MovieChat Forums > The Razor's Edge (1984) Discussion > My brain feels violated after watching t...

My brain feels violated after watching this trash. (spoilers)

posted 15 years ago by Zoomorph
6 replies | jump to latest

The main character goes to war (driving ambulance). He's unsettled by it so he drops out of aristocratic society and reads hundreds of philosophy books. (What a waste of time! It's especially wasted on him because he doesn't say one intelligent line in the entire movie, despite all those books he's supposedly read.) After that he goes to study Buddhism at a secluded romantic monastery the Himalayas. This consists of like 2 shots of him bowing with monks, 1 shot of him burning a book at the top of a mountain, and suddenly he's learned Buddhism, or something, wooOoOooOoOw. (BTW it's a good thing they read/speak english in the secluded monestary that's never seen white people before, also good thing he lucked out in finding the place!)

Strangely all this resulted in pretty much no character development and the movie feels pointless and completely fake thus far. His character is a huge pseudo-spiritual and pseudo-intellectual fraud, and therefore the second half of the movie where he randomly resumes his roll in society is destined for failure. At least it has some dramatic tension as he acts as magical healer and whore savior, eye roll.

Artistically the film wasn't bad, but it's clear whoever created this has no clue what they were on about and it's way out of their league. Intellectually speaking this film is worthless and an insult to viewers.

~ Observe, and act with clarity. ~

[–] perrych2-1 15 years ago

Seriously? OK, so you don't like the movie, I get that, it's not everybody's cup of tea. But it must take great effort to develop such a shallow interpretation of the movie. Larry (Bill Murray) saw things in war that shook him, shook his world view. It left him unable to make sense of the world. The rest of the movie is him trying to reconcile life with his preconceived notions of, for lack of a better word, justice.

Just because it didn't show two hours of "Kung Fu" scenes, one can still readily figure that he spent years of introspection trying to understand, to find enlightenment. When he thinks he has found it, he leaves. His interaction afterwards is not that of super faith healer, but someone trying to account for his own actions earlier in his life by good deeds in the present. He is clearing his conscience with the expectation that there will be some reward. His ultimate determination is that there is no reward. The reward is the life he lived itself.

This is, of course, just my interpretation and I'm sure others would disagree, but then that is the point of a good movie of this genre. The movie requires empathy for the character, the ability to emotionally experience what he is struggling with. It doesn't paint everything out in 40 pt. fonts with a wiki entry for every point it is trying to make. It requires you to interpret it, to ponder it, and to come to your own conclusions. If this is insufficient, then stick with Michael Bay fare, but to say that the director etc., were out of their league, that it is intellectually worthless and an insult to viewers, well, that just reeks of someone who was assigned to watch this movie as part of a High School or College course and picked the Bill Murray flick 'cause they thought they would chuckle their way to a 4.0

[–] MrAwersome 15 years ago

Sounds more like you have a problem with W. Somerset Maugham, as this film was pretty faithful to his original story.

[–] 15 years ago

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[–] beachgirlk 13 years ago

Your analysis and comments remind me of a critique I read years ago from someone who was upset with a film about a woman who moved from the Carribean to the United States. One comment was, "How did she get a passport? Why didn't they show that?"

[–] Bilwick1 11 years ago

I would say that the OP's brain is easily violated.

[–] gerard-21 8 years ago

When I read your comments, I couldn't help but think of a line from another Bill Murray movie, Stripes: LIGHTEN UP FRANCES!