The Edge

Directed by Lee Tamahori, The Edge follows Anthony Hopkins’ Charles Morse and Alec Baldwin’s Bob Green as they’re forced to put aside their considerable differences after they find themselves stranded in the wilds of Alaska. Filmmaker Tamahori, working from David Mamet’s script, delivers a slightly overlong yet consistently engrossing thriller that benefits substantially from its performances, as both Hopkins and Baldwin effectively transform their familiar characters into wholeheartedly compelling figures that grow more and more interesting as time progresses – with the palpable chemistry between the two men certainly heightening the impact of their top-notch efforts. (And it doesn’t hurt, surely, that Mamet has peppered his screenplay with predictably memorable conversations and chunks of dialogue.) The bulk of The Edge‘s midsection is devoted to Charles and Bob’s efforts at surviving within the exceedingly harsh terrain, and there’s little doubt that some of these sequences suffer from a rather hit-and-miss quality that’s compounded by Tamahori’s lackadaisical approach to the material. It helps, undoubtedly, that the filmmaker does a superb job of punctuating the narrative with impressively spellbinding interludes and set pieces, while the picture’s third act, which focuses on the rivalry between Hopkins and Baldwin’s respective protagonists, contains a far more propulsive and spellbinding feel than one might’ve necessarily anticipated (or predicted) – which confirms The Edge‘s place as a mostly engaging endeavor that undoubtedly belongs within the pantheon of first-class survival movies.

*** out of ****