The Bone Collector (1999)

Director: Phillip Noyce

Writers: Jeffery Deaver, Jeremy Lacone

Composer: Craig Armstrong

Starring: Denzel Washington, Angelina Jolie, Queen Latifah, Michael Rooker, Michael McGlone, Luis Guzman, leland Orser, John Benjamin Hickey, Bobby Cannavale, Ed O'Neill, Richard Zeman

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Two cops on the trail of a brutal killer. They must see as one, they must act as one, they must think as one, before the next victim falls.

Plot: A quadriplegic ex-homicide detective and his female partner try to track down a serial killer who is terrorizing New York City.

My rating: 6.5/10

Will I watch it again? Noop.

When it comes down to it, there aren't that many REALLY good serial killer movies so my expectations were about middle of the road for this one.  Fortunately it plays out better than that but it's by no means top tier.  The performances are fine.  I felt bad for Denzel spending the entire flick in a hospital bed.  Geez that must've sucked...that is until the paychecks came rolling in.  Jolie is better than usual I guess.  Not a fan.  The music is going for that Howard Shore THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991) thing and it works as intended.  This picture feels like it's also borrowing from that film with some SE7EN (1995) mixed in.  It fails at becoming anything original or its own thing but it's got a good cast with some nice atmosphere.  The killer's identity isn't revealed until the final minutes and you get the typical ending Hollywood likes in its thrillers.  What I liked most was Lincoln (Washington) coaching Amelia (Jolie) in crime scene examination techniques.  It was more interesting than about anything else.  The pacing is fine until the 2/3 mark (or thereabouts) when it starts to become tedious.  After a couple of kills and investigations everything after that is just more of the same in the cat and mouse game, unlike SE7EN which pulled it off splendidly.  The Universal DVD has an anamorphic widescreen print with extras including a commentary by Noyce, the theatrical trailer (non-anamorphic widescreen) and other trailers for THE SKULLS (also n-a wide), CRY FREEDOM (fullscreen), FEAR (n-a wide).