If I were to select films to illustrate the seven deadly sins, Fracture would make the short list for consideration to represent pride.

Ted Crawford tries to kills his wife.  He’s sure he can get away with it.  He has orchestrated everything so that even if he confesses, he thinks he can avoid conviction.  He knows he is brighter than everyone else involved.  He’ll surely be able to out maneuver them.

But Crawford isn’t the only one filled with pride.  The case to prosecute him falls to Willy Beachum, a real up-and-comer in the DA’s office—but not for long.  He has managed to win a plum job in a very prestigious corporate law firm.  He has an amazing conviction rate as a prosecutor, in part because he manages to trade off likely losers for likely winners.  He could easily have passed on this case, because he was going to a new job, but at arraignment, Ted almost challenges him to prosecute the case.  It looks like a slam dunk.  Because of Beachum’s pride, he postpones his new job to win one more easy case.  He knows that he’s smarter than any other lawyer or than Crawford, so how can he lose?

The rest of the film is the cat and mouse game between these two hubris-filled men.  They are both certain they can outdo the other.  This is a mental contest between two people who think that there is nothing that can stop them—no one who can beat them.  The battle doesn’t rely on force or power, just on finding the flaw in the opponent and exploiting it.

For those who relish films that resemble mental chess games, this is a jewel.  Each player makes his move.  But soon, one of them will set a trap, and when it springs the other must scramble to recover.  The flow of the match moves from side to side until it looks like there is a sure winner, but it’s still not over.

One of the flaws of the film is that Crawford’s orchestration of the attempted murder relies on some things happening that are not unlikely, but also not assured.  If some of those things happened a bit differently, he’d be done in immediately.  But everything falls into place for him.  That flaw, though, is easy to overlook as we enjoy watching how the rest of the contest plays out.

This contest is not just a battle of wits, but of egos.  Both of them are seeking not only to win in court, but to demonstrate to the other (and to the world) that they are superior.  Justice doesn’t come into play, only who is better.  In fact, in one scene, a judge tells Beachum that one of the good parts of being underpaid in the DA’s office is that once in a while you get to put someone bad away.  That goes right over his head.  It’s all about winning.  At least until he manages to get a new perspective at the bedside of the comatose wife (similar to Frank Galvin in Sidney Lumet’s The Verdict.)

These two are not the only egos at work in this film.  The detective who got the confession has his own portion of pride, as does Beachum’s new boss/girlfriend.  All these overly prideful people show us clearly why pride has been counted among the deadly sins.  It can kill the soul if we let it control us.