Movie Info

While reinventing Leopold and Loeb for a new and troubled millennium, Murder by Numbers probes the disturbing psychology of two teenaged murder...(read more...) ers and the cleverness of their crime. Like Hitchcock's Rope and other films inspired by the Leopold and Loeb case of the 1920s, the film intensifies as it explores the repressed (and subtly homosexual) tensions between high-school outcasts Richard (Ryan Gosling) and Justin (Michael Pitt), who randomly kill a woman to enact an amoral philosophy--and to tease a savvy homicide detective (Sandra Bullock) with misleading clues. While clashing with the by-the-book procedure of her partner (Ben Chaplin), Bullock gives one of her best performances in a role that comes with its own set of psychological hurdles. It's comfortable territory for Reversal of Fortune director Barbet Schroeder, who draws fine work from his cast while proving that there's no such thing as a perfect crime. --Jeff Shannon

Director: Barbet Schroeder

MPAA: R

Running Time: 120 min.

Release Date: Apr 19, 2002

Cast: Agnes Bruckner, Ben Chaplin, Chris Penn, Michael Pitt, R.D. Call, Ryan Gosling, Sandra Bullock, Tom Verica