May be I am not the best person to review a film like “Fracture” (directed by Gregory Hoblitt). It is a crime thriller cum courtroom drama, and I solved the mystery within the first seventeen minutes of the movie! So, may be I am not the right person, maybe someone a little more gullible would have liked it better. From the very outset, it proved to be an inept thriller; but, even more disastrously, it desperately tried to make everything look very, very smart. The result is a pitiable show of ineptitude.
The plot is simple: Ted Crawford (played by Anthony Hopkins) is a very rich aeronautics engineer, who is married to a much younger wife, Jennifer (Embeth Davidtz). Jennifer, surprise, surprise, is having an affair with a police officer named Rob Nunally (Billy Burke). Rob does not know her last name, where she lives; they call each other ‘Mr. & Mrs. Smith’! You can see that the trash has already begun to pile up! Well, obviously, Ted comes to know about his wife’s infidelity, and kills her. Willy Beecham is the state attorney; he is the I’m-so-cool-and-the-best-lawyer-in-the-world hero. Throughout the rest of the movie, we see a cat-&-mouse thing going on between Ted and Willy; and at the end, the hero, obviously, wins. The whole plot hinges upon one little secret, a very obvious secret; there is no psychological angle, no character formation, nothing. After the murder, we see our hero and others scratch their heads for almost two-thirds of the entire length of the movie. Meanwhile, Ted, played by Anthony Hopkins, tries his enormous best to drag the film on by making the shallow eccentricity of his character believable. The solution is revealed five minutes before the end, and, by then, if you haven’t solved the case, well, buy more Agatha Christie-s and study hard.
The amount of juvenile, puerile stuff present in this movie is completely mind-boggling. I have already mentioned about that ‘Mr. & Mrs. Smith’ thing; there is a scene where a judge tells our hero “thank you for being so concerned about the dignity of the court, double o’ seven”! I mean, give me a break! The fundamental problem with this movie is it does not know what it really wants to be; --- a courtroom thriller, a Bond offshoot, a glamorous Dolce & Gabbana spectacle, or a Hannibal Lecter spin-off. Willy Beecham is particularly trashy: he mumbles, makes fluid hand gestures with half-closed eyes, and smiles as if he is Brad Pitt playing a womanizer. It is so disheartening to see a somnambulating, overgrown munchkin trying to be honest and intelligent all the time. And then, Willy and his would-be boss at a corporate law film, Nikki (played by Rosamund Pike), gets into an affair that is one of the worst love affairs I have ever seen on the screen, and that includes B-movies. Willy, with his half-moon smile, goes to a party, is immediately seduced by none other than his boss (!), manages to look at her (probably her assets) all the time during an opera or some recital (shows the taste these characters have got), and by the end of the evening they are in love. Without one damn meaningful conversation, two corporate lawyers are in love! And we tend to blame Bollywood here! The whole episode of Nikki and Willy stinks of shit, is completely inadequate, and utterly unnecessary for the plot. Willy Beecham does not feel like a lawyer; his competency is not made very clear too. All he does is to mumble, look perpetually astonished, give seductive grins, and scratch his head most of the time. Ryan Gosling, the Prince of Indy films, is hopelessly out of water; it seems he was told to show all the mannerisms he can show within the given timeframe. Rosamund Pike is an ex-Bond girl, which is not a good thing for a serious actress; I haven’t seen her in any other movie (although I am impressed by the fact that she is a skilled cellist, and can speak French and German fluently. I am obsessed with cello), so I cannot possibly judge her completely, but in this film, she plays the dumbest of ice queens. Over all, the film-makers exhibit a preposterous overconfidence in believing that does not matter how incredibly inane their characters, dialogues, and plots are, people will still be seduced by the charm of glossy style and big names.
The film has a notched-up ambience of a particularly glossy television thriller, which is not surprising given the director is a well-established television director. The film lacks the gritty mise-en-scene that could have created a more authentic cinematic ambience. Instead, what we face is a hopeless jungle of tasteless decors. To heighten up his shallow eccentricity, Anthony Hopkins’s character is shown building a certain sort of entrapment made of shining brass (it’s a kind of toy where little glass balls keep rotating around meandering tracks due to their momentum); it adorns his home, office, it is everywhere. Hopkins poses menacing through the grid of the toy, obviously reminding us of his famous refection in the Riddley Scott film “Hannibal”. Well, I can give you a film that uses the same entrapment, although a cheaper and more believable version, far more effectively; it is called “Blown Away”, it showcases the histrionic talents of two really good actors ------ Jeff Bridges and Tommy Lee Jones ------- by setting them against each other. The film wastes serious talents in no-good side roles: someone as good as David Straithairns and Fiona Shaw are seen in roles without resolution or growth. By making the villain reminiscent of Hannibal Lecter and by roping Hopkins in the role, the makers (presumably) tried to cash in on the Hannibal magic; -- that fails too. One of the reasons why Hannibal Lecter was so mysteriously believable and completely scary was the small details that defined his character. Lecter was a gourmand, he read Marcus Aurelius (Meditation; I can bet most of the people who saw the films never read it), he specifically preferred Glenn Gould’s recital of J. S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations (how many of you are aware of the significance of this allusion?), he quoted serious poetry. What was scary was not Lecter’s cannibalism, but his astounding refinement. On the other hand, Ted in “Fracture” is a character you cannot pin down; despite his refined behavior and suggested brilliance, what we see him doing is to build a toy, finding cracks on eggs, or on an X-ray photo. Of course, Anthony Hopkins does what he does best: he under-acts. He is not only one of the living greats, he is a rare breed of actors who believes not in method acting but in proper usage of dialogues, a descendant of classic British stage actors such as Lawrence Olivier. Still, an actor can do this far and not beyond that. This film fails despite Sir Hopkins.
