REVIEW: The Number 23

The Number 23 attempts to be a look into paranoia, obsession, and the the inability of a man to live down his wrongdoings. Sadly, this Joel Schumacher-helmed thriller fails on almost all counts.

The film follows Walter Sparrow, a dog-catcher who leads a seemingly normal life, who comes into possession of a beaten up manuscript of a novel called The Number 23. As he reads it, he finds interesting parallels with his own life, and starts to see the number 23 in every facet of his own life. Instead of seeking professional help, he gives it the old college try, and becomes entangled in a web of murder and paranoia in the process.

Like most movies, I feel that the problems are mostly contained at the script level. This is a very complicated story that takes more twists and turns than a highway in Switzerland. And, like most movies that attempt this sort of story, by the time you get to the ending, the beginning doesn’t make sense. And I felt that the script was trying to talk about way too many things at once. Great films, like The Matrix or Star Wars have many different layers of thematic material that the audience can peel back and expose for themselves, but those levels are mostly subconscious and aren’t driving the plot unless the audience is consciously searching for them. When watching The Number 23, I saw it starting out as a story of a growing, unhealthy obsession that then morphed into a story about supernatural forces, (as they state in the film, 2 divided by 3 is 1.666) and finally, the story did another chameleon-like transformation into a whodunit murder and a tale of ruin and redemption. You just get the sense that the scriptwriter was grasping for straws and throwing anything in that seemed to fit. The title sequence is a great metaphor for this, as it points out all the seemingly coincidental occurrences of 23 in our history. Anything that fit the base requirements went in, regardless of whether or not it helped the story.

Another death-toll on this film’s conscience is its believability. I know… the movie is about a vast numerical conspiracy that drives people loony, but you’ve got to ground it in some sort of reality. The teenage kid in the film (his name escapes me at the moment) is a pretty good example of this. He starts out as a sort of apathetic teenager who just wants to make out with his girlfriend, but is thoughtful enough to get his dad a birthday present. Later, he becomes his father’s cheerleader, buying every part of his crazy story, contributing to the discussion and even throwing out ideas. I can’t help but think that at some point, the screenwriter thought he needed someone to kick the plot in the ass, and this kid was the best candidate. And also, I don’t want to give away anything, but when one character has another character hold a knife to his or her throat and scream “Kill Me!” in order to prove a point, aren’t they really just asking for it?

Like most “legitimate” reviewers, I feel that Jim Carrey was mis-cast in this role. Not because I only want to see him in movies where he talks with his butt, but because he isn’t the right kind of crazy. He’s “cartoon-crazy” or “eccentric”. His craziness is just weird, not dangerous or terrifying. I think this role would’ve been much better filled by Nick Stahl, someone with an innocent face and can gain your sympathy, but can also be totally bat-shit crazy if he wants to be. Not to say that Carrey does a horrible job; it’s quite interesting to watch him try and do these things that the script requires him to. His Walter Sparrow may not be entirely realistic, but he’s real enough to keep you watching. Virginia Madsen, on the other hand, was very well cast. She was relatively believable, although I thought that, like most characters surrounding Walter, they all went along with this idea a little too easily, she maintained a level of skepticism that helped keep me in the story a little. Again, not enough to keep me from noticing a bunch of plot holes along the way, but enough to keep me from walking out.

I will say that the film has its moments. I thought that the cinematography was beautifully done, especially the fantasy sequences, which reminded me so much of Sin City. And I’d say that the best thing that the movie does is create the mysticism surrounding the number 23. I love a story with a good tone or backdrop, and this one does a pretty good job. You know certain things are going to happen, but at least there is some mystery as to how that’s all going to pan out.

This At-Bat (get it? “Bat”?), Joel Schumacher manages a single, but gets tagged trying to steal second. The Number 23 is the sort of film you may want to wait for DVD to check out, as I don’t think it merits 7-10 dollars per person to go see in the theaters. If you’d like a story about paranoia that is a bit better done than this one, and already out on DVD, I’d take a look at Secret Window. While I love Jim Carrey’s work, Johnny Depp’s performance in that movie can run circles around his. Maybe I’m prejudiced because I’m a Stephen King fan; who knows?

I’m going to end this one with a bit of biting sarcasm, directed at Mr. Schumacher himself. Joel, if this movie really is about the ability of our past sins to come back to haunt us, I’ve got 3 words for you. Actually, it’s 2 words and an ampersand: Batman & Robin.

Final Judgement: 2.3 “23”s out of 5

P.S. By the way, if you look carefully, every 23rd word of this review forms this sentence: “His a reads own paranoia complicated by about the is obsession 6 just a the its some this. To discussion the another just to or someone say to was idea to say much 3 are get you see on circles of back and.” Wow. I suck at this hidden message shit.

P.P.S. Although… if you count the numbers in that sentence, there are 43 of them. Obviously, I didn’t hit the end of the review evenly; I had about 20 words left over. Now, if you subtract those 20 spare words from the 43 of the sentence itself, you get…

Holy shit… I’m a fuckin’ genius.