| Frailty | 
Rated: R
Review: 8
Showing @:
Celebration Cinemas
Mon-Thurs - 2:10, 4:30, 7:00, 9:30
Fri - 2:10, 4:30, 7:00, 9:30, 11:45
Sat - 11:40, 2:10, 4:30, 7:00, 9:30, 11:45
Sun - 11:40, 2:10, 4:30, 7:00, 9:30
Elmwood Plaza 8 Theatres
Mon-Thurs- 5:30, 7:45
Fri- 5:00, 7:15, 9:45
Sat- 2:00, 4:45, 7:15, 9:30
Sun- 1:45, 5:30, 7:45
Well-conceived horror story about a demented father who commits murder with his sons.
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By Jack Garner
Gannett News Service FBI agent Wesley Doyle (Powers Boothe) has been working long and hard on the "God's Hand" murders in Texas, so you can understand his skepticism when the solution seems to walk through the door of his office. But Fenton Meiks (Matthew McConaughey) insists he knows the killer - intimately. He says it's his brother, Adam. He says his sibling is simply continuing a tragic, bloody tradition begun by their father. Fenton then reveals a horrifying tale of religious psychosis and murder - a story we see in flashback in Bill Paxton's impressive and unsettling directorial debut, "Frailty." Paxton, who you may remember from "Twister" and "Titanic," also stars in "Frailty," playing the painfully demented patriarch of the Meiks family. As the extended flashback begins, we see the father wasn't always insane. He's a kind and soft-spoken man, raising two fine boys after the death of his wife. However, he awakens one night after a dream in which he believes he's been visited by an angel, who instructs him to kill "demons" on the Earth. More horrifying, he enlists 12-year-old Fenton (Matthew O'Leary) and 9-year-old Adam (Jeremy Sumpter) to help him on his mission. Soon Dad has a list of people who are supposedly "demons." One at a time, he snatches them, brings them home, kills them with an axe in a makeshift cellar, and has his sons help bury them. The older Fenton sadly realizes his dad is nuts, and tries to stop the murders. The younger, more impressionable Adam, however, embraces the mission, partly to win greater affection from his father. The murders continue, the suspense builds, and the story eventually moves into the present, with Fenton and the FBI agent dealing with the second generation of religious-maniac murder. Paxton scores a double victory with "Frailty," establishing a surprisingly subtle but unsettling tone as both the director and actor. The film has an intelligence and sophistication that belies its axe-murderer theme, including a turning away of cameras during murder scenes, and an overall restraint typical of horror filmmakers from a previous generation, like Alfred Hitchcock and Robert Aldrich. Still, the horror is palpable - as well it should be - especially because the sins of the father are visited upon the children. Paxton gets fine performances from his cast. He's also first-rate himself, choosing to play the psychotic father without wild-eyed maniacal qualities. Paxton gives us, instead, a father in deep anguish, but determined to do the Lord's will as he thinks he must. He's a modern-day Abraham, prepared to sacrifice his sons on the altar of righteousness. And that makes this axe-carrying avenging angel all the more scary. |
