Review by Ray Garton

FRAILTY
2001
Directed by: Bill Paxton
Written by: Brent Hanley
Starring:
Bill Paxton - Dad
Matthew McConaughey - Fenton Meiks
Powers Booth - Agent Wesley Doyle
Matthew O'Leary - Young Fenton
Jeremy Sumpter - Young Adam

Young Fenton and Adam Meiks are startled from their sleep one night by their widower father, who urgently explains that he has received a vision from God. In the vision, he was told he would be given a list of people who are in reality demons, and it would be his mission to find and destroy them. Dad's vision transforms Fenton's and Adam's whimsical boyhood into a dark nightmare. Fenton keeps waiting for the whole thing to blow over, but instead, it only grows worse, until Dad brings home the first "demon," a terrified woman bound and gagged, whom Dad "destroys" with an ax in the shed behind the house while his sons watch.

Dad is not a bad man -- he's a kind and loving father, a decent guy, until the course of his life is changed by this vision. Then, he is simply serving God, following orders. While Fenton is convinced Dad is "not right in the head," his younger brother Adam goes along with their father every step of the way. Dad claims that when he lays his hands on the "demons" in the guise of regular people, their sins are revealed to him by God. Adam says he can see these revelations as well. Fenton tries to convince the boy that Dad has brainwashed him, but Adam is unmoving. He promises to pray for Fenton. When Dad enlists the boys in his mission, their lives are twisted forever.

Frailty, the directorial debut of actor Bill Paxton, is an atmospheric nightmare about religious fanatacism and the effects it has on the unfortunate children of the fanatic. The movie begins when Matthew McConaughey, as the adult Fenton, goes to the office of FBI Agent Wesley Doyle (Powers Booth) and tells him he knows who has been committing a series of killings known as the "God's Hand murders." From there, most of the story is told in flashback, and there are flashbacks within that flashback. But Brent Hanley's script is so clean and precise, and Paxton's direction so sure, that we are never confused for a moment. What could have been a muddled mess is instead crystal clear, and we are led inexorably through its twists and turns and secrets.

Over the years, Bill Paxton has proven himself a talented actor. Here, he is revealed to be a director of outstanding ability who approaches his subject matter with sensitivity and craftiness. With the cinematography of Bill Butler and editing by Arnold Glassman, Paxton has fashioned a dark, moody film that unfolds simply while harboring complex undercurrents. While there is a good deal of violence, most of it takes place offscreen. Paxton is not interested in gore and bloodletting, but in the infuriating and sometimes frightening logic of the religious fanatic, which is taken here to its extreme.

When Dad shows Fenton the first list of names given to him by an angel of God, Fenton says, "Dad, these are people's names." Dad replies, "That's right. And they'll look like people, too. But they're not." Then young Adam brings Dad a list of his own which he says was given to him by God. The list includes the name of a boy who picks on Adam at school. Dad gently and knowingly says the boy made the list up. He has Adam sit on his knee and says, "Listen to me, son. You can't just make stuff like that up. We destroy demons. If we were to use your list, we wouldn't be destroyin' demons, we'd be killin' people. And we can never do that. Destroyin' demons is a good thing. Killin' people is bad." Dad's logic is not too far from that of so-called Christians who claim to uphold the love-thy-neighbor-as-thyself teachings of Jesus Christ, but at the same time condone the killing of doctors who perform abortions.

Matthew O'Leary and Jeremy Sumpter, as young Fenton and Adam respectively, are real finds. Their performances are relaxed and utterly convincing -- had they been forced or annoyingly precocious, as so many child actors are, the entire movie would have collapsed around them. Paxton handles the difficult role of their father with grace and ease. He makes the elder Meiks a simple, likeable man faced with the formidable task of raising two boys alone, which makes his strange transformation all the more disturbing. When he wakes the boys up in the middle of the night to tell them of his vision from God, he hits all the right notes, making a scene that easily could have gotten laughs ring true. Matthew McConaughey and Powers Booth, whose scenes frame the flashbacks, are both quiet and understated and work well together.

Frailty is the kind of movie that leaves viewers with something to talk about after the closing credits roll. It leaves open a question: How much of what we see is fantasy and how much is reality? Is there a supernatural element at work? Or has Dad's hold on reality -- something that is far more frail in all of us than we care to consider -- broken for some reason that remains unexplored? And has he passed this on to one of his sons? It's open for discussion.

It is difficult to watch Frailty without thinking about the religious fanatics who toppled the World Trade Center and killed so many last year, or even of the American religious leaders who said that horrible incident was God's punishment for our nation's wickedness. Frailty works as well as it does not only because it is a beautifully made movie, but because religious fanatacism is something that has, in one way or another, touched all of us. How many times have we opened our front door to be greeted by a smiling stranger who has come to tell us of the danger our soul is in, to inform us of the nearness of the End of the World, to set us right and show us the Truth? They know, beyond all doubt, that they are right, and that we, and anyone else who does not agree with them to the letter, are wrong. Paxton's character, while extreme, is unsettlingly familiar.

Frailty is tragic and disturbing, convincing and frightening, and it is one of the best films, in any genre, of 2002.

[Out of a possible four Bloodshot Eyeballs.]