The 34th review!
Work was shitty today so I needed a movie that would take my mind off the fact that days like today will be like that for the foreseeable future, but I didn’t start this so I could bitch, so let’s get right to the reviews. I have quite a history with this movie. There are two lines in the trailer that I used to quote for no reason at all, maybe because Bill Paxton sounded funny when he said them. Those quotes were, “Those were deeeemons why can’t you see that?” And, “Only deeemons should fear me, you’re not a deeemon are you?”
I must have rented this movie 4 or 5 times but things would come up and I’d either forget I had it or just never got around to watching. Thankfully Family Video had it in and I went with the under the radar AND underrated
Frailty (2001)
Ever since the trailer I was curious about the movie. Here’s the gist, a normal man one night gets a vision from God telling him that he needs to go kill demons. God will reveal to him the list of demons and will also give him 3 weapons for fighting them. They are a pair of gloves, a steel rod, and an ax that has the name OTIS carved into it (which never gets explained and really adds to the effect). The demons look like real people until Paxton touches them (the gloves are there so he can grab hold of them and not spaz out while dragging their unconscious bodies). The movie really plays with you because you have no idea if he’s actually seeing these things or if he’s just crazy. Paxton has two boys, one of them is pretty young and wants to impress his dad, and the other is justifiably horrified about what’s going on.
It’s an interesting dynamic between the older son Fenton and Paxton (he’s just billed as “Dad” and I’m not calling him that in this review). Paxton truly believes he’s not killing people but destroying demons and wants nothing more than for his son to believe him. Even after punishing him you can tell Paxton loves him and it truly pains him to hear his son call him a murderer. Even though you don’t who is right you feel bad for Paxton because he wants his son to believe him more than he wants to follow God’s will.
Now, I knew I was going to enjoy this movie because my brother liked it. My brother has a strong dislike for Bill Paxton (along with many other people in Hollywood), but when he told me that even he liked it, I knew it was going to be enjoyable. It’s not so much scary as it is tense. Matthew McConaughey is very good, Bill Paxton (stars and directs by the way) has a strong performance and it’s just well acted all around. Even the kids, usually annoying, were good and believable. The main thing that sells this movie is the ending. The reveal is very good even though you can start to piece it together as the story goes, and there is a scene at the end in the FBI office that makes the movie for me. Very good movie, go watch it.
As for my nit picks, I don’t have too many. I guess I was hoping for there to be a bit more to be scared about, but I never got the feeling of dread. On the other hand, I was constantly wondering what was going on, in a good way not like the random crap that kept happening in The Audition. The story takes hold and it doesn’t meander around, everything in there is there for a reason and when you figure everything out, it is satisfying. It’s at the point where if I saw Bill Paxton, I wouldn’t say a word, I’d just nod my head at him and I think he’d know exactly what I was referring to.
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