Review
One-of-a-Kind Movie Hero in The Edge
By Marsha Familaro Enright
Oct 6, 2003

I recently came back from teaching teenage boys at Camp Indecon, a summer camp aimed at nurturing independence, confidence, and high reasoning skills. One of my best classes centered on a discussion of the 1997 movie, The Edge. The class and I intensely discussed the film's story and characters, and the meaning of many scenes of dialogue. The film features an amazing hero and my campers wanted to understand him.

Written by David Mamet and directed by Lee Tamahori, The Edge stars Anthony Hopkins as a billionaire on vacation in Alaska. When Hopkins's character gets lost in the wilderness with two other men, the three must find their way back to safety — while fighting off a Kodiak bear and coping with other life-threatening challenges of the wilderness.

Alec Baldwin plays one of the other men, Bob, and Elle MacPherson is Hopkins’s model-wife, Mickey. The gorgeous Alaskan scenery is a perfect backdrop to this drama.

The movie has a gripping, highly plotted story, well-drawn characters, and sharply written, purposeful dialogue, typical of a playwright. It is a delight of tight construction, meaningful dialogue, and foreshadowing. But what I found truly unique was Anthony Hopkins’ character, Charles Morse.

Morse has been coaxed by his wife into joining her for a photo shoot in Alaska. Although he is a brilliant businessman, he has never been in the woods and has never done anything remotely rugged.

He has an encyclopedic knowledge and demonstrates it in an early scene, when the lodge owner bets Charles five dollars he doesn’t know what is illustrated on the back of a wooden paddle. Charles, seeing the panther carved on the front of the paddle, offers the answer: “A rabbit smoking a pipe.”

The other characters are amazed at his acumen. When the lodge owner asks Charles whether he knows the significance of the illustration, Charles responds: “The rabbit is not afraid, because he knows he’s smarter than the panther.” This Indian proverb foreshadows the rest of the film's action. In the ending scene, Charles and the lodge owner revisit the proverb, which now has a life-changing meaning for Charles.

But Charles’s uniqueness does not lie in his encyclopedic knowledge; it lies in how he uses it. Of the three men lost in the wilderness, Charles has the least experience dealing with physical challenges — yet it is Charles the others depend on. He saves their lives more than once, because, unlike the others, Charles is always thinking, rational, perseverant, and purposeful. He epitomizes what philosopher David Kelley calls "The Entrepreneurial Life."

We are introduced to Charles’s attitude in an early scene, in which Bob (Alec Baldwin) shows the others that he inadvertently took with him a piece of paper that would have helped rescuers find the lost men. Bob says sheepishly, “I’m afraid we’re in for a bit of a walk.”

Steve, the third man, in an increasingly angry and panicked tone, responds, “What does that mean? What the fuck does that mean?!”

Charles breaks into the argument: "I once read an interesting book. It said that most people lost in the wild, they die of shame."

Steve responds in a confused tone, “What?”

Charles: “Yeah — see, they die of shame. ‘What did I do wrong, how could I have gotten myself into this?’ And so they sit there and then they die, because they didn’t do the one thing that would have saved their lives.”

Steve replies in a petulant, angry tone: “And what is that, Charles?”

Charles responds: “Thinking.”

Charles accomplishes two things in this encounter: First, he makes an important point to his fellows about what they should be doing. Second, he effectively distracts them with his puzzling statements, so that they will actually start to think.

This is the leitmotif of Charles’s character: He keeps his mind on what needs to be done, in order to deal with the many, many problems the men encounter navigating the rugged Alaskan wilderness. Given the enormous difficulties and fears he has to overcome, it is truly remarkable that he only loses his resolve once in the film — and by that time, the other two men have learned from him how to coax him back to determination.

He is confident, optimistic, extraordinarily fair, kind, generous, magnanimous — and yet very realistic. He clearly knows the motives of others and yet is not distracted from his purposes by how he feels about those motives. For example, from the beginning, he knows that the other men covet his wife and money. Yet, to fulfill his own purposes, he helps them all the same.

One startling course of action requires that Charles overcome tremendous fear, when it becomes clear to him that he and his fellows must kill the Kodiak bear that has been stalking them.

Charles consults an old book illustrating Indian ways — a birthday present given to him by his secretary on the way to the lodge. One of the illustrations depicts a method for killing a bear with only the most primitive weapons. The prospect is frightening, but Charles maintains the men's resolve to kill the bear by repeating adamantly, “What one man can do, another can do. What one man can do, another can do!”

He is a marvelous hero to experience.

Some friends to whom I have recommended this film find certain of Charles's words and actions — such as the way he helps the men who take advantage of him — to be jarringly self-deprecatory. I, however, find what he says and does to be perfectly consistent with the whole of his character. This has led to many intriguing discussions.

Anthony Hopkins is one of the few actors who can convincingly portray high intelligence. What part could he play in the Atlas Shrugged movie? Hugh Akston?