Movie Review (2): The Number 23

By Ron Wilkinson Feb 23, 2007, 3:08 GMT

This dark psychological thriller stars Jim Carrey as a man whose life unravels after he and his wife come into contact with the obscure book titled "The Number 23."  As he reads the book, he becomes increasingly convinced that his life is based on the number 23 - and that the book is actually based on his life.  He becomes obsessed and consumed with the book and the number 23 ...more

How many different ways can you arrive at the number 23?  If you assign numbers to your name and add them up does the sum end in 23?  If you reverse your address and divide by the number of your aunts and uncles does that number equal 23?  How about 32? 

If you consider these exercises intriguing, Joel Shumacher and Jim Carrey have a treat for you. In their new film, “The Number 23," that number is mentioned about 500 times. After the first 100 times the audience understands that no matter how many ways you come up with the number, is it still boring as income tax? And no matter how hard Jim Carrey tries to do Nicholson in “The Shining,” he is still one short of two dozen.

23 turns out to be a lonely number.

It all starts with Jim Carrey playing mild mannered Walter Sparrow, a dog catcher on the trail of an illusive canine. That is about as funny as the film gets, except for the inadvertent laughs at the end when the audience is simply fed up to their ears with both the dog and the number 23. When Sparrow tightens the noose around the vagabond’s neck, zap, the dog is gone, and doggone, Carrey is having an hallucination.

Then we are transported back into the sepia-toned times when Sparrow was an undercover dick named Fingerling (gotta love that name...) who got mixed up with a sexy brunette and a suicide blond with no fear of heights.  These three conduct a half-baked film noir in the background that makes the audience yearn for Nick Nolte in “Mulholland Falls,” or maybe another look at Philip Marlowe. 

Although the gritty film texture, close interior shots and dark streets of the naked city (thank you, photog Matthew Libatique) will be cozy for us undying noir buffs, if you want Nolte or Bogart better rent the DVDs and give this flick a miss.

Meanwhile, back at home sweet home where the missus Agatha (Virginia Madsen) has just painted the walls blood red, her favorite color, and where the backlit windows blast light into the dark-wooded and ancient and creepy interior spaces, a funny thing happens.  Sparrow kills Agatha, stabbing her to death with the same knife used by Anthony Perkins in “Psycho.”

Surprise!  Not really, it was just a nightmare. But we had you fooled there for a second didn’t we?  And there is that dog again. The audience is starting to get restless.  Isolated moans break out as 23 is mentioned for the 112th through 148th time by Carrey.

He is going mad, but we are too.  Who will break first?  People are starting to laugh openly at the spirit-dog.

Madsen is still looking for that next great flick after “Sideways.”  This is not it.

The thing that made the film “Pi” an interesting look at obsession with numbers was that the number itself was only mentioned a few times. The heavy message is to show that trying to understand the universe through a number is as prone to failure as putting on wax wings and flying for the sun.  But a plot based on repeating the same number over and over is not the same thing. It is more the territory of bag ladies and maybe twenty-somethings who have had one tweak too many. 

In order to steer clear of spoilers the other hackneyed plot tools will not be discussed here. There are several.

The bottom line is that if you love Jim Carrey go see this film, because it isn’t any worse than several of his other stinkers. If you want to see him at his best, you know the DVDs to rent, to hold you over until his next big hit, which might be just a film or two away. 

The overall production of the film is great, with the aforementioned grainy sepias, back lit creepy interior windows and some nice body drops onto those cold, hard, naked city streets.

A big part of this high quality production is due to cinematographer Libatique who has made some big hay with his past “Requiem for a Dream,” “Fountain” and the aforementioned “Pi.”  He has a way of bringing frantic insanity from inside the heads of the actors, and off the sheets of the screenplay, and converting it to pictures. 

The result a set of fluid and sharply defined visions that let us read between the lines.  In the case of “Pi” it was added to a story that captured the imagination by depicting an insanity with which we could all identify, because we all want control over the uncontrollable.

In the case of “Requiem” we were captivated by the tragedy of people trying to control addiction, or even thinking they could.

In the case of “The Number 23” there are simply too few good lines to read between in the first place.  The “R” rating is deserved, but, unfortunately, the few bloody scenes that merit that rating are hardly worth the inclusion.

The Number 23

Directed by Joel Schumacher
Written by Fernley Phillips
Starring: Jim Carrey and Virginia Madsen
Runtime: 95 minutes

Opens wide USA February 23, 2007. MPAA: Rated R for violence, disturbing images, sexuality and language.