This is an excellent police procedure movie where the police procedure was fatally flawed. Director Gregory Hoblit keeps everything right on track, Anthony Hopkins does his patented Hannibal Lecter routine as the villain, Ted Crawford, and Ryan Gosling is admirably low key as our hero, Willy Beachum (I'm sure the name is not a pun).<br /><br />Ted is a structural flaw finder who is born for the job. He finds flaws in whatever disaster has befuddled the federal or state investigators. He tells poor Willy that he can find the flaw in anything. Willy asks if Ted is looking for Willy's weak spot and gets the answer he doesn't believe:<br /><br />Ted: I've already found yours. <br /><br />Willy: What is it? <br /><br />Ted: You're a winner, Willy. <br /><br />Willy: Yeah. Well, I guess the joke's on me then, isn't it? <br /><br />Ted: You bet your ass, old sport.<br /><br />The thing that interested me is that we're then set up for the classic Greek tragedy.* Willy has his weak spot and is Ted going to be able to exploit it? You bet your ass, old sport. The plot is all laid out for us, the issue is whether Ted can pull it off, and we squirm, giggle, and gloat as Crawford sinks himself deeper into a hole from which he can seemingly never extricate himself until he pulls the rabbit out. <br /><br />Willy had set himself up to work at a high-powered private firm, leaving the DA's office to its poorly paid, humble public servants. Because of the way Crawford has set things up, Willy sacrifices the high-paid job to try to save the case (and his ass) and fails. Since this is a modern movie, Willy of course has the opportunity to turn things around, and Ted gets his comeuppance, but Hoblit keeps even that moving so that we aren't sure Willy can bring it off.<br /><br />I was really impressed with Gosling, who manages to portray a character who is brilliant and manipulative in is own right without making Willy a conceited ass. Hopkins plays psychopaths better than anyone else these days, but I'm hoping he doesn't get stuck in only those rolls. If you have a strong stomach, I recommend seeing him in "Titus," the 1999 movie directed by Julie Taymore.<br /><br />*In ancient Greek tragedy, the rule was that the hero of the play had to have a tragic flaw. The flaw had to be something that was good in the right measure, but that our hero had too much of. Excessive pride, for example, was referred to as hubris. The gods were particularly punishing to heroes with too much pride. In ancient Greek tragedy the hero never won, by the way. Willy would have taken the fall and been miserable for the rest of his life.