On M List of Movie Reviews

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Murder by Numbers (2002)

Rate: 7
Viewed: 10/19

MurderbyNum
10/19: I hate Sandra Bullock, and she's the primary reason why I avoided Murder by Numbers for a long time.

After seeing it, it's still the same bullshit acting from her, and nothing has changed. Sandra Bullock has never been nude in any film; when her character is having sex with Ben Chaplin's, she has a shirt on?!? Ladies and gentlemen, this is not a real actress. Now move over, bitch...here comes a real actor: Ryan Gosling.

What an amazing performance. Ryan Gosling should've been Oscar-nominated for Best Supporting Actor. Charming, manipulative, and a bit of James Dean wannabe, he, hands down, steals the show and is on another level as compared to the rest of the cast.

The other two, Ben Chaplin and Michael Pitt, have done a great job of holding their own against the difficult-to-match Ryan Gosling and the pushover Sandra Bullock who tries hard to wrest away some of the attention for herself. But who are we kidding here? She's secondary to Ryan Gosling.

Yes, I can tell right away that Murder by Numbers is Rope. It's straight out of Leopold and Loeb's playbook which is the genesis of films like Strangers on a Train, Compulsion, and Heavenly Creatures. One nice thing about Murder by Numbers is that it's not confined within a room. My favorite line is when Justin told Lisa, "I wish I met you first." That's an understatement of the century. Had he did, the direction of his life would've been totally different.

Another downer is the terrible special effects whenever the house on the cliff is shown. I can tell it was superimposed against the green background, and the whole composition never meshes well. The cliffhanger scene is Final Analysis all over again; it's the same exact setup minus the lighthouse. Didn't they do the same thing for Color of Night, too? Come on, can we have some originality here? Of course, I don't have to tell you this, but the car that Gosling's character drives is the same type used in Bullitt.

All in all, Ryan Gosling is the super krazy glue that holds Murder by Numbers together.