JAGGED EDGE. Directed by Richard Marquand; written by Joe Ezsterhas; produced by Martin Ransohoff for Columbia. Starring Glenn Close and Jeff Bridges. Rated R (language, violence).
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It is a dark and stormy night. A masked intruder stalks the hallway of a fashionable home, and brutally murders its occupants. The murdered lady's husband inherits everything, and is thus the prime suspect. Circumstantial evidence is against him, but he protests his innocence. Did he do it?
Sounds like a nifty little mystery/thriller. And for the most part Jagged Edge is just that. It suffers from an over-crowded storyline (not crowded with people, just subplots) and some glaring character inconsistencies. But, in spite of these fairly major flaws, the movie works reasonably well.
Close plays hot-shot lawyer Teddy Barnes. Accused husband Jack (Bridges) insists on retaining her for his defense. Before the case comes to trial Teddy has fallen pretty hard for Jack, professional propriety take the hindmost. But is he just conning her to get the best defense he can? He SEEMS sincere....
So we have a mystery/thriller/romance/courtroom drama. The tones of these different angles don't always blend together so well. But it's hard to find a movie with really good continuity these days.
Jagged Edge's major problem is Teddy's character. She's set up as a super-professional. But her behavior with Jack is decidedly UNprofessional.
There's nothing wrong with Close's performance, though. Her character is placed in a ridiculous and unrealistic position, but she's a real person even so. Teddy is usually calm, and in control. But when she does slip, her emotions—fear, anger or jealousy—are believable.
However, most of the credit for the success Jagged Edge does achieve can be shared by Bridges and the interesting basic story. Jack is a masterpiece of ambiguity. He's smooth and likeable, traits Bridges' characters usually possess. But the mechanics of the guessing-game plot also lend him an undercurrent of menace that his smiles and sex appeal can't completely erase. But he never gives, or is allowed to give, the slightest hint as to his real guilt or innocence. We don't have any more clues to go on here than Teddy does.
Rounding out an excellent cast are Peter Coyote and Robert Loggia. Loggia is Teddy's investigator/legman and is a standard curmudgeonly type. But he's good at it. Coyote is fantastic. I never would have expected such a characterization from the sweet scientist of E.T. and the suitor from Cross Creek. But his D.A. Krasny is pure sleaze.
Jagged Edge' s cinematography is good as well. It captures the look and feel of San Francisco better than, say, Maxie. Even though the locale actually had something to do with the story in that movie while it doesn't here. The credit sequence of time-lapse photography of the Golden Gate Bridge is quite beautiful.
One final work to the squeamish. On-screen gore is minimal here, given the storyline. But the threat of more violence is always there and is actually harder to take. Some verbal recapitulations of the crimes are pretty unnerving as well.
October 23, 1985