The Bone Collector

UK Release Date. 14 January 2000
Certification. 15
Running Time. 1 hour 58 mins
Director. Phillip Noyce
Cast. Luis Guzmán, Angelina Jolie, Queen Latifah, Mike McGlone, Ed O'Neill, Leland Orser, Michael Rooker, Denzel Washington.
Rating. 60%

Review.

Following an eye-catching performance in Mike Newell's Pushing Tin, The Bone Collector proved an early breakout role for Angelina Jolie.

Jolie plays police officer, Amelia Donaghy, who accepts a call to investigate a body buried in a shallow grave. The first officer on the scene, Donaghy adeptly secures the crime scene in order to preserve forensic evidence. When the case is handed to Lincoln Rhyme (Denzel Washington), a bed-ridden, quadriplegic, forensic expert, he insists that Officer Donaghy remains involved in order to work the crime scene, as she appears to have a 'natural flair' for forensic science. After initial resistance, she agrees, and a highly contrived scenario sees Rhyme and Donaghy in a race to apprehend a killer. A killer with a penchant for leaving the most oblique and obscure breadcrumbs imaginable.

Set aside the highly implausible storyline, The Bone Collector falters from a lack of urgency that would surely be apparent from those chasing a serial killer before he claims another victim. It is almost a detached and emotionless puzzle Rhyme and Donaghy are attempting to solve, neglecting the fact that these crimes actually involve genuine victims.

As Rhyme is a quadriplegic, the film suggests that there is little hope of a relationship between him and Donaghy. But in the same way the film delivers multiple misdirections and false alarms, there is a genuine chemistry between the two.

Whilst in a sub-genre of similar gruesome crime thrillers from the 1990s such as Jonathan Demme's The Silence Of The Lambs, David Fincher's Se7en and Gregory Hoblit's Fallen, The Bone Collector is a somewhat preposterous, emotionless and formulaic offering.