1997 - THE EDGE, pretty good adventure film

The Edge seems kind of forgotten in the action/adventure film world, it was photographed in Alberta and British Columbia in some spectacular locations.  It has some good actors, Anthony Hopkins, Alec Baldwin, L.Q. Jones and model Elle Macpherson.  Most importantly the writer of The Edge is David Mamet a master of tough guy talk and clever plotting.

The Edge is basically a survival tale with an airplane crashing in the Canadian wilderness leaving a billionaire played by Anthony Hopkins, a fashion photographer played by Alec Baldwin and Baldwin's assistant Harold Perrineau, the survivors of the airplane crash.  As the trio attempts to make their way back to civilization they are pursued by a man eating Kodiak bear. It's sort of Jaws in the woods as it were. The twist in this story is that Hopkins is a bookworm who has never been in the wild but has read so many books he is the best prepared to deal with their situation.

 

Mamet also throws in a subplot of Hopkins figuring out that his wife played by Elle Macpherson is having an affair with Baldwin and that Baldwin may be planning to kill him in order to get his wife and  his money.

 

The performances are at a high level particularly Hopkins as the bookworm.  Mention should be made of the trained bear called Bart.  Bart actually has 21 "acting" credits on his IMDB page ranging from this film to stuff like, The Great Outdoors, 12 Monkeys and Legends of the Fall amongst others.  Bart isn't a Kodiak bear, real Kodiak bears have very long claws and no one in their right minds would be performing with one of them.

The Edge was produced by Art Linson who had a track record of making interesting films.  They weren't always commercial successes but they certainly weren't the usual cookie cutter films that Hollywood likes to make.

The running time is 117 minutes.