Fracture [DVD]

The strength of this film lies with Ted Crawford's (Hopkins) laid-back trivial manner. He sits doodling in court oblivious to what is being said, but it is all carefully calculated. The articulate engineer who calmly shot his wife and admitted it to the arresting officer, whilst with a gun in his hand and subsequently signs a written confession - is surely going down for the crime.

Willy Beachum, the confident and cocky attorney accepts the case after Ted asks for it to go straight to trial with no defence team required. He struts into court as if it's his territory - certain the trial will be over in minutes. It soon becomes apparent that Ted has a plan - he pleads `not guilty', through careful orchestration he ensures there is no evidence against himself. From the initial certainty he will go down for the murder of his wife, it looks as though he's going to get away with it.

You can see that he is revelling in the frustration of Beachum, he plays mind games - speaking in symbolic anecdotes. Parallels have been drawn to Hannibal Lector, and you can see why. For the start there's a feeling of calm genius at work, his composure his disturbingly unemotional and you sense his fun at toying with others.

The film needs a worthy Nemesis for Crawford - and Ryan Gosling is convincing as the `best in the business' young and talented attorney. The interactions between the two are darkly humorous and tense. It's these moments which provide the films best scenes.

In a nutshell: The film is very enjoyable, from the first few minutes I was drawn in by Hopkins' cool as a cucumber manner and felt a compulsion to watch in order to see if he would be brought to justice or not. The film doesn't necessarily stay with you much after you've seen it - but for the duration, it's magnetism will draw you in like an iron filling to a fridge magnet.

Something warned me this film would be below par - perhaps it was the by-numbers plot synopsis. Killer confesses to murdering wife, then reneges on his confession and courtroom shenanigans ensue. Throw in a cardboard cutout lawyer bent only on furthering his career, and a rather inexplicable love interest (Pike) and what unfolded on screen failed to thrill.

There was only one plot point of note - the missing weapon. The explanation when it came was disappointing and in fact I had incorrectly predicted a more imaginative scenario. Even harder to predict was which accent Hopkins would be using next, as he alternated from American to Scottish by way of Irish. Undemanding fodder that will kill some time but do scroll down the channel list before settling on this one.

There really is no accounting for taste. Because of the rather poor reviews generally here, I decided to leave this one alone, even though it sounded like my type of film. When it came down in price dramatically at the supermarket (apologies to Amazon) I decided to buy it anyway. And loved it.

Fair comment on Hopkins' varying accents (and it was annoying, especially towards the end) but altogether an excellent film. As Hopkins pits his wits against the brilliant but 'too clever for his own good' lawyer you find yourself rooting for Hopkins who is actually the bad guy. It's only when the film concludes that you realise you should never have been rooting for him in the first place. My advice is, if you like psychological thrillers, go for it.