Movie Review: Edge of Darkness

 

This film marks the return of Mel Gibson in front of the screen after a long hiatus and controversy surrounding his personal life. It is certainly nice to see Mel Gibson doing his stuff again, although, his face hasn’t aged well and he is starting to show some pattern baldness. Nevertheless, Mel Gibson plays the angry cop very well, this time with a Boston accent, although it’s not anything we haven’t seen him do before, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I suppose before we get used to Mel in front of the screen again, we must get re-introduced to the type of roles we remember him in. End of Days was such a film for Arnold Schwartzenegger when he made his return. This is such a film for Mel Gibson. 

 

With that said, this is a surprisingly average film. It’s surprising that this is from the director of Casino Royale, which was one of the great action films to grace any franchise. What really hurts the film is the by-the-numbers script, which is mostly predictable—what you do find out along the way are mostly minor details. Perhaps the British miniseries that this movie is based on was much better (but I haven’t seen it, so I wouldn’t know).   This is a type of film I could see George Clooney doing, as I felt he probably could’ve brought a bit more weight to the everyman type of character this film needed. Much like Ransom, we can’t help but see Mel Gibson as an action star, which makes us feel like he’s not in any real danger.  Ray Winstone plays one of the more substantial characters, a cigar-smoking free agent named Jedburgh, who seems to know stuff, who helps or doesn’t help Craven along the way.

 

Given that mindset, the action scenes, which are interesting, rough, and occasionally clever, are very few, and far in between.  Every so often, though, there were moments where I was thinking, “wouldn’t it have been easy if they had just shot him instead of trying to do so and so?” Still, it’s great whenever we see Mel hold a gun, and when he does, it reminded me how much I missed his old school action films. Man, Lethal Weapon was a true classic (the sequels were okay).  

 

Unfortunately, most of the film time is spent getting the audience to sympathize with the character’s loss with flashbacks of his daughter—after a while, it started to feel like a gimmick. Yes, we already established that Mel is in pain and misses his daughter—I wished they would make it more subtle or interesting when doing it (although the face-shaving scene was cute).   Mostly, though, dreary moments of talk and more talk are punctuated by occasional moments of shock and awe (where someone dies horribly). Meanwhile, the old gentleman who sat on my right started to snore loudly and the young gentleman on my left just woke from his sleep. It is unfortunate that the script doesn’t allow Mel’s character to go through any character changes, which might’ve been refreshing. The ending is a little meaner, but fits the title.

 

Overall, while the film isn’t bad, it is nothing we haven’t seen before, and while the script or the acting or the action (the few that exist) isn’t bad, again, it’s nothing new. So much potential, yet no cigar (or was there?). I give this film ** out of **** stars.

 

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