Signs

s

Could anything be more unweird, uncreepy and just more corny than crop circles? They no longer trigger off the Twilight Zone theme in anyone's head. Everyone knows they're done by two drunk blokes with a piece of rope and a plank, and given that they have actually been used on the front cover of a Led Zeppelin box set - with runic symbols representing the four band members - surely their leasehold on the public imagination has utterly expired. They are the oldest of old hat: ancient hat, prehistoric hat.

But M Night Shyamalan, writer-director of the funky chiller hits The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, apparently thinks there's creative life in the old hoax yet. Because his new movie, the third in what is turning into a kind of Ripley's Believe It or Not series, features a lapsed priest turned farmer, played by Mel Gibson, who discovers a whole bunch of elaborate crop circles in his field, like those appearing all over the world. Are they the work of hoaxers or, gulp, aliens? I thought a director as clever and sophisticated as this would plump for the former, but that we'd get one of Shyamalan's classic final twists, a dizzying narrative switchback. Maybe the hoaxer's body is ambiguously occupied by aliens? Or, given that Gibson's character is supposed to be a widower, maybe the hoaxer is the ghost of his departed wife? Well, the ending will have to remain a mystery here, but suffice it to say it's nothing like the clever surprise he's sprung in the past: it hardly counts as a surprise at all.

Shyamalan has come up with an amiable, often amusing, but basically pretty weak sub-Spielbergian drama with a heavy-handed conservative message about faith. Adults and children alike adopt a familiar saucer-eyed expression signalling wonderment at something that allegedly passeth normal understanding.

Mel Gibson plays Graham Hess, the quietly virile family man presiding over everything. Gibson radiates his usual blue-eyed aura of colossal self-satisfaction. He is supposedly a lapsed Catholic clergyman whom locals still unselfconsciously address as "Father", despite having abandoned his vocation when his wife died in a horrendous road accident. But now he is in possession of a magnificent, picturesque farmhouse with various outbuildings. Whether he maintained this homestead while he was still a man of the cloth is unclear - he certainly never has to do a tap of work. Farming, for Mel, seems to consist of jogging out on to the porch and frowning at the latest extra-terrestrial incursion.

Gibson has been joined by his younger brother, notionally a bit of a tearaway, played by Joaquin Phoenix, living with him now to keep him company. But both grown-ups have each and every scene stolen from them by the two kids, whose child actor mannerisms are taken from very different textbooks. Abigail Breslin, playing younger sister Bo, is an adorable moppet and recognisable cousin of Drew Barrymore in ET. But Rory Culkin, playing sibling Morgan, styles his own performance not on his real brother Macaulay, but very much on Haley Joel Osment, who became world famous under the tutelage of Shyamalan. He has the same precocious stillness and self-possession and most importantly he has Osment-trademarked Tiny Little Voice that indicates a childlike connection to spiritual realities unavailable to adults.

The joker in the pack is neighbouring farmsteader Ray Reddy, the man whose fate is tragically bound up with Graham's. Shyamalan has awarded this role to, ahem, himself. That's worrying. In his past two outings, the director restricted himself to cameos, developing a nicely discreet Hitchcockian signature. This, however, is a small but important speaking part; it needs someone capable of emotional range, who moreover looks tough enough to handle himself in a fight. And - how can I put this? - Shyamalan doesn't measure up on either score. The slightly built, intellectual-looking auteur is a very wooden actor and the most unlikely-looking farmer I have ever seen in my life.

Given the title, it may be appropriate to consider the semiology of it all. In a recent essay in this newspaper on the residual cultural traces of September 11, Mark Lawson commented on a telling moment in this movie: when the little girl complains to her dad one morning that the same TV programme is on every channel.

There's something else of interest too. Guns. Or the lack of them. Bafflingly, Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix seem to be the only farmers in America who don't have guns. Almost any other kind of film about alien-invasion would show the farmers getting tooled up with every kind of shooter they can lay their hands on. (The recent neo-B-movie Eight Legged Freaks showed the humans blasting happily away with every firearm known to man.) But strangely, it never crosses our heroes' minds to wonder if the rumoured little green men might be susceptible to a bit of good old-fashioned lead poisoning. The only weapons they do wield are a kitchen knife and an all-American baseball bat. Mel and his family demonstrate a very quietist approach to an alien force trespassing on their property. Could it be that they represent an America which wishes to broadcast the moral superiority of its victim status?

Arguably, but in any event, Shyamalan has directed a film without the novelty and ingenuity of his first two. What is left is a derivative, underpowered picture. This talented and, at 32, very young director must now find new ideas - maybe working with someone else's scripts. Because his film-making identity is in danger of fading.

The following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and Clarifications column, September 18 2002

Contrary to what we said above, Mel Gibson does not play a lapsed Catholic priest. He is an Episcopalian (and entitled to his wife and children).

Contributor

Peter Bradshaw

The GuardianTramp

Related Content

Signs

(Rental and DVD rental Buena Vista Cert 12)

Rob Mackie

07, Feb, 2003 @12:34 AM

Article image
Feature: London Jazz festival

The argument rages on: is jazz dead? John Fordham checks the pulse of this year's London Jazz festival and offers a guide to the gigs not to miss.

02, Nov, 2001 @4:40 AM

Clash of the titans

Did Superman outbox Ali? Did Sherlock Holmes beat Dracula? As horror legends Freddy and Jason meet in celluloid, Kim Newman explores what happens when icons collide.

Kim Newman

08, Aug, 2003 @1:36 AM

By any means necessary

In 1965, black leaders in the US marched serenely in smart suits, quoting the Bible. Two years later, they strutted defiantly in leather jackets and berets - brandishing guns. Gary Younge on a film festival remembering the Black Panthers.

Gary Younge

08, Aug, 2003 @1:36 AM

Article image
The Honeymooners

Peter Bradshaw: Pointless adaptation of a prehistoric US sitcom.

Peter Bradshaw

01, Sep, 2005 @11:51 PM

Article image
The Assassination of Richard Nixon

Cert 15

Rob Mackie

01, Sep, 2005 @11:51 PM

What goes up must come down

Jude Law seemed to be on an unstoppable flight to the top - until Alfie, and the nanny, brought him to earth. But will Keira follow his lead? And can anything rescue Liz Hurley? Tim Dowling traces the trajectories of six UK film stars.

Tim Dowling

01, Sep, 2005 @11:51 PM

Article image
'I'm the quiet one'

Matthew Vaughn says he is uncomfortable in the spotlight. So how does he deal with producing Guy Ritchie's films, having his wedding to Claudia Schiffer in Hello! and launching a directing career? Laura Barton meets the ex-teaboy.

Laura Barton

27, Aug, 2004 @12:19 AM

Film releases: The Quiet American

Peter Bradshaw

09, Aug, 2002 @12:29 AM

Article image
The camel stays in the picture

How did Botok, a young dromedary living deep in the Gobi desert, become a movie star? Jessica Winter reports.

Jessica Winter

02, Jul, 2004 @1:49 AM