Sandra Bullock
in Murder by Numbers.
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Murder of Numbers
had a lot of promise, but it only 'nearly' delivers.
Neil Heath
Usually we see
Sandra Bullock in slushy romances that most of us avoid like a Roberto
Carlos freekick.
However, in
Murder by Numbers, she's a hard nosed detective with a dark past.
Plot
Sandra Bullock plays homicide detective Cassie Mayweather, who's
investigating the murder of a young woman.
With the help
of fellow detective (Chaplin) the trail leads them to Richard Haywood
(Gosling) and Justin Pendleton (Pitt), two intellectual high school
students - from the beginning we know these two are the murderers.
The pair manage to frame a school janitor (Chris Penn) for the crime,
which has the FBI convinced - case closed.
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| I can't
seem to find the prawn crackers! |
However, Cassie
is not convinced, so against everyone's better judgement, she sets
out to prove her own theories.
Cassie also has her own scars, emotional and physical when she survived
an attempted murder by her ex-husband.
Review
In 1924 students Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, abducted and murdered
a 14-year-old boy for a thrill.
Those events inspired this film, as it did for Hitchcock's 'The
Rope'.
The premise
seems great at first, it's absorbing and it makes the old
grey matter do some work.
It also doesn't
have a straight narrative, it's very fragmented, which is great
because you find yourself piecing it together like an elaborate
mind jigsaw.
But then
it gets a little slow and tiresome, particularly concerning Bullock
and Chaplin's unlikely relationship - which doesn't seem important
at all to the film.
Also, if the
two murderers are so clever, and have planned every eventuality,
then why do they act so suspiciously and leave a patch of vomit
at the crime scene?
The ending is
also a little overblown, it's not believable and it's morally over
the top e.g. 'you-only-get-one-chance-at-life-blah-blah-blah'.
However, it's worth a look, it's probably the best film in its genre
around at the moment and so deserves a viewing.
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