Auf Messers Schneide

"The Razor's Edge" is based on a novel of the same title.

"The Razor's Edge" takes place over at least a decade, moving from the midwestern U.S to WWI in Europe to Paris and what might be Tibet and back to Paris again. It's a nice film to look at, as the period and place production really sucks one into the story, and has what I thought of as a cozy pacing, but what some might think drags on a little (it was a great, alone-on-a-rainy-Sunday, laying-on-the-couch rental for me).

The film does a good job of playing ideas with scenes, and playing the ideas/scenes off of seemingly drastically different ones, from the barren emptiness of a battlefield to the uplifting emptiness of the Himalayas, to the warm loneliness of a Paris café, to the cold loneliness of a rich man's death bed.

This is obviously a true labor of love for Bill Murray. He nails his character and the ideas the script attempts to channel through his character's development. Hopefully, now that somehow people can "accept" Bill Murray as not "just" an overtly comedic actor (with the success of "Lost in Translation") people will be more open to enjoying this very good film.