Rating: 
Summary: What part did I miss...
Review: Sadly not even the presence of Sandra Bullock can save this picture about a tortured police detective solving a murder. Together with her partner, played by Ben Chaplin, they pursue two teenage murderers. In a movie such as this, where the murderers are revealed almost from the first scene, rounded characters and a clever plot are a must. Murder By Numbers has neither. The murderers are intelligent and bored high school students and their characters never really evolve past this reality. Bullock's character is obsessed by past events and while affecting her character it does not seem to affect the plot. So why torture her if it serves no clear purpose?Murder By Numbers was a startling movie waiting to happen. Unfortunately between a disconnected plot and underdeveloped characters it never found its legs. This is a two star movie because I hope that some young genius writer/director will take a look at it, see its flaws, and then be able to bring to the screen what this movie should have been.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Movie!
Review: ...I found the critics's opinion to be totally contrary to my own after watching this movie.
Murder by Numbers is a suspenseful drama that truely kept me on the edge of my seat until the end. It adresses the issues of trust and makes one question if they really know who their friends are. Two teenagers think that are invisible to the world and can follow through with the perfect murder. Little do they realize that they will be each other's downfall. The cast is well suited for the film, and Sandra Bullock does a great job playing a more serious role of a cop, who herself has an unmentionable past. This drama thoroughly enthralls it's audience and I would recommend it to anyone.
Rating: 
Summary: awesome movie!
Review: i saw this movie in the theatres, and it was awesome. it kept me guessing the whole way through until the very end. sandra bullock was great, but my favourite was ryan gosling. i admit to watching him in breaker high, but if you've ever seen him in it, his role in mb#s is basically the complete opposite. he's the best part of this movie. completely scary and believable. rent it as soon is it comes out.
Rating: 
Summary: I likeSandra that's why I am quite generous in my review...
Review: I agree with one of the reviewers that although Sandra shines in this film in a more serious role (albeit stereotyped as a loner, all-guts girl again), the main plot got lost sometimes in the director's desire to bring up Cassie's history with her ex-husband. Also, I noticed that the film dragged on a bit at the start & that the love/bed scene was quite inappropriate or rather unnecessary for the plot development. Well, the ending kind'a made up for the film's shortfalls with its unexpected 'twist' & Cassie's (final) acceptance of her past in order for her to move on with her life. No matter how I like Sandra (I've watched all her films), I wouldn't have watched this film in the big screen. It's something you rent & view not keep. I am giving this film a *** because of her. Otherwise, it should have been lower...
Rating:
Summary: Spectacular Thriller
Review: I was expecting "Murder By Numbers" to be a fairly good thriller. But wow, IT IS SO MUCH MORE THAN THAT.
From the first scene to the end, the movie hooked me up and made me pay attention to every single minute of it. The cast is amazing. Sandra Bullock is really nice here, she really knows what's she's there for and plays the FBI agent Cassie the right way. But here, the show is not hers.
Ryan Gosling and Michael Pitt, the two young good looking boys who plan what would be the perfect murder, ARE the movie. They're just so intense, and when they're together they are at the same time very dangerous and very charming. I see a great future for them in the movie business.
The movie is done really well, and the one reason I won't give this 5 stars is because I thought the ending was a little weak. They should have worked on that, but no ending would ruin this movie, and this ending itself isn't so bad, but could live up to the rest of this amazing adventure through the minds of these beautifully dangerous boys. SEE THIS MOVIE. YOU'LL BE GLAD YOU DID!
Rating:
Summary: SANDRA BULLOCK JUST KEEPS GETTING MORE NARCISISTIC
Review: Ah, for the good old days -- like back when I saw a movie called WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING. It wasn't an especially excellent movie, but I was impressed by an actress then not previously too familiar to me, Sandra Bullock. She seemed like a sweet and disarming actress with a proverbial "girl-next-door" image. Wow, how things change. Her more recent films have increasingly turned into vanity projects of the like of TWO IF BY SEA, FORCES OF NATURE, 28 DAYS, MISS CONGENIALITY and now MURDER BY NUMBERS. This latter one is supposed to be a murder mystery, but that element really gets mostly smothered by the film's being a heavy handed angst-trip for Bullock's character. We're supposed to cheer her on as a shrewd detective, despite some erratic behavior that includes what would be called serious heavy-handed sexual harrassment of her partner if the genders were reversed. In any event, she's portrayed as the only one who knows what's going on, stuck in a workplace full of stereotypical dumb males, all clueless to what's happening right under their proverbial noses. Later she seems to show some compassion for one of the suspects, looking at him as possibly somewhat redeemable. This becomes the first genuinely human moment in the film that I could significantly buy into. But any hope of this being a plot turn that goes anywhere is ditched to still another twist. The final twist brings it back to being all about Bullock's character and her angst-trip, with the resolution of that occupying the final scene as if all else in the movie were irrelevant.
Rating:
Summary: A solid movie with an amazing Sandra Bullock
Review: In the past Sandra Bullock never had a role with a deep psychological background like Jodie Forster or Meryl Streep. Now she has this kind of role.
