‘All real freedom risks crime…’
A mystery thriller starring Ryan Gosling and Sandra Bullock? That sounds like a movie everyone would know about right? Well, that movie carries the unfortunately prescient title of Murder by Numbers, and it is… very dull.
Gosling and Michael Pitt play a pair of high school dipshits that set out to commit the perfect murder. Both are off putting and weird and neither of them convince with a pair of badly written and unrealistic characters. Even Bullock, one of the most consistent actors of her generation, doesn’t bring much to the table here, lacking her trademark sparkle.
Tony Gayton’s script was already behind the times in 2002, taking elements from Scream and Dead Man’s Curve whilst never threatening to do or say anything original. Barbet Schroeder’s direction is workmanlike and the pacing is unforgivably plodding. It’s also difficult to follow a movie for nearly two hours when you have absolutely nobody to root for. All the characters here are at least mildly annoying, and by the end I was simply waiting for the credits to roll.
Perhaps the biggest criticism I can provide for Murder by Numbers is that I’ve got absolutely nothing else to say about this piece of shit. The definition of subpar.