The Sixth Sense

There are three really potent performances in this mystery and none better than a super debut from eleven year old Haley Joel Osment who is the troubled young "Cole". He can see dead people, he can talk to dead people, he can learn from dead people. His problem is, not unreasonably, that nobody believes him - and his mother "Lynn" (Toni Collette) is at her wit's end. Enter onto the scene child psychologist "Crowe" (Bruce Willis) who has some experience in this field as one of his other patients "Vincent" (Donnie Wahlberg) suffered with the same problem - only with tragic consequences. Of course the scepticism abounds, but as the plot develops we all begin to wonder just what is a figment of the youngster's imagination and what is actual fact. M. Night Shyamalan lets the actors do the heavy lifting here, accompanied well by some intimate photography and an effective score from James Newton Howard. Collette is really convincing as the distraught mother and Osment just oozes a confidence well beyond his years as his character comes to terms with a trauma that would test the most robust of temperaments. Finally, Willis reminds us just why he was ever a star in the first place - his performance is delicate and assured. The dialogue is well constructed with little extraneous verbiage to clutter up what is a really compelling foray into a scary yet enthralling dimension that I really enjoyed watching. It is better still on a big screen, if you can.