‘Fracture’ doesn’t break any new ground

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In theaters

FRACTURE, directed by Gregory Hoblit, written by Daniel Pyne and Glenn Gers, 113 minutes, rated R.

The most difficult movies to review aren’t those you love and certainly not those you hate, but those that leave you saddled with ambivalence. Since you can’t get on your high horse to praise them or, for that matter, to kneecap them, any enthusiasm or dialogue the movie in question might have generated dies at the hands of the movie itself.

The new Gregory Hoblit film, “Fracture,” is just such a movie.

With the exception of its ending, which offers a passable twist, very little about this courtroom suspense thriller is remarkable or reproachable.

It has a fine cast in Anthony Hopkins, Ryan Gosling, Rosamund Pike and David Strathairn, but since every one of them has been better in superior movies, nothing they do here is worth getting excited about. From Daniel Pyne and Glenn Gers’ script, “Fracture” is slick and glossy, yes, but it’s a middle-of-the-road potboiler all the way.

The film stars Hopkins as sociopath Ted Crawford, a wealthy engineer who begins the movie with a taste for murder. Aware that his wife, Jennifer (Embeth Davidtz), is having an affair with Detective Rob Nunally (Billy Burke), Ted comes home early from a business trip to make sure she ends it. To do so, he puts a bullet through her head – then several bullets through a few surrounding windows – and then he confesses to the shooting, which didn’t kill Jennifer, who now is in a coma. (All of this is revealed in the trailer.)

Enter Willy Beachum (Gosling), an ambitious young lawyer in the D.A.’s office who enjoys a “97 percent conviction rate” and who, as this new case unfolds, has just been recruited by a top law firm in Southern California.

Before leaving for that job, Beachum agrees to take this case and to wrap it up quickly.

After all, with Crawford refusing counsel so he can represent himself in court – and with the man’s own signed confession in hand – Beachum doesn’t exactly foresee any problems in getting a conviction for attempted murder.

Not that he’s particularly paying attention, which is a good reason why everything for him goes so sour. Turns out the murder weapon never was fired. Worse for Beachum is that Crawford gave his confession to the very detective who was sleeping with his wife, which Beachum didn’t know and which renders the man’s admission inadmissible in court. What ensues is Beachum’s gradual unraveling, with the slyly evil Crawford enjoying the implosion – at least until it starts to affect him.

Scenes between Hopkins and Gosling have a clipped edge that recall scenes between Hopkins and Jodie Foster in “Silence of the Lambs” – and that’s no coincidence. Hoblit wants Hopkins to evoke elements of Hannibal Lecter, which he does by employing Lecter’s sleazy leer and cutting wit. In so doing, Hopkins’ performance becomes disappointingly self-referential but also, curiously enough, the best part of the show.

With Strathairn wasted as Beachum’s boss, Gosling coasting after his Academy Award-nominated performance in “Half Nelson” and especially with material this average, watching a first-rate actor like Hopkins do a second-rate riff on his most famous character can’t help but generate at least some energy and interest.

Grade: C

On DVD

LITTLE CHILDREN, directed by Todd Field, written by Field and Tom Perrotta, based on Perrotta’s novel, 137 minutes, rated R.

Todd Field’s satirical drama “Little Children” features adult characters who behave like the very worst sort of children – bullying, aggressive, selfish, judgmental. Yet the way Field exposes them here makes for an insightfully dark, often very funny experience.

From Tom Perrotta’s scathing novel, the film vilifies suburbia and its inhabitants, kicking each to the curb. It doesn’t especially like people, though it also doesn’t sink the nail into humanity’s coffin the way, say, a Todd Solondz movie would.

Kate Winslet is Sarah Pierce, an outsider in her cozy Massachusetts hamlet. Unlike the three pious mothers who frequent the same neighborhood playground as Sarah and her daughter, Lucy (Sadie Goldstein), Sarah isn’t conventionally pretty and her parenting skills are on the downside of questionable. While it’s true that her husband is successful, the idea that Sarah failed to achieve her doctorate in English keeps her on this particular society’s fringe, which is exactly where Field wants her.

