Hafa Adai! It's little ol' Island Boy Manuel again with another movie review. Tonight I watched Edge of Winter starring Spiderman and Rick Flagg (or at least the actors playing them). So was it good? Bad? Maybe a little of both? Let's bust out the winter jackets and the stocking caps and settle in for Edge of Winter, Directed by Rob Conelly and starring Joel Kinnaman and Tom Holland.
Ever watch a movie that goes from painstakingly slow to WTF just happened territory at breakneck speed? That's the feeling I had watching Edge of Winter. The film is insanely slow to start...it seems to be on the cusp of that slow burn that establishes mood and attaches us to the characters but it never quite makes it. Don't get me wrong the actors do a fine job with the material but the film does little to endear them to us.
We ought to root on some level for a father pushed beyond his limits, but Kinnaman is hardly likeable as Elliot. He spends the bulk of the movie in a strange sort of confused daze, one minute he is masterfully crying and acting like a real father then out of nowhere he flips out and is a violent psycho. The turn isn't handled in a realistic way the film simply asks us to concede that he's crazy now.
Tom Holland and Percy Hynes-White seem to be a perfect example of one actor phoning it in while the other is giving it his all. Holland is simply doing his job, say the lines and emote a little (daydream about the upcoming Marvel paycheck), while Percy is giving his all to deliver powerful emotions. Unfortunately, Tom Hollands character, Bradley, is annoyingly prudish. Throwing hissyfits and glaring. Hynes-White is a pro at crying on cue...which he does alot...alot alot, but his character caleb is fairly one dimensional and neither one has much of an arc.
There are two ancillary characters that show up at the end of the second act that speak french for some reason...and don't serve any purpose except to add two more scenes of Kinnaman freaking out because bang he's psycho now.
All in all I can't recommend Edge of Winter. I think Joel Kinnaman and Percy Hynes-White deliver tremendous performances but are left with bad material to work with...it's like getting a famous designer to make your wedding dress but they need to use construction paper.
Anyway, let me mknow what you thought of Edge of Winter...or as I like to call it before they were stars (slumming it in canada edition).