The incredible William Macy gives us a glimpse into real madness in EDMOND, a sort of FALLING DOWN for the new millennium. Macy's life begins to unravel, and he ends up falling into an urban hell where he encounters and sometimes gets rough with, or roughed up by, various seedy characters (this is supposed to be New York, but was shot in Hollywood). Macy is magnificent as this increasingly nutty human being, and nothing any actor has done before can touch it, including Michael Douglas playing a similar role in FALLING DOWN. He is the whole purpose of watching this movie, and the camera stays tight on his anguished face in many shots. Adapted from a play by the great David Mamet, EDMOND is must-viewing by a mature audience. Legendary horror director Stuart (RE-ANIMATOR) Gordon gives EDMOND a bloody touch or two or three, much like fellow horror director Reny Harlin did with DIE HARD 2. Interesting to note: Gordon regular Jeffrey Combs is among the cast, and both Combs and Macy will appear in Gordon's next RE-ANIMATOR sequel. Macy will try pretty much anything, I guess. And he rarely fails. He can go from playing a lovable but aging salesman to a gun-toting villain out to kill the president's daughter. Amazing.
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xredgarnetx8 September 2007
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jaredmobarak2 June 2007We have here a night of debauchery, violence, anger, and hate which could only be delivered by David Mamet's lyrical prose and the horror background of director Stuart Gordon. Think Scorsese's After Hours, but dead serious and shrouded in pitch black darkness. Much like Mamet's Oleanna, also based on his own play, Edmond features a tour de force performance from lead actor and real life friend William H. Macy. His character awakens to the mundane existence he has been a part of for 47 years and decides to go on an adventure to live life in the moment. You have not seen a crisis of identity lead a man to the depths of the hell within himself like you do here.
Gordon shoots the film with a bit of an off-kilter unease, showing the audience how fragile each moment is. At any time Macy's Edmond could fall in lust, partake in bigoted conversation, get mugged, find God, and even kill. Macy delivers an emotional clinic as he falls deeper and deeper into insanity or maybe just plain indifference. He is the star of the show and is on screen every second of the film just trying to give wisdom and take some for himself, not realizing the crazed malice infused in his face as he spouts his philosophy. The film is definitely not for the weak of heart, and not because of any real overdoing of blood and nudity, but because of the script itself. Each character is a racist and bigot of some sort, exposing their prejudices with candor. Edmond is on a journey of acceptance for who he really is. Where that trail ends may be surprising and also fitting at the same time, but if nothing else, it is the place he has been searching for his entire life.
This is definitely Macy, Mamet, and Gordon's film, but it wouldn't be as successful as it is without an abundance of name actors in extremely small roles helping to keep the adventure going. Mamet's wife Rebecca Pidgeon is great as always playing the wife Macy leaves; Mena Suvari and Julia Stiles are believable as two of the women he crosses paths with, both of whom are introduced as one thing but eventually allow their true colors to come through; and Joe Mantegna once again shows that he became an actor only to show the world how Mamet's words should be spoken. No one does it like Mantegna and no film penned by Mamet should be without him.
Edmond is a strangely intriguing film to experience. It is dialogue heavy and contains a strong lead turn from Macy. Everything that transpires does so as a result of what he has experienced beforehand. Macy would not end up where he does if all that happened this night of self-reflection did not occur in exactly the order that it does. Straight from the note his secretary gives him at the beginning, to the tarot reading soon after, the planets aligned and fate led him to his salvation/destruction. There are moments in which the story grinds to a bit of halt and takes a little to get back on track, but overall the experience is one not to be shaken easily from your consciousness. -
oneloveall22 September 2006Interesting, if not altogether captivating slice o' night and consequences of one Edmond Burke; a man who is driven to the edge, and all areas after, following his decision to essentially walk away from everything due to feeling unfulfilled in life. Working from this always relate-able premise, Mamet crafts a more intelligent, more realistic version of last decade's controversial but safe Falling Down, and in turn offers some of the year's best societal release. Problems arise however when the actions slow down and the talking speeds up, where monologues and even back and forth dialogs seem to be coming from the writer's mouth instead of the characters. This all goes south in the second half, where Macy's sermonizing kills some of the script's authenticity and integrity, due to the long-winded, self righteous, and ultimately distracting and uninvolved nature of his lines. For a film that approaches a gritty New York night with style and ease, with a scriptwriter as esteemed and knowledgeable as David Mamet, it was a shame to see some of the later scenes become a pulpit for Mr. Mamet to talk through instead of more subtle suggestion, but it is still far from making this movie avoidable. With some of William H Macy's most powerful work, Edmond is still a triumph of a character based thriller, leaving me satisfied with it's profound conclusion.
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Quinoa198422 October 2009It's tempting to just give all of the credit (or all of the blame, or both) to David Mamet for this adaptation of his play about a regular businessman in a complete downward spiral in one night, Edmond. And why not? He wrote the screenplay, too, and nearly every scene where characters speak, even the ones that seem perfunctory like with the peep-show hooker, screams the voice of the man. And oddly enough, from what I've heard about the play (not seen or read by me) is that it's actually not one of his best, or not at the maturity that one saw in his best bilious and wordy-ranty work like Glengarry Glen Ross. But one must not also forget that it's a Stuart Gordon film too, and it bears some of his signatures as well, whatever those may be.
