Sometimes one wonders if movies are mad only because some producer is able to gather the cash to make it and just have this big dream of casting actors like Anthony Hopkins to some story in an unusual environment for this actor. The Edge is this kind of film, where a mediocre screenplay doesn't get any better at all despite putting Hopkins in the leading role, on the contrary. In this a very predictable story where all the miserable tricks are use to make it mostly embarrassing to watch. The bottom was hit when the only rainy sequence so obviously was shot in a studio with lightning flashes from a bunch of 5000 watts spotlights were supposed to do the trick, that the only thing missing were the really artificial sound effects going along. It is so typical B-movie and shows very much what little know how there was in the crew about weather in Alaska. About the cast - I wonder if Mr. Hopkins didn't wonder why and how the caster Donna Isaacson, together with the producer and director somehow couldn't find anyone better than Alec Baldwin to test his actor's skills against. If I were an actor of his caliber, I surely wood. Baldwin is totally lost in the wilderness, but seen from an artistic angle. Every single of my credits go to Hopkins for trying, L.Q. Jones for making the start a bit thrilling, Harold Pirreneau simply for being the black guy dying early in the story, and above everyone else, best actor Bart the Bear. Worth mentioning is also the late Gordon Tootoosis, who doesn't say anything, but still makes the movie better. Yes. it's a digression, but why wasn't Tootoosis casted for the role as Geronimo, in stead of Wes Studi? The rest of the movie is stuffed with logical errors, unlikely events and bad points. On top of that the music seems like something stolen from a test score to another Indiana Jones film, but found too bombastic even for that. All in all, if this was meant to be realistic, dramatic and exciting, the one's behind the screenplay, together with the producer and director would have been much better off making a documentary about themselves really being lost in the wilderness. It could have been exciting.
Review of The Edge
