The Bone Collector (1999)

Directed by Phillip Noyce. Starring Angelina Jolie, Denzel Washington, Ed O’Neill, Queen Latifah, Michael Rooker, Mike McGlone, Luis Guzmán, Leland Orser, Bobby Cannavale. [R]

Insultingly preposterous serial killer thriller where a quadriplegic former forensics specialist (Washington) teams up with a young patrol cop (Jolie) to follow the trail of crime scene clues left behind by a twisted murderer. A tiresome and ugly police procedural that mashes up its influences (everything from Seven to Rear Window) in the same are-you-kidding consistency as the various paper scraps and bone chunks that keep the deadly scavenger hunt afloat. Because the killer is only rarely seen—and always with an obscured or covered face—it’s obvious that his or her identity is going to turn out to be one of the supporting players, but since it would be geographically and chronologically impossible for any of the important characters to be the culprit, that must mean… Denzel can find the gravitas, humanity and color in these sorts of gimmicky roles in his sleep, but Jolie appears to be operating under the assumption that the best way to play tough-but-vulnerable is to vacillate between being teary-eyed and looking bored. A recurring sub-plot about Washington’s character being suicidal for fear of becoming a vegetable is neatly discarded without a thought for the denouement, but that’s just one of many convenient contrivances littering the story. Based on a Jeffrey Deaver novel.

39/100