Perhaps one of those is a harrowing and truly dark view of people, of not just the main character but the supporting players Edmund meets on his journey into a (self-imposed) Dante circle. At the least, to give Gordon his due, it doesn't always come off like a stage play. That is because of its various locations (think Falling Down meets After Hours set in Mamet and Gordons' home turf of Chicago), and its in-and-out characters, and its fine camera-work, that it's not stagey... for at least most of the time. And another thing Gordon is good at, which one finds out surprisingly enough of all places on the DVD documentary for Re-Animator, is getting really good work from actors via rehearsal. For this material, I think you'd have to, if nothing else to get the beats of Mamet right. For what it's worth, Edmund is a well directed film, never fussy and moving at a brisk pace for 82 minutes.
But then why the gripe? Why then should a movie not totally work when it's got William H. Macy almost outdoing the everyman-going-nuts saga of Michael Douglas in Falling Down- possibly Macy going so deliciously but sadly off the edge that his Jerry from Fargo looks well-composed by comparison- and the great scenes he has with walk-on players Julia Stiles and Joe Montegna and (yes, wow) Mena Suvari? Well, sadly, most of this can be put on Mamet, and his tendency to overwrite scenes or, particularly when Edmund is in jail, to keep talking past the point of something being grounded in reality for the character to leap off into rant-mode about the state of fear and death and human existence. Maybe Gordon could be at fault for not cutting it as well, or being so precious with Mamet's words (albeit they're more than likely good theater friends).
Edmund is precisely bleak and scary and a view of people that doesn't sugar-coat things. There's a moment in the scene between Edmund and the waitress he picks up in the bedroom that is quite amazing where we see that she isn't entirely a sympathetic victim and until a certain point in the conversation the two could get along well as bigoted and jaded viewers of society. Maybe that's the point of Mamet's story and the film, that there's some ills in society and people should (or in some cases should definitely not) take a harder look. If only it all gelled together without the pretension and the weak ending. -
deadbull-9517115 July 2021Mamet is such a distinctive writer. His dialogues have a strange stilted repetitive stagey cadence that stand alone. Movies become theatric exercises.
People sound like they are reading off cards.
Macy and Montegna are always there, much like Scorsese uses his troop constantly. These plays are always very earthy and are always about people involved in cons or conning themselves. Yet the earthiness is always twilight-zone off somehow, as though we are in a special zoo designed for humans on a different planet, a theme I have seen covered in several other movies.
The actors are here but they aren't here at all in their heads. The off center ideation and skewed plotlines, enhanced by the stilted dialogues, create this effect.
Edmond is another tone piece. A frustrated man dumps his wife and heads out into the city with nowhere to go, and gets sucked more deeply into a violent nothingness. It concludes with the stated speechy idea that our fears conceal our deepest wishes, what we fear is what we devoutly want, that perhaps animals are the alien godlike guardians sent here to protect us, and before crawling into bed with his prison other-race omni-sexual bunkmate, who threatened to kill him on first meeting, they now exchange a tender goodnight kiss.
This will remind some of you of After Hours, Scorcese's odd 1985 film. Or maybe Rosenfield's Twenty Bucks, based on a film from the 30's I forget the name of.
It's surprising lack of predictability is an asset, and if you are into the Mamet, Macy, Mantegna thing, you've got your cup of tea. Bokeem Woodbine brings an interesting presence to this creation.
I always check out Mamet stuff because I think he's brilliant, a sort of modern Franz Kafka. Glengarry is my favorite. This may be his most derivative movie, but possibly also his strangest. -
nycritic21 November 2006Urban horror or David Mamet's unique vision of New York City from the point of view of one hapless white man named Edmond? I'm not sure, but you have to be rather sorry for this man who is clueless about his surroundings and inexorably marching to his own doom (or bliss, judging by where he winds up). It's as if somehow, some vital piece that would make Edmond a functional part of society had ceased to exist. Edmond (William H. Macy) allows a cryptic number (115) and a reading by a psychic (played by Frances Bay in her usual creepy old lady mode) take over and drive him to suddenly leave his wife (Rebecca Pidgeon), seek enjoyment in gentleman clubs and sleazy peep shows, where he gets conned again and again by the women whom he encounters (Denise Richards, Mena Suvari, and Bai Ling), have increasingly violent encounters with street thugs and finally lose it when a waitress (Julia Stiles) fails to acknowledge his crazy demands. Some of the things that happen to him seem contrived to excessive lengths. Where a rich man like Edmond would penny pinch for ten dollars a hooker owes him, or be unable to negotiate money with another is beyond plausibility, but it happens here like this sort of thing happens on a daily basis to quite a bit of upper crust white men who live in snazzy penthouse apartments in Manhattan. Harder to imagine is why Julia Stiles would on the spur of the moment agree to leave her job and bring this clearly crazy man to her apartment and fail to see just how deeply insane he is. Even if he had looked like Daniel Craig, I can't see this man being a believable character one second. David Mamet is obviously a great playwright but this is a very dated play that belongs in a New York closer to the late Seventies where it wouldn't be out of place. And even then, the joke is squarely aimed at poor Edmond -- he can't have a normal relationship with a woman. The only relationship he acquiesces to is that with another man (Bokeem Woodbine) -- a black inmate, for that matter, as an irony of ironies (since for the most of EDMOND he's been attacking blacks and gays alike). That the last scene has reduced both men to frills and sewing and discussing karma and why we are here and what does all this mean is the final emasculating thing that could happen to any man, but this is exactly what happens in EDMOND. Happy ending? I'd say David Mamet must have read something from Jean Genet and decided to take the most indirect approach to the subject.
