Director: Kaspar Barfoed
Running Time: 88 mins
Certificate: 15
Release Date: May 27th 2013
The Numbers Station is available on VoD in the UK now, and will reach DVD & Blu-ray on July 1st
The success of ‘Nordic Noir’ such as The Killing and Headhunters has caused Hollywood to look towards Scandinavia for a new crops of directors to mine. Denmark’s Karspar Barfoed is one of those who’s heard the call of American film, making his English-language debut with The Numbers Station. However he certainly hasn’t jumped into the big budget realm, as it’s a relatively small-scale, claustrophobic thriller, with limited locations and much of it taking place between just two people.
John Cusack plays a longtime CIA wetwork (assassination) specialist called Emerson, who’s feeling burnt out after a particularly difficult mission. After a psychological evaluation he’s sent on what should be a simple, relatively relaxing assignment, protecting a numbers station, where a young woman (Malin Akerman) broadcasts codes that tell operatives what to do.
As is always the way in thrillers, a simple assignment turns out to be anything but when the station comes under attack. Somebody wants the woman dead, and as they work out why it’s suggested to Emerson that the only way out may be for him to kill the person he’s supposed to be protecting.
While watching The Numbers Station, I couldn’t help wondering if originally there was meant to be more to the film, but it got cut down in the editing room (presumably because it’s wasn’t working). The reason I wondered is that while it rushes along, it feels rather lopsided and there’s not a lot to it. The movie takes a while to get going, and indeed the first 20 minutes are rather dull, largely because it’s almost a parody of the cliché of a spy having a crisis of conscience.
After that the film improves, and some of the middle of the movie is actually pretty entertaining and tense. However it is largely two people trapped together and after a while it becomes apparent that Malin Akerman is playing somebody who has pretty much no character whatsoever, while Cusack has little more to do than act weary of killing people. Perhaps there was more to them in the original script, but what we’re left with is the sort of dime-a-dozen, rather lacklustre thriller of which there’s an endless deluge coming out – it’s just this one has better known names in it.
It’s not dreadful, but there’s not much to mark it out. It’s not that Cusack or Ackerman are bad, and indeed director Barfoed doesn’t really make any major missteps, but there’s not a lot for them to work with, and what there is has been done hundreds and hundreds of times before, and often better.
Overall Verdict: The Numbers Station is a just about passable thriller, but you have to get past a very slow set-up to enjoy the mild thrills on offer.
Reviewer: Tim Isaac
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