The Number 23

It's interesting to see Jim Carrey in such a role, I think he did a good job. When I watched it for the first time, I was a teenager and I was amazed, it's not a "wow" movie but I think you will enjoy watching it.

Walter Sparrow (Jim Carrey) is a family-man married with Agatha Sparrow (Virginia Madsen), and works catching dogs in the Department of Animal Control and has a teenager son very close to his wife and him. On the day of his birthday, he is bitten by a dog and comes late to meet Agatha. While waiting for him, Agatha buys a detective book with a novel about the mystery around the number 23 in a bookstore as a gift to Walther. He becomes captivated with the story and obsessed with the number 23, finding many coincidences with his own life, and he decides to find the author, believing the story is about him. His further investigation discloses a mysterious situation that makes Walther paranoid.

The dark "The Number 23" is a great tale of obsession, paranoid and redemption. The story and the characters are very well developed, the final twist is totally unexpected and the film has a stylish cinematography and edition, with intense use of dark colors. There are stunning sequences, like for example when the boy meets the widow dead on her bed, or the meeting of Fingerling with Suicide Blonde. Jim Carrey is perfect and Virginia Madsen is still a very beautiful and sexy woman and has a great performance. In spite of having a moralist conclusion, it works and leaves a magnificent message of justice and moral standards that are almost forgotten in the present days. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Número 23" ("Number 23")

The Number 23 (2007) is a movie I recently watched on Tubi. The storyline follows a family that becomes fascinated by a unique book. The husband as he reads the book finds he can uniquely relate to many aspects of the storyline and begins thinking the book is about him. His wife tries to keep him from ruining their family with his obsession but the more he digs the more he appears to be losing his mind.... This movie is directed by Joel Schumacher (A Time to Kill) and stars Jim Carey (Ace Venture), Virginia Madsen (Candyman), Danny Huston (The Aviator) and Corey Stoll (Ant-man). The storyline for this is very clever and intricate. I absolutely loved seeing Carey in this role and don't think they could have picked a better leading actor. The script was very good and Carey delivered a very relatable character. The murder mystery aspects were fairly intense and you have doubts right up till the end of the movie. I also loved how this movie concluded, very smart. Overall I think this movie is a little underrated and deserves a solid 8/10 score and I'd strongly recommend seeing this once.

The trouble with many actors that do only a particular type of film, is that once they go outside of their box, it's just too weird. This is true to Jim Carrey. We've become so accustomed to his comedy flicks that this throws us off guard. I kept waiting for him to crack jokes, but they never came. This is a true drama/thriller that keeps you guessing until the end.

Carrey plays a man who starts reading a book that more and more sound like it was written just for him. Then strange occurrences of the number 23 keep popping up and the story gets weirder and weirder. But trust me, stick with it--the twist is a jaw dropper.

I have to say it was a bit odd to see Carrey in the sex scenes-- I kept waiting for him to jump up and say "ssssssmokin!!!" I thought overall it was a great movie.

I knew when I bought THE NUMBER 23 on DVD that I haven't to expect too much after reading the critics on this link. I watched it with high attention till the end and I have to say that it worked on a fair level as an average thriller. There are some points in this film that weren't logic for me. Anyway, if you have really nothing to do this one offers many mysteries and puzzles to solve but not great suspense. There were perhaps some unnecessary bloody scenes. I was very positive surprised seeing Jim Carrey giving a great and respectable performance in a thriller. I cannot share some opinions that he was misplaced here because he has no doubt a great talent and I can imagine him in other roles of this genre. And director Joel Schuhmacher made finally a better movie than his last ones. Final number: 6/10.