{"id":4131,"date":"2024-09-20T02:49:44","date_gmt":"2024-09-20T02:49:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=4131"},"modified":"2024-10-12T22:05:53","modified_gmt":"2024-10-12T22:05:53","slug":"jagged-edge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/09\/20\/jagged-edge\/","title":{"rendered":"Jagged Edge"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Jagged Edge <\/strong>(1985)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Columbia\/Suspense-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 108 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (violence including rape, sexual content, brief nudity, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Richard Marquand\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Joe Eszterhas\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: John Barry\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Matthew F. Leonetti\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: October 4, 1985 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Glenn Close, Jeff Bridges, Peter Coyote, Robert Loggia, John Dehner, Karen Austin, Guy Boyd, Marshall Colt, Louis Giambalvo, Ben Hammer, Lance Henriksen, Sanford Jensen, James Karen, Leigh Taylor-Young, William Allen Young, John Clark, Diane Erickson, Bruce French, Phyllis Applegate, Al Ruscio., Brandon Call, Christina Hutter.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $40.4M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ****<\/p>\n

\u00a0The best murder mysteries toy with your mind like one of those wind-up monkeys with the cymbals. They keep you guessing throughout who committed the murder. They dangle clue after clue as to the killer\u2019s identity. They task you with weeding out the red herrings from the actual clues. They keep you in suspense until the very end when the killer is finally revealed. Jagged Edge<\/strong> is such a movie. It\u2019s a well-oiled thriller that doesn\u2019t tip its hand prematurely. Just when you think you\u2019ve figured it out, it throws another curve ball. The only predictable thing about it is its unpredictability.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Directed by Richard Marquand (Return of the Jedi), it opens with the brutal murder of a wealthy San Francisco socialite by a masked intruder. Her husband, newspaper publisher Jack Forrester (Bridges, Starman), is charged with the crime by politically ruthless DA Thomas Krasny (Coyote, E.T.). Jack hires high-profile lawyer Teddy Barnes (Close, Fatal Attraction) to defend him. Although she doesn\u2019t practice criminal law anymore, she agrees to take his case after he convinces her of his innocence. While they prepare for the trial, they start a romantic relationship. Isn\u2019t this what they call a conflict of interest?<\/p>\n

\u00a0It should go without saying Teddy has a history with Krasny. When she was with the DA\u2019s office, they worked on a case together. There was some legal malfeasance on his part. He did it to further his career. That\u2019s when she quit and joined a corporate law firm. It\u2019s been weighing on her conscience ever since.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The late Marquand is one of the great unsung directors of the 80s. Most people know him for helming the concluding installment of the original Star Wars trilogy. He also directed the underrated WWII espionage thriller Eye of the Needle starring Donald Sutherland as a German spy. That\u2019s the first title that pops into my mind when I think of Marquand. Jagged Edge<\/strong> is right up there in terms of quality, effectiveness and craftsmanship. I\u2019ll never forget the first time I saw it. Oh, how na\u00efve I was at 17. I was convinced I knew who the killer was. I picked the most obvious suspect based on this person\u2019s behavior. I was dead wrong. The big reveal in the finale (which includes a jump-scare that still gets me after all these years) was a real shocker. It made me rethink the entire movie.<\/p>\n

\u00a0One of my favorite things about Jagged Edge<\/strong> is supporting actor Robert Loggia (Psycho II). He plays Sam, a craggy ex-cop who did investigative work for the DA\u2019s office until Teddy left. He\u2019s like a father to her. She convinces him to help out with Jack\u2019s case. Simply put, HE IS AMAZING! His character serves as both the voice of reason and her protector. He gets the movie\u2019s final line. I won\u2019t print it as it would be a major spoiler, but trust me when I say it\u2019s classic.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The screenplay by Joe Eszterhas (Basic Instinct) is intelligent and brimming with suspense. I won\u2019t reveal key details, but the way he unspools the plot with all its twists and turns is brilliant. He does an ace job developing the relationship between the two leads even if he doesn\u2019t spend any time on the ethical issues that should arise from such a relationship. You\u2019d think that a smart lady like Teddy would know better, but as Sam points out, she\u2019s thinking with the wrong part of her anatomy. On the other hand, it adds extra dimension to an already sordid case.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Bridges is one of my favorite actors, so I may be slightly biased in praising his performance in Jagged Edge<\/strong>. Jack is a hard-to-read person. He might be telling the truth or he might be a master manipulator. He could be innocent or he could have been planning his wife\u2019s murder for a long time. You want to believe in his innocence, but there\u2019s something there that you can\u2019t quite put your finger on. He\u2019s hiding something, but what? Close is equally terrific as the lawyer that wants to believe him. Her character is imbued with cynicism stemming from her previous association with Krasny, a politically ambitious rat bastard who will stoop to anything to further his career. In the role, Coyote is pitch perfect. I\u2019d also like to give a shout-out to Marshall Colt (North Dallas Forty) as a witness for the prosecution. He literally made my skin crawl. That\u2019s all I\u2019ll say about him.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Everything about Jagged Edge<\/strong> works from the solid direction to the level of suspense to the score by John Barry. It moves at just the right pace. It works as both thriller and courtroom drama. It tells a complex story without complicating things unnecessarily. It even finds time to show Teddy, a divorced mother of two, trying to balance her professional and personal lives. I\u2019d go so far as to say Jagged Edge<\/strong> is one the best thrillers of the 80s. Even better, it still holds up today. It\u2019s excellent.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jagged Edge (1985)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Columbia\/Suspense-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 108 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (violence including rape, sexual content, brief nudity, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Richard Marquand\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Joe Eszterhas\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: John Barry\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Matthew F. Leonetti\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: October 4, 1985 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Glenn Close, Jeff Bridges, Peter Coyote, Robert Loggia, John Dehner, Karen Austin, Guy Boyd, Marshall Colt, Louis Giambalvo, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5014,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-suspense-thrillers"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Jagged-Edge-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4131"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5016,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4131\/revisions\/5016"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}