Murder by Numbers

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Turns potentially forgettable formula into something strangely diverting.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Ellen A. Kim

Schroeder's misstep is trying hard to please his star, whether it be her character's empathetic past or one very fake-looking action climax. His greatest service is keeping her toe-to-toe with her talented co-stars -- and both are the better for it.

Chicago Tribune Mark Caro

The outline of Murder by Numbers may be familiar, but the filmmakers and Bullock do an expert job of filling in the colors.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Bullock does a good job here of working against her natural likability, creating a character you'd like to like, and could like, if she weren't so sad, strange and turned in upon herself.

USA Today Mike Clark

The result is two or three cuts above genre standard.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

The story may be about cold-blooded murder, but Bullock's pulsating performance is about the getting of wisdom.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Though Schroeder makes you squirm more than you want to at the inevitable scenes of the trussed-up female murder victim, he also has the proclivity and the skill to make at least the B-picture half of Murder by Numbers of more than passing interest.

The New Yorker David Denby

Bullock shades what she normally does into something more interesting -- the angriest and sexiest work she's done. [6 May 2002, p. 138]

LA Weekly F. X. Feeney

Even as the psychological interdependencies of the two boys take the foreground, the movie gets more and more crowded with fun-house surprises and cliffhanging set pieces.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

This is the kind of film where the audience has to sort through the sequences, like visiting the green grocer's: liked that bit, can do without those.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

When Bullock is on screen, Murder by Numbers is as far away as a sleepwalker's gaze. But when Schroeder focuses on the teenagers, the film is wide awake, eye-to-eye with adolescent angst and anomie.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Towards the end, Murder By Numbers reverts to form with cheesy clichés, plot twists, and a fair amount of unnecessary action, but that's easily the film's low point.

Boston Globe Chris Fujiwara

For much of its length, the film is plausible, if predictable and ponderous. Its strongest assets are its actors.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

In effect gives you two movies for the price of one. The better one doesn't star Sandra Bullock.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

Isn't a great movie, but it's a perfectly acceptable widget.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Engrossing but psychologically shallow tale.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Even though Bullock engages in a climactic scene of blue-screen peril, she essentially cedes the match to the kids. In this mediocre murder case, their presence is the only thing that's really killer.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Neither the crime nor its detection is especially interesting, and screenwriter Tony Gayton doesn't appear to be aiming for psychological insights.

Village Voice Dennis Lim

But owing no doubt to the requirements of Sandra Bullock, the movie's above-the-line star, executive producer, and worst enemy, this potboiling procedural never stands a chance of disproving its title.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

A near miss, a respectable but uninspired thriller that's intelligent and considered in its details, but ultimately weak in its impact.

Slate David Edelstein

Not even the actress' soulfulness can save the generic climax, in which she tussles with the badder bad guy on a collapsing terrace above a crashing surf. As a colleague muttered, "Murder by numbers is right."

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

There is indeed a murder - two of them, in fact - and the movie proceeds strictly by the numbers laid down long ago in some by-the-book Hollywood writing class.

Film Threat Michael Dequina

Doesn't necessarily make Murder by Numbers an awful film; it's certainly watchable, but it never escapes its paint-by-numbers design.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

The real surprise, given the secondhand material, is that not everything proceeds by rote in Murder by Numbers.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Ultimately, Murder by Numbers has been reduced to a tease, giving us a hint -- mostly through the fine performances of Gosling, who creates a charismatic sociopath, and Pitt, who's character seems genuinely troubled -- of the kind of relevant social drama it might have been.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

In Murder by Numbers, though, even Schroeder can't keep his own boredom from showing.

Portland Oregonian Kim Morgan

Starts out dark, thrilling and inventive, then, regrettably, becomes sappy, mainstream and mundane.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

The shallow-seated problem with Murder by Numbers is that it's serious and doggedly intricate but not much fun.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

Director Barbet Schroeder is too elegant an artist for this material, which veers between routine cop-movie conventions and high-toned malarkey that seems a lot closer to Dungeons & Dragons than to "Thus Spoke Zarathustra."

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

A sappy big-screen version of TV's "CSI."

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

There's nothing blatantly wrong with it (except perhaps the red-assed baboon ex machina), but it's 100% shock-free and coasts to a formulaic conclusion.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

A moralizing thriller so listless that it plays out like a game of mouse and mouse.

Austin Chronicle Russell Smith

In context, it's utterly, dismayingly typical.

New Times (L.A.) Bill Gallo

Most obvious crime is first-degree dullness, giving us a thriller without thrills and a mystery devoid of urgent questions.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

This premise could, just maybe, make for a decent thriller, but everything about Murder by Numbers is so flavorless and rote, so devoid of real suspense and human interest, that you never suspect for a moment that the answers are likely to be engaging.