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List Price: $24.96 | | Label: Sony Pictures
Salesrank: 9333
Released: August 4, 2009 |
| Our Price: $8.55 |
| Used Price: $2.92 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
One moment can change a lifetime. Shots ring out and the early morning tranquility of a diner shatters. As survivors pick up the pieces, they find themselves transforming in the most unexpected ways as they cope with the aftermath. One brief moment and their lives are changed forever. Featuring an all-star cast including Kate Beckinsale, Dakota Fanning, Guy Pearce, and Academy Award winners Forest Whitaker (Best Actor, The Last King of Scotland, 2006) and Jennifer Hudson (Best Supporting Actress, Dreamgirls, 2006).
Fragments Reviews:
Great Value 
2009-11-09 - I am constantly looking for the best price. With online options, one has to take shipping into consideration. This purchase was a great find with reasonable shipping and the best value overall.
Showed potential, but script is weak 
2009-09-07 - "Fragments" intrigued me because of the multi-talented cast - Academy-Award winners Forest Whitaker and Jennifer Hudson [portraying a father and daughter], Kate Beckinsale, Guy Pearce, Dakota Fanning, and many other familiar, and well-known names. This is one of those movies where tragedy impacts the lives of the remaining survivors - a quiet morning in a California diner is disrupted when a lone gunman walks in and starts shooting people, killing a couple of customers, one of which is Anne's [Dakota Fanning] dad. So, the rest of the movie deals with the aftermath of the tragedy - Carla [Kate Beckinsale in an unglamorous role] is the waitress at the diner who agonizes about the incident and who uses her baby to try and get attention from Bruce [Guy Pearce], a doctor who also happened to have visited the diner prior to the shooting. Bruce too is facing his inner demons, maintaining a calm facade on the outside whilst slowly disintegrating on the inside. Then there cancer patient Charlie [Forest Whitaker] who survives a gunshot wound in the diner, only to question his purpose in surviving and taking a dark path towards self-realization/fulfillment[?].
Of all these central characters, it was the two teens that survived the shooting that drew me into the movie - Anne [Dakota Fanning], and Jimmy [Josh Hutcherson] are both dealing with the tragedy in their own, and very different ways. Jimmy is desperate to talk to someone, but his father maintains silence is the best approach and Anne, his fellow survivor, embraces God as the solution to the problem. Their performances were compelling, even creepy at times, and Josh Hutcherson shows he can hold his own against the more experienced Fanning. Dakota Fanning's performance is compelling, reflecting a maturity in her performance that I had seen in Hounddog and other movies. Kate Beckinsale's performance here is also credible, portraying a character that takes tragedy and turns it into something that engulfs her to the point of being totally self-absorbed. Her performance here reminded me of her role in Snow Angels, another tragic and dark movie.
So why only 3*? Well, though the cast does an excellent job portraying characters in conflict, the script felt under-developed to me. The story ultimately lacks depth - and some of the characters are left 'hanging' in the storyline. It is only Anne who experiences a moment of epiphany towards the end. It is worth watching, but it doesn't exactly bring anything new or unique to the table, and left me feeling rather unsatisfied at the resolution, or rather lack of it.
21st century life
2009-08-21 - I found this movie very challenging to understand. It requires a knowledge of psychology, suburbia, Los Angeles, the drug industry, county run health organizations, a gambler's mentality and modern day cults. But one thing was clear and that is how tragedy can affect different people. The Title of the movie makes it clear if you listen to what Dakota Fanning said at the end. The message of the movie becomes obvious:
" In the ordinary world we trust where things belong. Everything has a place and believing in that makes us innocent... we find and lose our way. Endings are beginnings and moments are like pieces that fit together again.
Unpredicted Terror, Unexpected Consequences 
2009-08-15 - FRAGMENTS (AKA Winged Creatures) is an uncomfortable movie: the subject matter of spontaneous unsuspected violence and the subsequent impact on the lives of those who survive a near death situation is terrifying. FRAGMENTS takes a moment in time and then reveals how that moment alters the psyche and behavior of numerous people from children to adults. It is disconcerting to watch, but at the same time it makes us face the possibilities of how isolated cracks in the universe can alter our lives. As the tagline suggests 'You have to lose your way to find it.'
The film opens with a day in a Los Angeles diner where a gunman enters and randomly opens fire on the customers at the tables and the staff serving them and then kills himself. We are forced to watch this happen but through the eyes of the people attempting to dodge the attack. Among these are a waitress (Kate Beckinsale), a man seated at the counter being denied attention as he glances at his new brochures on dealing with cancer (Forest Whitaker), a doctor (Guy Pearce), a young girl (Dakota Fanning) who witnesses the murder of her father, a young boy (Josh Hutcherson) whose terror results in his becoming mute, among others. The film then abruptly clips to the fragments that remain - the lives as being lived by the survivors as well as their families - a cast of brilliant cameos by Jeanne Tripplehorn, Jackie Earle Haley, Robin Weigert, Jennifer Hudson and Embeth Davidtz. While none of the characters seem to be people about whom we would care under normal circumstances, the fact that the writer and director (Roy Freier and Rowan Woods) have placed us in the midst of the initial incident allows us to watch the strange transformations that happen to these people as a result of being struck by post traumatic stress - maladaptive behavior toward spouses and children, hiding behind becoming an instant religious zealot, gambling as a disease, and the other splinters the impact of murder and suicide observed at close range can cause. Very little is resolved by film's end but the film does force us to witness something that could happen to any of us and make us re-evaluate our values and abilities to cope with trauma. This is an ensemble cast film, strongly projected, and if the producers and creators of the film merely allowed us more time to get to know each character better the film probably would have been a success in the theaters instead of going straight to DVD. A provocative work. Grady Harp, August, 09
Great potential...good cast
2009-08-07 - I was actually in this film as an extra and had some good close up shots, so I was happy about that. The cast was great, especially Forest Whitaker, who is a sweet man and easy to work with.
It has been a long wait for this film to finally be released, and although I enjoyed it, I wish it had been edited a bit better. A lot of Mr. Whitaker's best moments, for instance, ended up on the cutting room floor. It needed to be 2 hours, not just over an hour and a half. Too much was left out...and this may leave the audience disconnectetd to some of the characters. Some of the characters needed more "getting to know them."
A good film, generally speaking....enjoyable, and sure a lot better than some of the stuff out this summer. It deserved to be in theaters...not just released to video.