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squaradox26 November 2006I don't know the first thing about David Mamet or his other work. However, I will say that this movie adaptation of his play Edmond sure -felt- like a play. A bad one. There's a lot of speaking but no actual dialogue or screenplay -- just a whole lot of nauseating, overwrought existential musing. There's no plot, only a series of totally unbelievable events engineered to force the theme of destiny down our already gagging throats.
The play that this movie is based off of seems to be some kind of awkward twist on the Oedipus tale. Edmond is doomed to an unknown fate he avoids only on subconscious levels. The problem is, while Oedipus is a real character with real feelings, Edmond is a forced construct. The movie gives us no story, no relationships, only Edmond, and he isn't even a real man! He doesn't develop in any understandable way. Throughout the movie, he cycles exclusively between four vagaries of thought: horniness, generalized people-angst, generalized rage, and wordy revelations on existence.
Edmond is a difficult character to identify with, to say the least. His pseudo-tragic heroic story doesn't speak to me because frankly, I can't understand him at all. What in the hell does he want? First he's out cruising for prostitutes, then he beats up a black man, then he picks up and kills a girl, then he's ready to testify at a black community church? When pressed for explanations, Edmond stammers out a clumsy anti-religious rant and follows it up with, you guessed it, more ramblings on people and the courses that life can take. Please, Mamet, give me something, anything to explain just what is going on in this man's head. Anything more than these random displays of empty emotion that are impossible to identify with and that show me nothing about Edmond, myself, or the world. He's angry because people won't listen? Could it be that he's NOT SAYING ANYTHING?? Edmond does happen upon a mild insight late in the game, that fear might be another form of desire. But yet again his diatribe is so cluttered with randomness that I fail to see the point. What does he mean, he finally feels "safe" in prison? His character seems to change completely at every given moment, defying all logic and all attempts to understand him. His interactions with others are confrontational at wildly varying intensities with seemingly little impetus. His drives and impulses are so arbitrary that by the movie's end, I'm not inclined to believe a thing he says. I can't sympathize with Edmond's story or learn anything from it when he is so clearly detached from normal humanity, and when there isn't even a decent story to latch onto.
William H. Macy seemed to be doing the he best could with the "character" he was given to perform. His effort to create Edmond didn't make up for Mamet's lack, but I suppose it does earn the film an extra star, especially for Macy fans. He even manages to give Edmond some life during an amusingly uncomfortable striptease scene. Or maybe I only enjoyed it for the boobies.
Had there at least been a plot behind Edmond's journey, this play-movie might have been moderately interesting. As it is, the movie is a baffling, incoherent disaster. There is no focus, no real climax, no suspense and practically no resolution. There is tension, but mostly of the "When is this going to go somewhere?!!" kind. I don't even understand what the main conflict was. The worst part is, Mamet attempts to make a theme out of this absolute nothingness. The destiny idea is deployed with a strange and distasteful dichotomy of heavy-handedness and haphazard ambiguity. From what I can see, Edmond could not have possibly learned anything from his incongruous experiences, except maybe not to be so freaking impulsive. Yet Mamet attempts vainly, through Edmond's incomprehensible outbursts and meaningless exchanges, to convince us that Edmond has learned a great deal. Mamet does a lot of telling, but no showing, and ends up saying nothing at all. -
shaaronie20 December 2006This movie makes most people uncomfortable. It's not an easy movie to watch. Its like watching a gruesome accident but not being able to stop. Edmond is a middle age man going through a crisis. His life is meaningless and boring but he is content to plod along until a series of chance encounters leads him to the decision that he must leave his life, including his wife behind. Having hidden his true nature all of his life, he suddenly releases his pent up frustrations and in doing so, takes himself down a path, not of redemption but one of degradation. He is searching for something or someone to fill a void in his life and with his new purpose of self, he becomes in fact dangerous. The transformation of Edmond from mild mannered and dutiful citizen to an angry, rebellious zealot is fascinating. I immediately went out to buy this movie after purchasing it from Redbox. I am not surprised that this movie was never released widespread. It would surely have caused a huge ruckus in our politically correct society. I know I am being vague. But if you want to watch a movie that is totally different from the standard fare, then see this movie. The big surprise at the end is the actor Bokine Woodbine, who plays a significant but very small role, that puts a fitting end to this thoroughly entertaining, disturbing and engrossing movie. William H. Macy, is superb, and who knew that he actually has a great body for a man his age.
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lastliberal26 May 2007It may be presumptuous to say that this is similar to the great film Crash, but it deals with the same themes of prejudice and intolerance.
Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator, Body Snatchers) takes a David Maumet (Ronin, Wag the Dog) play and has a stellar cast led by William H. Macy, to give us a look at a man who loses control in a world that he is not familiar with. The consequences are disastrous, but funny, especially the end of the film.
It also stars Denise Richards, Bai Ling (Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith), Debi Mazar (Ugly Betty), and Mena Suvari. It is Bokeem Woodbine's role as Macy's cell mate that has a role you will not forget. -
mockturtle17 July 2006Written in Chicago, set in New York, filmed in LA; written in the early 80's about a man seemingly out of the 1950's and now set in the present day. You'd think the director of "Reanimator" would be ideal for this Frankenstein but instead it's all abby-normal parts that aren't alive.
