Fracture on DVD

Directed by Daniel Pyne
Written by Daniel Pyne and Glenn Gers

Starring Anthony Hopkins (Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal) and Ryan Gosling (The Notebook), Fracture has more sub-plots than it should but it's ultimately a winning thriller.

What is Fracture about?

Ted Crawford (Hopkins) suspects his wife, Jennifer (Embeth Davidtz) is cheating on him with a police officer. He goes through a series of motions to catch her in the act. Then once they're alone together, Ted shoots her in the head. It's not a fatal wound, but it gets the point across. This is a major violation in murder mysteries. You don't actually show who did it as clear as day. In fact, such a unique plot device adds a sense of dread to Anthony Hopkins character. Consider the upfront, unflinching horror that follows his Hannibal Lecter. It doesn't really matter whether or not I unveil who did it, the movie is about what Ted Crawford does after he commits the crime.

Willy Beachum (Gosling) is a young, cocky assistant DA who will do anything to get ahead. Then the case of Jennifer Crawford's shooting is thrown in his lap. Reluctantly, Willy takes the case and begins prosecuting Ted for the crime. Ted gives him a few winks, treats him like his best friend, and really starts to get under Willy's skin. Everything from his relationship with future boss, Nikki (Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King's Rosamund Pike) to his own creditability and sanity is falling apart due to his increasing involvement in the case.

Everything leads to a somewhat anti-climactic ending, but everything up to the final few minutes of the film is absolutely spell-binding. Ted Crawford is cunning, and smart. You can't help but wonder if everything that takes place in the film is all part of Crawford's intricate plans. He enjoys watching Beachum go nuts. Ted enjoys the fact that his few well-planned actions after the shooting leads to his freedom. The man is so confident that he refuses to except representation. During court, Crawford even does a few doodles on a pad of paper as if he were a bored child.

My likes and dislikes

Everything leads to an anti-climactic ending. I couldn't help but ask, "That's what they call an ending?" Perhaps, this is a good thing. Not only is an anti-climactic ending unique for this kind of thriller, but it inevitably makes sense. If aliens were to come down and snatch up all of the principle characters in a Spielberg-esque kind of way, it just wouldn't work or be original for that matter. I was just hoping to see a few guns fired.

I really liked how they set up the character of Ted Crawford. Sure, you can think of Hopkin's own Hannibal Lecter character. There are some similarities between the two. The cold, hard way Crawford shoots a hole in his wife's skull is no different than Lecter's reaction to say, gutting someone. Who would have thought that this thriller would be one of the few of its kind to make its climax in the beginning and not in the end? We know he's bad, we know he did it, but that's the magic of this plot device.

I did not like the many sub-plots that plague Fracture. We get to meet Beachum's girlfriend, Nikki's whole family practically. We hardly spend any time at all getting to know the suspect, Ted Crawford. By the end of the movie, I knew more about the offices and homes of both Beachum's bosses than I knew about the main character. Do we even know what he does for a living? One minute, I thought he was a court judge himself. But that assumption was quickly laid to rest when he shows up to court and needs to use "laymans terms" to better describe his case.

DVD Features

Deleted scenes
2 alternate endings

Final note

At the very least, Fracture is worth seeing at least once. I wanted to love the movie but given those few fractures of structure, story and character development, I can only recommend a one-time viewing.