Wonderful character development!

This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

Better Late Then Never

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

What is the effect on a small US town when an ordinary-looking guy goes into a diner and shoots several people at random before doing himself in? Maybe this is not an issue that's much occupied your mind?Or maybe you don't want to know at all?In Rowan Woods's "Winged Creatures" a rather close look at such events - also set in a wider context - is taken, and it's giving the impression of being thoughtful and clever to the point where we watchers out here feel we're on tenterhooks waiting for some really big truth about these situations to come out. In a way, there is a truth at the end of the effort we put in, but it's not really a big one...On the way to that conclusion we get performances as good as we might expect from Forest Whitaker, Kate Beckinsale, Dakota Fanning and others.Ultimately, this film is well-done, and most especially so when it touches upon the random nature of this kind of thing. For some not-entirely-clear reason, it also features a relatively tangential (and somewhat unpleasant) Guy Pearce-Embeth Davidtz storyline (the latter playing a Brit for no very obvious reason), and - also for some reason - the film seems to slightly downplay the seriousness of what is going on there. This is a little bit of an enigma, but does certainly add yet another psychological dimension.While Whitaker's character annoys to the point where sympathy for his (genuine) plight is a bit muted, youthful actors Fanning and Josh Hutcherson do a particularly good job.Why would you watch this? Because very sadly such things do happen, and it leads to more of a disintegration in the community than one may even imagine (and one certainly can imagine a bit of it). But the effects are diverse and outward spreading like ripples in a pond, and probably we owe it those affected by such events in real life, and to ourselves, to think on what that means at least a little.For 100 minutes anyway,

'Fragments' was enjoyable but mostly predictable. A film that demonstrates Rowan Woods will be able to direct with the best of them. But unfortunately it is a departure from the broody and rough as guts nature of his Australian hits "The Boys" and "Little Fish". It has no real grit, and the majority of confronting scenes are softened by timely cutaways.The strength of the film is its stellar cast. But even they seem to be going through the motions.Having fallen in love with Jeanne Tripplehorn's multi-layered polygamist role in "Big Love" it was disappointing to see her sidelined in this film to take on the token role of grieving widow. It was frustrating to have the story preoccupied with Dakota Fanning's experience of the shooting, without being able to watch more of Tripplehorn.The most engaging performance comes from Forest Whitaker. Stumbling around drunk for most of the film, he is so broken yet easy to empathise with. But again his character verges on the predicable outcome of a gambling addict. His redemption comes, but not as we expect it. Thus also redeeming the film.Guy Pearce is completely unhinged, but a sap of a character. Kate Beckinsale is a clichéd single mother. But both act their roles with such conviction that they are engrossing to watch for the duration.The unfortunate thing about this film is the mysteries are not that mysterious. It could have been more entertaining if there had been more reveals like there was in "Little Fish". This said, it is an exploration of human emotion and the core cast convey this well. The human struggle to appear in control at all costs, remains the focus and is demonstrated well.

Sorry, this film does not work. It will not be a classic, it will die onto the back catalogs for a buck a week and one day make GRAND CANYON look like a classic by comparison. Lame slow turgid predictable and worst of all boring. Don't blame the cast, they were laboring. The photography is flat and boring and fails to inform the plot. Looks like the shoot days were from 10 am till 3 pm with a long lunch break. The budget spent on the cast looks like it robbed the shoot of anything you'd like to see normally. The director should hang eastern block DPs before he makes a TV movie like this rubbish again. This is not Crash light crash2 or crash the early years its just crap. Would have been better with some decent art direction, photography, music and a re think of the story...IE. don't do any of it.

I enjoyed the psychological drama of the film, but it did leave me with some questions, which I'll get to at the end of this comment. I thought Forest Whitaker was excellent as the cancer patient/gambling addict who has nothing to lose. Dakota Fanning was good, but her character really annoyed me. I still don't quite get the whole God thing. Kate Beckinsale actually looked sort of horrible in this film, which was 100% in character, so I suppose she was effective portraying a lonely, often haggard-looking, neglectful single mom of a colicky baby. (She should never go bottle blonde again!!) What I didn't quite understand (aside from Dakota Fanning and the God thing) was why the doctor kept on poisoning his wife and then rescuing her. Was it to play God? To be her hero? I don't get it. Also, he kept looking up the same things (drug side effects) on the internet. Why? Was his wife a guinea pig? A lab rat? Why did he want to cause her pain?? Another scene I still don't get is a very brief sex scene, mainly in shadows -- who was that? What was that? AND, the biggest question of all (and it is most likely intentionally left a mystery) is WHY did the man shoot up the diner in the first place???