Edge (2015 TV Movie) User Reviews

Satisfyingly bloody action in a pilot western

[Leofwine_draca · 6/10 · 9 November 2015]

I saw this on Amazon Prime under the title EDGE THE LONER. It's the pilot episode of a would-be western TV series, directed by Shane Black and with a decidedly adult edge: this episode is chock-full of highly stylised combat and bloody battles, with fingers being blown off and bloody squib hits throughout. It makes a refreshing change to the usual sanitised stuff we see on TV.

The predictable storyline (about one man's revenge) is the worst thing about this show. However, it makes up for that with Black's strong direction and the well-choreographed nature of the frequent action. The final shoot-out is particularly well handled and enjoyable to watch. Cast-wise, Max Martini (PACIFIC RIM) has little chance to show charisma as the lead, but there are dependables like William Sadler and Ryan Kwanten playing the baddies, so it's not all bad. If this test pilot does get picked up for a full series it has plenty of potential for greatness.

First of many i hope.

[orientsteve-575-574882 · 7/10 · 7 November 2015]

I must begin by first of all saying that I am a western fan and a huge fan of the "Edge" book series by George G Gilman. I have been hoping to see this character in movies for years and was shocked and ecstatic when i saw it on Amazon. Whilst some of the plot and characters unfortunately deviated somewhat needlessly from the books it was still an exciting ride through the old west of "Josiah C Hedges". The acting and direction were first rate and the on screen action gritty and bloody. Quite how a previous reviewer can put it down in comparison to Hell on Wheels and call it almost unwatchable is beyond me. I can only assume he as not watched very many westerns at all. Don't get me wrong i do not dislike Hell on Wheels but i often find it plodding and slow. If you like your westerns and you like the style of the "Good Bad and Ugly" then you should enjoy "Edge" Please do not be put off by the previous negative reviewer and give this Title a chance to grow and flourish as a Series.

They spent the money...

[mtthwvrnr · 6/10 · 25 February 2018]

Why not make it available? Why would you waste the efforts of the crew? Is it because you care more about profits and less about art? Come on imdb/amazon, at least let me ask a faq... tease.

IMDb is lost

[DoomerBoomer2 · 6/10 · 21 February 2017]

The message boards are gone. The community is lost. I just wanted to comment about the damn dog, but now the only way to do that is by leaving a review. That was the one gripe I had. A dog wouldn't do that with the dynamite. I know that was your idea, Dekker! Did anyone else feel the same? Please respond by writing a review since the message boards are gone.

Entertaining western

[andrew_jakobs · 7/10 · 20 May 2019]

I just came acros this title and I needed to fill up an hour or so, so I watched it. It's a decent tv western, especially considering it's a comicbook adaption.

I liked it very much, the characters are standard from what you expect from a production like this, and the action is excellent, with a lot of gore.

It's a completed episode with an open ending. And I think it's a shame that it wasn't picked up for a complete series (especially seeing the crap that was picked up).

I still hope they'll make a miniseries out of it with a bigger budget (I didn't really like the videolook) with the rest of the story.

Borderline Unwatchable

[JoeManko · 1/10 · 6 November 2015]

It made HELL ON WHEELS look like UNFORGIVEN. It was free and I fast-forwarded through half of it, but it was still a deeply depressing experience as a western fan. To say this wasn't up to Shane Black's usual quality standards would be the understatement of the year. It was like a terrible NAKED GUN-style comedy spoof of a western they would have made in the 80s... But if it didn't realize it was a comedy.

So, uh.... What exactly were they going for here?

It wasn't even remotely close to being gritty enough to work as a real-world western (obviously!). It was goofy and silly, but not clever or funny, so it didn't work as a spoof of the genre. The OTT action wasn't cool or OTT ENOUGH to work on an insane-fun John Woo level. And it didn't seem to realize how deeply terrible it was, so it failed to even capitalize on working on a "so intentionally bad it's fun" level.

So... A super-goofy-and-silly, yet oddly straight-faced-and-unfunny OTT western action show with sub-par action, terrible acting, and amateur cinematography? WHO WAS THIS MADE FOR?!! Certainly not any variety of western fan.

Plus, a Shane Black movie without a single line of good dialogue? I thought I'd never see the day....

What a wasted opportunity.

Don't mind the first review...

