Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie hunt down a serial killer who follows a specific plan in the thriller ‘Bone Collector’. So that the spectators mislead on the identity of the murderer, the director Phillip Noyce directed them towards another track with an innocuous technique, but which works.
Bone Collector : a pure product of the 90s
After the success of Thesilenceofthelambs and SevenHollywood studios bet big on morbid thrillers in the 90s. The collector, Bone Collector is probably one of the most iconic examples of this trend. This adaptation of the novel The Boner by Jeffery Deaver is signed Phillip Noyce, who had had great success with the nautical camera Calm White, before tackling the adventures of spy Jack Ryan with War games and Immediate Danger.
In Bone Collector, the brilliant criminologist Lincoln Rhyme (Denzel Washington), paralyzed following an accident, investigates from his bedroom a series of murders. These are perpetrated by an assassin who leaves extremely sharp clues at crime scenes. To decipher them, Rhyme is helped by the young policewoman Amelia Donaghy (Angelina Jolie), who discovered the body of the first victim while noting all the signs hidden by the murderer. Together, they will do everything to be one step ahead of a serial killer who follows a very specific plan.
Create confusion around the Bone Collector
Bone Collector therefore relies on the complementarity between Angelina Jolie and Denzel Washington. When released in 1999, the first is a few weeks from bursting the screen in the drama A stolen life, which won him an Oscar. The second has already won the famous statuette for philadelphia, and crossed the decade playing in Glory, Malcolm X, USS Alabama or The Witness of Evil. The film emphasizes their mutual respect which gradually evolves into true complicity, while the murderer they are tracking is still on the streets.
And like any good self-respecting thriller of the time, the revelations concerning the “boner” only arrive at the very end of the film. Fans of the genre therefore only have to watch for the slightest signs that could reveal a clue to their identity, even if they have been biased by Phillip Noyce and his team.
So that the spectators are mistaken suspect, Michael Rooker (Guardians of the Galaxy, Mississippi Burning) has shot several scenes as the masked killer. His character, the execrable and incompetent Captain Cheney, however, is not the origin of the horrors committed with perverse precision by the real culprit. On the other hand, the name of the killer and his motivations are revealed from the opening credits…
