Copycat

Alien is unique, or how the unforgettable Ellen Ripley rode on the wave of her famous name after a phenomenal success. If Copycat was supposed to be an original and intellectual crime thriller about mass murders, it definitely didn't succeed as it should have. Pros? An amazing Holly Hunter, an excellent Dermot Mulroney, and even Sigourney Weaver as a mentally unstable psychologist can be proud of her performance. Cons? A bland and unexciting screenplay, many unresolved plotlines and inconsistencies, uneven tension, fluctuating pace, and simply too obvious made-for-TV execution. A film that blended into the grayness and mediocrity of contemporary Hollywood. (20/07/2007)

The twilight of the white heterosexual man is said to be a new hallmark of contemporary filmmaking. A film nearly a quarter-century old, and the only normal man in it is gay. The rest are murderous sadistic psychopaths, jealous idiots with mouths full of nonsense (Patton), or cowardly donut carriers who refuse to confront women's sexual desires (Mulroney). The space for female heroines is fully utilized by the panic-stricken Sigourney Weaver, who, breathing into a paper bag, lists American presidents, and Holly Hunter skillfully annoying the audience with her obnoxious inspector. Everything unfolds in a sinusoidal pattern of unnecessarily stretched scenes and cautious doses of adrenaline injected into the viewers' veins, until the end, where you don't even need to be a member of the PreCrime unit from Minority Report to know that a certain character is going to falter and pull the trigger at the last possible moment. Amiel is certainly not Fincher, but who among us is, right? (05/12/2019)

I’m a sucker for a good mystery thriller, and while it’s tough to find anything that lives up to a classic like Se7en, Copycat was pretty solid. I enjoyed it. Sigourney Weaver's character was a bit odd, and I didn’t entirely get her, but in the context of the overall detective story, it didn’t bother me too much. It’s an enjoyable film, and it easily earned its three stars from me. (08/04/2021)