[ssarkca · 8/10 · 29 November 2015]

This was a really good raw, nasty, and detailed idea of how the west really was. It is very gritty. I was moved by it's rawness. The characters were very believable. The gore was top notch. I don't understand why some reviewers gave it low ratings. If you like straight up nasty real life westerns, this is it. Watch it and judge for yourself. Easily an 8 outta 10. Im a a serious movie buff and wouldn't lie to you. It's a good old fashioned revenge western. Very well directed and amazing cast. I really hated the bad guys passionately. Got some good plot twists in there too. At times, can't tell who is good and who is bad. Watch it! But this ain't for the faint hearted. Some brutal scenes, nudity, lotsa gore, racism, cursing, etc. Like I said, 8 outta 10. Awesome movie.

You lost me at "Missouri" with California landscape

[handy314 · 3/10 · 11 November 2015]

I love westerns, even as shmaltzy as John Ford got, I still loved 'em. And I can even find things to like in the post-mod fun houses that Tarentino puts out.

But this show is barely watchable unless you watch it PIP with "Blazing Saddles" at the same time. The violence is at times innovative but often gratuitous and just vulgar, the female characters are undeveloped, and could we please just put away the strong silent protag with a mysterious past. Toshiro Mifune did it best which is why Leone stole it, but put it in a jar labelled "Eastwood" and forget it.

As with many modern westerns I wonder how they get made. The meeting scene near the end where landowners are getting orally served during the meeting, I think I get a clue what happened to fund this film.

Worst of all, I can't believe Shane Black and not his pre-teen grandson wrote this script. Bad bad puns, unnecessary dialogue, tedious villains. Cmon, Shane.

Was this a community service project to make up for parking tickets?

Paperback classic character brought to life

[Radish4ever · 10/10 · 24 November 2015]

I have always been a huge fan of the George G Gilman paperback westerns from the 80's.I have collected many of them over the years. I never thought that their would be a movie based on the stories, and directed by the great Shane Black. The film totally does justice and its full of shootouts, action and revenge - just like the books. The plot is simple - Josephia Hegdge's (Edge) brother is murdered by the son of a powerful man and 'Edge' rides into town to settle the score.

A true western icon finally given a live action movie. Great performances from everyone. A total of 61 books in total were printed plus 3 spin off's where he teamed up with Adam Steele (another George G Gilman character - perhaps he might get a movie too?) and some later Kindle stories. A massive thank you to the film makers from a true fan.

A really bad comic book

[zhombre · 1/10 · 9 November 2015]

I've seen a lot of Westerns; grew up on them, and watched the genre evolve over the years from John Ford to Sam Peckinpah and Clint Eastwood and to the postmodern revisionist dreck that now clutters the Hollywood production schedules. The Wild Bunch remains one of my favorite movies. In brief: Edge sucks. Monumental suckdom. Simple as that. Some interesting actors, sure: Max Martini, Bill Sadler, and Yvonne Strahovski though Ryan Kwanten and Beau Knapp are juvenile and subpar, worse than the worse spaghetti Western bit players. But on the whole this movie is violent, vile,senseless, and absurd with awful dialog and a hackneyed plot twist at the end (which I won't reveal and which I advise you not to wait to see). Skip it.

No One of Shane Black's Best

[arfdawg-1 · 4/10 · 12 November 2018]

I'm a fan of Shane Black but the writing in this one is a big mis-step. No wonder why it wasnt picked up for a series

Is what it is intended to be.

[huskarls · 8/10 · 8 May 2019]

This was a great pilot. Tons of action, story was good and you really just want this guy to accomplish his goal.

I have been waiting since 2015, hoping that this would be a series. To my demise, Amazon has decided not to play it.

DAMN SHAME. This series could have brought some real attention to the dying Western series.

It is not good..but not even bad enough to be enjoyable

[pburkej · 3/10 · 8 November 2015]

It amazes me how genuinely bad this show is. The characters are a random assembly of tired clichés; the bad guy who is actually good, the good guy who is actually bad, the fortunate son, the token "magic negro" black character. The plot is entirely predictable and trite. A retelling of a well-worn revenge tale, with the one "obscure item" every character is looking for story tacked on for good measure. The action is over the top cartoonish, but attempts to be gritty by showing occasional random body parts falling bloody to the floor.. The acting is pretty bad, with Max Martini technique seemingly based around having a gravelly voice and squinting. However with such one dimensional characters it is hard to blame the actors too much. The only good thing I can say is the pacing is quick. It throws the story at you fast enough that if you don't bother thinking at all you will miss the plot holes, poorly thought out characters, and just dumb story.

