The Bone Collector
(1999)
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In Phillip Noyce's gripping thriller, Denzel Washington is Lincoln Rhyme, a decorated New York City police officer and successful author of crime novels. After a freak accident on the job, Rhyme is left paralyzed from the neck down (except for his index finger). Angelina Jolie is Amelia Donaghy, a troubled cop who finds herself caught up in the investigation of a brutal serial killer. With the help of the bed-ridden Rhyme, she enters a dangerous world that threatens to add her to the killer's list. |
A run-of-the-mill story is here turned into an above-average thriller, thanks to impressive central performances from Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie as two very different cops who team up to track down a serial killer. Washington plays a decorated police officer now confined to his bed, virtually paralysed following an accident on the job. Jolie's the young rookie who's brought in to explore the deepest, darkest areas of Manhattan under his instruction as they follow the trail of a sadistic murderer who picks up his victims in a yellow taxi. Although the daft conclusion abandons all the logic painstakingly established in the previous scenes, this benefits from Phillip Noyce's fast-paced direction and sterling performances from Queen Latifah as Washington's nurse and Michael Rooker as his irascible superior. Proof, as if it were needed, of Washington's acting talent — especially considering he spends the whole movie immobile.