Joining her there is Brad (Patrick Wilson), a stay-at-home dad and aspiring lawyer who twice has failed the bar exam. He has a “knockout” wife in Kathy (Jennifer Connolly), who makes successful PBS documentaries about abused children, yet in spite of having the sort of athletic good looks that win him the nickname “The Prom King” from those three frustrated playground mothers, he and Kathy exist in a passionless vacuum. They have no sex life.

Since this also is the case for Sarah, she and Brad are drawn into a heated affair, which isn’t without its share of danger, drama or ramifications when it ignites.

Meanwhile, a subplot focuses on the convicted neighborhood pedophile Ronnie McGorvey (Jackie Earle Haley, excellent), who is a feared presence in his hypocritical community and who is actively being hunted down by ex-cop Larry (Noah Emmerich). An alcoholic, Larry harasses Ronnie and his worried, elderly mother (Phyllis Somerville) until the situation dissolves, as it must, into deadly self-righteousness.

Throughout, the story is highlighted by Will Lyman’s withering narration, which is a key element to underscoring the film’s dark overtones. While Lyman’s voice hardly is the voice of reason here, it does court a detached bemusement that allows the film to further sharpen its already cutting wit and, more importantly, to turn on every light in this stunted bedroom community.

Grade: A-

Visit www.weekinrewind.com, the archive of Bangor Daily News film critic Christopher Smith’s reviews, which appear Mondays and Fridays in Lifestyle, weekends in Television as well as on bangordailynews.com. He may be reached at Christopher@weekinrewind.com.

THE VIDEO-DVD CORNER

Akeelah and the Bee – B+

The Ant Bully – B+

Babel – A-

The Black Dahlia – C-

Blood Diamond – C+

Bobby – C-

Borat – B+

Cars – C

Casino Royale – A

Charlotte’s Web – B+

Children of Men – A

Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – A

Clerks II – B+

Crank – B+

The Da Vinci Code – C+

Deja Vu DVD and Blu-Ray – C+

The Departed – A

The Descent – B+

The Devil Wears Prada – B+

Dreamgirls – B

Employee of the Month – C

Eragon – C

Everyone’s Hero – C+

Fast Food Nation – B-

Feast – C+

Flushed Away – B+

Flyboys – C-

Freedomland – C-

Friends with Money – B

The Good Shepherd – B-

The Gridiron Gang – C+

Half Nelson – A-

Happy Feet – A-

The History Boys – B+

A History of Violence – A

The Holiday – C+

Hollywoodland – C

The Illusionist – B+

Infamous – B+

Inside Man – B+

Invincible – B

Jackass Number Two – B

James Cagney: The Signature Collection – B+

Kinky Boots – B+

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang – B+

Last Holiday – B

The Last King of Scotland – B+

The Libertine – D

Little Children – A-

Little Miss Sunshine – B+

Lucky Number Slevin – B

The Marine – C+

Match Point – A

Miami Vice – C

Monster House – B+

Munich – A-

My Super Ex-Girlfriend – A-

North Country – C

Notes on a Scandal – B+

Not Just the Best of the Larry Sanders Show – B+

The Omen – B-

One Day at a Time: Complete First Season – B-

Open Season – B

Over the Hedge – B

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest – B-

Poseidon – B

A Prairie Home Companion – C

The Prestige – B+

The Pursuit of Happyness – B-

The Queen – A-

Rocky Balboa – B+

Running with Scissors – C+

A Scanner Darkly – B+

Shakespeare Behind Bars – A-

Sherrybaby – B+

Shut Up & Sing – A-

Slither – B

Snakes On A Plane: A-

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby – B

This Film is Not Yet Rated – B-

United 93 – A

Volver – A

The Wicker Man – BOMB

World Trade Center – A