Shane Black does the Old West.
By Matt Fowler
Amazon’s Fall 2015 “Pilot Season” is underway in the US, UK, and Germany. The way it works is that those with Prime memberships can stream a handful of new pilots for free, and the ones that wind up getting the best audience feedback have a chance of getting a first season pick up. Past pilots that have been picked up for series include Transparent, Bosch, The Man in the High Castle, Red Oaks, Sneaky Pete, and Mad Dogs. You can check out the current Pilot Season episodes here.
Are you kidding me with Edge? From 80s action movie overachiever Shane Black (Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Iron Man 3) and his longtime friend and colleague, Frank Dekker (The Monster Squad, RoboCop 3)?
I have a feeling that the bloody, unabashedly pulp-y Edge will come face to face with a lot of upturned noses in the critic department as most Westerns, especially post-Unforgiven, have gone the arthouse VOD route. And I love a lot of those. I’m a fan of the genre either/or. Whether I’m watching a poetic mediation on violence (The Proposition, Slow West, etc) or a well-made Tinseltown shoot ’em up (Tombstone), or Sergio Leone spaghetti classics, and so on and so forth.
Edge is a fun, unapologetic very-80s action story that’s more reminiscent of Sam Raimi’s stylized, comic book-y The Quick and the Dead than other cowboy fare. Although, there is also smidgen of the exploitation cinema elements that Tarantino’s brought to the tumbleweed table. It’s a simple revenge tale with a giant, brooding badass as the lead (Max Martini). A brooding, dirty drifter out to find his brother’s killers. Martini’s Edge (a mispronunciation of Josiah Hedges) is a more-chatty version of Eastwood’s “The Man with No Name,” evoking a growling voice reminiscent of WWE’s The Undertaker. With hair and hulking physique to match. After a quick prelude detailing the set-up tragedy, Edge arrives in the small Kansas town of “Hate,” run by Sheriff “Big Bill” Seward (an extremely watchable William Sadler).
Max Martini and Yvonne Strahovski in Edge.
And in case you were wondering if “Big Bill” was an homage to Unforgiven’s “Little Bill” – there’s actually a “Little Bill.” It’s the Sheriff’s son. And the man Edge has come looking for. It isn’t long before Edge gets mixed up with a scheming wife (Alicja Bachleda), rumors of a fortune in buried gold, and a prostitute who may not be what she seems (Yvonne Strahovski). It’s all somewhat familiar and casually outrageous, but it’s also the best example of a TV show trying to bring back the “Schwarzenegger/Stallone movies of yesteryear” vibe. More than a few TV shows have tried to resurrect “80s action” (Human Target, The Player, etc) but this is the one that captures it.
And yes, it’s also very bloody. Anyone looking for deeper meaning in the bloodshed though will be toiling away at a fool’s errand. This is a show where you’ll see toes explode off a guy’s foot because, bottom line, that’s the aesthetic. You’re going to see digits soar. Edge will not be for everyone. Discerning audiences have grown weary of crassness and there is an antiquated quality to the chaos on display here. But for some, Edge will be an enjoyable reminder of cheese from decades past.
What’s the long game plan for Edge, you might ask? If it gets picked up to series? Well, despite all the third act carnage, the true target of Edge’s vengeance is the title character’s old Union Cavalry buddy and privileged senator’s son, Harknett (True Blood’s Ryan Kwanten). And, as if he were a Bond villain, the over-the-top epilogue spotlights Harknett’s plan. With Kwanten himself delightfully chewing up the scenery like a terrier.
On the “seeking awards/acclaim” front, Edge is pretty much the exact opposite of Amazon’s Transparent. It’s brash, thoughtless, and clumsy, but that’s the point. It’s also a hell of a lot of fun.
