Knife Edge (2008)

Directed by: Anthony Hickox | 91 minutes | thriller | Actors: Nathalie Press, Tamsin Egerton, Joan Plowright, Hugh Bonneville, Jamie Harris, Lorcan O’Toole, Mark Holden, Matthieu Boujenah, Karen Ferrari, Peter Rnic, Tim Wade, Lee MacDougall, Miles Ronayne

‘Knife Edge’ is a film that should have been made fifty years ago. By Alfred Hitchcock, starring Ingrid Bergman. Such a nice, old-fashioned thriller about a woman who thinks she’s going crazy. She wanders fearfully through the corridors of her mansion, candle in hand, startled by every squeak and creak. The light of the full moon makes her nightgown almost translucent. That’s how Hitchcock was again. Is she really losing her mind, that damsel in distress, or is there more to it?

In the hands of Hitchcock, ‘Knife Edge’ would undoubtedly have become a masterpiece. But alas, the Master of Suspense is no more. He has had to hand over the baton to lesser greats such as Anthony Hickox, director of ‘Hellraiser III’, ‘Waxwork’, ‘Full Eclipse’ and now ‘Knife Edge’. Hitchcock and Hickox, the names sound almost the same, but a few letters make a big difference. You notice that Hickox had the intention to make an elegant thriller, but the execution goes wrong.

That starts with the casting. Although lead actress Nathalie Press still has such a posh accent and her lace blouses reach the neck, she does not have the appearance of a rich business woman. You see her taking orders in a brown bar, that Emma, ​​but tea in the drawing room of a capital country house? No, not that. That country house could have been portrayed a little more atmospheric. A poorly maintained country house is up to that point, but this seems very low budget. Penalty for the stylist and the cinematographer, who does not always choose the most advantageous angle.

The acting is lousy across the board, which suggests that Hickox has failed in his stage directions. You expect this kind of unnatural sounding, ill-timed dialogue in porn movies that also need a story, not in thrillers like this one. It is disastrous for the tension. If you want to sympathize with the damsel in distress, you have to believe that she exists for at least an hour and a half. Actors who toil on their own will bring your suspension of disbelief down ugly.

The screenplay also struggles. ‘Knife Edge’ tells a story according to a tried and tested recipe, but it has been filmed so hastily that it seems as if the main characters are moving from one emotion to another. Characters who have hurt each other soul-deep, fall into each other’s arms again a scene later. And there goes the credibility. The villain sighs at the denouement that all those complications seem very Dickensian. He’s right. Charles Dickens also liked to give chance a hand and often let the storylines in his novels describe a beautiful circle. Nothing wrong with that in itself, if you dose it, but too many coincidences seem artificial.

Is it all doom and gloom in ‘Knife Edge’? No, not that again. If your expectations are low, ‘Knife Edge’ is quite entertaining. Moreover, Frenchman Matthieu Boujenah regularly causes an unintended smile with his bold accent, especially during his swearing cannonades. Thanks to that sexy French accent, even the announcement that he’ll be sleeping on the couch tonight sounds very romantic.