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| Fracture (Widescreen Edition) | 
 enlarge | Director: Gregory Hoblit
Actors: Anthony Hopkins, Ryan Gosling, David Strathairn, Rosamund Pike, Embeth Davidtz
Studio: New Line Home Video
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.98
Buy Used: $1.49
You Save: $13.49 (90%)
New (58) Used (101) Collectible (2) from $1.49
Avg. Customer Rating:  118 reviews
Sales Rank: 8080
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dvd-video, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 113
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.4 x 0.7
MPN: TRNDN10703D
UPC: 794043107030
EAN: 0794043107030
ASIN: B000R4SMCW
Theatrical Release Date: April 20, 2007
Release Date: August 14, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Studio: New Line Home Video Release Date: 08/19/2008 Rating: R
Amazon.com
Anthony Hopkins plays a brilliant, pathologically serene killer outwitting the good guys at every turn and taking a shine to a twentysomething law enforcer who can't conceal a rural accent and rugged origins. Could it be...? No, not The Silence of the Lambs, but an original mystery, Fracture, which plays a little like Lambs as an episode of Columbo, minus Columbo. Which means the film tells us from the get-go that Hopkins' character, a wealthy engineer, shoots his philandering wife (Embeth Davidtz) and leaves her in a vegetative state. From there, it should be a simple matter for young, assistant District Attorney Willy Beachum (Ryan Gosling) to nail Crawford, who provides a full confession and even eschews counsel. That's good for Beachum, a slick winner with a vague background of deprivation, rapidly on his way out of public service after attracting the attention of a deep-pocket, private firm. What he doesn't know, however, is that Crawford has masterminded more than vengeance against his wife, and that the state's case against him is full of pre-arranged holes and a huge time-bomb that will send Beachum scrambling to keep the pieces together. The story, conceived and co-scripted by Daniel Pyne (Doc Hollywood), goes down easily with a minimum of blood and violence, and should easily appeal to mystery buffs as well as old fans of Hopkins and new admirers of Oscar nominee Gosling (Half Nelson). The latter holds his own in multiple, two-character scenes with the masterful portrayer of Hannibal Lecter, pacing Beachum's reactions to Crawford's polite provocations so everything spills onto his youthful face: torn loyalties, confusion, gullibility. Director Gregory Hoblit (Hart's War), still best-known for decades of distinguished television work (NYPD Blue), brings the necessary intimacy to make the stars' chemistry work effectively. His noirish atmosphere is a little over the top, sometimes pushing the audience to a level of expectation that the film isn't really ready to deliver, but this, overall, is an enjoyable work. --Tom Keogh
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| Customer Reviews: Read 113 more reviews...
 This psychological thriller held our attention -here's why July 12, 2007
21 out of 24 found this review helpful
First of all, the movie starts off with a murder and you know who the murderer is. So it isn't a suspense story as much as a psychological thriller, the type that pits two very strong personalities against one another (played by Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling).
Each is a control freak and each is ambitious. The whole thrill of this movie is watching the characters, seeing how they develop and change and wondering how this will all play out.
Looking at the reviews that others have written for this movie, it is clear that people tended to love or hate this movie -and I think I understand why. For one thing, you KNOW what happened -and why -almost from the start. But I happen to like character-driven movies and this one is definitely in that vein. Yes, Hopkins does seem to recreate his Hannibel Lechter personalty (or hints of it) but that worked out fine in this instance.
 Generally well done, though nothing extraordinary July 17, 2007
18 out of 23 found this review helpful
This courtroom drama could have been called Hannibal Lite. Though nothing extraordinary, it's well done and enticing. Hopkins plays a brilliant engineer who, after brutally killing his adulterous wife, calmly waits for the police to arrest him. The cocky, young Deputy District Attorney (Ryan Gosling, in a fine performance as a quintessential yuppie) believes this would be an easy case to prosecute, but things don't turn out as expected, and a chilling battle of minds soon ensues. The denouement turns out to be quite disappointing (the filmmakers seem to believe that the audience would not stand a movie where the guilty get away with murder) but for most of its running time, this is a fine, well done thriller.
