Much like director Barbet Schroeder's previous work Desperate Measures, Murder by Numbers features compelling villains and uneven writing.
Two high school students (Ryan Gosling and Michael Pitt) commit a murder to push their poorly digested Nietzsche beyond mere parlour games; a troubled detective (Sandra Bullock) investigates them.
It's basically a Dostoevsky-lite thriller/character study, and an obvious homage to Alfred Hitchcock's Rope, homosexual subtext included. What elevates it above mediocrity are the stellar performances by Gosling and Pitt as the young sociopaths, the former as a slick, aggressive manipulator, the latter as a smug intellectual. Far more conventional is Bullock's cynical cop.
Worth one viewing.
6/10
Two high school students (Ryan Gosling and Michael Pitt) commit a murder to push their poorly digested Nietzsche beyond mere parlour games; a troubled detective (Sandra Bullock) investigates them.
It's basically a Dostoevsky-lite thriller/character study, and an obvious homage to Alfred Hitchcock's Rope, homosexual subtext included. What elevates it above mediocrity are the stellar performances by Gosling and Pitt as the young sociopaths, the former as a slick, aggressive manipulator, the latter as a smug intellectual. Far more conventional is Bullock's cynical cop.
Worth one viewing.
6/10