There are few surprises: Macy simmers, Mantegna is a better actor of Mamet than he is of anything else, Julia Stiles and Denise Richards can't act at all, Bai Ling is gloriously crazy, Rebecca Pigeon wouldn't have a career if she wasn't married to David Mamet (sorry, but it's true), Dule Hill isn't tough, George Wendt looks funny when you put him in a funny wig and give him an accent. There are cheesy slo-mo's, lame jump cuts, 80's music in the background, toughs out of central casting, three-card Monte (!), wide variances in price for proffered services, references to West 79th Street and 14th street while exteriors read "Western Avenue" in Los Angeles, the strip of souvenir shops around Hollywood Boulevard near Little Armenia and an exterior of the Seventh Veil strip club on Sunset near La Brea (also seen in the credit sequence of "Entourage"), and then the number of the escort service is an 847, meaning the north suburbs of Chicago (too far away for it to have been even in the original play, 773 is at least 15 minutes by car, 847 is a long winding 30-45). Perhaps the movie should have been moved back to the 50's where Edmond's utter cluelessness about three-card Monte and ATM machines might be believable, or back where sex was treated like the shocking taboo it is here, or back where casual racism wouldn't have been commented upon, here it is all too much and breaks under the strain of its own incredibility. In a New York where dinner at a restaurant with a bottle of wine runs $100, the prices in this movie are ludicrously low.
The film's climax and nadir are concurrent: the scene between Julia Stiles and Macy. In a rare miscalculation Macy is too manic to be charismatic throughout, overplaying his hand (you see people do this when they're playing Jerry in "The Zoo Story" a lot, they shuffle on drooling and Peter would be out of there before the play had a chance to start). The actress is a complete cipher, so you don't get a feeling that she is mistaking his mania for liberation, and it makes her feel free to declare her own prejudices; she doesn't seem thrilled by the release from convention in his fictional account of the murder of a would-be mugger, instead she just feels dull and screwed-up, we never feel any exhilaration or excitement from her, she manages to croak the equivalent of "wow, that's cool." She gets through both scenes without making a single choice. The sudden "American Psycho" POV of him bearing down on her is jarring in the wrong way, and subverted by Stile's aimless overacting. Have I mentioned she's an awful actress? How many chances do these people get? Don't get me wrong, William H. Macy is a wonderful actor, but I hope he doesn't win anything for this one. There isn't enough to the character and to be honest it isn't his best performance.
Some of the points of the play still hold up, like how nobody really listens to each other, making Edmond's "Remember that somebody listened" pretty hilarious. Perhaps the main problem is that the suspension of disbelief you get in the theatre you do not get in a film. In a film incongruity sinks the whole ship. Maybe that Edmond was so entirely from another planet was believable in the early 80's when the Reagan ship was setting sail, but in this day and age where you're as likely to meet a Marxist in the boardroom as at a street protest it just doesn't work. "Falling Down" made this work obsolete. -
At first glance, horror meister Stuart Gordon would not seem the obvious choice to direct an emotional psycho-drama cinematic rendering of a David Mamet play, yet with Edmond, he displays a deft touch for the material and allows the actors to carry the day.
Originally penned as a stage play, Edmond tells the story of namesake Edmond Burke (William H. Macy), a mundane white collar worker who has spent his entire life being a faceless cog in the big industrial machine. The rescheduling of a business appointment to 1:15 (a number which re-occurs in the film) propels him to idle away his time with a visit to a tarot reader who tells him he's not where he's supposed to be. From there he begins a slow spiral into depravity and insanity that begins with telling his wife he's leaving her and progresses to an outback-like dreamwalk into New York City's seedy underbelly of bars pimps and prostitutes.
Written in the wake of a divorce, Mamet infuses the script with racial discourse and epithets that are stunning in their caustic vulgarity as Edmond pours out years of pent up hatred on one of his muggers revealing a window into his shallow soul that only becomes more intensely evident as the movie reaches its conclusion.
In the scene where Edmond tells his wife their marriage is over, he explains to her that she hasn't satisfied him spiritually or emotionally for quite some time. Yet, after watching his progression trough the course of the story, it becomes clear that spiritually he has no soul, and emotionally he's a shallow but volatile cauldron of disjointed thoughts.
The film is a tour-de-force for Macy, who is in every scene and morphs from a character of Caspar Milquetoast proportions to unhinged bigoted psychopath and back again by the movie's end. Along the way he's complimented by solid performances from Joe Mantegna, Julia Stiles, Mena Suvari and Bokeem Woodbine. As if in a wink and nudge to his own work, Gordon even manages to insinuate longtime stalwart Jeffrey Combs into a small but telling scene during Edmond's descent into insanity.
By the time Edmond arrives at the end of that journey, however; at that place where he ought to be; I couldn't help but think he had merely wasted his life catching up to where his soul was long ago. -
MyGoodWish16 December 2006In all honesty! This movie made me physically and mentally ill. Macy the milquetoast-Meister will rise above this bulls**t and do better things because = There Is No Downhill From Here.
The stingy whore mongering character of this queasy repetitive storyline was unbelievably moronic. I can't believe people still make these low grade depressing pieces of worthless garbage.
I foolishly watched this whole movie.
Where's ACCEPTED when you need it??
All of these talented people luring you into believing something worthwhile is coming---I don't know who's the bigger sucker the paying audience or the people who put their names on this filth.
When I find my spiritual self (who's now hiding from me in a recovery house)I'm gonna hunt this Mamet fella down and kick him in the ding dong!
