Enjoyable, stylishly directed thriller with a gripping plot and superb performances from Gosling and Hopkins.
Fracture (2007)
Runtime: 1 hr 53 mins
Genre: Dramas
Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Ryan Gosling, David Strathairn, Billy Burke, Rosamund Pike
Screenwriter: Daniel Pyne, Glenn Gers
Producer: Chuck Weinstock
Composer: Jeff Danna, Mychael Danna
DVD Info
Release:
Feb 8, 2008
DVD Features:
- Keep Case
- Widescreen
Audio:
- (unspecified) - English
Additional Release Material:
- Alternate Scenes - Endings (2)
- Deleted Scenes
Reviews
The two leads are on fine form, but the surrounding structure is too familiar from a thousand other films. Still, tense and occasionally twisty stuff.
With a film this gleefully convoluted, we know we'll never figure it out before the screenwriters are ready to tell us. So we hang on and enjoy the ride.
Here is a big, handsome shyster of a legal thriller, pleading with the viewer to stick with its preposterous twists and turns on the guarantee that the crowning revelation will blow our socks off. In this, as in all things, the film is not to be trusted.
Guilty of being half an hour too long and having a villain who's far more interesting than the hero, but still quite fun as a piece of puzzle-solving.
The film is reminiscent of the kind of wealth-porn peddled by Adrian Lyne, and if you get bored with the plot, you can always pass the time picking out home furnishings.
While you might feel conflicted between whether you're seeing Hannibal Lecter all over again or you're in awe because it's hauntingly brilliant, Anthony Hopkins and the film's makers molded pieces of the previous character into a uniquely tailored altered
A light psychological thriller that works better on a technical level than a thematic or character-centric one.
At no moment does this stop feeling like an especially glossy and especially joyless episode of Law and Order.
It's straightforward and nongimmicky (you don't have to wonder whodunit because we're told in the first few minutes), involves a minimum of blood and gore, and holds our interest nicely.
It's occasionally quite witty, it's able to tell us a great deal about its characters and their back stories in an economic fashion and its plot swings are surprising and compelling.
Even if you don't leave the movie entirely satisfied, you won't have had a bad time, either.
It's so well written and well acted you hope Fracture holds up all the way, but problems develop.
Ethics, morals and the will to win are the core issues of Fracture, a gripping puzzle of a thriller that plays out as a mind game between two men
A strong cast and smart-talking characters help elevate this into very watchable territory, with just enough suspense and style to win through.
Not since Lecter has a role been this well suited to Hopkins, whose intelligence and pristine formality as an actor often make him seem alien.
The main draw, of course, is watching Hopkins and Gosling go head-to-head. And both are more than up to the challenge.
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