Oxford Murders, The

Released by: Magnolia Home Entertainment
Released on: 10/05/10
Director: Alex De La Iglesia
Cast: Elijah Wood, John Hurt, Leonor Watling, Julie Cox, Jim Carter
Year: 2008

The Movie

Based on a novel of the same name, The Oxford Murders is the story of an American graduate student, Martin (Elijah Wood) who goes off to England's famous Oxford University to study mathematics. His hope is to get in good with a big wig academic named Arthur Seldom (John Hurt). He rents a room in an old lady's house who just so happens to have known Seldom for a long time through her dead husband. Is Martin doing some creepy stalking type activities here? Could be…

At the house also lives the daughter of the old lady, Beth (Julie Cox) who has to put up with her overbearing, over critical mother day in and day out with not much of a life of her own. She has no relationship with anyone or anything other than her cello, but she has a shine on for Martin it seems. Meanwhile Marty meets a nurse named Lorna (Leonor Watling) and the two get in the sack rather quickly, causing jealousy from Beth. One afternoon, after an altercation in a lecture with Prof. Seldom, Martin bumps into him at the old lady's home. They enter the building together and discover the old bat dead, apparently murdered. A second body turns up in the hospital Lorna works in and then a third.

This is all very interesting to the professor as he believes the murders are being committed by someone trying to prove him wrong in his philosophies he spouts off about in classrooms, someone with a grudge perhaps. And the murders seem to be following some sort of logical sequence, a mathematical equation. There are four symbols in the problem and when a third person turns up dead it's a race to find out who is doing these dastardly deeds before the forth murder is committed. Lots of suspects, including the American student, make this potboiler one you can't easily predict and have to ride out to see what happens.

There's not a whole lot of gripping suspense and tense moments in this one. Its not the typical murder mystery, although at it's core it is just that. But this one is brainier than the average and although it can be a little convoluted at times, it never goes so far as to alienate the viewers with absurd intelligence. Then again, it doesn't spoon feed you the whole thing either. The performances are pretty solid, although sometimes Wood seems to struggle with some of the material and his dialogue sometimes sounds a bit unnatural, but it's easy to get past. He does a pretty good job carrying the movie. John Hurt of course is John Hurt, 'nuff said. And then there's Leonor Watling: a natural beauty whose screen presence commands the attention of anyone with a pulse. We need to see more of this woman, and not just with her clothes off.

The movie has some slow spots, but it also has a couple of interesting moments. The movie starts out with a WWII sequence; there's an insane genius who gives himself a nail gun lobotomy and who is a pretty gruesome sight to behold; there's a scene that totally crushes a big screen taboo. An overall interesting movie with great cinematography and from a director who has a nice visual style.

Video/Audio/Extras

The film is presented here in 2.35:1 Anamorphic Widescreen and looks quite nice. The blacks are pretty deep, and the skin tones look perfect. The images are clear and although the colors look proper, everything has a dreary look which is obviously intentional. No artifacts are visible and there are no glitches to mention. Overall it's a solid picture that's a good example of what a DVD should look like.

The audio is 5.1 Dolby Digital (optional Spanish 2.0 track) and it sounds great. There's a nice balance between the music and dialogue. There are some scenes that stand out like an orchestra and an explosion, but most of the film is talking so, there's not a ton of use of the technology. That said it's still a nice sound, and is minus any noticeable imperfections or problems.

There are a healthy amount of extras here, some in English, some in Spanish with subtitles. Its kind of interesting to watch John Hurt being dubbed in Spanish and then subtitled in English. At any rate the extras are all worth watching if you liked the feature, even though some of the material gets repeated. “The Making of The Oxford Murders” (17:19), “The Mathematical Criminals of Oxford” (10:12), “The Oxford Murders: Interviews” (13:44), “The Oxford Murders at Abbey Road” (2:27), “The Oxford Murders: Waiting for Alex” (18:10), “The Oxford Murders: Professor Kalman” (4:31), “The Oxford Murders: Set Design” (3:28), “The Oxford Murders: Kalman's Make-Up” (4:32), “HdNet: A Look at The Oxford Murders” (4:42), and finally “Behind the Scenes of The Oxford Murders”, which is made up of six featurettes totaling around 8 minutes in length. They all go into detail with the making of the movie, some of it is ego stroking, but a lot of it is worth while.

The Final Word

A movie worth checking out that interestingly seems to have slipped through the cracks in the American market. There's some darkness to this film and an ending that isn't all peaches 'n cream for the main characters. Great image, solid sound, and a array of extras make this a good one to pick up.