Frailty
Short description
A young man named Fenton Meiks arrives at the office of FBI agent Wesley Doyle, who has been leading the hunt for a Texas serial killer known as God's Hand. Fenton claims to know who the killer is: his brother Adam, recently dead by suicide. What follows is a long account stretching back to 1979, when Fenton and Adam were children and their widowed father announced that an angel had appeared to him and ordered him to destroy demons, ordinary-looking people who carried evil into the world. The two boys responded in opposite ways, one accepting their father's mission and the other convinced he had lost his mind, and the telling of that story becomes as troubling to Doyle as the crimes themselves.
Bill Paxton directed the film from a screenplay by Brent Hanley, and it was the first of two features he directed, followed by The Greatest Game Ever Played in 2005. Paxton also plays the father, appearing alongside Matthew McConaughey, Powers Boothe, Matt O'Leary, Jeremy Sumpter and Luke Askew. The production cost about 11 million dollars and returned roughly 17 million worldwide, a modest theatrical result.
Viewers have rated it 7.2 out of 10 on IMDb across more than 89,000 votes, and 7 out of 10 on TMDB. A critics' rating of 6.9 out of 10, based on 156 reviews, sits close to the audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- The film takes place in Texas. It stars Bill Paxton, Matthew McConaughey, and Powers Boothe, all of whom were born in the state.
- Jeremy Sumpter, who played Adam as a young man, originally auditioned for the role of Fenton.
- A loose adaptation of the story of serial killer Joseph Kallinger, who killed three and tortured four families. He committed these crimes with his 13-year-old son Michael in New Jersey between 1973 and 1974. During the trial, Kallinger claimed he was fulfilling God's will.
- Here's how Bill Paxton explained why the name "Otis" is carved into the handle of his character's axe. He wanted the axe to be unique and have its own personality from the start. While scouting locations in Pasadena for future filming, Paxton came across a homeless man and offered him money. The man refused, stating he didn't need charity. Paxton then offered him money to use his name in the film. The man's name was Otis.
- At the 10th minute of the film, you can notice the lights of police cars from the cordon that restricted access to the street where filming took place.
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