Review: The Numbers Station / Cert: 15 / Director: Kasper Barfoed / Screenplay: F. Scott Frazier / Starring: John Cusack, Malin Ackerman, Liam Cunningham / Release Date: July 1st

The Numbers Station is a taut, fast-paced espionage thriller in the vein of Danger Man and Three Days of the Condor.  

John Cusack plays Emerson, a burnt-out American operative reassigned to a remote numbers station called Blackleg Miner in Suffolk that decodes and sends out encrypted messages to field agents. Here he meets Katherine (Ackerman), a civilian cryptographer along with her group of deciphering and encoding specialists where Emerson slowly becomes involved with her. 

Arriving together for their three-day shift, Emerson and Katherine discover that their co-workers have vanished and the base has been compromised. It’s here they slowly unravel a plot by a group of violent men that have their own agenda of reprogramming the codes and sending out their own communications against innocent people. 

John Cusack is perfect in the role of Emerson, an older, more serious version of his character in Grosse Pointe Blank (originally, Ethan Hawke was attached as the lead, but bowed out). Malin Ackerman is terrific as Katherine – smart, yet vulnerable. The scenes with her and Cusack play out nicely. Frazier’s script is well thought out and suspenseful, keeping you guessing at every turn, and Danish director Kasper Barfoed keeps a steady pace. The Numbers Station was filmed at the old Rendlesham US army base, the site of one of the most memorable UFO encounters of the ’80s, and this ominous, foreboding setting adds much to the movie’s flavour.

Expected Rating: 5 out of 10

Actual Rating: