Fracture

Fracture, one of the last winter season movies to play before the summer blockbusters officially take over the cinemas, has one really strong quality; the performances of its two leads. The rest of the movie is good, but without Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling it would almost certainly fall flat.
Ryan Gosling plays Willy Beachum, an assistant district attorney who is given one last case to take before he goes on to practice law at a prestigious firm. The case is supposed to be easy, after all they have the attempted murderer, the victim, the weapon, and a signed confession.
Anthony Hopkins plays Ted Crawford, a wealthy man who, upon discovering his beautiful young wife’s infidelities, shoots her and in doing so paints himself into an inescapable corner. His wife doesn’t die; instead she is in a comma.
As in every performance he gives, however, Hopkins’ villain is smarter than any of the other characters give him credit for. Surprisingly though, he’s not that much smarter than we the audience give him credit for.
Everyone knows Hannibal Lecter. Because of this it is impossible, I think, to watch Anthony Hopkins play a sinister character without comparing him to that iconic villain. When I say he isn’t smarter, in this movie, than we give him credit for, I don’t really hold it against Hopkins, it’s more the fault of the script.
We never have to wonder who did it; we saw the whole scene, from Mrs. Crawford arriving home to Mr. Crawford pulling the trigger. If you’re observant, which I hope everyone going to the movies these days is, you’ll be able to figure out Crawford’s plan by no later than half way through the movie. That’s just if you’re observant. If you’re seriously applying yourself you’ll have it solved five minutes after the shooting.
By the end, when the “twist” was revealed, I was a little taken aback because after so long with the ending being, I thought, so obvious, I had started to expect something a little more complex. One of the characters suggests that perhaps Crawford dissolved the gun in acid, that’s the kind of Hollywood trick that this movie doesn’t deliver.
Just because it’s easy to work out, it doesn’t mean it’s a bad movie. The script, even while giving plot twists away too easily, is well written, with humor and gravity in good measure, and a distance kept from formulaic romance that is refreshing. There is some romance, and what’s there is a little typical, but I was pleased that it kept to a minimum; after all it really hasn’t got a place in this sort of movie.
And now we come to, and by “it” I mean identifying what “sort of movie” this one is. It’s not really a whodunit; we know the villain, the motive, and the course of events. Neither is it a courtroom drama, really; the court scenes are relatively short and not really the focus of the movie. It’s more of a cat and mouse kind of thing.
The cat being the clever and despicably friendly Crawford, who calls up Beachum as if the two of them were old golf buddies. The mouse, then, is Beachum, who is all set to take his place in the world of successful law practice and romance his attractive boss.
As a cat and mouse sort of thriller it does well for itself. As I said earlier, the always-excellent Hopkins and the increasingly respectable Gosling are the soul of the movie. I wouldn’t encourage everybody to rush out and see it, especially with the weather turning so nice, and so many exciting and colorful summer movies right around the corner. But then again, half way through the coming barrage of barnacle encrusted pirate armies and (God help us all!) Optimus Prime and company, you might wish you’d watched a few more movies like “Fracture.”

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