Edison

The film deals about the powerful Edison foundation and the elite force called F.R.A.T. At the beginning movie is told by off-voice with following words: ¨You're big venue now. Global commerce,sports franchises, chit-char cafés. But you don't get it because you don't see it. Life is not what you think it is. Because of guys like us, you can go on thinking it, till reality sets on. Reality's annoying. The first thing you do when it hits you is wonder where we are , we do our crap. But remember, it's a dirty world. And without us, it's be a whole lot dirtier. Welcome to Edison! ¨.

Agent Deed(LL CoolJ) and his violent pal, the sergeant Lazerov(Dylan McDermott)pull off a busting into domicile of Rook and Isaiah. Lazarev kills Rook and steals cocaine,money and arms; Isaiah is accused and convicted in courtroom. A young investigative journalist named Pollack (Justin Timberlake)with aspiration to win Pulitzer prize investigates the evidences and unearth deeds about complete corruption of justice system and abuses with brute force by police force. Then, his life and his sweetheart(Piper Parabo)are threatened, but she goes in coma. As he teams up with his jaded newspaper editor(Morgan Freeman), once-famed photographer in Cambodia, and an investigator(Kevin Spacy)working for district attorney,DA(Gary Elwes).

This exciting film packs noisy action, car chase, explosion,shoot out, and continuous intrigue . It's a noir movie plenty of suspense, thrills, dirty cops with a Police Departmment corrupt and some of violence for police brutality and shots in the forehead and the back. The movie is well performed by a plethora of excellent actors, Freeman, Cool, John Heard and a sensational baddie by Dylan McDermott, among others. Colorful cinematography and stirring musical score by Machine Head. The motion picture is professionally directed by David Burke, though with some flaws. Rating : Acceptable and passable.

Just don't understand the bad reviews. This is far from being a bad movie. Yes, it's been done before and was a little predictable, but certainly worth watching. I agree that the worst thing about it is Spacey's wig. What were they thinking? Looked like roadkill. Dylan McDermott was a nasty bad guy, but Spacey was terribly underutilized. I think the director was the problem here.

I don't remember the last time I reacted to a performance as emotionally as I did to Justin Timberlake's in "Edison." I got so emotional I wanted to scream in anguish, destroy the screen, readily accept the hopeless cries of nihilism. Timberlake is horribly miscast; in fact, casting him is like casting Andy Dick to play the lead role in "Patton," or Nathan Lane to play Jesus. But that is almost beside the point.

Timberlake is simply a bad actor and he would be equally terrible in any role. I used to have problems with Ben Affleck's acting talent, but Timberlake makes Affleck look like Sir Ian McKellen or Dame Judi Dench. With his metrosexual lisp (read lithp), his boyish glances and emotional expressions which derive from something like "The 25 Cliché Expressions for Actors," he poisons the screen upon which he is inflicted mercilessly, and no matter how you slice it, I do not and will not buy his role as an amateur-turned-crusader-for-justice journalist. It simply will not fly.

However, Timberlake alone isn't to blame for his failure. Director David J. Burke puts him not only in the (essentially) primary role, but also places him aside Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey, John Heard, Dylan McDermott, Cary Elwes and (I'm surprised he was as good) LL Cool J. I can imagine one almost physically suffering watching some of this cast interact with Timberlake.

There is an upside to this of course: the moment any of these actors interact without Justin there it feels like a double relief. A pleasure, if you will. Freeman and Spacey may not have more than 10 minutes of screen time alone together, but that ten minutes is blissful in contrast to their scenes with our so-called hero. Dylan McDermott is also a breath of fresh air.

But enough of Timberlake bashing - words aren't enough in this particular case to do the trick. "Edison" is a very, very run-of-the-mill corruption story. It's plot ranges from cliché to simply preposterous. I do, however, admire the motivation behind making it, which I interpret as an homage to films like "Serpico," or "Donnie Brasco," or maybe even "Chinatown." Don't get me wrong - "Edison" is not even in the same ballpark as these films, but I can stretch my suspension of disbelief to admire its reason for existence, perhaps to justify my sitting through it.

The script, in and of itself, features some surprisingly bad writing. Yes, it has some decent interchanges, but any conversation between Piper Perabo (who is wasted here) and Timberlake seems like it was lifted straight out of a Dawson's Creek episode. It's your typical far-too-glib-for-reality, let's-impress-the-audience-with-how-well-we-articulate (and fail) dialogue. This dialogue, mind you, is punctuated by great music at the wrong moments - sometimes it feels like "Edison" wants to morph into a music video, where the emotion of the scene is not communicated through acting, but precisely through the badly chosen music and variant film speeds (read slow-motion).

Thinking about it, "Edison" is a curiosity. It's sure as hell got a cast to kill for but the performances are marred by Timberlake who simply doesn't work. In film as in most art, if one thing is off, the whole thing feels off. Directors must make tough choices. David J. Burke missed the mark here. Some of the scenes play well in and of themselves, but as a whole, they don't seem to fit like puzzle pieces from different puzzles forced into one incoherent picture. And it's not particularly an exciting puzzle to begin with.

This movie was much better than i expected it would be. The fact that now also Justin Timberlake is acting made me think that as long as you are famous you can do anything you want. Like why is Paris Hilton singing? I am kind of drifting off, what i really want to say is that i was positively surprised I actually thought that Justin was very good and even ll cool j was better than expected. The plot of the movie wasn't that great because in the end everything just went to easy hut i guess in movies everything is possible. If you are a Timberlake fan you will not be disappointed and i even dare to say that when you are not a Timberlake fan you will also enjoy this movie. I am not saying Oscars but it was definitely amusing and worth seeing.

This movie has some interesting things in common with a certain Tom Cruise film. That film, entitled Minority Report, is about a huge police agency that is supposed to prevent crime from happening. Here, its a special agency that patrols a city with a certain brand of martial law. Not entirely similar, but enough to recognize.

Timberlake gives enough of a performance to show he isn't just a music performer. His pairing with Morgan Freeman was alright, but I thought they didn't compliment each other enough. Plus, Freeman seems withdrawn for much of the movie and didn't provide enough of a backdrop on him.

The ending was predictable to me and the tactics were common in these movies. It was an old formula with descent results. So have a go at it if you must. But remember that Timberlake likes the ladies. "C+"