Edge of Darkness, the new Mel Gibson acting comeback movie is released soon and one rental store in particular has the film as a rental exclusive, which is how I got to see it.
Mel Gibson is a bit like Marmite, you either love him or hate him after his controversial, drunken rants, and now the man is off the sauce and on the wagon, it's time remember the good old days and the man who was once one of the biggest box-office actors around. Remember Mad Max and it's sequels, the four Lethal Weapon films, Maverick, Brave Heart, Bird On A Wire, Payback, Ransom and um...What Women Want? “Say what you like about the man but my god does he know story structure” (south Park reference), no seriously, sure the man has some problems, but like I say he's Mel fucking Gibson, hell Martin Riggs had some problems and Gibson played him, he's a legend of the screen and I welcome this comeback.
Edge of Darkness is a good comeback film for Gibson, the kind of role he's played before be it Porter in Payback or Tom Mullen in Ransom, this is the out for revenge, not letting anything stand in my Way Gibson that gives him many of his best roles.
The Plot of EOD is a little convoluted and this is it's major flaw, As the acting is top notch, not only from an on form Mel but also from Danny Huston and Ray 'The daddy' Winston as a shady NSA 'Fixer', who is hired to locate Mel and do something or other. Mel's daughter gets killed and it is believed that Gibson was intended target, This sets him off on a quest to find out why and is drawn into a conspiracy involving a U.S senator and a Private Military Weapons manufacturer and they're arms dealing to terrorists, Still with me?...Good. So Mel discovers all this and decides now's the time to take them down and expose the cover-up. This does not sit well with Huston who at every chance wants a way of taking Gibson out. Throw in Ray Winston in what is essentially a glorified cameo and a seemingly pointless one at that and you have a rather mundane revenger that doesn't really know what it wants to do. The film is based on a 1985 BBC mini series that was just over 5 hours long and the problem is that the film makers tried to condense 5 hours in to 2 and it unfortunately shows.
The Direction from Martin Campbell (Casino Royale, Edge of Darkness '85) is as usual pretty damn good, Campbell is a great action and suspense director and some of the minor action sequences are handled expertly.
The script by William Monahan is pretty good dialogue wise but the story structure is a little off pace, which like I mentioned earlier is the films major flaw, considering Monahan's track record with storys, he won an oscar for Scorcese's The Departed (another remake) and Ridley Scotts Kingdom of Heaven which in its extended directors cut is an absolutely marvellous film. But he was also responsible for the DiCaprio / Crowe snooze fest Body of Lies.
As with avatar, I saw this on a rental disc which was devoid of extras, but the picture was good and clear but the sound was terrible, it was difficult to make out anything Ray Winston said. Hopefully the Blu-Ray has better sound utilizing the 5.1 audio track or the Dolby Tru-HD sound, but on DVD the sound was just bad.
So is it worth a rental? Yes. Is it worth a purchase? Only if your a die hard Mel Gibson fan, It's not his best film and it's not his worst film, not by a long stretch, that spot's reserved for The Million Dollar Hotel (dire). It's definitely worth a rental just to see Mel in action for the first time since 2004, but if you really want to see a Mel Gibson Revenge film I highly recommend Payback.
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