FRACTURE
The Trouble With Double Jeopardy, and Factual and Legal Realities: This Movie Is
Cracked, Too
PopcornReel.com Movie Review: "Fracture"
By Omar P.L. Moore/April 20, 2007
Ambitions: Ryan Gosling as Willy Beachum in "Fracture".
Machinations: Anthony Hopkins as Ted Crawford in "Fracture".
(All photos: Sam Emerson/New Line Cinema)
In some ways "Fracture", which opened across the U.S. and Canada
today, is the unintentional equivalent of the O.J. Simpson criminal trial of
1995. There's a heavy presumption of guilt on the part of many -- none of
whom invested in the possibility of the existence of the famed American legal
maxim "innocent before proven guilty" -- except that in the opening scenes of
Greg Hoblit's film, Ted Crawford (Anthony Hopkins) is seen pointing a gun at his
wife's head and discharging it. The location is Los Angeles, California.
The embattled District Attorney (played by Oscar nominee David Straithairn) is
under pressure to get a conviction. And there's Rob Nunnally (Billy
Burke), a crooked cop who is desperately trying to plant evidence (though he
apparently doesn't have the racial animus and contempt for blacks or for
intimate interracial relations that former LAPD detective Mark Furhrman did.)
That being said, the case is strong against Crawford. Isn't it?
Outgoing prosecutor Willy Beachum (Oscar nominee Ryan Gosling) is about to land
a cushy job at a top law firm Woodard but of course has to take on this
slam-dunk of a case. He does so reluctantly, albeit assuming that it will
be one last confirmation of his prosecutorial prowess. After all, he
boasts, he has a 97% conviction rate. "I'm a winner," he smiles.
Which is exactly the opportunity (and weakness) that Crawford seeks to match
wits with Beachum. Crawford acts as his own attorney (no dream team for
him) and in the process saves millions of dollars in the courtroom.
And that's just where the games begin. The movie's script gets in on the
act too, cultivating situations in the legal mechanisms that are unrealistic,
and factual situations that are impossible. Although a movie, some of the
sequences in "Fracture" lack even an elementary belief. There is little
possibility that many of the events that occur in the movie would actually take
place, especially where the legal process is concerned. Not even the great
interplay between Messrs. Hopkins and Gosling paper over the holes and the
narrative disjunction of the film. And Hopkins is very good here, chewing
scenery -- he's been hungry for an electrifying role like this -- and he hasn't
had one in earnest since his Oscar-winning triumph as a certain cannibal in
1992.
There are characters inserted in the film that emerge from left and centerfield
at Yankee Stadium -- in other words, 3,000 miles away from the story and
reality. (But as Samuel L. Jackson's character in "Pulp Fiction" says, "it
ain't even the same f-----g sport!" Granted, Jules Whitfield was referring
to foot massages and other more intimate endeavors, but in "Fracture" the
screenwriters Daniel Pyne and Glenn Gers seem determined to screw their
audience.) One of the left field characters is Willy's supervising mentor
from his new law firm Nikki Gardner (Rosamund Pike from the Bond film "The World
Is Not Enough"). At one point she asks Willy: "What does that have to do
with (the firm) Woodard?" A good question is, what does the Nikki Gardner
character and "the other firm" scenario have to do with "Fracture"? The
scenes between Gosling and Pike are stilted and unrelated in any serious way to
the rest of the film. In fact, the whole trunk of this part of the script
could have been dispensed with. Perhaps the audience could have got to
know more about Beachum's character, his family, his fears, his background.
Instead, the gloss -- and, with credit, the exquisite cinematography by Kramer
Morgenthau -- whose last name gets a smidgeon of face time in this film, either
as a salute to his ability as a cinematographer or perhaps after the
long-standing current New York City prosecutor Robert Morgenthau -- fills the
void.
Game, set and mismatch: Ryan Gosling and Rosamund Pike (as Nikki Gardner) and
Embeth Davidtz (as Jennifer Crawford) and Anthony Hopkins in "Fracture."
Cliff Curtis plays a police investigator, who, like the Los
Angeles Police of the Simpson trial, is wholly inept and incompetent, bumbling a
case that to many looked to be a guilty verdict from the start. It is
interesting to note however, that some of the simplified courtroom scenes, even
in their un-reality, do a better job of elucidating the trickiness and
technicalities in the American legal system than some of the most prominent
legal news and media broadcast media ever did in its coverage of the so-called
"trial of the century" some 12 years ago.
Gregory "Greg" Hoblit has done better in the past, directing the film "Fallen"
with Denzel Washington as a police officer chasing a supernatural criminal, back
in 1998. That little-seen film had a tidiness, strength and intimacy to
it, and a grit, even if some of the narrative lacked conviction. Embeth
Davidtz was an engaging presence in that film, and she turns up again here as
Jennifer Crawford, the spouse who has been engaging in an amorous encounter of
the adulterous kind.
So, members of the jury, the verdict has been rendered. "Fracture"
promises much, but instead delivers so much less. Guilty as charged.
"Fracture" is rated R by the Motion Picture of America for language and some
violent content. The film's duration is one hour and 53 minutes.
"Fracture" is released in the United States by New Line Cinema.
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