The Number 23

(written in 2007)

So I am 23 years old. My flat is number 23. I was born in 1983 – ((9x8)/3)-1=23. Okay, you can see now how it’s possible to stretch the concept, but it was fun going to see this film today, on the 23rd, taking the 113 bus, and freaking out my fellow cinemagoers with some quick mental arithmetic on just about every number that we glimpsed. Being a fan of conspiracy theories and the silliness of Discordianism, I’ve come across the Law of Fives before, and realised that if you allow 2 and 3 AND subtract them to get 1, it’s very easy to play about with just about any numbers and get 23 somehow or other. It’s a great concept for hooking people in – but is that enough to make a good film?

Remaking a German thriller, Joel Schumacher has directed a fun and well-made little movie, with Jim Carrey doing well in a serious role, as has increasingly been his focus of late. Walter Sparrow comes across a book with a character strangely similar to himself, in which everything seems to relate to the number 23. Walter soon begins finding the number everywhere he looks, and when the protagonist of the book becomes a murderer, he begins to fear he will follow suit.

The movie starts sensibly, but it soon becomes obvious how playful it is. The book’s scenario is shot in a gloriously stylised way, rather Sin City-esque, and watching that effect seep into the ‘real world’ element of the story is a pleasure. You soon realise that this isn’t so much a thriller as an homage to the detective genre, with buried secrets, snooping and little clues to follow. In the end, there are a few things that are hard to swallow – didn’t the convict know more than he let on? Why did the publisher of the book do that when they traced him? And magical dogs are never going to be part of a really believable film. But Carrey acts well, the film is well-directed (except for some ill-chosen slushy strings at a climactic moment) and the story is enjoyable, the scenario memorable and the presentation good fun. A little less cerebral than perhaps it could have been, but certainly recommended for an evening’s viewing.