Bullet Points: Edge of Fear
People are afraid of lots of things. You name it, spiders, snakes, the rain, toasters, even talking to people. Fear is a really silly thing if you think about it. Why should I be afraid of little things like bugs when I’ll most likely die from cancer or a horrible car crash? That’s why after I almost died a couple of times I decided that I wouldn’t let fear run my life. To hell with fear and all of its edges!
Synopsis: After being stabbed in the heart by ruthless home invaders, a man is left for dead. Now weak, outnumbered, and with a knife sticking from his chest, he attempts to do the impossible: save his wife from these murderers before he bleeds to death.
- To live and die in China: Rockmond Dunbar is an American businessman named Mike Dwyer who finds himself in the emergency room about to die. He quickly starts macking on Dr. Laura Chen (Zhu Zhu) as soon as he see her. Minutes later, his heart is stopping on the operating table and Dr. Patrick Chen (Shin Lin) is saving his skin. Like a true mack, Dwyer wakes up and immediately continues his attempts toward Laura. Always be closing…
- C’mon Gary!: We fast forward a little while and a bus full of prisoners is getting detoured through a questionable area. Prison guards don’t make loads of money so it’s no surprise that Gary the guard has sold out his friends for the cold hard cash made possible by prisoner Victor Novak (Robert Knepper) and his team led by Robert Patrick. In case you didn’t know, Gary also learns that trusting bad guys like Novak and Robert Patrick’s Jack Pryor is a bad idea.
- Mi casa es su casa: It turns out that once deceased Mike Dwyer is super wealthy and his two new friends Laura and Patrick Chen are hanging out with him in his hunting cabin. They’re hunting, drinking wine, and generally just having a good time until Robert Patrick and his goons appear out of the woods to “use the phone”. Patrick Chen and his good-hearted, naïve nature lets them into the house and it backfires big time. Almost immediately, Jack Pryor and his bad guys start the shooting and the stabbing and eventually Laura is the only non-bad guy who isn’t bleeding somewhere.
- A series of unfortunate deaths: No action thriller is complete without a little death. The action isn’t what Edge of Fear will be remembered for. In fact, the action in the film brings it down in my book. Having the hero of the film be a doctor and not some spec ops guy will tell you the degree at which he is going to be fighting. Patrick is also slowly bleeding to death throughout the movie so don’t expect him to all of a sudden learn how to defeat a group of hardened criminals through sheer combat.
- Doctoring skills: Instead of going all John McClane on everyone, Patrick instead has to use the tool that the Lord gave him. He has to live long enough to save his wife, of course, so his first mission is to not die himself. Then it becomes more about trying to pick the bad guys off one by one without having a bunch of weapons at his disposal.
- Bad guys, bad killers: Robert Patrick’s character has been paid to bust Knepper out and transport him down to Mexico. Part of that job he does really well. Sadly for them, they run into a few obstacles along the way. Killing people comes easy to the men but they’re just not very good at it. Patrick is all talk and most that is contrary to what his mission is. Knepper’s Victor Novak, while a bad man in his own right, isn’t the kind of man who takes joy in what is done to Mike Dwyer and the Chen’s.
- Robert Patrick and his misfit henchmen: There are enough noticeable faces to keep an interest in the bad guy crew but the dynamic between the hero and the villains isn’t the type that will allow any of the baddies to put out a classic performance. Fear is a wonderful motivation and I’m not willing to say that any of these guys strike fear into anyone. Maybe that’s why the title is “Edge of Fear”?
The Verdict: Edge of Fear wasn’t exactly my favorite movie of all time. It really felt like an action version of Mr. Bean or something. Shen Lin was fine as the doctor who was thrown into a wild situation where he was forced to become heroic. Not that he wasn’t already heroic. He did save a man’s life within the first 3 minutes of the movie, but I’m talking about bring heroic in the sense that sometimes you have to strangle a man to death or throw him through a window. The movie never gets overly action-packed but given the circumstances it probably stays right where it should be. It’s entertaining without being that good.
