Bone Collector

'The Bone Collector' is a mystery thriller based on the book by Jeffery Deaver. A serial killer has a unique manner in which to obtain his victims. He traps them in his cab and takes them away to be slaughtered. The unknown killer then stages the crime scene with peculiar clues. A young patrol woman, 'Amelia Donaghy' (Angelina Jolie) is called to one of the crime scenes. A murdered man is buried under gravel. Only a hand sticks up through the crushed stones. Evidence is left on a nearby train track. Courageously 'Officer Donaghy' stands on the tracks and stops an oncoming train. The evidence, an old bolt, a piece of paper, some asbestos, and a strip from a newspaper, are not destroyed.

'Detective Lincoln Rhyme' (Denzel Washington) becomes involved in the case. Rhyme is a quadriplegic who was once one of New York City's top forensic investigators. He was injured several years earlier at a crime scene. The city had let him remain on active duty. 'Lincoln' is bedridden. His nurse 'Thelma' (Rapper Queen Latifah) gives him round the clock care. 'Lincoln' has decided that due to a series of continuing seizures that he no longer wishes to live. His doctor agrees to assist him with his suicide.

The central character of the film is Lincoln Rhyme (Denzel Washington), a disabled ex-cop, a forensic scientist now paralyzed from the neck down. Years after his accident, Rhyme is approached by Detective Paulie Sellitto (Ed O'Neill) to help in the investigation of a murder. Someone has abducted a man and woman from the airport, leaving the man buried in a train yard. Only the man's hand is above ground, with his wife's ring on his flayed finger.

Adding to the unusual nature of the body found, the killer also left a number of clues at the crime scene to lure the police to the next body. One of the clues indicates that they may have time to save her if they find her fast enough. Aiding Rhyme as his eyes, ears, and legs in the investigation is a patrol officer named Amelia (Angelina Jolie).

Although the premise is interesting, the movie breaks one cardinal rule of mystery stories. I'm not spoiling anything to mention that the killer essentially comes out of left field in the last reel of the film. Trying to solve these murders is an exercise in futility. There is no way anyone watching could have imagined the identity of the killer and his motives. Washington is a man of extraordinary talent. When I saw that he had been chosen to play the quadriplegic Lincoln Rhyme, I knew he could do it. He has the ability to convey so much emotion through his eyes and face. Even limited to moving his head and one finger, he can still dominate a scene.

I think the best way to explain the crime scenes are to follow through the movie in chronological order. I will start with the first crime scene when Denzel Washington found the dead body down the shaft. I didn’t agree with him not having on a mouth covering when he was crawling through the tight area. The movie did say he was dropped down the shaft so I don’t believe Denzel crawling through the rocks really had an impact on the crime scene other than disturbing dust and displacing it in an awkward manner throughout the area. I also observed Denzel actually brushing the victim’s dead hand with his shoulder which could have removed DNA evidence left by the killer. Since no mouth covering was used the body was contaminated because Denzel was clearly sweating and breathing heavily all over the victim’s body.

The next crime scene in the movie was that of Angelina Jolie finding the body buried under the rocks. WHY DID SHE REMOVE THE ROCKS IN THAT MANNER?? I was very disturbed that she would just start removing rocks off of the pile when it was already apparent that it was a human. At this point in the movie we didn’t have a clue as to what the killer such as if he wore gloves or a mask so my first test would have been trying to find hair at the crime scene. Of course I would have already tried to pull finger prints from the site but our clever patrol officer shall I say “compromised” the integrity of the evidence.

In addition to that testing I would have tried to collect and see if any organic material could be found because burying an entire human body isn’t the easiest thing to do in the world which means that the killer was probably sweating while doing it. I would use Mass Spectroscopy since it is a conclusive test. The positives for the scene were the pictures that were taken, the collection of the clues left by the killer, and the dollar next to the footprint that really served no purpose in the end but nonetheless it was taken into consideration.

The next good scene in the movie was when they were all in Denzel's with all the