It's nice to see Anthony Hopkins in Hannibal Lecter mode again. He's the best thing in Gregory Hoblit's murder drama, as he watches his beloved wife (Embeth Davidtz) cavorting with a policeman (Rob, played by Billy Burke), shoots her in the head, confesses to the LAPD and then denies everything smilingly in court.
Finding the body of his lover, Rob is distraught but thinks the case will be a doddle for Willy the ace young prosecutor (Ryan Gosling), who is just about to leave the District Attorney's Office for a more lucrative job in corporate law.
The trial becomes a battle of wits between the cool, collected and passably witty murderer and the increasingly frustrated prosecutor. And Hopkins versus Gosling might have made a much better film.
Unfortunately, although Hoblit seems highly competent as a filmmaker, he is badly deflected by an unconvincing romance between the prosecutor and an ambitious young lady (Rosamund Pike) at the firm poaching him.
This makes Fracture too long for its own good and the confrontation between the killer and his hopeful nemesis far less powerful than it might have been.
If they had taken out the extraneous matter and come in at about 90 mins, this could have been a contemporary film noir of some note. The dross, however, leaves it limp.
Fracture
Cert: 15
