(Movies fail at the box office, and many more fail to even find release into theaters. When one of these dead on arrival titles arrives on disc they go under the knife of the forensic video-examiner, all in the hope of determining the causes of death in the marketplace. Be forewarned any who wish to see the film – this piece is entirely a SPOILER.)
John Cusack may have officially fallen to DVD strata. This is his second title – after
THE FACTORY -- to be dissected here. (Another hidden misfire,
SHANGHAI, also is long-shelved by a studio.) In this attempt he plays a world-weary CIA assassin sent to an outpost radio facility eventually compromised by attackers. Cusack displays a fatigued countenance, which soon becomes mimicked by the audience.
Danish director Kaspar Barfoed leads his first English language film, and he is not up to the task. The low-budget thriller has strains of achieving a
PANIC ROOM level of tension, but he loses control and you only notice the cost-savinging measures. Let’s cut into this corpse the same way the editors carved up the footage.
00:01:16 Ruptured Visuals
With the word “Numbers” in the title we are served the tired marketing practice of supplanting letters with digits in the cover art. However the production takes this method to the extreme, using it throughout the opening credits.
00:03:17 Locale Anesthesia
The film promises international intrigue set in the world of geo-political brinksmanship, so naturally the story kicks off in . . . Jackson, New Jersey.
00:05:26 Elevated Forshadow Levels
Cusack enters a tavern and speaks with the bartender. The barback intones a line that seems more loaded than a Long Island Ice Tea.
BARTENDER:
You do something long enough . . . (sigh) . . . you close your eyes – you just can’t think of doing nothing else.
00:07:42 Plot Stimulant
After shooting the bartender (a former agent) and some patrons one man flees, but Emerson tracks the guy to his home, shooting him in front of his teenage daughter. Emerson cannot bring himself to eliminate the girl, however outside his partner is more up to the task.
00:09:24 Cauterized Plot Cavity
Emerson next undergoes a psych-evaluation. While understandable his professional lapse may lead to consequences the revelation that his past alcoholism did not interrupt his career as a professional assassin is curious.
00:11:07 Exploratory Story Incision
Emerson is sent to CIA Siberia -- an outpost broadcast station at a decommissioned army base in England. His task is serving as body guard for a cryptologist who broadcasts messages to field agents. Somehow the secretive location with a clandestine mission is operated by a civilian.
00:13:28 Technologic Thrombosis
2 months later Emerson routinely guards the facility for the cryptologist Katherine, played by Malin Akerman. There is high-tech software and complex numerology employed therein. It seems complex and arcane, until she sits down to broadcast the numerals – by conventional radio.
00:14:49 Adverse Activity
During a shift change we watch Emerson and Katherine exit through a series of vault doors and high-security measures, only to go outside -- where their vehicles remain parked out in the open, prone to the most basic surveillance.
00:15:45 Chronicle Seizure
Emerson and Katherine share some forced banter during a commute:
EMERSON:
You do a thing long enough can’t really think of doing anything else, you know?
Not ten minutes have elapsed and he is quoting the bartender’s pithy line. I’m just going to go out on a limb and make the assumption this has become a theme in this venture.
00:18:29 Depleted Character Concentration
Once alone Emerson is plagued by visions of the teen girl. His clean/sober condition means he cannot take refuge in a bottle, but his poor choice of coffee as a replacement means his insomnia is exacerbated.
00:21:23 Arrested Physics
Returning to the compound they come under sniper fire, involving mystical ordinance. A POV shot shows the gunman is firing from a position behind their SUV, and the front end is obscured by a wall, but one shot somehow pierces the radiator where they are crouched. Another slug hitting a wall has sparks flying from the impact – as any bullet striking concrete is liable to cause.
00:22:37 Iatrogenic Direction
The vehicle belonging to the other team blows up nearby but Emerson and Katherine get inside safely. There is a nice effect of the sound dropping with a whine on the soundtrack, but director Barfoed feels the need to hold our hand.
Katherine cannot hear and Emerson unhelpfully points to his head and says, “
Eardrums”.
NOW we grasp things correctly.
00:26:39 Invasive Pathos
After killing an intruder Emerson calls a secure phone to say they have been compromised. He is instructed to secure the facility, and to “retire” the broadcaster. Given the struggle he had in killing an anonymous teenager, eliminating the woman he has worked with in a flirtatious manner for months should be easy.
00:36:13 Weakened Impulse
Emerson follows Katherine through the hallways looking for answers. He then quickly shots her in the head, watching a pool of blood gather beneath her form.
