Don't get me wrong, 'Bone Daddy' is decent, in a TV-movie kind of way. I've liked Rutger Hauer since Blade Runner, and even though he just keeps churning out the b-movies, I just keep renting them (tomorrow night, I watch Redline!) But man, Rutger is looking OLD in this movie -- he's sporting an old-guy moustache and some extra pounds, and he doesn't DO anything -- he argues, and drives around, and breaks into a jog maybe once before the climax of the film. Add a lumpen, dislikable supporting cast (including a dour Barbara Williams as his inhospitable partner-in-crimesolving) and after a while, not only do you not CARE who the killer is, but you wish s/he'd start knocking off a few more people!
The gross-out factor in this movie is quite high, in a couple of scenes that arrive just when you're about to turn it off in exasperation. The 'Bone Daddy' killer's shtik is to remove the bones from the victims, while they're still alive, and (in this case at least) mail them to our hero, a former forensic pathologist who made the mistake of writing a book about 'Bone Daddy.' It really is kinda creepy, if you think about it. It's much more suspenseful if one of your dumb friends doesn't start singing 'de knee bone's connected to de leg bone, de leg bone's connected to de hip bone...' during the gory scenes, incidentally.
This one just screams 'mid-week rental.' Pick it up cheap, it's not that bad. Or maybe I should organize a boycott of this and all Hauer rentals until he finds an agent that gets him some better scripts to read...
