Review of Fracture (2007) by Leo S — 04 Nov 2012

It has a promising start, that an old eccentric but brilliant engineer (Anthony Hopkins) killed his wife with coolness and precision, and a neat set up, that he knows what he's doing when the detective shows up to disarm him. Then it goes downhill ever since, starting from the entrance of an attorney from the D.A. Office (Ryan Gosling).

It's too pity. Either the director or the actors ruined a great story by insisting on so many clichés in the movie. And worse yet, it has a tendency to drag out every cliché for as long as possible just make sure you recognize it as such. It's so boring that the "hero", the public prosecutor who's about to cash out, has to stay in the hospital room with a brain-dead victim time and again; or to drag his secretary to the court house for a childish gimmick just to dwell on the infinite time span of not doing the gimmick after all; to move the heaven and earth to save the brain-dead as if he has become the biggest pro-life phony in the shortest period of time; or to come to "aha" moment so conveniently that you don't know to laugh about it or curse; the list, as they say, goes on and on.

If they cut all those craps, and really tighten up the pace of the story, then you might see a great movie in the caliber of The Silence Lamb, which I presumed why Hopkins had taken the role in the first place. He had a fine performance, but also very predictable one, which is another way to say, it's boring.

And boy, the ending has to be the outcome of the test audiences' feedback (or maybe confusion) to make sure the justice being served. But sadly, by the time that the bad guy had executed a cold-blood nonetheless perfect murder and that the good guy had acted like a brain-dead, you couldn't help but root for the bad guy. If he were, it would be a better ending, which matched its promising start.