The Number 23 - Thoughts

During the random course of my routine movie research I came across this movie which had Jim Carrey in a rather different role. For once he wasn’t the funny man, and the thought of him playing the lead in a suspense thriller intrigued me enough to give the movie a whirl.


Approximately 100 minutes after popping the DVD into the player, I was left quite satisfied, and for some reason a little surprised. Perhaps my expectations were lesser, considering the movie isn’t very popular, but The Number 23 turned out to be quite gripping. While not fast paced, there was never a slow moment. The life of a seemingly average man takes an interesting turn, and descends into turmoil with every additional minute he spends reading the book he received as a birthday gift. As his obsession for the number 23 grows and slowly drives him over the edge, his wife Agatha helps keep him grounded and sane. Impressive editing techniques coupled with visual lighting effects helped add to the overall feel of paranoia. For those not looking for a somewhat mind-bending experience, I suggest you give this one a miss.

Jim Carrey though not in his usual comedy element, was able to bring the character of Walter Sparrow to life with the level a passion that is usually expected of him. Virginia Madsen as his wife Agatha Sparrow was smart, sensible, and fit perfectly as the strong force in his life that helped keep him rooted. Perhaps with an exception of Logan Lerman his son Robin Sparrow, most other characters have limited roles. Rhona Mitra though mentioned prominently both on the DVD cover and other movie promotional content, had very limited screen time.

The DVD I was watching was a standard US Region 1 DVD. Video and Picture were nearly flawless, and colors were clear and vivid. The movie was a little dark, but this could be corrected by upping the brightness on the TV set. Video was presented in anamorphic widescreen (2.35:1) and enhanced for 16x9 televisions. Being a New Line Home Entertainment DVD, it had Infinifilm enhancements, which means that if you watch the film with this option on a symbol will pop up during the film and lead you to extra features while you’re watching the film. I didn’t bother with this though. The DVD had both the Unrated and Theatrical versions; I opted to watch the Unrated version which had about 4 minutes of additional content. Sound was good , fitting the mood and thrilling as necessary. The soundtrack was a Dolby Digital 5.1 EX Surround track.

My Recommendation: Watch It (If Suspense Thrillers that keep you intently watching till the last minute when things finally fall into place are you’re sorta thing)