Fracture.

"Directed by Gregory Hoblit from an enjoyable knotty script by Daniel Pyne and Glenn Gers, Fracture isn't a great movie," writes Scott Foundas in the LA Weekly, "but it hums with the insidious smarts and theatrical flair that made Hoblit's debut feature, Primal Fear, a classic of its kind." The real revelation here, though, seems to be Ryan Gosling: "He's the kind of actor who makes other actors look lazy. He is Brando at the time of Streetcar, or Nicholson in Five Easy Pieces, and altogether one of the more remarkable happenings at the movies today."

Updated through 4/21.

Michael Guillén adds: "His hotshot sexiness and seemingly insouciant and disheveled intelligence begin to burn quite darkly by film's end and I was pleased to see him follow up his celebrated performance in Half Nelson with a performance at least half as good, though again his moral dilemmas noticeably harken back to his previous performance. This actor can do more with a glint of humor in his eyes - and its removal - than most young actors working today, save perhaps Robert Downey, Jr."

"Anyone who can credibly threaten to steal a movie from Anthony Hopkins has seriously got it going on," agrees Dana Stevens in Slate. "[C]asting Gosling opposite Hopkins in a big-budget legal thriller is clearly Hollywood's way of saying, 'Here he is folks: the next big thing.'"

"Gosling earned the respect of critics in 2001 with The Believer, scored box-office cred in 2004's The Notebook, and an Oscar nomination, Spirit Award and a slew of other kudos for Half Nelson," adds Kevin Crust. "But what Fracture gives Gosling is the kind of pairing that helped elevate Tom Cruise and Kevin Costner to superstardom 20 years ago. Cruise squared off against Paul Newman in The Color of Money and Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man, while Costner was tangling with Gene Hackman in No Way Out and Sean Connery in The Untouchables. Forget romantic chemistry, it's the mano-a-mano, passing-of-the-torch fireworks that really launches an actor into the stratosphere in the age of the blockbuster."

"Mr Hopkins and Mr Gosling navigate the film's sleekly burnished surfaces and darkly lighted interiors, its procedural twists and courtroom turns without breaking stride or into a sweat," writes Manohla Dargis in the New York Times. "Fracture isn't a movie about ideas; it's about slick surfaces and suggestive adjectives like rich and poor, good and evil, weak and strong."

Tim Robey in the Telegraph: "There's a touch of Schadenfreude in Hopkins's devious little game, and in the film's: it has picked a hero who needs taking down a notch or two. But it's Gosling who rises, wittily and nimbly, to the challenge."

Stephanie Zacharek in Salon: "The picture is clever, somber, quiet: There's just no reason it has to be as deadly boring as it is."

"Fracture isn't horrible, but it tries way too hard to be clever, and as Spinal Tap once said, there's a thin line between clever and stupid," writes Zack Smith in the Independent Weekly.

On the other hand again, Ryan Stewart at Cinematical: "A refreshingly simple, Grisham-style legal thriller, Fracture lays out its agenda early on and never feels the need to delve into absurdities or tack on sixteen endings in order to complete its business."

Elaine Lipworth has a longish talk with Hopkins in the Independent.

Update, 4/21: For the Los Angeles Times, Rachel Abramowitz meets Hopkins and Gosling in a coffee shop in Santa Monica.

Posted by dwhudson at April 20, 2007 3:39 PM