The Bone Collector Details

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.

A wearying, downbeat thriller of a familiar kind, dragged down by a script that makes little narrative sense and leaves too many questions unanswered.