The Numbers Station (2013)

Good concept, poorly executed.

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

i liked this film, it was about something id never heard of before,which is always good,and to have a large part of it based in Britain was nice, my reason for giving it 8 and not 10, is SPOILER ALERT: plot holes, such as in Britain if you arrive at a hospital with gun shot wounds carrying a gun and crash into cars, the police are called, and would hang around until you woke up,as its a rare event,and they would have confiscated his gun. SPOILER ALERT. also if there is a giant explosion any where, either the police or military police would attend, pretty quickly, or fire fighters,or just local people.as Britain really isn't big enough to have middle of no where places. but besides that, i liked it,

I must admit I was pleasantly surprised by The Numbers Station. Going on John Cusack's recent venture into silly, inconsequential direct to video thrillers without depth or heft, I expected a mind numbing cash grab with his moniker shamelessly plastered in pre title billing. I only watched it for a couple of actors I really enjoy, and what I got was thoroughly fun, slow burning spy thriller that took its time, built the characters and focused on mood and story instead of just action filler. During and after the Cold War, Numerous 'Numbers Stations' were planted all over Europe, facilities where operatives would reside, broadcasting codes in the form of random sequences of digits, all over the region to various agents, who would read them, and carry out the orders embedded within. Cusack's plays a disgraced agent who is assigned to accompany a coder (Malin Ackerman) to a remote station, and protect her and the premises. They arrive and are immediately at odds with each other. Ackerman is a rookie spook with idealistic values and a sunshiny demeanour that irks Cusack right off the bat. He has acres of tragedy behind him, curdling his personality into a jaded, hangdog presence, essentially just wearily carrying out the motions with listless resignation. The script wisely gives them time to bicker about their differences, learn a bit about each other and form a shaky bond before the inevitable conflict rears its head, in the form of a rogue special ops unit led by a determined psychopath (Richard Brake). Their aim is to hijack the numbers stations broadcasting capabilities and send out codes of their own containing orders to do God knows what. It's up to Cusack to prevent this, giving him new purpose. The underrated Liam Cunningham briefly shows up as Cusack's morally bankrupt partner who ends up having a crisis of conscience, and portrays it really well as only Cunnningham can do. It's not a movie to rave about, but it's a solid, moody thriller for lovers of the genre, perfect for a lazy rainy night.

Finally, after a string of dreadful scripts, poor directing and outright silliness, Cusack gets a role he can sink his teeth into. His character, Emerson Kent, is a burned out black ops agent. The character is a dark, tortured soul and Cusack plays it magnificently. Malin Akerman also shines in her role as Katherine, an ebullient and somewhat naive cryptographer with issues of her own.The plot gets down to business very quickly and the pace of the film never really lets up. Kent lets you know right away that he's no nice guy, so it's accurate to say that there really aren't any good guys here. Kent only seems intent on doing the right thing despite his ruthless past.There are no car chases. There are a few well placed explosions. But enough gunfire and action to move this 90-minute flick forward at just the right pace. It is at times thrilling, at times poignant, and at times quite violent. What else could you ask for in an action thriller?

Yes, as unbelievable as it sounds, 'The Numbers Station' is sort of like Die Hard, but set in leafy Suffolk (as opposed to the Nakatomi Plaza). Here, John Cussack plays... well, some sort of agent who has to protect your typical gorgeous codebreaker from... whoever the bad guys are who want her, him and probably everyone else dead as well.The plot is pretty unimportant. It clearly doesn't have the budget to have the big action scenes that Die Hard has, but it plays to its strengths and, what it lacks in action, it makes up for with a reasonably claustrophobic atmosphere and a few good tense moments.The whole film is completely adequate. It's the sort of film you find on TV late at night and, if you don't have to be up too early in the morning, then you probably won't mind staying up until you see the ending. Then again, if you fall asleep, you probably won't care that much either.http://thewrongtreemoviereviews.blogspot.co.uk/