth and show his chest hair, but the most impressive performances come from Toni Colette and child actor Haley Joel Osment. Most importantly, the plot is interesting, plausible and internally consistent, and even manages to survive the much-discussed 'final twist'. The 'final twist' is an over-used device in movies currently - for every film such as "Wild Things" (where the whole movie is one twist after another) or "The Usual Suspects" (where there is only one twist, but an immensely satisfying one), there are half a dozen others where a wholly arbitrary and gratuitous twist is thrown in 'just because'. The ending of "The Sixth Sense" is not arbitrary or gratuitous, and you get the pleasure of mentally reviewing the movie to see if it stands up in the light of the ending. To its credit, it does.
Possible spoiler: it may be interesting to compare this film with "Jacob's Ladder". Both films merge a sometimes bleak and usually realistic view of everyday life with genuinely disturbing glimpses of 'the other world' that do more than merely play the slime-and-gore card. And as viewers who have seen both films may notice, they have other ideas in common as well.