Frailty
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Brad Berryhill, Derk Cheetwood, Luke Askew, Powers Boothe, Vincent ChaseDVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 99 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2002-09-17
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Lions Gate
Movie Reviews of Frailty
Movie Review: Frightening family of killers
Summary: 5 Stars
Frailty
As far as I can tell, this is a purely fictional movie, not based on any real case of the God's hand killer in Texas. But it's a chilling portrait of a killer, who believes he's doing God's work and cold-bloodedly kills and dismembers in front of his two impressionable young sons.
Fenton Meiks (Matthew McConaughey) shows up at the FBI's field office looking for the agent in charge of the God's hand killer, who turns out to be Wesley Doyle (Powers Boothe). Fenton then tells Doyle that his brother Adam was the God's hand killer and is now dead. Then they drive to where Fenton believes his brother buried the missing bodies, in the Thurman Rose Garden.
The film is told largely through Fenton's flashbacks of his childhood. His mother died in childbirth and he's been basically raising his younger brother alone while his father (Bill Paxton) works. One day Mr. Meiks comes home claiming to have had a vision from God telling him he will be given three weapons to kill seven demons. The three weapons turn out to be a pair of gloves, a lead pipe, and an axe. While Fenton hopes his father will suddenly turn sane, his younger brother Adam falls for it hook, line, and sinker, even presenting his father with a list of classmates he wants dead because they're demons.
*****SPOILER AHEAD (to show the graphic nature of this film)*****
Mr. Meiks brings the first "demon" home and kills and dismembers her with the axe in front of his sons. You can only imagine the horror. Then he has the two boys help him bury the body parts in the Thurman Rose Garden, a public garden adjacent to their home. Mr. Meiks uses Fenton to lure the second victim. When he brings home the third victim, Fenton runs to the sheriff and brings him back home to stop his father. But the doubting sheriff is a little too slow-witted and ends up victim four. While Adam revels in the idea they are a family of superheroes, Fenton wants nothing more than to run away, but he won't leave Adam behind. Adam turns on him, and Mr. Meiks ends up locking Fenton away for weeks, nearly starving him to death, and then adding him to his "demons to kill" list. It's only when Fenton pretends to have a vision from God that Mr. Meiks lets him out. Only his vision is to kill his father. So when they get victim five to their home, Mr. Meiks expects Fenton to kill him, but he kills dear old psycho dad instead. As Fenton is trying to release their latest victim from bondage, Adam picks up the axe and kills him, taking over his dad's work. At this point, you're finally near the end of the film and you discover McConaughey is really Adam, not Fenton. And he's not there to inform Doyle, he's there to kill him because Doyle's name is on the new "demons to kill" list right behind his brother Fenton's (convoluted, yes I know). But the twist is that the real Fenton IS the God's hand killer. It's just that Adam's a killer also.
*****END OF SPOILER*****
This is one of those disturbing movies that's interesting the first time, but I certainly couldn't sit through it again. There is a moment in the end when Doyle asks Adam how he knew (that he'd killed his own mother), and Adam says "God put you on my list". So you leave the film wondering if these three actually were the hand of God, in some sick vigilante sort of way. Especially when every piece of evidence against Adam mysteriously goes awry--videos turn fuzzy, a witness can't remember, and other little things.
Summary of Frailty
Steeped in gloomy atmosphere, Frailty locates its horror in the tyranny of religious fanaticism. Making an assured directorial debut, actor Bill Paxton costars as a Texas widower who believes God has recruited him to destroy demons in human form. Feeling divinely justified in committing a series of ax murders (discreetly unseen), he urges his two young sons to assist him in the killings--a living nightmare recalled in flashback by one of the now-adult sons (Matthew McConaughey) to the FBI agent (Powers Boothe) who's investigating the murders. But mystery is of secondary importance in Brent Hanley's cleverly twisting screenplay; Frailty suggests, with unsettling subtlety, that Paxton's mission may not be delusional, thus burdening his deadly wrath with spiritually disturbing significance. It's definitely not a feel-good film, but with celebrity endorsements by Stephen King and directors James Cameron and Sam Raimi (who both made films with Paxton), Frailty gets under the skin with insidious efficiency. --Jeff ShannonHorror DVD Video
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