“THE NUMBERS STATION” My rating: C+ (Opens April 27 at the Studio 30, )
88 minutes | MPAA rating: R
It’s a minor affair, but Kasper Barfoed’s “The Numbers Station” reminds me of a John LeCarre espionage tale, the kind where characters with issues run up against a monolithic and unyielding system.The premise behind F. Scott Frazier’s screenplay finds CIA killer Emerson (John Cusack) stationed at a bunker deep in the Finnish countryside. After years as an effective killing machine, Emerson has balked on an assignment and has been sent to a low-stress, low-priority outpost to get his act together.You can probably guess that his new gig won’t be low stress for long.This facility is a numbers station, a shortwave broadcast center in a kind of missile silo. Numbers stations (they really exist) transmit seemingly random spoken words and numbers. Presumably these coded messages are aimed at spies in various countries and contain instructions, orders, warnings and other top-secret information.Emerson’s job is to provide security for Katherine (Malin Akerman), a civilian employee of the CIA who reads the nonsensical codes over the air.
Malin Akerman
Showing up for work after three days off, Emerson and Katherine find themselves under attack. The station has been compromised and the two weekend staffers murdered.
Our protagonists barely make it inside through gunfire and explosions, locking the doors behind them.
As their unseen assailants begin drilling into the structure, Katherine and Emerson grasp their situation. It will be several hours before rescuers arrive. Meanwhile the invaders have already programmed the equipment to transmit a message – one that undoubtedly will mean bad news for the Company.
Emerson gets instructions. Among other things he’s to kill Katherine, who is earnestly trying to shortcircuit the broadcast of bogus orders.
“The Numbers Station” is claustrophobic and intense. There’s not that much action; mostly it’s a suspenseful buildup to a couple of key outbreaks of violence.
But Cusack and Akerman are quite good at nailing their characters, two essentially incomplete individuals who have gravitated toward spy work precisely because they are incapable of building lasting relationships with other people.
Director Barfoed, a veteran of Danish television, manages to make this tamped-down tale cinematic, and emphasizes the moral ambiguities Emerson must juggle.
It’s nothing special, but it’ll do.
| Robert W. Butler
Butler's Cinema Scene 
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