NOPE, Kidding! In a flash edit we learn this was merely a vision in his mind as he grapples with his duty. Curse you Kasper, you fiendish manipulator!
00:45:14 Plot Stimulant
In the radio vault they learn 15 coded broadcasts were made by intruders. In the basement they discover a laptop connected to the mainframe, with dossiers of 15 top CIA administrators. This is a wealth of intrigue, except a mass assignment calling for the elimination of the CIA echelon MAY raise a suspicion . . . or a dozen.
00:53:15 Cliché Malignancy
The intruders also got to the emergency phones, but rather than confiscating them they removed the batteries -- then replaced the phones. Here we see Hollywood continuing to use fire extinguishers as bludgeons, or storage containers – ANYthing but actual flame suppressors.
00:58:15 Fiscal Laceration
The duo has a waiting game, with the attackers trying to drill their way through the front door/vault. The lack of a budget means an international thriller concerning covert operations is not playing out on the streets and alleyways of European locations but is set entirely inside a dank facility.
01:01:23 Cauterized Plot Cavity
Emerson locks Katherine in a secure room as he searches the building. She finds a stray message from a co-worker on a computer which secretly contains the code needed to access the secure dossiers, AND to send new radio instructions.
Call this “Deus-E-Mail-ina”.
01:02:55 Cranial Atrophy
Katherine moves to the broadcast room to send out a CANCEL message while Emerson sneaks outside to retrieve her cell phone from the truck. He brilliantly leaves the front door open and now a gunman can enter the formerly secure facility.
01:03:36 Editing Arrythmia
Remember the crew that was trying to drill their way into the facility? Well the editors do not. That team has completely disappeared, and the entire plot thread simply dissipates from the storyline.
01:05:17 Plot Stimulant
Emerson races back inside, confronting the intruder as Katherine gets shot. There is a protracted hand-to-hand battle, but this is due to both trained gunmen managing to lose their weapons.
O1:10:40 Ruptured Visual
After medicating the wounded Katherine Emerson takes to the airwaves to send out the transmission. He is framed by a wall of clocks -- a poor choice in a movie that feels like time has ground to a halt.
01:12:47 Weakened Impulse
When scenes of typing and speaking into a microphone are displayed as “gripping”, manufactured tension is of little surprise. Still, after wiring the facility to blow with C4, and Emerson carries a wounded Katherine outside, it is forced drama when suddenly his truck won’t start.
01:15:29 Invasive Pathos
Walking on a desolate road with Katherine on his shoulder Emerson flags down a passing vehicle for help. Conveniently the driver turns out to be the mystery voice he had heard on the compromised security phone line. This could be a stunning revelation -- had we been given any indication who is behind the attack.
01:16:24 Blunt Force Dialogue
As the men draw on each other they discuss the weight of their shared profession, echoing the theme from earlier:
GUNMAN:
I take it you’re not a religious man.
EMERSON:
No.
GUNMAN:
You’re like me then – Floundering in wet shit.
This exchange concerns their shared careers -- or possibly Cusack’s choice of recent film roles.
01:19:16 Weakened Impulse
Shot in the shoulder Emerson manages to crash the car in front of a hospital. He awakens in a bed and makes his way to Katherine’s room. So a crash involving two gunshot victims does not warrant a security detail, and there appears to be no medical staff to speak of.
01:21:09 Continuity Failure
As his boss arrives in the room Emerson tosses him a flash-drive stick with all of the dossiers. This is because Emerson was not placed into a patient’s gown following treatment but allowed to remain in his blood soaked clothing. This is a peek into the upcoming Obama-care standards!!!
01:23:32 Collapsed Climax
Emerson convinces his boss to let he and Katherine walk away. And then the movie does not end, it simply stops. I feel this was done to preserve Emerson as quasi-heroic and angle for a somewhat happy ending, while nobody seems particularly happy.
Problem.
There were direct indications that Emerson was behind the entire plot; another agent was unable to shoot an unseen intruder, Katherine indicated he was a lone player in the plot, then there was the small matter of the voice on the security line telling Emerson to meet them so he could begin his “
Early retirement”. Each detail becomes voided, forgotten, and rendered meaningless in the scheme of the film.
POST MORTEM
In a movie that was spartan to begin with, in both appearance and content, it becomes staggering the amount of material edited in post to alter the impact.
• Emerson’s repeated duplicity – meaningless.
• The team drilling into the front door – completely abandoned.
• The attackers of the compound – no indication who they were.
• The CIA executives targeted – their fate never addressed.
Amazing that when the movie does not care about the events in its universe the audience is still expected to invest emotion in the activities.