| | Awkward tale of the rapid downward spiral of a racist white middle-management everyman, played by William H. Macy, from a play and screenplay by David Mamet.
Macy carries the picture as far as he can, his stilted delivery the perfect vehicle for Mamet's painfully "realistic" dialogue (Macy's most frequent line is probably "Yes...yes").
The other potential saving grace was a number of cameos by well-known actors, including Joe Mangegna, Denise Richards, Mena Suvari, and Julia Stiles.
The problem is that Mamet's perhaps intentionally awkward dialogue and situations would require truly ingenious directing to capture in a compelling fashion, and that didn't happen here. Director Stuart Gordon, best known as a director of horror movies, doesn't really pull off the intense psychological drama that's supposed to be going through Edmond's (is that spelled so as to be reminiscent of the French "monde"--"world"?) head. Instead what we get is a sad descent into debauchery and slasher crime, a descent that we can't really sympathise with or enjoy.
I'm not even particularly sure that there's much worthwhile depth written into Macy's character. He makes some attempts and introspection and extro-spection (:p) at the end, including ramblings on how dogs might be aliens sent to observe us, and we've humiliated ourselves by treating them poorly. It's true that his racist and homophobic feelings are dealt with, in a sense, but the treatment comes off as stereotypical, and brutal.
While parts of Edmond's reasons for falling from grace may be understandable--his feeling that he's been un-manned by the role into which he's fallen in modern society--his resulting behavior is ultimately inexcusable, and after a while his awkwardness is not very fun to watch. In the end he's just a weak character ground down by the system, and the attempt made to show him at some kind of peace at the end is not very convincing--but by that time we've long since ceased to care about him, anyway. |
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