cinema history class; frailty

 Session: Bring Your Own Movie Month, Week 3 (Sean)
Movie: Frailty (2001)
Directed by Bill Paxton

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL

Plot:
A man with wild eyes (dig those wild eyes!) goes to the FBI with what he knows about a serial murder case. Hilarity ensues.

Reaction:

Why hadn't I heard about this movie before, and why wasn't it a hit?

The whole time I was watching this I was rapt. I was a lot less vocal than normal, which in this case was because I was so into the film. The fact is it can be slow at times, but the tension is strong enough to keep things going. And the total mind fuck -- actually, both mind fucks -- at the end blew me away.

In many ways this was a minimalist movie -- almost the opposite of Scott Pilgrim*, which I brought in two weeks ago. It didn't rely on special effects or fast cuts. It was pretty much good old fashioned storytelling. Keith attributes this to Bill Paxton's expert directorial sense. I can't say for sure that that's it, but it seems plausible.

One contributing factor is the skill of child actors Matt O'Leary and Jeremy Sumpter who played the young Meiks brothers. Very often bad acting can damage movies that feature children. I kind of understand that -- acting, conveying emotion believably -- is a very difficult thing that can take a lot of training, and not many children have developed the skill. But these two kids -- O'Leary and Sumpter -- nailed it. I also kept imagining the movie with Tommy Lee Jones in the role of FBI Agent Doyle. I'm not sure why. Maybe it was because of his role in No Country for Old Men. I think he's very good at the acerbic authority figure. No matter though, Powers Boothe was good as Doyle.

I was actually kind of proud of one call. At one point early on I commented that I was seeing a bit of a Biblical Abraham and Isaac vibe. Specifically, the movie made me think of the binding of Isaac in Genesis. It didn't go where I thought it would at that point, but later in the film Abraham and Isaac are explicitly referenced. So I felt vindicated.

When it came down to ratings, I was really tempted to give this a 10. Three years ago I gave Deranged a 10 (that writeup is here), and I think this is more deserving of that high rating. But I have made an effort to avoid grade inflation, and with that in mind I think I want to reserve my 10's for something ... more. So I opted for a richly-deserved 9.8 I do note that my high regard for this film wasn't shared by everyone.

Ratings:

Me: 9.8

Christina: 8.2
Ethan: 6

Keith: 9

*Nice reference, huh, Keith?