FRACTURE

Director: Gregory Hoblit (Primal Fear, Frequency, Fallen)
Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Ryan Gosling

It's that slow time of year for the motion picture industry (relatively speaking, of course). The long runs of the Oscar pics and the winter-time dramas has ended. The summer blockbuster season is coming up. So what does Hollywood release this time of year? Oh they'll pepper in a few unusual films that while quite good, weren't anywhere near Oscar-quality (The Hoax), and a few other quirky films they don't really know where to put (Hot Fuzz). Mostly though, the springtime is the time for straight genre films. It's a time to reset your cinematic seasonal clock from the intense films of the winter with movies you don't have to think very hard about while you watch. It's the time for teenage slasher films (Disturbia, Vacancy), silly comedies (Blades of Glory, Wild Hogs), and Hollywood thrillers or courtroom dramas. Guess which movie happens to fit into both of those last categories?

So, Fracture, it's a straight Hollywood courtroom drama/thriller. It's 2007's Primal Fear, or Runaway Jury, or Murder in the First, or maybe even A Time to Kill. They're all the same basic movie. They're all enjoyable enough films. It's true I've already forgotten most of the "plot" of Fracture, but at the same time I have to admit I thoroughly enjoyed myself for the two hours I was watching it. This movie is like wearing your comfy old blue jeans. No one's going to compliment you on your outfit, but it's comfortable and easy, and sometimes there's just no need to dress up at all. Really though, if you think about it, those holes in the knees make you look pretty tacky.

Our particular plot for this version of the courtroom thriller follows Anthony Hopkins as he first kills his wife, confesses to it, and then spends the rest of the film toying with a young prosecutor (Gosling), who is under the wrong impression that the confession makes this an open-and-shut case. There are obligatory revelations and twists as the trial goes on. Hopkins, of course, is always quite good as the bad guy, much smarter than you or I (see Hannibal Lector). Gosling is fresh off his excellent Half Nelson performance, but here his performance is much more in the realm of "fine" or maybe "acceptable". There's nothing really wrong with anything in this film, except for its general laziness. There's nothing exceptional either. It's all been done a thousand times before. The characters, the plot, the structure, the script, the direction. It's all the same. It's a well-worn, but comfortable enough, little film. There are plot-holes, and dumb dialog, and characters behaving or speaking only as movie characters behave or speak. But we've seen it before, and we've enjoyed it before.

Standouts: Nothing, I repeat, nothing stands out.
Blowouts: It's at that normal level of Hollywood dumb. Also, I'm pretty sure the film's understanding of law and the legal system is quite a bit off, but since it's just a silly movie we're talking about I guess that's tolerable.

Grade: B-