June 5, 2002 – Probably not too many of us remember Alfred Hitchcock's 1948 movie "Rope," and fewer still will remember the infamous 1924 Leopold and Loeb murder case the movie was based on, but director Barbet Schroeder may awaken memories with "Murder by Numbers."
Where Hitchcock toyed with the audience in "Rope," Schroeder changes that point of view and toys with the two main characters in this new film. Much as the young, brilliant and amoral Leopold and Loeb strove to capitalize on their vaulted intelligence by committing the perfect murder, Richard Haywood (Ryan Gosling) and Justin Pendleton (Michael Pitt) strive to flaunt their presumed superior intellects by doing the same and fooling everybody.
Except, of course, Cassie Mayweather (Sandra Bullock), an experienced detective who has hunches of her own and acts on them despite opposition from colleagues. Mayweather refuses to accept what the others see as an obvious culprit and is nagged by doubts about two young men she has come across in her investigations.
Her partner, Sam Kennedy (Ben Chaplin) goes by the book, i.e. "by the numbers." Mayweather doesn't. Bullock enters a new realm in her acting career, according to critic Roger Ebert, who says she does a "good job 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."
The "Speed" gal, all outside, apparently has turned all inside here, and Ebert says she "can stay in character, no matter what."
The two-hour film is rated R for violence, language, sex and brief drug use. It starts Thursday at Market Square East on St. Thomas.
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