The Sixth Sense «««½
PG-13, 107m. 1999
Cast & Credits: Bruce Willis (Dr. Malcolm Crowe), Haley Joel Osment (Cole Sear), Toni Collette (Lynn Sear), Olivia Williams (Anna Crowe). Written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan.
If I ever write a column profiling the best and worst movies of the year, I guarantee you the one item that will likely be in my worst column are the five minute previews of upcoming films. I am well aware the minute someone reads that they are going to tell me the obvious.
“Previews aren’t movies,” they will say.
Whoever tells me that will be correct. Previews of upcoming movies aren’t the actual film but these days, you might as well call them that. Case in point was Paramount Pictures’ Double Jeopardy (1999) whose preview practically revealed everything that would happen.
I felt the same way when I saw previews of The Sixth Sense last year. If I hadn’t seen the film, I would already be able to tell you judging by what I saw in the preview what it was about. What makes the movie such a nice surprise is everything the preview gave away was only the tip of the iceberg.
In The Sixth Sense, a troubled, perhaps mentally unstable young boy named Cole Sear, hauntingly played by Haley Joel Osment, tells his mother (Toni Collette) he can see “dead people.”
It isn’t just ghosts. Cole can see into the pasts of people who are alive like his school teacher whom he says had a reading problem when he was a kid.
As Cole walks with his friend and psychologist, Dr. Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis), whose job is to figure out what is wrong with him, the boy tells Crowe how his grade school was once used to hang lawbreakers in the 1800s.
I knew already to an extent the secret of the film which I am not going to reveal here. Most of you who have seen the movie already know the secret or found out like I did through articles in Entertainment Weekly or by reading other critical reviews.
What I will say is The Sixth Sense is an intriguingly creepy, supernatural ghost story. I got the sense director M. Night Shyamalan, who also wrote the script, read numerous books about ghosts. Chairs are moved and kitchen cabinet doors are opened though no one is in the room. Small white lights or stars appear on child pictures of Cole for no apparent reason. Rooms become cold enough to the point it’s like one is outside on a wintry day and can see the air they are breathing out of your mouth. Do the rooms really get that cold when spirits are present?
This is the kind of film where when things become awfully quiet as they do periodically, something unexpected happens. The last time I jumped in my seat watching a horror/mystery movie was when I saw George Romero’s Creepshow (1982). I got nervous watching those large killer cockroaches attack E.G. Marshall.
Some have said Haley Joel Osment should have been the one cast as young Anakin Skywalker instead of Jake Lloyd in Star Wars - Episode 1: The Phantom Menace (1999). The problem with that is I haven’t seen Osment’s adventurous side yet in movies. His gift is he knows how to play psychologically unstable kids convincingly (hence his Oscar nomination for best supporting actor this year). This is the kind of role Osment has done before in television.
He played a kid on an episode of ER (1994) who shoots his best friend over a pair of tennis shoes and was also cast as Candice Bergen’s son in Murphy Brown (1988-1998) who must deal with the fact his mother has breast cancer. There’s a poignant sweetness Osment displays in The Sixth Sense. I felt sorry for him because he couldn’t get anyone to understand what he was going through. Even Crowe, to an extent, doesn’t comprehend.
I suppose now that you have read this review, you know the movie is a psychological ghost story. It is but I still haven’t told you the secret that is revealed in the film’s last five minutes or so. I didn’t have to see it twice like some viewers said they did in order to figure it all out.
What I will say as I walked out of the theater when the movie was over, I started thinking about the number of scenes Bruce Willis was in as his character interacted with Cole and the other people in the movie (if you call it interaction).
There was much more to the scene, for example, where Dr. Crowe was late for the anniversary dinner with his wife (Olivia Williams) and she didn’t say anything to him. How was it that every time I saw Dr. Crowe on screen, he was always in the same clothes?
The most I will say after finding out the true secret was the same comment a friend of mine said who saw the movie weeks before I did last year.
“That’s cool.”
©3/22/2000
PG-13, 107m. 1999
Cast & Credits: Bruce Willis (Dr. Malcolm Crowe), Haley Joel Osment (Cole Sear), Toni Collette (Lynn Sear), Olivia Williams (Anna Crowe). Written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan.
“Previews aren’t movies,” they will say.
Whoever tells me that will be correct. Previews of upcoming movies aren’t the actual film but these days, you might as well call them that. Case in point was Paramount Pictures’ Double Jeopardy (1999) whose preview practically revealed everything that would happen.
I felt the same way when I saw previews of The Sixth Sense last year. If I hadn’t seen the film, I would already be able to tell you judging by what I saw in the preview what it was about. What makes the movie such a nice surprise is everything the preview gave away was only the tip of the iceberg.
In The Sixth Sense, a troubled, perhaps mentally unstable young boy named Cole Sear, hauntingly played by Haley Joel Osment, tells his mother (Toni Collette) he can see “dead people.”
It isn’t just ghosts. Cole can see into the pasts of people who are alive like his school teacher whom he says had a reading problem when he was a kid.
As Cole walks with his friend and psychologist, Dr. Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis), whose job is to figure out what is wrong with him, the boy tells Crowe how his grade school was once used to hang lawbreakers in the 1800s.
I knew already to an extent the secret of the film which I am not going to reveal here. Most of you who have seen the movie already know the secret or found out like I did through articles in Entertainment Weekly or by reading other critical reviews.
What I will say is The Sixth Sense is an intriguingly creepy, supernatural ghost story. I got the sense director M. Night Shyamalan, who also wrote the script, read numerous books about ghosts. Chairs are moved and kitchen cabinet doors are opened though no one is in the room. Small white lights or stars appear on child pictures of Cole for no apparent reason. Rooms become cold enough to the point it’s like one is outside on a wintry day and can see the air they are breathing out of your mouth. Do the rooms really get that cold when spirits are present?
This is the kind of film where when things become awfully quiet as they do periodically, something unexpected happens. The last time I jumped in my seat watching a horror/mystery movie was when I saw George Romero’s Creepshow (1982). I got nervous watching those large killer cockroaches attack E.G. Marshall.
Some have said Haley Joel Osment should have been the one cast as young Anakin Skywalker instead of Jake Lloyd in Star Wars - Episode 1: The Phantom Menace (1999). The problem with that is I haven’t seen Osment’s adventurous side yet in movies. His gift is he knows how to play psychologically unstable kids convincingly (hence his Oscar nomination for best supporting actor this year). This is the kind of role Osment has done before in television.
He played a kid on an episode of ER (1994) who shoots his best friend over a pair of tennis shoes and was also cast as Candice Bergen’s son in Murphy Brown (1988-1998) who must deal with the fact his mother has breast cancer. There’s a poignant sweetness Osment displays in The Sixth Sense. I felt sorry for him because he couldn’t get anyone to understand what he was going through. Even Crowe, to an extent, doesn’t comprehend.
I suppose now that you have read this review, you know the movie is a psychological ghost story. It is but I still haven’t told you the secret that is revealed in the film’s last five minutes or so. I didn’t have to see it twice like some viewers said they did in order to figure it all out.
What I will say as I walked out of the theater when the movie was over, I started thinking about the number of scenes Bruce Willis was in as his character interacted with Cole and the other people in the movie (if you call it interaction).
There was much more to the scene, for example, where Dr. Crowe was late for the anniversary dinner with his wife (Olivia Williams) and she didn’t say anything to him. How was it that every time I saw Dr. Crowe on screen, he was always in the same clothes?
The most I will say after finding out the true secret was the same comment a friend of mine said who saw the movie weeks before I did last year.
“That’s cool.”
©3/22/2000
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