I told you at the beginning: I am not the best person to review this film. When you solve a film’s mystery even before it has begun, it becomes very hard to praise the film nonetheless. However, the film does not even work at the level where characters take on a believable nature, and we start to feel empathetic. The script is sketchy, the characters are overdone, and the mystery is inane. What is surprising then is the fact that this film has received a few good reviews here and there. I would have liked to see how Roger Ebert would have rated this; however, due to a broken hip-bone, he has not been able to do so. With a gesture of homage towards him, I will borrow a few of his famous words and say “This Movie Sucks!”
BAIDURYA CHAKRABARTI
5 comments:
Boy!... you have ripped the movie apart. I don't know the motivations but as you have stated in the description of your blog that "Readers are encouraged to send us their comments and criticisms", I'd like to share the following -
I have read your other reviews and you have an eye for cinematic nuances! So I wonder what in the world gave you an inkling that the killer was supposed to be hidden till the end? I wonder what mystery you solved in the first 17 minutes? The thrill of this movie (if at all) is in Beachum not being able to "prove" (easily) that Ted is the Killer. The film makes it as obvious as daylight that Ted murdered his own wife. Now how does anyone prove it? I mean, even the poster says that, "I shot my wife. Prove it."
The point is that Ted pleads guilty initially and later backtracks. So what seems like an open and shut case for Beachum, transforms into a challenge of cracking a "carefully" planned murder with almost no proof of the convict having committed it.
Your views on Ryan Gosling also seem opinionated and sound like a personal attack, rather than an objective evaluation of his acting prowess. Which is fair in the sense that everyone is entitled to their opinion. But a movie review, I feel, needs a little more objectivity. I have seen him in "The Believer" and in "Lars And The Real Girl", where his competence is quiet obvious. Your reactions seem like an outcome of you finding him (and the movie in general) irritating, and it shows.
I agree to you completely that the characters were not built strongly at all. Especially that of Ted.
Thats the only genuine flaw that you seem to have pointed out in this long review. Rest is only a matter of taste and individual preferences. Just one dialogue can't make a movie a "bond wannabe".
This movie could have been a 3 1/2 as per your scale.
From among the movies you have reviewed, I have seen Micheal Clayton, All about my Mother and Juno and I don't find too many differences in opinion. This one almost makes me sit back and think, are your reviews really being fair to the movie or are they only being fair to you?
I had blog-rolled you because I liked your perspective and depth of observation. (Although the language is a tad bombastic). Intention was to have a fair and objective discussion on cinema.
Firstly, thank you for blog-roling me.
You have misread me a little bit here. I didn't mean I have an objection about making the point clear from the beginning that Ted is the killer. I simply meant that when I saw the sequence when the detective sees Ted's wife's body and reacts, it immediately occured to me that Ted will and should interchange his gun with that of the detective. I myself would have done that. So, as you can see, I knew what was going on. And that was rather dishurtening.
When you are making a thriller, you cannot just on one, and only one element of mystery. You need Mcguffins, twists, turns, etc (Dial M for Murder will be a good example). If not, the characters must have enough in them to be a properly arresting human drama (Vertigo, maybe?). But when you have none, and when you have characters straight out of Cosmopolitan, it just does not work for me. Look closely at the plot of the film (and exclude that disastrous romantic period), and you will realise that the film could have shot in ten minutes. I can dare anyone here, that plot can be shot in ten minutes. When you stretch a film of ten minutes into 80 minutes, you are making it a bit too thin.
I have absolutely great respect for Ryan Gosling. My point was that the character was all too shallow for him, and even he could not rescue it from sinking.
I do not know how objective one can possibly become when film-watching itself is a deeply personal activity. I certainly would not eat my words even if other critics are bruhahaing a film. What I am presenting here is my honesty, and the honest truth was: I was disgusted by the film.
I cannot take shallow oversmartness of film-makers who make gloss-covered films. I am merely criticizing the dishonest intentions of the film-maker.
Have you stopped posting or what?
Oh,boy!
Readers criticism? Here I go!
Firstly, the point of reviewing a movie is to highlight the pro's and the con's of the movie (NOT make scathing attacks because "you felt that blah") and providing your opinion on whether the movie will/can be liked by a larger audience, and whether it is fit to be liked by a larger audience. As thrillers go, this movie is certainly not the best, however, it is easily an above average thriller.
The detective-swapping gun sequence you claim to have known from the beginning. However, I doubt you knew how the lawyer was going to catch him, the whole double jeopardy angle and basically, the rest of the movie. The movie may not have been masterfully suspenseful, however it certainly was not predictable.
If you have any Hitchcock movie, I think you will concur with me when I say that most people can guess the "who-dunnit" part of it, cant we? That does not stop us from enjoying the movie.
As for the character building, dude, the guy is trying to make a cat-and-mouse thriller, not a drama! The character were a tad unfinished, but there was no necessity for further extending their storylines. Besides, this movie was not made for the oscars, it was made with an audience in mind, where it did find appreciation. A movie review fails if, the movie it has deemed bad, is genuinely liked by its intended audience. So, do not call these opinions of yours 'reviews', for they are not that.
As for your any-thriller-that-I-guessed-any-twist-in-the-plot-I-cannot-respect philosophy, four words: Silence Of The Lambs.
You'd have to be an absolute rookie on the subject of cinema to have found "Silence.." to be of your liking.
*..to have not found "Silence.." to be..
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