Fracture is a movie by Gregory Hoblit, starring Anthony Hopkins, Ryan Gosling, David Strathairn, Rosamund Pike and Billy Burke.

Plot:
When Ted Crawford (Anthony Hopkins) discovers that his wife has an affair, he hatches a plan to kill her and immediately confesses to the murder. So, when young up-and-coming DA Willy Beachum (Ryan Gosling) gets this case as his last before starting at a prestigious law firm, he thinks that it will be a short one. But as soon as the trial starts, Beachum discovers that Crawford has been meticulous in his planning, and that his opponent is not as easy as he thought.

Fracture has all the rigt ingredients for an excellent thriller – good idea, awesome cast and an experienced director. But it falls a little short of the mark nevertheless.

Ryan Gosling has a knack for playing assholes – and Willy Beachum definitely is one, though he decides to do the right thing in the end. He plays them with gusto and in a way that you can still accept them as the hero of your movie.
And I guess everybody knows that Anthony Hopkins can play the evil masterminds. It’s only every second role of his.

David Strathairn was sadly underused, though, and Rosamund Pike was overused. Which was only partly her fault. The other problem there was the script that didn’t really give her any point.

It was clear from the very beginning that they would resolve things with the double-jeopardy-loophole. What I didn’t see coming was the gun solution. I thought that he had taken apart the gun to include it in one of his rolling ball sculptures. [Which would have fit better with the metaphor and would have been the better ending, in my opinion.]

Unfortunately, the movie dragged around the middle, mostly due to the whole unnecessary Rosamund Pike drama. It would have made for a better film without that, though generally a better plot/script would have helped.

Summarising: It’s passable, and if you love Ryan Gosling as much as I do, you’re going to want to watch it.