Fracture Review
By David Kempler
It works better with fava beans
Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling are together and it's like watching a real good acting class. In one corner is Hopkins as the ultra-clever murderer, Ted Crawford. Where have we seen Mr. Hopkins play a similar role? In the other corner is Gosling as the ace prosecuting attorney, Willy Beachum. All of the other characters are little more than props.
Unlike most murder/mystery/trial movies, "Fracture" is not so much any one of these genres. It is more of a stylized peek into a little of this and a little of that, all in the name of getting these two fine actors face time. The shallow story is a very basic one that features Mr. Crawford as having committed a murder that we know he committed. The police know it. The District Attorney's office knows it. Crawford knows everyone knows it but this does not prevent him from grinning for the entire picture.
There is one subplot of the ambitious hotshot prosecuting attorney looking to move into private practice, where the big bucks are. At his new firm, he has the obligatory sexual romp with his boss, Nikki Gardner (Rosamund Pike). It is hard to imagine any couple having less sexual tension than these two so that story falls flat, or more accurately, never even takes off. It's there because someone at the movie studios decided a long time ago that every mainstream movie must have a sexual element even if it doesn't work.
Crawford toys with Beachum, leading him around like a dog on a leash. Beachum doesn't much care for being upstaged so he becomes obsessed with nabbing the very bad man. I wonder if the good guy will catch the bad guy?
"Fracture" is worth watching but only for the scenes where Hopkins and Gosling are on the screen together but in the end you can't help feeling that you have just watched a watered down Hannibal Lecter being chased by a watered down Clarice Starling.
