Edmond

A misfire of decidedly epic proportions, Edmond follows William H. Macy’s title character as he embarks on an increasingly bizarre and inexplicable journey through New York City’s sleazy underworld. Filmmaker Stuart Gordon, working from a script by David Mamet, delivers a persistently unwatchable and thoroughly interminable narrative that announces its less-than-compelling intentions right from the get-go, as Edmond boasts a theatrical, almost surreal opening stretch that immediately sets the viewer on edge and cultivates an irredeemably arms-length atmosphere – with Mamet’s aggressively stylized dialogue, which possesses none of its usual charm here, exacerbating the movie’s nails-on-a-chalkboard vibe. There’s simply never a point at which Gordon is able to transform Macy’s caricature of a character into a figure worth rooting for and sympathizing with, and it’s clear, as well, that Macy himself proves entirely unable to find the humanity within his decidedly one-dimensional figure (ie Edmond ultimately comes off as a poorly-conceived mouthpiece for Mamet’s absurdly antiquated views and ideas). The incohesive storyline, which ultimately feels like a group of barely-strung-together set pieces, results in a lack of momentum that grows more and more disastrous as time (slowly) progresses, with the film’s third act faring especially poorly given its eye-rolling and tedious emphasis on over-the-top speechifying. It is, in the end, impossible not to wonder what relevance (if any) Edmond once possessed as a stage play, as the film generally comes off as an amateurish, context-free trainwreck devoid of positive attributes – which is a shame, certainly, given the incredibly talented roster of supporting performers assembled by Gordon.

1/2* out of ****