This month's featured film:       The Sixth Sense (1999) PG-13. Thriller. 107 minutes. Starring Bruce Willis, Olivia Williams, Haley Joel Osment, Donnie Wahlberg, Toni Collette Directed by M. Night Shyamalan Released on: Friday, August 6, 1999   What it's about:         In this chilling psychological thriller, eight-year-old Cole Sear is haunted by a dark secret: He is visited by ghosts. A helpless and reluctant channel, Cole is terrified by threatening visitations from those with unresolved problems who appear from the shadows. Confused by his paranormal powers, Cole is too young to understand his purpose and too terrified to tell anyone about his torment, except child psychologist Dr. Malcolm Crowe. As Dr. Crowe tries to uncover the ominous truth about Cole's supernatural abilities, the consequence for client and therapist is a jolt that awakens them both to something harrowing -- and unexplainable.   The Review Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times       "The Sixth Sense" isn't a thriller in the modern sense, but more of a ghost story of the sort that flourished years ago, when ordinary people glimpsed hidden dimensions. It has long been believed that children are better than adults at seeing ghosts; the barriers of skepticism and disbelief are not yet in place. In this film, a small boy solemnly tells his psychologist, "I see dead people. They want me to do things for them." He seems to be correct. The psychologist is Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis), who is shot one night in his home by an intruder, a man who had been his patient years earlier and believes he was wrongly treated. The man then turns the gun on himself. "The next fall," as the subtitles tell us, we see Crowe mended in body but perhaps not in spirit, as he takes on a new case, a boy named Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment) who exhibits some of the same problems as the patient who shot at him. Maybe this time he can get it right.   The film shows us things adults do not see. When Cole's mother (Toni Collette) leaves the kitchen for just a second and comes back in the room, all of the doors and drawers are open. At school, he tells his teacher "they used to hang people here." When the teacher wonders how Cole could possibly know things like that, he helpfully tells him, "when you were a boy they called you Stuttering Stanley." It is Crowe's task to reach this boy and heal him, if healing is indeed what he needs. Perhaps he is calling for help; he knows the Latin for "from out of the depths I cry into you, oh Lord!" Crowe doesn't necessarily believe the boy's stories, but Crowe himself is suffering, in part because his wife, once so close, now seems to be drifting into an affair and doesn't seem to hear him when he talks to her. The boy tells him, "talk to her when she's asleep. That's when she'll hear you." Using an "as if" approach to therapy, Crowe asks Cole, "What do you think the dead people are trying to tell you?" This is an excellent question, seldom asked in ghost stories, where the heroes are usually so egocentric they think the ghosts have gone to all the trouble of appearing simply so they can see them. Cole has some ideas. Crowe wonders whether the ideas aren't sound even if there aren't really ghosts.   Bruce Willis (Dr. Malcolm Crowe) and Haley Joel Osment (Cole Sear) in "The Sixth Sense"   Bruce Willis often finds himself in fantasies and science fiction films. Perhaps he fits easily into them because he is so down to earth. He rarely seems ridiculous, even when everything else in the screen is absurd (see "Armageddon"), because he never over-reaches; he usually plays his characters flat and matter of fact. Here there is a poignancy in his bewilderment. The film opens with the mayor presenting him with a citation, and that moment precisely marks the beginning of his professional decline. He goes down with a sort of doomed dignity. Haley Joel Osment, his young co-star, is a very good actor in a film where his character possibly has more lines than anyone else. He's in most of the scenes, and he has to act in them--this isn't a role for a cute kid who can stand there and look solemn in reaction shots. There are fairly involved dialogue passages between Willis and Osment that require good timing, reactions and the ability to listen. Osment is more than equal to them. And although the tendency is to notice how good he is, not every adult actor can play heavy dramatic scenes with a kid and not seem to condescend (or, even worse, to be subtly coaching and leading him). Willis can. Those scenes give the movie its weight and make it as convincing as, under the circumstances, it can possibly be. I have to admit I was blind-sided by the ending. The solution to many of the film's puzzlements is right there in plain view, and the movie hasn't cheated, but the very boldness of the storytelling carried me right past the crucial hints and right through to the end of the film, where everything takes on an intriguing new dimension. The film was written and directed by N. Night Shyamalan, whose previous film, "Wide Awake," was also about a little boy with a supernatural touch; he mourned his dead grandfather, and demanded an explanation from God. I didn't think that one worked. "The Sixth Sense" has a kind of calm, sneaky self-confidence that allows it to take us down a strange path, intriguingly. Copyright © Chicago-Sun-Times Inc.   A note from Shadow:         I agree with most of Roger Ebert's review-and all the other great reviews for this film!!! The acting is superb, particularly so with young Osment; the simple fact that I as a viewer never THOUGHT about what a great child actor he is shows how convincing his performance in this film is. The movie both frightened me and moved me; one minute I was in thrall to the suspense and dread that builds around Osment's "experiences", the next moment I was fighting back tears when the tragic nature of his uncanny ability became clear. This is a film which, like "The Exorcist" or "Alien", is frightening not only because of the images onscreen, but because it gets under your skin and stays there, somehow. In the end, it is both disturbing and uplifting; and that, in my humble opinion, destines this film for "classic" status. Um, speaking of ends; I myself KIND OF suspected the twist at the end (which I won't reveal here; go see the film yourself, I PROMISE you won't be disappointed) , but only because I as an amateur writer tend to look for that sort of thing. But even so, the effect was no less powerful. It's not just that it's one of those things where you want to smack yourself upside the head and say "Damn, I shoulda known"... its what it ultimately entails for the story, and the characters, that gets you in the end. It does what it sets out to do; frighten you, move you, and make you think....which you will probably do for a while after you see this film.   Other Reviews:         The Blair Witch Project (1999)             Click below to return to