Get ready for Silence of the
Lambs Part 6, but in a good way.
Anthony Hopkins stars as Ted
Crawford – a man who discovers his wife, Jennifer (Embeth
Davidtz), has been
having an affair. When
Ted shoots
Jennifer, leaving her in a coma and on the brink of death, it seems
like an
open and shut case for prosecutor Willie Beachum (Ryan Gosling). He has been hired to work
for a big time law
firm in Los Angeles, and figures he can quickly dispatch of
Ted’s case since
the accused was arrested on the scene, and confessed, but Beachum is
about to
find out Ted is the fox luring him out of the henhouse and seeking
revenge on
the man who has been fooling around with his wife.
Will Ted wrap up Willie in
his game of deceit and vengeance?
Will
he be convicted of the crime he has committed?
Will the adulterer be revealed?
At first, I was worried
about how Fracture began. Already
knowing Ted has committed the crime seemed like a piece of information
that
would take the tension, mystery and excitement out of the film. However, the team of
director Gregory Hoblit
and writers Daniel Pyne and Glenn Gers formulate Fracture
not to be a
traditional whodunit, but a movie that makes the audience wonder how
this
mastermind plot has been carried out and whether or not Ted will get
his
ultimate revenge. I
guess it is a
Canhegetawaywithit.
Hoblit, Pyne and Gers do a
good job developing that mystery.
We are
given some clues and some scenarios to consider, but the story lacks
enough
twists and turns to be amazing, and Fracture truly drags in the last
third of
the movie. To pad
the film and make it
long enough to feel like a full length feature, we are stuck with a
meaningless
love story involving Beachum and his future boss (Rosamund Pike),
rather than watching him trying
to solve the crime. To
make up for it, the
team relies heavily on the battle of wits and machismo between Ted and
Willie
to keep the audience interested, and it works.
Of course, the battle
between master and young apprentice is one Hopkins is
familiar with, and Fracture has
those overly familiar moments reminiscent of Silence of
the Lambs (right down
to Beachum’s unidentified country drawl as he channels Jodi
Foster). However,
the audience is willing to relive
those moments as Hopkins
and Gosling dance divinely with each other. Hopkins
relishes the showdowns and truly seems to be attempting to get under
his young
adversary’s skin with every wink, nod and smile. Then, Gosling proves he is
an actor to be
reckoned with as he stands up to the Oscar winner, while giving Beachum
the kind
of intensity, confidence and cockiness you expect from someone so
ambitious.
Fracture
even finds a few
moments to be funny, which makes the audience laugh out of respect for
Ted’s
brilliance, the irony of a situation or Hopkins' reaction to a piece of
action instead
of mocking bad writing, which is hard to find in this film.
Fracture
is a good mystery
that runs too long.
3
Waffles (Out
Of 4)
Fracture is
rated R for language and some violence
content.
Copyright
2007 - WaffleMovies.com
