Rating: 
Summary: A disturbing and interesting psychological thriller...
Review: I think this movie is one of my favorites. It has a great photography, excellent actors, a good script and a known and great director, Barbet Schroeder."Murder by Numbers" is a psychological triller, where two high school boys want to commit the perfect crime.
Sandra Bullock (Cassie Mayweather) is a cop who has to investigate a crime of a young woman. This crime is a little related to her dark-past, which Cassie (Sandra Bullock) wants to forget. Sandra Bullock is really deep, and this is one of her best perfomances. You're used to see her making laugh you, but this time, she's a cop with a crude, dark past that she wants, but can't forget... Ryan Gosling and Michael Pitt's perfomances are really good...Ryan Gosling plays Richard Haywood, the "cool" high school kid who together with his friend Justin Pendleton (Michael Pitt) "the smart one" want to commit the perfect murder, and want to prove they're smarter than the caps. Ben Chaplin is the new San Benito Police detective Sam Kennedy, who is helping Cassie (Sandra Bullock) in this case. Surprisingly, Cassie (Sandra Bullock) try to have a "rare" relationship with her partner Sam (Ben Chaplin)...but with all the lack of romanticism... This movie is rated R, for violence, strong language, a sex scene (it really would be called "sex scene"?) and brief drug use.
Rating: 
Summary: Sandra, Michael and Ryan Came Out To Play----
Review: ---cops and felons on a sunny day. I couldn't get immersed in any sort of reality in this film. I didn't find the boys menacing or Sandra Bullock believable as a hard-bitten cop. Their acting was good, and if the time spent on Bullock's clunky back-story had been devoted to more in-depth characterizations of the boys, the movie might have succeeded. Bullock had too much baggage to carry, and the boys didn't have enough. The story is very loosely based on the Chicago Leopold & Loeb murders in the '20's. Two overly bright boys with too much time and money on their hands plan the "perfect" murder. Justin (Michael Pitt) is shown as enjoying the planning and theory, but procrastinates on the execution. He is a dreamy intellectual boy who is compelling with his androgynous looks. Richard (Ryan Gosling) appears to be the man of action--doesn't care about the whys and wherefores, just wants the thrill. Gosling wears Richard's #1 Popular Boy personality like a second skin. The difficulty is in imagining how these two polar opposites ever got together at all. Sandra Bullock (Cassie) is the detective in charge whose personality is supposedly so abrasive; she is called "The Hyena" behind her back. She may be sexually dismissive, intuitive, hyper-energized, but a Hyena, she is not. She backs down from confrontations right and left. Her partner, Ben Chaplin, was one big cipher to me. He had a pained demeanor throughout. He didn't act; he was acted upon. The pace was good, and the film was entertaining. Miss Bullock put a lot of effort into her role, but I couldn't help but think how a Stockard Channing or a Sigourney Weaver would have made her role a tour de force. 3-1/2 stars.
-sweetmolly-Amazon[.com] Reviewer
Rating: 
Summary: Not the best, not the worst.
Review: I wasn't sure what to expect from the movies. I have been a fan of Ryan Gosling's since his Young Hercules days, so I couldn't wait to see him in the totally different role than the teen hero. I wasn't disappointed by either Gosling or Michael Pitt. I thought their portrayals were excellent. It was Sandra Bullock and Ben Chaplin who were disappointing. Bullock frayed my nerves while Chaplin was uninspiring. The twist at the end was both unexpected and thrilling. Who knew one could feel pity for a murderer?
Rating: 
Summary: Sandra Bullock in trouble ...
Review: Not so much the movie, but here career apparently. Reese Witherspoon and Cameron Diaz must be scaring the hell out of Bullock and Meg Ryan cuz they stopped doing those perky comedies that they did well. Put them in something else, like this one, and whew is it tough to watch! Plus there are way too many holes in this one to really make it work. A couple of good moments, but a bargain rental at best.
Rating:
Summary: Never quite takes off
Review: The Nietzschean philosophy of two villainous schoolboys is the best thing about "Murder By Numbers", and that it's explored so superficially is one of the film's major disappointments. The script seems more interested in establishing Sandra Bullock's likable, quirky and oversexed homicide detective Cassie Mayweather, but ultimately does very little with her except tack on a backstory resolution which is only tangentially related to the case. As it stands, "Murder By Numbers" plays like the fusion of teen thriller and small town romance, and the result isn't really satisfying on either level. Still, it looks superb and veteran director Barbet Schroeder at least keeps things moving. The performances are solid. Bullock plays her most interesting role since "28 Days", Michael Pitt adds another rendition of the deeply-troubled-sexually-ambiguous-teen to his resumé, and Ryan Gosling gives a promising performance as his manipulated pal.