Clean and jerk this ugly movie to the trash. -
Screenwriter David Mamet, in adapting his stage play, takes us on a deliberately discomfiting journey along with a character who is both easy to understand, in one sense, and impossible to completely sympathize with. That makes this appropriate cinematic material for the late, celebrated cult filmmaker Stuart Gordon, who sometimes told stories where the sense of morals could be skewed. With the balance of the film taking place mostly during one long night, it ends up asking some serious questions of all of us and the world in general. What DOES it all mean?
William H. Macy is exceptionally good in the lead role. Edmond Burke leads a dull nine-to-five life, working in an office building. One night after work, he decides to visit a fortune teller (Frances Bay) who simply tells him "you are not where you belong". That night, he makes the fateful decision to turn his back on his wife (Rebecca Pidgeon, a.k.a. Mrs. David Mamet) and his life, and wanders the seedy underbelly of the city. In the process, he becomes both victim and victimizer. And yet, as time goes on, he actually begins to be more content with how things have unfolded.
A steady parade of familiar faces turn up, some of them quite briefly. Standouts are an appealing Julia Stiles as a waitress / actress, and a typically fine Joe Mantegna as a stranger in a bar. But make no mistake: this is Macy's film, and he really takes the bull by the horns here. Edmond is determined to "let it all out" for the first time in his life, and the character is obviously going to be a major bone of contention for some viewers. Admittedly, it can be difficult following the progress of this kind of person when they can be prone to say and do vile things. But Macy makes this man compelling, and believable. (He was also in good shape for a man of his age.)
If you're a fan of Macy, Mamet, or Gordon (and are particularly interested in checking out Gordons' non-horror work), then check this one out. You'll find that it's an experience not easily forgotten.
Seven out of 10. -
denis88816 October 2006I am deeply sorry for all those who went crazy about this overrated, weak, shallow, pretentious and pointless film. Why, why was it made, in the first place? For me, a Russian man, who was raised on deep philosophical novels of Tolstoy or Dostoyevski, or on deep films by Wajda or Kurosawa, this film is a very surface try. We do not really see any real background for the displeasure of the main hero. Why was he not on his place? Why did he leave his wife? It all is so naive and skeletal, that the whole film loses its sense and direction. Then, why all those nervous banters with the putanes and the pimps? Is the man that incredibly silly that he has no idea what to do and how to peep, or to pay or whatever? And all those cameos of Denise Richards, Mena Suvari and others are just hilariously senseless. The murder scene is also so unconvincing that I started to think that the film director played fools with us all. And the prison part of the film - all those endless, pointless, dull and sticky monologues... What is the point? Wheere is the basis for all this? I saw only a shallow semi-baked poorly made thriller of a very low rating. I am sorry. Maybe, I am much too smart and too demanding. But films should have some moral, after all. This one has one - it shouldn't be shot after all.
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lost-in-limbo9 September 2009Ugly, decaying and rough, but a thoughtful psychological observation of a lonely man loosing control in a personal quest where the cards go on to tell the story in this independently made, stuffy-dark thriller. I see this get labeled as black blackest of dark humor. I don't know about that, as sure it really does pick on our main protagonist and turn his once well respected life upside down (chewed up and spat out) in one night, simply longing for a change with some truth to it than the boring one his living now. Never did I find anything remotely humorous, but more so it had me cringing and that's where I feel director Stuart Gordon and writer David Mamet were aiming. Should we be looking for something we don't understand, or should we be happy with what we got. Should we fear of what will become of those desirable dreams and inner feelings when lived out? David Mamet's philosophical screenplay is experimentally exhaustive in its personal exploration by ramming down a verbose range of dialogues and largely mind-thoughts that's perfectly handled by William H. Macy's torn-down performance (starting off in a deaden state to only erupt with reflective energy) beams shades of Jekyll and Hyde. It's quite an interesting performance, but this whole angle becomes less convincing, where he begins to question life's many hurdles began to grate (with its boundless ramblings) and the forced conclusion only cements that we only ended up with more questions than when we first started. Looking for something, but in the end still not quite sure in what. Gordon's somberly starch direction is illustratively atmospheric capturing the ominously lurid and harsh urban backdrop of New York City with the guidance of the camera venturing through the seedy dark streets of the night. What occurs on the nocturnal journey is impulsive, startling and unforeseeable with many edgily morbid strokes by Gordon namely the violence. Bobby Johnston's emotionally tuneful jazz score and Denis Maloney's subjective photography add a lot to its intimate style. The cast features some fine additional support (Rebecca Pidgeon) and in bit parts, but important to the story's progression is Joe Mantegna, Frances Bay, Julia Stiles, Mena Suvari (looking stunning then ever), Denise Richards, George Wendt and Bail Ling.
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deloudelouvain7 December 2019It's always nice to watch William H. Macy act even though his character is almost the same as in Fargo. William H. Macy is the main character Edmond, a guy fed up with the attitude of others, that gets spiralled in a journey of bickering and violence. You could compare it a bit like Falling Down but that movie was just much better. I don't say Edmond is a bad movie, it's worth a watch, but to me there are just too much moments with endless pointless conversations, especially towards the end. The violence might make some people uncomfortable but to me it didn't, those were actually the best parts of the story.
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gavin694213 April 2010Edmond Burke (William H. Macy) has grown frustrated with his life, and after a visit to a tarot reader, he has decided to start a new life. And that new life is going to start with some sexual fantasy and a bit of violence... where will it go?
