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Fractured - same story, new context





Fractured is a psychological thriller we follow through Ray Monroe's point of view. Ray travels across the country with his wife and daughter. One quick stop in the journey and tragedy happens. From that moment on, we follow his doubts and fears, dragging us into a spiral of madness, disorientation, and paranoia.

Predictable


The biggest problem I see in the plot is that it is entirely predictable. It’s an interesting story, but, at least by the middle of it, you already realized what happened.

It is not an original or surprising story. You can see others of the same sort in many different movies. Just the context is slightly different.

Emotionless


I like emotion. I want to watch a movie that makes me feel something. This was not the case.

Sam Worthington is fairly convincing in his role, but something is missing in the film. I felt some lack of emotional connection. In a story like this, you expect to suffer with the character. You feel his anger, his frustration, his anguish, but that never happened to me. 

Somehow, I was able to emotionally disconnect myself from what I was watching, not going crazy with the character as it would be expected. It’s difficult to point exactly at the problem, but it’s, maybe, due to the extreme predictability of the story.

Characters and Environment


The characters are another downside to the film. Except for the protagonist, they don’t really “exist.” They are there and say a couple of lines — nothing else. 

There is no depth, no personality. Even considering that we are watching it as Ray would be, at least his wife and daughter should have some depth. This way, the film can’t make you care for the characters as it would be supposed.

The surroundings were something that I liked at first. All very dark and gloom. The hospital is quite creepy, and that, in the first minutes, can make you have second thoughts and ask yourself if, indeed, something sinister is happening there.

The hospital’s staff is cold and distant. Too much. It can help to create some suspense at first, but it’s too far from reality. A child disappears in their hospital, under their care, and absolutely no one seems to care at all. The only character with a logical, credible attitude was the police officer that never gave up on trying to understand what was going on.

Is it worth your time?


It is a difficult question to answer. I had a good time watching it, despite my negative opinion about it. If you never watched a film of this sort, maybe it can fool you for longer and make your whole experience more enjoyable. If not…

Sam Worthington’s performance is probably worth watching, but nothing else. Neither the story nor the characters. As a matter of fact, his perception of reality is more interesting than the actual story.

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