Director Martin Campbell helms social pariah Mel Gibson’s return to the screen in Edge of Darkness, a big screen adaptation of an 80’s era British mini series that Campbell also directed. While the advertising for the film sold it as a pretty straight forward revenge film in the vein of recent Liam Nielson joint Taken or Kevin Bacon’s ultraviolent turn in Death Sentence from a couple years ago, what it strives towards is more a modern combination of a James Bond film (a franchise Campbell himself recently re-launched with Casino Royale) and a noir detective story. Whether or not Campbell manages to flavor his film past the simple, yet satisfying tropes of the revenge film is both up for debate and, not coincidentally, the focus of this review.
The film opens with Gibson’s character, a Bostonian detective by the name of Thomas Craven, welcoming home his adult daughter for a friendly, but out of the ordinary visit. Things don’t quite go as may have been planned for the two, and that’s where the film’s plot kicks in. While a welcome home dinner is being prepared, Craven’s daughter Emma (played by Bojana Novakovic), bleeds out of her nose and wretches into her plate; a fairly clear indication that something surely must be amiss. Fortunately for the continued intrigue of the film, before she can let her father in on the secrets of her clandestine dealings and their rather disgusting consequences, she is murdered via shotgun on the front porch by a masked assailant who is marked solely by his death shot battle cry of “Craven”! Gibson’s character suspects a more complicated explanation for the murder than the one given by the police; a former perp trying to gain a murderous revenge and hitting the daughter by accident, and his suspicions quickly prove to hold water.
Early on in the film is when you most profoundly feel a harkening back to the days of classic noir, as the first shot of the film is the inky black waters of a pond at nighttime being illuminated only by the harsh light lines of full moon to reveal the emerging of three dead bodies out of the murky depths. This moody visual throwback to classic cinema that the opening of the film conjures up is reinforced, at least for a while, by not only the frown lined, craggy, Robert Mitchumy face of newly aged returning star Mel Gibson, but also with some shared plot elements from classic noir film D.O.A. The title itself, Edge of Darkness feels like it belongs on a vintage movie poster from the 40s. The beginnings of Gibson’s exploring of his daughter’s death feel less like an A to B, build and climax, paint by numbers, revenge picture and more like the labyrinthine personality driven investigations of a Phillip Marlowe story. This mood is enforced by the cinematography; most scenes take place at night or twilight, the image playing games with the characters and the shadows in which they dwell. The camera holds back, behind the field of vision of a set of window blinds or a closet coat wrack, giving the viewer the feel of a snoop who is gazing unknown upon the unfolding of the story being told. Where the film falters is in its inability to continue this call back to noir cinema in its third act, as well as its failure to tie up the increasingly complex plot threads in a satisfying matter.
With the introduction of Ray Winstone’s character Jedburgh, the film transfers its focus from an unfolding mystery plot to a series of uninteresting scenes where Winstone and Gibson growl exposition at one another. Here it begins to appear as if the plot points of the obviously longer miniseries that the script was adapted from didn’t fit into a coherent single feature, so instead of excising what wasn’t necessary to the A story, the screenwriters added a magic 8 ball character who could tell us everything we need to know without having to watch it play out before us. Winstone does his best to play the Jedburgh character as enigmatic and conflicted in order to spice up the proceedings a bit, but from this point on the entire film suffers.
By including the radicals who Mel Gibson’s daughter fell in with, the morally devoid corporation she worked for, the big wig government officials that need to cover up the crimes they were complicit in, and countless other characters that didn’t end up mattering to the heart of the film, the pacing goes off the rails. Gone are taut, violent interrogation scenes and in their place are explanations, dialogue, and down time. Once the film gets so complicated that it has to explain itself it loses nearly all entertainment value and becomes an exercise. Ironically, it’s the attempts at raising the film out of the tropes of the revenge drama that eventually cause it to sink. If the narrative had followed the first explanation for the murders given, a cop killing gone wrong and a dad’s journey to avenge his daughter, it would have ended up more satisfying. In the end, none of the government cover-up or evil corporation subplots really matter and things devolve into a bloody, therapeutic, take out the guys that killed my daughter shoot ‘em up that could have been good enough if kept simple, but gets bogged down under the weight of a bunch of half baked nonsense.
It should be noted that Gibson’s performance is generally strong. He plays his character with all the heart, intensity, and subdued pain bubbling to the surface that should come with a starring role in this genre. The only criticism I can give him is toward the slightly severe Boston accent that he attempts throughout. It comes off as a bit over the top and inconsistent and ends up subverting the authenticity of his performance. The emotion is there, though; Gibson is able to make you care about his character’s plight, at least for a while. With Edge of Darkness, it is the weight of the plot that brings things down and not anything done by its lead. Whether or not Gibson can still be a movie star I don’t think is any longer in question. Add in Ray Winstone doing his usual best with what he’s given and a delightfully slimy turn by Danny Huston as the film’s primary villain and things end up looking pretty good as far as the acting goes.
In the end I kind of feel bad for giving this a less than average rating. Sure there was a lot of hokey flashback stuff, yet another overuse of the talking character gets hit by a car out of nowhere from off frame shock tactic, and too convoluted a plot; but things were also shot real nice in places and the actors were directed to pretty good performances. The film was clearly put together by competent people and there is nothing overtly terrible going on. Unfortunately, though, Edge of Darkness commits the ultimate sin of being boring. Because of this, I can’t give it a slight recommendation as middle of the road fare. Probably best to avoid unless you’re really into watching Mel Gibson shoot people.