The Tale of Willy the Ambitious April 21, 2007
14 out of 22 found this review helpful
With legitimate time wasting movies like "Perfect Stranger" out there I feel almost bad about picking on this one, one that I actually liked. But I liked it despite the all too familiar taste on my tongue. Willy (Ryan Gosling) is ready to move on to fame and fortune and Lakers tickets, but first he needs to close just one more case. To make the situation even better for him the case is open and shut; murder weapon, signed confession, so on and so forth. And from there things go predictably downhill. The weapon is no good, the confession is no good, the arresting officer was fornicating with the victim, so on and so forth. The script works the same way a magic trick does where we the audience spend the first half of the film watching it write itself into an airtight box and sink itself to the bottom of the ocean just so that the second half can be spent watching it escape. It is all very tired, of course the writer is smarter than the characters, but there are bits of joy to be taken from this type of story. Really it is just a high gloss version of the slop James Patterson pumps out three times a year. And no I didn't believe any of it for a second, it is pure courtroom fantasy. But I did enjoy the dark sense of humor, its half attempt at an anti-careerist message, and obviously Ryan Gosling. There is nothing here to make you rush out and see it in theaters, and its forthcoming mediocre box office receipts will prove it, but a year from now when it shows up on HBO I say give it a chance.
In the opening scene director Gregory Hoblit makes an interesting decision as he goes for a good vs. bad conflict as opposed to a did he vs. didn't he one. There is no doubt in anybody's mind whether or not Ted (Anthony Hopkins) did it because we watch as he shoots her right in the face. So from then on Hoblit is stuck painting Gosling (young) as the hero and Hopkins (Not young) as the murderous husband. That means that even though Ted is the better, more likeable character we have to spend the movie pretending to root for Willy. To make this happen the writers stack the deck in his favor, he won't cheat to win the case, he turns to a selfless public servant for help and he has some sexual tension going on with a decent looking blond. Never mind that the real Willy would never do any of these things. As far as his romantic interest goes it is interesting that it isn't developed further, just kind of hinted at and then abandoned. Because if "300" has taught us anything it is that girls will accompany their boyfriends to any movie, no matter how stupid, so long as the producers throw in a half-baked love story to pacify them. For a while it looked as though the film was going to have to choose between the morality of bringing down the wife's shooter and this "don't go corporate" message that they seemed to want to spread. Of course if you have ever seen a Hollywood movie I am giving nothing away by saying that have and eat their cake. Which is fine, I forgive them. I also forgive them for this weak third act that is dragged out to provide the cliffhangers and easy resolutions that keep the masses coming back for more. I forgive mainly because Gosling is so good here. A pay check movie this is indeed, but he has charisma to spare and isn't afraid to share it. If it weren't for his girly-man choices thus far in his career he would be a full blown movie right now. But alas, he doesn't really do movies that involve him shooting a gun and hence the fact that most Americans don't know him. But hopefully people will see him here and when they do they will enjoy themselves with this light weight yet engrossing film. ***1/4
The Making of Jack McCoy May 20, 2008
11 out of 12 found this review helpful
I first saw this movie on HBO, and while I was glad I didn't pay money in a theater to see it, I still don't think it's the biggest waste of movie time ever. (I'm still trying to get back the 90 minutes of my life I lost to "The Forgotten," though I long since made Time-Warner refund me the $3.99 charge for its rental.) Initially I would have given Fracture 2 stars, but once I started thinking of Willie as a young Jack McCoy of Law and Order I decided it was really more of a 3, almost a 3.5 star movie.
This movie had nothing to do with Jack McCoy or Law and Order, I just felt like it should have. Other reviewers said they would have been more accepting of this as a TV movie, and I came to agree. It would have been the perfect NBC Sunday night movie about how Jack McCoy of Law and Order came to be who he is.
