The Edge
by Lee Tamahori
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DVD details
Actor: Alec Baldwin, Anthony Hopkins, Bart the Bear, Elle Macpherson, Harold PerrineauDirector: Lee Tamahori
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 117 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2002-06-04
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: 20th Century Fox
DVD Reviews of The Edge
DVD Review: Top-Notch Bear-Acting Saves the Day
Summary: 5 Stars
I may like the untactically-named The Edge for the wrong or right reasons. Be it wrong or right, whatever these reasons are, they have yielded powerful results. This is a movie that has practically dominated me for over ten years now. It scares me still to think of it; it yields such a powerful, personal, emotional impact that I definitely think twice before watching. This may sound misleading, as it implies that the movie as a whole moves me. But it doesn't. As a matter of fact, aside from the main factors that make me like this survival thriller very much, which I shall get to in a moment, the movie feels too 'slow'. It lacks a balance - because the opposite end of that scale is heavy as a set of weights.
What have we here? This certainly unique Lee Tamahori picture, script written by David Mamet, centres around two diverse personalities; multi-millionaire Charles Morse and fashion photographer Robert Green. Charles (Anthony Hopkins) is a rather secluded, awkwardly philosophical tycoon, married to fashion model Mickey (Elle Macpherson), while Robert (Alec Baldwin) is an ambitious while rather short-tempered man who's not all what he seems. The two find themselves in the Alaskan wilderness, staying with a darkly philosophical cabin keeper. When Charles and Robert go with assistant photographer Stephen (Harold Perrineau) to take a session with a local hunter, their plane crashes and they are the only survivors, with nothing to rely on for survival but one another. Charles, being the clear-thinking one, assumes the role of leader, and throughout the film, especially after Stephen dies, his and Robert's personalities clash, climaxing in their ultimate confrontation towards the end of the film.
Interesting as it sounds, this dominating plot element would in my opinion have been more gripping had the pace been fixed. True, one extremely positive aspect about The Edge is the breathtakingly beautiful vista of the Alaskan wilderness, excellently captured by New Zealander Lee Tamahori. Still, it seems he sometimes went overboard with the vista and the result is an overload of scenes where the characters just walk and converse. I like interesting dialogue, but the tension seems to get lost in-between these drawn-out scenes.
So far, not so good, you may deduce. It doesn't sound as though I like this movie at all. Why do I give it a full house? As I said, I like The Edge for personal reasons, and possibly the reasons most people will remember this movie for. Those are the riveting and almost achingly haunting highlights of this movie; the encounters with the bear.
Excellently acted by the already humbling Bart the Bear, late bear actor extraordinaire, an enormous Kodiak bear becomes an ever-present threat to the party of three (and eventually two). The bear, who has a great liking for human flesh (Hollywood logic but all for the benefit of this film), relentlessly pursues them, eventually plunging the main characters into despair and hopelessness, as he is more than a match for all of them. It is thanks to this bear that the movie gets a rush of blood into it.
Even though it may sound like it, this is not the typical animal-attack cliché so many B-movies are made of. None of the bear scenes, extreme though all are, cross the line as overdone. They all feel extremely believable, which makes them really chilling. "Savage" is definitely the word for them, and yet the bear doesn't come across as a mindless killer. His intelligence is heavily underlined, which is important, because without a sense of kinship, no sense of thrill would be aroused. The Kodiak bear's great liking for human flesh is informed to the audience by the cabin keeper before all of this takes place, and is a vital piece of information to lay the foundation for, as well as strengthen the intensity of, the encounters with the bear.
The bear only appears four times during the course of this two-hour flick, and he makes you forgive its drawn-out pace. The first time when he appears, coming across the main characters in the forest and immediately setting his eye on them, his presence is immediately registered upon the viewer. Lee Tamahori has every reason to be proud of Bart the bear, going so far as calling him "the John Wayne of bear actors". Bart comes across astonishingly realistic in the role of the fierce bear. Each shot serves its purpose; the acting, the movements and sounds Bart makes are all perfect. In the shot where the bear roars and attempts to strike Charles with his paw, foaming, I got the first real sense that "Whoah, this bear means business." No bear acting or perhaps animal acting as a whole has been this spot-on, in my opinon.
Despite the often quite brutal scenes, beauty is almost ever present. This is even true for the second of the bear's appearances, which may be one of the most hair-raising pieces of filmmaking I have ever seen. If Lee Tamahori's reputation of being able to capture both beauty and brutality at the same time ever takes off during this film, this is where. The bear attacks the wounded Stephen during a thunderstorm, and despite valiant attempts made by Charles to stop him, the bear succeeds, almost effortlessly, in killing the helpless photographer. The bear is so frighteningly strong and Stephen's sheer terror so believable (Perrineau should have been nominated for an Oscar; I have never seen such terror radiate from a man's face in a film before or since) that I cannot keep my heart from racing during those few minutes the attack lasts before it's all over. Yet, and amazingly, the entire scene is astonishingly beautiful, extremely brutal as it is, so one is left torn over what one should be left feeling.
The bear's surprise re-appearance later couldn't have been more spot-on, in my opinion. The way he just stands and growls at Charles, before taking off after him, is one of those movie moments that will haunt me forever. And then when he appears for the last time, in a deadly confrontation between him and the remaining two survivors, his threatening presence is absolutely perfect.
Where would this movie be without the bear? I don't know; I never bother to watch any other part of it but Bart's scenes. Apart from the bear, the movie is too slow even for my liking, consisting of too much open space and too long stretches of time where nothing happens. Still, because eventually something does happen, and very much so, it can be forgiving. The bear becomes someone you wait for during the entire movie; a villain you root for. Still, despite his villainous role, I for one like him very much. That's typical of especially cartoon villains, who seduce you with their charisma. The bear certainly possesses charisma, no doubt about that. And it is only this charisma, in my opinion, which keeps one from feeling a sense of waste after watching The Edge. If you want to see possibly the best bear acting ever caught on film (Bart should have received an award for it), by all means see this. Just don't except much else.
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