Puzzling, absorbing, good twist as the final touch...

Rating: 6/10 (16 September 2006)

To fully accept the premise of THE SIXTH SENSE, you first have to accept BRICE WILLIS as a prominent child psychologist after seeing him in all those DIE HARD films. He goes from an action star to an intense doctor absorbed with a child patient (HALEY JOEL OSMENT) who claims he can see the dead.
Struggling professionally after a maniacal ex-patient has shot and wounded him in the heat of rage, the psychologist is determined to help Osment from going off the deep end the way his former patient did. That is the crux of the story.
It involves flashbacks, flash forwards and all kinds of camera tricks to keep you guessing how it's all going to end, since the big hype about the film was that it had a twist ending. Well, it was a surprise to me--but now, years later, after seeing so many films of this ilk which are obviously copycat types that deal with ghosts or the supernatural--I'm not so sure I'd be fooled so easily again.
However, a surprise it was for me and it's done so cleverly that you'll want to revisit the film to see just how the trickery was managed.
BRUCE WILLIS cannot quite do away with the smirk he had as the anti-hero in many a film, so I have to reserve some criticism for his performance. But it doesn't matter since the film revolves around the dark secrets and behavior of HALEY JOEL OSMENT, very good child actor who manages to keep the plot believable and interesting.
Absorbing thriller, even if it starts out a little slowly and doesn't really build up its suspense in a taut way. But that ending is clever!