Let me just ruin it for you right off the bat - Bruce Willis plays child molester Dr. Malcolm Crowe. That's what the big shocker is that everybody wants to keep so secret about. No, really. You can see it in his weary, sad lifeless eyes every time he's with Cole Sear, a child cursed with the ability to see, hear, and interact with ghosts. Someone told me this right before I went to see the movie and I gotta tell you...

I wanted to strangle that moron. I must have been the only person in the theater thinking this terrible and wicked thing of a mainstream movie. Why did I let myself fall for such deception? How could I let myself be beguiled and hoodwinked by that cad?

Then, when the memory of being stuck fast to the floor from aeons of buttery sludge being layered upon the original tile had long passed and I was driving home, I thought What if?. Sometimes, people can see different things in a movie when they're primed and ready to watch for them. I felt like a young film student with an instructor leading me through the history of William Randolph Hearst and Orson Wells as the class watches Citizen Kane. Was this movie really deep and complex enough to allow such a second hidden interpretation? Watch the movie two times: once completely clear of any pre-judgement and knowledge and once as if you'd never seen it before and Bruce Willis plays a child molester. There's a little more tension there, isn't there? Let's try this for a bit...

Dr. Crowe is shot and wounded in the opening scene by a man he once treated when the man was a child, but failed miserably in the treatment and caused the patient even more suffering and confusion. The malpractice was, of course, his wicked and shameful perversion... his life's blood leaks out as he clings to life. Instead of getting to his congratulatory dinner to accept an award on behalf of the city's children, he instead is faced with another more dreadful, final reward.

The scene skips forward some time, and we see sweet, innocent Cole Sear there, ripe for the plucking. Dr. Crowe knows what monster lurks deep within his heart, and he takes Cole under his wing to tease out his deep, shameful secret of mortal sight. A little too paternal in this scene, he's a little close in that scene. The temptation becomes too great, and Dr. Crowe buries himself in his work, much to the chagrin of his long-suffering wife. Even though he's there, she's very much alone despite his constant presence and she practically writhes in anguish. Maybe she is a party to his previous malfeasance, and perhaps he is holding some horrible damning secret over her head to keep her silence. The sinister undercurrent builds and Dr. Crowe leads Cole through facing his fears, helping the ghosts achieve peace, and eventually somehow get the boy to help him come to grips with his own twisted inner demons.