Winged Creatures (2009)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Fragments is a crime film directed by Rowan Woods.It stars Kate Beckinsale, Dakota Fanning, Josh Hutcherson, Guy Pearce, Forest Whitaker, Jennifer Hudson, Jackie Earle Haley, Jeanne Tripplehorn and Embeth Davidtz.The screenplay is an adaptation of Roy Freirich's novel Winged Creatures.While in a restaurant, Carla Davenport, the restaurant cashier; Charlie Archenault, a driving-school teacher; Bruce Laraby, an emergency room physician; Annie Hagen, her father, and her best friend, Jimmy Jasperson suddenly hear gun shots. Annie, her father, and Jimmy retreat under a table as a suicidal gunman shoots several people and then himself. The story shows the aftermath as these six traumatized people struggle to regain their trust in the ordinary world.The film is quite literally fragmented. Too much story and too little about each character.But nevertheless,it was a well acted ensemble piece that I think you should see for its entertainment value alone.It was a well-directed tense drama with a terrific cast, it is an old-fashioned, no-nonsense film with no special effects that relies on acting and script.

***SPOILERS*** After surviving a shooting at their local diner the survivors of that massacre have their lives shattered beyond repair. We get to see the movie in a number of flashbacks or fragments in exactly what happened during the shooting and how the shooting effected the lives of those who survived it as well as their loved one's and family members. We soon see that the sweet and pretty waitress at the diner single mom Carla Davenport, Kate Beckinsale, turned into a man chasing bimbo who by neglecting her six month old son whom she took along with her, in her car, to sleazy bars and pick-up joints almost ended up dying from dehydration!Dr. Bruce Lamby, Guy Pearce, who dropped into the diner to get a cup of coffee before work at the hospital and left before the shooting started held himself responsible for the massacre in him opening the door for the killer, Marty McGuire, who moments later shot up the place! Dr. Lamby also turned out to be Clara's doctor who was attending her baby's eating problems for free, since she didn't have any medical insurance, and almost blotched it up with problems he had back at home. In with his wife Joan, Embath Davidtz, who's suffering from migraine headaches that Dr. Lamby started to slip strong medication into her food in order to cure her. This with him upping the doges almost ended up killing her instead!There's also teenagers Anne Hagen & Jimmy Jasperson, Dakota Fanning & Josh Hutcherson, who by a stroke of luck or heroism survived the killings where Jimmy's dad Bob Jasperson, Jackie Earl Haley, ended up together with the gunman, who shot himself, getting his brains blown out! It was Jimmy who completely freaked out and became mute in what he saw in not only his dad getting shot but in the cowardly way he reacted to it! Anne for her part became very religious after the incident and forgave the dead gunman for what he did but at the same time covered up the cowardly way how Jimmy's dad reacted before he was blown away! This more then anything else made Jimmy's depression worse then it already was. And it was Anne in her finally admitting the truth of what happened that brought Jimmy out of his deep depression as well as him getting his voice back.Finally there's the real hero in the movie the sad sack compulsive gambler and cancer ridden driving school instructor Charlie Archenault, Forrest Whitiker. It's Charlie who felt by surviving the shooting, where he was wounded, that luck was on his side! Driving down to a Las Vages casino Charlie's luck proved to be genuine with him winning on the crap tables a cool 100 G's before the evening was over. ***SPOILERS*** But in the end Charlie blew it all and had to get a marker, 25 G's, from the mob to continue in trying to get his money back only, so it seemed, to lose it all and having his right hand and arm broken for his failed efforts. We later find out that Charlie in fact did make a big score big enough to pay off his debt to the mob and have plenty left for himself! But,in him feeling guilty in surviving the massacre, he decide to willingly have his arm hand broken instead! Great performances by all involved but it's Forrest Whitaker's kind and sensitive portrayal of born loser Charlie Archenault that really stands out. It was Charlie who was the true hero in the movie by trying to tackle the gunman and getting shot for doing it. But he prevented him from gunning down more people including Anne & Jimmy as well as Kate in his selfless and almost suicidal effort! And in the end despite doing everything he could to destroy himself, in him feeling that he's dying from cancer anyway, it was an act of faith or God that somehow miraculously prevented that from happening to him!

Although there are many films on serious subjects the techniques used are many and various. Here we have a script which places a group of people in a diner in peril of a gunman. By restricting our field of vision the film allows us to either imagine all that happened on trust, or allow our instinct to take us where the story teller wants us to go. There are many deft cinematic touches along the way coaxing us to understand how the many 'victims' of the opening crime scene, which is slowly revealed as the film progresses, cope with the trauma of closeness to death.How we understand the trauma and the coping of the victims is left very much to each watching individual and for that I salute the production team. We are not encouraged to feel sympathy or empathy or pity or any other emotion. The film is as cold as the blood in the opening murder scene. And yet strangely this is not a hard film to watch perhaps because of the constant cutting between the various people involved. Yes there are moments when we may feel a little awkward but they seem accidental rather than deliberate.The acting is excellent throughout. I would like to have given this film a high score because the actors deserve it, but it always falls short of the pivotal axiom that humans are unpredictable even when being predictable. At least it takes its subject seriously and for that it is to be admired.And so I award it six out of ten.

Sometime in the 90's a whole genre of movies got started, where lives intertwine at random, or through some apparent greater purpose. Most such films have struck me as contrived (e.g. "Magnolia") but "Fragments" really pulled off the concept.The level of tension was high throughout and there was literally never a dull moment, which for me marks a great film. The uneasiness and queasiness it generated was at times tough to handle.It puzzled me why they would have alternately titled it "Winged Creatures," then I looked up the book, saw the cover and recognized an angle that was hinted at but never explained in the film.It also wasn't fully clear what the doctor's agenda was, or the final stakes of the gambler. Maybe the vague parts were intentional, but I suspect the book covers a lot more detail.Either way, I don't understand the negative reviews from some people, since this film was far from dull in its own right. Just checking out Kate Beckinsale is enough of a reason to watch this.