The Bone Collector (1999)

2 Stars (out of 4)

Bad to the 'Bone'

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Buy The Bone Collector on DVD.

In The Bone Collector, directed by Phillip Noyce, Denzel Washington plays a quadriplegic forensic homicide detective who works from his bed (and who, lucky for him, can still move his index finger to operate a computer). Angelina Jolie plays a beat cop with built-in instincts for the same line of work. To prove it she stops a subway train to keep it from destroying evidence. Together they're on the trail of a clever serial killer.

When both stars are on screen together their dialogue is awkward, but when Jolie is at the crime scene and Washington is on her radio headset, they spark. It's too bad the movie couldn't have somehow held on to that energy. It starts out well as it builds its story but, by the second half, it has completely disintegrated into dust.

Michael Rooker (Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer) co-stars as a police chief whose job it is to act irrationally and unreasonably and keep all the other cops from doing their jobs. He's the red herring for the real killer, who is easily spotted in the movie's one scene that isn't specifically designed to move the plot forward. On the other hand, Luis Guzman (The Limey) once again proves himself one of our best character actors. Queen Latifah and Ed O'Neill are also serviceable.

Director Noyce is an Australian who migrated to Hollywood after the success of his vicious thriller Dead Calm (1989). Since then, he's cranked out mediocre thrillers like Patriot Games (1992), Sliver (1993), and The Saint (1997). The screenplay, based on the book by Jeffrey Deaver, is by Jeremy Iacone who also wrote last year's horrible One Tough Cop. So we're not working with very much here. And the surprise should not be that the second half of this movie is so bad, but that the first half is so good.