THE EDGE 1997
A film review by Timothy Voon
Copyright 1998 Timothy Voon
1 :-) for the big, bad bear
Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Alec Baldwin, Harold Perrineau, Elle Macpherson. Screenplay: David Mamet. Director: Lee Tamahori.
How many billionaires (Anthony Hopkins) in their late fifties are well read and able to survive the winter wild and man-eating bears? Not many, but let's put aside unlikelihoods to focus on what this movie has to offer. It teaches us not to put our trust in young, pretty wives who are super models (Elle Mcpherson) or to rely too heavily on their photographers (Alec Baldwin). When your death is everybody else's gain, nobody can be trusted and the cliché term poor little rich billionaire comes to mind.
This movie should just focus on men pooling their resources together to survive the wilderness, leaving out the melodramatics of attempted murder and betrayal. The plot is initially engrossing, but becomes hard to swallow when one man becomes an excessively, forgiving hero and the other a literal dying swan. Find me a humane billionaire and I'll gladly donate five dollars to the Mother Theresa Foundation, find me one who doesn't have a lawyer as a ‘best friend' and I'll donate ten. One would have thought that life threatening experiences such as a bear hunt would create sufficient male bonding to resolve most differences, but apparently not so. If Helen was enough to cause the fall of Troy and Eve the fall of man, then perhaps Elle is sufficient to make a man think with his dick instead of his head.
By far the best actor is the bear. These big, mangy beasts are too often disguised as soft cuddly toys which children take to sleep. This is most uncharacteristic of them (soft, cuddly) and the question of beds should never have arisen with Goldilocks in their jaws. Anyone who tells their child otherwise is being dishonest. It is this fascinating creature that makes this story exciting. The rest of the cast is merely supportive. Anthony Hopkins skilfully portrays an intellectual, resourceful billionaire who is unusually compassionate, and Alec Baldwin injects hilarity into the situation when he starts crying; but this is truly the tale of the big, bad bear.
Timothy Voon e-mail: stirling@netlink.com.au http://us.imdb.com/M/reviews_by?Tim+Voon
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