Wednesday, February 10, 2010

EDGE OF DARKNESS

“EDGE OF DARKNESS” (Mel Gibson)

Somewhat undecided as to how much of the plot I should reveal; I try to tell just enough to peak your interest with the movies I enjoyed & then tell you a lot more of the ones I disliked to warn you to stay away from them. I liked ‘Edge Of Darkness’ – it’s akin to being Michael Clayton’s little brother, but there’s nothing wrong with that.
Like ‘Clayton’, ‘Darkness’ is well acted – no one sloughs off / & like ‘Clayton’ it concerns a large corporation doing unscrupulous things to keep the American public from finding out what they really do (or have done)
I could see if someone were to complain that this is a ‘formula’ movie, following in Michael Clayton’s footsteps a little too closely, but the formula worked for me a second time & that’s possibly due to the height of the revenge factor; Clooney’s character never went ‘ballistic’ – Gibson’s Tom Craven does.
The film opens with 3 bodies popping to the surface of a lake under the glowing eye of a bright full moon.
One of those who should have floated to the surface was Emma Craven, Tom’s daughter. Instead, she shows up on Dad’s porch & shortly thereafter her nose begins to bleed & she rushes to the toilet to vomit her guts out. Shortly thereafter Emma dies.
Tom, a police detective, talks his superior into letting him investigate on his own since he technically can’t be a part of the official team of investigators.
He looks into Northmoor, the company Emma was interning for.
Danny Huston plays bad guy Jack Bennet – you know he’s bad because he’s the boss of a nuclear weapons company (Northmoor) Even while Jack feigns sympathy & tells Tom ‘If there’s anything I can do to help...’ you know he’s a lying pr*ck.
Then Captain Jedburgh (Ray Winstone) appears as a very calculating ‘hit man’ type. Speaking with his full blown English accent (And everyone knows you’re not supposed to go FULL English, but Winstone, like Sean Penn in ‘I Am Sam’ says ‘screw the rules!’)
Jedburgh is so cold & seemingly uninterested (Even while asking prying questions) that you’re not sure which ‘team’ he’s playing on – the good guys or the bad guys.
When Tom tells him, “I’m not gonna arrest anyone... You gonna try & stop me?”
Jedburgh replies, “Depends.”
When the trail leads to a prominent U.S. Senator, Tom opens up an even larger can of worms when he tells the Senator’s aide, “I’m an a**hole with nothing to lose – you tell the Senator that... & buckle your f***in’ seatbelt!”
Tom gets into sh*t so deep you reach the conclusion that there’s no possible way for him to survive this investigation. So I became intrigued with this story & anticipated how many Northmoor cages Tom would be able to rattle before meeting his demise – plus the added mystery of who would finish him off – Bennet’s hit men or the mysterious Captain Jedburgh? & I only reveal that because that was my thought as I was watching the film – I could have been right – or I could be way off on what actually happens, so don’t consider that to be a spoiler. As far as you know, Tom might live to film a possible sequel; ‘Tom Craven: Seat Belt Monitor’... but I didn’t give that scenario much of a chance.
This review brought to you by f**kin’ asterisks – When you absolutely, positively must use f**kin’ swear words, ask for f**kin’ asterisks by name – they’ll allow you to curse like a f**kin’ sailor & still maintain a PG-13 rating on your f**kin’ movie review blog!

4 comments:

movie luva said...

I thought this was going to be a full on action movie, one of my least favorite movie genre's to be honest. But my brother loves them and I like Mel Gibson in most stuff he does. So I gave it a shot. In fact, I think his acting skills get quite overlooked because now people tend to think of him as a director and he hasn't acted in a movie in almost 10 years. But he always brings something to the table, whether he's being goofy like in What A Woman Wants or the steely, brave Captain in We Were Soldiers. Very effective yet not many talk about his thespain skills.
I was very surprised at how enthralled I was about half way through. Go figure, a thriller with a back story ! This was nothing as what I thought it would be seeing the trailers in the theater before hand. They are misleading, at least to me they were. Yes, there is violence. But not what I had previously thought there would be. This movie is story first, violence second. Rare. If this film has a nice set of special features on the DVD, I'll purchace it. I also would not be surprised if this stayed in my top 10 of the year either. I really enjoyed it. It has a bit of everything which made it intriguing. Moreover, I read in Variey where Mel is going to play a an " odd duck" in The Beaver, directed by Jodie Foster. Supposedly one of the most sought after scripts in Hollywood a year ago. This will let you see him do comedy again. Should be interesting.

blue stater said...

I thought it was a good movie. Change the casting around some, and maybe not. I think Mel is an underrated actor. What has he totally sucked in ? I thought he should have got an Oscar nomination in acting for both Braveheart and We Were Soldiers. I also liked that this movie had a twist to it and wasn't just some mind numbing all out violent revenge movie.

Terry R said...

I'm sorry, I can't see Mel Gibson as The Beaver - who's going to play Wally, Eli Wallach?

dbm said...

No Wolfman Terry ?