'Mad' Mel returns with an itchy trigger finger
Mel Gibson returns to the screen as a father out for revenge. (Warner Bros.)
Edge of Darkness
Running time: 112 minutes
MPAA rating: R (extreme bloody violence, harsh profanity)
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Apparently, even big-time movie star filmmakers aren't immune to the seven-year itch.
Mel Gibson directed "The Passion of the Christ" and "Apocalypto" during his acting interim. He returns to a starring role after not being in front of a camera (police mug shots don't count) since sharing the screen with Robert Downey Jr. in the little-seen offbeat, goofy, musical comic-mystery "The Singing Detective" (2003).
In the volatile crime-thriller, "Edge of Darkness," Mad Mel reverts back to a combo persona. He's both a jittery police officer (The "Lethal Weapon" franchise) and a martyr ("Braveheart").
Gibson, showing a little gray in his hair and sporting deeper facial wrinkles, takes on a Boston accent and the role of Bean Town police detective Thomas Craven. Before he can even fetch a ginger ale for his visiting 24-year-old daughter Emma (Bojana Novakovic), Emma is gunned-down on the front porch.
If you thought Gibson was a lethal weapon before, hell hath no fury like a single father whose only child spills blood (but not quite critical secrets) in the hallway.
His daughter was involved in a plot that exposes not only radiation, but the worst byproducts of business and politics. In this case, that means a ruthless force of evil in the form of Danny Huston gloating over the fact that he's up to no good. It also means bullets flying everywhere and a whole new sarcastic definition for the catchphrase "Got milk?"
"Edge of Darkness," directed by capable New Zealander Martin Campbell ("Casino Royale," "The Legend of Zorro"), is a remake of sorts. Screenwriters Andrew Bovell and Oscar-winner William Monahan ("The Departed") have condensed the mid-1980s BBC miniseries of the same title into an entertaining, if brutally violent two-hour melodrama.
To say that this thing erupts into violence before a hat can even be dropped is an understatement akin to, "Hey, the economy has taken a slight downturn."
In fact, I have to go all the way back to John Woo's highly stylized, but wonderful assassin thriller "The Killer" of 1990 to find anything that matches the firepower. It sounds odd to say that a movie about people getting killed left and right is fun. This one is, though, when it's not pushing the envelope too far into silliness.
"Edge of Darkness," originally a Cold War thriller, heats up this time with vigilante justice and some oddly memorable acting moments between Gibson, who's still got it, and excellent British actor Ray Winstone (Mr. French in "The Departed") as mysterious enforcer Darius Jedburgh.
Winstone, unlike Mr. Gibson, never lost it.
Mel Gibson directed "The Passion of the Christ" and "Apocalypto" during his acting interim. He returns to a starring role after not being in front of a camera (police mug shots don't count) since sharing the screen with Robert Downey Jr. in the little-seen offbeat, goofy, musical comic-mystery "The Singing Detective" (2003).
In the volatile crime-thriller, "Edge of Darkness," Mad Mel reverts back to a combo persona. He's both a jittery police officer (The "Lethal Weapon" franchise) and a martyr ("Braveheart").
Gibson, showing a little gray in his hair and sporting deeper facial wrinkles, takes on a Boston accent and the role of Bean Town police detective Thomas Craven. Before he can even fetch a ginger ale for his visiting 24-year-old daughter Emma (Bojana Novakovic), Emma is gunned-down on the front porch.
If you thought Gibson was a lethal weapon before, hell hath no fury like a single father whose only child spills blood (but not quite critical secrets) in the hallway.
His daughter was involved in a plot that exposes not only radiation, but the worst byproducts of business and politics. In this case, that means a ruthless force of evil in the form of Danny Huston gloating over the fact that he's up to no good. It also means bullets flying everywhere and a whole new sarcastic definition for the catchphrase "Got milk?"
"Edge of Darkness," directed by capable New Zealander Martin Campbell ("Casino Royale," "The Legend of Zorro"), is a remake of sorts. Screenwriters Andrew Bovell and Oscar-winner William Monahan ("The Departed") have condensed the mid-1980s BBC miniseries of the same title into an entertaining, if brutally violent two-hour melodrama.
To say that this thing erupts into violence before a hat can even be dropped is an understatement akin to, "Hey, the economy has taken a slight downturn."
In fact, I have to go all the way back to John Woo's highly stylized, but wonderful assassin thriller "The Killer" of 1990 to find anything that matches the firepower. It sounds odd to say that a movie about people getting killed left and right is fun. This one is, though, when it's not pushing the envelope too far into silliness.
"Edge of Darkness," originally a Cold War thriller, heats up this time with vigilante justice and some oddly memorable acting moments between Gibson, who's still got it, and excellent British actor Ray Winstone (Mr. French in "The Departed") as mysterious enforcer Darius Jedburgh.
Winstone, unlike Mr. Gibson, never lost it.
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