Death Note : How To Use It -

* The Human Whose Name Is Written In This Note Shall Die
* This note will not take effect unless the wrter has the person’s face in their mind when when writing his/her name. Therefore, people sharing the same name will not be affected.
* If the cause of death is written within 40 seconds of writing the person’s name it will happen.
* If the cause of death is not specified, the person will simply die of a heart attack.
* After writing the cause of death, the details of the death should be written in the next 6 minutes and 40 seconds.
* Even if you do not actually possess the Death Note, the effect will be the same if you can recognize the person and his/her name to place in the blank.

In the meantime his father is the police chief and is responsible for finding out the cause of all these mysterious deaths/murders. His boss in the police department brings in a mysterious person known as “L” (played by Ken’ichi Matsuyama)to help the investigation. L never actually appears, but only speaks to the police force through a laptop computer that his helper, Watari brings into their meeting room.

Although the tension increased exponentially during Yagami and L’s pursuit of the mysterious killer, there were a few scenes that contained flawed logic that made me scratch my head.

As an example, when L made the deduction that the murders must have been perpetrated by one single person his logic seemed flawed. L told the police department that the success rate for unsolved murders committed by groups of people were far lower than murders committed by an individual. At the time there were over 80 of these unsolved murders that had occurred all over the world. L then makes an odd assumption that if there were at least 80 accomplices, the chances of 80 people not getting caught by their 80th act would be close to zero. Thus, L concluded that only one individual could have perpetrated this act. Hmm, I do think L’s logic excluded the possibility that 80 people could have been working together, but there was nothing in his data to disprove the possibility of 2 or 3 people working together. So, no it did not have to necessarily be only one person. Why didn’t the police ask him this?

Another scene that I found to challenge my sense of belief would have been the scene when the FBI agent went to meet the suspected killer on a subway train. The FBI agent finds a manila envelope on the train which contains a wireless transmitter. He puts the transmitter on and speaks with the suspected killer. The person on the other end of the transmitter instructs the FBI agent that he is watching him. so don’t look around the train. The clever FBI agent follows his instructions and just looks down at the manila envelope. Incredibly enough he never noticed before or after wearing the transmitter, the slouching guy standing on the other side of the glass compartment door, wearing a hooded sweatshirt over his head! Furthermore the FBI agent had been tailing only one suspect, Light Yagami (there were 11 other FBI agents tailing the other potential suspects), yet the thought that Light Yagami could be the person talking to him on the other end of the transmitter never occurred to him?

Beside these head scratchers, there were tons of clever cat and mouse moves done by Light Yagami to avoid detection by the police, as well as some very clever moves by L in his attempt to catch Light Yagami. This would have been my favorite part of the film and it made me forget about the bad CGI effects used to create the God Of Death - Ryuk. I would say if you are willing to forgive some of the flawed logic, as well not minding some cartoonish (this is based off of a manga after all!) scenes and characters, then you will enjoy Death Note for what it is : A fun cat and mouse game between good and evil. The ending left no doubt there will be a sequel and I am looking forwards to checking that one out.