In The End, ‘Copycat’ Runs Out Of Plot

There are only so many ways that you can exploit the now-familiar theme of serial killers stalking their prey. For much of “Copycat,” it appears that director Jon Amiel has found a fresh approach.

Based on a script by Ann Biderman and David Madsen, Amiel attempts to follow - to copycat, so to speak - the footsteps that Jonathan Demme took in making his Oscar-winning adaptation of “The Silence of the Lambs.” While never ignoring the fact that his film involves murder, Amiel spends more time than usual developing his characters.

In other words, he may be working in a B-grade genre, but, like Demme, Amiel refuses to settle for a B-grade result. He wants us to accept his characters as real people caught up in exceptional circumstances.

Those circumstances involve Helen Hudson, a psychologist and best-selling author whose specialty is serial killers. After nearly being killed by a particularly gruesome individual (Harry Connick Jr.), Helen retires to her spacious San Francisco apartment and vows never to come out.

Then three-odd years later, a new series of murders breaks out. Police are baffled, especially the two main investigating officers, M.J. Monaghan (Holly Hunter) and her partner (Dermot Mulroney). But they begin to make progress when they adopt Helen, who has been bombarding them with anonymous phone calls, as their adviser.

Her opinion: A clever psychopath, looking to earn a reputation, is murdering various victims in the styles of the most infamous killers of all - Albert DeSalvo, Jeffrey Dahmer, David Berkowitz, Ted Bundy, etc.

Things get interesting when the killer targets Helen. Trouble is, that’s when the movie starts to unravel, too.

Unraveling is something Demme’s movie never does, even though “Silence of the Lambs” doesn’t stick to plain every-day reality. The characters of Buffalo Bill and Hannibal Lecter, almost by necessity, are larger than life (only a superman would escape the way Lecter does).

But Demme shot his film as if it were ordinary life and his characters were as common as eccentric in-laws. He uses misdirection to keep us off-balance, even when it is obvious where the story is headed, and he fills in the cracks with characterization augmented by good acting: Jodie Foster’s family tragedy, her relationships with dueling father-figures Lecter and her FBI boss (Scott Glenn), the victim who fights back (Brooke Smith), etc.

Amiel attempts to do the same. M.J. has a shadowy past relationship with a fellow detective (Will Patton). Her partner (Mulroney) wears outlandish ties and tries to feed her sushi instead of Big Macs. Helen, meanwhile, suffers from agoraphobia and lives in an alcohol- and drug-induced haze that is broken by latenight video-viewings and periodic chats on the Internet.

The work of all the leads, especially Hunter, is uniformly good.

Too, there’s an inclusive feel to Amiel’s work that almost leisurely forces us to see how these crimes exist in the larger world. One shot, for example, focuses on a man having breakfast, takes in running figures as seen through a window and then, in a simple series of shots, targets on a headless corpse floating in the bay.

Even the most pedestrian of activities, Amiel seems to be saying, can’t escape the spectre of violence.

But then he falters. The script’s loose ends don’t tie up so much as they just run out: the deaths of a couple of characters occur predictably if suddenly; the feelings of a pained man are examined but never explained; the results of psychopathic behavior are portrayed graphically, but the causes of such behavior are glossed over lightly.

Instead, in the film’s final 15 minutes, we are treated to a killer with abilities so superhuman they make Hannibal Lecter seem like Peewee Herman. And the finale, instead of being clever or poignant, becomes just an extended moment of protracted revenge.

Jon Amiel meant to copycat Jonathan Demme, but in the end he settled for John Landis.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo

MEMO: Two sidebars appeared with the story: 1. “COPYCAT” ** 1/2 Location: East Sprague, Newport and Showboat cinemas Credits: Directed by Jon Amiel, starring Sigourney Weaver, Holly Hunter, Dermot Mulroney, Will Patton and Harry Connick Jr. Running time: 2:03 Rating: R

2. OTHER VIEWS Here’s what other critics say about “Copycat:” Michael H. Price/Fort Worth Star-Telegram: Curiously, Warner Bros. has asked for “the press’s cooperation in not revealing the identity of the killer or the ending of this film.” This request is part condescension - no thoughtful reviewer would disclose an ending - and part exploitative gimmick, designed to generate a false air of intrigue around a picture that is not so much a mystery as it is a sharp exercise in procedural detection. … But OK, I’ll play along. The more interesting killer, anyway, is the calculating hillbilly menace played by Connick, who remains behind bars for the better part of two hours after a horrific opening sequence. Chris Hewitt/St. Paul Pioneer Press: “Copycat” succeeds because the hunter and the hunted are both equally intelligent and because the puzzle becomes more interesting as the pieces come together. And if the movie’s occasional goofiness siphons off some of the intensity and creepiness, well, maybe that’s not necessarily a bad thing.