Frailty

Rating:
Summary: O'Leary Gives Stellar Performance in Theological Mess
Review: The problem with enjoying this film is that we have to accept that God would give a hit list to a serial killer and go around blurring video screens & hazing the memories of FBI agents to protect the killers. This view of God is so backward, that it predates the Old Testament God of Wrath. It's a kind of Osama Bin Laden approach to the Almighty. Beyond obnoxious, it doesn't work. So as a flick with any theological basis, "Frailty" is awful.

That said, there are still some amazing things in the film. The best is the performance of Matthew O'Leary as the older son Fenton who sees his dad going crazy. O'Leary also did a similarly excellent job fending off stepdad Vince Vaughn in "Domestic Distrubance" with John Travolta. Here, he has so many shadings as a youth dealing with a mentally unbalanced parent, that it is a marvelous film for showing that. We feel his uncertainty, defiance, condemnation and love for his father.

Director of photography Bill Butler does a great job with giving the film its own look. His work on Conversation & One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest shows the class he brings to this project. From the dark shadows of the cemetery to the shaded cellar to the light of day where we breathe a bit easier, his contribution is masterful.

Matthew McConaughey as the grown son of Bill Paxton does a great job of relating the tale in flashbacks. Powers Boothe as the FBI agent has a nice cameo as does Luke Askew as Sherriff Smalls. Paxton does a decent job of directing this, with great pacing that tenses and relaxes repeatedly drawing us to the film's climax. The DVD version has interesting deleted scenes including Fenton trying to outwit his dad with Bible references.

As a cinematic experience, this was a pretty good movie. If you are not disturbed about the implications of the nature of God the film offers, you may find it more enjoyable than I. Taxi!

Rating:
Summary: Not really a mystery, but still worthwhile
Review: Frailty (Bill Paxton, 2001)

Given that Frailty is Bill Paxton's big-screen directorial debut, and his first trip behind the camera at all in almost twenty years, it's rather amazing how little press this movie actually got. The critics liked it overall, which is usually a bad sign, since the critics and the public agree on almost nothing. The advertising budget was woefully misused, and thus the film pretty much flopped when it came out (just over thirteen million on a budget of eleven). It's a shame.

Frailty is billed as a mystery, and perhaps folks who haven't seen many mystery or horror films will buy into that; for anyone who's read more than one Agatha Christie novel, though, the "surprise" ending will be obvious within ten or fifteen minutes of the beginning of the film. (If you haven't seen it and are planning to, avoid IMDB.com, as well; it, too, gives away the twist. Don't blame them; it's unavoidable.) And this would have been a stronger work had Paxton and scriptwriter Brent Hanley not spent so much time on the twist and spent more on the film's real subject-an examination of genetic mental illness that is far more disturbing than the mystery itself.

Wesley Doyle (Powers Boothe) is an FBI agent on the case of a serial killer known as God's Hands. One day, Fenton Meiks (Matthew McConaughey) walks into Doyle's office, sits down, and says "I know who the God's Hands killer is." Offering proof, Meiks takes Doyle on a two and a half hour trip to where he claims the bodies are buried, and during the ride, Meiks tells Doyle how he knows that the God's Hands killer is his brother, Adam. The story he tells is the bulk of the film, told in flashback, when Fenton and Adam were much younger.

Bill Paxton stars in the flashback as the Meiks' father, and it's his best screen role since Near Dark fifteen years previous. Dad is obviously nuts (as Fenton tells him repeatedly), but Adam is very much taken in by his father's beliefs that an angel is visiting him and telling him he's supposed to kill demons in human form. All three principal players in the flashbacks (Paxton, Matthew O'Leary [Domestic Disturbance] as Fenton, and Jeremy Sumpter [Adaptation, Peter Pan] in his big-screen debut as Adam) are so convincing in their roles that after a while, the viewer starts to wonder if maybe Fenton's the one who's nuts.

Fans of the atmospheric thriller will find much to enjoy here. Paxton keeps the blood to a minimum given the subject matter (one thinks that if Boothe and one minor character hadn't each used what Jean Shepherd called "the F dash dash dash word," the movie would have been solidly in PG-13 territory), and the pace is far more in tune with movies like The Others than it is with your typical Van Damme movie. And while you'll probably get the main question figured out early on, you'll find yourself with many questions about the Meiks family, and you will have them long after the film ends.

A very good debut. *** ½

Rating:
Summary: A good idea with some storytelling defects
Review: I rented this movie expecting to like it - it comes with high praise from Stephen King and Sam Raimi, and numerous Amazon reviewers give it 4+ stars. The movie explores religious themes that most Hollywood movies avoid like the plague - How do you tell faith from insanity? What if God commands something that your conscience says is wrong? Can you be sure that you're sane and the killer is insane, or is reality reversed? But aside from its intellectual freshness, the movie ultimately seemed predictable and slow-paced. The "twist" at the end seems contrived, like the screen writer came to the end of the page and needed to come up with something clever. Bill Paxton's performance as a psychotic killer isn't bad, but it doesn't rank with creepier depictions of madness in movies like Silence of the Lambs, Red Dragon, Ed Gein, and Misery. I watched the movie until the end, then promptly shoved the DVD back in its case and brought it back to Blockbuster the next day.