It should have been a better movie; the writing, directing and acting could all have been better. Hopkins is adept in his role as the intelligent and manipulative psychopath. Backhandedly overbearing, he subtly insults even while playing disarmingly naive, dropping hints to people that he is smarter than and a few steps ahead of them. Gosling is convincing as the cocky, overconfident young man. Typically he is not easily fooled and fairly unflappable, as certain of his success in the bedroom as the courtroom, but Gosling played his role with a bit too much of the "it's all good" attitude. He wasn't very convincing in scenes that were supposed to display urgency or intensity, not in the courtroom or out of it. There also wasn't much chemistry between him and Nikki, his new boss and romantic interest. That she was his new boss with whom he immediately gets involved with, and given that it was a job he got with an off hand legal stunt and still had to prove himself at should have made their affair feel more risque, but didn't. I generally couldn't feel the heat of his anger, frustration, or even lust. This could also have due to poor writing, directing, and maybe even casting. He did have one really good scene with one of the detectives, the one played by Cliff Curtis, where they were both frustrated with events and each other and played it well, so I couldn't be sure he couldn't deliver more emotional intensity if the movie had been better written and directed. Unfortunately the parts where tension and suspense were supposed to be building generally fell flat.
Now if it had been about Jack McCoy, Lobruto could have been Adam Schiff, making the scenes between them more emotionally charged, particularly the one where Willie says "that's what this is about, I'm not going to be you in 20 years" to Lobruto. Lobruto knows Willie better than Willie knows himself and seems to be able to mentor him in the same way Adam Schiff might have mentored a young Jack McCoy. Fracture wasn't made for the Law and Order franchise, unfortunately.
As far as the DVD extras, there wasn't that much, but there are a lot of better movies with fewer DVD extras. Deleted scenes and alternate endings were included. They were interesting to see but better left out of the movie, in my opinion. There was no commentary track though and that seemed like sour grapes to me.
This is the story of a confident young lawyer that knows how to win and remain ethical, (even if he's riding the line ethically) but learns how to care. It's neither the best nor worst movie you'll ever see. I went ahead and got it from Amazon market place because I would have gotten it from the $5.50 bin at Wal-Mart, I just don't feel like waiting for it to get there.
"Even a clock is right twice a day"..."Fracture" is a broken thriller with some strong performances August 19, 2007
10 out of 13 found this review helpful
Fractured describes the tone of this suspense thriller. Playing like a cross of "Primal Fear" and "Silence of the Lambs", "Fracture" isn't as good as either one of those films but the performances by Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling do raise this 2 star thriller to 3 stars. The film works best when these two advesaries face off against each other. The director Gregory Hoblit ("Fallen", "Frequency"...seems this guy has a things for titles with an f in them)and the writers Daniel Pyne ("The Sum of All Fears")Glenn Gers ("Cybill")squander the film's potential by laying out the story in a linear straight forward fashion. As a result, there's no surprises except for a slight twist at the end of the film. The film lives up to a line that Hopkins says in the film--"Even a broken clock is right twice a day". This broken thriller could have been right more often if the storytelling had been more skillful.
SPOILERS**
Ted Crawford (Anthony Hopkins) is a wealthy aviation designer. When he finds that his wife (Embeth Davison who is completely wasted in her role) is having an affair he makes a decision to kill her and he has a plan to get away with it. When Crawford butts heads with district attorney Willy Beachum it seems like a perfect case for both of them; Crawford discovers that Willy has accepted a job with a major corporate law firm which indicates that his head won't be in the game: Willy sees the case as a slum dunk because he has a written confession, the murder weapon and motive. Crawford and Beachum begin a battle of wits with each trying to out think the other to achieve their goals.
END OF SPOILERS**
The film looks very nice in its DVD transfer. We get minimal extras here including deleted scenes and alternate endings that differ only slightly from the final version that we see. Whenever a film has multiple endings like this it usually means trouble for the film; a director and the writers usually know where they want to go with the story and have a solid beginning and end. It's the journey between the two that can often be the difficult part here. With a beautiful set up, "Fracture" falters in between. The film really demanded a stronger ending as well although the final version does work quite well because of the weak 2nd and 3rd acts, it doesn't deliver the way it should.
"Fracture" is entertaining and worthwhile renting particularly if you are a fan of either of the lead actors and both leads give terrific performances it's just a pity that they aren't in a better film.
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