Part political intrigue, part thriller, part paternal revenge romp, Edge Of Darkness does succeed on some fronts but could certainly be accused of also being quite the convoluted mess!
Director Martin Campbell has obviously lost some of his touch after the fine work he did crafting Casino Royale, a film which succeeds as a fine mesh of both Bond action film and smart thriller.
Thomas Craven’s (Mel Gibson) daughter is viciously murdered as she stands next to him in front of his home. The immediate assumption is that Craven was the intended target since he is a homicide detective and has no doubt garnered his share of enemies. But the more he looks into it, the more Craven is convinced that the bullet was indeed meant for his daughter (Bojana Novakovic) who worked at a nuclear processing facility. He soon finds himself entangled in a web of corporate greed and a cover up which may extend into government circles.
Craven is approached by a mysterious operative called Jedburgh (Ray Winstone). Does he intend to warn him? Help him? Kill him? It’s unclear whether he is friend or foe. And so it is in a film like this. The mystery is not so much who killed his daughter or even why. That all becomes clear fairly early on. It is more about who can be trusted.
As Craven, Mel Gibson has his moments as a man with demons, in fact Gibson plays his character as a flawed everyman, by no means a stock standard movie super-cop. His character has clearly made bad choices in his past and he deals with them as best he can. Craven’s single minded investigation into his daughters death is the drive of the film and in general it works well, although the constant flashback/visions he has of his daughter at 8 years of age do become quite annoying and distracting.
Based on a British mini-series from the mid eighties, the filmmakers have done a good job of compressing 6 hours of film into two in general, with the nice twist being that in the original the Jedburgh character was an American, in this version he is British.
All in all a good effort and a film that will certainly make you think!
3 A-Team members out of 5.
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