Movie Review: Fracture

[CobraKevin]

Summary: A young, on-the-rise prosecutor Willy Beachum (Ryan Gosling) is about to seal the deal with a big-name attorney's office, with his mighty impressive 97% conviction rate propping him up. Not interested in potentially ruining his chances, he initially declines an attempted murder case that lands on his desk two weeks prior to the transition. However, given the nature of the case in that the murder weapon was obtained and the defendant Ted Crawford (Anthony Hopkins) had already signed his confession, Willy figures another win on his record wouldn't hurt. Unfortunately, new information and evidence constantly beats on Beachum's case, making it extremely difficult to close it out. As Crawford continues to dodge incriminating accusations and hide behind the wall of innocent-until-proven-guilty, he attempts to push Willy to his breaking point and escape with a clean slate in this potentially devastating game of cat-and-mouse.

 

Pros: Extremely enticing storyline, the battle of wits between Hopkins and Gosling keeps the audience intrigued, and a few twists here and there ensures a thrilling experience.

 

Cons: The pace is a bit slower than the trailer leads on, and the fact that every turn makes you think an obviously-guilty man could get off scott free might piss you off.

 

Conclusion: 4.0/5.0. If the pace of the film would have been sped up just a tad, maybe involving slightly more evidence, confrontations and twists, I would've scored it higher. Regardless, easily in the Top 10 best films so far this year.

 

-Kevin