Movie Review - The Edge

The Edge (1997)

Starring Anthony Hopkins, Alec Baldwin, Harold Perrineau, Elle MacPherson, and Bart the Bear

Directed by Lee Tamahori

***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***

Nowadays, it seems like Anthony Hopkins will do anything for a paycheck (a la DeNiro), but he usually still manages to elevate some of those projects probably simply because a British accent will make anything seem more highbrow than it usually is.  When The Edge was made back in 1997, Hopkins hadn't quite started down that path, however, but this could very well be considered his first venture into the action film genre.  

Unlike typical action films, though (and this is probably due to the script by well-known playwright and newly-turned-Republican David Mamet), this film gains its suspense from the age-old concept of Man vs. Nature.  When Hopkins' rich billionaire mogul Charles Morse gets stranded in the Alaskan wilderness with photographer Robert Green (Alec Baldwin) and his co-worker Stephen (Harold Perrineau of Lost fame), it turns into a "Survival of the Fittest" type showdown, with the three men needing to fight off both the mindgames they throw at one another and the physicality of the huge bear (played by Bart the Bear who gets first billing in the credits) that is hunting them down.

Surprisingly, for a film written by the well-known wordsmith Mamet, it's the action sequences between the men and the bear that work the best.  Director Lee Tamahori creates some true genuine suspense between the men and their beastly attacker.  It's when the men try to one up each other with their words where things begin to get a little bland.  Tamahori and Mamet can't quite find an adequate balance between these two worlds and it causes the film to limp along to its drawn-out conclusion.

That said, the film looks lovely and Hopkins and Baldwin are both quite good, but part of me wanted their back-and-forth repartee to be more biting than it was ever given the chance to be.  The Edge is a decent film, but one that doesn't pack the punch its promising premise could have allowed it to have.

The RyMickey Rating:  C+