The film is about Cassie Mayweather, a female cop, who chases after two young boys (brilliant: Pitt and Gosling) to find the truth about the murder of a young woman.
The characters of the boys are well written but the character of Cassie is not. I had no business caring about her. But I did because of Bullock. How does she do that? She's very low key. She's so natural she seemes to be remembering a scene rather than playing it. She never overacts. She creates a sensation that although a scene may seem absurd to us, it seemes perfectly real to her. And we buy it. The movie is effective in slow and silent way but still I liked it.
And finally Bullock proved that she is a serious actress and if she ever get a great screenplay we may need seat belts
Rating:
Summary: Mike Pitt makes this film
Review: I went to see this fim at the cinema because I noticed Mike Pitt was in it, i'd enjoyed him in other indie films such as John Cameron Mitchell's fantastic Hedwig and the angry inch and Larry Clark's 'Bully'. So i wanted to see how he would fare in this mainstream big-budget film. Mike is basically the film, he played the character of high school student Justin with a brilliant intensity, that made you want to watch nothing but him, I hope he doesn't fall into the 'teen idol' bracket like many young actors do as he is worth MUCH more than that, however he is still quite off-beat for most audiences i suppose. Anyway in the film, I feel that the plot of Sandra Bullock (Cassie) and her husband could've been explored more fully, and I also felt that the relationship between the two killers Justin and Richard (Ryan Gosling) could've had more screen time, as it was the most interesting thing about this film. It was controlling, posessive, almost as if it was a kind of love. Sandra Bullock doesn't pull off her role all that well opting to play a text book detective, and her partner, played by Ben Chaplin is wasted, left hanging in the backgroud... One thing I will say for this film is that it does have an interesting plot twist at the end, which was not expected.
Rating:
Summary: A wasted Sandra Bullock
Review: This is just another murder movie, with the same all time killer/s and the same all time ending.
Sandra really looks good in this one, but I must say, this is so much better than her last fil(Miss Congeniality).
She gives a memorable performance, as Michael Pitt and Ben Chaplin.
The story it's about a murder, a girl is found cross a little river in the middler of the woods.Cssie Mayweather is send to investigate the case, with her new partner Sam(Ben Chaplin).
The main suspects are two teen kids, called Justin and Richard.
Justin, nerd and more than clever is played by Michael Pitt(Similar to Leonardo DiCaprio from Hedwig and the angry inch).
The other, Richard, is the pretty one, and the bad one(Played by Ryan Gosling).
But what Cassie doesn't know it's that the killers are more clever than she is, and they will do whatever it takes to avoid going to prision.
Really I was hoping for something else, may be more clever, or enterteining.Or a better ending, than the usual happy one.
Final grade: C-(6)
Rating:
Summary: Not A By The Numbers Film
Review: Barbet Schroeder's "Murder By Numbers" a movie which I assume is trying to update the Leopold and Loeb murders does have it's moments. It does try to create something original. And, who knows, if I had not seen the Alfred Hitchcock film "Rope", years ago, would I have enjoyed this movie? Probably not.
Sandra Bullock plays Cassie Mayweather. A once married woman, whom after a bad marriaged, which landed her husband in jail, has since become a cop. And know must track down what police believe to be a serial killer, who, for the moment seems to have committed the perfect crime. It was this part of the film I enjoyed. But, the writer of the film had something else up his sleeve. A very bad sub-plot concerning Bullock and her husband. I won't give it all away, but, it explains how bad the marriage was, why Bullock became a cop, and, why her husband has went to jail and the reason for her not going to testify against him. But this sub-plot sometimes takes away time from the, what I felt was the MAIN story-line to the film. The murder committed by these two young boys; Richard Haywood (Ryan Gosling) and Justin Pendleton (Michael Pitt). Seeing the way these two guys think and their actions was far more interesting to me then seeing Sandra Bullock over coming some old demmons in her closet. Could the sub-plot of work with a film like this? Maybe, but it would have to be handled in a much better way. There have been movies about cops who have old secrets in the closet and go on with a murder case. This year's "Insomnia" is a film that comes to mind. But in this film, the sub-plot concerning Bullock just throws the film off focus. The two stories do not coincide with each other. And because of that the film does not have the impact the director thought it would.
But still the film does have it's moments. This my pick for Bullock's best acting performance since, well, it's her best performance. There seemed to be something there between Ben Chaplin, who plays a rookie cop helping Bullock on the case, and Bullock. Gosling and Pitt did a nice job with their roles as well. And some parts did add a nice level of suspense. But, everything this film does has been handled much better in the past. Watch Hitchcock's "Rope" and see. The film is worth looking at if your a Bullock fan, but, by looking at the numbers this film grossed, I wouldn't say there are many. The film fell short of 20 million dollars to make any profit. ** 1\2 out of *****
Bottom-line: Although Bullock gives a very good perforamnce and the film does have some originality to it, it's sub-plot takes the film off track. Nice try though.
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