Watching Mel Gibson as a loving father gone raging madman in Martin Campbell’s (Casino Royale, The Mask of Zorro) 2010 Edge of Darkness doesn’t seem as much a stretch of the imagination as it might have seemed a few years ago. In his first starring role since 2002’s Signs, Gibson plays Thomas Craven, a detective of the Boston Police Department and a single father of one. After Craven witnesses the killing of his 24-year-old daughter Emma (Bojana Novakovic), murdered on the steps of his own by a drive-by shooter, he becomes obsessed with finding out who killed his daughter and, more importantly, why. This movie was a modest success both with critics and with audiences. Still, it made over $100 million less than the 2008 Liam Neeson movie Taken, which is similar in plot but delivers the goods and has you rooting for Neeson. This is more than you can say for Gibson’s character.

The main problem with Edge of Darkness is it doesn’t know if it wants to be about a father who will do anything to get the creeps who hurt his daughter first or if it wants to be a detective movie intent on exposing something more significant than murder. In either regard, the film is entertaining to an extent, but it wants to be deeper than you want. Like Taken, you want to escape for two hours and watch a vengeful father kick ass. But instead, the plot becomes a bit too intertwined as various new and seemingly important characters are introduced at each new turn. As a result, it becomes less of a movie of Craven hunting down the bad guys than it does of Craven trying to expose the lies and cover-ups that led to the death of his daughter.

That said, Gibson is at the top of his game in Edge of Darkness. His character is different than his Tom Mullen character in 1996’s Ransom. In that movie, Gibson plays a millionaire married father whose son goes missing after being kidnapped for ransom. In Ransom, we see Gibson slowly lose it as he sees the chances of getting his son back slimmer with each passing hour. In Edge of Darkness, we see his Thomas Craven character dive into desperation and desolation the second he loses his daughter. Though Emma is alive in the movie for maybe the first 15 minutes, Craven’s love for his daughter is 100% unquestioned. She is the world to him.

Craven is the spitting image of a desolate man. He’s lost and sick with grievance down to the bone. The movie had flashbacks to a scene on a beach when she was just a young child. There are also situations in the film when Craven is alone, and we see Emma’s ghost helping to soothe him. While the acting is excellent, the chemistry between the characters could be better. There are few opportunities for this. At the most, Craven spends 6-7 minutes with each character in the movie. He seems certain whether he can trust or not trust a person within minutes of meeting them. I wouldn’t say I liked this. Trust takes time, primarily when your life depends on it. I understand that he’s in a position where he needs to take risks, but it often seems convenient that Craven can judge others so well, so often, and in such a short period.

I felt engrossed at times. Some of the action scenes are very well shot. A few scenes have you wound so tight that you jump out of your seat as events that you weren’t expecting catch you off guard. At other times, the movie is slowed down by a plot that is more complex than it needs to be. Whereas Taken applies the gas pedal early on and never lets up, Edge of Darkness slows down to take unnecessary turns. This two-hour film could easily have been trimmed to a smooth-running 90 minutes.

I think most of us could relate to this movie in some fashion. Whether we are a parent or not, I think we could all imagine losing control of our lives if we witnessed our child dying, let alone being murdered right in front of our eyes. Rarely do I see a movie about a parent trying to deal with the death of their child do I think a character’s action is too far-fetched to be believable. We don’t know what we are capable of unless we are forced to deal with such an unimaginable event.

Plot 6/10
Character Development 9.5/10
Character Chemistry 5.5/10
Acting 9.5/10
Screenplay 8.5/10
Directing 5.5/10
Cinematography 9/10
Sound 8/10
Hook and Reel 9/10
Universal Relevance 10/10
80.5%