That was an excellent one.

Excellent, a Must See

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Edmond is a film maker's experiment that focuses on dialogue and character at the expense of plot and logic. The themes of societal conformity as well as sex and happiness are explored with varied success and this makes for an overall poor film with some redeeming qualities. This is based off a play of David Mamets', best known for dialogue centered films such as Glengarry Glen Ross, and directed by Stuart Gordon best known for the mediocre Pit and the Pendulum. If a film that is effectively small dialogue filled rants by David Mamet sounds appealing, then this may be your film, but for any casual film watcher this film is a disappointment. William H. Macy plays Edmond a regular 'Joe' who hits a breaking point and journeys on a descent into darkness as he becomes increasingly more sex crazed and violent. Each step is a separate vignette featuring an array of big name actors from Denise Richards to Bai Ling and Bokeem Woodbine, and many lesser known, industry talents such as Jeffery Combs. These actors are sometimes brilliant, but often bad, and rarely are their characters any more than a back drop for William H. Macy. At first I thought the always good Macy was doing a particularly poor job in this film. The character is one of the least likable movie heroes (or anti-heroes) in my memory. He is rude, thoughtless, crass, sexist and racist, and particularly cheap. Some great acting has allowed these characteristics to be likable, but not in Macy's case – Edmond is not endearing or redeemable. However, soon I realized he is actually doing a great job of making Edmond so unlikeable. It is hard to be so despicable. A good comparison would be Michael Douglas in Falling Down. However where we sympathize with Douglas as the world is slowly corrupted around him, Macy is simply a jerk who does not deserve our empathy. We as an audience find it hard to be engaged with Edmond and his fall from sanity is sudden and unrequired. This I am sure is somewhat intentional, but is hard to watch as an audience. The directing is poor, and maybe that is partly the source material, but the loose 'plot' of the movie is severely limited. There are clues and symbols that are left unexplored, and the themes are left unbalanced and unexplored. This movie may be some 3rd year film maker's dream, and may speak to some people who applaud Macy for his acting or Mamet for his brave dialogue, or an array of other actors for their brave performances, but as a film it fails.

Stuart Gordon is known for his Lovecraft adaptions and the terribly violent "King of the Ants". David Mamet is without doubt a great writer, and this movie shows that he is very brilliant. The tagline by a reviewer: "Makes Falling Down look like Bambi" is pretty funny, and also quite true. Unlike Falling Down this movie actually portrays a character, Edmond, which could exist in real life, and we understand what motivates him. It 's, like "King of the Ants", a very disturbing and violent movie. I had to, from time to time, fast forward because I found it too disturbing what might happen next, and I had to see what happened next. There's also some great philosophical dialogue and we can really understand that this character is searching for the meaning of life. This movie is certainly worth seeing and fits in well with movies like "Taxi Driver", "Bad Leutenant", "Death Wish" and "Falling Down" (also a good movie in its own right, didn't mean to downgrade it). Moreover, it is quite a good movie about urban alienation.

After a fortune teller informs middle-aged businessman Edmond (William H. Macy) that he is 'not where he belongs', he leaves his wife and wanders the seedy side of the city to try and discover his true self. As the night progresses, years of social conditioning are slowly stripped away, revealing pent-up anger, resentment and bigotry, leading Edmond on a downward spiral that ends in madness and murder.For much of the time, Stuart Gordon's Edmond is like Joel Schumacher's Falling Down blessed with the dark fairy-tale vibe of After Hours, reason enough to seek out this brave and disturbing film from one of America's best 'unsung' directors. Sadly, this unique atmosphere is not carried through to the final credits: although the night-time scenes leading up to the murder are quite mesmerising, with stylish direction from Gordon, a bravura central performance from Macy, and excellent turns from a talented supporting cast, the film loses momentum towards the end, eventually buckling under the weight of writer David Mamet's awkward philosophising (something which belies the theatrical origins of the work).Still, the complexity of the plot and depth of the characters means that there is plenty to chew over after the film has finished, for those who enjoy that kind of thing: is our destiny pre-ordained; why does Edmond continually haggle over cash (especially when it involves having sex with Denise Richards or Mena Suvari); what is the relevance of the number 115; would you 'get on his body'? (if you've seen the film, you'll know precisely what that means); and is Edmond genuinely content with his lot at the end of the film or has he simply resigned himself to his inescapable fate—to be spooned every night by his cell-mate! Watch and decide.

Edmond 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.