Murder by Numbers
**1/2
Cinema Releases - June 28, 2002
Rated on a 4-star scale. Certificate 15. USA.
120 minutes. Directed by Barbet Schroeder. Written by Tony Gayton. Starring
Sandra Bullock, Ryan Gosling, Michael Pitt, Agnes Bruckner, Chris Penn, R.D.
Call, Ben Chaplin, Tom Verica.
"Murder by Numbers" is torn between
wanting to act like a Barbet Schroeder drama and being a Warner Bros. thriller
with Sandra Bullock. The story is a powerful one, at times told well -- but
moments of force exist within a work that feels more like product than art,
and things end up disturbing for all the wrong reasons.
The film cuts between two Los Angeles detectives
and a pair of strange high school lads. The cops are new partners: Bullock
stars as a hard-bitten gal who spews out one-liners and looks like she's
seen it all before; Ben Chaplin plays a fresh-faced kid just promoted to
the homicide division. Ryan Gosling and Michael Pitt play the boys, who are
spoiled but unsatisfied young guys, and together form a bond from which no
good can come.
Gosling gets a kick out of manipulation -- his
wealth has given him popularity, which has given him a cocky smirk, which
has in turn given him a need to see how far he can push his surroundings.
Pitt is academic, distant, awkward; he's seduced by Gosling's fascination
with his scientific mind and provoked by his suggestions that it would be
weak not to use it for plotting crime.
While Leopold and Loeb planned and committed murder
to prove their brilliance, the characters played by Gosling and Pitt do so
because they think "crime is the only true act" and "only in murder or suicide
can one prove oneself free". The dynamic is the same -- somehow these guys
have grown up without human empathy, and however they mask it, are driven
to kill by feelings of arrogance and superiority. When they get together,
they bring out each other's darkest musings and plotting skills, and violence
is the inevitable result.
"Murder by Numbers" has elements of police procedural,
because it's a story of killers and cops, but we often have information from
one side that the other is struggling to discover, and it's absorbing to
watch the reactions of characters as the net closes in. Flashbacks of Gosling
and Pitt describing how they're going to plant confusing forensic evidence
on their victim's body, for example, are intercut with shots of Bullock and
Chaplin looking frustrated at the inconclusiveness of test results. We are
shown in detail how the killers' relationship disintegrates, and the way
it all happens because of their specific needs and flaws.
Most of this is written and directed with tautness
and intelligence, but small hallmarks of studio planning go a long way in
giving the film a feel of construction. Bullock's investigative skills are
those of a typically Hollywood superhero cop; she makes connections we can
hardly imagine a real policewoman making, such as doubting that her original
suspect could be guilty because he seems to fill the profile of a murderer
too well. Her character is also given a fuzzy and random backstory, so that
we can get the obligatory shots of her sitting alone at night nursing glasses
of scotch (she lives on a houseboat, but I'm sure Martin Riggs knows his
camper van was far more moody). There are the usual complications with a
captain who wants the case at hand wrapped up despite all protestations.
And one whole plot thread seems to exist solely to show Bullock in a sex
scene.
I can sit through a few cop movie clichés
if a movie absolutely requires them, but "Murder by Numbers" does not. The
murder plot at its centre is one of such sickness that when it's put in the
midst of the other stuff, it feels... inappropriate. I would advise Schroeder
to look at "Seven" (1995) as a guide of how to make a slick investigative
picture while sidestepping conventional traps, except this is the guy who
directed "Reversal of Fortune", and he should know better
already.
All that's left to discuss is the performances,
which are as uneven as the rest of the content. Bullock, as always, plays
a character whose manner is bothered and unsettled, and if "Speed" and "Miss
Congeniality" let us identify with her annoyance while films like "28 Days"
and "The Net" simply gave her obnoxious character traits, she here seems
distant, and we can't quite figure her out. Chaplin uses up all his energy
nailing a convincing American accent, leaving himself unable to inject any
personality into his role.
And then we have Pitt and Gosling, who through
subtle ticks make themselves strange, intense and fascinating. As in "Bully",
Pitt does a good job of acting pathetically in over his head. Gosling continues
to build on the promise he showed in "The Believer", seeming convinced of
the wickedest things and charming enough to speak about them with a conviction
that steamrolls over the obvious logical holes. I've said before that these
guys would have been much better choices than poor Hadyn Christensen to fill
the role of Anakin Skywalker, but what the hey, I'll say it
again.
COPYRIGHT©
2002 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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