Quartile rating: 5.5/10 · 1 rating
When the moral values of a longtime wetwork black ops agent is tested during his last operation, he receives an unfavorable psych evaluation. Now he is given a break and a seemingly uncomplicated assignment of simply protecting the security of a young female code announcer, code resources and remote station they are assigned to. After an ambush and one phone call later, it becomes a complicated fight for their survival.
The Numbers Station is a by-the-numbers thriller that squanders an intriguing premise — the mysterious world of shortwave number stations — by retreating into a formulaic siege narrative. The plot is predictable and underwritten, with the two leads (John Cusack and Malin Åkerman) doing adequate work but hampered by thin characterization. The cinematography is competent but unremarkable, with little visual flair to distinguish the claustrophobic bunker setting. The numbers station concept had real novelty potential but the film fails to exploit it meaningfully, delivering instead a generic action-thriller that feels derivative of far better genre entries. The ending resolves things in a predictable and unsatisfying fashion, leaving little impression.