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Murder by Numbers
Mixed or average reviews
Based on 35 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 10 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Suspense/Thriller
Written by: Tony Gayton
Directed by: Barbet Schroeder
Release Date:
Theatrical: April 19, 2002
DVD: September 24, 2002
Running Time: 118 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: R for violence, language, a sex scene and brief drug use
Starring Sandra Bullock, Ryan Gosling, Michael Pitt, Agnes Bruckner, Chris Penn, R.D. Call, Ben Chaplin, and Tom Verica
Faced with the challenge of solving a "perfect murder," homicide detective Cassie Mayweather (Bullock) is forced to face and free herself from the tormented past she buried long ago. (Warner Bros.)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Terror's Advocate
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Washington Post Desson Thomson
Turns potentially forgettable formula into something strangely diverting.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
The story may be about cold-blooded murder, but Bullock's pulsating performance is about the getting of wisdom.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Chris Fujiwara
For much of its length, the film is plausible, if predictable and ponderous. Its strongest assets are its actors.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
In effect gives you two movies for the price of one. The better one doesn't star Sandra Bullock.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Ann Hornaday
Isn't a great movie, but it's a perfectly acceptable widget.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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."
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Dana Stevens
The real surprise, given the secondhand material, is that not everything proceeds by rote in Murder by Numbers.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Kim Morgan
Starts out dark, thrilling and inventive, then, regrettably, becomes sappy, mainstream and mundane.
Read Full Review >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."
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps
A moralizing thriller so listless that it plays out like a game of mouse and mouse.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 6.3 (out of 10) based on 10 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Gabor A. gave it a2:
Let me start by saying that no script ever written could be made into an enjoyable movie done with the terrible, straight to TV directing of this film. It was laughable. On top of that the script was aweful. This is the worst type of thriller, boring and dry and then still inconceivable and stupid. This film really ends up with no redeeming qualities because what would have been good acting is dissolved by the stupidity of the scenes in which they try to act.
Catrin J. gave it a 10:
I thought that the movie was fantastic and Sandra Bullock proves once again that she is a great actress. She was brilliant in miss congeniality aswell, fantastically funny n very entertaining to watch.
raVen gave it a 7:
Okay, as a whole it's pretty much a house of cards. But the two baddies--Gosling and Pitt--are REAL creeps! I guess coming in I figured Sandra's star power would make them seem foolish and unbelievable. But they do a good job shoving her around, which was what the roles needed. And Bullock, who I love, does a good job of looking shoved-around. I wouldn't touch either of these guys with a 39-foot pole.
Jack D. gave it a 3:
The first half is very good, but then it all falls apart, and the end is both stupid and sadistic... too bad because Bullock is excellent.
Thiago G. gave it a 10:
It's a great film and Bullock is the very best actress in the world!!!!
Sonja Maggý M. gave it a 10:
I really like Ryan Gosling!!!:)
