Typical, stupid and pointless, writer/director Richard Middleton's "Wrong Number" is a DV movie that would be lucky to find a home on cable. It's a piece of crud. And that's a shame really because Middleton and co-scripter Lorna Lambert create some very biting and hilarious dialogue for their characters.

Of course, their characters are caught in a ridiculous and tired plot about a, yawn, Internet CEO who has been murdered, the cops on his case and the suspects in the crime. The detective team is made up of (I am not making this up) an older and smarter guy who is retiring in a week and a younger, half-cocked kid who gets involved with the female suspect, the CEO's gold-digging wife. Through flashbacks we learn of what may have lead to the crime. But Middleton also uses the old, old device of showing us the story, via flashbacks, as told by each of the suspects, so we are left to decide for ourselves, like (supposedly) the cops, what happened. It's bad and typical and been done to death and dumb.

Somehow Middleton gets Eric Roberts to take part in this mess. The rest of his cast is unknowns who would be lucky to find work on syndicated cable shows. No one here is good. The story rambles along forever giving us several red herrings and never once giving us a solid clue so that we can figure out whodunnit.

Note: Huge spoiler coming. Don't let it bother you.

Middleton is far more interested in appearing clever and has his ending is simply meant to show you how clever and cool he is. His obvious killer is joined by SURPRISE her lesbian lover (who was in the beginning of the film for about 2 seconds) and the older cop who is SURPRISE her long lost dad. What crap.

"Wrong Number" is aptly named. Nobody is fucking home.

Reviewed from Worldfest 2001

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