One Willis away from greatness...

Rating: Null/10 (7 August 1999)

"The Sixth Sense"
When Bruce Willis decides to act, it's an important occasion. When slogging through misfires like "Mercury Rising" and pure junk like "Armageddon", Willis never gets a chance to show the more dramatic side to his personality. "Sixth Sense" is the first product of the new Willis-no-guns philosophy that Bruce recently has made public. While it aspires to be "The Exorcist" for 1999, "Sixth Sense" can only muster the atmosphere of an off episode of "X-Files". A downright incomprehensible thriller that is too concerned with mood to care about the laughable story.
The real star of the picture is young Haley Joel Osmet (the easy bio is to say Forrest Jr. in "Forrest Gump"). He plays a young boy named Cole who has the ability to see the dead. The life-challenged repeatedly harass and torture him to a point when the entire world the surrounds Cole views him as a freak. While his mother (gifted Toni Collett) cannot understand the secrets Cole keeps, a child psychiatrist (Willis) finds himself drawn to help the young child. The two set out to crack the mystery of why Cole is the chosen one.
Written and directed by first-timer M. Night Shyamalan, the film has all the trappings of a debut movie. It's careful with every detail, visually flat, and has trouble sustaining interest throughout. What the film does just right is creating some creepy moments. Moments that could have forced the film to take a more disturbing note, thereby making the movie memorable. What Shyamalan does is punctuate each heightened situation with a orchestral bang or any other Dolby scare tactic used by every modern film to grab a scare. I keep wondering why directors do this. Sure, it gets a jolt out of the audience, but it's an easy one that isn't earned. A real horror film shouldn't have to lower itself to get a fright out of the audience. In the end, "Dolby scares" do more harm than good. "Sixth Sense" had the goods to really disrupt the audience, instead it hits all the same notes.
Bruce Willis swearing off action films might be the worst mistake Willis has made. His best work has been in this genre (the "Die Hard" series) and giving it up leaves him with a plethora of father and psychiatrist roles to play for the rest of his career. We meet a kinder, gentler Willis in "Sixth Sense". It's a performance that isn't among the actor's best, yet is far from an embarrassment. Willis plays his character rather muted, never once opening up for the big emotions. You could say that was his character, but I suggest that Willis just doesn't know how to play anyone who doesn't have an urgent situation to take care of. I love Willis, but "Sixth Sense" doesn't require much from the actor except pursed lips and a really obnoxious hairpiece. Ten year old Haley Joel Osment, on the other hand, has a remarkable depth and range for a child his age. It is his acting that grounds "Sense" emotionally. I enjoyed his work here very much, and a simple scene of mother and son bonding in a shopping cart clearly showed the chemistry Osment shared with on-screen mom Collett.
A victim of crass Disney mismarketing, "Sixth Sense" isn't really much more than a light thriller with demonic overtones. Shyamalan's script often goes on wild tangents. Scenes with Willis and his wife (shockingly unused Olivia Williams, seen last in "Rushmore") that are supposed to pay off at the end of the picture are left wide open for questions dealing with simple logic. Another moment in which Osment helps a little dead girl to justice seems from a different movie. The entire film appears to make little sense, yet to question what you're watching is obviously not the point. Shamalyan's script is also without dialog, just characters delivering speeches to each other. It's all tiring after an hour or so.
Like this summer's "Arlington Road", the entire film hinges on a last minute plot twist. A twist that is supposed to knock you off your feet. While I was surprised by the ending, it's such an illogical and implausible plot turn that it's hard not to laugh at it. Coming out of the film I was disappointed in the PG-13 "Sense". The next film to try this plot (Scorsese's next, "Bringing Out The Dead", features a similar idea) should just try to take the material more seriously, give it a chance to creep us out instead of forcing it. "Sixth Sense" is just another forgettable thriller.---------- 3