Edmond

If there's one film in the last year that I unexpectedly completely missed, it was this one. William Macy under the direction of horror personality Stuart Gordon and a screenplay from the pen of David Mamet, one of the most respected screenwriters in Hollywood today? An unusual connection...good. I was looking forward to it! And it was like a cold shower. For the first third or so, the film is kept afloat by a likeable politically incorrect approach to some of the characters and by Macy, who’s fun to watch even if he’s reading from the phone book the whole time he’s on screen. Starting with the unbelievable (in a bad way) scene between Edmond and Glenn, I stopped believing everything that happens in the story; the words “unnatural” and “unbelievable” describe it well. Whether it's the development of the main character, individual scenes that would make your toes curl, and most importantly, I haven't heard such screwed-up, unnatural dialogue in a movie in a long time, including the philosophizing of the two convicts at the very end (I really didn't know whether to laugh or cry). A 76-minute cinematic torture, perhaps misunderstood on my part, but in this case I don't regret it. (2007.01.09)

William H. Macy is an excellent character actor and it is a joy to watch him in every role, even in situations where the script does not give him much space or leads him where another actor would get lost. Edmond is a film that stands and falls with his performance because the quality of the script is dubious. The creators tried to do something similar to what movie viewers intimately know from a much more famous drama, Falling Down, to describe the descent into hell of a man who once said he had had enough. However, the script and direction do not reveal much about the causes of the main anti-hero's mental collapse, his actions are essentially nonsensical, and at times, logic is directly violated. The presence of of several well-known actresses in naughty roles of members of the oldest trade can be a positive, but none of them receive significant space, they are only decorations in the film (which is probably good in the case of Denise Richards), and Julia Stiles also appears as a victim. Overall impression: 45%. In some moments, Edmond unintentionally worked as a comedy for me, particularly when the character Burke displayed his marked greed and mercantile distrust in his journey for erotic pleasures. (2009.09.23)