Well, the director of "Primal Fear" is back in that form with "Fracture," another legal thriller with a veteran actor and one of Hollywood's freshest faces going toe-to-toe.
In this case though, the roles are reversed, it's the veteran actor playing mind games with the new kid. And, while it may not be the absolute best in this category, "Fracture" is still a lot of fun to watch.
In "Fracture," Hopkins is in prime form playing an aeronautical engineer who "engineers' the perfect crime."
But, Hopkins doesn't steal the show here - he shares it - with Ryan Gosling (nominated for an Oscar for his performance in "Half Nelson" last year), probably one of the best young actors on the scene today.
There's an electric chemistry between these two very good actors - and that makes for exciting movie watching.
Gosling plays prosecutor Willy Beachum, who's the ace of his L.A.
office. He's so good that he's getting out of public service early to make big bucks at a private firm.
He's just got one more open-and-shut case to nail down.
This one's a breeze. Ted Crawford (Hopkins) - the head of an aeronautical engineering firm - has already confessed to shooting his wife in the head and putting her in a coma.
But, Crawford's area of expertise is finding the tiniest of flaws in airplanes - and he thinks he's come up with a fatal flaw in the legal system, and Beachum, that will let him get away with murder.
Suffice-it-to-say that Crawford's wife has been having an affair with a member of law enforcement now intimately involved in this shooting case - and Crawford doesn't reveal that until the case get to trial.
Wow, egg on the face of prosecutor Beachum! But, everybody knows that Crawford did the shooting, so a clever lawyer like Beachum ought to be able to get around a problem like this.
Wrong. Crawford has meticulously planned this crime out and wryly taunts Beachum with his cleverness at every turn.
Beachum's under plenty of pressure to drop out of this case.
It's embarrassing and possibly career damaging. But, Beachum gets obsessed with bringing Crawford down.
Sure the game is fun to watch in "Fracture.
" But it's the players you'll want to go and see.
There are shades of Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter in the meticulously evil Ted Crawford. And, I mean the really good Lecter in "Silence of the Lambs.
"
And, Gosling is becoming my new pleasure to watch. He matches Hopkins in every scene of "Fracture," and that's no small feat in and of itself.
1 hour, 52 minutes
R - Language, violent content
Craig Kopp can be seen on Fox19.
Drop him a note at columns@communitypress.com.
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