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Review #450 of 365
Movie Review of Fracture (2007) [R] 112 minutes
WIP™ Scale: $12.00
Where Viewed: United Artists Denver Pavilions Stadium 15, Denver, CO
When 1st Seen: 24 April 2007
Time: 7:55 p.m.
Film's Official Website • Film's Trailer
DVD Release Date: unscheduled
Directed by: Gregory Hoblit (Hart's War)
Written by: Daniel Pyne (The Manchurian Candidate) and Glenn Gers (My Brother's Keeper)
Featured Cast (Where You Might Remember Him/Her From):
Anthony Hopkins (Bobby) • Ryan Gosling (Half Nelson) • David Strathairn (We Are Marshall) • Rosamund Pike (The Libertine) • Embeth Davidtz (Junebug) • Billy Burke (Ladder 49) • Cliff Curtis (The Fountain) • Fiona Shaw (Catch and Release)
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Click for 'Review Lite' [a 150-word or less review of this film]
Let's say you were a fan of crime drama thrillers like Scot Turow's Presumed Innocent, and you fell asleep one afternoon where your dreams could conjure up a brilliant idea for a movie plot about the most deliciously perfect murder ever committed. A genius, wealthy, older man manages to kill his conniving, adulterous, younger wife, admit it in a sworn statement directly to police, and get away with it on technicality after technicality despite a hot shot prosecutor. Of course your REM sleep would also deliver you a perfect cast like, shall we say Sir Anthony Hopkins as the killer whom we all know can play the smartest, slyest, most inexplicably brilliant murderer and recently Oscar®-nominated Ryan Gosling whom we all know can play a brilliant murderer (Murder by Numbers) as well as have the potential to be the perfect up and coming prosecutor. And, then you woke up. And it wasn't a dream at all. It was real. And it was called Fracture. And your genius engineer named Ted Crawford was really being portrayed flawlessly by the real Sir Anthony Hopkins. And your up and coming prosecutor named Willy Beachum, so good in his conviction rates and so sly in his office politics that he's snared a new job as a junior partner in one of Los Angeles's most prestigious and expensive law firms, was actually being played by the master of the brooding eyebrows and unspoken word Ryan Gosling. And before you eyes, you see the events unfold just as you had dreamed them. Crawford leaves his aeronautical engineering firm early in a gorgeous and spotless dream sports car, heads to the hotel he's ascertained is the one his wife uses for her 'secret' trysts with a police hostage negotiator, spies on them, sneaks into their room and confirms his suspicions, rushes home, fixes his self-designed Rube Goldberg machine, and awaits her return. As she enters the home, he springs on her and toys with her mentally. It's painfully obvious their marriage has turned icy, and that likely she married him for the lifestyle he could provide. He tries to ignite a spark of interest, she fails to reciprocate, so, he do does what any brilliant husband who loses his mind to the deadliest of sins, jealousy, would do, and this is to shoot her precisely in the back of the head. When the gardener still on duty hears the shot, he shoots some more out the windows making it look like a man gone crazy shooting the place up and holding his wife hostage, so who will get called to the scene of the crime but Rob Nunally (Billy Burke)…ah yes, the police hostage negotiator his wife was with only hours earlier. Only, Nunally never knew her last name—part of her intrigue. And Nunally thinks their relationship is very real, deep, love. And when he arrives at the house to talk Crawford down, so to speak, he's going to be the one to find his former lover shot in the back of the head and help then to secure the confession which Crawford will gladly give. The case, by luck of the draw, will then fall on the shoulders of Willy Beachum, an Oklahoman, who rose up from a modest family to prosecute for the DA and has never really lost a case. Well, he's on his way out to his new fancy dream career so who better to get an open and shut case where there's a signed confession and open admission of guilt by the defendant. And, this, believe it or not is just where it all begins.
"Fracture is…a classic example what happens when one tries to concoct something too perfect. Real perfection, probably, only comes about serendipitously."
