The Bone Collector

Lincoln Rhyme was the department's top homicide detective and leading expert in criminal forensics until an injury left him paralyzed, depressed, and incapable of working. But when a gruesome murder in Manhattan leaves detectives baffled, they call on Rhyme to help solve the mystery. Amelia Donaghy, a rookie cop whose quick thinking preserved a gruesome murder scene, is enlisted by Rhyme to be his on-the-scene forensics expert. With Amelia reluctantly acting as Rhyme's able-bodied go-between, the pair piece together cryptic clues the killer leaves behind at the scene of the crime, hoping to catch the grisly serial killer.

Critics largely dismissed The Bone Collector as a derivative, implausibility-riddled thriller that suffers badly by comparison to Seven and The Silence of the Lambs — but most conceded that Washington and Jolie's performances lift the material beyond what it deserves. The central tension in reviews is between a script critics found preposterous and a cast they found genuinely compelling, leaving audiences with a film that works in the moment even if it falls apart on reflection.