The Razor's Edge (1984)
Grade: 52
"The Razor's Edge" is an ambitious and well-intentioned film, but it just isn't very good. The story needs severe tightening, and the script could use improvement as well.
"The Razor's Edge" is based on the W. Somerset Maugham novel. Bill Murray was hot for this project, and agreed to act in "Ghostbusters II" in order to achieve the financing for this film. He plays a wealthy American hedonist who has (apparently out of boredom) volunteered to serve in a Red Cross-style outfit during World War I. He soon learns that war is hell. Murray returns home, then decides to go to France, where he works as a fishpacker, then a coal miner. Now searching for the meaning of life, he travels to the mountains of India. He grows tired of this and returns to France.
While Murray does his globetrotting, his friends back in America suffer financial and personal setbacks. They come to France to spounge off wealthy relation Denholm Elliot. There are two women who want Murray and yet don't want him. Will Bill get the girl? Which one? And will the viewer have lost interest by then?
"The Razor's Edge" is a mess, and the problems begin with the storyline. There may well be two or three good movies here, for example, Murray the World War I soldier, Murray the coal miner, or Murray the seeker of truth. Perhaps even Murray the womanizer. But in attempt to cover the entire novel, the movie loses its focus and becomes episodic.
Theresa Russell plays one of Murray's love interests. She is very pretty, but can she act? Maybe the script is partly to blame, since she is given some dreadful lines.
"The Razor's Edge" also seems confused as to genre. It isn't a comedy, or an action film, or a soap opera. It is a little bit of all three, but mostly a lot of nothing.
kollers@shell.mpsi.net http://members.tripod.com/~Brian_Koller/movies.html
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