Bill Paxton (director) - Frailty
(Lions Gate)
One night I was asleep in my bedroom. A shining golden light awoke me, and I found myself staring into the beautiful face of a heavenly angel. It said, "...Oh, lord, thy who lordeth over those who would call you a lord, what was I saying?" And a deep rumbling voice replied "Tell him about the movie." "Ah, yes, the movie," it intoned. "I, an emissary from the lord God, do hereby charge you with the seeing of Bill Paxton's new movie Frailty." "But I don't believe in God," I objected. "Oh, come on, I heard it was good," the angel said.
And so started my quest to see Frailty, Bill Paxton's directorial debut. You might remember Paxton from those immortal classics, Weird Science and Predator 2. Well, he's back from seclusion, except now he's behind the camera. And yet still in front of it. Bill Paxton. The man boggles the mind.
I decided to take the angel at its word and see the movie. My friend and fellow fakejazz writer Spencer Owen provided us with free tickets (it was playing at a Mann theater, and he works at a Mann theater—convenient). Spencer and I were the first to walk into theater. Behind was a middle-aged lady who wore something dark, and behind her were two men. Spencer and I took our seats in the middle of the theater, and the middle-aged lady took an aisle seat, a considerable distance away from us. The two men decided to sit diagonally behind us. This will become important.
Frailty starts in the present day. The FBI is hunting a man known as the God's Hand Killer. Then one night, Fenton Meiks (Matthew McConaughey) shows up in the office of Agent Wesley Doyle (Powers Booth), claiming to know whom the killer is. He then tells Doyle a story about how when he was a kid, his father (Bill Paxton) was visited by an angel and told that he and his family were "demon killers." Needless to say, this causes some discord in the family. Tempers flare, things heat up, the angel shows up under a car, and a lot of people are dismembered with an axe and then buried in a rose garden. Good old family fun, I thought.
The film is solid, if unremarkable. The whole thing looks good, but there's no real sense of a personal style from Paxton. The best part of the whole thing is the relationship between the Father Meiks and his sons. The rest wasn't really scary or thrilling, or even that thought-provoking. Not only that, one has to wonder whether Paxton is purposely telling us the big "surprise" ending from the beginning, or whether it his intention for the audience to be shocked? If, as I believe, Paxton was telling us from the get go how the movie would end, then the movie served its purpose. But, if Paxton intends the audience to be surprised, then he is in bad shape indeed. Also, the ending was a bit disappointing in that it left no room for personal interpretation. Still, the film is solid. If your friend works for a theater, you might want to see it. Otherwise just wait for cable.
That night, as I was falling asleep, a warm golden light filled my room. The angel appeared before me again. "What'd you think?" he asked. "It was alright, but nothing special," I told him haughtily, "Now I know angels are no more trustworthy than the movie critics." "Actually, we knew you'd feel that way. We just wanted to see your reaction to the two guys behind you."
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