Fractured, 2019 Film Review: Rated NR – Thriller!
Tagline: Hospitals are creepy, and doctors make mistakes. Check out the CDC for proof!
Who to look for:
Sam Worthington, as Ray, construction worker, former alcoholic, is in every scene. I would watch him again.
Lily Rabe, his wife, Joanne. I really liked her! I’m sure I’ve seen her before, but none of her credits ring a bell.
Stephen Tobolowsky as Dr. Berthram. You know him, for sure!! Great character actor – in fact, I’ve never seen a credit sheet this long in my life. There must be hundreds here! He plays it straight in Fractured, but I remember him in Groundhog Day, Mindy Project, Glee…all as the funny man.
PS. All over the internet it says NR means Not Rated. STOP IT. In most cases, including this, it means it has flopping dead bodies and blood and couldn’t pass the R rating. Not suitable for kids.
Plot Points
Ray Monroe, a construction worker, is on a Thanksgiving weekend trip to grandparents with his wife and daughter. They turn off at a rest stop, and the daughter falls in a ditch. Ray jumps in after her, the mother gets hysterical, and he drives them like a maniac to the nearest ER.
But this hospital is weird and kind of cold- they don’t seem to care about his daughter. And when his daughter and wife have to go to another floor to get x-rays…and don’t return for hours… Ray gets concerned.
The hospital doesn’t remember his wife and daughter when he inquires, records are missing, and no one believes him! Reminds me of Jody Foster in Flightplan. They say he’s irrational, and even inject him with tranquilizer! (Shades of forced Covid vaccination.)
When he escapes from the locked room he finds some city police outside, who actually believe him…which was great. (Female cop Lauren Cochrane especially good, and got an acting nod! Actually, acting B+ all around. Give these guys some residuals!)
But then it gets messy.
Unanswered questions and ENDING:
I watched this a year or so ago and wanted to revisit now what made it memorable…and I couldn’t quite remember the ending. Turns out, lots of folks have the same trouble, and various interpretations.
THE ENDING
Let’s point it out. Ray returns to the scene of the accident, punches out the hospital guards at the pit stop and locks them all in a truck. (Singlehandedly! 🙂 ) Then he goes back to the hospital to get his wife and daughter, but we also see another memory, or flashback, an alternate view of what happened at the gas station rest stop.
Is this a hallucination? In this scene, his daughter did die, and his wife started to hit him. So he smacked her to the ground, where she hit her head on a spike, and died instantly. Oh no oh no oh no!
It makes me sad when the protagonist actually kills someone in a movie…because there is no redemption for him. The screenwriter won’t forgive him, or let us do so. (Can you think of anyone, besides a Western or war movie, where the hero can kill, and win the movie as a free man?)
Oh, Ray. 🙁
So he ignores his memory of their deaths and runs back to the hospital, where he kills one of the hospital guards – again, no, RAY!! – and then holds a surgical team at gunpoint, and takes the bodies of his wife and daughter away in his car.
At this point, I’m still hoping against hope that they are alive. His wife moved her head a little…I think. They’re not as alive as he thinks they are, though.
Other viewers said the 2 bodies were 2 boys who had come to the ER earlier – and one was partly conscious or had been in surgery. And that his daughter and wife never came into the hospital, because he put their bodies in the trunk of his SUV at the pit stop. I never saw that part, even rewatching. I couldn’t tell you.
But I’m sure they did die, and it’s all very sad, as he has lost his whole family. Although he gained a couple of corpses.
It’s a great movie!
Other Audience Reactions
Google says: 69% Liked.
Had to share this comment. There’s always a movie-goer who knows better than the writer. 🙂
I’ve never went public and written a review about a movie ever, however this movie motivated me to do so. I’ve read mostly all the review to see if anyone caught what I did but no one mentioned it. The reason I felt this movie was as stupid as ever is because the director was all over the place trying to confuse the viewers and the one part that throws the whole movie left was the interview with the nurse, it’s clear as ever she was asking question and communicating with him and his wife and asking about the daughter perry… the doctor has a whole 5 min scene where he’s obviously treating his daughter now fast forward towards the end it’s supposedly all in his mind?! Smdh.. now question to the director how the hell u expect me to watch this movie and just forget that these scenes which prove that his wife and daughter were actually there to believing that it was all in this man mind the whole time… not gone mention the scarf he found.
Movie could have been good had the director not been confused his damn self lol… crazy part is I knew the ending already I figured the director was gone pull the ‘ he really was delusional ending ‘ so I watched hoping I wasn’t right. Nice acting though can’t take that away. Maybe I should be a director 🤔since Netflix showing these half ass thought out movies . I’m sure I would’ve done better
From Roger Ebert
And then “Fractured” becomes a riff on “The Lady Vanishes” (or “Flightplan” for modern audiences), in which we have to decide if Ray is crazy or if everyone at the hospital is conspiring to make him so.
[Ha, Indiewire writes The Lady Vanishes as part of their review title!]
“Roger” seems off a little later in his article, though.
From the minute they arrive, “Fractured” turns into a leaden commentary on our broken health care system.
Ha ha ha!, made me laugh a few times! Oh, Roger Ebert, speaking from the future here, wait until you get to the Covid years! This movie was NOT a commentary on the health care system, but a reflection of the fear we all feel in someone else’s power (doctors, etc.).
Roger goes on to say it’s “repetitive” and “flat and dull.” Obviously, he needs some real butter on his popcorn.
This is so weird! There are at least 4 movies there with the title Fractured, but this one is nowhere to be found! Are movies not going to DVD format anymore? Is this one too gory?
Well, it’s on Netflix, where I’ve seen it twice. Enjoy!
That’s a Wrap – Final Review
4 1/2 stars.
Great, and no demerits!
What did you think of it?
Set painter in studio Art Depts. Member Scriptwriters Network, script analyst.
Author, 2 hardcopy books, Barnes & Noble Calendar.
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