Fracture
Movie Quote Quiz

Lt. Robert Nunally: Your wife? Is she OK?
Ted Crawford: I don't think she is. I shot her.

Judge Gardner: You know what nobody understands about certain kinds of low-paid public service work? Every now and then you get to put a fucking stake in a bad guy's heart. Now, we're not supposed to talk about that when we visit a 3rd-grade classroom for Career Day. And it doesn't get you very far into a country club locker room but it's hard to beat when you actually get to do it. (01:10:22 - 01:10:51)

Lt. Robert Nunally: I warned you about him.
Willy Beachum: You warned me he was smart. You didn't warn me you were stupid.

Detective Flores: It's a thing. It does stuff.

Ted Crawford: And the look on his face, oh. He was trying to get her back to life. And I was pissing myself laughing. Because I took both the bastards out with one fucking bullet.

Judge Pincus: I appreciate your concern for the dignity of the court 007, Unfortunately, the man is a tax-paying citizen and entitled by our constitution to try and manipulate the legal system like everybody else.

Ted Crawford: My dick has evidence.
Judge Robinson: Excuse me?
Ted Crawford: My dick... my private investigator. I call him Dick.

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Mistakes

Plot hole: *SPOILER* Toward the end of the movie, Ryan Gosling goes to Hopkins' house where Hopkins is tricked into not only confessing again, but giving Gosling the murder weapon, after they are back in court and Gosling is the acting prosecutor. This would be a conflict of interest due to the fact that Gosling is a witness.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: First, the gun that Beachum took from Crowford's house was not the murder weapon. It was Crowford's unfired gun. He only took it out of the fear of his life. Second, Beachum entered Crowford's house with police supervision. If he plays it by the book, Crowford's confession is valid. In that case, supervising officers will stand witness, along with a recording confirming their testimony. Third, Beachum doesn't need the confession anymore. He was amply clear on that matter.

FleetCommand

You are on point for the corrections, but they involve just mostly context/details, don't they? The text of the entry should be polished a little, but the core issue is valid, I think; Beachum would never be the acting prosecutor in a case when he is the key witness as well. If it's a case for the "murder," he has to be on the stand for practically everything; even if we exclude him from the confession to the shooting, as you suggest (and even if it should never be litigated to begin with), he still is integral to the pulling the plug phase (he was literally there as it happened and did everything to prevent it). We can just assume that he will be forced to hand the prosecuting role over to someone else later, and he was just there for 5 minutes to gloat before the movie credits run, but it's kind of funny.

Sammo ★

Beachum doesn't have to testify, neither for the confession part nor for the "pulling of the plug." I've already covered the former. For the latter, the fact that the woman is now dead is enough. If necessary, the attending doctors could testify that the woman "would have outlived all of them."

FleetCommand

Beachum received the confession under "police supervision," as you called it, which still involved him being the only person in the house with the defendant. You mentioned a recording in the earlier comment; are we just to assume he took one, or is there a visual hint I missed? He was also the person who fought for the court order to the point of being physically tackled in front of the victim's deathbed—so doctors and security staff defiant of such an order would be on trial too, I suppose? Since, again, this 'murder' was not even committed by Crawford. So how would Beachum not be a crucial witness, often the only witness to cover that part of the story?

Sammo ★

OK. You want to assume Crawford's confession was for the viewer's benefit entirely, and there was no wiretapping? Fine. The police have the gun now, hence proof of the first actus reus. Hospital staff tackled Beachum, but Crawford can't pin the murder on them when he has two counts of actus reus and twice demonstrated mens rea. Courts always hear such nonsense as "I didn't kill him; I shot him. The bullet and the fall killed him" (Collateral, 2006). Shooting someone is actus reus.

FleetCommand

I am sure you are right on the Latin, especially since it's hard to imagine the trial going the way it went the first time around to begin with, and I am not getting into the rabbit hole of what exactly could legally be relitigated. But still and again, what does this have to do with the original point being made, that some other guy would be the one leading the trial, since Beachum would be realistically called in as a witness, even a hostile one? I mean, I honestly didn't think it would be much of a point of contention; it's just something there for the audience. I followed the lead about the 'witness' part the OP ended on, but seriously, a conflict of interest would be invoked just because of all the personal first-hand, hands-on involvement in the facts.

Sammo ★

I explicitly told you what happens if the court struck the confession from the record. (The gun happens.) And yet, here you are, saying "Beachum would be realistically called in as a witness"! This correction is turning into a confrontation. Also, don't conflate "involvement" with "conflict of interest." The latter means someone has different de facto and de jure motives. Beachum always had one motive: to convict Crawford.

FleetCommand

Far from me to be confrontational, and sorry if I came across that way. I guess I simply don't get it; it happens. Specifically, if I stated again the point about the witness, it wasn't because I was blindly disregarding what you said (check the words immediately after the ones you quoted), but it's pointless to delve further into something that goes beyond the original mistake. You just directly addressed the meaning of conflict of interest, which was what the OP talked about. I simply felt the initial correction posted was not doing that; now it does, and I am not disputing your knowledge on the topic, especially not having any of my own. Cheers.

Sammo ★

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Trivia

Trivia: The prop department had some fun during the making of the movie; you can see a lot of names of miscellaneous crew slipped in a few spots. There are boxes with case files scattered around the district attorney's offices; the ones behind Willy in his own office (People vs. Bonaventura - Tony Bonaventura being the property master, People vs. Morgenthau - Kramer Morgenthau being the director of photography) get quite a bit of screen time, but there are several others all over the office space, all carrying the name of a crew member. For instance, in a brief sequence when a dejected Willy walks up to Mona's desk to ask for her help before the third act, you can see unique ones. There's also a listing board with judges during the arraignment, and one with doctors when Willy is stopped by the hospital security; both of them are filled with names of production crew members. (01:16:50 - 01:33:20)

Sammo ★

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Questions

Question: How could Anthony Hopkins be arrested for turning off his wife's life support? He was acquitted of shooting her, so he's legally considered innocent of that, and he was completely legally entitled to turn off her life support.

MikeH

Chosen answer: Once Crawford (Anthony Hopkins) took his wife off life support, it resulted in her dying. Crawford was arrested for murder, not because of taking her off life support but because his shooting of her resulted in her death ultimately. Crawford was only tried (and acquitted) for attempted murder. Since this is a new charge, double jeopardy did not apply.

He did not materially pull the plug, though, did he? He went through the proper procedure, and it was within his rights to do so. Not to mention there would be issue preclusion, and the facts established in the previous trial couldn't be relitigated.

Sammo ★

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