Copycat
by Jon Amiel
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Dermot Mulroney, Harry Connick Jr., Holly Hunter, Sigourney Weaver, William McNamaraDirector: Jon Amiel
DVD: 2 Sides, Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled)
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen, 2.35:1
Running Time: 123 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1998-04-29
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Warner Home Video
Movie Reviews of Copycat
Movie Review: Sigourney Weaver and Holly Hunter make this an enjoyable and gruesome excursion into serial killing
Summary: 4 Stars
"Screams of the victim deaden his pain. The act of killing makes him feel intensely alive. What he feels next is not guilt but disappointment. It was not as wonderful as he'd hoped. Maybe next time it will be perfect." --Dr. Helen Hudson speaking on serial killers.
Copycat is a first-class psychological serial killer/diller/thriller nearly undone by a conventional slasher/thriller climax. The end works well enough, but once you've seen one jump-out-and-scare-us, spray-in-the-face, last-minute-save clich? you've seen them all. The only difference in the clich?s is how close we get to the blade going in, the skull cap blasting off, and the last minute twist being irrelevant to the story.
What makes Copycat so superior to the others can be summed up in two names: Sigourney Weaver and Holly Hunter. Weaver plays Helen Hudson, an authority on serial killers, in demand for lectures, consulted by the police, and a smart woman. That all changes when she is attacked by a serial killer and barely survives. The guy winds up in prison for life. Hudson winds up a prisoner, too. Thirteen months later we can see that she's been so traumatized that she has turned her apartment into a fortress. She's too frightened to venture outside. She needs liquor to get through the hours and pills and paper bags to deal with the panic attacks. She trusts few others. She deals with life through her computer. She's still an authority on serial killers, but her life has become a wasteland. (She does have that terrific San Francisco apartment.} Then she discovers that there is a new killer at work, one who mimics the style of killing that other serial killers have used. When she tells the police that recent, horrible murders are being committed by one madman, that brings us to Holly Hunter, who plays police inspector M. J. Monahan.
Monahan is quick, smart, feisty, small and, yeah, kinda cute. She's also tough enough to make big, male cops nervous. She's friendly, she's liked, she's prickly and no one doubts who's in charge when she's on a case. Dead bodies don't bother her too much. Monahan is a pro. Between Hudson's knowledge of serial killers, as wracked out as she is, and Monahan's gritty persistence, it's not long before we...then Hunt...then Monahan...realize Hunt has become the target for the copycat killer's affections. Now we're in the middle of a stylish, murderous cat-and-mouse game. Monahan, working with the difficult, isolated Hudson, is determined to capture this man. And the serial killer is going to go after Hudson, locked away in her fortress of an apartment.
Copycat gives us every old favorite in the book...darkened hallways, closed shower curtains, empty bathrooms, cops tricked off their assignments, ingenious ways to kill...and they still work. In an added twist, the current killer seems somehow to be able to communicate to the man who attacked Hunter and who now is in a secured slammer.
The only real drawback, if one doesn't mind too much the standard scares at the end, is the movie's length...more than two hours. If the director had had the energy to lop off 20 minutes the way the serial killer lops off lives, the movie, in my view, would have been even better. Even so, Copycat is a fine, intelligent movie made special by Hunter and Weaver, and with effective performances by Will Patton, Dermot Mulroney and a really unpleasant Harry Connick, Jr. The score is low-key and evocative. There's even a song by Sting and Andy Summers that the killer seems particularly fond of:
It's murder by numbers, one, two, three
It's as easy to learn as your a b c
Murder by numbers, one, two, three
It's as easy to learn as your a b c
Now if you have a taste for this experience
And you're flushed with your very first success
Then you must try a twosome or a threesome
And you'll find your conscience bothers you much less
Because it's murder by numbers, one, two, three
It's as easy to learn as your a b c.
The DVD looks very good. There's a "making of" extra and a commentary by the director.
Summary of Copycat
Taking its lead from Jonathan Demme's Oscar-winning pulse-raiser The Silence of the Lambs, Copycat strives for intelligence over gristle and carnage. It's a terse, involving thriller that swings away from the usual cinematic notion of violence as a means to an end by forgoing brawn for brains. Young San Francisco police inspector Ruben Goetz (Dermot Mulroney) is teamed with brilliant force vet, M.J. Monahan (Holly Hunter), a diplomatic, no-nonsense cop who must buck the system in order to find a killer who is copycatting the crimes of history's most notorious serial killers. Ruben would rather shoot to kill than merely wound a suspect; Monahan labors to help him think more diplomatically. Everything changes when crank calls arrive at the station from serial-killer pin-up girl psychiatrist Helen Hudson (Sigourney Weaver). She's been housebound for 13 months, ever since murderer Daryll Lee Cullum (Harry Connick Jr.) nearly made her his next victim because she testified against him in court. Though he's in prison, he's still mentor and muse to every loose cannon walking the streets--one of whom is killing people with a vengeance and hoping to finish the job Cullum began. Cop and doc team up to solve the case in this stylish, plot-driven movie. Though Copycat loses steam in the end, it still makes a point. And it serves as a cautionary tale for people everywhere, tossing in street smart warnings against victimization. The teaming of Hunter and Weaver works well, the short and the tall forging a terrific and frictioned relationship that leads to grudging respect. Establishing an ominous atmosphere reminiscent of his classic British TV miniseries The Singing Detective, director Jon Amiel has an eye for the dark and the unusual and it gives this film an edge that eludes most other mainstream filmmakers. --Paula NechakAction & Adventure DVD Video
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