In the movie Fracture we see an eccentric millionaire engineer (Anthony Hopkins) in a battle for supremacy with Willie (Ryan Gosling), a sassy assistant district attorney (i.e. public prosecutor). The main difference is that while Ted Crawford shoots his wife, Willie gets to have sex with the attractive senior partner (??) Nikki Gardner (Rosamund Pike).

And eat Thanksgiving dinner with her family, which includes a retired judge.

But Ted gets all the best lines. In fact, he's so clever and interesting that (a) we root for him all the way through the film, and (b) the way it all turns on an overlooked technicality is, frankly, unsatisfying. I mean, you'd have to say that the double jeopardy clause is well-known.

Or not. I can't say for another, but it seems unlikely this error would creep in where none had surfaced before.

In terms of the cinematography, they did a good job: the film is visually interesting. This despite a few outrageous cliches (Willie's burgundy 80s-vintage Beemer, the perky secretary Mona, the grizzled DA, the Guggenheim appearing frequently in-frame).

I'd say that the success of super-saturated shows like CSI Miami have had an influence on 'quality' cinema (this is a New Line production) in terms of colour. The pic above, for example, has a vivid green that would not look out of place on these small-screen shows. Here, however, the story is slightly more interesting. But only slightly.

Likewise Mona (Zoe Kazan) has quite a lot of the Scarlet Johanssen look about her, especially the slightly-receeding chin and full-lipped mouth. A degree in theatre from Yale and some illustrious antecedents (director Elia Kazan was her grandfather) plus obvious talent mean she is set to appear again on-screen in the near future.