The Razor's Edge is a film that feels as self-important, as our central hero's personal journey to enlightenment. There's a serious problem with the film in that the potential for the story should have been found in the transition of a troubled war veteran to a self-actualized individual. The problem is Tyrone Power can't pull that off, or at least does not try, as his changes are not earned in the least by his performance. The films other elements are scatter shot, there just so our hero can fix them, or almost fix them all in the last act. We get a catty Gene Tierney, a troubled Anne Baxter, and Clifton Webb doing his usual thing. The first is resolved as you'd expect with Power's character ignoring her shallow advances, the second tragic and is one of the best elements of the film due to Baxter, and the third is weird. Webb does his pompous routine the film views him as pompous then suddenly it wishes that we really care about him in order to end the film on. The film may have been able work with a stronger leading turn, but as it is it feels just like a messy of strain threads that fail to intertwine.
2/5
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