There are few things sadder than a serious movie that is campy by accident. For this reason, Sandra Bullock and Castle Rock Entertainment must be saddened with each showing of \Murder by Numbers.""
The movie centers around Cassie Mayweather (Sandra Bullock), a clever and cold female detective who is paired with a newcomer to homicide (Ben Chaplin) because none of her sexist coworkers will partner with her. Their first case together is a thrill killing carried out by Richard Haywood (Ryan Gosling), a rich, smart and popular high school kid with neglectful parents and too much time on his hands and Justin Pendleton (Michael Pitt), a brilliant but isolated classmate with similar parenting and boredom. The movie follows Mayweather's investigation of the case as Haywood and Pendleton spiral into a calculated killing spree to cover their tracks.
The movie's failings begin with Bullock. She offers an uninspired portrayal of an unlikable character that is built on a foundation of clich??s. The way she deals with her caricatured sexist superiors and the way she puts on a tough exterior leave both the character and actress reminiscent of a thousand B-movies. When all the other characters are tired of Mayweather, the audience feels the same way.
Director Barbet Schroeder (""Desperate Measures,"" ""Single White Female"") is also to blame for the lame finished product. The juggling of the storylines of the killers and of the police is uncomfortable. Screen time, camera work and use of music are all terribly inconsistent throughout the movie. The score lends melodrama to uneventful scenes that don't need it and elevates suspenseful scenes to full-out corniness, while the movie's ending piles on every cheap trick in the book, including some amateur special effects.
To complete the parade of mediocrity are screenwriter Tony Gayton's contributions. Much of the dialogue, especially involving the police, seems taken almost verbatim from other crime movies. Also he tries to create a brilliant detective character for Bullock without doing anything that really demonstrates her cleverness. Similarly, the boys' criminal geniuses seems more recited out of a police handbook than genuine. Worst of all is that the audience can always tell what is coming around the next turn. Throw in dull moments, plot fillers like an inexplicable baboon attack, and a subplot of Bullock's mysterious past that is unnecessary and painted on about as subtly as Ronald McDonald's makeup, and it becomes a real mess of a movie.
All of this is unfortunate, because the movie does have some parts to work with. In spite of plot holes, the story itself is interesting. The partnership between the two latchkey kids is both compelling and well acted, with the strong performances of Pitt, and especially Gosling, compensating for the weak script they were handed. But what ""Murder By Numbers"" ultimately leaves the audience with is a lame suspense thriller that neither thrills nor suspends, rife with clich??s and melodrama.
