Copycat is set in San Francisco where a serial killer is at large, homicide inspector's M.J. Monahan (Holly Hunter) & her partner Reuben Geotz (Dermot Mulroney) are on the case but are going nowhere fast. A serial killer profiler named Helen Hudson (Sigourney Weaver) who suffers from agoraphobia & has been housebound for thirteen months after a serial killer named Daryll Lee Cullum (Harry Connick Jr.) tried to kill her agrees to help the police catch the killer using her expertise. Helen quickly realises that the killer is copying other serial killers from the past in the way he kills his victims, the killer also contacts Helen & taunts her as he intends to finish the job Daryll Lee Cullum started & kill her in the way Callum wanted...
Directed by Jon Amiel I am actually amazed at how many positive comments this strictly average killer thriller has, for me it's a poor mans Se7en (1995) or even The Silence of the Lambs (1991). The script by Ann Bidderman & David Madsen takes itself very seriously, is far too long, deviates from the main action too often & doesn't make the most of it's good aspects. There are some good ideas in Copycat including the idea of a serial killer copying other serial killers & the profiler suffering from agoraphobia but little is made of them & I thought Copycat was a throughly routine & disappointingly predictable thriller. For start the killer is identified too early, there's no mystery surrounding who they are at all & he isn't given any sort of motive other than 'I'm a killer & that's what I do' which is about all the motive a character like Jason Voorhees from the Friday the 13th slasher flicks is given which I didn't like at all & then there's the extremely predictable & clichéd ending where you just know Helen will have to find strength within herself & overcome her agoraphobia in order to defeat the killer, you can just see it coming from the moment we learn she's a agoraphobic. I wasn't keen on the killers characterisation either, why at the end does he save Helen from hanging? Wasn't that his plan? To recreate & finish Daryll Lee's plan? Why save her & then instantly want to killer her again? He runs after her with a knife so why not let her hang? Surely that's what he wanted? For someone who is portrayed as so intelligent & cunning he suddenly becomes a nervous wreck & if you think about it Helen owes the killer for saving her life as much as she owes Monahan. Also why did the killer kill his wife? What serial killer was he copying then eh?
Director Amiel turns in a throughly standard looking cop thriller, it has absolutely no style like Se7en did, it's not scary, most of the kills are off screen & there's no atmosphere which Se7en manage to generate so well. The gore & violence isn't that excessive, there's a couple of slit throats otherwise all the kills are off screen. The computer terminology used in Copycat is also severely questionable & basically total nonsense. What on earth was that terrible ending all about as well? It's awful & seemed more suited to a cheap horror flick that wanted to spawn a sequel. As a big fan of the telly series Quincy M.E. (1976 - 1983) I wonder if they named Hunter's character Monahan after a similar homicide detective in Quincy? I doubt it but you never know as it's not a common name.
With a supposed budget of about $20,000,000 Copycat is well made but throughly bland & forgettable. There's no style here at all, shot on location in San Francisco & Los Angeles. I thought Sigourney Weaver was pretty good in this but I also thought Holly Hunter was awful, really, really bad.
Copycat is an average killer thriller, it doesn't have the scares, the atmosphere or the mysterious intrigue the likes of Se7en & The Silence of the Lambs excel at & which are both far superior to this. A thriller that's not very thrilling, generally disappointing & I thought it was average at best.
Directed by Jon Amiel I am actually amazed at how many positive comments this strictly average killer thriller has, for me it's a poor mans Se7en (1995) or even The Silence of the Lambs (1991). The script by Ann Bidderman & David Madsen takes itself very seriously, is far too long, deviates from the main action too often & doesn't make the most of it's good aspects. There are some good ideas in Copycat including the idea of a serial killer copying other serial killers & the profiler suffering from agoraphobia but little is made of them & I thought Copycat was a throughly routine & disappointingly predictable thriller. For start the killer is identified too early, there's no mystery surrounding who they are at all & he isn't given any sort of motive other than 'I'm a killer & that's what I do' which is about all the motive a character like Jason Voorhees from the Friday the 13th slasher flicks is given which I didn't like at all & then there's the extremely predictable & clichéd ending where you just know Helen will have to find strength within herself & overcome her agoraphobia in order to defeat the killer, you can just see it coming from the moment we learn she's a agoraphobic. I wasn't keen on the killers characterisation either, why at the end does he save Helen from hanging? Wasn't that his plan? To recreate & finish Daryll Lee's plan? Why save her & then instantly want to killer her again? He runs after her with a knife so why not let her hang? Surely that's what he wanted? For someone who is portrayed as so intelligent & cunning he suddenly becomes a nervous wreck & if you think about it Helen owes the killer for saving her life as much as she owes Monahan. Also why did the killer kill his wife? What serial killer was he copying then eh?
Director Amiel turns in a throughly standard looking cop thriller, it has absolutely no style like Se7en did, it's not scary, most of the kills are off screen & there's no atmosphere which Se7en manage to generate so well. The gore & violence isn't that excessive, there's a couple of slit throats otherwise all the kills are off screen. The computer terminology used in Copycat is also severely questionable & basically total nonsense. What on earth was that terrible ending all about as well? It's awful & seemed more suited to a cheap horror flick that wanted to spawn a sequel. As a big fan of the telly series Quincy M.E. (1976 - 1983) I wonder if they named Hunter's character Monahan after a similar homicide detective in Quincy? I doubt it but you never know as it's not a common name.
With a supposed budget of about $20,000,000 Copycat is well made but throughly bland & forgettable. There's no style here at all, shot on location in San Francisco & Los Angeles. I thought Sigourney Weaver was pretty good in this but I also thought Holly Hunter was awful, really, really bad.
Copycat is an average killer thriller, it doesn't have the scares, the atmosphere or the mysterious intrigue the likes of Se7en & The Silence of the Lambs excel at & which are both far superior to this. A thriller that's not very thrilling, generally disappointing & I thought it was average at best.