Murder by Numbers Review
by Jon Popick (jpopick AT sick-boy DOT com)April 15th, 2002
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It's surprising how quickly 9/11 made everyone forget about Columbine and the less-publicized (but equally disturbing) Dartmouth murders. Seven months ago, no studio would have dreamt of releasing a film where two teenagers from well-to-do suburban families kill people out of sheer boredom, but here comes wannabe-thriller Murder 8y Num8ers. It's two incomplete films: One about the murderous kids and the other about the homicide investigation attendant thereto. Each is somewhat clunky and underdeveloped, but worse yet, the half-baked premise completely saps Num8ers of any potential suspense. Silence of the Lambs and Se7en worked because you didn't know what the killer was up to until you were already scared out of your skin.
It's pretty much all downhill after a very cool opening shot. The murderers here are high-school classmates Richard (Ryan Gosling, The Believer) and Justin (Michael Pitt, Hedwig and the Angry Inch), who are, respectively, a cocky psycho and an introverted brainiac with a seemingly preternatural knowledge of forensic science (is this what CSI is doing to our children?). The investigators are mentally unstable veteran Cassie Mayweather (Sandra Bullock, in her second straight law-enforcement role, following Miss Congeniality) and her new partner Sam (Ben Chaplin, Birthday Girl), a former vice cop with no experience in murder cases.
Num8ers is cobbled together in a somewhat interesting manner, with Richard and Justin's intricate planning and subsequent execution shown in non-sequential flashbacks while Cassie and Sam play Holmes and Watson in the proper order. The teens commit a murder to see if they can get away with it, planting evidence to steer the fuzz toward a specific individual (read: not them), but their meticulousness isn't crafty enough to fool Cassie. Like fellow CSI geek Gil Grisham, she can look at evidence and immediately assess that something is off. For example, if a body was found with a bullet hole in the temple, a revolver in one hand and a suicide note in the other, both detectives would instinctively - within seconds of their crime-scene arrival - know foul play was somehow involved. It's one of the annoying things that makes CSI tough to watch, and doesn't help matters here.
Generally, the kids are much more interesting than the adults, which isn't difficult to accomplish when you're talking about bland leads like Bullock and Chaplin. Pitt and especially Gosling follow up their memorable performances in their most recent films (both of which won the top awards at the 2001 Sundance Fest), though it would have been better if Tony Gayton's script played up the obvious (possibly to everyone but themselves) physical attraction the two characters share. I also like when Richard and Justin scheme while downing absinthe, which seems to have become the cinematic drink of choice (see From Hell) if you're planning a murder or trying to solve one (I can practically picture the Absolut Absinthe ads on the back cover of the next Rolling Stone).
Chaplin has nothing to do, while Bullock's meatier role (she also an executive producer, so go figure) includes an unrevealed trauma in her past and at least two or three personality disorders - but what good homicide detective doesn't suffer from that kind of thing? What she does isn't at all spectacular, but it's nice to see that Bullock hasn't yet begun acting with little or no abandon because she's in desperate need of a big hit with both critics and the public. Still, it was hard not to laugh during the one scene where her character frantically shrieks, "Who thinks I'm losing it?!? Who?!?"
Aside from the nifty opening shot, director Barbet Schroeder doesn't do much to extricate himself from the Rut of Mediocrity (Kiss of Death, Before and After, Desperate Measures and last year's indie washout, Our Lady of the Assassins) he's been wallowing in since hitting it big with Single White Female and Reversal of Fortune. Num8ers left me with plenty of questions in my mind, most notably, "What's a small-town police department doing with such a crackerjack homicide investigator (and why would they possibly need a second)?" as well as "What the hell does the title mean, anyway?" That said, I'd be hard-pressed to name another film that featured a baboon and the music of Bach, Wagner and Iron Maiden, so you've got to give it up...but only a little bit.
1:58 - R for violence, language, a sex scene and brief drug use
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