Review of Murder by Numbers (2002) by James S — 20 Nov 2009

A scrappily put together affair, this is a homage to Alfred Hitchcock's excellent movie 'Rope' with the police investigation added in to make it seem different. It's not at all bad though, if you can get past the nonsensical cohesion and Sandra Bullock-ness.

Sandra is the female cop, made fun of by her male colleagues as female cops always are, who begins an investigation into an apparently motiveless murder carried out by Ryan Gosling and that bloke who used to be Henry in Dawson's Creek, who think they have got away with a perfect murder, committed just for the sake of it.

The young pair do a fine job of imitating Hitchcock's protagonists in Rope and Gosling in particular comes off as completely unhinged, acting Bullock right off the screen.....not that that's any mean feat!!.

Ben Chaplin was trying to forge his Hollywood career when this was made but for British viewers it's hard to see him as anything other than Matthew from BBC sitcom 'Game On' and his simpering detective does nothing to make you think otherwise here.

Murder By Numbers springs a good number of plot twists along the way and does end up in a rather tense finale but lets itself down by the terrible way in which it is put together and pointless sub plots involving Bullock's character. At times the film seems like it has been put together in the wrong order.

Thankfully, it does manage to pull itself together to make this a very watchable thriller, not on a par with it's source material, but definitely divertingly entertaining.