Edge of Darkness – Review

As long as men are a flawed species, revenge will exist. Since the beginning of cinema, revenge has been one of the most used archetypes for a story, and it’s one of cinema’s most thrilling. But with nearly a hundred years of a well-told genre, is there any left to say about the nature of revenge? I think so, as the emotional implications can be stirred into something original, as seen in Park Chan-wook’s so-called ‘Vengeance Trilogy’, but with Edge of Darkness, no. The nature of a revenge movie is entirely predictable for a few reasons, and most of them involve audience’s expectations.

Certainly feeding into what has made films like Death Wish so profitable, is the journey of the inevitable conclusion. We want to see our saddened hero get his revenge on the bad guy. This must happen, otherwise we are left unsatisfied. I don’t think it’s a Golden Rule, but it has been one that must be applied, unless the script calls for something else, but with Edge of Darkness, William Monahan’s screenplay does not call for anything outside of the genre expectations. Based off of a successful BBC series, Edge of Darkness in this American form is a cookie-cutter revenge tale. The plausibility of what Thomas Craven must do in order to find his daughter’s killer is thin. One would instantly think the police force he works for, would take away his badge and ability to get a hold of classified information, but again, you got to feed the inevitability.

If one needs to get bloody revenge, it feels wholesome for Thomas Craven to be played by a long absent Mel Gibson. It’s been nearly 7 long years, since Mel graced us in front of the camera, and while his public image was wavered, it really doesn’t matter, since his screen presence wraps us into Thomas Craven. He’s a great actor, and I don’t really care about your personal feelings on his recent divorce or the whole Passion of the Christ debate, Mel Gibson is one of our finer actor, and it’s a blast to have him back.

But Edge of Darkness is seemingly content with being average. No matter the political mystery to the girl’s death, the film really wants to be just a Death Wish clone, and despite Martin Campbell’s solid direction, the script’s fatal flaw is the fact that we really don’t care about why Craven’s daughter died. It’s understandable that Craven would go all Charles Bronson, but the continued scenes of him fantasizing seeing his daughter, especially the ending, rings incredible hollow. Getting back to the audience’s expectations, the marketing team sells this as a Taken 2, and even placing this film in that film’s January slot. Success isn’t given, it’s rewarded, and Taken made us care about his daughter, and well, that was just a bloody satisfying romp. Edge of Darkness doesn’t go to any edges, but plays it safe rewarding us with cheap thrills. I can’t be too hard on it, because of Mel.

Rating: