Fracture

Fracture (Anthony Hopkins, Ryan Gosling, David Strathairn) – To create tension in this otherwise typical murder mystery, director Gregory Hoblit (Hart’s War, Fallen, Primal Fear) resorts to ominous music.  It does work to keep you from falling asleep early in the movie, but it merely serves to point out that it’s hard to figure out the total motivation of prosecutor Willy Beachum (Ryan Gosling).  He gets his lifelong ambition of working for a big-time law firm just as he’s handed what seems like a slam-dunk attempted murder case.  Of course, there is more than meets the eye.  Enter the villain.  And who is a better villain than Anthony “Hannibal Lector” Hopkins?  He plays Ted Crawford, a psychotic businessman who tinkers with his toys while plotting the killing of his cheating wife.  He needs to do it in an ingenious way that lets him get away with it.  So he outsmarts ambitious Willy … or does he? The film has a hostage negotiator who doubles as the paramour; a beautiful partner (Rosamund Pike) in the uptown law firm who beds her new employee (I can’t tell you how many ways this is overlooked by her father, a judge, and her family of lawyers); and a cover-your-back-side district attorney (played by the usually exceptional but wasted David Strathairn). In short, the movie makes no sense but keeps you watching so it can get to the punch line (does Willy or Ted win?).  The many questions include: Why does Ryan Gosling put on a southern accent when he’s Canadian by birth and he’s supposedly a prosecutor in L.A.?  Why did they cast three Brits (Hopkins, Pike, and the judge) in roles that require American accents?  Why did the wife not die immediately from a bullet to the head, blood pouring out of her skull, and for hours until the police and paramedics got to her?  Why did Willy sit by her bedside for hours and hours when he knew she had irreparable brain damage?  Thankfully, the loud and omnipresent music keeps you from asking until you leave the theater. And by then, it’s too late since all you can remember is how Ted did it.