Faded Copy

Leafing through my DVD collection not long ago, I decided to watch Copycat. Like Frailty, this is a movie I really enjoyed last I saw it. It has been in my top 100 list.

Unlike Frailty, it didn't quite hold up as well this time around.

Copycat is a serial killer movie with a clever little gimmick at the heart of it: it features a killer whose M.O. is to imitate the crime scenes and methods of other famous serial killers. Holly Hunter is the detective trying to capture him, and Sigourney Weaver plays a sort of psychologist specializing in serial murderers, housebound with agoraphobia after narrowing surviving an attempt on her own life.

I still found a lot to like about this movie. The gimmick is still pretty cool, even once you've seen the movie and know all the twists. Sigourney Weaver is excellent in this film, very convincing as this rather weak and frightened character, completely against the type of the strong roles she's most associated with. Even though the crimes are center stage, there's enough time for some meaningful interactions between the characters, rounding them out and making them more real.

But there are a few flaws. One is that the film, from 1995, has not aged well. It has a laughably inaccurate treatment of computers, from e-mail to the internet to Photoshop to viruses. What an audience could dismiss at the time (because hey, who knows how any of that stuff really works?!) breaks the suspension of disbelief today.

There's also a bit of a go-nowhere subplot involving an ex-lover of Holly Hunter's character, who also works as a detective. Though he does serve a key role as the final act of the movie arrives, he's needlessly standoffish the rest of the time, in a way that doesn't really illuminate the Holly Hunter character any better. If anything, you're left scratching your head as to how the two were ever together. It's a bit of awkward character background meant to disguise a very mechanical purpose in the story.

In all, though, good performances and that clever premise make it worth a look, if you haven't seen it. But I do think it's probably dropping off my list, and I'm downgrading it from the "A" it once held it my mind to an "A-".