While I have no interest in talking poorly about writer David Mamet, this film is much like "Falling Down" with Michael Douglas, another white-collar man who goes through a mental break. Sadly, the difference is in style: this film is more artistic, and "Falling Down" is more gripping. Where Douglas can be fierce and menacing, Macy can only come off as nervous... even his most violent moments do not have the emotional sincerity that Douglas exudes.
Anyone who wants to rent this should be warned in advance, the back cover of the DVD is riddled with lies. It claims to "star" Mena Suvari, Denise Richards and Julia Stiles. That is a lie, as only Stiles has a scene of more than three minutes. You could just as easily say George Wendt or Jeffrey Combs star. The box also claims this is "a first rate mystery", but there is no mystery to be found in this film. None.
Likewise, the film is a bit hard to categorize... it's something of a violent drama. Hollywood Video called it horror, and the box calls it a thriller. The thrills are minimal (this is a slow-paced film) and it is not horror in any traditional sense. Stuart Gordon is a great director and a very nice man, but fans should be aware that this falls more in line with "King of the Ants" or "Stuck" than it does with any of his more well-known horror masterpieces.
I will not discuss the philosophical aspects. Edmond believes that "every fear hides a wish", and he has constructed an interesting racial theory. The viewer can take these however they like, I do not know if there is an overarching meaning behind any of it... I found they fleshed out Edmond's character but had little value beyond the film itself. The deleted scenes, a mere six minutes, add a bit of intrigue and should probably have remained, especially with the film running only 82 minutes.
Stuart Gordon or David Mamet fans should see this one. It's not going to blow you away, and beyond little thrills like a Jeffrey Combs cameo and some semi-nudity from Julia Stiles, it is not the most memorable. But Gordon's career is best understood in its complete vision, and this is outside the scope of his better-known work. -
moonbeam_138 August 2007I am a William H. Macy fan, and I must sadly admit that I felt this was his worst performance so far. The cover of the box claims that this movie is "a heart-pounding thriller". I did not find this movie to be the least bit thrilling. In fact, I found it to be fairly predictable.
It also says that it is a "first rate mystery with a shocking end that will blow you away". I would never classify this movie as a mystery, much less first rate. The only thing that shocked me about the ending was how anticlimactic it was.
I do not recommend watching this movie unless you have some strange desire to kill 82 minutes seeing a fairly pointless film. -
samseescinema21 December 2005Edmond
reviewed by Sam Osborn
rating: 3.5 out of 4
Edmond is a hardboiled, sharp-edged, loud-mouthed catharsis. Pure, unabashed emotion spilled onto the screen. It's daring, provocative, and beautifully offensive. It's as if screenwriter David Mamet vomited the words onto the pages, expulsing them from his heart and guts in a gushing release.
Many wonder why Mamet himself, being a highly respected rated-R filmmaker, didn't direct his own work. Edmond's director, Stuart Gordon, stated that it was because the film would probably strike too close to home for him. Mamet wrote the screenplay immediately after breaking up with his wife in New York City. The actions seen in Edmond are clearly the manifestations of the rush of emotions he felt at that time in his life. But as all skilled writers do, he expands the personal experience into a universal experience. The extreme feelings he releases are felt by every member of the audience open-minded enough to see past their vulgarity. Many people deal with the same controversial thoughts as Edmond does (racism, bigotry, homophobia, chauvinism), but are too timid to voice them. Like Chuck Palaniuk's Fight Club, Edmond explores a kind of masculine catharsis. And like Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver, his repression eventually leads to explosive violence.
The film begins with Edmond Burke's (William H. Macy) split with his wife. Getting up from bed he announces he's leaving. Not just for the night, but for good. At first not taking the news seriously, Edmond's wife plays along as if it was a joke. But Edmond insists that, yes, he's really leaving her for good. Exploding, his wife bounces around the room in a shocked rage, announcing that, no, he's not leaving her, but she's leaving him. And he's not welcome to come home. Of course, that's fine with Edmond because, in his words, he's been bored with his wife for a few years now.
He then begins his night on the streets of New York City, first meeting with a man at a bar (Joe Mantegna), who essentially has the lifestyle Edmond's looking to lead: something with girls, power, and money, and he supposes that's all. And so upon leaving the bar, Edmond sets out to settle the first part of his new life: girls. Prowling the night clubs, strip joints, and "masseuse" parlors, Edmond takes a businessman's approach to it, negotiating each financial commitment to the women.
From there, it'd be unfair to reveal Edmond's moves. It's too little to call it a downward spiral, a description that reminds me of something you'd see on the Lifetime Channel. No, Edmond's night leads to much larger happenings; some problematic and some eye-opening. But with each step he takes, there's a twinkle of imagination going off in the back of our minds saying, "do you think the film will actually make him do that?" And unlike other films that, no, wouldn't take their character that far into oblivion, Stuart Gordon seems to have no problem doing so. Each step is exponentially farther than the last, leading somewhere that we initially don't expect, but later realize to be entirely right and satisfying.
