Hello, what have we here? A straight-to-video murder mystery starring John Hurt and Elijah Wood. This is got to be bad, but then there was Sneakers, right? Right?!

Eventually, I sucked up the courage to plump for The Oxford Murders and, in a way, I’m glad I did. It is bad, but not in a so-bad-it’s-good way. This is more of the bad-but-strangely-charming variety. There’s plenty of miscued plotting and some terrible dialogue that from the halfway point on is in danger of making you wet your pants, but through it all the filmmakers retain a giddy sense of style and John Hurt is, well, John Hurt.

I don’t know why it’s 1993, but it is 1993, and American graduate student Martin (Wood) has just arrived at Oxford. He’s busy trying to convince the famous but priggish mathematician Arthur Seldom (Hurt) to oversee his thesis when the two discover the dead body of Martin’s elderly landlady. Seldom had received a arithmetically inclined note prior to the murder and surmises that it’s the first of a series. If he and Martin can figure out the series then they can stop the murderer from killing again.

Soon, the bodies start to pile up, as do the notes, and Martin and Seldom begin collaborating with Inspector Peterson (Jim Carter) to solve the crimes, the suspects including Lorna (Leonor Watling), a comely local nurse, Beth (Julie Cox) the dead landlady’s unhinged daughter, and Podorov (Burn Gorman), Martin’s atrociously dubbed roommate.

So, all the pieces are put in place for what should be an efficient thriller, with slick direction provided by legendary Spanish stylist Álex de la Iglesia. But what’s not made immediately obvious anywhere on the poster art for The Oxford Murders is that it’s based on a book, and an Argentine one at that. The result is one of the most unintentionally hilarious screenplays in recent memory, as Wood in particular wraps his tongue round some dialogue perhaps sourced from the Mars Attacks Universal Translator.

It’s little wonder too that Martin and Seldom’s endless arithmetically charged conversations leave the audience foundering in geek speak. Whether it’s intentional or not (one suspects not), Inspector Peterson acts as a cipher on these occasions, his baffled looks matching those of the viewer at home. Dialogue feels pieced-together and incomplete, and Martin’s vernacular is all transatlantic, but in a bad way.

This backwardly profound chicken-scratch speech is offset somewhat by the quality of the cast. Hurt, in particular, is pretty brilliant – he could be reciting my grandmother’s list of medicines and still be compelling. Here he’s assisted by the fact that his is the only example of a reasonably rounded character in the entire film. Watling smoulders and Carter harrumphs effectively, but god knows what the director’s instructions were for Burn Gorman, and cult director Alex Cox turns up in strange (if mildy effective) cameo.

Unfortunately, the biggest problem with the cast is the central player. Wood is absolutely, undeniably miscast. He looks like a student and that’s about it. Watching his love scenes with the intimidatingly sexual Watling is like watching a mouse gape at an overripe pear. In his defence he gets the largest helping of the film’s crap dialogue, but Elijah Wood is no sex symbol and has struggled to book a convincing leading role in his post-Lord of the Rings years.

On top of all this is a series of murders that could cure insomnia, and some internal logic that may have worked on the page, but is almost totally bunk onscreen. De la Iglasia and his cinematographer, Kiko de la Rica, have moulded this flatcaked film into something reasonably appealing, their deft tracking shots rarely feeling manufactured, and The Oxford Murders is almost giddily goofy, but this can only be recommended in a backhanded way, and you’ll never (ever) want to eat spaghetti again.


I say: Why is it 1993?

See it for: Some good production design seeing as Christina Castali Line had to source a bunch of English police cars, circa 1993.