18, 82 mins
David Mamet's play about a humdrum businessman undergoing a spectacular midlife crisis was first performed in 1982, and its exposure of vicious prejudices beneath white-collar blandness seems passé in this movie version, which premiered in 2005. This makes Mamet's patented brand of dialogue all the harder to take. Do characters keep answering questions by repeating what's just been said? Yes, characters keep answering questions by repeating what's just been said. It doesn't help that the film's director, Stuart Gordon, hasn't found a persuasive cinematic register for this stagey material. Instead of being emphatically stylised, the film just looks like a failed attempt at realism. William H Macy is watchable in the title role, but it wasn't a good idea to cast recognisable actresses - Denise Richards, Mena Suvari and Bai Ling - in the small roles of the prostitutes and lap dancers Edmond meets. It creates the distracting impression that these performers have been suckered into tacky, thankless parts through their desire to be associated with the supposedly great Mamet.