Along with the screenplay and directing, some incredibly daring acting work is featured in Edmond. William H. Macy, as we've come to expect, steals the show. Instead of relying solely on his sad-dog face he's so irritatingly known for, Macy takes this performance through a dizzying range of emotions. Julia Stiles makes an appearance in one of the finest and most shocking performances in the film. Also, Joe Mantegna as the man in the bar does well as the pivotal spark to Edmond's catharsis. Every actor actually deserves mention for daring to work on this highly controversial film. That also goes for the producers. Stuart Gordon said before the screening that "one of the biggest laughs in the film is when the credit for all the production companies comes up." The list is so long it really does evoke laughter. -
azathothpwiggins30 March 2022Edmond Burke (William H. Macy) is out of place in his own existence. He's a typical drone in a typical corporate hive. One day, he simply walks away from everything: His job, his marriage, everything.
Edmond takes a trip through the inner city, in an attempt to find something, anything -meaning? Direction?- to make him feel. Even a little excitement might help.
What's fascinating is not what Edmond runs into "out there", but what pours out of his own soul. Edmond unleashes his inner prejudices and insanity. He's a small, insignificant man in an enormous, hostile world, using bigotry and hatred in order to make himself seem larger.
Edmond wanders from one misadventure to the next, never receiving any real satisfaction or insight. We are taken along while Edmond takes his life-long frustrations out on both the deserving and the undeserving.
This is the ultimate mid-life crisis. Edmond releases the ugly, pent-up beast that's been hiding behind his forced respectability. He sees this as finally being unchained, but it only leads to his desolation and final confinement.
Director Stuart Gordon is an interesting choice to helm this film. After all, it's a Mamet screenplay, and Gordon is known for grisly horror movies. However, he certainly outdoes himself here, creating a thoroughly unsettling study of a man in total decline. We get to follow Edmond all the way down.
Compared with similarly themed films, EDMOND stands somewhere between Schumaker's FALLING DOWN and Noe's I STAND ALONE on the audacious shock meter. It definitely leans more toward the latter... -
JFrEaken30 October 2006David Mamet's writing demands things from you and of you, as an actor or a viewer. It is extremely specific, and if the wrong actor is given the material, or the wrong director for that matter, things can end very badly. Such is sadly often the case in "Edmond" one of my Mamet's best, darkest and funniest plays, but one of the worst adaptations to film. Perhaps it doesn't translate as well as some of his other things. Even still. Stuart Gordon, director of "Dagon" and "Space Truckers" may not have been the ideal choice. It appeared as though there had been no rehearsal process for the film, which is very likely, given the nature of the production, as is my assumption that there was little to know text analysis, character discussion, etc. And with material this dense and textured, that's like shooting yourself in the foot. Scenes that contained dozens of different arcs went nowhere. Macy's monologue about killing the pimp, one of the best speeches ever given to any actor, was almost totally lifeless. You could easily tell who'd done their homework, and who hadn't. Joe Mantegna's scene was pitch perfect (he's a Mamet regular, so it's no wonder), Bokeem Woodbine was mostly solid, and the scene with Bai Ling also worked pretty well. Mamet incorporates many natural vocalizations, there are often loads of one word lines-- "Yes." "Okay." "Uh-huh."-- but if many of the actors-- Julia Stiles, I'm looking right at you-- don't DO something with the line, it becomes stilted. That's why Mamet isn't done more often, it's difficult! For a crash course in how to do Mamet brilliantly, watch Glengarry Glen Ross. Then watch "Edmond," if for no other reason than that the story is interesting, and the themes are still clear. You'll see the difference.
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rocknrico24 July 2006I saw the high rating, read a couple of reviews and decided to spend my time watching this movie.
Needless to say, I feel compelled to warn other people that this film is so overrated and has so many 'what the heck?' moments that you walk out completely baffled.
Predictable - Could the fortune teller draw any more cards with swords? Illogical - What's with the nickle-and-diming for sex? Especially in NY! Plain stupid - I doubt a good looking girl will try to hold a 'the meaning of life' conversation with a guy she just met holding a knife. Nonsense - For someone other than a tourist to fall for Three-card Monte is plain ridiculous.
No doubt that Macy is always excellent and any screen time with Julia Stiles is a bonus, but this movie is just too far fetched.
Save yourself some time and money and avoid this movie. If you want a bunch of psychobabble and a predictable storyline then go ahead and watch this movie. -
lynchallands14 October 2006This movie is similar to "Falling Down" in its plot, and "Crash' in the way it deals with lives spinning our of control because of racism and other intolerance, but I thought it was far more believable and had a more satisfying end than both. I have watched "Edmond" three times over the last two days (it only goes for 74 minutes) and I was very happy to have hired the DVD rather than to have seen it at the Cinema as I was able to go back and watch the scenes that did not sink in as profoundly the first time round. The first time I watched it alone and found I missed a lot of important dialog and imagery that was crucial to the story because I was thinking about the previous scene...so when the end hit me, I found my head was spinning and I couldn't believe what I was seeing and thought I must have missed something. Wasn't this man a homophobic, racist, bigoted, atheist?...So i watched it again and saw that I had (my fault not the films)in fact missed some crucial but minute facts. So, the second time I was able to fully get my teeth into it and because I knew the outcome I could concentrate on the brilliant, realistic performances of the actors and direction without thinking about what had just happened or worrying about what would happen next. No one could fail to notice the extreme brilliance of William Macy. I knew he was an amazing actor but I think this is better than some of the best academy winning performances that I have ever seen and I cant believe it was overlooked by the academy! Also Julia Stiles performance was fascinating...Even though Stiles role is only short it is the turning point of the film. Macy goes from a mild mannered, suburban business man, in what he feels is suddenly a monotonous, loveless, one sided marriage, living a very white, middle-classed existence to a manic, explosive, violent, bigoted, homophobic, 'grass must be greener on the other side', racist before you know whats hit you. Even when he smiles it is in the most inappropriate places. Also, watching Stiles the second time I realized that she wasn't just a silly, wanna be actress trying to be cool and politically incorrect, but a person who was deeply struggling with the fact that the stranger she has stupidly and casually brought home with her may well end her life...So, what does she do? Go against him or agree with him? Does she say what he wants to hear or stay true to herself? You will not be able to take you eyes of the rawness and brutality of this scene for one second. The third time I watched it with my husband, who was as blown away with it as I was, but I found myself pointing out stuff to him so he wouldn't have to watch it twice to get it as I did...although, I realized everyone gets something different out of a film, so I was wrong to do so, and so I wont do that here either or it may spoil your own experience. Watch this film with an open mind. I know this parallel, seedy, underbelly of life does exist, so far removed from my sheltered, secure, tolerant, safe world, made up of the downtrodden, abused, rejected, masses who don't know how else to act as they have never known love, safety or security (and sadly, probably never will). As well as the actors performances themselves, I take my hat off to the brilliant direction and music of this wonderful film adaption of an equally wonderful play. It is like a book you cant put down...you just have to watch it to the end without distraction. I believe these are the roles actors wait for all of their lives and will happily do for nothing.
