The Number 23, directed by Joel Schumacher, is a story about one man's obsession with a number. Jim Carrey plays Walter Sparrow, an animal control officer whose life is turned upside down when his wife buys him a book for his birthday called "The Number 23."
Soon Sparrow becomes obsessed with the book and finds connections between himself and the main character, named Fingerling. As Sparrow reads the book to himself, Schumacher throws the audience into its world of Fingerling (also played by Carrey), a tattooed, greasy-haired and over-sexed detective. Fingerling turns from a disgusting and sleazy version of a Humphrey Bogart character into even more of a freak show. He falls in love with a girl who is obsessed with murder and he retreats into the black shadows of his apartment where he plays the saxophone in the dark.
Fingerling, however, still remains the hero and even tries to save a blonde girl from committing suicide. This is the turning point for Fingerling, as the girl introduces him to the mystery of the number 23.Eventually, with the teaching of the blonde girl, Fingerling falls under the number's spell. The number is his social security number added up, the letters of his name and even his address. The book even brings the number into real world events by finding ways in which the number applies to tragic historical .dates. For an example, the Oklahoma City bombing took place April 19 (4 + 19 = 23). This paranoia sparks an unsettling past and an even more unclear future for Sparrow. He constantly counts objects and analyses patterns which all come out in his mind to the number 23. The number drives him to madness and makes him want to kill his wife as well as a man he believes is in love with her.
The Number 23 is a mix between a lame detective movie and a cheap thriller. It can basically be summed up as another attempt by Jim Carrey to play a serious role and break out of his comedic rut. This desire Carrey has to play a dramatic role only leads him to recreate his other characters with weaker personalities and become less likeable to the audience. The main problem with The Number 23 is that it is not convincing. The obsession is not captivating or mesmerizing. Upon leaving the theater I did not count my social security number or care that in high school I wore the number 5 when I played sports (2 + 3 = 5). I still just think of 23 as the day before my birthday and the number of one of the best basketball players in the world. There is nothing about the film that sparked my curiosity. Most of the strange examples of applications for the number were ridiculous coincidences, far-fetched, and barely made sense. Carrey's character is a depressing version of the pet detective he played in Ace Ventura, and his on-screen family is as unrealistic as Carrey's acting. The dialogue in the script and the ridiculous plot twist lead one to wonder why Carrey would even choose to act in a script of this quality.
The ending is a wannabe Shyamalan twist in which the resolution is supposed to take you off your feet. Instead, all I wished was that I left 23 minutes into the movie. Do yourself a favor, skip The Number 23 and watch The Maskif you need your Jim Carrey-fix.
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