Fracture by Daniel Pyne 6 out of 10

Fracture by Daniel Pyne

6 out of 10

It seems like a case of Much Ado About Nothing.

The critics have appreciated this motion picture, giving it an average of 68 out of 100, while the public placed it at 7.2 out of 10, even if some may just find it exaggerated, overblown and artificial…the under signed did.

Without a spoiler alert – which may be nonsensical, given the likelihood that you read this and then feel annoyed that you just about to look for this obscure crime story and then the key to the plot stopped…which actually might be better – one must state that the twist at the end seems so preposterous.

One thing is good for this movie – the fact that it gets going rather quickly, much happens in the first ten minutes, indeed, this is also the problem because what follows seems to be just a long wait for the good character to finally, eventually get a shot at the negative personage.

Anthony Hopkins was magisterial in a number of motion pictures – Silence of the Lambs is cinema history, The Remains of the Day, Surviving Picasso – but in Fracture, he could remind someone of a joke made by Bill Maher, who says that he cannot be scared in a movie by a man who has trouble climbing the stairs, or something similar.

The once great actor has the role of the villain, Ted Crawford, a man that is not just jealous and angered by the fact that his wife is having an affair with another man, but he is so vile, abhorrent and destructive that he comes home in one of the first scenes of this feature, makes it clear that he knows about her infidelity and then shoots her in cold blood.

The killer is a rich man, drives home in what looks like a McLaren car, which would cost upwards of one million dollars and lives in a splendid, luxurious mansion, with a large garden, where people work when they hear the shots and call the police in what first looks like a kidnapping.

The lieutenant that arrives at the scene, Rob Nunally, comes inside the manor house is the lover of the victim, he talks to Ted Crawford, who is holding a gun in his hand, asks about the shootings and the man tells him that he has lost his control and has shot his wife, who is lying nearby.

The detective sees then that the unconscious victim is the woman he was having an affair with, desperately tries to hold her while the calm, cynical husband tells him to lift the skirt, for he understands the artery that would give the pulse is there and the officer jumps on him.

There is a fight, the angered lover is near a breakdown after seeing Jennifer Crawford senseless, presumed dead, while her attacker is without emotion, cold, ruthless, monstrously enjoying this terrible, detestable scene, which ends when the other policemen on the scene enter and hold Rob Nunally.

Enter the scene the character played by Ryan Gosling, Willy Beachum, who is on the way out of the prosecutor’s office, where he had enjoyed a success rate of 97%, to enjoy a career and much more money in the private sector, as part of a prestigious law firm that would work as a trampoline.

People are convinced that the Crawford case is an open and shut one, given that there have been witnesses and most importantly, the man has confessed to the murder and even signed a written document, but in court it gets somehow more bizarre, for the accused pleads not guilty.

Although Wilily Beachum is supposed to be the hero, the personage we cheer for and eventually identify with, there are flaws in the interpretation, and it feels that Gosling is overplaying his hand, pushing too much and in the end creating a figure that is not likeable.

Granted, the plot is meant to present a complex protagonist, somewhat arrogant, sure of himself, superior and too much of a winner – as his adversary points out when signaling his weak point – only to get him humiliated, render him so humane that it feels rather unbelievable and artificial.

The haughty boy, ruthless prosecutor ready to become a highly paid lawyer, clear headed but apparently emotionless hunter becomes the emotional, sensitive, oh so delicate human being that he spends long hours and even nights at the bedside of Jennifer Crawford, who has no idea that he is there, given her unconscious state.

It soon becomes clear that Ted Crawford is a manipulator, the audience is supposed to be in awe at the clever way he had planned the whole thing, only from here it looks like the man could not know that the man who would enter his mansion would be Lt. Nunally and his reaction would be to jump on him…it might have been somebody else and the aggrieved, devastated lover could have killed him or do so many other things without offering the key to the plot.

In a few days, the trial of the accused has to end, for the prosecution has found no murder weapon – this would turn out to be the climax, but for the under signed it is the aforementioned Much Ado About Nothing – and the witnesses have heard shots from outside, but they are not able to say who fired and what happened in the manor house.

What about the confession?

Well, it was something the suspect signed under duress, for the coup de theatre in the first stage of the accusation against defense saga is that the lieutenant in charge of the apprehension and further investigation of the accused was the lover of the victim and hence the whole processes flawed and rendered tainted.

There is more in store, but enough to make this film memorable.