Blurb Movie Reviews - 'Murder By Numbers'

May contain spoilers!

This is an odd little movie. It has an interesting premise, but Sandra Bullock's character is just a mess. She tries to be a bad ass, but at the same time be 'broken' and emotionally detached, and scarred by a previous, abusive husband.

I couldn't get a handle on her character, and thus, didn't like her very much. It made me root for Ryan Gosling and and Michael Pitt's characters to get away with their crime(s). I liked the cat and mouse game these two played with the cops. And how at the end, you get to see how it all went down.

What they should have expanded on, however, was the homo-erotic subtext of Ryan and Michael's characters relationship. The way it was written, at any point I was expecting to see them make out. Would have made a more interesting movie.

For example, when 'Justin' [Pitt] falls for this girl he is tutoring, 'Richard' [Gosling] gets jealous like an ex-girlriend, and proceeds to show Justin that he already banged her, and called her a slut, so that he would ignore her and go back to hanging out with Richard.

Richard is a popular kid, while Justin isn't, which could be the excuse of the dynamic of their relationship. The loner loving the attention of the popular kid. But again, the dialogue suggests much more.

Finally, I never got why people thought Gosling was hot. Over the course of the movie though, I, too, fell under the spell of his devilish grin. He is kinda cute. Both him and Pitt did WAY better jobs then Bullock in this one.

UPDATE: Looks like I am not the only one who saw the gay subtext. Discussion here: IMDB