The problem with Copycat is that it's a smartly made, well-acted, taughtly directed, utterly derivative piece of hackwork. While it's tough to get terribly riled up about a movie that's so sincere in its pretensions to mature thrills, especially one with Sigourney Weaver's triumphant jaw and Holly Hunter's dry, quirky smile, I have to admit that I've basically had it with the nouvelle serial killer thrille genre.
In case you couldn't have guessed there's a serial killer on the loose. Now I don't want to ruin the movie for you, but the killer has a tough, yet vulnerable, cop hot on his tail. There's also another serial killer in jail whose twisted mind holds the key to catching the killer. Throw in Sigourney Weaver's uberWasp psychiatrist for some strong woman cachet, a SWAT Team invasion of the wrong house, a couple of video cameras, nearly ceaseless serial killer psychobabble (to remind you that this is more than just a highbrow slasher film) and that calling card of latter day hipness -- the internet, and you've got the makings of...of a wholly forgettable film.
The plot of Copycat is more predictable than the next Die Hard remake. And in a picture whose primary pleasure is supposedly suspense the rigidity of the genre is especially self-defeating. By the time the killer began unfolding his 50 piece serial killer torture tool kit to go to work on Sigourney I just didn't care anymore. I almost found myself hoping he would kill her just to mix things up a little bit.
What's sad is that if Copycat hadn't been so tightly lashed to the wheel of the genre it could have been a lot more interesting film. Both Sigourney Weaver's and Holly Hunter's characters are intriguing; strong women paying a heavy toll for their involvement in the man's world, and especially that most male of phenomena, serial killing.
The vague romantic triangle which forms between Ruben, Holly Hunter's charming young sidekick (appealingly played by Dermot Mulroney); Hunter's insightful detective, MJ; and Weaver's intense and damaged psychiatrist, is much more engaging than all the dull horror of more dead, naked girls. In fact, the finest scenes in Copycat are simple conversations totally unrelated to the main serial killer plot.
Copycat, however, proves itself willing to sacrifice interesting characters and relationships on the altar of formula as those pesky serial killers keep cropping up with their dead smiles and mother-hating complexes. And to be honest, I'm not sure who should be more offended by the glimpse of their profession offered in Copycat -- psychiatrists or deranged killers. For despite its A-list cast and trite, talk-show psychology, the engine of Copycat is almost indistinguishable from Halloween 17.
As if to drive home this message we're given as a final twist a little scene of Harry Conick Jr., (proving himself in film, as well as song, to be no Ole' Blue Eyes) writing a letter encouraging yet another psycho to go after the Jobian doctor (I guess the prison doesn't read his mail). While checking my watch as this final, feeble thrill flickered across the argent screen I was struck (perhaps stricken) with an embarrassingly brilliant idea -- Copycat as a weekly television show. Clearly the genre is ready for this reduction.
Revved up and ready for primetime, Copycat: the Series will be a misbegotten cross between the X-Files, NYPD Blue and Gilligan's Island. Each week a new serial killer (generally a fading celebrity guest star hoping for that Hopkinsesque performance) will be sent out to wreck his revenge on the psychiatrist (no longer played by Sigourney Weaver but by Courtney Thorne-Smith). And each week she and her spunky police protector (Holly Hunter being unavailable we'll have to settle for Drew Barrymore) will narrowly defeat the sadistic killer, but only after he's chained Courtney to a radiator and murdered two or three other faceless victims. Finally, America will have all the thrills it can eat.
I'm thinking meditative.
by zakkk@aol.com
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