DID COLE KNOW?

Rating: Null/10 (21 March 2002)

SPOILER
Some reviewers seem to think the movie makes no sense becuase of the relationship between the young boy and Willis's character. If the boy knew Willis was a ghost, then why did he not show the same concern as when he saw other ghosts. If he did not know, then why did he never mention to his mother that he was receiving some sort of ad hoc therapy.
The answer is of course that the boy CAME TO KNOW that Willis was a ghost. The first meeting between the two was in a church - the one place where the boy thought he was safe. If he thought Willis was a ghost, then we would have freaked out to buggery in the church - and he did not.
By the end of the film, the boy is giving Willis advice on how to be happy - ie, talk to your wife while she's asleep. This always seemed like odd advice, and would only make sense if Wilis was ghost. This leads me to believe that the boy came to be aware slowly that Wilis was as ghost.
In the latter part of the film, Wilis advises the boy that the ghosts want help, and the boy tries to help them. The boy becomes aware that Willis has some unresolved issues with his widow, and tries to help him resolve these issues - ie talk to your wife while she's asleep.
Willis and the boy help each other to come to terms with their issues. It's a real, albeit unusual, partnership. Willis really wanted to be able to make up for not solving the problems of the character who killed him very early in the film. In helping the boy, he made up for this short coming, and least in his own mind. Clearly, the boy was able to come to terms with his 6th sense.
Any way, it was a good film, marred only by the fact that alot of people seem to have been able to guess Willis's ghosthood early. But if you're gunna tell a tale like this, and make it have any consistency and honesty at all, then this was always gunna happen. The makers of the movie were quite clever. If you did not guess Willis's ghosthood early in the film, then you've really got to see the film at least twice - or at least that's how I felt.