It’s sure nice to have Mel Gibson back on the big screen carrying a gun, seeking revenge for the death of a loved one and quivering with righteous rage. But after seven years off-screen what a shame he couldn’t find a better script. “Edge of Darkness” is a mess. Convoluted, poorly structured and lacking in the important emotional turning points and character moments necessary to make this kind of thriller work.
Gibson plays Boston Police Detective Thomas Craven, an honest cop and inattentive but loving father whose 24-year old daughter Emma comes home for a visit. Things are warm, if a bit strained between them, but she’s ill — violently ill — and on their way out the front door to the hospital she’s shotgunned in a drive-by shooting that was meant to kill him. Or was it?
The plot’s entirely too ambitious, involving defense contractors, corrupt Senators, leftist activists and a gentle yet menacing wine-sipping government fixer named Jedburgh (The Mighty Ray Winstone) whose loyalties shift all-too obviously when the plot requires a nudge — when the screenwriters are stuck. In the “Austin Powers” trilogy he would’ve been called Agent Exposition.
Wintsone continues his perfect record of making everything he’s in better, and Jedburgh is a very interesting character. You do want to know more about him. The problem is that there’s no natural place for him in the film’s narrative. He reminds me of Liev Schreiber’s mysterious John Clark in “The Sum of All Fears.” Another movie where a mysterious supporting player in a disappointing film comes off as though he’s visiting from a much better movie.
The “reluctant” witnesses are just as poorly crafted as exposition machines as Jedburgh. They’re only reluctant enough to come off as reluctant in that contrived kind of way that tells the audience Big Scary Things Are Afoot. Of course they all eventually talk, with their only motivation seeming to be the need for a plot turn.
Movies can survive these kinds of problems, though. The secret is to keep a strong hold on the trajectory of your protagonist, and that’s where “Edge” fails most. The required moments don’t exist to bring this story to life. Craven discovering his daughter was the real target should’ve hit like a ton of rocks that turned the entire narrative on its head. Instead the realization arrives courtesy of a standard A to B to C police procedural.
The other moment most unforgivably missing (that the film’s trailer promises) is when Craven’s pushed to the point where he stops being a cop, starts serving out a violent reckoning, and never looks back. Instead these unsatisfying action bits come in maddening fits and starts. In once scene Craven’s kicking a little ass, in the next he’s a cop again. You keep waiting for that vicariously satisfying turning point where Mel Gibson does what Mel Gibson does best but all you get is one long frustrating tease.
Director, Martin Campbell, the competent helmer of “Goldeneye” and the splendid Bond-reboot “Casino Royale,” adapted “Edge” from a five hour Australian miniseries of the same name that he directed back in 1986. And that may be the problem. Cramming five hours of intrigue into two hours was a mistake and the end result is too much plot at the expense of the simplicity these kinds of films require:
Daughter’s killed. Find killers. Begin Rampage.
“Taken” it is not. There’s not even a single memorable action scene, and for a Mel Gibson film it’s surprisingly humorless. The only comedy comes from how hard the plot strains to let the audience know the villains are bi-partisan — both Democrats and Republicans.
But, hey, Mel’s back. And that is one very welcome turning point.
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