Max California Ventures To The EDGE OF DARKNESS With Mel Gibson!!!

Beaks here...

Has it really been five years since we saw Mel Gibson in a feature film? Or are we counting THE COLONEL? EDGE OF DARKNESS is the script that lured Mel out of semi-retirement, and it's a remake of Troy Kennedy-Martin's critically-acclaimed BBC miniseries from the 1980s. Directed by Martin Campbell, and adapted by William Monahan (Oscar winner for THE DEPARTED) and Andrew Bovell (LANTANA), it'll be interesting to see how well the series' hook of nuclear paranoia works today. Obviously, if you've seen the Kennedy-Martin original, you know that EDGE OF DARKNESS is about much more than that - which raises another question. Have Monahan and Bovell incorporated some of the show's less conventional elements? I'm also interested to see how Ray Winstone fares in the role originally intended for Robert De Niro - who abruptly left the production last year due to "creative differences". Let's see what Max California had to say. There are some mild spoilers below.

Hi Harry, just got back from a test screening down in Thousand Oaks of Martin Campbell's new thriller 'Edge of Darkness', starring Mel Gibson. We were told it was a work in progress and all the usual stuff, though except for credits and a score it looked pretty much finished as far as I could tell. I know the film is a remake of Campbell's original British mini-series, but I haven't seen it so can't offer any comparisons. Martin Campbell was there in person, I did not see The Gib himself. Anyway, modest whats-it-about spoilers (no biggies) to follow :   Mel plays a Boston cop, with a decent understated accent (i.e. no Baaaahston-talk), devoted to his daughter, who has arrived in town for a visit. Almost immediately she starts vomiting uncontrollably and bleeds from the nose. As they leave his house to take her to the hospital, a car pulls up, someone in a ski mask gets out and unloads a shotgun on her, and speeds off. This is one of those SURPRISE MASSIVE JOLT killings that just comes out of nowhere, and the shotgun blast is ear-splittingly shocking (and if you like those, you'll love, or hate, this movie, as this kind of thing happens several times).   So we get Mel grieving for his daughter, wondering if he, a cop, was the real target and they missed, basically getting nowhere in the investigation, when he starts going through his daughters personal belongings and comes across...a geiger counter, that just so happens to start crackling when he runs it over a lock of her hair. So he investigates her work, which he knew little about - she was an employee at a nuclear plant. From there, we get into a conspiracy/coverup kind of thing as Mel follows the corruption, which goes All The Way To The Top (TM).  Ray Winstone a.k.a. not Robert Deniro shows up as a shady middleman who may or may not be helping Mel get to the bottom of everything, and Danny Huston is the daughter's boss, another suspicious character (well, pretty much everyone is).   So, any good? Yes! This is a well constructed thriller, for adults. Very plot heavy with plenty of twists and turns, so if you tune out for a few minutes you might miss something vital. I actually overheard someone say they were bored (expecting Lethal Weapon V?). It is mostly low-key, and is not an action movie, though there is action, and when it happens, it's short, brutal, and R-rated. Gibson does great work in one of his best dramatic performances in years (well, yeah I know its his ONLY performance in years, but seriously he brings the goods here), and has some fun/intense scenes with Winstone, who manages to be friendly and menacing at the same time (and he is indeed seen hitting a golf ball out of a sand trap).   No real complaints about this one, a couple of scenes here and there dragged, but nothing major, the film was about 2 hours 15 minutes.There's a device where Mel keeps seeing his dead daughter in child and adult form, and he talks to her. I don't know if this added anything, its there and its OK, but the film would have worked fine as is without it. All in all, very watchable stuff, a good solid suspense thriller, with his Gibness on top form.   -Max California