EDGE OF DARKNESS (2010)

[indianasmith]

Since Mel Gibson has been in the news anyway, I decided to watch his most recent effort.  I find it all the more sad that he is experiencing such a horrific personal meltdown, since I have always found him to be one of the more talented actors out there.  I realize that many may contend this, but his remarkable ability to project emotions through his facial expressions has always been very effective (the scene in THE PATRIOT where his son Gabriel dies in his arms is a great example).  So I decided to check this one out.

Tom Craven is a Boston policeman whose daughter Emma comes home after a long absence.  She is obviously ill, and is trying to tell her Dad something when a vomiting fit overtakes her and she asks to go to the doctor.  As he helps her out the door, a masked gunman blows her away with a sawed off shotgun.  Craven masks his grief as he goes on a quest to find out who was behind his daughter's death and why.

All in all, this is a fairly solid thriller.  The villains (an evil industrialist and a Republican Senator) are convincingly snarly, and the plot has enough twists and turns to keep you guessing.  The weakest point for me was the unintelligible dialogue.  A mysterious "Security Consultant" named Jedburgh (played by Ray Winstone) shadows Gibson and actually helps his investigation some; his very thick English accent and propensity for mumbling make many of his lines virtually impossible to understand.  All in all, this movie works more than it doesn't, and if this does turn out to be Gibson's last film for awhile, at least he didn't leave us with a total stinker.

Go change your life, Mel.  The movies can wait.