Edmund

Now ordinarily, I'm not a fan of any movie that makes me think too hard, but once in a while I turn on the old grey matter and make and exception and anytime I see that David Mamet has written the movie, I know that I need to eat a little brain food before I watch the movie! Well, that's the case with the new Stuart Gordon movie, Edmund.



William H. Macy plays Edmund, a normal guy who just walks into a fortune-tellers parlor one Friday and is told 'You're not where you belong.'. For some reason, this sets him off, he leaves his wife, begins roaming the seedier parts of the city and eventually 'finds himself'. The problem is that when Edmund finds himself, he may have actually lost his mind! While compelling and great viewing, Edmund is decidedly harsh. Everything from racism to sexism is tackled in this movie, as if to make the viewer ask, is racism a form of mental disease?

With a cast of memorable faces in relatively small roles, aside from Macy, Edmund had me waiting for something to happen, since these are faces that I recognized, I never expected them to be in one scene only, but Edmund made me wait and wait and wait...and then it ended! Now, I'm no intellectual, and I don't pretend to be, but neither am I some kind of moron and I found Edmund compelling but confusing. Alot of the 'intellectual' banter that Edmund spouts when he's pontificating...which is alot of the time...is confusing and not all that interesting.

Stuart Gordon and his cast turn in a great movie, I believe the weak link here is the writing, I had the feeling that the story was leading somewhere and it never really did, even to the eventual ending...which is very strange! I'm giving Edmund two out of four cigars,

because I while I love Mr. Gordon and the cast, I had the feeling that this was being made up as we went along and we just ended the movie in a provocative way for the sake of being provocative! So, until next time, when I'll begin using large words in an attempt to make my self appear to be cerebrally superior, remember that the best movies are bad movies!