While most movie ads have to settle for rapturous blurbs from mere mortal film reviewers, the early one for Frailty, a new thriller that marks actor Bill Paxton's directorial debut, is adorned with raves from A-list directors James Cameron and Sam Raimi and bestselling author Stephen King. Of course, Cameron has worked with Paxton on several occasions (including Titanic), Raimi directed him to his best performance in A Simple Plan, and King is known for putting his name on anything placed in front of him. So much for unbiased opinions.
That's not to say this dark, dank picture doesn't deserve some accolades; turning a cold shoulder toward the sensationalist mindset that creates such dum-dum works as the current High Crimes, Frailty is a smartly woven chiller that takes its ideas and its characters very seriously. But all the good intentions in the world can't help a mystery that lays too many of its cards on the table too early, and it's this predictability that largely turns the film into a middling drama rather than a true shocker like Seven or The Others.
Debuting screenwriter Brent Hanley has said that he watched a lot of Hitchcock films as well as Charles Laughton's Night of the Hunter as he began writing his script. Frankly, I don't see much Hitchcock on view (then again, what novice filmmaker doesn't claim to have been influenced by The Master?), but Hunter's fingerprints are all over this thing. Shot in constant darkness and steeped in religious allegory and philosophical overtones, Frailty explores the mindset of genuinely disturbed people who nevertheless pass themselves off as servants of God. The central figure is the head of the Meiks household; known in the film simply as Dad (Paxton), he's a widower raising his two young sons, 12-year-old Fenton (Matt O'Leary) and 9-year-old Adam (Jeremy Sumpter), in rural Texas in 1979. Dad's a decent, mild-mannered mechanic, but that changes on the night he claims he's been visited by one of God's angels and instructed to rid the earth of demons that have taken human form. Before long, he comes up with a list of names of those deemed to be demons, and he systematically begins murdering these individuals and burying them in the rose garden behind his property.
Adam believes wholeheartedly in his father's words and actions, but Fenton thinks his pop has lost his mind and is murdering innocent people. For his part, Dad has been informed by the angel that young Fenton is himself a demon and must be eliminated; since he simply can't kill his own child, he resorts to torturous methods to convince his son to accept God -- and his gory mission -- into his life.
The tale of Dad and his kids is presented in flashback; the modern-day material finds one of the grown-up Meiks boys (played by Matthew McConaughey) relating the events to a skeptical FBI agent (Powers Boothe). Initially, both sections of the film seem to work well in tandem, but eventually it becomes clear that the present-day slant that serves as the puncture which allows too much air to seep out of Hanley's story.
Taken on its own merits, the flashback portion of the film is excellent: Between Paxton's assured direction and the gloomy camerawork by Bill Butler (Jaws), it emerges as a nasty slice of American Gothic, using sparse strokes to demonstrate with frightening clarity how the sins of the father are often shoveled onto the heads of the unsuspecting offspring. Paxton finds the right note of earnest anxiety to portray the feverishly religious Dad -- this isn't a typical bug-eyed portrayal of a Bible-thumping rube but rather an honest attempt by the actor to create an upright citizen who listens to the voices in his head a little too intently -- while young O'Leary delivers an impressive performance as the boy whose fear of his father never quite overrules his desire to put an end to the killings.
These segments alone would have made for an utterly compelling movie, but Hanley dilutes the potency by framing it with a contemporary storyline that makes it relatively easy to figure out where this is largely headed. To his credit, he doesn't just spring the plot twists on us at the conclusion; instead, he's very careful to lace the film with clues, either through visuals (note the ring on McConaughey's hand in his introductory sequence) or dialogue (pay particular attention to the discussion between McConaughney and Boothe regarding the former's sleuthing instincts). On the other hand, there is such a thing as overkill, and without giving too much away, let's just say that some of the hints, as well as the shrouded work by McConaughney and Boothe (it's clear that both characters are up to something from the get-go), result in obvious revelations that strip the finale of its power.
In the final analysis, it appears that Frailty would have been stronger as a straight-ahead psychological thriller than as a murky mystery hellbent on providing a shock ending or two. For his part, Paxton apparently remained unconcerned with the demands of the marketplace -- his direction eschews cheap scare tactics for the sake of methodical tension building. But as for Hanley, perhaps mindful of audiences' constant desire for these sort of gimmicky mindgames, he may have felt he had no choice but to tack on the twists. We can only assume that the Devil -- or maybe the Hollywood system -- made him do it.
