Movie Review: Fracture

Fracture (2007) 

Directed by Gregory Hoblit

Written by Daniel Pyne, Glenn Gers

Starring Ryan Gosling, Anthony Hopkins, David Straithairn, Rosamund Pike, Embeth Davidtz, Cliff Curtis, Billy Burke, Fiona Shaw 

Release Date April 20th, 2007

Published 19th, 2007

There is plenty of Oscar related gravitas to go around on the new thriller Fracture. Star Anthony Hopkins won an Oscar for Silence of the Lambs. His young co-star Ryan Gosling is fresh off of his first nomination for Half Nelson and David Straithairn isn't long from his Best actor nomination for Good Night and Good Luck. With all of that Oscar gold shining  it could be easy to miss how shallow and unworthy a movie like Fracture is.

This movie of the week, sub-Law & Order-CSI, thriller wastes a group of great actors on a plot full of minor cracks and imperfections or fractures if you will.

Willy Beachum (Ryan Gosling) has one foot out the door. Having just landed a big paycheck; corporate law gig; Willy is leaving behind the district attorney's office and his 100% conviction rate. He just has one case left on the docket and it looks like a slam dunk. A wealthy older man, Ted Crawford (Anthony Hopkins), has attempted to murder his much younger wife (Embeth Davidtz). Crawford confessed to shooting her. The police on the scene found the gun in his hand. They were the only people in the house. This guy is guilty.

So how can this guy Ted plead not guilty? And why did he decide to represent himself in court. If Willy weren't already out the door on his way to that new job; he might have asked these important questions and maybe he wouldn't have been ambushed in court and made to look like a fool when it's revealed that the lead cop on the case, detective Rob Nunnally (Billy Burke), the man who took the confession and found the murder weapon, was sleeping with the victim.

Now, a case that should have been a slam dunk; is now a case that could cost Willy his career.

With the Oscar pedigreed cast and a complicated thriller plot, Fracture should work. Unfortunately, director Gregory Hoblit and writers Daniel Pyne Glen Gers can't get out of the way of these remarkable actors. Placing them in an untenable maze of cop and lawyer show garbage, Fracture unfolds like an average CSI or Law & Order episode, only less believable.

Despite a plot that betrays him, Ryan Gosling turns in a surprisingly good performance. Watching him work is like watching a young Newman or Redford as they came into their own as actors. Gosling has the looks and the brains of those legends and most importantly that classic smolder of a leading man. There is a scene in Fracture with Gosling and Rosamund Pike who plays his very brief love interest. They meet for the first time at an opera and sitting down the aisle from one another; Gosling gives Pike a look that has more heat than your average sex scene. It's a look that only a great leading man could give.

Anthony Hopkins can't help but be entertaining but in Fracture he seems a little more tired than we've ever seen him. Sleepwalking through this underwhelming plot' Hopkins falls back on a gleem in his eye and a forced creepy smile to sell this malevolent character. He also has Hannibal Lecter to fall back on and there are plenty of laconic Lecter-isms in Ted Crawford. Hopkins is still watchable but there is a cruise control feel to this performance.

What the creators of Fracture fail to realize is that modern audiences in the age of Court TV, CSI and Law & Order audiences are more savvy and knowledgeable about the law and law enforcement than ever before. So, when Willy misses an obvious bit of legal maneuvering, the cops seem to ignore pertinent information, or the killer makes an obvious forensic mistake, we notice and it takes us out of the movie.

I spent more time in Fracture pulling apart its legal logic, or lack of knowledge, than I did watching these two wonderful actors work together. It's a shame, because the few minutes I did watch the actors, they were very good.

Two great actors, one not so great movie, Fracture fails to take advantage of a seriously good pedigree. Instead we get a sub-cop show thriller that relies on ill logic and poor decision making by characters who should no better.  The creators of Fracture underestimate the intelligence of their audience and think they can play fast and loose with the rules of law enforcement. However, in the day and age of Court TV and Forensic Files, we know more than they give us credit for and the ill-logic of Fracture shows through.

Movie Review Mad Money

Mad Money (2008) 

Directed by Callie Khourie 

Written by Glenn Gers 

Starring Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah, Katie Holmes, Ted Danson, Stephen Root

Release Date January 18th, 2008 

Published January 18th, 2008 

For all her grace, style and class Diane Keaton certainly has poor taste in comedy. Her last picture was the vociferously awful Because I Said So a comedy so witless as to disprove the theory that young Mandy Moore had a bright future in this business. Prior to that Ms. Keaton demeaned herself as the dying cancer ridden matriarch of The Family Stone, a film that proved no matter how many well known actors and actresses you cram into one scene you can't make a bad script good. Now Ms. Keaton demeans herself further with what arguably should have been her first direct to DVD feature Mad Money. This alleged comedy about a down on her luck upper class housewife forced to take a job as a Janitor at the federal reserve where she plots a heist with two stereotypical co-workers is yet another low in the ever devolving career of the woman who once played muse to Woody Allen's finest work.

Mad Money stars Diane Keaton as Bridget, the wife of a wealthy investment banker (Ted Danson, also slumming) who suddenly finds himself out of a job. With their upper class lifestyle on the wane and buzzard neighbors circling their home at the stench of financial death, Bridget forces herself to take a job. Having never worked a day in her life the only work she is qualified for is janitorial. She finds a gig cleaning toilets and taking out the trash at the federal reserve, the place that prints the country's cash. Did you know they destroy the old cash there as well?

Bridget did not know that but once she finds out she hatches a complex plot to steal the cash that would otherwise have been destroyed. She can't do it on her own however, and what luck, the woman in charge of the cash destroying machine (Queen Latifah) happens to be a struggling single mom desperate to get her children out of the 'hood'. She alone is not accomplice enough. They need one more insider and find the help they need in a hippie chick (Katie Holmes) who transports the to be destroyed dollars from one part of the building to the other.

The 'complex' plan involves locks and trash cans... and that's about it. Not much to think about. Director Callie Khouri likely did not want to confuse the film's core constituency of low watt bulbs. The fan base for a film like Mad Money had best not be too bright otherwise they would be watching a better movie. The trailers and commercials have told you already exactly what I have told you, without the witty, cynical banter, obviously. Do our conspirators get caught? What do the respective placeholders who portray their love interests think of this stealing operation?

None of that seems to matter to Khouri or her cast who are more interested in looking cute and reveling in their girl power faux feminism than in actually crafting something that might involve an audience. Mad Money is yet another dismal effort from Diane Keaton whose lack of discernment is becoming a career hallmark dating back to the dreadful First Wives Club and only getting worse from there.