The Number 23 -- 2007 -- R

Being a sucker for a decent thriller, I loved this movie. Probably the sheer paranoia of the whole thing just got to me, but I really enjoyed how it unfolded, how it played out, and how it generally worked. Using something like a number as a so-called "killer" was nothing short of clever.

This movie is about paranoia more than anything else. Seriously, a number is out to get you? It's killed once and it will kill again? Come on. But that's what all the other characters were also saying. It's only a number. You're stretching to find correlations. Any complaint one would have about the premise is hit on by the reasonable characters. That's awesome.

The story is about an ordinary who is given a novel by his wife for his birthday. She only gets this book because he was late meeting her because a dog got away from him at the end of his shift (he's a dogcatcher). As he reads this book, he thinks the character in the book is a lot like him -- too much, he thinks. He looks for similarities in every aspect of the character's life and in the dreaded number 23. He sees it everywhere. You might say that's because he is looking for it; well, his wife thinks so too.

They work to trace the writer to find out who this person is. They hope maybe this person, with the odd name of Topsy Krepps, will help to shed some light on both the number and why so many aspects of the character are like our hero. After much chasing and searching, they finally learn the horrible truth. Something I never divulge in a review.

Plot is clever and moves fairly well throughout the film. It's a psychological thriller, so body count is not the goal; the goal is watching someone's decent from sanity to madness. It weakens a bit in the character department, but once the pieces fall together, we get a pretty good picture of our main character. His family is done decently, though the wife plays a far larger role than the oft-missing son.

Me? I liked it. It's not for everyone, especially those looking for body counts or high action stories. But if you want one of those slow-burning fuses that gives you a fairly decent payoff in the end, then this one will deliver for you.