Friday

If I were to tell you Edmond was adapted from a play by David Mamet and stars William H. Macy in an After Hours/Falling Down-type role, you'd probably say, as I did, 'show me the money!' (or 'movie'). However, before seeing it I read a review that said it was terrible, and after seeing it, I have to say I agree. It's pretty awful. Not that I want to put you off it. I do suggest you see it. But it just doesn't work. The dialogue is stilted and unnatural, and most of the cast around Macy aren't good. It's no surprise that this film was made as long ago as 2005, and has been drifting around looking for a release date since then. It feels like a play, like the actors are stuck in the dialogue and want to escape. Nothing flows or is natural. I think the director needed to be braver with the material - tear it apart and start again, as a movie. Perhaps a defence might be that it's supposed to be seen as a modern parable, or allegory, and so it shouldn't feel natural. But I don't feel it working like that either. A lot of the time I wasn't sure if lines were serious or jokes. It seemed a movie about David Mamet, about a middle-class white man's crisis. The issues it raises are old, cliched and now seem simplistic. The ending, though, at least was interesting and certainly not what I was expecting. However, I don't think that's enough to save it from just being a bad movie.