# Bone Collector, The (1999)

### reviewed by
Stephen Jones

The Bone Collector: calcium deficient

It used to be enough just to have a serial killer on-screen, but then all the movies had a serial killer, meaning that if a movie wanted to distinguish itself, its serial killer had to be unique. And uniqueness translates easily into eccentric. Norman Bates wearing-your-mother's-dress type stuff. Or, later, Buffalo Bill, making his dress from human skin, preening in front of the mirror, etc. But then that too got old, ubiquitous, overdone. Meaning that that eccentricity by which a movie distinguishes itself had to be displaced elsewhere, spread around some; the detective had to become the eccentric one, now. And there are endless variations on this, the most popular perhaps being the Eyes of Laura Mars approach, where the killer has some vaguely telepathic access to the killings, which turn out to be mundane. Another variation is the one used in The Bone Collector, where the burden of eccentricity (the movie's 'draw') is again placed on the detective, but that eccentricity is physical this time: Lincoln Rhymes (Denzel Washington, Fallen) is quadriplegic, which is to say not what we expect a homicide detective to be.

Not that the perp in The Bone Collector is run of the mill, either, though. Hardly. He's (yes, spoiler, 'he') more akin to the game-players of Copycat or Se7en, which is to say The Bone Collector continues the tradition of partially inverting the cat-and-mouse dynamic, via making the killer both the prey and the one doing the toying. Or, conversely, the killer toys with his victims and is turn toyed with by the detective. Either way, it satisfies the need we have in drama to dress the familiar up so it's difficult to recognize. What's particularly nice about The Bone Collector, though, is what Lincoln Rhyme's quadriplegia brings to the table: shades of Cyrano de Bergerac. At times it's practically Roxanne, with Officer Donaghy (Angelina Jolie) in the field, Rhyme's willing puppet, 'seducing' the killer out for him.

Too, however, The Bone Collector also has what's practically a requirement for every cop show: the buddy dynamic. All the predictable little hostilities and age/culture/race/ethnicity differences etc which are evidently a necessary ingredient for successful crime-fighting. Even here, though, The Bone Collector alters things just slightly, by making the reluctant partner not the older one--Rhymes, whose looming euthanasia plans are very similar to a certain Sergeant Murtough's similarly imminent retirement plans--but the younger one, Officer Donaghy. The older officer is actually the eager one here, which we haven't seen before, even when the dynamic is used in another genre. Think Unforgiven, the eager young (non-) killer and the aging, reluctant one.

As for the rest of The Bone Collector, it's conventional, with all the profiling and forensic insight and gore the genre demands. Se7en type stuff, without all the Fincher coloring and Fincher sounds and Fincher magic. As far as genre goes, it even has Michael Rooker (Henry, the original serial killer) hopping in and out of things, offering all the mandatory interdepartmental resistance any good detective needs as motivation. And don't forget Ed O'Niell, in the detective role he's been honing for some time now (Ford Fairlane, Disorganized Crime, Spanish Prisoner), to good effect.

Up to this point, The Bone Collector's been an excellent movie. But then. As has to happen, the serial killer turns his attention to his pursuers, the detectives, a shift in gaze which The Bone Collector as a movie imitates, similarly taking its eyes from the prize. Which is to say it loses it. It is conventional in the way it loses it, at least: the same way Laura Mars does, by having the perp be mundane (-ly motivated). It doesn't help that we could identify him so early on, either. In spite of all this, though, The Bone Collector--in the last few frames--still has the chance of pulling the whole thing off, but then it takes the easy way out, doesn't tie the narrative together in the way, say, Se7en does, but instead goes for the Hollywood ending. Which yes, in this case (quadriplegia, euthanasia . . .) is definitely the socially responsible way out, but still. Do we really want a serial killer movie to be safe? Not really. If The Bone Collector would have just followed through, it could have passed itself off as a serious movie. As is, though, it's just typical fare.

(c) 1999 Stephen Graham Jones, http://www.cinemuck.com

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