It doesn’t matter what it is, or how it eventually turns out… when an Anthony Hopkins movie comes out, you pay attention. And thus here we have his new film that opened this weekend without an awful lot of fanfare… “Fracture”
Adding to the potential hype is the addition of Oscar Nominee Ryan Gosling hot off his amazing performance in Half Nelson (In actuality Gosling is the lead in this film). A terrific supporting cast surround these two as well with guys like David Strathairn and Bob Gunton in the mix.
Anthony Hopkins plays a wealthy, brilliant and successful engineer of some type (I didn’t really catch what his specific job title was) who discovers his wife is having an affair with another man. Since Anthony Hopkins takes shit from no one, he devises a plan and kills his wife in such a way that he hopes he’ll be able to walk away from once brought to trial. Ryan Gosling is a hot shot young attorney in the DA’s office who is on the fast track and about to join a high paying prestigious law firm… but has one last case to clean up before leaving the DA’s office… Hopkins case. Gosling figures it should just be an easy one with an easy conviction… after all, Hopkins is defending himself, and there is a signed confession. Slam dunk right?
THE GOOD
It sounds like a total cop out to always just say “Oooooohhh… Anthony Hopkins is soooo good in this movie”, because after all, that’s what every one always says. Well… call me a cop out then because Hopkins was freaking BRILLIANT in this movie! Honestly, I’ve very rarely seen him any better, and next to no one will praise him enough for the job he does in this movie because it’s not as good of a film over all as many of his others… but this guy freaking BROUGHT IT WITH ACES! His mannerisms, his expressions, his tone, the diabolical charm and wit… everything about his performance brought 100% out of this character that could humanly be brought out. If you see this film… just watch a master at work and appreciate just how damn good of an actor Hopkins is. I’d put his performance in Fracture in his top 3 performances of his career… he really was that good in it.
The mystery itself was a great premise for the film. We the audience actually watch the crime being committed at the beginning of the movie, and yet still have no idea how Hopkins pulls off making it look like he didn’t do it (I can’t give too much away here at the risk of spoiling it for you). Throughout the film you’re trying to crack the puzzle with Gosling… “How on earth did Hopkins kill this woman and yet not have one shred of evidence that he did it”???
Solid ending. One of the big weaknesses in mystery type movies these days (like Perfect Stranger) is that the “reveal” at the end of the movie brings factors into the equation that you as an audience member were never privy too… thus you had NO CHANCE at figuring out the mystery or forming any sort of possible guess. That’s frustrating as hell for me as a film watcher. Fracture however has a satisfying ending, with a “reveal” that I myself didn’t guess… but there were enough clues there throughout the movie that i COULD have guessed it.
THE NOT SO GOOD
Every Big Hollywood film needs a hot love interest chick right??? NO THEY DON”T!!!! I wish these studios would understand that. Former Bond Girl Rosamund Pike plays Gosling’s new boss at the fancy law firm and obviously love interest. I have no complaints about Pike’s performance at all. Actually she was pretty good… however… her character was 100% unnecessary to the story, and the relationship that develops between her and Gosling was equally unneeded and worse, totally unbelievable. For example, they screw each other one night…. AND SHE INVITES HIM TO HER FAMILY THANKSGIVING DINNER?!?!?!?! Can you spell “f-o-r-c-e-d”?
Ryan Gosling himself. Now before you start shooting spit balls at me I should say that Gosling wasn’t “bad” in this film. However, he didn’t exactly impress in it either. Following his fantastic job in Half Nelson, I was expecting more out of him… and to be quite honest he came across rather thin (I know that’s not very descriptive, but it’s the best way I know how to put it). He didn’t add any depth or dimension to the character with his performance… he just sort of floated through the movie. To be fair to Gosling however… acting alongside Anthony Hopkins when he turns in his best performance in years… it’s going to be hard to not look bad, so that might have something to do with it too.
OVER ALL
Fracture is a decent mystery type flick with respectable pacing, not too much dead weight, some laughs and probably the single best performance given by Anthony Hopkins in years (you won’t hear many people say that… but I’m guessing that’s just because this is a bit of an “under the radar” movie). Not an instant classic by any stretch of the imagination, but a solid flick nonetheless. On a scale of 1 to 10, I give Fracture a 7.5 and o the scale of No, Go and Routh, I give it a GO.
(THE VIDEO REVIEWS WILL RETURN WHEN JOHN GETS BACK FROM LA)
