Fracture is the skeleton of a good movie, the potential for greatness, a missed lay-up. It has some moments where you’re thinking “hey now, I like where we’re headed,” and others, only seconds later, where you shake your head and roll your eyes. It’s strange to see this in the same movie, it’s like an evil twin took over for around 60 of the 100 minutes.
The story is laid out right in the trailer for you. Hopkins (Sir, Tony) is pitted against attorney Ryan Gosling, and he’s accused of murder. Though the plot, about a minute in, tells you most of the facts of the matter I won’t spoil anything for you. You paid eight bucks and I’m not going to thieve even one percent of your experience. So let’s get to the highs and lows while we’re still speaking to each other.
Ryan Gosling and Hopkins have a tremendous chemistry and tension between them. When they are on screen together it’s a great movie, and I’d say Gosling is the reason. Before this I’d never thought much of him, I didn’t see Half Nelson and The Notebook was so God awful that I went blind for a bit afterwards. But here he’s really strong, he takes a character that might not have been that good on the page and makes it believable. He’s the right mixture of affable, cocky, and likeable. I now like Gosling, all due to this one movie, and this film’s grade wouldn’t be nearly as positive without his presence. Fracture is also flat out funny at times, funny enough to where you miss dialogue because the audience is still laughing. The laughs formed the foundation of a great movie and Gosling did his best to drive it home but he was hung out to dry by the script.
On that front, the bad news here is the girl angle, Rosamund Pike. I don’t think it’s her fault but she’s hard to watch throughout Fracture. Her entire plotline was laughable. Really, I laughed. She plays a gal who is basically pointless and illogical – yet prominently featured. Again, probably not her fault, but whoever is reading scripts with her deserves a good solid beating.
So then, Fracture is left with the Gosling-Hopkins’ scenes to provide cinematic air. The plot of the film is legally and logically void, but if we’d gotten a little less romantic subtext and a little more battle of wits this could have been a top ten nominee. Fracture also sports a very weird final fifteen minutes, weird in the sense of “hey, why is this movie still going on?” Everything makes sense upon the resolution but the way the movie gets there is pretty silly.
With all these contradictions at hand it’s difficult to tell you whether or not to purchase a ticket to this. My guess is you’ll be a little disappointed if you’re a thinker, and as this isn’t an action film you’re probably a thinker if you’re even interested in the first place. It may be worth seeing if you want to witness the first step in the career of a good actor (Gosling) or one of the last of a great actor (Hopkins). However, if you’re looking for something is solid throughout, well, I can’t give it much love there. Fracture fails on too many levels to merit us going steady.
