BEFORE: Tonight's focus is on paranoid delusion...I think. (or...is it?)
THE PLOT: Walter Sparrow becomes obsessed with a novel that he believes was written about him. As his obsession increases, more and more similarities seem to arise.
AFTER: I'm going to tread lightly here, because I HATE when people give away movie endings in their reviews. If you've noticed, I try very hard to talk about movies without giving up all the twists and turns.
My grandmother used to say that "people die in threes", and she refused to listen to me when I pointed out that she was just starting her count over at "1" when the fourth person she knew passed away. I see it all the time in forums online - people asking, "How come every time I look at the clock, it's 11:11?" (or 2:22, or 1:23, etc.) That's because you did it once, and you noticed it, and then after that, you disregarded every time you looked at the clock when it WASN'T 11:11. Then pretty soon your brain gets used to looking at the clock at that time, and it starts to happen in a pattern. It's a variation of "That white van is ALWAYS on the corner." You might see the van a few times, then you always notice when it's there, and you disregard the times you look at the corner and it's not. Or, maybe some guy just likes parking his van on the corner spot. (It is easier to pull out from the curb, I'm just sayin'.)
Of course, when you read a book, you tend to imagine yourself as the title character. And of course, you look for things in a book, or a movie, that tie in with your life, what you're going through, or what's happened to you in the past. But Walter Sparrow finds that the similarities between himself and the character in the book he's reading (also titled "The Number 23") are just too amazing to write off. The characters in the book become obsessed with numerology, and then so does he. But what does it all mean? Ah, ah, that would be telling.
I did enjoy this one, but I found that it strained the credulity of what a person is capable of doing, and what a person is capable of forgetting having done. (is that the right tense?) There are similarities here to other thrillers, such as "Memento" (why do crazy people always write things on their bodies? Don't they give them paper and crayons and stuff?) and we do see some events out of proper narrative order, but it's another of the rare cases where that works.
And it's another Hollywood staple to have an actor play both the reader and the star of the novel he's reading at the same time - doesn't everyone picture themselves as a hip, cool private detective, surrounded by hot women mixed up in some vast conspiracy? Sure, it's corny, but it's used for a greater purpose here.
This one might keep you guessing...(or will it?)
Also starring Virginia Madsen (last seen in "Firewall"), Danny Huston (last seen in "21 Grams"), Lynn Collins (last seen in "X-Men Origins: Wolverine") and Rhona Mitra. Oh, and Mark Pellegrino (Jacob from "Lost").
RATING: 7 out of 10 birthday cakes
Movies like this one fail for me because they seem unaware of The Shyamalan Effect. If the story even smells like it's building to An Incredible Amazing Shocking Twist Ending, the movie's over, instantly. I can't get involved with the characters or the story. I'm just checking my watch and waiting for the cheap, out-of-left-field ending that the screenwriter went with as a labor-saving alternative to actually working out the character's problem logically.
ReplyDeleteI edited our school literary magazine. A year spent reading stories that ended with "...and then, he woke up. It had all been a dream!" left me with a certain jaundice about Shocking Twist Endings.