Bless the Child

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Bless the Child ★ 2000 (R)

Ba-singer doesn't even attempt to hide her boredom as Maggie, aunt and caretaker to a six-year-old with supernatural powers. Everyone drops the ball in this failed ripoff of “The ExorOmen's Baby's Sixth Sense.” Satanist and self-help guru Stark (Sewell) wants to recruit the gifted tyke to work for the Devil, while Maggie gets an occult-expert FBI agent (Smits, perhaps making a mortgage payment) and a bunch of exposition cameos on her side. This movie's idea of thrills is showing kids getting kidnapped and later turning up dead. Not exactly the feel-good movie of the year. 110m/C VHS, DVD . Kim Basinger, Jimmy Smits, Rufus Sewell, Holliston Coleman, Christina Ricci, Michael Gaston, Lumi Cavazos, Angela Bettis, Ian Holm, Eugene Lipinski, Anne Betancourt, Dimitra Arlys; D: Chuck Russell; W: Thomas (Tom) Rick-man, Clifford Green, Ellen Green; C: Peter Men-zies Jr.; M: Christopher Young.