Review: Edge of Darkness

Mel Gibson will never live down his reputation for making that orgy of biblical sadomasochism,The Passion of the Christ. When I saw the trailer for his new thriller, Edge of Darkness, there was a burst of laughter in the theatre when an overheated Mel growls, "You'd better decide whether you're hangin' on the cross or bangin' in the nails."

As moviegoers, we'd better decide whether we can still take Gibson seriously as an actor. Is it possible for us to ignore his personal baggage of recent years – the anti-Semitism, the drunk driving – and empathize with him as a screen hero? (Do-gooder George Clooney has the opposite problem – we go to his movies already disposed to like him. He could play John Wayne Gacy, and we'd probably still find him charming.)

Apart from one genuinely jolting scene, involving an attempt at drive-by slaughter, the thrills in this thriller are scant.

I went into Edge of Darkness determined not to let Mel the celebrity cloud my judgment of Mel the actor. I tried, I really did, but this movie doesn't make it easy. Never mind that crucifixion analogy — every time someone offered Gibson's character a drink, and he requested ginger ale, I couldn't help thinking, "Of course, Mel's a recovering alcoholic!" And when his co-star, Ray Winstone, quotes a Latin motto to him, then says, "I know you know Latin," I wanted to say, "Hey, we all know Mel knows Latin. He's one of those retro-Catholics who wants to bring back the Latin mass."

The mind wanders to such things when you're faced with this downbeat, semi-comprehensible drama, which becomes less and less engaging as it unspools. Director Martin Campbell's film is an American remake of his celebrated British TV mini-series of the same title, which originally aired on the BBC in 1985. It was an eco-political thriller with a nuclear theme, reflecting the late-Cold War paranoia of the Reagan-Thatcher era. This poorly tailored post-9/11 update tries to stuff the Byzantine plot of the series into two hours, leaving all sorts of dangling threads. What was a textured tale on the telly has become a coarse and unsatisfying revenge tragedy on the big screen.

Gibson plays Thomas Craven, a Boston police detective and widowed father whose only child, 24-year-old Emma (Bojana Novakovic), is brutally murdered on their doorstep. The cops assume the drive-by hit man was gunning for her dad, but Craven has doubts. Just before she died, Emma was about to reveal to him secrets involving her job at a federally contracted nuclear facility called Northmoor.

As he launches his own investigation into her death, Craven discovers Emma's connection to a recent break-in at Northmoor by an environmental activist group whose members ended up dead from radiation poisoning. He delves further and unearths a dirty weapons scheme involving Northmoor's creepy CEO (Danny Huston), his Blackwater-esque security goons, a corrupt Republican senator (Damian Young) and even the activists' leader (Rick Avery).

Meantime, Craven himself is approached by Jedburgh (Winstone), an enigmatic, erudite "fixer" who has been assigned to clean up the Northmoor mess. In the series, Jedburgh was a complex CIA spook played by good ol' boy Joe Don Baker. Here, we're not sure who the heck he's supposed to be. Cockney actor Winstone (The Departed, Beowulf) does his best to create an intriguing character, but, like the plot, he ends up shadowy, half-formed. "I make things unintelligible," Jedburgh says, explaining his job. Yeah, you and the screenwriters, buddy.

One of those writers happens to be William Monahan, who won an Oscar for adapting Scorsese's The Departed from the Hong Kong hit Infernal Affairs. This time, however, his adaptation skills appear to have deserted him. Campbell also disappoints. Although he directed the exciting James Bond reboot Casino Royale, the action sequences here are perfunctory. Apart from one genuinely jolting scene, involving another attempt at drive-by slaughter, the thrills in this thriller are scant.

Then there's Gibson. He starts by attempting a serious dramatic performance as the distraught Craven and just about convinces us – even if he sports the most conspicuous Boston accent since Alec Baldwin in (yup) The Departed. By the end, though, Gibson has more or less given up emoting and just switched to Lethal Weapon mode. (And he's getting too old for this.)

The movie also tries to stir our emotions by having the grieving Craven see visions of his dead daughter, usually as a little girl (Gabrielle Popa). But coming hard on the heels of Creation and The Lovely Bones, that girl-ghost routine is getting pretty tired.

Most of Edge of Darkness teeters on the edge of tedium. If Mel Gibson wants to win back the affections of the movie-going public, he'll have to do better than this.

Edge of Darkness opens Jan. 29.

Martin Morrow writes about the arts for CBC News.