Fracture
New Line Cinema | Release Date: April 20, 2007 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
68
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 35 Critic Reviews
Positive:
27
Mixed:
8
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
91
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
The plot's many complications pretty much all add up, which is a rarity these days for a murder mystery. It's possible that audiences don't even care anymore if a film makes sense as long it's entertaining. Read full review
90
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
This hugely entertaining thriller is what's needed to banish a winter-long case of movie blues.
83
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
Fracture is working on us, playing us, but that's its pleasure. It makes overwrought manipulation seem more than a basic instinct. Read full review
83
Portland OregonianM. E. Russell
Sneaks up on you. At first, it plays like it might be another in a long line of dullish legal thrillers. But then, in its modest, grown-up way, it keeps getting better and better. Read full review
80
Village VoiceScott Foundas
Gosling is 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. Read full review
80
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
The main interest here is the juxtaposing of Gosling's Method acting with Hopkins's more classical style, a spectacle even more mesmerizing than the settings. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Gruesomely engaging. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Just because a movie is freakin' preposterous doesn't mean it can't be diabolical fun. Case in point: Fracture. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
Effective dialogue doesn't necessarily mean witty dialogue, but wit certainly helps, and you tend not to get much of it in a low-key legal thriller. Fracture is an exception. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
Not since Lecter has a role been this well suited to Hopkins, whose intelligence and pristine formality as an actor often make him seem alien--or worse, an incorrigible ham. Read full review
75
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
It's occasionally quite witty, it's able to tell us a great deal about its characters and their back stories in an economic fashion and its plot swings are surprising and compelling. Read full review
75
USA TodayClaudia Puig
It's a provocative game that plays out with intelligence and wit. Read full review
75
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
The best thing about Fracture is the way in which it defies genre cliches and turns all Hopkins' mannerisms into assets. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
The delight here is in the sheer workmanship. The performances, the direction, the plotting, they're just nicely engineered, usually with an eye to that most underrated of virtues -- refined simplicity. Read full review
75
New York Daily NewsElizabeth Weitzman
The kind of thriller we've seen a thousand times before. Fortunately, nobody told leads, Ryan Gosling and Anthony Hopkins, both of whom devoutly believe they're in another, better movie. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
What audiences want when they go to a suspense thriller. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
A stylish thriller so highly strung it zings, gives us Hopkins, an actor at the top of his game, in material that's only middling. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
What makes Fracture hum is the way Hopkins bares his teeth, twitches his nostrils, and trains his shiny pinprick Lecter eyes on his co-star. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
The movie entertains, but it's a shallow entertainment where you have no rooting interest in the outcome. Read full review
70
VarietyJustin Chang
An absorbing legal thriller that can't help but taste like exquisitely reheated leftovers. Read full review
70
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
The screenwriters, Daniel Pyne and Glenn Gers, hit the customary thriller notes with a touch of humor, and the director, Gregory Hoblit (who worked similar terrain in "Primal Fear"), arranges those notes into a catchy, insistent rhythm. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesKevin Crust
It boils down to experience's arrogance, intellect and wealth versus youth's cockiness, resilience and hard work, and the actors appear to have a good time playing the game. Read full review
70
The New RepublicStanley Kauffmann
The chief pleasure in the picture (set in Los Angeles) is in watching Hopkins spin off another of his nutty self-possessed intellectual criminals--this time it's Hannibal Lecter lite. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
In the dark of the theatre Fracture keeps it together – mainly through the sheer will of Hopkins and Gosling. Read full review
67
Baltimore SunChris Kaltenbach
There's more than a trace of James Dean in Gosling, except that he's a rebel with a cause. Read full review
63
New York PostLou Lumenick
This is a slickly entertaining package, beautifully photographed on well-chosen locations with an unerring sense of pace by Gregory Hoblit. Read full review
63
PremiereGlenn Kenny
Those who still relish the sight of Anthony Hopkins portraying an evil criminal mastermind will get the most out of Fracture, which is not so much a whodunit -- we see Hopkins' character putting a bullet in his wife's head in the movie's first few minutes -- as a howdunnit. Read full review
60
SlateDana Stevens
Anyone who can credibly threaten to steal a movie from Anthony Hopkins has seriously got it going on. Fracture may be remembered as the movie that brought Ryan Gosling into the mainstream. Read full review
60
EmpireRoss Bennett
The two leads are on fine form, but the surrounding structure is too familiar from a thousand other films. Still, tense and occasionally twisty stuff. Read full review
50
TimeRichard Schickel
It renders passion dispassionate and turns murder into a kind of fashion statement, something we observe without really caring about. Read full review
50
Washington PostStephen Hunter
The good part about this okay, but way less than great, thriller is that you won't notice how cheesy it is until the heartburn from the popcorn has eased. In these jaded times, that's a bargain. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
You needn’t actually see Fracture to know that if the charge is acting that winks, these two are guilty. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
A momentary diversion. Read full review
50
SalonStephanie Zacharek
The picture is clever, somber, quiet: There's just no reason it has to be as deadly boring as it is. Read full review
50
Film ThreatPete Vonder Haar
Fracture may be smarter than the majority of movies out there, but it's not half as clever as it thinks it is. Read full review
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