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Bad Numbers
Thanks to a really busy week, I have postponed the final five days of script reviews till next week. Today, instead, we have an early review of Murder by The Numbers. Expect another review tomorrow for David Lynch's Mullholland Drive.
Murder By Numbers review
"Hollyfeld, here. I was amongst the first persons to see the latest Warner Bros. thriller, Murder By Numbers, starring Sandra Bullock and Ben Chaplin (The Thin Red Line, Lost Souls). The movie attempts to be an intriguing Hitchcockian thriller, intertwining the respective stories of two brilliant murderers and their pursuers, but too often falls flat in its execution. Although seemingly almost finished, there is clearly a good chance that the Murder By Number's problems could be fixed, or at least reduced, by the movie's release.
The movie's biggest selling point upon its release will no doubt be the identity of the murderers - not big names (Ryan Gosling and Michael Pitt, best known as Tommy Gnosis from Hedwig), but rather teenagers who kill because "we were bored." Justin is a brilliant but confused student who forms a not-so-subtly homoerotic relationship with Richard, the school pretty boy - rich and attractive. Together, they form an ingenious "by the numbers" plan to murder a random individual and not get caught. However, the two detectives assigned to the case, played by Sandra Bullock and Ben Chaplin, decide to trust their hunches more than the evidence this time around, and as tensions rise between the murderers, so too does the heat around the investigation.
While on the surface the plot for Murder By Numbers would seem like a great idea, the film itself fails to capitalize fully upon its concept. The highly detailed (and clearly well-researched) details of the police investigation and murder plot compose most of the movie's highlights, but the subplots tend to quite simply be boring. Bullock and Chaplin are introduced in a highly humdrum manner, simply doing their jobs; because they fail to capture our interest from the beginning, we don't particularly care about their back-stories when they arise. Although the high school exploits of Justin and Richard are somewhat more interesting, they too fail to make much of an impact, alternately coming across as either heavy-handed or too subtle.
Justin and Richard's subplots, however, are aided by the fine performances of Pitt and Gosling, both of whom will no doubt escape this movie with fine reputations (regardless of whether it improves before release). Unfortunately, neither Bullock nor Chaplin succeeds in making a particular impression here, although Bullock at least appears to be trying. Chaplin's character seems bland from the get go, and never has an opportunity in the script to prove this first impression wrong. Although Bullock's detective seems somewhat more complex, the admittedly very capable actress seems, if nothing else, miscast as a troubled homicide investigator with a past. Like many movie stars, Julia Roberts or Sharon Stone for example, Bullock seems somewhat out of place in a dramatic role, especially one as underwritten as in Murder By Numbers - one ultimately gets the impression that her character was written for a different type of actress entirely. (Holly Hunter or Janeane Garofalo, for example, both of whom have elevated bland cop characters above their source material in Copycat and Clay Pigeons, respectively.)
Director Barbet Schroeder is a thoroughly competent director and is in fact the man behind one of my favorite films of all time, Reversal of Fortune. Unfortunately, he is also responsible for the forgettable Desperate Measures, and it is that somewhat unsure hand that currently seems to be guiding the proceedings here. Patchy and unevenly paced, this first cut of Murder By Numbers is an unsatisfying affair, though in its defense it most certainly picks up in the second half, where the well-written police work comes to an exciting head in a brilliantly written double-interrogation scene, and the chemistry and jealousy between the two murderers begins to really build, culminating in a believable and effective climactic sequence. The problem, however, is that all of this wonderful work arrives too late in the game, because the film had already lost many of us long before the second half. Some editing work might be able to remedy this problem, speeding up the first half and building more suspense, but as it stands Murder By Numbers is an unmemorable work, made notable only by the performances of Gosling and Pitt, the presence of Sandra Bullock, and an interesting premise, which to be fair treats the issue of teen crime with a degree of intelligence and respect."
(Review submitted by 'Hollyfeld.')
Stay tuned...
That's all folks...
Jean-François Allaire (aka DeadPool)
Questions, comments, praise etc. Email me at deadpool@tnmc.org
Jean-François Allaire is TNMC's first columnist. At only 24 years old he has become a respected entertainment journalist, with his columns appearing in Corona's Coming Attractions and Scr(i)pt magazine. He also writes a monthly column in Screenwriters Monthly entitled 'The Last Word.' Hailing from Montreal this young writer is determined to dig up all the details on the movies before they hit your local theater. If you're part of a movie production then you really need to be talking to him.
