An amazingly deep story and a must see

Rating: 10/10 (22 May 2009)

I saw this movie originally in the theater when I was 17 or 16 back in the summer of 1999. I remember being scared by the ghosts and dead people and that's about it. I even went to see it a couple of times including one night when I went to see it at the Drive-In with a friend and didn't get home until about 1:30 am. As I entered the house that night I couldn't help but hear Cole's voice in my head saying "I see dead people" and I ran to my room trying to keep myself from screaming out in terror. I remember that this was the first movie with a major plot twist in it that I remember really striking me as noteworthy. I'm sure I had seen others before but this one was kind of a hype for a little while. "Did you see 6th Sense? How about that twist? Wasn't that crazy!" Despite that, I remember that I didn't really understand it completely. I guess you could say that I was kind of immature both in life experience to be able to draw the conclusions I was supposed to about the characters and I was also inexperienced in the art of following a movie plot beyond the complexity of good guy has conflict, adventure, solve conflict, the end. So as a 16 year old I enjoyed having the pee my pants scares and that is why I liked this movie.
After that I didn't really watch the movie again. I saw it a few times in the theaters and a couple times through the next year or so on DVD. Recently however, I bought a copy and its been sitting on my shelf waiting to be watched. Tonight I finally got around to popping it in and giving it another go. I can't believe how much there is to this movie that I never quite understood before. OK yeah Bruce Willis is a ghost and the kid can see dead people. But there's so much more than that. You have a little kid who can see dead people but who is terrified of them and is also terrified of telling anyone about his secret for fear of being called a freak and taken to the funny farm. He is conflicted by these two fears for most of the movie. You have his mother who loves her son so much and does all she can to try and help him but just doesn't know what he needs. And then you have a child psychiatrist who, due to a failure to help a similar child before, has been killed and doesn't know he is a ghost. There is drama, suspense, and yes even some terror along the way as Dr. Crowe tries to help Cole find out how to deal with his problem. Cole is able to learn how to speak to the dead people and help them to take care of the unfinished business that is keeping them from resting in peace. The scene where he gives the father the video tape of the mother killing poisoning their daughter isn't actually important as far as any of the details of that particular instance rather it is important in that Cole is helping the dead person connect with the living. This draws an interesting parallel when we find out that Dr. Crowe is a ghost too. This ghost was killed by a former patient who could also see dead people and whom Dr. Crowe failed to help. Since then, he has not felt confident as a child psychiatrist anymore. Then he finds a new case like that of the boy that shot him. It is pretty much identical. And his unfinished business is both to help this boy where he failed before, and then the boy's job is to help him with his unfinished business by helping him figure out how to communicate with his wife. I don't know what that is called, kind of like a paradox or a catch-22. Character A is supposed to help character B but the only way for A to help B is by letting B help A. Kind of like the chicken and the egg. Paradigm? Anyway, with things starting to change for Dr. Crowe, he goes home and begins to speak to his wife as she is asleep. This is when he realizes that he is dead due to the fact that she is holding his wedding ring. He remembers being shot, he remembers dying, he begins to see things that he didn't see before such as the bookcase blocking the door that he has been trying to open. And now that he sees he is dead he is able to tell his wife what he needs to and move on.
I don't know about you but to me that is a great story. There are wonderful tidbits in the details of the story as well such as the scene with Cole and his mom in the car when he tells her about seeing his grandmother. That scene almost had me in tears this time around. The acting and the writing were wonderful all around in this movie. The story has so much more to offer than I ever knew it did.