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Re: WINGED CREATURE TRAILER FEAT. JHUD
Below is a excerpt review of the newly renamed 'Fragments 'formerly know as 'Winged Creatures'.
Fragments (aka Winged Creatures)
Sony Pictures // R // August 4, 2009
List Price: $24.96 [Buy now and save at Amazon]
Review by Tyler Foster | posted July 28, 2009 | E-mail the Author | Start a Discussion
Fragments is another in a long line of ensemble dramas born out of the Oscar-winning success of Paul Haggis's Crash. Several strangers, unrelated at the beginning, are brought together (in this case by a single event), and the rest of the film is about dealing with the event or the connections made. Most of these movies have been treacly and overbearing, but this time I got to wondering what the purpose of making a film like this really is. Maybe the screenwriter (Roy Freirich) wanted lots of options to explore, but instead of giving the audience several interesting, fleshed-out people to choose from, we get several slightly nuanced characters that may have added up to a couple of truly layered people. Beyond that, I'm not sure how the event really motivates most of these charaters to act the way they do; it's like Freirich had a desk drawer full of unfinished short subjects and he just hastily lumped them all into a single screenplay.
In this case, the event is an essentially unprovoked shootout in a diner. Dr. Bruce Laraby (Guy Pearce) just happens to be leaving, and even holds the door open for the gunman. Carla Davenport (Kate Beckinsale) is a waitress thinking more about her infant son than the customer in front of her. Charlie Archenault (Forest Whitaker) is the customer, somberly contemplating what to do with his life having just been diagnosed with cancer. Lastly, Anne Hagen (Dakota Fanning) is out with her father, Aaron (Tim Guinee) and her friend Jimmy Jaspersen (Josh Hutcherson). The gunman shoots several random people in the diner, inclduing Charlie, who survives, and Aaron, who does not, before turning the gun on himself.
First, the good. Charlie's story is interesting, if not exactly a creative revolution. Stunned by his miraculous brush with death despite his diagnosis, Charlie walks out of the hospital unannounced and goes to Las Vegas, feeling uniquely lucky. Whitaker's performance is strange, and I almost wondered if Charlie was handicapped. It's not a bad thing; it gives the character a strange, unique cadence. Most of Charlie's screen time is spent silent, adding to the mystery of who Charlie is. While he is in Las Vegas, a private investigator questions Charlie's daughter (Jennifer Hudson) as to Charlie's whereabouts, and why some of Charlie's blood was found on the gun. Hudson doesn't have much a role, and her work is quiet, but she's good, I suppose, with what she's given.
Next, the flawed. Dr. Laraby is shaken when he sees the same people from the diner he was just at roll into his hospital only twenty minutes later, some of whom are dead. He returns home to his wife (Embeth Davidtz) and tries to regain his footing, but he finds it hard, neglecting Carla's visits with her baby, which has become fussy and upset. Carla is infatuated with Dr. Laraby, but Dr. Laraby's mind is elsewhere. For unexplained reasons (trauma? an obsessive need to feel helpful?), Dr. Laraby starts adding a "bi-polar" drug to his wife's food: a drop of one drug causes headaches, and a pill of another relieves them while creating symptoms which can be treated by the first drug, meaning Bruce always has the solution to his wife's condition. Pearce is pretty good, as usual, but I'm not sure what to make of the drug plotline. It's hard to make a logical connection between his desire to be his wife's magic cure and his stress at his knowledge that he either almost got killed or even played a small, circumstantial part in people's deaths, or was simply not present and unable to save them. Beckinsale's Carla is the same scenario. It seems somewhat clear, but not clear enough whether or not Carla is actually neglecting her child, preventing the audience from really making up their minds about her.
Lastly, we have the bad, or at least deeply problematic. After the death of her father, Anne recesses into a strange religious fervor, showing no emotion over the events, much to the distress of her mother Doris (Jeanne Tripplehorn). Her friend Jimmy is the opposite, remaining completely silent for weeks on end, much to the frustration of his father Bob (Jackie Earle Haley) and his mother Lydia (Robin Weigert). A hospital-employed trauma psychologist (Troy Garity) tries to talk to Jimmy, but Bob fears that with his company's upcoming medical benefit, they'll fire him instead of pay for his son's "pre-existing condition". There is a single reason for both Jimmy's silence and Anne's newfound faith, and it's remarkably underwhelming. Fanning also plays the big reveal too understated for my tastes; the scene might have been more effective if she'd shown more resistance and anger.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B002BEJ3BA/dvdtalk
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