FRAILTY (2001) Bill Paxton can direct! Who knew? As an actor, Bill Paxton put out one wooden performance after another. He got lots of supporting roles in mega-blockbusters (True Lies, Titanic), and some worthy, smaller films (A Simple Plan...uh, that's about it), but when these movies worked, they were usually in spite of him, not because of him. He could do no wrong as Hudson in Aliens but over the years his acting in other movies started annoying the crap out of me. Frailty is his first movie as a director; and it's an assured and effective one. He also stars; with his duties split and mostly his own judgment to rely on to determine if he's pulling off a scene or not, it's a surprisingly good performance. Paxton is seen only in flashback, as Matthew McConaughey narrates to FBI agent Powers Boothe (who's always cool, though he makes a fabulously stupid decision late in the movie) the story of how he, his brother, and his dad together kidnapped and axe-murdered people in the late 70's. Paxton plays the dad, and he starts getting communiqués at night and at work from angels and even God himself, giving him lists of names of demons who walk among us in human form, and leading him to three "magic weapons" which can be used by him and his two young sons to slay the demons. Now, this is obviously batshit insane. But the important thing is, there's no point during the movie where it looks like all this angels n' demons stuff is a cover for the dad to work out any homicidal urges of his own - this guy believes it to the core of his being, as does one of this sons, who tries passing off a list of his own enemies at school as another hit list from the almighty. This leads to a totally sincere lesson about how demon slaying is good, but killing people is bad - something vomitously demonstrated later in the movie. This would've been a tough performance for anybody, but Paxton nails the part as an essentially gentle man who comes into frightening orders he cannot refuse - being only human, the dad finds it easier and even seems to enjoy it (in an angry, jihad kinda way) as the killings go on. The other, older brother is not at all convinced, even at one point running off to beg the help of the sheriff, who seems to have gone to the same police academy that produced the cops who gave that drugged, naked guy back to Jeffrey Dahmer. The younger brother loves the demon-slaying role, thinking he's in a family of superheroes. The unwavering belief demonstrated by two of the Meiks boys is, curiously, not really in evidence elsewhere in their lives. They talk a bit about prayer but we never see them do it. The only visible religious elements in their lives beyond their new quest in life is in some children's entertainment, the kind of thing Rod and Todd Flanders might be subjected to. In fact, the only mentions of church, Jesus, or the Bible are in a scene that got cut. The cynical part of me wonders if this cut was just an unnecessary sop to avoid offending uptight Christians (I mean, what other religions do white people in Texas belong to?), but I don't think specification of their regular religious practices would've much fleshed things out. Christians, Jews, Muslims...any religion that believes in angels and demons would've worked fine, though Paxton and writer Brent Hanley smartly avoided a fatwah by not making them Muslims. There are a few twists at the end, one of which is predictable and too easy (that third-hand angel vision should be enough to set off anybody's "unreliable narrator" alarm), one of which is way out there. Many have commented upon that one, which suggests that all this angels and demons stuff isn't just in a demented imagination or two. Personally, after seeing this I think some pretty limber logical gymnastics are required to rationalize any other conclusion. The implications of this ending will be troublesome and unsettling for unrepentant heathens like myself, but for many believers too, the ones who take the "love thy neighbor" part seriously. There will of course be people who will find it a rush of rapturous righteousness and will daydream of getting their own smiting missions from God. And we all know the work of some people like that. Loved the quietly doomy score by Brian Tyler. Frailty has enough brutal violence to appease a pretty wide segment of horror fans, but its story and subtext are in service of a more lasting creepout. Well done. BACK TO THE F's BACK TO THE MAIN PAGE