Edge of Darkness

What do you do when your daughter is shot in cold blood in front of you on your front porch? Find the killer or leave it to the police to investigate? It would be easier if you were a homicide detective at the Boston police department.

This is the main storyline for Mel Gibson’s latest movie – Edge of Darkness. Gibson plays Thomas Craven an aging detective trying to deal with the brutal killing of his daughter, Emma. In his investigation, he uncovers not only her secret life but a corporate cover-up and government collusion that attracts an agent (Jedburgh) tasked with cleaning up the evidence which only spells ‘cover-up’.

For a Mel Gibson movie, this one was a bit slow and seem long. Gibson looked jaded and basically lost out in the fighting scenes. But what made the movie were his reactions to his surroundings. We see him trying to cope with the grief, walking around zombie like because everyone believed that he was the gunman’s real target.

He starts to have hallucinations of Emma when she was small and we feel for him when he fights back tears when he hears Emma say, “Don’t cry Daddy”. He responds by saying “No, not yet”.

Being an experienced detective, he starts to uncover the dark secrets of Northmoor, the company where his daughter worked. When he gets too close, Jedburgh is sent in to eliminate the elder Craven. But they somehow develop a liking to each other which is quite bizarre but saves Thomas’s life. Ray Winstone is terrific as Jedburgh. You can’t help but like this hired killer with his Cockney accent!

There were a few interesting scenes like the accident that mutilated one of the informers and the car goes careening into the lake and of course the impactful scene of the shooting that blasts Emma through the door, dying in Thomas’ arms.

The other strong strength was the script. When Jedburgh is about the shoot Senator Pine who is involved in the conspiracy, the Senator says: I am a United States senator! And Jedburgh’s simple answer was: By what standards? Another instance was the conversation between Thomas and Senator Pine. In anger Thomas lashes out “You had better decide whether you’re hangin’ on the cross… or bangin’ in the nails”.

But Craven was right about one thing – ‘Few escape justice. None escape vengeance’. For this movie the ending was the absolute conclusion for the story.

So if you’re a Gibson fan, go watch this adaptation of the 1985 BBC television series of the same name. The film is directed by Martin Campbell and produced by Michael Wearing, who also directed and produced the series respectively.