There’s one cheat - when Willis tries to get into his basement office, the door’s always locked, and he can’t find his key. When he realizes he’s dead, we see that the door is, in fact, blocked by a table that Willis couldn’t perceive.
I got it somewhat early: when Cole and Crowe are talking in whispers and Cole says that the dead people he sees don’t know they’re dead. That made me flash back to the shooting and I excitedly whispered to my date, “I get it! He’s dead, from the shooting!”
Normally, I’m not that much of an ass with respect to spoiling things; it just popped out spontaneously with my excitement at realizing it.
I work with a guy who wears the same clothes every day. I assume he either does laundry every day or his closet is full of multiple copies of the same suit.
Probably the brother to that woman Jerry dated on Seinfeld.
Anyway, to answer the OP, I got it right after he was shot, but only because I read a review in the paper, and while it didn’t spoil it, it DID say that “you will never see the HUGE TWIST ENDING coming.”
I thought to myself,
“Well, NOW I WILL” (And, in fact, did.)
Hard to say if I would have noticed it before the reveal otherwise…I was only about 16 when I saw it, and not as astute, especially WRT movies, so probably not.
“They don’t know they’re dead.” Hard to remember but I think it was that line for me.
I’m usually oblivious to these things. I was completely taken in by The Usual Suspects but the “I see dead people” speech was the big aha for me.
I think that was after the restaurant scene which made that scene beautifully weird and sad and real. Today’s our 24th anniversary and, though we’re stronger than ever now, there was a patch in the mid '00s that felt exactly like that scene.
Not all the way to the end at the big reveal, but close to it. After the scene where Cole is in the school play, Cole tells Crowe that he knows how he can talk to his wife, just wait until she’s asleep. I thought to myself “why would her being asleep make a difference…?” and then the light bulb came on.
In some ways I feel he kind of cheated by taking advantage of how movies tell a story by not showing things that are inconsequential to the storytelling.
Things weren’t shown and the viewer was left to assume what happened off screen. That’s how movies are made.
When the viewer is never shown what happens off-screen (where does Crowe go at night? When does he eat? Him interacting with other people in situtations unimportant to the story, etc) we fill in the narrative ourselves.
To hold that against the viewer is somewhat of a cheat.
Like saying “Have you ever watched the Bad News Bears? Did you notice it’s never nighttime?”
or, “Did you know Han Solo is a robot? They never show him eat, sleep, or go to the bathroom. Isn’t it obvious?”
Other: Spoiler.
Well maybe, but what’s cool is, there is a point to that shooting scene being there. It’s where we see “the one that got away”; the kid that willis couldn’t help.
If that scene was just there in isolation with no point being in the film then I think my thoughts would have returned to it after the hospital scene.
This is about where I was. Saw years after it came out and heard there was a twist. So when it opens with Willis getting shot, I thought “Well then he must be dead.”
74westy brings up Usual Suspects… I recently read where someone says they feel that movie “cheats” b/c there’s no obvious clues that he’s getting the information for the story… b/c you never see the big reveal till the big reveal.
I don’t necessarily know why that’s a problem or a flaw per se. The fact that you can’t really crack the (entirety of) that twist the first time you watch it, you just have to get thumped by it… how is that “wrong”?
The movie is completely watchable and enjoyable even if you know the twist (I think that’s the case with most good movies with twist endings). If would be a shame if it wasn’t - presumably everybody knows the twist by now, and if that ruined the movie, no one would ever need to see it ever again.
I knew about the twist before I first saw the movie, too. In fact, it was the only reason I bothered with it in the first place, I wanted to see how it was done.
Agreed. Despite realizing what was going on right away, I really enjoyed the movie and how well Bruce Willis played the role of not being directly aware of his situation and eventually realizing it. It kept me on the edge of my seat in terms of wondering “Is he going to catch on … now?” (Plus it has Toni Collette and Olivia Williams in it.)
I am still unclear if Cole knew Malcolm was dead throughout the movie. If that is obvious to everyone else, it still isn’t to me.
Isn’t every twist ending kind of a cheat? The twist can’t be surprising unless it contradicts some of the audience’s previous assumptions about what was going on.
Although I didn’t guess the twist, I think The Sixth Sense plays pretty fairly with the audience. It explains the “rules” for ghosts within the world of the movie and we don’t see the Bruce Willis character do anything that contradicts those rules. I can think of a number of other twist ending movies where keeping the audience in the dark requires showing us things that didn’t happen, couldn’t have happened, or at least don’t make much sense once you know the twist. Cracked has done several pieces about these kinds of dumb movie plot twists. Anyone who wants examples and doesn’t mind being spoiled should check out “6 Huge Movie Plot Twists That Caused Even Bigger Plot Holes” and “The 10 Most Asinine Movie Twist Endings”.
A real charmer this one.
For this film, it works because we’re seeing things from the point of view of a ghost. The ghost doesn’t ask these questions about its own existence, and we are led not to as well.
Now I know that the spoiler rule holds regardless of lapsed time. The earnet isn’t always good for ya.
I saw it opening weekend in the theater and did not a twist existed. That is the essential thing, not knowing any twist was coming. I had no idea until the movie revealed it.
No one in the theater figured it out and the place, which was quite full, erupted in shock. I mean people were talking to total strangers to make sure they understood. It was amazing.
I’ve never seen anything like it in a theater and it is probably the most memorable movie going moment I’ll ever have.
Yeah, I think the kid knows the whole time.
When I saw it, I went with my then wife and a friend of hers and they had both seen it already. She kept looking over at me and nudging me at every instance where I should have figured out that he was dead the whole time … but I totally didn’t see it coming.
The big reveal was classic. I thought it was a great movie. So much so that I went to see other M. Night Shyamalan movies. What the hell was I thinking?
Not until the wedding ring hit the floor.