Fracture

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      Starring Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling. Rated PG.

      The psychological thriller is arguably the most consistently abused genre in mainstream movies. For every Body Heat or Jagged Edge, there are dozens of straight–to–DVD releases that inevitably promise heart-pounding “cat and mouse” suspense. The psycho cat is usually some overripe hack who breathes funny, and the victim mouse is an ex–Playmate who confronts jeopardy by sticking out her chest. Thankfully, Fracture is an elegant exception to the rule. Our cat—a brilliant engineer who plots the ultimate revenge against his cheating wife—is played with sleek efficiency by Anthony Hopkins. Our mouse (Ryan Gosling) is a young assistant district attorney who gets sucked into a game that's way out of his league.

      Gosling plays Willy Beachum, a legal whiz kid from the wrong side of the tracks who is just about to accept a lucrative position in private practice. His last job for the DA's office is to wrap up an open-and-shut case of attempted murder. A guy named Ted Crawford has admitted to shooting his wife in the head. The victim is in a coma, and Crawford has obligingly signed a confession for the police. Typically, things aren't as straightforward as they seem. The multilayered screenplay—which delights in punctuating elevating tension with unexpected bits of humour—makes each new twist seem deliciously plausible.

      At the same time, director Gregory Hoblit is well aware that all good psychological thrillers rely on sleight of hand. In order to distract us from thinking too hard about where the plot is heading, we need to be mesmerized by the interplay between the two main characters. For all its cleverness, Fracture gets most of its momentum from the undeniable chemistry between Hopkins and Gosling. Locked in a morality play in which the line between good and evil tends to blur, they command our attention with remarkable subtlety.

      As Ted Crawford, Hopkins gives us a character who could be the cooler, more calculating brother of Hannibal Lecter. Crawford is a real nut job, but it's only when you look into his eyes—totally dead except for when he's getting off on messing with Willy's head—that you realize how dangerous he is. Playing off all this, Gosling offers us a laconic hero who's a combination of old-school Gary Cooper and new-school Sean Penn. You can't take your eyes off either of them. And there isn't a false move from start to finish.

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