The Oxford Murders
Short description
The Oxford Murders follows Martin, an American graduate student who arrives at Oxford hoping to study under Arthur Seldon, a renowned logician with a cynical view of mathematical certainty. When Martin discovers the body of his landlady, a woman who had once worked on breaking wartime codes, he and Seldon are drawn together into a police investigation. A note left at the scene carries a mathematical symbol, and further killings follow, each announced in the same way. Seldon comes to believe the murderer is staging a proof aimed at him, and he and Martin try to work out the pattern before another death occurs. The film is based on Guillermo Martínez's novel, published in English as The Oxford Murders.
Álex de la Iglesia directed and co-wrote the screenplay with Jorge Guerricaechevarría. It was the sixth of the thirteen films he has directed, following The Ferpect Crime and preceding The Last Circus. Elijah Wood plays Martin and John Hurt plays Seldon, with Leonor Watling, Julie Cox, Jim Carter and Alex Cox in supporting roles.
Released in 2008, the film had a budget of about 14 million dollars and runs 107 minutes. Its critical reception was poor, with a critics' rating of 4 out of 10 from 12 reviews, and audiences were only somewhat warmer: on TMDB it holds 6 out of 10 from 738 votes.
What's left behind the scenes
- The film refers to Borm's Last Theorem, which is a reference to Fermat's Last Theorem (1601-1665). Fermat's Last Theorem was proven at the end of the 20th century by Andrew John Wiles.
- The characters played by Elijah Wood and Anna Massey discuss a replica of the "Enigma" encryption machine. According to Massey's character, the messages transmitted by the "Enigma" were deciphered manually, and all calculations were also performed manually, because there were no computers at the end of World War II. In fact, the British created a computer called "Colossus" as early as January 1944, and by the end of the war they had 10 "Colossi" at their disposal, which were used to decipher codes, including those of the "Enigma".
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