Review by E.C.McMullen Jr.

THE NUMBER 23 (2007) ContraFilm / New Line Cinema Ratings: USA R

Jim Carrey (THE MASK) plays Walter Sparrow. Walter is an Animal Control Officer. Its his job to catch dogs, handle animals and do his part to keep the peace in his small town. Walter has a VERY nice house, a wonderful wife, Agatha (Virginia Madsen: ZOMBIE HIGH, HIGHLANDER II, CANDYMAN, THE PROPHECY, THE HAUNTING), a good son, Robin (Logan Lerman: THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT), and moves through his life relatively well. As we learn from his inner monologue, however, Walter also believes that everything is destined to happen. Walter talks to himself, quiet enough so no one else notices. He imagines the thoughts of the animals he catches, anthropomorphizing them with his own small personality quirks. The only thing that brings him out of himself is his day to day dealings with his wife and son. His life, lived otherwise in the interior of himself, makes him friendless. His only connection to the rest of the world is his immediate family, as Walter is also an orphan. Still, his life would have been just fine had he not come across a book.

One day he was late in picking up his wife. His wife waited for him in a used bookstore. In the used bookstore she began reading an old book that she thought Walter would like. So she bought it for him. The book is called THE NUMBER 23. By giving her husband this otherwise unobtrusive birthday present, she unwittingly sets off a viral chain of events within her husband's mind. The book is about a man, a dashing yet damaged police detective, who goes slowly insane as he obsesses over the number 23 (an actual religion with greater and lesser zealots. Do a search on Discordianism or 23 Enigma). The trouble is, this is the kind of book that plugs in directly to Walter's weak psyche, and as such, Walter grows ever more convinced that the hero of the story, Detective Fingerling, is a metaphor for his own life.

Soon Walter is becoming obsessed with the number 23 and finds it everywhere in everything. The entire universe can be broke down or add up to 23! Like a true obsessive, he either ignores everything that can't add, divide, subtract or multiply into his addiction, or he refuses the logical outcome of his ever more poor math skills. His wife's friend and psychiatrist tries to show him the error of his ways, by pointing out the illogical inconsistency of the 23 Enigma. If someone finds a different answer in their calculations, one that isn't a 23, they'll struggle through all manner of mutated reasoning to come up with 23. Say that after their calculations their answer is a 5. The person obsessed with 23 will only point out that 2+3 equals 5: 23! If their answer is a six? Six is 3, two times: again, 23! If their answer is a 4? Four is the first non-prime number after a string of prime numbers. Three primes in a row, and four is divisible by 2, 23 again! Also, 4 comes after 2 and 3. And so on.

Agatha can only watch her husband disintegrate before her eyes as her concern gradually becomes horror. Walter is having nightmares in which he murders people. Their son Robin, meanwhile, is drawn into his father's madness, only exacerbating the problem. Agatha thinks that reading the book all the way through will cure her husband. Once he reaches the end, the obsession will end as well, but the end only makes matters worse.

THE NUMBER 23 is the story of a good man who takes a wrong turn in his life and helplessly finds himself on a downward spiral from which he can't escape. Believing in his psychosis, like his son, only feeds his own belief. Doubting his psychosis fills him with distrust and paranoia - since he sees an obvious logic in everything he discovers. When Walter reaches the edge of madness, one where he starts to have visions of murder, the movie had me grabbed by the throat.

!!!SCIENCE MOMENT!!!
Some have criticized THE NUMBER 23 for having such a silly concept as being possessed by numbers, but the psychosis of numbers is very real and has been covered in other stories and even movies before (PI). That fact that it looks silly to an outsider is not an excuse to dismiss this movie, as every addiction looks ridiculous to someone who doesn't share that addiction. To an outsider, the cure for an addiction seems simple. Are you becoming obese? Stop eating so much. Are you an alcoholic? Stop drinking. Are you addicted to gambling? Stop betting. THE NUMBER 23 could have fit any addiction into the storyline and it would have worked, but by giving us a rarity such as this, it draws us in with its alien nature. Like PI, the majority of the movie is all inner monologue as Walter tells us of his life in his own words, a la Walter Mitty.

The Viral Thought Pattern of 23 has infected well known people such as William S. Burroughs, Umberto Eco, H.R. Giger, Robert Anton Wilson, and is incredibly easy to slip into because it plays on our natural paradoxical thought patterns (paradoxical thought patterns been researched exhaustively over the last 40 years). Most of you are probably aware of the famous Polar Bear meme. Tell someone to go for a whole week without thinking of a polar bear, and by the end of the week you will find that said person can't get the thought of polar bears out of his or her mind. In such ways do obsessive compulsive disorders manifest themselves (though "bear" in mind that I'm painting in broad strokes here).
For more on this Science Moment, scroll to the bottom of this page or click Here.

Since 1993 and his Thriller, FALLING DOWN, Director Joel Schumacher (THE LOST BOYS, FLATLINERS, 8MM, PHONE BOOTH), has displayed an odd penchant for walking the path least taken where Horror Thriller is concerned. Here at feoamante.com, various reviewers have praised his efforts for many of these movies and I'm no exception. Newcomer writer, Fernley Phillips also produced this film and, judging by his upcoming features, plans to take the oddball path to Horror Thriller himself.

Jim Carrey gives a sterling performance as a man terrified of losing his sanity and desperately trying all the wrong ways to get his life back. Virginia Madsen is excellent as Agatha, watching her husband and their wonderful life together, dissolve before her eyes and taking their son with it.

Unfortunately the movie sags by an overexposure of Walter's inner monologue. While such things worked fine for the movie FIGHT CLUB, Walter's monologue frequently falls into the trap of straightforward exposition, and since the movie is largely narrated, it can feel like the exposition goes on for too long before you realize that we are back to inner monologue time.

Still, THE NUMBER 23 captures the imagination with an otherwise deft portrayal of a man's helpless descent into madness, making it one of the most original Thrillers to come out of Hollywood in years.

Three Shriek Girls

This review copyright 2007 E.C.McMullen Jr.

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