Fracture

A hotshot deputy D.A. (Ryan Gosling), on his way out the door to private practice, takes on a seemingly open-and-shut case against a man who tried to murder his wife. But the defendant (Anthony Hopkins) has a few tricks up his sleeve. The paper-thin story (by Daniel Pyne and Glenn Gers) would barely have passed as a half-hour episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents; at feature length, it’s hopelessly distended. Besides, casting the somnolent, mumbling Gosling as a courtroom wizard was a foolish mistake, as was letting Hopkins lapse yet again into his cornball Hannibal Lecter shtick. There are others: telegraphing the final twist half an hour early, for example. And director Gregory Hoblit lets the pacing flag just as it should be accelerating; in the last 10 minutes the movie is barely moving at all.