MOVIE REVIEW :: Murder by Numbers

'NUMBERS' SUM UP TO STURDY THRILLER
Murder by Numbers is many-sided in scope, allowing it to work on a number of different levels. To merely label it as a thriller would belittle the performances and effort rendered by writer and actor to create such intriguing characters.

It seems everything clicks here -- the characters to the script, director to cinematographer -- to create a believable mystery with startlingly realistic characters and settings. To say Murder by Numbers is just a thriller is an understatement. It's a character study within a murder mystery, a tale of redemption and a slick drama with as much substance as style.

So what exactly is murder by numbers? For high school seniors Richard Haywood and Justin Pendleton (Ryan Gosling and Michael Pitt), it is getting away with the perfect crime. Brilliant outcast Justin and popular rebel Richard form a club of two on boredom and the neglect of their upper-middle class parents, bonding in a crumbling building on a seaside cliff. Here the boys share their deepest secrets and fantasies while drinking alcohol and getting high, soon realizing that this relationship is the closest either of them has ever had.

Over the days and months that follow, the boys hatch a plan to guarantee their total loyalty to each other, to share an experience few have known: to commit the perfect murder.

But veteran detective Cassie Mayweather (Sandra Bullock) is not easily fooled. While her new partner Sam (Ben Chaplin) is happy to follow the clues to their logical conclusion, Cassie is experienced enough to trust her hunches and resist the obvious answers. Her abrasive, tomboyish exterior is, however, a disguise to mask deep scars. Her past emerges in bits and pieces of flashback, though few contain surprises. There is never any mystery about the fact that the murder she is investigating reawakens her most painful memories.

The relationship between the twisted killers and the mismatched cops is as interesting as the plot that unfolds, and director Barbet Schroeder meticulously reveals the truths that each character is hiding throughout the film's two hour running time.

Justin and Richard's relationship is just shy of sexual, but as they clash and embrace, you never get the impression that they are gay. It is a deliberate touch to further characterize these smart kids with fat wallets and empty lives. They have done something together that is both exciting and dangerous, and they are the only souls on earth who know about it. It deepens their relationship to an extent unknown to either of them, but things slowly begin to unravel as fear, paranoia, guilt and suspicion begin to take effect.

Sandra Bullock's journey as Cassie is fascinating too, but seems somewhat contrived and wraps itself up all to easily for someone caring so much baggage. Nonetheless, Bullock rises above the constraints of the script, turning in her best performance since she drove a bus rigged with explosives alongside Keanu Reeves in Speed.

Murder by Numbers scores with sharp chills and top-notch acting, qualities that too many thrillers leave behind.