The Razor's Edge
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Movie Reviews of The Razor's Edge
Movie Review: great flick
Summary: 5 Stars
this movie is one of my all time favorites! bill murray does an outstanding job. i have just ordered the dvd and cannot comment on its quality yet but the movie is awsome.Movie Review: Great book and great movie!
Summary: 5 Stars
I think Bill Murray is at his best in "The Razor's Edge" (this IS NOT a comedy)followed closely by "Lost in Translation". Great book great movie!Movie Review: great movie
Summary: 5 Stars
have not checked for defects but this movie should be a classic. Bill Murrays performance is great. Not a comedy.Movie Review: The Razor's Edge: art made movie.
Summary: 5 Stars
It is a treasure as far as movies and art is concern. J.Botto Bellaire, TX
Movie Review: The Path To Salvation Is Difficult...To Walk As A Razor's Edge
Summary: 4 Stars
Bill Murray's 1984 remake of the 1947 Tyrone Power vehicle based on W. Somerset Maugham's 1944 possibly fact-based novel of the same name, THE RAZOR'S EDGE is a consistently underrated film. By and large this is because Murray, universally considered as one of the finest comics of his generation, is cast (for the first time) in an unfamiliar dramatic role, a shift in paradigm not well accepted either by the critics or a large portion of the moviegoing public. Those who choose to penetrate their preconceptions will find that THE RAZOR'S EDGE is an intelligent and sensitive movie about generational dislocation and personal values.
Larry Darrell has returned from 1918's Western Front carrying a vast burden: That of a human life given up to save his own. Returning to his affluent American family and fiancee Isobel (Catherine Hicks) he finds that he simply cannot adopt the thin produce-and-consume values of the burgeoning Jazz Age, and so returns to 1920s Paris. After sampling the Moveable Feast, Darrell works as a laborer, living in pensions and devouring anything in print in his exploration of the life of the mind and the malady of the spirit. Eventually, he vanishes into the Orient.
In the interim, the jilted and angry Isobel has married Larry's friend, Gray Maturin (James Keach). Their mutual friend Sophie (Theresa Russell) has also married, in the wake of her unexpected pregnancy.
Their carefully arranged lives collapse suddenly as Isobel and Gray are left penniless after the Crash of '29. They flee to Paris, where they are sheltered by Isobel's wealthy, snobbish, but kindly uncle Elliott Templeton (Denholm Elliott).
Sophie is involved in a terrible auto accident that claims her husband and young son. Consumed with survivor's guilt, finding her values bankrupt, and with no internal compass to guide her, she turns to alcohol, opium and prostitution.
Larry suddenly reappears after a decade spent beyond the Lost Horizon. By chance, he reacquaints himself with Isobel and Gray, and soon after discovers the dissolute Sophie living on the streets. He gently guides her back toward life. As his relationship with Sophie grows, the vengeful Isobel sets out to destroy it.
Excellent performances are given by all the principals. Larry Darrell's character as created by Maugham has often been described as the prototype of the socially alienated seeker. Darrell may well be the inspiration for the Beats and the hippie counterculture of the 1950s and 1960s, but with a difference---he seems to have found a sense of himself, and in the end, grown comfortable in his own skin. Bill Murray does a fine job of showing us Larry's evolution from a spoiled and overindulged young man raised and existing in complacency, to the desperate quester of knowledge in books and unfamiliar places, and then to the quiet everyday yogin in wingtips that he becomes, living in society but not of it.
James Keach, in his limited role as Gray, is the quintessential American optimist. Denholm Elliott is the presumptuous American expatriate who can never quite leave his Midwestern roots behind (and although consumed with appearances, regards Larry with a peculiar respect). Isobel (Catherine Hicks) is a shallow and destructive [...], unable to accept Larry and abide his life, but intolerant and unforgiving of his choices. Theresa Russell (typecast as usual but still one of my favorite actresses) plays the fallen and redeemed Sophie with both gentleness and bemusement, the doppleganger to Larry's singleminded spiritual explorer.
A much finer film than it's limited exposure would indicate, THE RAZOR'S EDGE is not just about a man in search of himself---it is about a world that has not found itself.