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MURDER BY NUMBERS by Tom McCurrie
Weak villains make for weak movies. Without a strong antagonist, the
protagonist has nothing to overcome. And when the protagonist has nothing
to overcome, there's no reason for the audience to root for him.
Unfortunately, Tony Gayton's MURDER BY NUMBERS falls into this trap. The
story follows Sandra Bullock's Detective Cassie Mayweather as she tracks
down some teenage thrill-killers. A promising set-up to be sure, but one
that's undermined at every turn by poorly-sketched villains.
(Warning: Spoiler Alert!)
First of all, the villains aren't villainous enough. They commit one
murder (plus a patsy) then quit. This makes them about as threatening as
the villains on TV LAND's Crimestoppers -- which is not very. Sorry to be
callous, but after a century of movie thrillers, one body dropping does
not make for a gripping tale.
Then there's the quitting issue. Since the baddies no longer pose a
danger to anyone else, the suspense evaporates. After all, why race
against time to stop them when they've already stopped?
Of course, the villains always pose a danger to the detective tracking
them. But even this convention is botched. When one of the teens
threatens Cassie, she just beats him back with a car door! I doubt she
could do that with Hannibal Lecter.
Making the murderers rather stupid doesn't help either. Since eluding
capture depends on not being seen as friends, the fact that they hang out
in public every other scene proves they're either blissfully ignorant or
incredibly half-witted.
And frankly, it's hard just seeing them as buds at all. According to this
story, a Nietzsche-spouting nerd (Michael Pitt) can be best friends with
the coolest kid on campus (Ryan Gosling). I don't know what high school
Mr. Gayton went to, but there's no way this could happen in real life;
cliques are cliques and never the twain shall meet. This basic
implausibility makes suspending disbelief well nigh impossible.
Maybe if we had more shading to explain their relationship, things would
be different. (A homoerotic tension is suggested only to be dropped
immediately.) But then again, with so much of the script devoted to
Cassie's inner demons, there probably wouldn't have been much room for it
anyway. Through a series of flashbacks, we learn Cassie was nearly
murdered by an abusive ex, an act that not surprisingly left her with a
ton of emotional baggage. She spends an inordinate amount of time
wrestling with this trauma, making you wonder whether she finds her
hang-ups a worthier opponent than the murderers themselves. Not a good
sign.
So if you want to see a thriller with an especially strong villain, take a
look at SEVEN by Andrew Kevin Walker. The tension is nearly unbearable as
Detectives Somerset and Mills try to stop John Doe from killing his way
through the Seven Deadly Sins. John Doe is a fiend who gets away with the
perfect murder again and again and again, a mysterious force of nature who
can strike with impunity anywhere, anytime. With a nemesis this
diabolically powerful you can't help but root for the good guys. And
that's exactly what you want for your screenplay.
Responses, comments and general two-cents worth can be E-mailed to
gillis662000@yahoo.com.
A graduate of USC's School of Cinema-Television, Tom McCurrie has worked
as a development executive and a story analyst. He is currently a
screenwriter living in Los Angeles.
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