COPYCAT directed by Jon Amiel (USA, 1995)

‘Copycat’ is yet another film about a serial killer. The fact that the two main characters are women raises expectations that you might get a new slant on a tired genre. Sadly this is not case.

This short review contains spoilers not to ruin your enjoyment but to save you the trouble of watching this mess of a movie.

Sigourney Weaver plays Dr. Helen Hudson, a criminal psychologist specialising in what makes educated and apparently normal men turn into deranged killers. In the opening scene, after one of her lectures, she almost becomes a victim herself and we see her literally hanging at the mercy of Harry Connick Jr. who plans to use a knife as an instrument of torture rather than singing one his schmaltzy songs.

We see a fat cop running down a corridor and the movie jumps to 13 months later. It later transpires that this cop somehow apprehended Connick who is then imprisoned for his dastardly deeds. The experience has left Weaver in a mess though, she is holed up in a luxurious apartment suffering from agoraphobia with only a gay home help for company.

Holly Hunter is detective M.J.Monohan looking for clues in a series of random and brutal killings. She is under instructions not to use the term ‘serial killer’ but knows that this is what she is up against.

When Weaver telephones the police station to offer her analysis, Hunter and a cute male assistant Reuben (Dermot Mulroney) visit her and immediately ask for her help on the case. After recovering from a panic attack, she agrees and studies photos of the victims while drinking a glass of wine.

It transpires that the M.O. of the killer is to copy precisely the methods used by famous killers following the sequence outlined in Weaver’s book and lectures. The killer himself is a sexually frustrated male computer nerd looking after his sick and doting mother – a tidy amalgam of stereotypes to save us having to engage with him at any level other than as the evil ‘out there’.

There’s some subplot about a jealous colleague of Monahan which serves no purpose other than to lead to a sub-sub plot wherein Reuben gets shot by a mad Chinaman. This conveniently leaves the climax of the movie with two women versus one maniac who, having stalked Weaver, plans for her to be his next victim.

We end as we begin with Weaver almost being hung over a W.C. and almost being tortured until Holly Hunter comes to the rescue. She miraculously and inexplicably survives being shot at point-blank range and guns down the killer. The end.

The film score is by Christopher Young and prominently features a dreadful song by The Police called Murder By Numbers that isn’t even on the soundtrack album. Maybe Sting & crew wanted to distance themselves from the movie, if so it was a wise move..

It is not clear why actresses as talented as Hunter and Weaver got talked into this tripe. I can only assume it must have looked better on the page than it does on the screen. The pedestrian directing by Jon Amiel provides irritatingly obvious Hitchcock references minus the suspense and the plot is so all over the place that you quickly lose interest in the characters.

If you’re thinking of watching this movie, take my advice and don’t bother.

Related link:

How Stuff Works – How serial killer’s work