Barnes & Noble

In yet another bid to shed her girl-next-door image, Sandra Bullock tackles a difficult role in Murder by Numbers, a riveting psychological thriller directed by Barbet Schroeder (Single White Female), and under his guidance she delivers one of the finest performances of her career. Bullock portrays a brilliant, hard-charging homicide detective whose single-mindedness masks a deep-seated anxiety -- emotional baggage she carries as a result of trauma suffered long ago. Her new partner (Ben Chaplin) doesn’t understand Bullock any better than her other co-workers can, but he learns to appreciate her abilities when they are assigned to investigate a baffling murder. Two relative newcomers, Ryan Gosling and Michael Pitt, are positively bone-chilling as the intelligent teenage misfits who stage a perfect crime and then play cat-and-mouse with the detectives. Clearly inspired by the Leopold and Loeb child murder of the 1920s (dramatized in the 1959 film Compulsion), Murder by Numbers updates the theme in an entirely credible manner; given the barbaric crimes committed these days by some teenagers, the murder depicted here by Schroeder isn’t nearly as incomprehensible as the Leopold-Loeb killing seemed to Roaring '20s America. Shrewdly concocted and convincingly told, this lurid melodrama sports a heart-stopping climax of Hitchcockian suspense -- an altogether fitting wind-up for one of the year’s most engrossing films. The DVD adds a feature-length commentary by Schroeder and editor Lee Percy. Ed Hulse

All Movie Guide

When a pair of bright-but sociopathic teens conspires to commit the perfect murder, a troubled cop teams with her eager new partner to solve the case that left the community in fear and the police without a clue. High school ladies' man Richard Haywood (Ryan Gosling) and outcast Justin Pendleton (Michael Pitt) have no motive to commit murder, but they soon conspire to choose a random victim and pin the crime on local pot dealer Ray (Chris Penn), under the guise that the police will never suspect them of such a brutal act. Determined Det. Cassie Merriweather (Sandra Bullock) is assigned to the case, and quickly becomes suspicious of the elusive teens despite the doubts expressed by her superiors and her lack of solid evidence. Soon entering into a dangerous test of wills with the increasingly desperate and dangerous teens, her investigation leads her down a disturbing path that will test her skills as a detective and her will to survive. Jason Buchanan

Village Voice

As long as Schroeder stays with the kids, the film musters a good deal of restless tabloid intensity, and even the occasional twinge of pathos. Dennis Lim

USA Today

After an uncertain start, Murder hits and generally sustains a higher plateau with Bullock's memorable first interrogation of Gosling. Mike Clark

Product Details

• UPC: 085392330522
• Source: WARNER HOME VIDEO
• Region Code: 1
• Aspect Ratio: Theatre Wide-Screen (1.85.1)
• Presentation: Wide Screen
• Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
• Language: English
• Subtitles: English, Français, Español
• Time: 2:00:00
• Sales Rank: 27,717

This DVD is also available as part of a box set:

• Perfect Murder / Murder by Numbers / Murder in the First

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