Edmond
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Movie Reviews of Edmond
Movie Review: Macy Carries The Day ...But Not The Movie
Summary: 2 Stars
Most fans of William H. Macy will love him in the role of Edmond Burke, and his character portrayal certainly has its merits. With those puppy-dog eyes, many will feel a touch of empathy for a mostly unempathetic character in EDMOND, a film from horror master Stuart Gordon (director of RE-ANIMATOR and the newer KING OF THE ANTS).
Macy isn't unfamiliar with the dark side of cinema. His role as the sexually inadequate Little Bill in BOOGIE NIGHTS cemented his acting career. But he's moved on to "brighter" pastures with the warm-and-fuzzy PLEASANTVILLE and his stunningly excellent Sheriff Chappy in HAPPY TEXAS. That Macy reinvests himself on the shadowy side won't bother anyone, but Edmond's script surely will.
Where the film fails is in its beginnings. Edmond Burke seems like a regular Joe leaving work when he's handed a Post-It note with a change in time for an appointment tomorrow. On it is scrolled the time of 1:15. He heads home and has a confusing argument with his wife (Rebecca Pidgeon, SHOPGIRL). He explains that he's emotionally and sexually unattracted to her and then promptly leaves. This is where the film has its biggest problem. We're never privy to Edmond's previous life experiences and so don't know why he feels this way. There appears to be no motivation for his leaving. He just ...does, and we're supposed to, somehow, understand it. And this lost understanding will plague the rest of the film for viewers.
Edmond heads out into the night and comes upon a fortune teller who tells him "You're not where you should be." The rest of the film is relegated to finding out "where" he's supposed to be and constantly running into the 1:15 reference, a personal omen. What he finds is an unleashing of pent up sexual desire, anger, bigotry and murder. Edmond has had some sort of psychotic break but, again, the audience wasn't privy to his life before this night so have no gauge to tell why this has happened. He's just "going crazy" and the audience is supposed to go along with it. The 1:15 omen pops up at dangerous intersections, as do visions of the fortune teller's tarot cards, sinking Edmond deeper and deeper into a pit of no return.
Scripting problems aside, there's no damning comments to made about Macy's performance. He's in topnotch psycho-mode and it is this that will keep people watching.
Movie Review: effective
Summary: 2 Stars
Much of the film is predictable but I watched it mainly to see how far it would go. The main character in this film who comes across as mild mannered gets kicked out by his wife which starts a cascade of negative reactions. Frustrated over his situation, he takes to the streets going to strip joints, peep shows and massage parlors. As the night goes on, he runs into street hustlers and puts his life at risk, getting mugged. Finally, his rage gets the best of him and then he puts himself in the last place he'd want to be. Then he has no other choice but to be content in his position and make the best of it. Ironically, in some ways it seems he has finally come to terms with himself and is better off than he had been with his wife.Movie Review: Terrible, mean-spirited movie
Summary: 1 Stars
I'm a fan of David Mamet but I hated this movie.
It was interesting at first, then it went into strange and awkward directions, yet, at the end, the climax was not worth the committment to watching the movie.
William Macy [for some reason] is at his wits end & decides to walk out on his wife. Both charactors treat their marriage as though it had no meaning and the scene plays like a break up of an informal boyfriend/girlfriend relationship. It's a ridulously phony scene. Then, Macy roams the streets looking to get laid from various prostitutes and he cannot consumate the "deal" because he is too nerdy, too anxiety prone, too upitty.
Then, out of nowhere, his charactor takes a violent/evil turn which is also where the movie takes it's own turn in the "wrong" direction.
The bulk of the movie takes place over just one evening (a la Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut") emitting out of a theme that "the 0grass isn't necessarily greener on the other side". When the movie addresses Macy not assimilating into the world, the film is interesting. However, once the movie goes into another violent direction ( I don't want to spoil the plot), is when the movie becomes unbelievable and foolishly brutal.
Macy is a small man so when his character turns menacing, it is simply not believable. I am usually a fan of Mamet's gritty dialogue yet, in this movie, his usual colloquialisms are too contrived. Many of the converstations are too peppered with obsenities and are not reflective of true life. Macy blurts out "For Christ's sake" way too many times
The pacing of the movie is strange. For the bulk, it's supposed to be a long, bad evening but then it covers a much longer time span with no form of narrative to explain why and what is happening, the movie loses whatever rythm it tried to create.
The movie is extremely misogynistic (I'm a man) and the women in Mamet's universe have no role other than to be whores, scam artists, strippers, weak-minded or feeble. There is a murder of a woman in this movie where there is no addressing of the tragedy of the crime. I found the film offensive and heartless and I would imagine that a woman would be totally repulsed.
Maybe the unraveling of a person's nerve works well in a "play" form but, as a movie, I thought this one had no redeaming value.
Movie Review: So Much Talent, So Little to Show For It
Summary: 1 Stars
"Edmond,"(2005) has a screenplay by greatly praised American screenwriter/playwright David Mamet( "Glengarry Ross"),based on his own 1980's stage play of the same name, and was directed by Stuart Gordon. It boasts some top-drawer acting talent, including many performers long-associated with Mamet.
Mamet frequently sets his work in Chicago, his hometown, but "Edmond" is set in New York. William H. Macy, an old hand at Mamet, stars in the title role, that of Edmond Burke, an anonymous mid-level functionary at some major corporation, and he gives it his best shot. Edmond is apparently sent off the rails by the fact that a meeting at his corporation, set for the next Monday, has been pushed back a couple of hours. Oh, and he gets an odd reading from a fortune teller. Rebecca Pidgeon, Mamet's wife, plays Edmond's wife, and we have to think she's not sorry to see Edmond go. Joe Mantegna, a Chicagoan who also has long experience with Mamet, plays a racist no-name guy in a bar, whose rants further help to set Edmond off. Denise Richards, Ling Bai and Mena Suvari play three unlucky sex workers, whose paths Edmond crosses -- he thinks they're all charging too much. Julia Stiles plays Glenna, a barmaid, whose crossing paths with Edmond makes her unluckiest of all.
Throughout Edmond's grim, gory journey around the pre-Disneyfied sex mart of 42d Street, there's a lot of the snappy, cross-cutting dialogue Mamet is honored for. But what's the point of the movie? What's it about? Beats me. Puzzlingly little.
Movie Review: One of the most disgusting films I've ever seen in my life
Summary: 1 Stars
Mamet, who brought us "House of Cards", has now filmed an hour-and-a-half commercial for the death penalty, in my opinion -- wrapped in the gauze of semi-big-name stars -- as they wander through this self-indulgent "art film".
The central character played by Macy is an unsympathetic socio-psychopath with no motivation whatosoever for going off the rails. I HATED the guy. His victims, particularly the Stiles charachter, bring his attention on themselves by their own stupid actions.
I couldn't have cared less about any of these people, they were all thoroughly unlikeable.
Is the sacred name "Mamet" supposed to forgive all sins?
I read an earlier review referring to the "nihilism" of this piece of dreck. That review dishonored the philosophical concept of nihilism.
I have to wonder just exactly how deranged Mamet is to write an episodic, pointless, repulsive, and -- worst of all -- boring film such as this.
This thing is disappearing into oblivion faster than the Roadrunner can take a curve. No wonder it never hit the theaters.