Eh Nic! The movie not out yet lah... Yes I know but piracy very chun okay. Found a copy of the movie from my favorite DVD seller and the movie was effing clear!
Okay, so Edge of Darkness is actually based on a BBC series in the 1980's about Thomas Craven played by Melk Gibson who's this prominent homicide detective who is having a little reunion with his daughter. As they're walking out the front door of the house, his daughter is shot and killed by unknown assailants. Everyone assuams that Mel Gibson who was standing next to her was the killer's intended target but as he begins to investigate, he uncovers the secret life his daughter has been living that involves political and corporate corruption.
The movie is directed by Martin Campbell, one of the awesomest action directors alive. He did two of the best James Bond movies, Golden Eye and Casino Royale. And there were some great action scenes in this amidst it's really thick convulated story. There's a living room fight scene between Mel Gibson and his daughter's boyfriend that was shot and edited so tightly it could possibly match any fight scene from the Bourne series.
But the pacing of the movie is where I had problems with. Edge of Darkness isn't an all out action film everyone is believing it to be, this movie is more of a detective film. It's a slow burn investigative film that relies more on the suspense and writing than the actual action sequences. It took some time to get to where it wanted to go, I felt that it crammed in too many unnecessary scenes, and half of the time it's just Mel Gibson trying to talk in a lousy Boston accent.
The biggest problem with this movie is that I really didn't care much about Mel Gibson's character. See unlike Liam Neeson in Taken, they don't give you any reason why you should root for Mel Gibson to beat the bad guys. There was no development in his character, I knew absolutely nothing about him, he comes off as just another character that's only being utilized to serve the story. Plus that accent of his is really annoying. But what I will say is great about him is in the last 15 minutes when he turns into a complete bad ass and goes into a "I Kill You" mode.
The best performance in Edge of Darkness is Ray "Beowulf" Winstone who's only in this for like 4 scenes but had a huge impact on me. He's the kind of guy that is very clam, very subdued but if he wanted to kill you, you'd be dead already. He is the man who usually stops Mel Gibson from catching on to conspiracy's but circumstances in his life has made him change to side with the good guys. I liked that little twist they had with Ray Winstone and he played that character beautifully but he was so underdeveloped in the story, it felt like such a waste.
And check out that girl who's playing Mel Gibson's daughter. I got here name right here, Bojana Novakovic. Damn that girl is fine as hell and is it just me or does she look like a 20 year old version of Jodi Foster? And she wasn't just another pretty face actress, she was kind of good in the 5 minutes she's in. What we need now is a movie with her and less clothing muahaha.
I think this movie would have made more sense if it just stuck to being a television series because it makes more sense if it was told over a duration of a few episodes instead of just 2 hours. They had a lot of plot developments that had to be shoved in which ultimately made the whole film slightly boring and made the climax ineffective.
But don't get me wrong it was still an okay movie. It does get slow at most parts but it when it comes to the payoff, you really get your money's worth.
RATING: 5/10
