Fracture

[JASKN]

One of two movies I went to see this weekend, Fracture was my favorite, a trip and real pleasure to watch.

Spoilers follow:

In brief, the story is about a very wealthy, very intelligent man (Hopkins) whose job is to find the cause of airplane crashes (one of the many aspects of the film to which the title applies). In the first fifteen minutes, we discover that his wife is having an affair and witness him murder her. The rest of the plot is what we come to understand as events that he has meticulously planned out, which sum up as a psychotic's approach to life manifested through a manipulation of apparent cracks in our legal system.

But the really interesting part of the movie, and its main focus, is what Hopkins' character did not plan: a battle of wits against a smart and idealistic prosecuting lawyer (Gosling). Aside from the brilliant acting between these two men, the characters they create turn the movie into a psychological study, as Hopkins creates a depth to a psychotic I have never seen before, and a subtle and exhausted champion of honesty, integrity, and justice; Gosling's character holds to his ideals while working hard to turn his life into his dreams. More broadly, I think the movie's overall tone illustrates the filmmakers' struggle with finding or believing in morals in the face of a progressively immoral society (as represented in the negative portrayal of the legal system in contrast to the honest people working within it).

I highly recommend this movie.