Hopkins is tricky
in ‘Fracture’

At the Movies
By Senitra Horbrook

If you look hard enough, flaws can be found in anything, observes Anthony Hopkins’ character in Fracture. While this statement often may be hard to dispute, there aren’t a lot of flaws in this movie.
Aside from a few plot holes and an unnecessary seduction subplot, Fracture — which opens on Friday — is an above-average thriller worth seeing.
Director Gregory Hoblit has a background in courtroom/police dramas, having directed episodes of L.A. Law, Hill Street Blues and N.Y.P.D. Blue, as well as the movie Primal Fear, and it all serves him well in Fracture.
What’s really nice about the film is that Hoblit effortlessly crafts a "how did he do it?" story, instead of a "whodunit" story.
Teddy Crawford (Anthony Hopkins) almost has it all. He has a lucrative career, working in the field of fracture mechanics — spotting structural flaws in aeronautical systems — not to mention a big house and a fancy car and a trophy wife about three decades younger.
The only thing that isn’t going his way — and it’s a biggie — is that the trophy wife, Jennifer (Embeth Davidtz), is having an affair. So Crawford carefully premeditates the perfect payback for his wife and her lover, Rob Nunally (Billy Burke). He shoots her point-blank in their home. When the cops arrive, Crawford willingly tells the detective that he’s the culprit. The detective, who turns out to be Jennifer’s lover, but had no idea of her real identity, is shocked and distraught that his lover is now fighting for her life.
Of course, the plot hole here is that Crawford had to assume that Nunally would be the cop who came out to investigate the case, otherwise his whole plan would have been worthless.
But this was Crawford’s lucky day. Anyhow, he is hauled away to jail to await a trial for what seems to be an open-and-shut case with a signed confession.
It also doesn’t bode well for Crawford that Willy Beachum (Ryan Gosling) is a confident assistant district attorney with a 97-percent conviction rate. But Willy has one foot out the door on his way to a private-sector law firm with a sexy female boss (Rosamund Pike) who offers him some fringe benefits outside the office.
The district attorney asks Willy to take on this one last case, and he half-heartedly agrees . . . it is, after all, an open-and-shut case.
What Willy fails to realize while he’s really getting to know his new boss, and also debating how to furnish his new office, is the cleverness of Crawford. All of a sudden, a judge throws out Crawford’s signed confession because it was coerced from the detective his wife was sleeping with. No one can find a murder weapon. And Crawford knows that if Willy loses this case, he can kiss his new boss — and that new job — goodbye.
Hopkins’ scenes are fun to watch as he toys with Gosling’s character, calling him "old sport." Hopkins is most entertaining in the courtroom, where Crawford defends himself at trial. He plays dumb at first, but soon enough everyone figures out he knows what he’s doing.
Ryan Gosling is an actor to watch, having earned an Oscar nod for his performance in Half-Nelson last year. While at first he seems a bit young to be playing a cocky prosecutor, his performance will win you over as he grows conflicted about how to do the right thing.
The movie sort of leaves you indifferent about the conclusion. Should Crawford get away with murder? Even though it’s wrong, at times I wanted to see him win. Hollywood has a way of doing things, and whether or not you agree, screenwriters Daniel Pyne and Glenn Gers manage to make the end sort of satisfying.
If there is such a thing as a perfect murder, Anthony Hopkins could teach a course on it, based on his performance in Fracture. ••
Movie Grade: A-