A Ride Through 'Darkness'

by Brett Parker

Edge of Darkness is an appropriately-titled film; the morbid opening shot reveals three dead bodies floating in a river and the ominous tone for the film is set. This one is dark and unsettling from beginning to finish without ever letting up. There’s not a moment’s ease. We’re held in a vice grip by sprits of vicious and unforgiving violence. Even the film’s ending doesn’t resolve everything in a tidy manner, but is disturbing in how much is not truly resolved. This isn’t one of the more significant thrillers you’ll ever see, but it has a creepiness that’s hard to shake.

The film stars Mel Gibson as Tom Craven, a Police Detective who lives by himself in Boston. We see him preparing for the arrival of his only daughter, Emma (Bojana Novakovic), who works for a mysterious corporation in another part of Massachusetts. Despite a loving relationship between the two, they’ve been estranged for some time and Tom is hazy on the details of Emma’s work. He picks her up at the train station and is alarmed to discover that she is showing signs of nausea accompanied with nose bleeds. After they arrive home, a masked assailant appears at their door step and shoots Emma dead with a shotgun.

The assailant makes a clean getaway and Police arrive on the crime scene thinking that Tom was the intended target. Devastated and enraged, Tom isn’t so sure of that and decides to investigate the case for himself. This leads him down a path towards Northmoor, the shadowy corporation Emma worked for. The company puts up a front about an environmental agenda but may really be working on nuclear weaponry for the government. The slimy yet elegant CEO (Danny Huston) assures Tom that they had nothing to do with her death, but it’s soon revealed that Emma may have been part of a conspiracy that involves eco-terrorism, government dealings, and national security cover-ups. Tom receives crucial information about these developments from a shadowy CIA figure (Ray Winstone) with an ambiguous agenda. Tom works relentlessly to expose all of this corruption and avenge Emma’s death, with violent results.

From the film’s early trailers, I expected an action serving in the vain of Taken, a vengeance thriller in which we relish a big name star smacking around villainous sleazeballs in slam-bang ways. The actual result is a patient and precise thriller that goes to pain-staking lengths to develop its characters and stretch out the plot’s inevitable dread. The busy plot hits its clockwork logic at a considerably slow pace, allowing the film’s dark underpinnings to seep into us stronger, holding us in an unlikely grip of tension. I suppose one could pluck contemporary relevance from the government developments, but this is essentially a one-man-revenge-drama that once again employs the ideal that all corporations are shadowy and corrupt, going to satanic lengths to protect their interests. The difference this time is that Northmoor is painted in such convincing and detailed strokes that their villainy feels realistic and it unexpectedly shakes us.

Great credit for this routine story’s unexpected hold goes to director Martin Campbell. Campbell originally directed the British TV miniseries from the 80s in which this film is based upon, yet he doesn’t coil backwards from the technical elegance he has nurtured so well in his Hollywood endeavors since then. His Casino Royale, one of the great James Bond pictures, displayed a wonderful attention to dramatic character depths while delivering expected thriller elements with effective excellence. He brings the same sense of both ideals to Edge of Darkness, almost bringing a Hawksian subtlety to the material. He films in a hushed and simplistic manner, giving the plot’s tragic undercurrents room to grab us.

Edge of Darkness marks Mel Gibson’s return to the big screen after an 8-year-hiatus following the smash hit Signs. Yes, he’s directed some controversial movies since then and yes, he had an embarrassing DUI incident, but that doesn’t really skewer the fact that he’s one of the most durable and compelling leading men we’ve ever had. Very few Hollywood stars possess both a matinee-idol handsomeness and an economy of boiling rage. When Gibson acts, he doesn’t appear to be relying on visible method tactics but is ripping his emotions from a deep anguished place within himself. Think of the fire in his eyes throughout Braveheart and his raging meltdown in The Bounty. Gibson is at his most fascinating when he’s riled up, something that the Craven role inevitably demands. What makes the performance interesting is the way Gibson tries to conceal his character's infinite anger underneath, only slipping it out in startling sprits (there’s a great moment where he tough talks an attorney). Gibson doesn’t shy away from disturbing flourishes, especially when he holds imaginary conversations with his daughter’s ghost. It’s a welcomed return to the big screen for Mad Mel.

While most thrillers try to cancel everything out for a neat ending, what’s most unnerving about Edge of Darkness is how much doesn’t really get cleaned up in the end. The finale is something of a mess, but the mess, in itself, turns out to be the point. Craven essentially wins the battle, but it appears he lost the war. The character receives a degree of vengeance, but our hearts sink when we realize that the evil corporation will thrive on and have its messes cleaned up eventually. The screenplay was shaped with assistance from The Departed’s Academy Award Winning writer, William Monahan, and like that film he also provides a story in which the ultimate catharsis is bloodshed. The script seems to be suggesting here that no matter how hard one tries, the big corporations of the world cannot be faltered by the everyman, and big business will always thrive on. The only real justice is mad brute justice.

Like Michael Mann or Kathryn Bigelow, Martin Campbell has become a master of action thrillers by putting the drama and the characters in the forefront. Our popcorn-movie cravings would’ve probably been satisfied by a Mel Gibson shoot-em-up, but we still appreciate Campbell’s sincere attempts at a thoughtful thriller. I would imagine the film’s length and murky view on current themes may be trying for some moviegoers, but it’s not enough to diminish the film’s cold classiness.