Reviewed by Alicia Glass

Rating: 6.5

 A Boston Homicide Detective goes on a crusade to discover the truth behind his secret activist daughter’s murder.

We’ve seen the trailers. We’ve all, those of us who’ve seen both movies anyway, were prepared to compare Edge of Darkness to Taken and other vengeance style movies. Let me just inform you right now: this film isn’t. That is, this film actually delivers quite a bit of drama and bright blue eye-popping bull-snorting threats from Mel Gibson, but as far as a Law Abiding Citizen style rampage, forget it. And frankly, all that posturing still doesn’t compare to some of Gibon’s earlier gems, like Payback or Ransom. If that wasn’t enough, there is one hugely major flaw that runs throughout most of the movie, that drives me insane. How can you possibly expect high tension and suspense when almost all of the protagonists are affecting these awful Boston accents and practically swallowing their lines at the same time? Plus, well, when Gibson does get roaring mad, the accent disappears, so why have it in the first place?

For all that, the plot itself is interesting enough. Mel Gibson stars as father Craven, who at the beginning of the movie is just happy welcoming his estranged daughter home for a nice dinner. Bojana Novakovic delivers a lovely performance as Emma Craven, his daughter. And right as the two of them are about to start dinner, Emma has a rather violent attack of illness, to go along with the violent attack of a shotgun at the front door from a masked assailant. Thus Detective Craven, admittedly a rather stoic and untalkative man, embarks on a quest to find the truth of his daughter’s murder, no matter who it involves. Turns out, oh it involves people like a Senator, the U.S. government and their private contractors, nuclear power, and all sorts of other nasties. Ray Winstone stars in a grand performance as Jedburgh, who I gather is an English agent and sort of jack of all trades-man. The problem is, a lot like Michael Clayton, you watch the movie once and that’s it, you know who did it and why and the plot is frankly too muddled to really watch again.

Nowhere near the actual edge of darkness, the movie maybe skirts shades of grey-black, that’s about it.