Maybe some of this is a deliberate choice, a knowing attempt to create a tongue and cheek look at the genre, told in an implausible manner, but trying for a fun tale not to be taken too seriously. However it comes off as a genuine attempt, with little self awareness.

Grim and gratuitously violent western

[stephen-lambe · 5/10 · 9 November 2015]

I am rather partial to a Western, and this one actually has a bit of promise to it. It's action packed, has some good dialogue and some convincing performances.Ryan Kwanten is particularly good.

But, by golly it's probably the most gratuitously violent programme I've ever seen on TV, and I've seen plenty of violent stuff. Also, very few of the characters are remotely sympathetic - when you feel most sorry for a dog and a horse, then there's something wrong.

So, Shane Black and Co may need to modify this one for a full series. I'm unlikely to watch it unless it tones down the series and makes its main character more sympathetic.

Gritty, Nihilist, Garish & Clever

[Miles-10 · 5/10 · 15 November 2015]

Although somewhat reminiscent of "Hell on Wheels", this Western is a little different. The man called Edge is the kind of anti-hero-on-a-mission-of-revenge who can callously kill someone and then make a good (sometimes) joke about it. He never seems to be scared of anything, as if he figures he should have died long ago and is living on borrowed time, but living to the fullest. The Sheriff tells him, "You are evil but you got principles. I like that." The Sheriff (played by great character actor William Sadler) is evil himself, so he should know.

As bloody as the first half is, the second half of this hour-plus pilot is several times bloodier. "Gratuitously" comes to mind. The only innocent character, Benny, for example, did not deserve to die, but he does. Also, the "Epilogue" goes way over the top, set at a private men's club in St. Louis, Missouri where two prostitutes--at least one if not both male--are openly fellating two club members (not even in a back room).

Up until the final, nihilistic carnage and garishly decadent epilogue, I liked the gritty appearance of rundown farms, rundown towns and rundown people. I also liked that the women's hairstyles approximate 19th century styles more or less. (In so many Westerns, the women have unmistakably 20th century hair.)

The banter between Edge and others is funny although sometimes corny. Edge says to the Sheriff something like, "If your yapping ever comes close to making a point, wake me up." Or better--and this is approximate, too--he says to the saloon girl, "I just started my job, and I get paid $2.50 a day". She says, "I charge $5, so I'll see you tomorrow". Or even punnier, he says, "The Bible says a man turned to salt". She replies, "He should have turned to liquor, that's the cure". At the end she asks him if he has seen the "gilt box" (the story has a maguffin as well as revenge). He replies, "I've seen plenty of guilt" (pun intended) "but I haven't seen your box"--crude double entendre intended.

Amazon makes these pilot episodes and you can never tell at this point which one will become a regular series. For example, their much better series "The Man in the High Castle" was shown as a pilot over a year ago, and finally, this month, there is more than one episode with more to come in less than a week. So the jury may be out on "Edge" for a long time or a short time. It depends, allegedly, on how many viewers give Amazon positive feedback.

So-so ultra violent western

[cos2377 · 3/10 · 7 November 2015]

There were some positive things about this pilot. It has some of the elements of the classic spaghetti westerns I love, like the nameless gunslinger walking riding into the run down old west town and facing off with the corrupt sheriff and the mission to get revenge for the death of a beloved family member. On paper, this sounded like a great show. Unfortunately, it did not live up to my expectations. It was filled with outlandish, pulpy violence, which is not necessarily a problem, but it seemed out of sync with rest of the show. Too many fingers, toes and heads flew unchecked from various gunshot victims and it just felt silly. The biggest problem I had was the amount of collateral damage for which our protagonist was directly responsible. Granted, he is an anti-hero, but he doesn't seem to have any moral code and seems willing to kill or betray any number of innocent bystanders. They may not all be "innocent", but surely not all deserving of a gruesome death. Even an anti-hero needs to be likable in some way, so that the audience actually wants to root for him. If the villains were not such horrible people, I'd probably be rooting against Edge. If it is picked up to series, I would probably give it one more shot, but I'm not holding out hope.