In Cinemas: EDGE OF DARKNESS review

By Mark Clark / July 1, 2011

Seven years. That€™s a fair gap of screen time for one of Hollywood€™s sometime demented but still favourite sons, and director Martin Campbell, plays with that for just a couple of minutes, only allowing us Mel Gibson€™s growl in voiceover before he finally turns to face camera. And well, he may be a little older, a little craggier, but after seven years behind a film camera and in front of the tabloids it doesn€™t seem that Mel Gibson has lost any of his screen presence. Whether that€™s because his performance carries all that real world baggage is hard to say. Edge of Darkness is based on the BBC series from 1985, a six episode environmental pollution, conspiracy drama that proved to be a benchmark for intelligent, atmospheric film-making and the BBC are once again involved in squeezing the original into the film version, moving the story across the Atlantic to Boston, Massachusetts. In its American guise Gibson play Tom Craven, a Boston PD detective who suffers a cataclysmic loss when his only daughter is gunned down beside him. Seemingly collateral damage in an attack on Craven himself. A reserved (yes you read that right) man alone, Craven embarks on a single-minded, and possibly unbalanced search for the killers of the one bright point in his life, finding himself in the midst of a larger conspiracy involving industry, politics and government. Naturally in any adaptation of a mini-series to movie the erosion of some of the depth and detail is inevitable, I mean how much slow-burn tension and complexity can you compress, but Edge of Darkness ultimately and practically misunderstands, or simply ceases to care, about such things. There is a degree of success with the re-working of the central idea, particularly regarding its re-location but an over-reliance on action to keep the story in motion leaves the quiet moments, well, a little too quiet. Considering Campbell also directed the original series it makes these frustrating failures all the more prevalent. Then again within the confines of a two hour running time Campbell has ever been a middle of the road director, yes 007 rose from the ashes in Casino Royale but I€™ve always suspected that film succeeded in spite of its director. He doesn€™t seem to have the skill to pace or balance the complexity of conspiracy on the big screen, falling back on the shock troops of action, blood and violence. That€™s not to say that the action scenes aren€™t well staged, including a couple of real zingers €“ I€™ll be taking more care answering the door or getting out of a car that€™s for sure €“ but they smack a little of desperation, tugging on your coat-sleeves to get your attention. Campbell is admittedly hamstrung by a lacklustre script from William Monahan, Hollywood€™s new go to guy for Bostonian mayhem (he also penned The Departed). In fact the half-hearted ghost of The Departed€™s director seems to have wandered into the final shout-out, a moment, like the rest of the film that would have frankly benefitted from a flesh and blood Scorsese at the helm. Characterisation is also short-handed, both on paper and in performances that are often either absent or just over-wrought, particularly in the case of Danny Huston as the main corporate evil, Jack Bennett, who is so bonkers you wonder how he even got his job in the first place. Even the usually reliable Ray Winstone, as the government hired €˜specialist€™ Jedburgh, has to rely on thinly drawn affectations to make any impression. The conversations involving Winstone€™s laid back weariness and Gibson€™s frequent quietude become so inert you half expect the entire film to just grind to a halt. However, not everything is a lost cause and that is mainly down to Gibson himself. He€™s always had a natural aura of emotional imbalance and that suits the character of Craven, odd flashes of Mad Mel proving a real pleasure. And gratifyingly, amidst the deceit and surrounding violence the core relationship between Craven and his daughter Emma is never subsumed, and with it€™s somewhat otherworldly quality, allows some much-needed warmth within the calculated machinations of everyone else involved, both in front of the camera, and behind it. Edge of Darkness opens in U.K. and U.S. cinema's today (Friday 29th January)