(Mel Gibson lays down the seven rules for dating his daughter. Get your bullet-proof vest on…)
CAST: Mel Gibson, Ray Winstone, Danny Huston, Bojana Novakovic, Shawn Roberts, Jay O’Sanders
DIRECTOR: Martin Campbell
WARNING: SPOILERS and rotten (to the say the least) milk up ahead…
Thomas Craven (The Mel) easily wins as DAD OF THE YEAR for all the trouble he goes to in behalf of his daughter in the mean, gritty action film EDGE OF DARKNESS. Hell, maybe even DAD OF THE DECADE. After the brutal murder of his daughter, Emma (Bojana Novakovic), Thomas - who, by the way, is a homicide detective with the Boston PD - goes on a rampage to find out exactly what happened.
The film opens with the shot of a rural lake. In case the audience starts to think that we’re headed into peaceful, bucolic territory, director Martin Campbell (CASINO ROYALE, GOLDENEYE) dispels that silly notion by allowing three corpses to break the surface. This is the first sign that we are not watching MEATBALLS 4.
Cut to Boston, MA - where The Mel as Thomas Craven is picking up his daughter Emma at the train station. In town for a few days, Emma is a nuclear engineer with a degree from MIT. She seems a bit edgy during the ride back to the Craven Crib, but hides it during some banter with dad where she asks him if he has “a lady” - and he replies that she is his lady. Awwwww….. Good thing this isn’t the backwoods, or that might have less of figurative meaning. And I might have to leave the theater.
At any rate, the Craven reunion is marred when Emma starts bleeding through her nostrils and puking at the dinner table. Understandably concerned, Thomas does what any DAD OF THE DECADE contender would do - he grabs her and shoves her out the front door, making a beeline for the emergency room. Too bad about the masked assassins standing on the front lawn who yell “Craven!” before firing a shotgun at them. The blast vaporizes Emma - and the assassins are off and running before Thomas can so much as think about busting a cap in their asses.
Devastated, Thomas goes through the next few weeks after Emma’s death like a zombie. The assumption is that the assassins were really after Thomas (because he’s a cop) and Emma just happened to be in the way. This theory starts to fall apart when Thomas discovers a gun in Emma’s backpack, and even more when he tracks down Emma’s boyfriend (Shawn Roberts) who tells him that she had discovered something sinister at her place of work. Thomas picks up the scent of something shitty - and is off and running to the corporate swamp where Emma spent her days.
A gigantic facility overseen by creepy sleazeball Jack Bennett (Danny Huston), who has a tan that makes one wince just looking at it, the place just reeks of “cover-up.” Naturally, Thomas digs deeper and deeper, eventually getting his hands on a disc made by Emma before her death - but only after a couple of her friends are offed by the same assassins that did her in. On the disc, Emma sadly relates how she discovered her employers’ dirty skeletons. Turns out Jack and his board of directors have been financing weapons research and selling them to rogue nations. Or something. As you can imagine, people have killed for less. I firmly believe that if Bill Clinton had the kind of corporate sharks in EDGE OF DARKNESS for advisors, Monica Lewinsky would have disappeared mysteriously and the “little blue dress with a cumstain” would never have made into the national lexicon. And sure enough, Thomas discovers to his horror that Emma’s employers have triggered radiation sickness in her by contaminating her - gasp - milk! How else will she eat her Cheerios, no doubt they thought as they were strategizing her demise.
Now, battling the murderous corporate meanies on his own would have been bad enough. But it also turns that Jack Bennett has folks on the BPD on his payroll, as well. No matter, though, because Thomas Craven is DAD OF THE DECADE. At the climax, he basically turns into Rambo and crashes Jack Bennett’s palatial house. Now, throughout the film I was wondering what Jack’s sexual orientation was. Not that it was important, but it would help understand his character a little. With his overly-gelled pompadour, tweezed eyebrows, and applied-by-spray-gun tan, he looks more of a Queen than some of my flamer friends on Capitol Hill. My suspicion was confirmed during the aforementioned climax - Thomas busts into Jack’s front hall to find the latter in a silk smoking robe and silk boxers, with chain-upon-chain encircling his bare chest and neck. And even more of that godawful tan in view. And that pompadour unmarred by any interaction with a pillow. I suspect - no, I know - that upstairs in Jack’s bedroom was probably a twenty-five year old gym rat chained to the four poster bed, waiting to be “milked,“ and who will now not be able to earn his going-rate because of Thomas’ interruption.
Don’t worry - Thomas still gives Jack his daily dose of milk, literally. He takes a couple of the contaminated quarts from Emma’s kitchen and forces it down Jack’s gullet, while yelling: “You like that, dontcha bitch? Like how that tastes? Want some more?” Okay, that last part was my embellishment, but you just know Thomas was thinking that. Jack, ever the fucking drama queen, runs away with his silk robes flapping and pompadour bobbing, screaming like the alpha-pansy that he is. Now, he’s got the same radiation sickness that Thomas and Emma have. Ha-ha. But if Thomas was really aiming for some poetic justice, he should have acquired the cum of an escort with a raging case of syphilis - and force-fed that to Jack. Of course, there’s the chance that the bastard might enjoy it
Anyhow, EDGE OF DARKNESS ends with Thomas eventually succumbing from radiation sickness. The last shot is of his ghost walking out into the hall to meet up with Emma. Smiling, she returns her father’s proferred high-five - and confides in him that Jack Bennet's pompadour were all hair plugs.
I knew it.
BUT, SERIOUSLY: Needless to say, for most of its running time, EDGE OF DARKNESS is a no feel-good movie. Sure, it’s well-made and engaging, but it won’t paint any rainbows in your head. Rather, it paints a picture of a bleak world where money is king, and harm can befall anyone who gets in the way of that notion. Anyone. Even good, innocent people who have done nothing to harm anyone else. However, the great pay-off is at the end when the bad guys get their comeuppance, giving the audience - and Thomas - some measure of comfort.
EDGE OF DARKNESS is a remake of the British mini-series of the same name. I have not seen that version, but will do so now. This is a remake that can stand proudly next to its progenitor. The entire cast is dead-on with their performances. Mel Gibson reminds you what makes him so appealing as an actor and a screen presence. Bojana Novakovic is simply wonderful in her small, but pivotal, role of Emma. Such lovely and expressive eyes. Danny Huston is pure sleaze as the corporate villain. I guess it’s a measure of how good he played his role that everyone cheered his death at the end of the film. And Ray Winstone as the closest thing to an ally Thomas has, is wonderfully nuanced and enigmatic.
Martin Campbell, who displayed his smooth and assured directorial skills with the Bond films CASINO ROYALE and GOLDENEYE, scores again here. The pace and tone are kinetic, but also contemplative and thoughtful where they need to be. I suppose, it its own way, EDGE OF DARKNESS is also a Bond movie - but one firmly rooted in the real world, where the Bond Girl dies in the first ten minutes, and where nothing is for certain and no one can be trusted - not even allies- and special gadgets will not save the day.
A modern classic.
