SAN ANTONIO - Mel Gibson is back with "Edge of Darkness." But this isn't the wink-and-a-smile Mel of "Lethal Weapon." It's been eight years since Gibson has been seen on the big screen, and those years have changed him. So instead of trying to 'get it back,' he's embraced his age, wrinkles and receding hairline and poured it all into this new character.
Gibson plays Thomas Craven, a Boston detective whose main love in life is his daughter Emma (Bojana Novakovic). The script is full of action and violence with brief interludes of warm father-daughter flashback moments. Detective Craven is a no-nonsense straight arrow cop on the verge of retirement. His tender moments with his daughter counterweigh his brutal revenge scenes.
Left with the task of unraveling his daughter's life, Detective Craven methodically solves the mystery and doles out instant justice where warranted (and a whole lot of bad guys get their deserved brutal payback). He gets help from Ray Winstone who seems to be some kind of super-fixer-upper beyond the reach of all governments and corporations. This mysterious spook is essential to Craven's quest for justice, but his accent is so thick and voice so low that you can sometimes barely understand what he's saying.
Although the script gets weighed down with industrial nuclear weapon corruption and government conspiracies, don't let all this convolution cloud the point. These elements are present as devices to get Mel from point A to point B – they don't mean a thing.
The strange thing about this aging Mel Gibson performance is that it reminds me most of his stoic "Road Warrior" / "Mad Max" character (before "Thunderdome") from 30 years ago.
In the mold of “Taken” this movie is a diesel truck running at 120 miles per hour. With "Edge of Darkness" there's no allowances for plot twists or serious undertones as we watch an aging Mel Gibson takes you on a ride you'll enjoy, but soon forget. And that's just fine.
Grade: C+
