GRUESOME `BONE COLLECTOR' PILES ON THE MOVIE CLICHES.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Critic

Slick and sordid, ``The Bone Collector'' comes off as an unappetizing cross between ``Quincy, M.E.'' and ``Seven.'' There are a few gruesome thrills for audiences with strong stomachs, but no amount of surgically removed flesh can disguise the fact that this movie is nothing more than a shallow and silly exercise in grisly entertainment.

``The Bone Collector'' is another in a long line of serial killer thrillers, this time featuring a New York City wacko who likes to murder people in turn-of-the-century locales like stockyards and slaughterhouses. He leaves behind an assortment of clues - old newspaper clippings, manacles, bolts and assorted powders and substances - to taunt and tantalize the police.

This attracts the attention of Lincoln Rhyme (Denzel Washington), a forensics detective with a brilliant mind for crime. Rendered a quadriplegic by an accident, Lincoln works out of his bed with the help of a live-in nurse (Queen Latifah) and a whiz-bang computer that does everything but make his coffee. But Lincoln needs someone to be his eyes and ears (and arms and legs), so he enlists an unlikely candidate, a feisty, young policewoman, Amelia Donaghy (Angelina Jolie), to work the crime scenes.

The movie, based on Jeffery Deaver's novel of the same name, is as ritualistic as its killer. There's the requisite incompetent authority figure, a police captain (Michael Rooker) who's so stupid that he exists only to make Lincoln look good. There's the familiar push-pull dynamic between Lincoln and Amelia, who clash at first but eventually reach a deep understanding full of mutual love and respect.

There are also underlying personal issues: Lincoln fears a mind-crippling seizure, while Amelia deals with the after-effects of her father's suicide. Both subjects are given only the most superficial treatment so as not to take away time from the film's graphic crime scenes.

All of this would be more tolerable if the movie's third act went anywhere. But the story, adapted rather incongruously by Jeremy Iacone, layers on coincidences and contrivances (much like director Philip Noyce continually pours on the rain) and then delivers the rather impotent killer completely out of left field.

Top it off with a coda scene that seems to belong in an entirely different movie, and you've got a film that leaves you with a sick feeling in your stomach. And it has nothing to do with all the severed bones and fingers you've had to digest.

THE FACTS

The film: ``The Bone Collector'' (R; strong violent content including grisly images, language).

The stars: Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie.

Behind the scenes: Directed by Philip Noyce. Screenplay by Jeremy Iacone, based on the novel by Jeffery Deaver. Released by Universal Pictures.

Running time: One hour, 58 minutes.

Playing: Citywide.

Our rating: Two stars.

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Photo

Photo: Quadriplegic detective Lincoln Rhyme (Denzel Washington) and rookie cop Amelia Donaghy (Angelina Jolie) team up to track down a ritualistic serial killer in ``The Bone Collector.''