Too much

Edmond

(2005)

"Controversial one-act play by Mamet" was the clue for 56-across in the Times crossword today, which I took as a sign that the film version should be my Friday-night deaccesion. Which is appropriate, because Edmond (the charming William H. Macy, in what must be the most repulsive role of his career) is looking for signs everywhere, in his appointment time at the office next Monday, in the tarot cards turned by a storefront seer, in the hat (identical to one his mother wore) on the head of a subway rider. And which is also appropriate because it's good to have this poisonous, hateful film about a stupid racist, misogynist lunatic off of my hard drive, which it must have been polluting for almost 2 years.

How stupid? He expects a hooker to take a credit card; he expects a private dancer to remove the plexiglass partition; he expects to beat the 3-card monte dealer; he expects a waitress who looks like Julia Stiles to take him home. Actually, implausibly, that last comes true, though it turns out not to be the wisest decision for either of them. After which Edmond continues to wander a New York pre-Giulianian in its sleaze but 21st-century enough to offer free phones from its storefronts--in short, the ugliest of all Apples, one that makes you long for the Travis Bickle version.

I'll never tell whether he gets his comeuppance, but I will say that I didn't much care one way or the other.