wcbe: : Edge of Darkness (2010-01-10)

In Edge of Darkness, Mel Gibson plays Boston detective Tommy Craven, hardly cowardly, who craves for revenge of his murdered daughter, Emma (Bojana Novakovic). We are warned that nothing is as it appears, and that is true here except that the trailers and the trail of clich�d events lead to some easily-guessed outcomes.

Based on a British TV serial and book, this by-the-numbers thriller tries to satisfy the non-revenge motif intellectuals with commentary on political chicanery and nuclear espionage but ends up being revenge film most of all. It is not even close to the iconic status of Death Wish nor even a danger to the popularity of the recent Taken, starring Liam Neeson.

But the popular Mr. Gibson gave me pause: I tried not to think that the very Catholic Mr. Gibson has left a bloody trail in motion pictures, The Passion of the Christ and Apocalypto to name two and of course the Lethal Weapon franchise. He's bloody once again, and little else is of suspenseful satisfaction either, right down to a slick Danny Huston playing Bennett, the head of a big corporation that deals in nuclear material and for whom Emma once worked. Now you know where the plot goes and whether or not Bennett is a sympathetic character. But Huston is a delight to watch: intelligent, elegant, ironic, and very dangerous.

The film is saved from my damnation at "D" because of a couple of small scenes between Tommy and mysterious assassin Jedburgh, played with the right detachment and insight by Ray Winstone. Gibson comes alive as an actor when he is interacting with this fine colleague.

The shots of Boston Harbor are sweet, and the scenes in working class sections have a Mystic River feel. Nothing else in the film is remotely like Clint Eastwood's masterpiece.