However, the movie has slowly wormed its way back into my mind. [Warning: Major plot spoiler ahead] The end of the movie suggests that the serial killer is actually God's instrument, and his victims really deserve God's judgement. This places Frailty alongside Stephen King's recent work, like Desperation and Green Mile, in exploring the power of goodness as a force that is just as unnerving and frightening, if not more so, than the power of evil. The lumpen banality of the killer's victims paint them as boring, unexceptional examples of everyday humanity - yet they, in the end, prove to be evil.

What sets Frailty, and King's recent work, apart from the typical Hollywood slander portrayal of Evangelical/Pentecostal madmen with an axe in one hand and a Bible in the other is that the "madmen" really are good. People fear the good because they're evil. Most Evangelicals will still recoil from the portrayal of a religious American as a axe-wielding killer, but Frailty reveals something very interesting about the minds of the irreligious in this post-millennial world: Good is recognized as good, no matter how twisted the perception, and yet people fear it! I was particularly amazed at how the serial killer was protected by divine intervention from being recorded on film, and this was a source of intended terror for the audience: God is real. God is p.o.ed. God is going to get you.

Frailty marks an interesting cultural moment: Atheistic, materialistic theories of Psychology (Freudian psychoanalysis), Economics (Marxism), Morality (Secular Humanism) and Cosmology (steady-state universe) have crumbled into discredited dust, and it looks suspiciously like Darwinism is about to join them as the list of Ivy-League mathematicians, chemists, geneticists, and other scientists calling for a reassessment of the theory and its philosophical assumptions grows. Osama bin Ladin has demonstrated that faith - even deeply wrong faith - is now the key to understanding world events. Secularism has collapsed into the abyss of its own emptiness. Frailty is an interesting contribution to this cultural moment.

Rating:
Summary: Well-Worth the Ride
Review: Halfway through this movie, I found myself so disheartened by the zealously horrific activities of a Texas father seen through the eyes of his two young sons, that I wondered why I had rented this video in the first place. However, as the final moments of the denouement played out on my screen, I breathed a sigh of complete enjoyment and immense satisfaction.
Bill Paxton portrays the older Meiks with the confused yet calm grounding of a man who believes himself appointed by God to rid the world of some of its less savory characters. The unformed sensibilities of Adam and Fenton, his two elementary-school-age sons, diversely emblemize the two states of Paxton's befuddled mind. While one becomes a true believer, the other struggles adequately between what his conscience tells him is right and what he knows he cannot deny: his unconditional love for his father.
The film is a story within a story, Matthew McConaughey relates the tale of his bizarre childhood to an FBI agent portrayed by Powers Boothe amidst the backdrop of a present day investigation of a serial killer's rampage known as "the Hand of God" killings. As McConaughey's narrative reveals more and more of his father's incensed mission, Boothe's suspicions are aroused and challenged. The audience can almost hear his mind ticking with questions as to why McConaughey has appeared in the first place. When he aggressively attempts to trap McConaughey into making a full confession of the crimes, the absolute truth of the film is disclosed with chilling clarity.
Paxton's performance is great; he plays parent and vigilante with utter seriousness while giving new meaning to questions like 'what do people do way out here in the boonies?" The cricket-chirping country ambiance adds that frightening "I'm-in-over-my-head" feeling the cityslicker gets when trespassing on unknown territory where there isn't a Starbucks on every corner. The setting, character, tone and dialogue all cleverly aid in supporting the audiences' already convinced attitudes about what is right and wrong and than masterfully acts as a buttress for just the opposite. Nicely done and entertaining to boot.

Rating:
Summary: Just a few words to Mr. Paxton and some critics on this site
Review: Dear Mr. Paxton,

this is in regards to your last words on the director commentary:
Yes, make another film.

Dear most critics on this website:
It is not very fair and nice to reveal the plot of this movie. This is a big spoiler for everybody who wants to see it for the first time. At least mark it in your titles, that you are revealing some of the content!!!

Now to the movie:
It seems predictable at first and yet it keeps you interested. Then there is a still quite surprising twist at the end which makes it a nice and chilly picture after all. Great acting, limited gore, good filmmaking without a too big budget and therefore innovative (the special features' reel "anatomy of a scene" shows that). Paxton has done a very respectable job for his directing debut and so this is a nice surprise among all those lame thrillers that we have seen in the past. Although it doesn't look like it in the beginning.
Watch it...it'll deliver it's scares!

