'Fracture' breaks apart under close scrutiny

The characters' actions are not convincing.
By ROBERT W. BUTLER
KANSAS CITY STAR
"Fracture" is like a knock-off pair of designer jeans. It's good for one wearing, then falls apart during its first spin in the washer.
The brand names being knocked off in this instance are "The Silence of the Lambs" and "Primal Fear." Since Gregory Hoblit directed both "Primal Fear" and "Fracture," at least he's stealing mostly from himself.
In the movie's opening moments, wealthy airplane designer Ted Crawford (Anthony Hopkins) puts a bullet in the head of his younger, unfaithful wife Jennifer (Embeth Davitz).
Ted is a cool, calculating genius who builds Rube Goldberg-ish contraptions in which big marbles roll through a twisting maze of steel tracks. They are pretty accurate physical representations of his own twisted mind. He's smugly arrogant and a bit scary. No wonder Ted is often filmed in brooding, heavily shadowed close-ups. Think of him as Hannibal lite.
He's opposed by cocky young prosecutor Willy Beachum (Ryan Gosling). Like Clarise Starling in "Silence," he's a working-class unsophisticate who's made good. In fact, the Crawford case will be his last before joining a big, filthy rich law firm. Willy thinks it'll be a slam dunk, but like the Richard Gere character in "Primal Fear," he's suckered by a psychopath who's miles ahead of everyone else.
Of course he doesn't realize that at first. He's got a confession, the murder weapon and the victim, who's in an irreversible coma and kept alive by machines. When Ted requests an immediate trial and demands to represent himself, Willy suspects nothing.
Downturn
But things soon start falling apart. The confession gets tossed (turns out one of the interrogating officers was Jennifer's lover) and tests reveal that the gun recovered at the crime scene has never been fired. The judge orders an acquittal and the double jeopardy rule means Ted cannot be tried again. Once freed, he has the plug pulled on his vegetative spouse.
The guy's gotten away with murder.
Of course that's not the end of it. Willy, whose big job offer has been withdrawn after his public humiliation, is determined to see justice done. Besides, he hates losing.
The screenplay by Daniel Pyne and Glenn Gers is good head-scratching fun as long as it sticks to cat-and-mouse brain games. Granted, it's not exactly a legal documentary -- no celebrity case ever went to trial as quickly as this one, and Ted's gnarly scheme relies too heavily on coincidence to be believable. But since we're here to have our chains pulled, we go along.
Far less convincing is the romance cooked up between Willy and his soon-to-be new boss at the law firm (Rosamund Pike). It's hard to imagine that this woman ever achieved a position of authority if she's willing to crawl into the sack with a new litigator before he's even filled out his W-4 form.
Hopkins could do this role with his eyes closed, but as he's a real pro, he does it with his eyes half-closed. Gosling nicely nails Willy's rough edges and youthful hubris. The supporting cast includes familiar faces such as Cliff Curtis, David Strathairn, Fiona Shaw and Bob Gunton.
Bottom line: Fun while you're watching it, silly in retrospect.