Mad Mel Has Another Conspiracy Theory

Edge of Darkness

** out of ****

Directed by: Martin Campbell

Starring: Mel Gibson, Ray Winstone, Danny Huston, Bojana Novakovic and Denis O’Hare

Running time: 117 minutes

It’s been eight years since Mel Gibson saw the Signs. And six since he’s given the big screen any Passion. It’s too bad that his newest role – an aging detective investigating the shocking death of his activist daughter – has no signs of passion within it.

In Edge of Darkness, Gibson returns to the revenge-driven roots that drove several of his earlier hits, such as Ransom and Payback.

It’s adapted from a critically lauded six-part BBC serial, but the bare-bones story and slight characterization make it tough to see where the widespread acclaim originally came from.

Gibson is Thomas Craven, a "Bah-stan" police officer. After picking up his daughter, Emma (Bojana Novakovic), from the train station, she starts showing strange symptoms. As the father and daughter leave for the hospital, a masked man shoots Emma before driving off.

Fellow officers, including a loyal ex-partner (character actor Jay O. Sanders), believe that Thomas was the target of the gunman. But Craven doesn’t think so.

While visiting his deceased Emma at the morgue, he cuts off a lock of her hair – and soon discovers that it contains traces of radiation. He also finds a loaded gun in Emma’s nightstand that belongs to her boyfriend, David (Shawn Roberts).

Craven visits David and finds the young man all paranoid about the company where he worked with Emma, named Northmoor. Realizing something’s amiss, Craven seeks vengeance on his daughter’s death by trying to uncover the “classified” material hidden within the Northmoor fortress.

But first, he must befriend a mysterious consultant (Ray Winstone), who’s been assigned to protect Craven from the shadier dealings of the corporation.

Various comparisons have been made between Edge of Darkness and the successful 2009 thriller Taken. While that film was a lot of wham-bam, this entry is a bunch of hum-drum.

Mel Gibson fares the worst. In moments when he’s not spouting horrendous cliché-ridden threats to mercenaries (such as “Fasten your seatbelts!” or “I’m the man who’s got nothing to lose!”), he looks fatigued.

Gibson’s performance is awfully short in range. After his daughter is murdered and in a few poignant flashback scenes, he shows small inklings of desperation and low spirits. Otherwise, he seems awfully bored.

The supporting actors are better, but not by much. Winstone (best known for his starring role in Beowulf) is gruff, but underused. Furthermore, Danny Huston and Denis O’Hare as shady corporate businessmen are weak (and very obvious) villains.

Still, the film’s mundane nature is mainly the fault of screenwriters William Monahan (Oscar-winner for The Departed) and Andrew Bovell.

To condense a beloved multi-hour miniseries into just under two hours, they simplify many aspects of the story. With slight, bare-bones plotting to work with, the intrigue runs awfully low.

The film is one-third the length of the award-winning 1985 miniseries. So how do you explain that the story feels stretched instead of packed in? It’s no wonder Gibson looks so bored here – he’s stuck waiting for things to happen.

But Edge of Darkness – despite bland performances and a script devoid of red herrings – is quite watchable due to Martin Campbell’s direction. The action sequences don’t have the flair that made his last film, Casino Royale, such a blast, but they are full-throttled and exciting.

Campbell also instills hushed menace into every scene – we’re eager to see what Craven will discover or if anyone is lurking around our detective’s home. These suspense aspects end up being more thrilling that the graphic bursts of action.

Unfortunately, this tale of bloodthirsty revenge is too generic and dry to amount to anything more than rental status – and even then, Gibson doesn’t have enough drive to keep us engaged.

Then again, who wants to think of Mel Gibson driving anymore?