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Frailty review
:. Director: Bill Paxton
:. Starring: Bill Paxton, Matthew McConaughey
:. Running Time: 1:40
:. Year: 2002
:. Country: USA
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It's amazing what a dusty plain and a small town can do to a man's mind. Throw in a divine vision and you've got the latest entry into the murderous echelon (Badlands, Blood Simple, In Cold Blood, Flesh and Bone) of Middle America noir.
The opening credits of Bill Paxton's directorial debut Frailty fly by in a swirl of yellowed newspaper clippings and photos, letting us know that the hunt for the "God's Hand" serial killer is underway. Fenton Meiks (a greasy Matthew McConaughey) is waiting in the office of FBI agent Wesley Doyle (Powers Booth, equal parts televangelist and poor man's Tommy Lee Jones) because, he says, he's the only person who truly knows who the killer is. Doyle inexplicably decides to be the lone ear for the story of wild-eyed, unshaven Meiks, who pins the murders on his brother Adam.
Launch the flashback: Fenton begins his tale in 1979 with a ridiculously gooey portrait of the Meiks family—father (Bill Paxton), 12-year-old Fenton (Matthew O'Leary) and nine-year-old Adam (Jeremy Sumpter), who tends to skip home from school singing hymns. The mother died during Adam's childbirth but this clan is just doing fine—that is, until dad very abruptly gets his heavenly vision. Newly appointed a demon slayer by God, he tells his sons that their family has been chosen by God. Only they can recognize demons on earth and it's their duty to destroy them with special weapons (a pair of work gloves, a pipe and an axe named Otis). But Fenton thinks the demons look a whole lot like regular people, and this lack of faith creates a different kind of holy crusade between father and son.
Like most Hollywood thrillers, Frailty has a lot more creepy style than substance. The father's (no name ever given) vision is basically dumped on the screen; there's no background into his character at all. Is he a religious man? How did the death of his wife affect him? Who knows. The same goes for Agent Doyle—his character is empty and pointless; when a glimpse of his personality is finally revealed at the end, it threatens to send the film into a permanent B-movie schlock state.
But first-time director Paxton does have a strong knack for atmosphere. He understands the inherent creepiness of dirt cellars, flashlight haloes on a foggy night, and overgrown gardens (especially where kids are digging graves). He realizes that a white shirt with bloody handprints says much, much more than body parts and gore. This, and the sublime southern darkness of the horribly devout father and his disturbing battles with his son raise Frailty to a level beyond which the script really deserves. It becomes a strange hybrid of horror and noir, rather than the normal psychological thriller mush.
That is, again, until the end. I'm not going to give it away; no one makes friends revealing a twist ending. But I will say this: Frailty never feels like a mystery. Instead, Paxton presents a spooky meditation on religious fervor that—if you ignore a few hokey parts—could quite possibly get under your skin. But any hopes for a decent thriller—one that really could've existed on the flashback alone—are dashed with a silly twist ending that attempts to solve a mystery never really present in the film It's a disappointment that's hard to get past, even though Paxton's tortured performance and his delicious sense of atmosphere as a director are admirable.
Laura Tiffany
 Movie Reviews: from 1998 to 2011
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