Lincoln, Lincoln, I’ve Been Thinkin’ By Fearless Young Orphan The Bone Collector (1999) Directed by Phillip Noyce A casual viewing of The Bone Collector will probably provide an entertaining movie experience. There are big stars (Denzel Washington, Angelina Jolie, Queen Latifah, Ed O’Neill), there is a sexy plot (serial killer investigations are always sexy plots) and there is an interesting twist on the mix. Washington plays Lincoln Rhyme, an expert forensic detective, textbook author, and decorated cop, who is now paralyzed from the neck down and must do all his detective work from a hospital bed surrounded by high-tech equipment. There is something of Rear Window in this, and something of Silence of the Lambs, in the way he takes a young cop under his wing and grooms her for forensics. Really, what could I have to complain about? Oh, lots. Lots and lots. I’ve seen it twice now. I hated it the first time I saw it. On the second viewing, for purposes of creating a Chunk, I found myself more disappointed in its missed potential than actively hating what it put on screen. Still, that’s enough to Chunk about. Let’s begin! 1. The Serial Killer. I realize I’m coming at this from the back end. Of course we don’t know until the last ten minutes who the killer is and why he’s killing. Naturally, because this is a movie, he is someone we’ve already come to know in the movie’s context. That way, it’s a shocking twist! Yeah, he’s been skulking around Lincoln’s apartment the entire time. Then we find out that the reason he’s been killing people is so that he could leave clues particularly for Lincoln Rhyme to follow, because it was a personal challenge. Years ago, our killer was a forensic pathologist (or something like that, I don’t remember) who was doctoring evidence, and Lincoln wrote a report on the evidence- tampering that got this man fired. So now, our killer is out to prove that Lincoln isn’t brilliant after all. He abducts his victims, then leaves clues that include locations and deadlines (usually at the site of the previous murder). Lincoln is meant to unravel the clues in time to save the next victim from a grisly fate. I have a problem with this for many reasons, not the least of which is that this is serial- killer behavior only in the movies. In the movies, it’s very common to find puzzle- constructing serial killers, because it’s “fun” for the audience to be able to see all the clues and solve the mystery alongside the detective. People like puzzles. It’s too bad that all crimes can’t be solved in the manner of jigsaws, Where’s Waldo pictures and thematic apperception testing, but I don’t think it works that way. Serial killers ordinarily are moving under their own unfathomable motives, and creating challenging mind games is really at the bottom of their to-do lists. So that being said, are we in fact dealing with a serial killer? He’s picking victims at random—he’s a taxi driver who just hangs on to and murders a fare now and then to get Lincoln Rhyme’s goat—and his motive is spite. He’s killing to prove a point, because he’s mad about getting fired from his job and losing his reputation. I would love to see the lawyers trying to work out an insanity plea for this one. On the one hand, there’s an awful lot of premeditation and planning for a crazy person, but on the other hand, life is full of disappointments and not many of us resort to multiple murders of random citizens just to get even with someone. So yeah, I have issues with who the killer is, and why he’s killing, one of which is the fact that he is leaving clues at crime scenes hoping they will be “discovered” by a detective who has been off active duty and bedridden for the last four years. So isn’t it an amazing coincidence that a fellow cop finally decides to show Lincoln some crime scene photographs? The movie implies that there were four other murders in the string of killings before the evidence from the fifth (and they didn’t know it was the “fifth” yet) was finally brought to Lincoln, though, so I imagine our killer was getting ever-so- frustrated. If it had been me, I’d have left a note at scene number one, that said, “Have Lincoln Rhyme look at this, please! Thanks! <B <B The Killer” I’d forgive the lousy reveal if the rest of the movie were better, but it’s not, so this is just crappy icing on the crappy cake. 2. Lincoln and Amelia. Now here is the movie’s biggest missed opportunity. Lincoln, who is Lincoln conducts the entire investigation from his bed, and permanently paralyzed and Queen Latifah there is too nice and interesting to live to the suffering from increasingly end of the film. severe seizures, has decided to end his life with the help of a doctor friend. But since he has a few days left, he gets involved in this one last case and he likes the forensic work done by the first cop on the scene. That’s Amelia (Angelina Jolie) and she’s really hoping for a transfer into the child services department; she’s not interested in being a crime scene investigator. But Lincoln says she has the “gift.” That statement in itself is a load of crap, because we don’t see her do anything that an ordinary, well-trained, intelligent police officer wouldn’t do. And I’m sure such investigation does require intuitiveness and intelligence but Lincoln’s implication seems to be that it requires an almost mythical power and a deck of tarot cards. Personally, I think what Lincoln sees is a woman who is smart and attractive and he’d like to have her around, and give her orders in a throaty voice over the headsets that they can communicate through. A romantic relationship between a quadriplegic man and a healthy young woman would be very interesting fodder for a movie. The seduction would truly be one of the mind, because the physical relationship would be so extremely limited. We could explore the real depths of Lincoln’s desire to manipulate this woman, to act through her, and whether or not she finds it a turn-on to follow the orders he so authoritatively issues to her. It could be kinky and fascinating and lead to as much trouble as satisfaction. But we’re not going to go there, not really. This is a movie about catching a killer, not about the power human beings can hold over each other, and so any truly intriguing and off-kilter facets of their relationship are buried under the regular old guise of immense mutual respect. Oh, no, there’s nothing wrong with immense mutual respect except that I don’t think it’s earned here because . 3. Neither one of them does anything special. As I said, Amelia doesn’t do anything that I saw as really special aside from walking around with Angelina Jolie’s face. And Lincoln, who is supposed to be so damn brilliant, doesn’t do much that I saw as special either. The killer is leaving him the puzzle clues, obviously and out in the open, and often including maps. We’re treated to at least two grating cinematic moments when everyone in Lincoln’s apartment pauses and holds their breath for him to come to some brilliant Sherlock Holmesian Deduction but they all have the same information and the freaking Internet, and what he deduces isn’t all that amazing. Give him rat hair, and decomposed manure in the middle of New York City, and he says, “Oh, the victim is being held in an old slaughterhouse” and then everybody looks at him like, “MY GOD you GENIUS” and you really just want Rambo to bust in there and mow them all down with an AK-47. And you know, it doesn’t even matter whether this is an intuitive answer or a complete leap in the dark, because Lincoln is always going to be right. He’s the star of the movie. 4. What the hell authority does this man have, anyway? It’s really unclear to me how Lincoln manages to commandeer an entire police department and have them move all their crap into his apartment and spend incredible amounts of police resources and time while he issues commands from a walkie-talkie for God-knows-how-far-away when he can’t even see what’s going on and is playing some unacknowledged game of kinky phone sex with a hot young cop who has not been formally trained or accredited as a crime scene investigator and is sending her into unsecured, horrifying locations alone and without backup even though he’s only guessing that the killer isn’t still there and everybody is acting like this is just hunky dory, except the frustrated real commanding officer who may be the killer because he has blue eyes and we know that the killer has big blue eyes so anytime a character shows up who has big blue eyes we get an extremely long shot of his big blue eyes so that we can say, “Oh my god .