Murder by Numbers

Murder by Numbers is an exciting crime thriller, but you could hardly call it original, for it freely helps itself to the genre's clichés, not least in the dramatic finale.

The film's story is inspired by the real-life trial of two young men from wealthy families, Leopold and Loeb, who in 1924 committed an apparently senseless murder. Their only reason for killing was to show that they could do it, and that morality is relative. Other filmmakers have also spotted the story's potential over the years, for example Alfred Hitchcock in the stagy "Rope" and Richard Fleischer in "Compulsion".

In Murder by Numbers, Sandra Bullock plays the tough but psychologically troubled detective Cassie Mayweather, who is trying to solve a bestial murder. The murderers are two derailed high-school boys, the self-assured Richard and the introverted Justin, whose rich parents have left the boys to their own devices. They have started down a moral slippery slope, for they commit the murder for fun, and they amuse themselves by laying false trails for the police.

Cassie, however, is not someone to be trifled with. She senses that something does not add up, but apart from her new partner Sam Kennedy, she gets little backing from those around her. Nor does it help her case that her two suspects have influential connections, and that she is also struggling with major personal problems in her attempt to repress a grim past.