Edge of Darkness
Directed by Martin Campbell
Staring Mel Gibson, Ray Winstone, Danny Huston
Rated R
Release date: January 29, 2010

It has been exactly eight years since Mel Gibson headlined his own movie (and if you guessed Signs, you get shiny bonus points) but that does not mean he hasn’t been in the spotlight. When he was not directing movies depicting Jesus’ death or Mayans, he was caught in one drunken scandal after another. Hollywood is a strange place though and everyone is one hit movie away from being a hot property again. Perhaps Edge of Darkness, a revenge story set in Boston, is just what he is looking for.

Gibson stars as grizzled cop Thomas Craven, a devoted single father to his little girl Emma (Bojana Novakovic). During a trip home to see Thomas, Emma is taken, shot and killed by a masked assailant right at his front door. Led to believe this act was committed by a criminal from his past, Thomas spirals into grief and madness knowing he had a hand in his little girl’s death. However, when evidence comes up that perhaps the killer was targeting Emma all along, Grief begets violence as Thomas does whatever it takes to uncover the whole truth.

Looking a little more weathered and perhaps all of his 56 years, Gibson delivers on all counts as the grief stricken and vengeful Thomas Craven. Surely Gibson’s off camera activities have left him with a smaller fan base but it is my humble belief that you don’t have to like a guy to know whether he is talented and Gibson is certainly that.

He has not lost a beat when it comes to acting, and works well within his wheelhouse. The audience will feel bad for him when he cradles his dying daughter in his arms and cheer when he exacts revenge on those who wronged him. He even looks pretty good in the few action sequences he was involved in. His Boston accent is, however, less convincing and he often loses it throughout the film (It baffles me why Craven even has to be a home grown Bostonian, when so many people in real life rarely settle in a place that they were born).

While Gibson shines, writers William Monahan and Andrew Bovell deliver a script that has many bright spots but overall, leaves the viewers scratching their heads. The script suffers from severe multiple personalities. One moment the film is a fast paced revenge story a la Taken or Death Wish. The next minute it is a political suspense whodunit a la Constant Gardner. It even has glimmers of the Departed in it.

Perhaps because the film is adapted fairly faithfully from the British television miniseries of the same name is to blame. Trying to present six hours worth of information into a two hour movie is a lot like cramming for a test the night before: You know some of that is bound to go over your head.

There is just too much happening at once. While Craven is searching for his daughter’s murderer, political figures are also curious about his findings, as is Emma’s boss, played by Danny Huston, who runs a Halliburton-like facility. CIA agent and company fixer Jedburgh (Ray Winstone) is thrown into the mix as well to clean up the mess made by Craven and kill him but doesn’t do so and even aids Craven in his mission.

The reason? Unknown as far as the audience is concerned or perhaps it was lost in the shuffle all of the other storyline. The movie becomes a victim of its own intricate storylines to the point where it gets strangled by them. The film just tries to please everyone and anyone and as a result, leaves everyone unsatisfied.

Despite Gibson and the rest of the cast’s acting, Edge of Darkness is not a surefire hit by any means. While the revenge storyline line is great and could have been the single driving force of the film, the writers decided to be faithful to the original concept. The result is a story that feels bloated and inefficient. The character Jedburgh sums up the movie best in one of his lines. When asked by someone how he planned to cover the Craven incident, Jedburgh replies, “We make it so convoluted that people won’t know what to make of the story.” I couldn’t have written it better myself.