A blessed bloody mess
That wacky Bill Paxton axes God a question
REVIEW
FRAILTY
Starring Bill Paxton, Matthew McConaughey, Powers Boothe, Matt O’Leary, and Jeremy Sumpter
Directed by Bill Paxton
Opens Friday, April 12
Check listings
The most interesting serial killers, cinematic or otherwise, are those who exist three blocks past Nutsville, chatting up their harebrained revenge schemes and murderous conquests with neighbourhood dogs and imaginary friends. Frailty, actor Bill Paxton’s directorial debut (the "actor" remains stubbornly in place), supposes that his character, a single father of two young boys, receives his orders to kill from our heavenly Father Himself.
Perhaps Paxton is taking aim at something deeper than we expect him to. On some levels, Frailty works as a sharp-tongued and skeptical satire of Christian doctrine. During Paxton’s first bedside "visitation," he shields his eyes from a glowing bowling trophy (the kind with an outstretched angel that resembles an Emmy award) resting on the mantelpiece. Later, while working under a car at his job in a mechanic's shop, the frame of the auto morphs upwards into the shape of a cathedral, and an angel that’s a dead ringer for Kenneth Branagh descends to transmit further orders while brandishing a giant flaming sword. These scenes play as either unintentionally hilarious lapses of directorial judgment or sharp send-ups of phony spiritual experiences.
Despite the testimonials of past employers – Sam Raimi (A Simple Plan) and James Cameron (The Abyss) – splashed across Frailty’s posters (both are duly thanked in the credits for sitting through the film), Paxton’s direction shows little flair for scenery and holds even less sway with his actors. Granted, he includes a couple of interesting edits and there is a commendable reliance on sound effects over gore (for example, "thwack!" "splorsh!" "ka-thunk!"), but Paxton leaves no stamp of individuality or uniqueness on the proceedings. By the time Frailty was over, I still couldn’t tell whether Paxton was damning those who use God as an excuse for violent acts, or half-smiling from behind his axe-wielding protagonists while clutching a rosary.
It’s on that fundamental level that Frailty fails. What remains most confounding is not the film’s Byzantine jumps of believability and logic, but what exactly Paxton is trying to say. Depending on your perspective, it comes off as either an empty-headed thrill-ride hinged on heavenly contrivances, or the first Christian fundamentalist horror film (certainly a worst-case scenario). You can try passing Frailty off as the former, but does one really beckon God and the devil – the ultimate in good and evil – to say nothing? Considering how well (that is to say, how badly) it plays as the latter, I’m suddenly very scared indeed. |
