** – These days it seems like a large number of filmmakers have gotten the mistaken impression that throwing a twist ending into their movie will make it an instant classic. Bill Paxton’s 2002 directorial debut “Frailty” (in which he also stars) is one such movie. I am not immune to the charms of surprising turns in films, but when they are done as clumsily and seemingly out of nowhere as they are in this movie - which tells the tale of a crazy guy who thinks God is telling him to kill demons (i.e. murder people) along with his two pre-teen sons - the charm quickly veers into semi-insulting cheesiness. While the story and plot certainly won’t win this any awards, it’s really the wretched directing of Paxton (who I continually hoped would spout out some gems from the only movie has been good in, “Aliens,” such as “we’re all gonna die, man!”) that makes this so hard to watch. Using techniques like pushes and long, laborious pans up a person’s body are gimmicky and overused even when done well, and here they are done exceedingly unprofessionally. Maybe I am being too hard on this because of Paxton’s heavy involvement, but I found it to be deficient in many respects and a fairly poor entry in a genre I am generally pretty fond of.
Frailty
** – These days it seems like a large number of filmmakers have gotten the mistaken impression that throwing a twist ending into their movie will make it an instant classic. Bill Paxton’s 2002 directorial debut “Frailty” (in which he also stars) is one such movie. I am not immune to the charms of surprising turns in films, but when they are done as clumsily and seemingly out of nowhere as they are in this movie - which tells the tale of a crazy guy who thinks God is telling him to kill demons (i.e. murder people) along with his two pre-teen sons - the charm quickly veers into semi-insulting cheesiness. While the story and plot certainly won’t win this any awards, it’s really the wretched directing of Paxton (who I continually hoped would spout out some gems from the only movie has been good in, “Aliens,” such as “we’re all gonna die, man!”) that makes this so hard to watch. Using techniques like pushes and long, laborious pans up a person’s body are gimmicky and overused even when done well, and here they are done exceedingly unprofessionally. Maybe I am being too hard on this because of Paxton’s heavy involvement, but I found it to be deficient in many respects and a fairly poor entry in a genre I am generally pretty fond of.
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