Frailty [Blu-ray]

Director: Bill Paxton Bill Paxton

Overview

Actor Bill Paxton made his directorial debut with Frailty. The bulk of the story is told through flashbacks, as a mysterious man (Matthew McConaughey) tells a terrible tale to an FBI agent (Powers Boothe) investigating the "God's Hand" serial killer case. The man grew up in a small town in Texas, where he and his brother lived a bucolic life with their kindhearted widower father (Paxton). One night, the father awakens the two boys, Fenton (Matthew O'Leary) and Adam (Jeremy Sumpter), and tells them he's had a vision, and God has chosen him and his sons to help Him slay demons who walk the earth in human form. He tells the boys they can never tell anyone about this task. Before long, he comes home from work with a list of names that he claims an angel has given to him. He then begins abducting people, bringing them home, one by one, and having the boys watch while he lays his hands on them. After having proven, to his mind, that they are demons and not human, he chops them up with an axe while the boys look on. Young Adam is eager to participate, seeing his family as "kind of like superheroes," while the older Fenton is distraught, believing that his father has lost his mind. He contemplates running away, but is reluctant to leave his little brother behind. Eventually, he goes to the authorities, which results in disaster. As he tells the story, McConaughey takes Boothe out to the public rose garden near his old home, where he claims his brother, the "God's Hand" killer, buried the bodies. Paxton dramatizes the mayhem while leaving almost all of the gore offscreen, and Brent Hanley's script leaves the true motives of several characters unclear until the very end.

Product Details

Release Date:	11/24/2009
UPC:	0031398115113
Original Release:	2002
Rating:	R
Source:	LIONS GATE
Presentation:	[Wide Screen]
Language:	English
Time:	1:40:00
Sales rank:	5,518

Special Features

Audio Commentaries with Director Bill Paxton and Writer Brent Hanley; ; Production Commentary with Arnold Glassman, David Kirschner and Brian Tyler; ; "Anatomy of a Scene" Featurette Courtesy of Sundance Channel; "The Making of Frailty" Featurette; Deleted Scenes with Optional Director Commentary; Storyboards; Photo Gallery

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Bill Paxton	Dad,Janitor
Matthew McConaughey	Fenton Meiks
Matt O'Leary	Young Fenton
Jeremy Sumpter	Young Adam
Powers Boothe	Agent Wesley Doyle
Levi Kreis	Adam Meiks
Edmond Scott Ratliff	The Angel
Luke Askew	Sheriff Smalls
Derk Cheetwood	Agent Griffin Hull
Alan Davidson	Brad White
Cynthia Ettinger	Cynthia Harbridge
Vincent Chase	Edward March
Gwen McGee	Operator
Blake King	Eric
Rebecca Tilney	Teacher
Brad Berryhill	Teenage Demon
Greg Serano	FBI Agent No. 1
Edgar L. Davis	FBI Agent No. 2
Jim Flowers	FBI Agent No. 3
Lance E. Nichols	FBI Agent No. 4
Richard A. Bell	Curtis
Chelsea Blain Butler	Little Girl,Actor
Jennifer Drake	Teacher's Aid
Missy Crider	Becky
Betty Gurule	Doyle's Mother
Dave Power	Actor
Scott Adsit	Actor

Technical Credits

Brent Hanley

Bill Paxton	Director
Brent Hanley	Screenwriter
Mary Gail Artz	Casting
Joe Bauer	Special Effects
David Blocker	Producer
Barbara Cohen	Casting
Larry Fioritto	Special Effects
Tom Huckabee	Executive Producer
David Kirshner	Producer
Karen Loop	Executive Producer
Tom Ortenberg	Executive Producer
Michael Paseornek	Executive Producer
Corey Sienega	Producer

Editorial Reviews

The lines between faith, zealotry, and insanity are blurred in Bill Paxton's directorial debut, a contemporary psychothriller with nods to Alfred Hitchcock. Paxton himself stars as a single father of two who claims to have orders from God to destroy demons on Earth. Unfortunately, the demons he sees seem to be real people, his weapon of choice is an axe, and he forces his two young sons to help him with his bloody mission. Paxton carries the film with the refined subtlety of a master sociopath -- he seems totally sane despite the absurdity of his dogma. Matthew McConaughey costars as one of the sons, who as an adult recounts the clan's disturbing deeds in flashbacks to FBI agent Powers Boothe. For a first-time director, Paxton frightens with finesse, acknowledging the tried-and-true tactics of Hitchcock, most notably when one of the boys is confined to a basement and suffers a Vertigo-esque freak-out sequence. But be not mistaken: Just when Frailty may start to seem too straightforward or derivative, the movie throws a creepy curve and spirals downward. Whether it spirals into insanity or into Hell is the question, one that is answered in the unnerving twist of an ending.

Barnes & Noble - Tony Nigro

Directors Sam Raimi and James Cameron and author Stephen King have praised Bill Paxton's directorial debut, Frailty, as an original and genuinely frightening film, but while the film has an intriguing premise, it doesn't quite fulfill its promise. Frailty builds fairly well, and then seemingly doesn't know where to go. At the end, there are the requisite twists you won't see coming, of the type that have plagued thrillers since The Sixth Sense. Paxton, star of such great films as Aliens (directed by Cameron) and A Simple Plan (directed by Raimi), overplays his redneck zealotry a bit. He's surprisingly the weak link in a competent cast. Matthew McConaughey strikes just the right haunted note, and the two child actors, Matt O'Leary and Jeremy Sumpter, faced with extremely challenging (if not downright impossible) roles, acquit themselves admirably. Paxton does a more impressive job behind the camera, as he and veteran director of photography Bill Butler (DP on The Conversation, Jaws, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) give the film a classic look. Novice screenwriter Brent Hanley has cited Night of the Hunter as an inspiration, and while Frailty doesn't approach that film's power, for a good portion of its running time, it chillingly examines the conflicts of a child whose father has apparently slipped into madness. Paxton accomplishes this without resorting to gore or cheap scares, but the film's achievements are severely undercut by its unconvincing resolution.

All Movie Guide - Josh Ralske

Paxton's Dad may be the most terrifying father to appear in a horror film since Jack Nicholson went crazily homicidal in The Shining.

New York Times - Stephen Holden

Frailty is an extraordinary work, concealing in its depths not only unexpected story turns but also implications, hidden at first, that make it even deeper and more sad.

Chicago Sun-Times - Roger Ebert

A resoundingly old-fashioned and well crafted study of evil infecting an American family, Frailty moves from strength to strength on its deceptive narrative course. Robert Koehler

Variety