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Bunuel197622 October 2006Playing like a more philosophical version of FALLING DOWN (1993) but done on a more intimate scale, this character drama resolves itself into a series of interesting vignettes where a good cast is allowed to leave its mark: David Mamet (who wrote the script, based on his own play) regular Joe Mantegna and a surprising amount of female roles (including, as is his fashion, one for Mamet's wife Rebecca Pidgeon) - with the most impressive, perhaps, being Mena Suvari (as a high-class hooker) and Julia Stiles (as an aspiring actress doubling as a waitress). But, of course, it's William H. Macy's show all the way and he delivers a terrific performance - vulnerable and generally perplexed, yet capable of incredible and unexpected violent outbursts (even the subway scene, in which he verbally lashes out at a black woman who is unwilling to engage in a conversation with him, is priceless). Mamet deals with Fate and how it shapes someone's future in spite of oneself - as the motif of number 115 proves; still, the film's suggestion that Macy's character ultimately finds contentedness behind bars as a homosexual is baffling and somewhat alienating! All things considered, however, a good film - surprisingly but well handled by gore-meister Gordon - focused on telling its story vividly (the sleazy L.A. nightlife, which I saw a bit of while in Hollywood late last year{!}, providing an overpowering backdrop), concisely and, occasionally, with great power. The jazzy score is quite nice, too.
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Most writers wish more than anything that they could develop their own distinctive voice, like famed playwright David Mamet has done. The problem with people recognizing the way you say things, though, is that it makes it really damn obvious when you've got nothing to say. Edmond is an empty, meandering, quizzical and fairly self-involved bit of blather. If this script didn't have Mamet's name on it, it likely would never have been produced and certainly wouldn't have attracted such a talented cast.
Based on a stage play, this movie follows the journey of upper middle class New Yorker Edmond (William H. Macy) as he decides to leave his wife and sets out across the city to get himself laid. He humorously haggles over price with several strippers and whores, bangs a pretty young waitress, gets beaten up by some streetside hustlers, beats the ass of a deceitful pimp, commits a senseless murder and alternately rages and pontificates about predestination, social graces and the racial and societal preoccupations of upper middle class New Yorkers.
The first observation to make about this film is that Edmond and the waitress he picks up for a one night stand are the only characters to have actual names. Everyone else goes unnamed during the movie and is listed in the credits as "Matron", "B-Girl", "Whore", "Interrogator", etc. It's my experience that when characters in a story don't have real names, it's usually a sign of either lazy writing or affectation. Either way, it's a bad sign and indicates what you're watching or reading is excessively contrived. That's true of Edmond, where unreal people say and do unreal things. They're never living their lives, only playing parts and mouthing dialog that isn't nearly as clever as Mamet believes and isn't at all insightful or thought-provoking.
When you look deeper into this movie, you discover that there's no reason for anything that happens in it. Why does Edmond leave his wife? Why is he bitter and frustrated? Why is he so cheap when it comes to paying for sex? Why does he commit murder? There's no explanation for any of it other than "just because". Now, Mamet may have been attempting to make the randomness of human behavior the point of his story. That purpose still wouldn't make it interesting or entertaining.
One of the jumble of things this film throws against the wall is white racism. It's nothing more than William H. Macy and Joe Mantegna spouting off bigotry both malevolent and condescending, only to see Edmond wind up seeking salvation from the late-night services of a black Baptist congregation. Again, Mamet may have been trying to say something about the clueless racial pretensions of white folk, but that intent doesn't produce anything meaningful or revealing.
If you've ever watched good Mamet before, it'll be easy to recognize this as bad Mamet. Edmond has the same rhythms, tone and verbal ticks and habits being applied to an idea that doesn't go anywhere because it has nowhere to go. It's a bit like listening to a great singer belt out an awful song. Imagine Celine Dion doing a rendition of some nonsense rap song about women's butt cheeks. It would only be enjoyable as parody or satire, which this movie clearly isn't trying or intended to be.
Edmond is blessedly short at just over 80 minutes long. That's still 80+ minutes that would be better spent doing something besides watching this film.