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Title: Murder by Numbers (2002)
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| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Sandra Bullock | ... | Cassie Mayweather / Jessica Marie Hudson | |
| Ben Chaplin | ... | Sam Kennedy | |
| Ryan Gosling | ... | Richard Haywood | |
| Michael Pitt | ... | Justin Pendleton | |
| Agnes Bruckner | ... | Lisa Mills | |
| Chris Penn | ... | Ray Feathers | |
| R.D. Call | ... | Captain Rod Cody | |
| Tom Verica | ... | Asst. D.A. Al Swanson | |
 |
Janni Brenn | ... | Ms. Elder |
| John Vickery | ... | Restaurant Manager | |
| Michael Canavan | ... | Mr. Chechi | |
| Krista Carpenter | ... | Olivia Lake, the Victim | |
| Neal Matarazzo | ... | Male Officer in Flashback | |
| Adilah Barnes | ... | Lab Technician | |
| Jim Jansen | ... | Lawyer | |
Richard Haywood, a Californian high school's coolest kid, secretly teams up with another rich kid in his class, brilliant nerd Justin 'Bonaparte' Pendleton, whose erudition, specially in forensic matters, allows them to plan elaborately perfect murders, just for the kick, for which they set up Richard's marijuana supplier, their school's janitor Ray Feathers, as a psychotic serial killer. The case is assigned to detectives Cassie 'the hyena' Mayweather, who carries a sequoia-size chip on the shoulder from her previous life, and her brilliant new partner, Sam Kennedy, who just transferred from the vice squad; they can work together very well, and even fit romantically, but fall out over different professional attitudes towards the investigation, which Captain Rod Cody and her understandably vindictive abused ex, Assistant D.A. Al Swanson, soon ban her from when she disobeys instructions and hand to him. When the plotting boys both dig class-mate Lisa Mills, their unnatural bond comes ... Written by KGF Vissers
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As a hard-nosed cop investigating an apparently motiveless murder, and appearing to unravel as she does so, Sandra Bullock does something approximating to real acting in Barbet Schroeder's overly familiar thriller. Ryan Gosling and Michael Pitt play a couple of high school kids who commit a Loeb/Leopold style crime, planting a number of false 'clues' so that the police will build up a picture of the killer. They even have a suspect lined up. Of course, the one thing they didn't bank on was Bullock's chip-on-the-shoulder uberbitch detective.
Schroeder does not build his film visually. It has a conventional TV movie feel to it and, despite being well played, Pitt's nerdy all-knowing geek is a bit too formulaic. But the film holds you nevertheless. Schroeder displays a storyteller's gift for how things should develop, (though a subplot involving an earlier violent event in Bullock's life seems like an unnecessary intrusion). And as the cock-of-the-walk arrogant yet vulnerable rich kid killer Ryan Gosling is the real McCoy. He can convey charm and menace in equal measure and often in the same moment and confirms his status as one of the best young actors in movies at the minute.