Edge of Darkness trailers may deceive

Ransler Dier - Staff Writer

Edge of Darkness is a movie that suffers from being marketed wrong. Based on the trailer, I expected this to be Mel Gibson’s Taken, as I expect most will; it wasn’t, but after I came to terms with the fact that it wouldn’t be Mel kicking in heads for the duration of his screen time, I found the film to be an interesting throw back to the old crime/thriller genre.

As the title suggests, this will not be Mel walking on sunshine picking daisies. Edge of Darkness is a gritty pseudo-realistic thriller about a man who has nothing but revenge on his mind. While visiting her father, Emma Craven (Bojana Novakovic) is gunned down in an act of violence seemingly targeted at her father. As the only witness and happening to be a cop, Tom Craven (Mel Gibson) goes to work as a father out for revenge. As the plot progresses, Tom is helped by a man whom he can never fully trust named Jedburgh (Ray Winstone). What follows is a cat and mouse game with Mel Gibson returning to the role he does best as the man with nothing to lose.

The film is well acted by all its parts. Mel Gibson putting on a Brooklyn-esque accent for the duration that never got to the point where I absolutely hated it. He plays his part of the grieving father quite convincingly which leads to some pretty heartbreaking scenes. The daughter does well for the whopping 15 minutes she is actually on screen. But the scene-stealer here is most definitely Ray Winstone. The man has a presence unlike any other! Although, he seems under-used, with his scenes only lasting a few minutes at a time and not actually appearing until the halfway point. 

Unfortunately, thrillers like this need twists, and Edge of Darkness offers none. We know from the trailer that his daughter is going to get it early on and from there it’s a cut and dry revenge movie minus much of the action that these movies tend to have. Edge of Darkness is a film that has more in common with a drama rather than the action film the trailers made it out to be.

Overall it was quite a well-done movie that suffers most from its marketing and familiar plot. Regardless of how this film does, I do hope this means a comeback for Mel “Roadwarrior” Gibson.