by Billy Russell, Staff Writer

In Roger Ebert’s review of Frailty, he explains that only someone like Bill Paxton, a successful actor, who does not need his directorial debut to be a smash-hit success, could have directed such a movie, because he can always go back to acting if it flops.  He’s completely right.  Frailty is a fucked up movie on so many levels, and it is told with such intelligence, grace and, yes, even wit, that it doesn’t occur to us until later just how deeply, psychologically, messed up the whole twisted story is.

Bill Paxton, who as I mentioned, also directed the film, stars as “Dad.”  He doesn’t have a name beyond that.  He’s the single father to his two children Adam and Fenton, and his paternal role is his entire identity to them.  He’s their protector.  The person who should be guiding their morality.  But, one night, he awakes them with chilling news:  He has been visited by the Angel of Death.

The Angel of Death, Dad explains, has blessed him with special powers.  The Lord will provide to him a list of names, of demons disguised as humans.  He is supplied with an arsenal of magic weapons, one of which in a darkly comedic moment is simply a pipe used to bash unsuspecting people over the head.  When he lays his hands on these demons, he will see their sins, and their true, monstrous face beneath the human disguise.

Maybe you’re sick, Fenton, the oldest son intervenes.  But Dad assures him that this is the real deal.  Shortly thereafter, he arrives at home with the first demon “God” had sent on the list.  It looks like a human, crying and pleading to be let go.  Dad involves his children in the slayings, or murders, whatever you want to call them, helping him dispose of the bodies.

This is merely the starting point for the script’s many twists and turns, courtesy of Brent Hanley, who to date has only written one feature-length film.  The movie tackles the blind devotions people have for both family and religion, but not simply by thumbing its nose at these sacred ideals.  Frailty understands the power that they hold on us and explores them through an examination of undying devotion, even in the face of madness and murder.  

The God of Vengeance, the Old Testament God, who would torture Job, just to win a bet with Satan, is the potential God behind the scenes of Frailty.  It isn’t enough that Dad is given a dangerous task to perform, in this Holy War, He has to test the strength of Dad’s family, too.  

I can’t believe it’s already been twenty years since Frailty came out, and I can’t believe that in those twenty years, it never found a much larger audience.  To be sure, there is a small cult following, but to me, Frailty is much more than some super-dark edgelord movie that dares to go there and just gawk at the results.  Frailty isn’t like that.  It’s a disturbing movie, but it doesn’t dwell on the blood and guts, and the actual on-screen violence is at a bare minimum.  If the thematic elements weren’t so intense, based on violence alone, the movie would probably get a PG-13 rating.  That it doesn’t pull any punches, and that it has more than one use of the F-word, it was always going to be destined for an R-rating by the MPAA.  

Paxton does such a brilliant job directing Frailty that I always figured he was going to have an incredibly solid second career as a director.  He did make another movie after this, which I never saw, and he was trying to get a proposed sequel for Twister off the ground, with him directing, which probably would have been a lot of fun.  On a technical level, Frailty is very well done and makes the most of its limited budget.  Bill Paxton’s life and his career ended prematurely, so we’ll never know for sure what may have been.  When he died, it hit me hard.  He was always an actor I found could elevate a movie just by being in it.  If there was an upcoming movie, and he was in it, it might be worth seeing.  

There are movies that are about disturbing things and they seem to be beholden to those disturbing things.  Frailty is not one of them.  The plot is that of a serial killer who forces his children to help him murder, but it’s not about that.  It’s about growing up in that moment, it’s about distinguishing right from wrong and having the courage to stand up for what you know is just.  And then, at the end of the film, when all is said and done, it pulls the rug out from under us once again and it’s chilling, masterfully, in how all of its macabre, serpentine twists come together.