Rating:
Summary: A Good Movie But Not Worth Buying
Review: Sandra Bullock stars in this movie. It is about a popular kid in highschool that gets to together with someone no one likes and they plan to murder someone. They have all the precautions in place and the police have no idea who did this. Then the police start asking questions and they lead to these two fellows. Then the police are constantly on their but and then they finally give in but not without a fight. This DVD is good but there is no special features. I would have thought there would have been some featues. Good movie 3 out of 5 stars that I am giving.
Rating: 
Summary: Bland Bullock
Review: Sandra Bullock once again proves that she cannot handle a role with any depth. She is unconvincing as a tough detective. Her toughness just comes across as an actress reading a script. I suppose she got this role because she is listed as an executive producer, or something of that ilk.
Rating:
Summary: Murder By Numbers-Major Boredom At Its Best
Review: After seeing Murder By Numbers, I was fairly disappointed and upset as well as displeased. The film was not all as good as I had anticipated. The film's plot, fairly simple and straightfoward, the film's intelligence: MINUSCULE. There wasn't any, this type of film has been made into another film before just with different actors and a differenct crew. Director Barbet Shroder failed on all attempts to make a thriller which actually makes you contemplate or think at all. There wasn't even a lot of action, But this film does show that actress Sandra Bullock can be a decent actress if she tries and can perform in other films besides comedies.
The plot is essentially, two teenagers commit a horrific and horrendous murder and two detectives must investigate. ... This film is insipid and apathetic and just uninteresting and appalling. Take my word for it, this movie is PATHETIC! See it if you must! Murder by Number is rated R for Violence, (YEA RIGHT) Language, A Sex Scene (ACTUALLY TRUE) and brief drug use.
Rating:
Summary: Implausible but engaging murder mystery
Review: This is an interesting detective flick that could have been much better. The story is a contemporary twist on the standard crime drama where the diabolical murderers try to outsmart the wily detective. The contemporary twist is that the murderers are two high school students who are brilliant but bored so they decide to plan the perfect murder and play a cat and mouse game with the police. Therein lies the flaw. It is plausible that high school students could go on a killing spree because they are angry, frustrated or alienated (we have unfortunately seen too much of this phenomenon), but boredom doesn't produce this level of calculated evil. Also, when teens like this snap, the result is messy, not cold and calculated at depicted here. Director Barbet Schroeder (Single White Female) presents these kids as normal high school students who simply decided that their brand of mischief would be murder. It might have been more believable if they showed some sociopathic tendencies, but other than the murder, they seem like regular kids. The union of two kids who are so different, the intropsective loner Justin (Michael Pitt) and the popular rich kid Richard (Ryan Gosling), also fails to resonate. They supposedly met when Justin was tutoring Richard, which is utterly implausible given the fact that Richard is portrayed as being extremely bright himself. Also, these types of kids generally have a natural disdain for one another in real life. The script also bogs down with unnecessary plot elements like Cassie's (Sandra Bullock) mysterious past and a relationship with her partner. This is an attempt to develop Cassie in a way that has little bearing on the main storyline, and the subplot klunks annoyingly away like a square wheel. The gathering of forensic evidence and the deductive reasoning that follows is fascinating along with the boys manipulation of the evidence to point the detectives in the wrong direction. Cassie's intuitive approach to the evidence is also well scripted. The acting by the boys is well done, with both creating believable characters. Pitt is moody, sensitive and introspective and renders a tortured character that tries to appear far more confident than he really is. Gosling gives Richard a cocky bravado that reminded me of James Caan. He creates a character that is manipulative and cunning. Sandra Bullock is a terrific actress, but she seems out of place in this role. Part of the problem is that her character is given too much excess baggage with which to to deal. She plays Cassie far too tentatively considering this is a female characters that other cops call "the hyena". She seems intimidated by confrontations. She is completely dominated in the confrontation with the teenage Richard, but she is also weak in scenes with her boss and her partner. She is much better in the subplot regarding her anguish over her past and the uneasy relationship she has with her partner. Unfortunately, this is the most irrelevant component of the script. This film has some interesting elements, but the pieces fail to come together. Bullock's middling performance along with an unbelievable story reduce this film to mediocrity. I rated it a 6/10.
Rating:
Summary: Don't waste your money on this movie
Review: The movie starts interesting, but has too many mistakes and non logical sequences. In a nutshell this movie is about two boys who commit the perfect crime, but Sandra bullock who is the detective ( And has a severe trauma do to an accident she had when young)and is in charge of this case decides from the beginning the two boys were guilty. I could not believe Sandra help produce this garbage. Bad movie, do not waste your money buying it.
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