“Frailty” — Bill Paxton’s directorial debut takes a theme that other movies may use for entertainment purposes — people getting chopped up into little pieces with an axe — and makes it genuinely disturbing. Matthew McConaughey plays the grown-up son of a religious zealot serial killer dad (Paxton), recounting the grisly events to a small-town sheriff (Powers Booth). “Frailty” has enough grittiness and mood for two movies, but only enough plot for half a movie. B
—John Hansen, NDSU Spectrum, April 16, 2002