Fracture movie spoilers wanted

Anyone seen this yet?

I’ve seen the ads and know Anthony Hopkins hopes to commit the perfect crime by making a complex crime look simple by producing misleading evidence.

But then I get the creeps whenever either of the leads is talking, so I know I won’t go see it.

So anyone seen it who wants to share with the squeamish?

If you don’t get an answer here you can monitor this site:TheMovieSpoiler.com
I see they don’t have one for Fracture yet, but they have it listed as “needed”,
so someone will probably oblige shortly.

[Spoiler]Alright, I saw it last night. It was pretty…ok. I saw The Hoax the night before, much better movie… where was I?
Ok then, I don’t know if you want the plot or just the ‘gotcha’ moment (gotcha moment comes in at the paragraph starting with “More subplot” if you want to skip forward), so I’ll give you the whole thing. Anthony Hopkins (AH) knows that his wife is cheating. She comes home one day and he shoots her. We then see him wiping down the shell casings, taking off his clothes and burning them, and then waiting near the front door till cops show up (with new clothes thankfully). When one of the cops comes to the door, they reach an agreement where they both put down their guns, and then they will talk. This cop is the very one that’s been sleeping with his wife, so when he sees her on the floor he snaps, tries to revive her, then unleashes a few punches on AH.

Flash forward to the trial (past the character development for Ryan Gosling (RG) And we see that AH has chosen to be his own attorney. To make a short trial shorter, we find out that the gun has never been fired, so that’s out, and that the confessions (a verbal and a signed one) are both out because the cop that was sleeping with his wife (TCTWSWHW…lets just call him Ted) was near him both times and it was ruled that he gave them while under duress. Fast forward…sub plot between RG and his boss…fast forward…Ted tells RG that he has a friend in the evidence room that can switch shells to match with a planted gun. RG says he’ll think about it. RG has been talking to AH’s wife (nope, not dead, just in a coma) hoping that she’ll wake up, as he doesn’t have any evidence.

On to the next trial…AH files a motion for an acquittal since there is no new evidence. RG comes a phone call away from using the planted gun, but thinks better of it and grudgingly lets AH go. On the way out, Ted shoots and kills himself.

More subplot…AH pulls the plug on his wife…AH gives RG a call, telling him that he has a present for him and that he is leaving on vacation soon. During the call, RG has a realization moment, so he agrees to meet AH at his house. When he gets there he tells AH that he has figured it out and proceeds to tell him. When Ted was trying to revive AH’s wife, AH switched guns with Ted…that’s it. AH confesses and reminds RG about double jeopardy (I’ll take Underwhelming Twists for 2000, Alex) And RG kindly reminds AH that when he was tried the first time, his wife was still alive (attempted murder), but this time, his wife is dead (murder). AH then looks outside and sees a few cops waiting for him. And then it ends.[/Spoiler]

Thanks.
I now understand the reviews. I wonder if Hitchcock would have given it a different ending.

As a plan, Hopkin’s is so stupid as to be laughable.
Several implausable things have to go his way or he is immediately sunk.
What if the cop he wants to confront him is not the one to come in first? He’s sunk.
What if he won’t lay down his arms? Sunk again.
What if someone else takes his confession? Sunk once more.

So the “plan” is to have endless coincidences fall his way.
In other words, his plan only looks good to a poor author who doesn’t know how mystery plans are supposed to be constructed.

It gets stupider than that. His plan depends on (from the spoilers): No one bothering to track the handgun entered as evidence. Considering that it’s standard operating procedure to find out where a gun is from, who bought it, who it’s registered to, and if any other crimes might have been committed with it his plan falls apart about an hour after he’s arrested and they find out he switched guns.

Just watched this last night, so I figured I’d bump this thread. And I’m forgoing spoiler tags because spoilers are in the title and it’s been years. There was a lot that didn’t quite work in this movie, but the above isn’t part of it.

Hopkins buys the same model gun as the cop, and switches his with the cop’s earlier in the day. He then uses the cop’s gun to shoot his wife, and switches back when the cop is trying to revive his wife. So the cop leaves with his own gun (the murder weapon), and Hopkins’ gun is left at the scene (never fired)

I don’t think his murder plan was thatterrible, movie-logic-wise.

He calls the police earlier in the day and finds out what time the cop starts duty. He sets things up so that it appears to be a hostage situation, and the cop is a hostage negotiator. Presumably there aren’t that many hostage negotiators, and he could reasonably predict that guy would be the one to respond. I also think it’s semi-reasonable that he figured out enough about police procedure that he could get the guy to come in alone and agree to lay down his gun (after Hopkins laid down his). There are tons of heist films that rely on the bad guys knowing and exploiting police procedures in hostage situations. Die Hard and Inside Man are prominent examples. Hostage negotiators are the guys who go in alone to try to talk down a guy with a gun. We also saw him moving his wife’s body after he shot her, presumably so that she’d be in the right spot for the cop to see her when he’s away from his gun, and around a corner enough that he won’t notice Hopkins’ switch.

Of course, his legal strategy is laughable. And he would have gotten away with it if he had just shut up about it, instead of antagonizing Ryan Gosling into Doing the Right Rhing[sup]TM[/sup]