Edge Of Darkness Review

Mel Gibson's name has been in the news for problems relating to his personal life in the recent past. But the We Were Soldiers returns to the big screen with Edge of Darkness. The movie is screen adaptation of a BBC 1985 TV Series of the same title. The TV series was political thriller with a nuclear theme, reflecting the late-Cold War paranoia of the Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. The Martin Campbell directed movie is more top to do with post 9/11 world.

Edge of Darkness is the story of a homicide detective Thomas Craven (Mel Gibson). After only about five minutes of mourning for his dead child Thomas gets into the business of investigating who killed his activist daughter Emma Craven (Bojana Novakovic). He runs through through the list of his daughter Emma's contacts from her cellphone, and systematically contacting them, one by one by one. Soon he hits upon conspiracy and cover up involving Emma's employer Bennett (Danny Huston) and a U.S. senator (Damian Young)

Craven goes after each of them with single-minded focus punching, questioning, shooting, threatening, bashing doing every possible thing in his quest for justice. Many a times Craven is seen crossing the life of a good cop. On the way he encounters a mysterious man named Matt Jedburgh (Ray Winstone), who seems to know a little about everything. Jedburgh is a CIA man who has been sent to cover up the entire murder a will keep you guessing his character's allegiance until the very end.

The monotonous script has too may flaws and Campbell does little to help it's cause. Campbell"s direction only really shines in the action sequences but Edge of Darkness is no We Were Soldiers or Patriot. Mel Gibson shines in the movie along with Ray Winstone while others seems to be sleep walking in the entire script.20 minutes into the movie the murder mystery seems to be solved Campbell gives us 90 more minutes of movie.

Edge of Darkness could have better been titled as Mel Gibson Returns as there is nothing more in the movie and his performance is the showcase. The movie seems wayward quite surprising coming from the director of Casino Royale. The movie miserably fails because it tries to merge mystery with vengeance and fails in both. Although the movie seems ok in bits and pieces it is difficult to stand up and applaud Edge of Darkness.