People are voting emotionally.

A different way of telling a story

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

This B-movie thriller has the unusual setting of Suffolk as a basis for the typical Hollywood-style action. The action is centred in and around the titular building, which is owned by the CIA and used for broadcasts. The problem is that some traitorous bad guys want to access the system to broadcast their own messages, which is where a weary John Cusack steps in.Cusack plays a burnt-out operative who has been reassigned to an easy duty but finds it anything but. His pretty young associate is played by Malin Akerman, of WATCHMEN fame. The two of them are involved in a cat and mouse game that takes place mainly in dark corridors and the like; the problem is that it's obviously a cheaply-made film and boy, does it look it. There are a few brief faces in support - namely Lucy Griffiths (ROBIN HOOD), Hannah Murray (GAME OF THRONES), Richard Brake (BATMAN BEGINS), and a welcome Liam Cunningham - but mostly this is oddly generic stuff, and not very enthralling.

"Emerson Kent" (John Cusack) is a government assassin who begins to have doubts about his ability to continue in his chosen profession. His superiors recognize this and decide to take him out of the field and reassign him to a government facility that is responsible for transmitting secret codes to the agents. So rather than being on the receiving side of the secret messages he is essentially stationed on the other end of the spectrum. His orders are to safeguard the station and in particular to ensure that the code analyst named "Katherine" (Malin Akerman) is protected. Unfortunately, when the station is compromised he now faces a tough choice on whether to continue protecting her or to kill her so that whatever secrets she has doesn't fall into enemy hands. Now rather than reveal any more of this movie and risk spoiling it I will just say that, although this movie certainly wasn't exceptional by any means, it wasn't that bad either. I thought both John Cusack and Malin Akerman performed their roles reasonably well enough and all things considered I figure this movie is probably good enough for a rainy day.

Finally, after a string of dreadful scripts, poor directing and outright silliness, Cusack gets a role he can sink his teeth into. His character, Emerson Kent, is a burned out black ops agent. The character is a dark, tortured soul and Cusack plays it magnificently. Malin Akerman also shines in her role as Katherine, an ebullient and somewhat naive cryptographer with issues of her own.The plot gets down to business very quickly and the pace of the film never really lets up. Kent lets you know right away that he's no nice guy, so it's accurate to say that there really aren't any good guys here. Kent only seems intent on doing the right thing despite his ruthless past.There are no car chases. There are a few well placed explosions. But enough gunfire and action to move this 90-minute flick forward at just the right pace. It is at times thrilling, at times poignant, and at times quite violent. What else could you ask for in an action thriller?

For some reason the critics did not like this movie. Then again if your idea of an action movie is the Expendables this is probably not the movie for you. No leaping off a 20 story building and surviving because of a Ninja roll or bad guys falling like flies while the good guy fires infinite rounds doing unreal gymnastics. For me movies like the Expendables are a good light hearted comedy. The numbers station is a suspenseful action movie with real and believable characters and a very interesting plot. The movie starts slow and builds tension all the way through. The fear is tangible, the actions of the the people faced with the unthinkable very believable. I won't tell you anything about the plot, the movie will do that. I'll just highly recommend this movie.