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Ever since Dances With Wolves garnered
seven Oscars over a decade ago, Kevin Costner's career has suffered a steady and
unsatisfying decline. Never an actor of
great range or emotion, he's repeatedly misfired in multiple settings: big-budget epics (The Postman, Waterworld), quirky character roles (3000
Miles to Graceland), jock flicks (Tin Cup, For Love
of the Game), laughably bad accents (Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Thirteen Days) and sappy romantic dramas (The Bodyguard, Message in a Bottle). None
have matched the aptness of his earlier performances, where he could at least wear his
trademark self-effacing blandness like an old well-worn denim jacket. Costner takes another stab at a comeback with Dragonfly, a supernatural romance/thriller that
earnestly attempts to be another Sixth Sense but instead proves to be merely
second rate.
Dr. Joe Darrow (Costner) is a man consumed by mourning. It's been six months since his wife Emily
(Susanna Thompson) died in a Venezuelan bus accident while volunteering at a Red Cross
field hospital. Emily's personal totem was a
dragonfly (she had an insect-shaped birthmark on her shoulder) and Joe sees reminders of
her everywhere. He has been checking in on
Emily’s former patients in the pediatric oncology ward, and now several of them are
recovering from near-death experiences carrying messages for Joe – from Emily
herself.
The film begs comparison to The
Sixth Sense because it borrows from it so blatantly.
From its theme (yearning for lost love), central character (a doctor dealing with
kids), reliance on child actors to carry much of the dramatic load, and supernatural
communications from beyond the grave, Dragonfly dutifully
parrots many of the same elements that shaped The
Sixth Sense but displays little of the same style or skill.
Part of the problem is Costner. An
emotional black hole of an actor, he continually manages to suck the life out of any scene
requiring any emoting or introspection. His
standard expression is that of just having been conked with a two by four and as a result
his alleged pain is rarely visible, much less believable, and what should be heartfelt
moments become solemn pronouncements void of any conviction. Not that Costner is given much to work with here. The screenplay does a particularly poor job of
conveying why Joe would consider his loss so great. Apart
from numerous shots of Joe wistfully sighing at pictures of a beaming Emily and some
generic platitudes from friends, any significant emotional connection between Joe and
Emily is strictly hearsay.
Director Tom Shadyac previously foisted the false and flatulent Patch Adams on an unsuspecting world, and here again assembles a film
like a scavenger hunt. He throws in all the
standard spooky movie elements – rainy nights, squeaking doors, swaying lights,
squawking animals – but with little connection or effect. Linda Hunt and Kathy Bates are wasted in generic
supporting roles.
Shadyac
also bears responsibility for the film's most glaring shortcoming. Unlike The Sixth Sense, which slowly layered mood and then
employed a deft twist near its conclusion to neatly change the audience's perception of
everything seen before, Dragonfly is more
linear and simplistic. Joe is presented with a puzzle to solve and a single crucial
clue, early on in the story. His search for the clue's true meaning and what it
leads him to discover are therefore less satisfying, quizzes being less intriguing than
mysteries. His discovery process leads the story towards a seeming plot resolution
that if utilized would have been shamelessly implausible, but then Shadyac pulls an even more maudlin and manipulative stunt to tie things
together.
Dragonfly's overly warm finale offends rather than
rewards. Coupled with a characteristically
catatonic Costner performance, it’s the equivalent of visual novocaine.
