Saturday, February 20, 2010
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Saturday, February 20, 2010
MOVIE REVIEW
Edge Of Darkness
Ring Of Fire, But Not Around
The Collar
Mel Gibson as Thomas Craven in Martin Campbell's
"Edge Of Darkness". The film
opened late last month across the U.S. and Canada. Warner
Brothers
By Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com
Saturday, February 20, 2010
With "Edge Of Darkness" Mel Gibson returns on camera after being off-camera
directing "The Passion Of The Christ" and "Apocalypto".
During those
intervening seven years, much has been written about the actor-director's travails,
and in this new film, directed by "Casino Royale" filmmaker Martin Campbell, Mr.
Gibson seeks refuge, though some of the iconography from those aforementioned
films keep him company.
"Edge Of Darkness", which opened late last month in the U.S. and
Canada, is based on the 1985 BBC television
drama series of the same name and finds Boston police detective Thomas Craven (Mr.
Gibson) grieving early on following the murder of his daughter. Like the
methodical lead men in Michael Mann's "Heat", Craven is nothing
if not the
mission he is on: to get to the bottom of the killing that has left him bereft.
The new film is written by "Departed" scribe William Monahan and Andrew Bovell.
Mr. Campbell's film works best when its shadowy elements are employed: the
person you think you see, the person you swore you knew and the person you never
saw coming. Such elements render a Deep Throat-like ode to "All The President's Men", for sure.
Speaking of which, Ray Winstone plays a mysterious operative who does some of this and some of
that. In his few scenes he plays as comic relief with his Cockney dialect
and a few choice lines to balance the
ultra-gung-ho Craven's fierce appetite for justice. Mr. Winstone's
Jedburgh character is given little room to maneuver however, since a film with
the title "Edge Of Darkness" suggests anything but
comedy. After all, Mr. Gibson spends much of the film talking to dead people,
half-dead people or people who have it coming.
Mr. Gibson does far from badly here as Craven, but the film could have raised the
level of drama instead of drag its narrative heels. Key elements of the
story lack cohesion. There's a lethargy and missing tension that cripples
Mr. Campbell's mystery drama and brings it to a standstill. Much of the
stagnancy is occupied by the isolation of the film's main character, who looks
as hollow as the air he breathes.
Danny Huston plays a corporate rake who barely withholds the sinister glint in
his eye. At one point he asks Mr. Gibson's character what loss feels like.
You wish Craven would say, "check your f-----g stock options" or something, but the film's seriousness
doesn't allow for it.
With: Jay O. Sanders, Bojana Novakovic, Shawn Roberts, Damian Young, Denis
O'Hare, David Aaron Baker, Caterina Scorsone, Gbenga Akinnagbe.
"Edge Of Darkness" is rated R by the Motion Picture Association Of
America for strong bloody violence and language. The film's
running time is one hour and 57 minutes.
Read Omar's "Far-Flung Correspondent" reports for America's pre-eminent Film
Critic Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times -
here
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