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The Sixth Sense
(**1/2)
Today I can say that I am the last person in America to have seen The Sixth Sense, a supernatural thriller/drama about a young boy who sees dead people and the child psychologist comes to his aid. I feel like I shouldn't even be bothering with the plot details, because I believe there's about 30 people nation wide who haven't seen it, but yet I had no problem pegging from moment one exactly why Bruce Willis was around. I mean, come on. It's not that difficult to see that no one seems to be paying attention to someone who is supposed to be a very noted child psychologist.
The story begins with a night alone with Dr. Malcolm Crowe (Willis) and his wife (Olivia Williams). They spend a drunken evening reading a plaque Malcolm just received from the mayor of Philadelphia, with his wife reading it so that we can hear exactly what's going on. I thought it was a bit hackneyed and heavy-handed, but a crackerjack script isn't really what I was watching for. Soon, the couple go upstairs for sex, where they find a man named Vincent Gray (Donnie Wahlberg), a former patient of Malcolm's who couldn't be helped. Vincent turns a gun on Malcolm and then shoots himself.
The following fall is where the real story begins. It was pretty obvious what Bruce Willis was from the last shot of the set up, but I was willing to suspend disbelief. Malcolm has taken on a new patient named Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment), who is exhibiting the exact same signs as Vincent was years before.
The movie was thick, plodding, and often boring. However, once the show was given to Osment, I was hooked. The story is really about Malcolm Crowe, but the experiences of Cole Sear is what is really exciting. Once he tells us "I see dead people. All the time", the story moves comfortably along til nearly the end of the film, when the story reverts back to Willis. Sadly, every time Willis is on screen alone it's painfully obvious what the director is trying to cover up. M. Night Shyamalan has shown himself as a very talented director of suspense, but outside of there it becomes just plain difficult to watch.
Normally, this kind of movie is just the kind of thing I enjoy most. But I can't in good conscience recommend it because of the horridly slow plot outside of Osment's performance. It's really too bad that the actual meat of the film didn't begin til after the 40 minute mark, otherwise this would have been a really great suspense movie.
It's young Haley Joel Osment that carries this movie. I have never seen a young actor with the talent this boy portrays. He may not have deserved an Oscar nomination, but he certainly did a fine job. If the terrors of being a child actor doesn't ruin him, I can see him developing even further later on in life.