FRAILTY
RATING (out of four):
**1/2
All The (Road) Rage
Two desperate men duke it out in sturdy star vehicle
As Changing Lanes opens, it looks like it'll take a few minutes to figure out who's the good guy and who's the bad guy. One of the first scenes shows Samuel L. Jackson's character, an insurance salesman named Doyle Gipson, talking lovingly about his two sons by stating that he's lucky to have them as his children. Ah, a flawless father, a kindly saint, a decent human being. But another establishing sequence finds Ben Affleck's character, an attorney named Gavin Banek, delivering a nice speech regarding a group of kids at a philanthropic event. Ah, an admirable guy, an upstanding citizen, a good samaritan. But wait a minute: If we're to believe the chaotic trailer and the grim poster (with the tagline "One Wrong Turn Deserves Another"), we're not settling in to watch a "buddy" flick; these men are primed to be antagonists, meaning that, by Hollywood standards, one of them has to earn the brunt of our contempt. Even in Falling Down, this movie's closest screen antecedent, we ultimately knew we had to side with Robert Duvall's crusty cop over Michael Douglas's disenchanted city employee.
But Changing Lanes is that rare bird: a studio product that largely steers clear of black and white by adorning itself in an appealing shade of gray. The direction by Roger Michell (Notting Hill) is direct and unsentimental, while the script by Michael Tolkin (The Player) and newcomer Chap Taylor nicely builds on its characters' rage and frustrations without culminating in a typical orgy of violent retribution. Whether this approach eventually hurts its financial future remains to be seen, but kudos to all involved for pulling off a movie that makes few crowd-pleasing missteps.
Affleck's Gavin Banek is the more familiar movie protagonist: Like Tom Cruise in The Firm and Matt Damon in The Rainmaker, he's playing a rising attorney doing his best to hold onto his sense of morality and fair play. Jackson's Doyle Gipson is more original: A former alcoholic trying his best to begin anew, he's constantly trying to control his temper as he attempts to instigate a plan that he hopes will bring his estranged wife and their two children back to him. A traffic accident caused by Gavin on New York's FDR Drive -- and his words to a stranded Doyle as he drives away from the scene ("Better luck next time") -- sets off a chain of events that finds both men constantly trying to one-up each other in a dangerous game rife with long-reaching implications.
Gavin's actions initially peg him as the less honorable of the pair -- the privileged white man with the world at his feet, he resorts to despicable means to retrieve an important file that ended up in Doyle's hands -- but as the movie progresses, we realize that Doyle is no long-suffering martyr but rather an extremely volatile man who, whether in a state of sobriety or inebriety, needs to learn how to control the flame of anger that's always burning inside him (in one telling sequence, his AA advisor, played by William Hurt, opines that Doyle isn't addicted to booze as much as he's addicted to chaos). There's genuine push-pull tension not only between these two characters but also between our own constantly shifting allegiances, and the movie doesn't squander its chance to make a point about the need for people to take responsibility for their own actions in this modern world that's more about passing the buck to the next fellow.
Affleck and especially Jackson deliver strong performances that accentuate their characters' inner insecurities and outer angst, but they receive plenty of help from an exceptional supporting cast. Film director and occasional actor Sydney Pollack has been both warmly comic (Tootsie, Death Becomes Her) and coldly manipulative (A Civil Action, Husbands and Wives) in his past parts; here, he's strictly the latter, providing barracuda ruthlessness as Gavin's boss and father-in-law. Amanda Peet, so annoying as Ashley Judd's sister in High Crimes, nails her tiny but crucial role as Gavin's chillingly accommodating wife, while Dylan Baker likewise makes the most of his brief screen time as an oily computer hacker with the ability to help Gavin place Doyle's promising future in turnaround.
Admittedly, Changing Lanes requires a couple of leaps of logic (how come Doyle never cashes the blank check that Gavin hands him at the accident?), and the final scene, while open to interpretation, may strike some as a last-minute attempt to paint a happy face on unsettling circumstances. But for the most part, the movie refuses to pull its punches, and in this day and age, that certainly qualifies as taking the road less traveled.
CHANGING LANES
RATING (out of four):
***
