In the movie, Sandra Bullock (Hope Floats, Speed) plays detective Cassie Hayward who begins to investigate the brutal murder of a poor girl found strangled to death beside a lake. As she begins to go deeper and deeper into the case, she goes too deep and with the help of her young partner (Ben Chaplin  Birthday Girl) they will discover that the murder is a sick game being played by two young men engaging in a game of cat and mouse with the police attempting to commit the perfect murder, but soon learn, they're not the experts they thought they were.

I enjoyed the script written by Tony Gayton who gives us a decent story and plotline, often throwing us many plot twists, especially in the dramatic climax that gives this movie a much needed shot in the arm. The movie has very interesting moments that often caught my attention and kept me glued to the screen. This reminded me of my favorite Hitchcock movie "Rope". The storylines and plot are almost identical making me have a suspicion that this was loosely based on the original. Ben Chaplin is the best thing in this movie, often assisting Bullock in the role with very good grit and a tough persona.

The movie barely has any legs to stand on as far as a real story goes. The story is slow moving and often lagging, going on and on focusing on Sandra Bullock's character, who is barely interesting to begin with. I like Sandra Bullock and know she's capable of giving great performances in movies, but her selection of scripts are terrible. I found her character to be very unlikable and often annoying as her personality goes all over the place in the movie. I'm not sure if I can call this a true psychological thriller, based on the fact that the movie's tension and atmosphere is all wrong and often very annoying. The movie has a very light and calm tone; we never feel threatened or scared for the victim that suffers this heinous crime throughout the movie, because the movie has no emphasis on the crime, whatsoever. A lot of the scenes get stretched into these long monologues that are often tiring and very dull. I tended to lose patience with this after a while and pondered on whether I should shut this off or not.

The two "killers" in the movie have such an unrealistic relationship with each other, it's hard to feel intimidated by them. Their dialogue and friendship feel so artificial and forced that I felt uneasy at times. These characters bore no true psychotic traits nor did they present any true intimidating characteristics at any point. The movie hints at a possible homosexual relationship between the two, but never truly follows through with it and never lets us in on their relationship at all. At the rare points in this when it does attempt to become creepy and a thriller, it fails miserably with the director unable to truly switch shifts and moods throughout the movie. The moods constantly change and they change so often it becomes hard to keep track. The story is all over the place, unable to stay with one theme. Is it a character study, a twisted romance, a psychological thriller, or a murder mystery? I couldn't tell, and after a while I was so angry, I didn't even care.

With a story resembling Hitchcock's "Rope", it tries hard to be as taut, suspenseful, and intelligent as its predecessor but never lives up to it's true potential as an edgy thriller. In the end, "Murder by Numbers" is nothing but a big zero.