FRACTURE is essentially your basic incredibly brilliant bad guy trying to pull off the perfect murder – playing a game of cat and mouse with everyone that’s trying to prove he did it. They all know that he did it. But he’s so out thought all of them, that they seem like well educated bumpkins in the aftermath.
To pull this sort of film off there are two things you really need. An actor of ferocious wit and charisma (BING! Serve up one Anthony Hopkins!) and secondly a young actor that can dance with Sir Anthony. (BING! Serve up one Ryan Gosling!)
Director Gregory Hoblit is an interesting filmmaker. I’m really quite fond of his work… from NYPD BLUE to the features PRIMAL FEAR, FALLEN, FREQUENCY and HART’S WAR. With PRIMAL FEAR, his direction led to an amazing debut performance from Ed Norton, who garnered a Supporting Actor nomination at those Oscars – and many felt, should have walked away with the Award.
Here, Hoblit has Ryan Gosling – who is fresh, in audience’s minds, off an Academy nominated performance – and Anthony Hopkins, who is just plain great in everything he does.
The film is a dance between these two talents. It’s very much like Hopkins’ hobby in the film. He creates perpetual motion machines with little glass balls that drop and roll and rise and fall and race along tracks. He’s set these two wonderful performers to go at it. Now the film has a novel-like pace to it. That’s not saying it’s slow, but it comes in chapters of revelation.
This film is a mystery. A page turner. A film that makes you wonder, step by step – HOW Hopkins did what he did? Where a key piece of evidence is? And how on Earth does anyone expect anyone to out think a murderous Anthony Hopkins character?
No disrespect to Ryan Gosling, but seriously… You just don’t play the murder game with Sir Anthony. He’ll pistol whip you like you were a gentleman caller on his virginal daughter. There’s just NO WAY you’re going to out think him.
And if there’s a problem in the movie, it’s simply the baggage that Anthony has of being 20 pages ahead of every other character in the script. Hell, he’s not just aware of the script, he’s ahead of the writers and the director. There’s no way he can lose. Right?
Right.
Now the key person to watch, career wise after this film is Kramer Morgenthau – his cinematography is very very handsome here. Making Los Angeles look lush and sumptuous. It really is quite lovely. And of particular benefit by his lens is Rosamund Pike and Embeth Davidtz. Wow they smolder well in this.
This is a type of film that we don’t see attempted well these days. The adult crime of passion flick. There’s a unspoken sex going on in this pic that just makes the film slightly humid without being an out and out bitch in heat. If you get my meaning.
Rather this film is preoccupied by one thing. Gosling and Hopkins – and figuring out which is the cat and which is the mouse – and which will end up trapped by the end. It’s a nice departure from the stray pixels and half-drawn characters we get too much of today. Give it a shot, if that sort of film appeals to you.
You know, a smart steaming page turning mystery that keeps ya guessing. You know, a good old fashioned yarn. I like those a lot.
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