NUMB (Jason R. Goode). 88 minutes. See listing. Rating: NNN
Jason R. Goode’s Numb puts a clever spin on the classic trope of The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre and The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, situating its story of strangers establishing an uneasy alliance while chasing a fortune in the freezing wilderness of British Columbia.
Two couples – a cash-strapped husband and wife (Jamie Bamber, Stefanie von Pfetten) and a roughneck brother and sister (Aleks Paunovic, Marie Avgeropoulos) – searching for some $4 million in gold coins find their trust issues compounded by potentially lethal temperatures.
Andre Harden’s script has room for some interesting character development amidst the frostbite and panic, and Goode lets his actors make the most of it, especially Paunovic’s unreadable ex-con.
The cast is engaging, and the makeup effects are convincingly squicky. It’s a little disappointing that the last act downshifts into a predictable cat-and-mouse chase. Still, that’s the genre for you: it’s all about inevitability.