Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10060 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-07-23
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 94 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Jim Carrey as a schizophrenic murderer isn't convincing, in this melodramatic film about a man obsessed by the Number 23. Joel Schumacher (Batman Forever, St. Elmo's Fire) has unintentionally managed to make a comedy of horrors that really is quite humorous in parts. Walter Sparrow (Carrey) becomes engrossed in a homespun novel about Detective Fingerling, whose life degrades into mayhem because of his obsession with 23's esoteric numerical puzzles. Sparrow's preoccupation with the book follows his botched attempt to catch a nasty dog that bites him, leading one to believe that Sparrow's contraction of rabies might be the cause for his mental degradation. As the story progresses, Sparrow retreats further into Fingerling's world, rife with suicidal sexpots and hardboiled detective sleuthing. His wife, Agatha (Virginia Madsen), also plays Fingerling's girlfriend, sex-crazed Fabrizia, who taunts Fingerling until he stabs her. Back in reality, Walter aims to solve the unresolved crimes in the book, taking it as a murderer's diary rather than as an imagined work. The story is half-baked, though Carrey's portrayal of a mentally disturbed person is what makes The Number 23 comedic. Long, contemplative stares, and over-dramatized acting renders Sparrow a clichéd character, rather than one odd enough to engage viewers. For a better version of almost the exact plot but with a terrorist's twist, see Thr3e instead. --Trinie Dalton

Synopsis
In Joel Schumacher’s psychological thriller THE NUMBER 23, Jim Carrey takes on another dramatic role. Carrey’s character is similar to his roles in THE TRUMAN SHOW and ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND: he portrays an average man thrust into quite extraordinary situations after a series of strange events cause him to question everything he’s ever taken for granted. On his birthday, Walter Sparrow is given a mysterious and tattered book called THE NUMBER 23 by his loving wife, Agatha (Virginia Madsen). As Walter reads the book, he quickly notices its alarming similarities to his own life. Rather than stop reading, he continues, unknowingly inviting the book to take over his life. The deeper Walter gets into the plot, the more he sees himself in its protagonist, Fingerling, whom we see through highly stylized sequences in which Carrey appears as the seedy detective character. Madsen is also present in these scenes, cast as Fingerling’s pain-loving girlfriend Fabrizia. As Fingerling and Fabrizia’s love affair inches towards its fiery conclusion, we learn the role the number 23 has played in their story and will play in Walter’s future if he cannot keep his growing obsession with it at bay. While Carrey and Madsen are adept at playing a man gone mad and a headstrong wife in crisis, they are most fascinating as their dark counterparts, and Schumacher succeeds in creating a truly intoxicating noirish underworld of sex and death through those sequences.

Customer Reviews

Unfairly Chastized.

I have to admit, my expectation's were pretty low for this flick.The reviews have been pretty scathing, and as it's director was Joel Schumacher, who brought us the pretty lamentable 'Batman And Robin' and '8mm', I really had my reservations. Well what a surprise, 'The Number 23' turned out to be quite an engaging thriller with a pretty smart script.

Jim Carey stars as Walter Sparrow, who on his birthday is bought a book which soon takes over his life ,as becomes obsessed by the similarities the number 23 encompasses.Carey is an actor I have a lot of time for, not only in comedy but time and time again in more 'demanding' roles such as 'Man On The Moon', 'The Truman Show' and 'Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind'.Here again he holds his own with fine support from Virginia Madsen as his wife and Logan Lerman as their son Robin.

The twist is very clever and fairly believable and rounds of what was a very decent and quite unfairly criticised film.

Very disappointing
`The Number 23' is about a dog catcher named Walter (Jim Carrey) who is given a book for his birthday about the life of a man named "Fingerling" and his obsession with how everything is related to the number 23. After reading just a few pages Walter begins to believe that the story is written about his life due to so many similarities and then he also starts to become obsessed with the number 23 too.

This is a very dark and serious role for the rubber-faced Carrey and he does actually play the part very well, but the film is just pretty bad in general with nothing that really surprised me, excited me or made me really think I'd ever watch it again. I'm a big fan of thriller films and books and the story is ok but it's just filmed in such a strange way that I just couldn't put my finger on what I didn't like about it, it just didn't meet my expectations at all as it had the potential to be a really good psychological thriller.

Overall I think this is one that is worth watching if you catch it on TV or borrow it from someone, but I'd not recommend buying it as you won't watch it again. Very disappointing and it could have been so much better.

The whole number 23 theories did however get me thinking a lot and since watching this I've thought of so many things which have worked out to be that mysterious number. Spooky!

Different, but not different enough
Jim Carrey plays Walter Sparrow, a man whose surburban wife-'n'-teenage-kid life begins to unravel when he comes into contact with a mysterious book which carries the title of the film: Number 23. The tatty, self-published novel triggers a feverish numerological obsession in Sparrow, who begins to see associations with the number everywhere he looks. The more he reads, the more he becomes drawn into the gloomy, seedy world of the book's author, with whom Sparrow identifies heavily. Moreover, it becomes apparent that the book's author is not just an author of a disturbing book, but that he or she was involved in a grizzly crime.

The film culminates in a confusing whodunnit/goose-chase. I've seen the 'unexpected twist' of who the culprit is so many times in other recent films that I remember commenting on it before having seen Number 23. If that's a spoiler, then the film-making studios are to blame for overusing this particular trendy theme to a ludicrous degree. I can't imagine I'm the only one who thought "not again!"

I find numerology to be laughable nonsense, but moments in this film left me with genuine unease as Sparrow continued his downwards mental spiral in pursuit of the number. There are some splendid pieces of camera work and general cinema wizardry in this film, particularly the clever juxtapositions of Sparrow's bright and orderly life and the shadowy, grimy world that the book reveals to him. There is an element of style over substance in Number 23, though. It never grounds itself long enough to become, if not believable, than at least a world in which the viewer can become immersed.

Carrey has come a long way since his Mask and Ace Ventura days. He's successfully left behind the endless aping and gurning that put a lot of people off in his early days, without sacrificing the energy and screen presence that make his material infectiously watchable. Long may the man behind the Mask continue to develop and flourish. Although he might seem like an odd choice for a noirish film like this, his performance as the character increasingly tormented by the ever-present number is just the ticket.

Good for Carrey and visuals, but generally forgettable otherwise.