Fracture is a solid but flawed courtroom drama/thriller that offers terrific acting and a compelling story, but it also suffers from typical "Hollywood-izing" that undermines the ending to the point of complete incredulity.<br /><br />*spoilers* The filmmakers, who up until the last act have fashioned a terrific cat-and-mouse game between Hopkins and Gosling, took the easy way out and turned Hopkins from a clever genius into a bumbling fool. When Gosling's boss (aka his conscience) tells him, "If it makes you feel any better you let a man get away with ATTEMPTED murder," I (along with many others I am sure) knew how the movie would end. But it was not true to Hopkins' brilliant character that he too would have thought of this major loophole. A man who ingeniously constructs such an intricately plotted way to get away with the crime doesn't think about the fact that he can be tried again? Not buying it.<br /><br />I spent a lot of time criticizing this one fatal flaw, but overall I am still giving the movie a 7, because the rest of it (with the exception of the tepid romantic subplot) was so good and so effective. I just wish the filmmakers would have delivered an edgier ending and not stuck with the Hollywood conventional wrap-up.