Edge of Darkness

Starring Mel Gibson, Ray Winstone. Directed by Martin Campbell. M.

copyright Warner Bros

Relevant offers

Movies

Top action from Washington Clooney is convincing The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Mystery and melancholy War horse Master director lights up the screen Holmes sequel an opportunity wasted Streep makes a riveting Iron Lady Soaring to the challenge Feast of films sure to suit all tastes

This crime-political-eco-revenge thriller, based on a memorable British TV miniseries, is Mel Gibson's film-starring comeback since his own personal edge of darkness.

In 2006, Gibson was arrested for drink-driving and then compounded the incident with anti-Semitic remarks to the arresting officer. He also separated from his wife of 26 years that year (eventually divorcing last year).

By then Gibson's movie-acting career had stalled voluntarily, having put his energy and skill into directing Apocalypto (2006).

His decision in 2008 to play bereaved Boston cop Tom Craven, who's trying to find the killer of his activist daughter, was a smart choice. It is Gibson's first starring movie role since Signs (2002).

It's a role requiring grim, haggard determination by a man steeped in almost unbearable grief. There's no Lethal Weapon flippancy or What Women Want romantic frivolity here.

Instead, Gibson can channel a bit of his Mad Max-Braveheart implacable resolve in facing a wicked world of seemingly superior sinister forces – and he can use the driving power of vengeance that fuelled his characters in The Patriot and Payback.

His probing detective unearths conspiracy and cover-up, ostensibly concerning classified national security matters and terrorist concerns, involving an oily corporate chief executive (Danny Huston), a corrupt senator (Damian Young) and other shadowy, menacing figures – none better than Ray Winstone as the mysterious and deadly fixer Darius Jedburgh, who describes his job as stopping people connecting A to B and making things unintelligible.

Based on the 1985 British miniseries of the same title, this abridged movie version directed by Kiwi Martin Campbell, who helmed the miniseries, retains the TV drama's general outline, including Craven's visions of, and conversations with, his murdered daughter (Bojana Novakovic).

Campbell showed his action-directing prowess in the 007 movies Casino Royale and Goldeneye – and again adeptly handles the action, although an incident involving a car is, in hindsight, incredible (the car manages to be in just the right place at the right time), followed by a moment of craziness as Craven confronts the car head on. The body-piling ending also seems over the top.

It's when the movie wades into the murky dealings of its dark plot that Campbell struggles and the movie starts to plod, with the intricacies of the intrigues left vague or undeveloped since every tick of story exposition is suspended for a tock of action-violence.

However, for Gibson this movie marks a sufficiently solid return to the screen. At times it feels like you sense the weight of the past few years of his life in his weary and wary eyes.

- © Fairfax NZ News