Murder by Numbers

in narrative, beautifully lensed by Luciano Tovoli and Schroeder layers the production with a suitable feeling of unease. Sadly there's no psychological depth given the two boys by writer Tony Gayton, which renders the whole motives and means, and the investigation of such, as being a shallow exercise in thriller film making. Running at two hours in length doesn't help matters, because this further irritates that more meat was not written onto Gosling and Pitt's bones, while it also exposes just how hackneyed and clichéd the picture is. Which when the story should be psychologically profound, marks this out as a frustrating viewing experience. 6/10

ywood" (Ryan Gosling) to whom she takes an instant dislike. Further ferreting around lead the pair to "Pendleton" (Michael Pitt) who is partial to a little caviar, as was the corpse. Might they all be connected? I've rarely seen a potentially decent ensemble cast wasted like this. Bullock just isn't at the races, her character is frankly really quite boring and the rapport with the out of his depth Chaplin just doesn't work. There is the glimmer of an homo-erotic relationship between Gosling and the always enigmatic Pitt, but I think maybe that is just because my brain was scrabbling around trying to find a reason to make it through this really disappointing feature. In the end it is a battle of wills, and those who seem to hold all the aces play their hand as if their arms had been amputated; serendipity plays way too big a part in the denouement and at just shy of two hours, I found myself looking out of the window at the seagulls more than I might have liked. Not very good!