Fracture

    "The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!”   Jack Kerouac  

Come to see "Fracture" and watch 2 actors from very different generations heat up the screen. This can be the very best part of a movie experience. When actors can grab us by melon and excite our synapses like a high voltage artist then the screen really grows larger than life. Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling are at the top of their game and the chemistry is perfect for a very smartly written script. Two actors like this are icing on the cake for a riveting ride in the murder mystery genre.

Hopkins plays a diabolical and truly heartless Ted Crawford. This is a man who murders his wife for fun. Sure she was a faithless adulteress but Crawford takes special pleasure in his revenge which exposes his black hole of devils that most of us call a heart. And for Hopkin`s (Crawford) the fun has just begun. He`ll turn this tragedy into a deadly game of chess that takes more lives and forces Ryan Gosling`s Willy Beachum to understand his own limitations in the face of this Prince of Darkness.

Gosling is the true heart of this movie. An actor who can do more with a look (especially the eyes) than anyone since young Montgomery Clift.  Willy Beachum is loose and cocky. He`s on top of his game till Hopkins chooses him to become a pawn in his masterpiece. Hopkin`s character is too impressed with himself to consider Beachum as a serious threat and he will twist the knife of arrogance into every mistake Gosling`s character stumbles into. For Gosling the devil is in the details that he keeps missing. And Hopkins is the devil.

The heart of a karma movie can be in transformation and Gosling does his metamorphosis from the aspiring shark to a man who discovers his soul. A true larger than life concept; a lawyer with heart and principles. Yeah, what a stretch? But a grand idea. And the grand irony of this movie is the classic hand of evil bringing out the best that a protagonist hasn`t understood within himself. Hopkins` revels in the dark arts and unwittingly calls Gosling`s character to the light. Gosling transforms from a charming ahole to something we all hope we could become.

This is a very good "cat and mouse" murder mystery with high octane acting and an affusion of transformation that makes it well worth seeing.  Great script. Great acting. It`s movie time!