New Darkness a Viscerally Satisfying Thriller
Revered Boston Police Detective Thomas Craven (Mel Gibson) is angry. His daughter Emma (Bojana Novakovic) was gunned down on his doorstep, the assailant supposedly out to get him but killing her by mistake. At least, that the path his fellow officers are taking their search for justice down, any thoughts to the contrary ones they’re not even contemplating.
Mel Gibson is gunning for justice in Warner Bros' Edge of Darkness
Craven begs to differ. After some no-so subtle hints from a shadowy figure calling himself Darius Jedburgh (Ray Winstone) the veteran detective is starting to think Emma’s former employer Jack Bennett (Danny Huston) might have some dirt on his hands in regards to her murder. She was a low-level intern scientist at his nuclear research company Northmore and discovered some wrongdoing involving weapons development, her attempts at whistleblowing maybe leading to her demise.
As Craven begins to unravel this twisted mystery he uncovers more malfeasance than even he could have anticipated. But even the involvement of Republican Massachusetts Senator Jim Pine (Damian Young) isn’t going to stop Craven from exacting payback, and even if it takes his own life this grieving father is going to make sure his daughter gets the justice in death she wasn’t able to find while she was alive.
I’ve seen the original 1985 BBC miniseries Edge of Darkness and it deserves its classic status. Complex, involving, dramatically moving and grippingly intelligent, the late Troy Kennedy Martin’s (the original The Italian Job, “Reilly: Ace of Spies”) fascinating script so multilayered and fascinating the whole thing feels like it flies by in a relative instant. Like “Prime Suspect” or “State of Play” this is British television at its absolute best, and for those out there who haven’t seen it I strongly recommend picking up the DVDs and giving it a look today.
It almost goes without saying that director Martin Campbell (Casino Royale, The Mask of Zorro) and writers William Monahan (Body of Lies) and Andrew Bovell (Lantana) aren’t able to accomplish everything in two hours that Martin’s original took five-plus to so intricately unveil. There aren’t as many layers, not as many nuances to this hard-boiled thriller of vengeance, and as hard as the filmmakers try their feature film version of Edge of Darkness just doesn’t pack the same emotional punch as that 1985 miniseries.
Not that it needs to. Stripped down to its barest essentials, Campbell (who incidentally also helmed the original) directs with a beastly ferocity that keeps propelling things forward even when the script does its best to overly complicate matters by throwing in secondary characters and subplots better left alone. The movie has kinetic heat, its thunderous approach fitting the somewhat tragic vengeful fury welling up inside its driven protagonist.
It helps considerably that the producers were able to convince Gibson to take the role. Craven is a character right inside the former Lethal Weapon and Braveheart superstar’s wheelhouse, the grieving detective coming off like a force of vindictive nature as he trolls the Boston streets looking for justice. The actor hasn’t appeared in front of a camera for seven years (he was last seen briefly in The Singing Detective, coincidentally another BBC remake) but you’d never know it, Gibson’s trademark ferocity as mesmerizing now as it was back when Max really went mad in 1981’s The Road Warrior.
As much as I enjoyed this remake (especially during its dynamic and involving first half), there’s just too much material hinted at and then discarded for it to be wholly successful. Monahan and Bovell try to get as many of the intricacies of the original threaded into their script here as possible, diving into the topics of environmentalism, political corruption and corporate duplicity head first. But they just don’t have the time to deal with everything they bring up, Monahan in the end pulling out some of the same tricks he used at the end of The Departed in order to tidy it all up.
But my biggest complaint concerns a moment during the third act I can’t really go into in much detail. The best I can say is that this film offers up a moment of incredulity rivaling the silliest moments of a Roger Moore era James Bond movie, the supposedly captured hero escaping relatively unnoticed even though a plethora of operatives are trying to keep him secure.
The thing is this isn’t a James Bond thriller and if the filmmakers had stuck with the realism they’d so diligently constructed during the majority of the picture then the bad guys would have just shot Craven and dumped his body in the river. Nothing what happens during this brief portion makes no sense whatsoever. Worse, it’s almost as if no one cares, this momentary lapse into silliness treated with the same intense seriousness as the rest of the narrative.
Thankfully this segment doesn’t last very long, Campbell and company getting back on the relatively right track fairly quickly. While things wrap up a bit too cleanly it’s still pretty satisfying, Gibson doing such a great job of bringing his blood to boil throughout the picture that his climactic bloodlust is both believably and satisfying. These moments worked for me, I was happy with them, and while I missed the complexity of the original that fact didn’t make me any less glued to my seat while I was sitting in the theater.
The bottom line here is this is not Troy Kennedy Martin’s Edge of Darkness. It is less complex and runs more on the boiling emotions of a single man than it does on the minute of government and corporate relations and ties. But save for a few minor hiccups and some red herrings that don’t quite add up Campbell’s new take on the material is still viscerally rewarding. In short, I liked it, the movie just strong enough I’m actually looking forward to someday seeing it again.
Film Rating: êêê (out of 4)
