Frailty DVD Review
Posted by Jacob Ziegler on 10.22.2002
Bill Paxton’s directorial debut is stunning, filled with demons, violence, familial relationships, and great acting.
Frailty
Release Date: September 17, 2002
The Film Frailty is without a doubt one of the best films of 2002. It combines an awesome story, excellent acting, and skillful direction into one taut film. It’s plot details may sound ridiculous, but presented in the context of the film they are nothing short of brilliant.
The film opens with Fenton Meiks (Matthew McConaughey) waiting in the office of FBI agent Wesley Doyle (Powers Boothe) who is investigating the “God’s Hand” killings. Fenton comes straight out and tells Doyle who the killer is: his brother. He then offers to take Doyle on a journey to find the remaining bodies, and tell him the entire story.
The story involves a young Fenton and his brother Adam (played with unbelievable skill and poise by Matt O’Leary and Jeremy Sumpter) living in a small Texas town with their father (Bill Paxton, who also directed). One day, when Dad (the only name Paxton is ever given) comes home from work, he declares he had a vision. His vision was that he and his boys would now be responsible for the removal of demons from the Earth. The catch is that the demons would look like people, but God would tell them who were the demons. The young Adam believes his father, and agrees to help him with this Holy mission. Fenton questions his father’s sanity, as it appears they are doing nothing but murdering innocent people. He cannot see that the people are actually demons.
And neither does the audience, for that matter. That is the great strength of the film, that Paxton and writer Brent Hanley do not reveal their hand right away. They build to the film’s climax slowly and deliberately, leaving the audience in the dark right up until the end. I of course will not reveal any of the film’s secrets here, but they are worth waiting for.
Video Quality Frailty is presented in Anamorphic Widescreen, 1.78:1. The film itself was low budget, and most of it was purposely shot with very little light. But it was Paxton’s intent to have the film be dark, so it works fine here.
Audio Quality
A lot of Frailty is dependent on sounds. Paxton and the sound crew do a masterful job of making the audience hear the violence, not see it. The 5.1 treatment the DVD got was worthwhile, as sound comes from all over during the course of the movie, it is not all dialogue. The score by Brian Tyler is allowed to come through beautifully, enhancing the already tense mood.
Special Features Frailty contains no less than three commentary tracks: one by Bill Paxton, one by writer Brent Hanley, and one by the producers of the film. Each offers some unique insight into the making of the film, but it is Paxton’s that is the most interesting.
The disc also contains the usual making of featurette, which is fairly interesting, and an Anatomy of a Scene option. Eight minutes of deleted scenes are shown here, and several of them feature great work by Paxton, but he cut them anyway, as they did not fit the flow of the film. That shows what an unselfish director he is. There is also the standard trailer and photo gallery. Excellent stuff all in all.
Film: 9.5
Video Quality: 7.5
Audio Quality: 8.5
Special Features: 9.0
The 411: Frailty is a nearly flawless film. The acting is great, the writing is great, and the pacing by director Paxton is perfect. The DVD set itself is also excellent, with good deleted scenes, interesting commentary tracks, and other good features. But the features come secondary to a film that is so skillfully made it is hard to believe it was done by a first time director, with two child actors in such important parts. Frailty will assuredly be on my year-end top 10 list.
