by Andrew Clarke

Published at 11:42, Thursday, 02 October 2008

OCCASIONALLY a film comes along that, even long after the closing credits have finished rolling, you still don’t know exactly what to make of it.

Well that thinking can be applied to the bizarre Edmond, starring William H Macy.

Allow me to explain. The film begins with the straight-laced businessman, Edmond (Macy) who, after visiting a tarot card reader, decides, out of the blue, to leave his wife.

Edmond then spends the evening trawling around the city’s underbelly, lurching from one seedy joint to the next, being conned, robbed and beaten up along the way.

Each nasty experience gradually corrupts Edmond. The naive man who begins by innocently, and quite amusingly, ‘negotiating’ with a hooker, morphs into a snarling, racist killer hell-bent on protecting himself from the ills of the world by any means necessary.

William H Macy, of Fargo fame, gives an excellent performance as Edmond in what is essentially a one-man show. Other minor characters come and go, mainly to bring conflict to Edmond’s life, but it is Macy alone who carries the film. But despite a strong lead performance, there are certain things about the film that don’t ring true.

Yes, numerous events conspire against the character, but would they really lead him to commit such horrific acts and spout the hateful bile that he does?

Plus, the mysterious flashes of the tarot cards are never fully explored or explained. And, as a viewer, you are never really sure how you are supposed to feel towards Macy’s character.

Edmond is certainly not for the faint of heart. The language is vulgar and the violence graphic, all necessary in such a disturbing story perhaps, but still not a film you would watch with your parents.

Overall, not an altogether bad film, just a confusing one. It does boast a captivating lead performance, but doesn’t really know what it wants to say when it comes to the crunch.

Published by http://www.whitehaven-news.co.uk