Rating:
Summary: A New Brand Of Horror
Review: Actually this movie was 3 1/2 stars.
I am still not sure if I liked this movie or not.
Part of me liked it but part of me didn't.
It certainly left me a bit disturbed at the end.
The movie starts off well enough. It focuses on Bill Paxton and his two sons, his wife has recently passed away and he is left to raise them. For me, Bill Paxton ranks in the Mel Gibson arena of likeability, meaning he's very likeable. The story takes place in Alabama or one of it's neighboring states and begins by showing what a straight, honest man Bill Paxton's character is.
His family seems to be very close-knit and you just want to cheer for them. All this changes one day when Bill Paxton's character sees "an angel" from God. The angel gives him a list of "Demons"
that he has to destroy. When he comes home that day he tells his sons what he's heard. His younger son believes him but the older son begins to think that his father is crazy.
Throughout, this movie was genuinely captivating.
I had heard that 'Frailty' had a whopper twist at it's end and it does. Although I had guessed the conclusion long before it had unfolded. There is great acting all around with very notable performances by the two younger boys.
Nearly everything about this movie works until the last half hour,
then it all falls apart. Not only is the twist ending extremely
predictable for all who have seen the better twists in 'The Sixth Sense' and 'The Others' but the ending doesn't seem to turn out right. Are these people really "demons"?
The movie would suggest that, and that's when 'Frailty' moves from
new, unchartered territory to an "insane" ending that is too close to other films of it's kind. Still though, it was a lot of fun getting there.

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic, a one of a kind overlooked gem
Review: Making a promising directorial debut and giving one of his finest performances, Bill Paxton stars as a loving father who believes he has received a message from an angel to destroy demons in human form. This terrifying tale is told to an FBI agent played by Powers Boothe by Matthew McConaughey who plays one of Paxton's two now grown up sons. I don't want to spill any more of the storyline because it would ruin watching the film, but Frailty is a terrifying, suspenseful overlooked horror gem that is special in it's own way. Not to mention most of the violence occurs off-screen, so while there may be no gore, that only proves that you don't need gallons of blood and guts to make a shocking horror movie. Plot twists are abound, and are quite surprising (you'll never see the climax or the ending coming), and with superb performances from Paxton and McConaughey, Frailty is a satisfying treat not to be missed.

Rating:
Summary: "Frailty" An Appropriate Title
Review: Where to begin? This movie has so many problems, beginning with a widowed father (played by director Bill Paxton) who suddenly becomes deranged before the viewer has a chance to even learn about the character. Follow this with an angel popping out of a muffler, an axe and gloves glowing from the beam of a heavenly light from above, a contrived "gotcha" ending, and an inexcusable character twist for the FBI agent (Powers Booth), and FRAILTY dissolves into psycho-babbling nonsense.

One of the reviewers has tagged this movie "a thinking man's horror film." I would respectfully disagree. If you want to see a disturbing film that explores the complexity and subsequent fragility of the human mind, see "Jacob's Ladder."

Rating:
Summary: Creepy And Disturbing
Review: FRAILTY is the outcome one would get if filmmakers adapted Stephen King with success(MISERY notwithstanding). Bill Paxton's directorial debut weaves an intricate plot in which a widower believes that God is instructing him to "destroy" demons here on earth, which happen to be taking on human form. He enlists the aid of his two very young sons to carry off his mission. The story is told through flashback by Matthew McConaughey(who plays one of sons) to FBI agent Powers Boothe, who is the investigator in charge of the "God's Hand" killings case. Paxton directs the film with classy understatement--there's very little blood, and the ax murders committed by the father are alluded to and not shown for gratuity's sake. And the though some may figure out the "God's Hand" killer in the end, there are still a couple of surprises that may shock some. All in all, a wonderfully acted, well-made thriller.

Rating:
Summary: STARTING ONE WAY AND ENDING ANOTHER
Review: ... A man walks into FBI Headquarters -- in an entrance that is never seen, only the entrance of the agent finding the man waiting in his office, who begins moving and -- as if death itself was speaking -- offering the agent a solution to a series of unsolved murders, and starts telling his story -- as if haunted by the ghosts of memories -- in a soft-spoken narrative that seems to be a pile of bodies, a pile that appears to be the result of an unbalanced mind -- a father -- listening to what he thought was the wishes of God -- following 'God's Will', becoming 'the Slayer of Demons' -- a way he preached and shared with his sons, entangling them with his alleged madness.

The man telling the tale is one of the sons, with a presence that he and the agent flow disturbingly with through 'til almost the end, where the original impressions of the movie are utterly destroyed, except for the reminder of 'D.O.A.'

One might be afraid that this will turn out to be one of those gory-slasher films -- but need not worry: For it is not, although it is still disturbing-maybe even more so -- with its dramatic flair, telling a great story that appears to be one way, but turns out to be another, with an ending I didn't like quite as much as the way it began and the way it progressed almost right up to the end, where it fell down a step or two, and then continued onward to its unbelievable ending, with what had seemed so believable shattered, but still with some remains of interest...