Ed's Review Dot Com

Warner Brothers

Mel Gibson, Ray Winstone, Danny Huston, Bojana Novakovic, Shawn Roberts

It’s easy to take shots at Mel Gibson these days.  He’s been in the news a lot lately.  But it was nice to see the old Mel in this movie.  He is great in these kinds of roles.

Mel’s an old cop, Thomas Craven, and very jaded on life, but very anxious for a visit from his daughter.  She has a secret and was looking for a chance to get it off her chest, when suddenly she’s killed.  The assumption is that it’s revenge on Craven, but in investigating who’s out to kill him, Thomas starts to learn that his daughter led a secret life.   Lot of things he didn’t know.  The more he unravels the more he is shocked to learn what it’s all about.  Now he may be in over his head trying to figure out what really happened.

Now Craven just doesn’t care, and is able to do anything legal or not, to find out what’s behind the murder of his daughter.  This is where the old grumpy bad-ass Mel takes control and it’s an exiting trip.

This movie was a surprise.  I really didn’t expent much from it.  I was very pleasantly surprised.  Usually I find myself losing focus, and occassional rewinding to find out,  “Hey, what just happened”, but this DVD kept me riveted in the story.  It was refreshing to have Mel back and many compare this movie to Payback, and I think that’s a fair comparison.

The story is similar to others, but fresh enough to stay interesting.   And Craven can get the truth out of just about anybody!  This film is based on a popular English Mini-Series also called “Edge of Darkness”.

Nice police drama.  Glad to have you back Mel, keep up the good work.