FRACTURE

Fracture is a better than average, by-the-numbers legal thriller.

I take "by-the-numbers" to refer to those painting blueprints, where the lines of the picture are drawn, and each area has a number that tells you the color of the oil paint to use. In other words, the outline is fixed, and there is limited opportunity to be creative on the details, the palette being prescribed beforehand.

Well, Fracture is like that. It follows the prescription outline for the legal-thriller genre, and uses a little bit of creativity in the way it colors in the details. It's above average because it uses a lot of colors; the numbers it uses go pretty high.

Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling are both very good as the guy who confesses to the killing at the start of the story, and the prosecutor who must take what looks like a simple case to court.