Cru Jones Society

Once per quarter, the CJS will dedicate a week to our favorite underrated movies. These are misunderstood masterpieces, poorly distributed or publicized shoulda-been-giants, and movies that have gotten lost in the shuffle over time. Got a movie you think is underrated? Send us an email at staff [at] crujonessociety.com and tell us your underrated favorite. We might write about it, or we might even ask you to pen a guest column for us. Here’s today’s entry.

Release Date: September 26, 1997
Box Office Gross: $27,873,386
Rotten Tomatoes Freshness Rating: 56%
Pertinent Review Line: “At this point we can easily predict the death of the assistant (Harold Perrineau). He’s an African American, and so falls under the BADF action movie rule (“The Brother Always Dies First”). The redeeming factor in this case is that Mamet knows that, and is satirizing the stereotype instead of merely using it. His approach throughout the movie is an amused wink at the conventions he lovingly massages.” – Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

We open our new feature by taking a look at wilderness thriller The Edge. Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin fight a bloodthirsty grizzly bear as they fight for their lives in the unforgiving wilderness. But is there more here than meets the eye? If there weren’t, it probably wouldn’t be underrated, now would it?

The Case for Why It’s Not Underrated

In general, I could not care less about stories of survival in the wilderness. Growing up, I never went camping with my family, think sleeping outside is counter-intuitive to the entire process of human evolution, and have little (read: no) desire to test my limits in the extreme frontier. Given society’s consistent move toward urban centers, I don’t think I’m alone. So in my estimation, this movie’s modest-to-poor box office showing isn’t all that surprising given the subject matter.

Additionally, the work of David Mamet is polarizing. He’s probably best known for writing Glengarry Glen Ross, a movie which I find nearly intolerable. On an artistic level, I appreciate his craftsmanship, but his aggressively masculine characters and dialogue that hits with the force of a dump truck going 60 mph is simply exhausting. Watching a David Mamet movie is akin to getting hit in the face repeatedly by Fedor Emilianenko.

When you put these two elements together, it’s not at all surprising to see this movie fail to touch a wide audience. What is surprising is that the name value of Anthony Hopkins, Alec Baldwin, and Elle MacPherson didn’t push this movie to another level by itself. Admittedly, Baldwin hadn’t yet found the brilliance of Jack Donaghy and sat squarely in the middle of a bunch of crappy pictures like The Getaway, The Shadow, and Mercury Rising, but still.

Most people only sort of remember The Edge, and most of them only remember there being a giant bear that served as the focal point of the plot. What they don’t realize is that while that giant bear gives the movie a good chunk of its excellent action sequences, in between is a damn fine movie that mixes action, drama, suspense, and most surprisingly, comedy.

The Case for Why It Is Underrated

The inherent limitations of this movie’s trailer sell it far short of all the things it has going on in it. Two minutes and 21 seconds is not enough time to properly set up all the twists and turns of The Edge, but damned if this trailer doesn’t try its hardest to shoehorn them all in. So let’s recap shortly: Anthony Hopkins is a bookish billionaire who’s married to a supermodel. He accompanies her on a photo shoot in the remote wilderness with her photographer and suspects something’s going on between them to the point that he believes the photographer is planning to kill him. A freak plane crash strands them all in the middle of nowhere, where they fight to survive while being stalked by a menacing, bloodhungry bear. The trailer ends with Anthony Hopkins ruggedly declaring: “I’m not gonna die. Because today… I’ma gonna kill the mother…”

Looking at that, what stands out more: the adultery/murder angle, or Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin fighting a bear with spears? You remember the bear, hands down. The rest of the stuff just looks like tacked-on contrivance that gets in the way of the movie’s real star: Bart the Bear. And that’s why this movie is so underrated.

The entire cat-and-mouse game between the humans and the bear is supremely executed and rivals any action movie in terms of excitement and sheer thrill. The direction is taut, the bear’s performance is both frightening and oddly charming, and we conclude with a satisfying and well-earned payoff. So it’s surprising to write that the exhilarating bear sequence is like, the fifth best thing about this movie.

One of the most disarming things that happens in The Edge is how often you find yourself laughing. Anthony Hopkins’s deadpan rejoinders to Alec Baldwin’s desperation and hopelessness almost require a double take to realize if he’s messing with Baldwin or not. For instance, shortly after crashing in the lake, Baldwin has a thousand yard stare out into the water and says blankly to Hopkins, “Sure puts things in perspective, doesn’t it? Little different than snorting coke off the girls’ hipbones, y’know?” to which Hopkins replies, “In what way?”

The trailer only alludes to this in the line when Baldwin says, “Well, I couldn’t kill you with Stephen around. I’d have to kill him too, and he’s the only one that knows how I like my coffee.” Moments of levity help us deal with extreme circumstances, and as the plot slowly reveals everything that’s happening with the Baldwin and Hopkins characters as their fight for survival continues, these moments help keep the plot grounded and prevent it from spinning off into farce.

What’s so terrific about The Edge is that it rewards careful viewing. Action sequences provide the obvious cathartic climaxes in the movie, but they serve only as red herrings to what actually happens within these characters. True, our fight for our lives in unforgiving wilderness against a relentless animal will always be most immediately urgent to preserving ourselves, but the emotional, psychological, and relational part of us is what we fight to preserve life for in the first place. To wound the soul is to kill the essence of man, is something this movie examines in great depth. And while the physical battle of man vs. beast feels like the film’s crescendo, the simple discovery of a note inside a knife case provide the film’s greatest punch and ultimate emotional pinnacle.

The Edge disguises itself as an action movie, but has all the subtlety and character development of an intimate play inside a small theater. Mastering subtlety and nuanced character development underneath the specter of an 800 lb. monster is no easy task, and The Edge pulls off the trick neatly. What you’ve got is a movie effortlessly functioning on two levels, and unbelievably succeeding at both of them. It’s both an adrenaline-fueled thrill ride and a tightly constructed character study.

As you’d expect, Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin are both fantastic as two men who constantly size each other up and consistently fail to get the other wrong. However, they’re able to find their perfect notes because their architect has given them a beautiful blueprint from which to work and which to find every nook and cranny of intrigue.

The Edge may look like a movie about two guys fighting a bear, but that’s only half the story. Take another look and you’ll find an even better movie about two guys finding out what kind of animal lurks inside themselves.

That’s an underrated movie.

edagger@crujonessociety.com