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Frailty
Lions Gate Films Inc.


7.0

based on 32 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 31 votes
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FILM:

The Greatest Game Ever Played

MPAA RATING: R for violence and some language

Starring Bill Paxton, Matthew McConaughey, Powers Boothe, Matthew O'Leary, Jeremy Sumpter, Luke Askew, Derk Cheetwood, and Blake King

The story of the FBI's search for the notorious "God's Hand" murderer. (Lion Gate Films)

GENRE(S):	Suspense/Thriller
WRITTEN BY:	Brent Hanley
DIRECTED BY:	Bill Paxton
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: September 17, 2002 Video: September 17, 2002 Theatrical: April 12, 2002
RUNNING TIME:	100 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Andrea Yates believed she was possessed by Satan and could save her children by drowning them. Frailty is as chilling.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

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

Variety Robert Koehler

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.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Genuinely creepy Southern Gothic thriller that once again proves that in horror movies, sometimes less is actually more.

Chicago Reader Hank Sartin

It's good old-fashioned rural gothic that would make Flannery O'Connor proud, with tricky switcheroos that keep shaking up our assumptions about what's going on.

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

It's a small, unassuming movie grasping at whole-hog homo psychopathicus, with its feet planted squarely in Texan grave dirt and its head lost in the ether of Christian derangement.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

The film becomes cumulatively stranger as it goes along, and it has a lulu of a kicker.

Film Threat Clint Morris

So immodestly unripe; yet so horrendously tempting you’ll find it hard to resist.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Well-crafted, disturbing Texas gothic thriller, a completely spooky piece of business that gets under your skin and, some plot blips aside, stays there for the duration.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

You'll depart with memories of a well-crafted study in quiet horror, and with ideas whirling in your head about the nature of evil and what happens to children caught in its grip.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

Somber and violent but undeniably stylish and unsettling thriller.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

It's the cinematic equivalent of a good page-turner, and even if it's nonsense, its claws dig surprisingly deep.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Blood-curdling stuff.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Against all odds in heaven and hell, it creeped me out just fine.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

May leave you more cold and stunned than enlightened.

Slate David Edelstein

You have to give credit to Frailty for jiggering up the formula a bit, so that what starts as an ominously low-key study of a boy coming of age with a mad father escalates into a combination of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "Breaking the Waves" -- Grand Guignol religiosity.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

Chills to the bone -- and beyond, but for pure excitement it's best not to look far beneath the surface.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Most of Frailty is so good -- done in a low-key, realistic mood of genuine creepiness and dread -- that it doesn't need formula shocks.

USA Today Mike Clark

The payoff isn't worth the time invested, but at least the actor-turned-filmmaker underplays an inherently queasy project that could have been over the top.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

As disappointing as the wrap-up is, it can't erase the chilling psychological warfare that represents the majority of what precedes it.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Starts out, and ends up, as a thriller trying valiantly to show us layers of moral depth. But in between that beginning and ending, Paxton's vision (as well as that of Brent Hanley, who wrote the script) becomes wavy and indistinct, a blurry muddle of sensationalistic, prurient grisliness masquerading as a meditation on the nature of evil.

LA Weekly Chuck Wilson

Audiences are destined to debate the film's final scenes, where Hanley piles on plot twists, leading to a coda that turns a creepily ambiguous story about God and the terrifying power of paternal love into something closer to an X-File.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Paxton is impressively subtle and elicits remarkable performances from O'Leary and Sumpter.

Boston Globe Sam Allis

Murder should either be unsparingly real or kitschy like the ''Texas Chainsaw Massacre.'' This is neither.

New Times (L.A.) Robert Wilonsky

Like so many other allegedly scary movies, it gets so tangled up in The Twist that it chokes the energy right out of the very audience it seeks to frighten.

Portland Oregonian Kim Morgan

The story sounds horrifying, but the film takes some unfortunate twists and never presents us with a multifaceted character in Paxton. Paxton just doesn't play the nice-but-nuts role with a modicum of terror.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

There's a good little psychological thriller buried underneath all the manufactured shocks, in the story of a powerless child standing alone against a parent's mental illness.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Gory but lifeless.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

This is a guy movie, a gothic creepshow.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

When the twists arrive, they feel like much of the film: creepy and cliché-free, but still terribly wrong.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

The movie is so disturbing that it seems nearly blasphemous. I wouldn't wish it on an anthrax spore. After all, anthrax has feelings, too.

San Francisco Chronicle Carla Meyer

Dumb but also unrelentingly dark and ugly, thereby depriving the viewer of any camp value.

The average user rating for this movie is 7.0 (out of 10) based on 31 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

John L. gave it a10:
This movie is great ...I watched it again after not seeing it for several years and all I can say is that I'm glad I bought it when it first came out..people who don't like it just don't understand it..I'm not overly religious either but it still gives me the creeps when i think about this movie and its underlying message...definitely worth looking for.

Andrew M. gave it a9:
An absolutely brilliant movie.The more I watch it,the more it chills me.Most horror movies are scary because you suspend your disbelief and after it's over you go back to your normal life and forget about it.Some reviewers have said it is unbelievable.I say not only is it believable, but it is happening all over the world.Take out demons and insert'Great Satan' or 'Jihad' or any other fanatical sect's code words and you will understand this movie for what I believe it is;a chilling look into the impenetrable dogma of religious fanatics. Scary indeed!

George S. gave it a10:
Even though I have rated a good 15 movies in the last 10 minutes the truth is I really don't like a Numbered rating system. that 10 is for being able to scare the living crap out of me without being overly graphic. The movie itself something like a 9.2 but the story although not the most clean and polished one of the best movies I have ever seen for messing with your head. up there with Identity and Memento.

marshall m gave it a9:
I loved it! it was funny kuz even thot the ending was kind of cheesy, i didn't see it coming because i was so wrapped up in the rest of the story. its a near masterpeice of horror filmmaking.

Owen L gave it a1:
This film was weak. Anyone who didn't see every twist coming from the beginning of the movie (or at least from when "Fenton" steps into the car with the FBI guy) is either blind or none too smart. Congratulations; you're the target audience for this movie. Shame there are so many of you.

Jon H. gave it an8:
A well made very dark thriller, even little bits of humor in it, I don't understand people saying it's gory, there's only i think one scene that has blood in it and that's in the very end. I liked the twist.

[Anonymous] gave it a 10:
What a weird way to knock off demons that look like humans. Some are demon killers that use natural and simple methods of balancing an eye for an eye. Superb movie.

Frailty Lions Gate Films Inc.

Frailty
Lions Gate Films Inc.