Perennially vengeful Mel Gibson stars as a widowed Boston police detective whose cute, idealistic daughter (Bojana Novakovic) is shotgunned by masked bastards before his very eyes. Armed with Hollywood’s most solemn warrant for payback, he unravels a conspiracy that extends to the highest levels of tedium and confusion. This was based on a British miniseries, and the narrative convolutions made me wonder if screenwriters William Monahan and Andrew Bovell felt obliged to cram all six episodes’ worth of talk and plot into 117 minutes. Martin Campbell directed, displaying none of the flair that made his Casino Royale such a hoot; with Danny Huston as a corporate weasel and Ray Winstone as a cryptic black ops expert who serves as Gibson’s Deep Throat. R.
Edge of Darkness
2010