Review: EDGE OF DARKNESS

Based on the engrossing 1985 BBC TV series of the same name, EDGE OF DARKNESS opens with Mel Gibson, as Boston Homicide Detective Thomas Craven, meeting his daughter, Emma (Bojana Novakovic), who’s come home for a surprise visit, at the train station. However, once home she begins mysteriously vomiting blood and, as the two race out into the pouring rain to the hospital, Emma is violently shot by a ski-masked gunman. She subsequently dies in her father’s arms and the murder is considered some kind of retaliation for Craven’s past police work. It’s only after she’s dead, that Craven becomes inconsolable upon discovering his daughter’s secret life as an activist and that her death was really a political assassination stemming from a corporate cover-up and government complicity. Here is where director Martin Campbell’s thriller of revenge begins.

During his investigation, Craven meets Emma’s former employer, Jack Bennett, played to the hilt by Danny Houston (a slithering opposite to his director-father, John Huston). As head honcho of  the nuclear facility,  Northmoor, Bennett builds dirty bombs for our government so that they in turn can use them to frame foreign enemies as the culprits. It’s for this reason that he callously snuffs out anyone, or any activist, who comes close to exposing his lucrative business. Huston’s overly dramatic nuances throughout the film exudes a menacing evil and it effectively permeates his every word and movement.

Craven is helped by the mysterious operative, Darius Jedburgh, played by Ray Winstone. It’s his occupation to tie up all loose ends for the sinister Northmoor company, including the murder of Craven’s daughter. Jedburgh has his own code of ethics, morals, and logic, perverse though they may be. Thanks to the script by screenwriters William Monahan (THE DEPARTED) and Andrew Bovell, Winstone’s various conversations with Gibson throughout the film are intense and riveting. Shame there wasn’t more of him in the film, as I for one could have used a few more portions of the  always fascinating Winstone. On a side note, Ray Winstone took over for Robert De Niro when he abruptly left “Edge of Darkness,” after it began shooting in Massachusetts on Aug. 18. De Niro just arrived on the set in early September and bailed due to “creative differences.” I wonder how Jedburgh’s character would have turned out with DeNiro’s interpretation of the role.

For a glimpse of another film where Huston and Winstone appeared together, it’ll be worth your while to have a look at the bloody Australian import, THE PROPOSITION.

For two hours, Director Martin Campbell (CASINO ROYALE, THE MASK OF ZORRO) uses a combination of black suburbans, nefarious hit men, and corrupt politicians to show that everyone is suspect, and no one is innocent, in Craven’s eyes. Each new situation or person Craven encounters is so searing that it  just about  leads to an embolism in his head at every turn.  The impassioned quest for his daughter’s killers is such that he even brutally beats the leader of Emma’s activist group, Nightflower, to a pulp. While extracting the much need information on how she was involved with their group, he wryly asks him to remove his glasses. It’s only when he comforts a terrified friend of Emma’s, who comes to him with an explanation,  that  Craven lets his guard down only once to become a father figure of sorts  again. It’ll be very interesting to see what  Campbell does with next summer’s adaptation of DC Comics’ superhero THE GREEN LANTERN.

No matter his past personal problems, EDGE OF DARKNESS proves that Mel Gibson is still a big movie star. His performance as the guilt-ridden father, complete with flashbacks, is compelling and heart-wrenching. Last time we saw him was eight years ago as the bereaved widow, ex-minister in M. Night Shyamalan’s SIGNS. Despite the long absence, the 54 yr old Oscar winner still has what it takes to unleash a fiery rage upon those who have wronged him, while bringing the audience along for the vengeful, Mad Max-like drive. As long as the ever-handsome Gibson is back on the silver screen, I’ll take one of those tickets to ride.

Rated R for strong bloody violence  and language. From Warner Bros. Pictures, EDGE OF DARKNESS is in theatres now.