Edmond [Import]

Perhaps the real title of David Mamet's incendiary Edmond should perhaps be, careful what you wish for, or even don't vilify certain minority groups because your actions may come back to haunt you. This edgy and provocative film, featuring a truly spectacular performance by William H. Macy, features the cerebral Mamet at his dramatic best.

Here we have the angst-ridden, misogynistic, racist and homophobic male, so pent-up with hidden fury that he's becomes a walking nightmare. He's a bomb waiting to burst as all the years of "being on top" gradually deflate as he trolls through a nighttime labyrinth of crime-ridden streets, alleyways, and strip clubs in New York, just waiting to explode. (Interestingly the movie was actually filmed in Downtown Los Angeles).

Edmond Burke (Macy) is deeply frustrated with is life and work. Tired of being a white-collar robot, he abruptly tells his wife (Rebecca Pidgeon) that he is going to walk out on their marriage because she no longer interests him sexually or spiritually. He's just been to a tarot card reading and the results are not good - murder, blood, mayhem and prison dominate with the dumbfounded psychic telling him, "You are not where you belong."

In a local bar he meets a fellow white-collar worker (Joe Mantegna) directs Edmond to a gentleman's club where he convinces him that what he probably needs is some sex. And in this scene we get the first glimpse of a man who is living on the edge and is easily swayed.

He visits a strip club, a peep show and a massage parlor, where he visits a variety of gorgeous girls including Denise Richards and Mena Suvari, but he's too tight-fisted to part with any money and leaves in a huff or is physically ousted. Back on the street he's preyed on by African-Americans and then arms himself and lashes out, but violence brings him no peace.

He ends up at the apartment of a kindly waitress (Julia Stiles) where wielding a knife, he unleashes a rant, a foul-mouthed tirade against certain minority groups. She freaks out and he resorts to an action where the damage to his life is irreparably done. Edmond's final odyssey finally takes him from the city to a penitentiary where his prejudices come back to haunt him and where he is forced to face all that drove him into his crazy delusions.

Originally written for the stage in 1982, some of the issues may seem a bit dated by today's standards. The idea of pinstriped respectability meeting the - mostly black - urban nihilistic jungle might come across as a bit perfunctory, and even a bit clichéd. Still, the story with its incendiary language and its merciless portrait of a 47-year-old fractured man who embraces his own worst nightmares of racial and sexual suppression is still totally compelling.

Indeed Edmond is a must-see for fans of Bill Macy, who is truly a master at playing this walking time bomb in mild-mannered camouflage. With his ears sticking out from his washed out, blood drained face, he is indeed truly scary. Edmond might be depressing and provocative and even disgusting, but it's also gritty and honest and worth watching for experiencing one of America's best known serious playwrights working in all his unadulterated and uncensored grandeur. Mike Leonard October 06.

Per Amazon..."A man becomes involved in a twisted game of sex, lies and murder with 3 young women."

Not quite, as there's really no game here. This is basically "Falling Down" on acid... and that's a good thing.

Macy turns in a powerhouse, psychotic performance and Mamet's material is full of unexpected scenes that successfully aim to shock.

Of course the biggest shock of all was that B-horror master, Stuart Gordon, directed it.

Try not to watch the trailer to this movie before you see it and you will be in for a disturbing, original viewing experience.

EDMOND is a dark, dank, mercilessly downer of a film - that just happens to be one of the best pieces of work the very talented William H. Macy has ever done. In a bravura performance he embodies the strange creature created by David Mamet, triumphs in the extended monologues that include hate, racism, homophobia, hopelessness, and fear and serves them up in a near stoic way that allows the viewer to accompany the dissociating man into the depths of hell - but with an absolutely solid ending. It may not be an easy movie to watch, but it is clearly one actor's tour de force that deserves attention.

Edmond (Macy) is a bored, frustrated. angry robot of a worker who happens on a fortune teller who reads his Tarot cards and tells him he is in the wrong place. Edmond, obviously disturbed, goes home, leaves his wife who no longer stimulates him spiritually or sensuously, and begins his Rake's Progress journey through the bowels of the filthy city. He has a bar conversation with an anonymous guy (Joe Montegna) who advises him to go get laid, gives him an address, and disappears. What follows is a series of bad encounters with hookers, peep show dancers, sidewalk con artists, and pimps: Edmond spits out vitriolic racist epithets, is beaten and robbed, pawns his ring, buys a vicious knife, and begins his retribution - a path that includes murder and prison. As he ultimately finds his prison cell the only place of rest he can tolerate, in comes a cellmate (African American of course) and after an abusive start, Edmond shaves his head, gets tattooed and the story closes in a rather tender fashion.

The cast is superb: the vignettes of the characters Edmond encounters include Mena Suvari, Julia Stiles, Bokeem Woodbine, Rebecca Pidgeon, along with other less well known but equally fine actors. Stuart Gordon directs Mamet's play-to-film story with the right amount of bluntness and dark, smarmy street situations. But it is Macy who is uncanny in his ability to carry us along the warped and disintegrating mind of the character who could be any of a number standing next to us in an elevator....A tough film but well worth viewing. Grady Harp, October 06