Let's not belabor ourselves with the $75 million budget (money which would have been much better spent investing in cocktail umbrella futures). Let's not wonder why this money might further be used to fund Tom Shadyac's (`Liar Liar', `Ace Ventura') horror film debut. And let's certainly not ask how Kevin Costner, fresh from his jaw-droppingly bad performance in `3000 Miles to Graceland', slips to new lows on this occasion. No, if we want to find something redeemable in `Dragonfly', the suspense film du jour, we need look no further than the appearance of Linda Hunt, the homuncular actress who portrays Sister Madeline, a nun who specializes in documenting near-death experiences. Her performance is worth staying awake for. But if you happen to be rubbing your eyes or simply shaking your head in disgust at what is unspooling before you, you will likely miss her two minutes of screen time.
`Dragonfly', in this new era of cover movies (a phrase coined by Cameron Crowe referencing his abhorrent `Vanilla Sky'), looks no further than `The Sixth Sense' for its source material. While `The Sixth Sense' wasn't pitiable, it hardly warrants replicas, let alone replicas that replace Bruce Willis with an inferior actor (Costner) and Haley Joel Osment with a ward of pediatric oncology patients.
In this go-round, the marital roles are reversed. Emily Darrow is Costner's on-screen wife, a pediatric oncologist who has been urgently called to a remote Venezuelan village. The film opens with her abrupt death in a tragic rockslide. Costner races to the scene where the following dialogue unfolds verbatim: Military Man: Por favor, go home. Joe Darrow: I'm not going anywhere. Not until this is over. This is not a good way for any Kevin Costner film to open. Regrettably this sentiment will likely resound in your head with unintended irony.
Costner plays Joe Darrow, an emergency room doctor who has been working twenty-four hour shifts, seven days a week since his wife's death. He returns to his vacant Victorian home, occupied by Big Bird, his mute parrot, and a host of temperamental light bulbs that flicker and die at convenient times.
Meanwhile back at the hospital, all of the children on the ward have taken to feverishly drawing squiggly crosses that wallpaper their rooms. Although the kids do not know why they draw this symbol, they sense that Emily's spirit is responsible. Joe grows suspicious of this and interrogates one of the young cancer patients who reveals that he has been channeled by Emily to deliver a message. But what is that message? That will have to wait another hour. But in the meantime, Joe has some clues to work with. The boy did hear her say that she wants Joe to meet her in a rainbow.
When having a sit-down with his neighbor (Kathy Bates), Joe tells her of his discoveries. `She wants you to meet her in the rainbow?' she asks him. `According to the kids that's accurate,' he says with a disarmingly straight face. The sub-plot (if that is an applicable term) involves Joe's college buddies who invite him on a whitewater- rafting trip and conveniently disappear at other times. But who are they? They are probably the thinnest batch of supporting actors ever assembled. But they do occupy the nearest table whenever Joe walks into the bar. And they're always waiting with a glass of beer poured for Joe. And a toast at the ready. But Joe is not willing to be distracted from his supernatural calling.
These reports of near-death patients channeling Emily continue pouring in. Hunt enters as Sister Madeline to help Joe get to the bottom of this puzzle. The steps that follow are long-winded and predictable and are clichéd to numbing effect. Costner spends the film showcasing a complete lack of charisma as he winds through the mindless script laid out before him. The shortcuts taken in Michael Thompson and Brandon Camp's screenplay are too numerous to count. Conveniences abound, such as the oft-discussed whitewater-rafting trip that only serves to give us a clue to what those squiggly crosses are all about. We won't bother asking why the only image that any dying person in Chicago has in their head is Joe Darrow.
But ultimately `Dragonfly' ends, because movies do, and for that we can be grateful. If we can rid ourselves of the chilling thought that our near death experience might simply be our own opportunity to deliver messages to Kevin Costner.
`Dragonfly', in this new era of cover movies (a phrase coined by Cameron Crowe referencing his abhorrent `Vanilla Sky'), looks no further than `The Sixth Sense' for its source material. While `The Sixth Sense' wasn't pitiable, it hardly warrants replicas, let alone replicas that replace Bruce Willis with an inferior actor (Costner) and Haley Joel Osment with a ward of pediatric oncology patients.
In this go-round, the marital roles are reversed. Emily Darrow is Costner's on-screen wife, a pediatric oncologist who has been urgently called to a remote Venezuelan village. The film opens with her abrupt death in a tragic rockslide. Costner races to the scene where the following dialogue unfolds verbatim: Military Man: Por favor, go home. Joe Darrow: I'm not going anywhere. Not until this is over. This is not a good way for any Kevin Costner film to open. Regrettably this sentiment will likely resound in your head with unintended irony.
Costner plays Joe Darrow, an emergency room doctor who has been working twenty-four hour shifts, seven days a week since his wife's death. He returns to his vacant Victorian home, occupied by Big Bird, his mute parrot, and a host of temperamental light bulbs that flicker and die at convenient times.
Meanwhile back at the hospital, all of the children on the ward have taken to feverishly drawing squiggly crosses that wallpaper their rooms. Although the kids do not know why they draw this symbol, they sense that Emily's spirit is responsible. Joe grows suspicious of this and interrogates one of the young cancer patients who reveals that he has been channeled by Emily to deliver a message. But what is that message? That will have to wait another hour. But in the meantime, Joe has some clues to work with. The boy did hear her say that she wants Joe to meet her in a rainbow.
When having a sit-down with his neighbor (Kathy Bates), Joe tells her of his discoveries. `She wants you to meet her in the rainbow?' she asks him. `According to the kids that's accurate,' he says with a disarmingly straight face. The sub-plot (if that is an applicable term) involves Joe's college buddies who invite him on a whitewater- rafting trip and conveniently disappear at other times. But who are they? They are probably the thinnest batch of supporting actors ever assembled. But they do occupy the nearest table whenever Joe walks into the bar. And they're always waiting with a glass of beer poured for Joe. And a toast at the ready. But Joe is not willing to be distracted from his supernatural calling.
These reports of near-death patients channeling Emily continue pouring in. Hunt enters as Sister Madeline to help Joe get to the bottom of this puzzle. The steps that follow are long-winded and predictable and are clichéd to numbing effect. Costner spends the film showcasing a complete lack of charisma as he winds through the mindless script laid out before him. The shortcuts taken in Michael Thompson and Brandon Camp's screenplay are too numerous to count. Conveniences abound, such as the oft-discussed whitewater-rafting trip that only serves to give us a clue to what those squiggly crosses are all about. We won't bother asking why the only image that any dying person in Chicago has in their head is Joe Darrow.
But ultimately `Dragonfly' ends, because movies do, and for that we can be grateful. If we can rid ourselves of the chilling thought that our near death experience might simply be our own opportunity to deliver messages to Kevin Costner.