New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

>The Sixth Sense

Yes, I've got The Sixth Sense on the list. Along with The Usual Suspects, this movie has helped the twist ending become far more popular than it ever used to be. In 1999, M. Night Shyamalan, the writer and director of The Sixth Sense, became an overnight sensation thanks to the frightening ghost story about a boy who can see dead people and the child psychologist who tries to help him overcome this fear. As I mentioned above, this is also the movie that kind of doomed Shyamalan. His next film, the underrated Unbreakable, was met with disappointment, partly because everyone expected a big twist ending and partly because the twist wasn't so shocking. Well, it wasn't as shocking as the one from The Sixth Sense. The psychologist, played by a never-better Bruce Willis, is another one of the ghosts this boy (Haley Joel Osment) can see, having died from a gunshot wound the year before. Only at the very end of the movie does the psychologist figure out why his wife hasn't been talking to him, why she's looking for another man, and only then do we realize that no one except for the boy has actually spoken to this man. Though some of you will say you saw the twist coming (and I think you folks should just admit you were as surprised as the rest of us), Shyamalan and company sell it very well, with strong performances all around, great thrills, and subtle hints laced throughout. In the past ten years, we've seen a spate of ghost stories, suspense films, and any excuse to throw in a twist ending; The Sixth Sense is, at the very least, one reason for all of those movies, and is the best of its kind.

Memento

From the best of its kind to one of a kind we go. I won't attempt to write this one backwards; it'd give me too much of a headache; that just makes me more jealous of Christopher Nolan, who made his splash in America with this 2000 thriller about a man with short-term memory loss trying to figure out who killed his wife. Played by Guy Pearce, Leonard Shelby knows his wife is dead, has solid memories of his past life as an insurance fraud investigator and a previous client with a similar memory issue, and has myriad notes and tattoos to remind him of the only thing he wants in life: to find his wife's killer, the person who knocked him on the head and screwed up his memories. Leonard is aided by two potentially suspicious characters, played by Carrie-Anne Moss and Joe Pantoliano (both better here than in The Matrix), who may know a lot more than they're willing to tell. The key here is the intriguing if baffling story of Sammy Jankis, Leonard's old case. Sammy said he had memory issues, as did his diabetic wife, but Leonard figured he was hiding something. By the end of the film, this black-and-white story and the backwards-chronology of Leonard's hunt converge, as we realize something: Leonard is, in essence, Sammy Jankis, who was never really married. Leonard, in his feverish state, transposed his own life onto Sammy's case. His wife, presumed dead after some burglars rob the house and sexually assault her, was killed by an insulin overdose, of which Leonard's the culprit, having already received the fateful blow to the head. His hunt for his wife's killer is not only futile, but Leonard's never going to remember it. As we see in the final scene, Leonard will keep on hunting for the murderers who don't exist and no one can stop him. Memento is one of the best films of the last ten years, a crackerjack crime drama with great performances from Pearce, Pantoliano, Moss, and Stephen Tobolowsky as Jankis. Not only that, but this indie sensation helped put Nolan on the map, leading him to direct Insomnia, The Prestige, and two small films about a rich man who dresses up as a bat to fight crime. If you haven't seen Memento yet and ignored my spoiler warnings, see it...right now.

Continued:       1       2       3