The curious title, actually, seems to refer to the small hairline kind that eventually grows to shatter from within. It's a theme of the film both the good and the bad characters share it. Yet, as flawless as this whole dream scenario might be, unfortunately, it too possesses a few hairline fractures that eventually wreck what otherwise would have been a perfect film. The first of these lies in the character of and casting of Willy Beachum. The character represents a great example of the all-American dream come true. There's no way to not want to root for this guy. Yet, it's sad to see his brilliance and passion get lured to what many see as the 'dark side' of rich corporate law away from helping the people and doing civil service. It's not so easy to root for that side. It's also not so easy to see him blow the case because he's so preoccupied with his new job. He gets played like a fiddle by the self-defending Crawford who's playing a game of chess with him, while Willy's thinking it's Chinese checkers. Heroes can have flaws, that's ok. But, the tiny fracture in the sense of the character causes him to implode from all that made him who he was into someone else. Which then makes it all the more challenging to understand why he doesn't just back away and drop the case with his boss Joe Lobruto (David Strathairn) is eager and willing to let him out of. As for the casting side, Ryan Gosling it turns out was not the right actor for this role, as difficult as it might be to believe. While I rarely like to harp on the people who try to do accents, I'd say in this case his pseudo Oklahoma accent served as an unnecessary distraction for both him as an actor and Willy as the character. People from Oklahoma don't necessarily have an accent so to speak, and ones that have been living in LA for years, could easily lose theirs. But, Gosling's is so inconsistent and mixed up as to leave us relatively uncertain what type of accent it's supposed to be or why someone who's working so hard to 'move up' in the world wouldn't ditch this southern USA / Texan miss-mash accent in the first place. Ah, but that's only the tiny thing that's not right with Mr. Gosling's portrayal. The other part is that he's too detached from the role. Maybe not blatantly. It's more of a subtle thing as if he's distracted. This happens to some actors and actresses when they are cast opposite a living-legend. Sometimes they lose it. Personally, I feel that the real Ryan Gosling is more than capable of acting opposite of Sir Hopkins. Mr. Gosling is of rare and exceptional acting talent. He is gifted. He is a genius. He has delivered some incredible though often overlooked performances even better than last year's job in Half Nelson for which he was finally nominated. He can, quite simply be mesmerizing. If you haven't seen his early work in Murder by Numbers which was not the greatest of films, but still, you've got to get it and just study his portrayal. I watch it now and again just to remind myself of the capacity of an actor to fully absorb into the role. Meanwhile, his entirely shafted film The Notebook which failed to receive an Oscar® nomination for best picture, a fact that still looms large in my mind as one of the biggest snubs of it's year for everyone involved in this elegant and beautiful love story, shows his full range of ability. He is amazing. But, he is not the guy who turned up for Fracture. Or maybe when he did, he took one look at Sir Hopkins and froze. He sort of recovers, and again part of it is the conflicted role—which by all accounts he should have been good at. Unfortunately, the combination just doesn't work. The predicted chemistry between the two barely gels.
Ultimately, the film's title takes on a dual meaning for it reveals both the source of the plot and it's unpredictable yet logical ending, and a classic example what happens when one tries to concoct something too perfect. Real perfection, probably, only comes about serendipitously. We often like to think because most of us do not truly understand Darwin's Theory of Evolution that the perfection of nature has come about through millions of years of tiny corrections to flaws, when, in fact, that's not it at all. The perfection and beauty and spectacle of nature has been derived by hundreds and hundreds of tiny accidents that just happened to turn out great. These could have happened in an instant. It's less trial and error actually than blind luck. Some of the blame has to be put on director Gregory Hoblit who should have noticed that things were not going well. Maybe he was lulled into the same false sense of security most people would have been when the idea and the cast was pitched to the producers. How could anything go wrong? It surely is difficult to imagine, and yet, when you watch the film, despite so much perfect brilliance emanating from the screen with intense luminosity, when it's over, the sense of satisfaction that should be there has been replaces with a mild headache.
Ultimately, the film's title takes on a dual meaning for it reveals both the source of the plot and it's unpredictable yet logical ending, and a classic example what happens when one tries to concoct something too perfect. Real perfection, probably, only comes about serendipitously. We often like to think because most of us do not truly understand Darwin's Theory of Evolution that the perfection of nature has come about through millions of years of tiny corrections to flaws, when, in fact, that's not it at all. The perfection and beauty and spectacle of nature has been derived by hundreds and hundreds of tiny accidents that just happened to turn out great. These could have happened in an instant. It's less trial and error actually than blind luck. Some of the blame has to be put on director Gregory Hoblit who should have noticed that things were not going well. Maybe he was lulled into the same false sense of security most people would have been when the idea and the cast was pitched to the producers. How could anything go wrong? It surely is difficult to imagine, and yet, when you watch the film, despite so much perfect brilliance emanating from the screen with intense luminosity, when it's over, the sense of satisfaction that should be there has been replaces with a mild headache.
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Click for 'Review Lite' [a 150-word review of this film]
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Other Projects Featuring Fracture (2007)
Cast Members
Anthony Hopkins
• Ryan Gosling • David StrathairnRosamund Pike
• Embeth Davidtz • Billy BurkeCliff Curtis
• Fiona ShawDirector
Gregory Hoblit
Writer
Daniel Pyne
| DVD | VHS |
Fracture (2007) Review-lite [150-word cap]
Despite a delicious cast of Sir Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling, Fracture suffers itself from a hairline fracture that eventually causes the film to leave more of a headache than a sense of satisfaction after witnessing what should have been one of the most perfect murder movies ever made. Chalk it up to the idea that serendipity is the true source of perfection in film not concoction. A distracted Gosling barely holds a candle not so much to Hopkins but even to his former performances. Meanwhile his character is too flawed in a split allegiance to the all might dollar vs. civil service as to make him a worthy and credible hero. The too perfect crime unravels as does the too perfect film in the end.
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