Edmond Burke (William H. Macy) is out of place in his own existence. He's a typical drone in a typical corporate hive. One day, he simply walks away from everything: His job, his marriage, everything.
Edmond takes a trip through the inner city, in an attempt to find something, anything -meaning? Direction?- to make him feel. Even a little excitement might help.
What's fascinating is not what Edmond runs into "out there", but what pours out of his own soul. Edmond unleashes his inner prejudices and insanity. He's a small, insignificant man in an enormous, hostile world, using bigotry and hatred in order to make himself seem larger.
Edmond wanders from one misadventure to the next, never receiving any real satisfaction or insight. We are taken along while Edmond takes his life-long frustrations out on both the deserving and the undeserving.
This is the ultimate mid-life crisis. Edmond releases the ugly, pent-up beast that's been hiding behind his forced respectability. He sees this as finally being unchained, but it only leads to his desolation and final confinement.
Director Stuart Gordon is an interesting choice to helm this film. After all, it's a Mamet screenplay, and Gordon is known for grisly horror movies. However, he certainly outdoes himself here, creating a thoroughly unsettling study of a man in total decline. We get to follow Edmond all the way down.
Compared with similarly themed films, EDMOND stands somewhere between Schumaker's FALLING DOWN and Noe's I STAND ALONE on the audacious shock meter. It definitely leans more toward the latter...
Edmond takes a trip through the inner city, in an attempt to find something, anything -meaning? Direction?- to make him feel. Even a little excitement might help.
What's fascinating is not what Edmond runs into "out there", but what pours out of his own soul. Edmond unleashes his inner prejudices and insanity. He's a small, insignificant man in an enormous, hostile world, using bigotry and hatred in order to make himself seem larger.
Edmond wanders from one misadventure to the next, never receiving any real satisfaction or insight. We are taken along while Edmond takes his life-long frustrations out on both the deserving and the undeserving.
This is the ultimate mid-life crisis. Edmond releases the ugly, pent-up beast that's been hiding behind his forced respectability. He sees this as finally being unchained, but it only leads to his desolation and final confinement.
Director Stuart Gordon is an interesting choice to helm this film. After all, it's a Mamet screenplay, and Gordon is known for grisly horror movies. However, he certainly outdoes himself here, creating a thoroughly unsettling study of a man in total decline. We get to follow Edmond all the way down.
Compared with similarly themed films, EDMOND stands somewhere between Schumaker's FALLING DOWN and Noe's I STAND ALONE on the audacious shock meter. It definitely leans more toward the latter...