this maybe could be a little more tolerable as a half hour Twilight Zone episode...wait, without commercials, 23 minutes!

Rating: 4/10 (6 March 2007)

That is one of the goofy comparisons you might make, as I did, when this goofy psychological thriller ended. Because despite what might have been director Joel Schumacher and DP Matthew Libatique's loftier intentions with the grit and 'mainstream-noir', the writing ends up cramping up everything that might have been worthwhile. There is a premise here, just not one that goes down very fast in anything that seems sharp or with a real edginess that I could have latched onto. Fernelly Phillips, on his first feature as a screenwriter, comes out with many ideas and gimmicks and, to be sure, contrivances that reminded me of the gimmicks I saw from the lesser screenwriters at my film school- it's almost like pulling together some kind of general theme and extending it to see if something really sticks about obsession and the symbolism of numbers, or *a* number in this case as the be-all-end-all of meaningful numbers. Maybe if he had focused his energies on more of the noirish aspects of the characters, as opposed to flaunting the number 23, I wouldn't still be making jokes about numbers adding or equally somehow to 23, and almost hating myself for making those jokes at the movie's expense.
Maybe it was to be expected that Schumacher, who hasn't really made a very satisfying film since the mid 90s, would gravitate to material like this that would at least allow him some time to exercise his 'weird' directorial chops. And really, there is some potential in this as well; Carrey's dog-catcher protagonist is given a book on his birthday (which is on 2/3, ho-ho) called the Number 23, which deals with a sax-playing detective with a dark past who gets involved with an even darker, more sadistic woman (Virginia Madsen, who also plays the 'real-world' wife of Carrey's character, as he envisions it as he reads it anyway), and the sadism and murder and madness that ensues. If there was just a straight adaptation of the book AS the movie, or if the archetypal figures that lay in this pulpy world inspired in part by serial novels were just put forward simply without the number symbolism, it would be a much more intriguing movie. Especially because said 'imagined' scenes showing what happens in the book are shot in a perfectly abstract style, where even in the choppy edit parts there's still a vicious vision going on. These sparks indicate that there COULD be some talent in writer and filmmaker.
As for Carrey, he seems to be just going through his motions for what he can do as an actor (as with Madsen, up to a point), but it's not enough to stop what happens with the script, which at times seems to be going at lengths to continue that montage in Pee Wee's Big Adventure when Pee-Wee sees all the bikes going by when his is gone. Soon Carrey's "every-man" sees it everywhere, with numbers adding up, the combinations endless, and it all leading to what ends up being so predictable I wouldn't dare spoil it not because it's very important but just to not insult your intelligence reading this. Just let it be known that Phillips decides to take that easy-route of the main character really having to face head-on everything that he's encountered so far and then re-contemplate everything in his entire life. This, which makes up the last fifteen minutes, is excruciating in the length of the exposition, with all the answers spoon-fed to the audience so that nothing is left questioned about who this man really is or what he's done. It compounds what has already gone on with the pretentious obsessive qualities, of it being about the 'trick' instead of it being more interesting about characters (the very last scene also made me shake my head and do all but throw popcorn at the screen).
Bottom line, it's a pretty stupid entry in the careers of both actor and director, which also happens to include a supporting character of a dog named Ned (who provides a very unintentionally funny scene with the dog on one end of the road and Carrey in his car at the other), Bud Cort in the thankless role, and lots of big-budget attention paid to the grungy details of what is under a happy existence to reveal the wretched skeletons in the closet (or rather under a stone in a park). It's too conventional, in all actuality, to follow up on the daring it portends in the already pushy trailer and ads.