When dogcatcher Walter Sparrow (Jim Carrey) finds a mysterious novel called The Number 23, his life swiftly crumbles into a paranoid nightmare.
Sparrow becomes obsessed with the story of Detective Fingerling, who is consumed by what he calls the curse of the number 23.
The gumshoe becomes Walter's alter ego, with catastrophic results: not only does he, too, start to see the number 23 everywhere but kinky sex, suicide and murder all bubble up in his hitherto unexceptional life.
Part detective story, part psychological drama, this is unsatisfying on both levels.
Director Joel Schumacher's frenetic camera work and blinding white backdrops for the comic book-style fantasy sequences (with Carrey as Fingerling) are more irritating than innovative, and it's left to Carrey's narrator to fill in the blanks left by a lazy, ridiculous conclusion.
The Number 23
Cert: 15
