Review: Murder By Numbers

Sandra Bullock plays a hardened homicide detective with a very dark past, who along with new partner Ben Chaplin is investigating the murder of a young woman. The prime suspects are disaffected and probably insufficiently supervised high schoolers Ryan Gosling (socially adept and popular) and Michael Pitt (shy and bookish). The audience knows they’re guilty, these two teens from different social circles have come together to perform what intellectual Pitt sees as the ‘perfect crime’. Yet, to Bullock’s consternation, her superior (R.D. Call) wants her to focus more on the local janitor (Chris Penn), who sells drugs to students. But Bullock persists in her pursuit of the two teens, perhaps with a little too much aggressiveness. Agnes Bruckner plays a fellow student who finds Gosling revolting but is nicer to the more chivalrous Pitt (Something that seems to make Gosling go all Leopold and Loeb-like jealous).

 

Oh if only this film were as smart, interesting and creative as its two young serial killer antagonists. A copycat wannabe with a Leopold-Loeb bent, this 2002 Barbet Schroeder (“Barfly”, “Reversal of Fortune”, “Kiss of Death”) film from a script by Tony Gayton (who co-wrote the underrated Dwayne Johnson vehicle “Faster”) squanders  some interesting ideas in the service of beefing up the role for miscast actor/executive producer Sandra Bullock. Every time the film cuts to her and partner Ben Chaplin (which is far too often), my interest went away and we’re left with half a good film and half a waste of time. Bullock’s not remotely convincing in the rather complex role, and it bothered me that her troubled past seemed tacked on to appease an actress/producer who didn’t think the role meaty enough as written. It just didn’t feel organic, nor did Ms. Bullock’s performance. This is supposedly a woman who is bold and assertive in the bedroom, yet Bullock herself clearly refused to break the no-nudity clause in her contract so she has sex with her clothes on like I’m sure everyone does (Bullock is notorious for this nonsense, having quite steamy sex in the little-seen “Fire on the Amazon” but with very visible obstructions to her nipples. Don’t sign on for the role in the first place, sweetie). This is a woman who goes out of her way to pursue a guy and basically demand to have sex with him...but she asks that her shirt stays on? How does that make sense for the camera? Oh there’s a reason alright...a clearly tacked-on one. Everything about the character feels tacked on, even how her past trauma connects to her current circumstances. It didn’t convince me that it wasn’t added after Bullock signed on. I could be speculative and wrong here, but I couldn’t shake the feeling throughout and the film would certainly be much improved with her role being downplayed.

 

But as I said, this is half a good film, and whenever Michael Pitt and Ryan Gosling are on screen, this is fascinating stuff. Bad guys are always more interesting than the hero, and I’ve always had a (perfectly healthy!) interest in serial killers and serial killer stories. Truth be told, the characters played by Pitt and Gosling are a bit more reminiscent of Perry Smith and Dick Hickock from “In Cold Blood”. Gosling got all the praise here and we know the actor/star he has become, but for me, Michael Pitt is sorely underrated as the timid psycho manipulated by the more outwardly charismatic and socially adept Gosling. You can’t praise one performance and not the other, in my view, they’re both good, a perfect team and I just don’t understand why Pitt gets ignored in favour of Gosling. The intelligence and craftiness of the Pitt character, demented as he is, is very interesting stuff. It’s kinda funny to me that the dipshit, superficial charm displayed by Gosling’s character here is essentially what everyone loves about Gosling in every other film he has made since. Watch this and tell me I’m wrong. I’m not saying he’s a serial killer in real-life or even a bad actor (anyone who has seen “The Believer” and “Blue Valentine” knows he can act), just that he’s one slick dude, kinda like Richard Gere or George Clooney, but less smarmy in my view.

 

Ordinarily I’d get annoyed when we see the killers finally start to make mistakes, since they’re otherwise very smart. However, one must also remember that they are teenagers, and teenagers, smart or not, fuck up sometimes, overlook things, or will crack under pressure. Yes, even sociopathic ones.

 

Ben Chaplin is insufferably dull, as he tended to be throughout most of his career until “London Boulevard”. The late Chris Penn and character actor R.D. Call (a friend of Sean Penn’s a might add) are well-cast but underused as a janitor who sells pot on the side, and Bullock’s concerned boss, respectively. Mr. Penn was a talented character actor and genuinely missed. The best performance outside of the two crims comes from the lovely Agnes Bruckner, an actress who deserved a much better career than she has gotten, and is really quite appealing here. She genuinely worries you, and that’s all due to Ms. Bruckner herself.

 

Such a shame. Here’s an OK film that really could’ve been better if its entire world didn’t revolve around Sandra Bullock. You really want to like this a lot more than you actually do. And that, in a way, is more frustrating than if the film were simply bad. “Copycat” and “Se7en” it ain’t, let alone “In Cold Blood”

 

Rating: C+