The Oxford Murders is based on a Novel of the same name by Argentine mathematician Guillermo MartÃnez. It stars Elijah Wood as Martin, an American grad student who comes to Oxford so that he can study with renowned professor Arthur Seldom (John Hurt). However, Martin and Seldom find themselves thrown together when they stumble on the murder of Martin's landlady (Anna Massey) and join forces to try and crack the code.
The movie has very cold overtones throughout the movie and maintains a "bitter" flavor both in terms of the characters & look of the movie. Especially the sharp and bitter Mother-daughter conversations, when the protagonist played by Elijah Wood in introduced, is particularly well written screenplay. The editors have done a good job in keeping the mysteriousness of the story while maintaining the cold outlook of the movie.
But that’s pretty much the only good about the movie. It’s an astonishingly bad movie, as the good subject matter is marred by poor acting especially from the poker face Elijah. The film never really takes off and keeps moving like a pretentious intro to Philosophy 101. The film tries to impress with its erudition but it’s the mathematical concepts which make it slightly interesting, but only very slightly. Infact I liked the first 10 mins of the movie and was looking forward to the rest. The subject matter had a lot of potential but the execution did no justice to the story. To add to it, the script is quite bad and most scenes the actors keep talking gibberish with each other without any conviction. The movie about solving puzzles ends up being one itself.
Bad casting especially for the lead role makes the movie sink with very little trace. Only John Hurt pulls it up a little but bad chemistry amongst actors and a very average script makes it a rather dull movie. In comparison this one makes Da Vinci code look like a masterpiece :)
Watch it if you want to pass time while sipping on coffee on a dull rainy day.
Rating: 5/10
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