Denzel Washington is a celebrated dramatic actor who has led several acclaimed projects on and off the stage, but his 1999 crime thriller has been widely panned. Currently sitting with a 29% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes, The Bone Collector sees Washington acting alongside Angelina Jolie in what had the potential to be a staple movie within the thriller genre. The ’90s were a particularly great year for thriller movies, including the better-received Crimson Tide and Devil in a Blue Dress —both of which featured Washington in a lead role.
The Bone Collector is a different story. The Bone Collector follows Washington’s Lincoln Rhyme, a paralyzed forensics expert, who teams up with Jolie’s rookie patrol officer, Amelia Donaghy, as they track down a serial killer in New York City. Washington and Jolie make a great duo on screen and are supported by an array of strong performers like Queen Latifah, Michael Rooker, and Ed O’Neill. Though the star power of the movie has allowed it to do better with audiences over the years, it’s still a largely forgotten thriller from the ’90s.
Why Denzel Washington’s The Bone Collector Didn’t Work
The Plot Is Too Predictable And Safe
The Bone Collector doesn’t work for a handful of reasons, but luckily, being boring isn’t one of them. As evident in The Bone Collector‘s considerably higher audience score of 63% on Rotten Tomatoes, there’s plenty of fun to be had with the film, particularly with the committed performances of its lead actors and the movie’s core mystery. Still, The Bone Collector‘s faults are impossible to ignore. The movie’s greatest missteps are its formulaic narrative and unsatisfactory plot twists.
The Bone Collector has all the makings of a classic thriller movie, such as The Silence of the Lambs and Se7en —two movies critics have frequently pointed out as being the far superior inspirations for Phillip Noyce’s The Bone Collector. Noyce’s film even incorporates elements of the horror genre, working as a blend of a slasher and a gritty detective movie. Yet, The Bone Collector only takes the most clichéd and unoriginal components of such films and fails to expand on them in a way that sets The Bone Collector up to be innovative or effectively shocking.
Plot twists throughout The Bone Collector keep it moving at a suitable pace, but are spoiled by predictability and improbability.
Even when The Bone Collector does attempt to throw audiences for a loop, the results are mediocre. The plot twists throughout The Bone Collector keep it moving at a suitable pace, but are spoiled by predictability and improbability. Furthermore, The Bone Collector is based on Jeffery Deaver’s crime novel from a few years prior, which only limits the narrative of the film further. Unlike other ’90s thrillers based on books, The Bone Collector doesn’t take many risks and is ultimately a forgettable movie.
The Bone Collector Had Enough Potential To Be A Much Better Movie
The Performances Are Stronger Than The Movie’s Narrative
Before the late ’90s, director Phillip Noyce made a name for himself with thriller films like Clear and Present Danger and ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Calm, both of which are led by big names and earned a positive response from critics. On paper, it would appear The Bone Collector should have found a comparable success and been one of the more memorable thrillers released during the ’90s.
Despite its poor critical reception over the years, many reviews of the film have taken notice of Washington and Jolie’s talent and compelling chemistry on screen. Washington had already established himself as a notable dramatic actor by 1999, and it was around this time that Jolie was just beginning to make a name for herself. The actors, along with their co-stars like Latifah and O’Neill, do a lot of good with the little depth they’re given in the film’s script.
Lincoln and Amelia’s mentor and protégé relationship is captivating and is as much of a priority in The Bone Collector‘s story as the hunt for the serial killer is —positively differing from Deaver’s original novel, where the characters’ relationship is not focused on as much. At a similar rank in Hollywood at the time as their characters are in The Bone Collector, Washington and Jolie are a wonderful duo whose talent and commitment to their roles spotlight the potential that The Bone Collector had to be better.
