CINEMA: Edge of Darkness, part 2

Hollywood is not well known for original ideas and has never been nervous about stealing them or regurgitating old ones.

Here they have taken a classic British BBC mini-series from the 1980s that was a dark, political and thoroughly scary piece of historic television and turned it into a non-scary modern action thriller that is not bad but not great.

The story follows hard-boiled and straight-laced Boston cop Thomas Craven, played by Mel Gibson, whose estranged daughter Emma (Bojana Novakovic) turns up on his doorstep one night harboring a dark secret. She is gunned down in front of Craven’s eyes before she can share it with him and this sets in motion an investigation that pushes him towards the edge of darkness of the title.

It’s a shame that such excellent original source material has been butchered and moved from England to the US. Cutting it from a six-hour series to just under two hours on film allows no time for characters’ motives and actions to be fully explored. Danny Huston plays the corporate bad guy like a poorly-written pantomime villain. His character is never fully developed and the audience is just expected to accept his evil actions that set the events of the film in motion.

As a much-anticipated return in front of the camera after seven years there is a lot riding on seeing Mel act again but he seems to be playing just another version of his character from Payback crossed with Mad Max. He looks pretty old now and although he does make a good anguished father, it’s not really a taxing role. Support is good from Ray Winstone, who pops up as a shady government fixer, while other characters come and go and make no real impact on the lacklustre script from William Monahan and Andrew Bovell. Where director Martin Campbell shone in his work on Casino Royale, here he fails to fully ignite the screen.

It’s a half decent but average thriller. You would gain more in checking out the far superior and far scarier original series.