Two talents aching to be taken A Bit More Seriously — Jim Carrey and director Joel Schumacher — join forces for a nimble, deranged conspiracy thriller. Carrey plays a dog-catcher whose life curls down the existential U-bend when he chances across a paperback — the titular Number 23 — that combines his own memories with a murderous gumshoe yarn.
What starts out as Ace Ventura: Hex Detective mutates into a snaking noir with much paranoid numerologising as ‘23’ pops up everywhere. The who-wrote-it revelation folds under scrutiny but it’s fun getting there, Schumacher revisiting the brash stylistic tics of his ’80s hit Flatliners with mucho gusto.
