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Review by Frank Wilkins

I've declared before, my stance on violence in movies. If it is germane to the story and used as an emphatic device, violence can become an important aspect of storytelling in the movies. The problem with too many of today's movies, as was the case with The Boondock Saints, is that the on-screen violence quite often becomes the plot itself, attracting the legions of young male viewers with a passion for blood and guts. Like flies to rotten meat, they turn out in droves to fork over their ten bucks to witness the carnage. When Frailty was first released, it was billed as a disturbing exercise in shocking terror, yet I'm here to declare that Frailty is relatively tame in regards to its on-screen violence. Not to say that it is not deserving of its R rating, but most of the violence takes place off screen. Much like Shyamalan's Signs and many old Hitchcock thrillers, Frailty is one of those special movies that can make you squirm at the horror you never see.

Fenton Meeks (Matthew McConaughey) pays a late night visit to the Dallas office of FBI Agent Wesley Doyle (Powers Boothe) to offer the identity of the "God's Hand Killer", a serial killer case to which Agent Doyle has been assigned to solve. I loved McConnaughey's performance as the cool and calm Fenton, with his genuine Texas accent giving me a friendly and familiar closeness to his character. Agent Doyle must have detected this reassuring normalcy as well, as he reluctantly agrees to hear Fenton's story of madness and murder that starts with a flashback to 1979 when Fenton and his younger brother Adam were young children. They were raised by their widowed father (Bill Paxton) in a very loving household in a small town in Texas. The brilliant script gives us a cool, contented feeling about these children who take on extra family responsibilities as the father works. This calmness is suddenly disturbed when the father announces to the family that he must act on a message from God to destroy the demons that personify themselves as normal everyday townspeople.

As a father myself, I know of the unconditional trust and confidence that children give to their parents. A child doesn't question the actions of a parent. As we saw in Nell, no matter how abnormal the parents' behavior may be, a child accepts it as normal and uses these early bits of parental guidance as the building blocks of their future personality. Adam, the younger of the two children, is quickly swept up in his father's lunacy and accepts the mission unconditionally. The older Fenton, never accepts the madness and tries to stop the mounting murders.

Frailty is a clever thriller that runs us through the gamut of emotions, from the contentment of a normal family during a typical Texas summer, to the horror of a murderous rampage by a lunatic father. The story could have easily become muddy, confusing and overly violent, but the restraint and patient storytelling of Hanley coupled with the convincing performance of Paxton, grounds the story in a believable tale that leaves us wondering if there really are demons among us or was he simply unable to cope with raising his children by himself.

Frank Wilkins


Confused about what happened in the ending of this movie? Click here to read the Frailty plot explanation. (spoiler alert!)

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