Review of Fracture (2004) by Stephen M — 19 Feb 2011

On the eve of a prestigious move into corporate law, an ambitious deputy district attorney (Ryan Gosling) agrees to prosecute one final criminal case, the apparent open-and-shut attempted murder of woman by her wealthy businessman husband (Anthony Hopkins).

Unfortunately for the lawyer, his key witness is holding out on him and he has seriously underestimated his opponent. I was disappointed with this. Here's me thinking the clever but transparent mystery of the missing murder weapon is going to be an hors d'oeuvre, merely the opening move in a game of chess, and they drag the bloody thing out to the final scene! Flattering though it is to be five steps ahead of Gosling's character, a legal whiz kid with a 97% conviction rate, that doesn't make my voice any the less hoarse after two hours screaming at the television set! The middle portion of the film, in which Hopkins barely features, is basically a lot of dreary soul-searching on the part of the lawyer, about whether his time would be more profitably spent putting bad people behind bars or sucking corporate cock.

The allure of fame and fortune yet to be realised being presumably difficult to portray, the cinematic shorthand is to give Gosling a sexy boss who can't wait to mix business and pleasure (Rosamund Pike).

My curiosity to know exactly how Hopkins' character would slip up was all that kept me watching.