My oh my. What ever happened to the classic thriller?
Is it my imagination or have the last ten years been light on good old-fashioned suspense movies.
Take last year: There was the flawed and predictable, but not totally dreadful, State of Play, the hokey and facile International, but what else?
It’s a shame that ‘conspiracies that go to the highest-levels’ — good conspiracies — have virtually disappeared. From cinema at least.
This new offering, based on a highly successful 1985 British TV series, doesn’t exactly restore the thriller to glory.
The problems start with the name, Edge of Darkness. It is the sort of abstract title that blockbuster novelists come up with to generate a vague sense of mystery, excitement and danger among vapid commuter-belt readers.
That’s sort of apt, in a sense, because in many ways the film handles like a blockbuster novel: A zippy start allows the film to get away the complete absence of chemistry between poorly drawn characters.
From there the number of characters multiplies like crazy, until we have government officials, ludicrously evil corporate CEOs, cops (honest and otherwise), henchmen, scared scientists, environmental activists, some guy from the CIA or something — and, stuffed in somwehere, a rudimentary plot. Phew!
Most of this plot seems to function as a reason to get that number of characters on the screen.
Craggy Boston cop, Mel Gibson, dons his best Columbo overcoat and potters about Massachusetts trying to solve his daughters murder, leaving a long trail of the beaten, bruised and dead behind him as he does so.
(Incidentally, fair play to director Martin Campbell. Not only is he revisiting his own material — he directed the original TV series too — but he’s put the 5’9” Gibson on screen with a much taller supporting cast. Poor old Mel look quite the shorty. Maybe it’s the Columbo thing again.)
In a ‘deadly game of cat and mouse’ Mel evades henchmen sent to kill him by shadowy, behind the scene figures as he tries to work out all the pieces of the puzzle. Is everything as it seems? Why was his daughter puking the hell all over the place before she got shot? Is Mel going crazy because her disembodied voice talking to him as he Fights Back Tears? (I’ve got ten bucks that says the script actually says “he fights back tears.”)
Ray Winestone shows up as some sort of dangerous government fixer a couple of times. While Mel and Ray ham it up and clearly enjoy themselves, his entire fixer character could have been cut from the movie without too much of a problem.
A lot of the movie could have been cut without too much bother, in fact.
It’s main problem is that it’s just too long; the mystery simply isn’t good enough to keep our attention fixed for two hours.
Edge of Darkness is probably one best kept in reserve for a rainy DVD night.
Remember Marathon Man? All The President’s Men? 3 Days of the Condor?
Now they were thrillers.
Actually, do yourself a favour, forget Edge and grab a real classic instead.

By: Brian Herron.

Here’s the trailer:

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