Edge of Darkness"

My 0-10 rating: 7

Genre: Suspense, Thriller

Director: Martin Campbell

Screenwriter: William Monahan, Andrew Bovell, based on the 1985 six-hour British TV miniseries

Starring: Mel Gibson, Bojana Novakovic, Ray Winstone, Danny Huston

Time: 1 hr., 57 min.

Rating: R (strong bloody violence, vulgarity)With gripping gravity and a driven sense of deep drama, Mel Gibson is back in bloody action.A steady urgency and a welling motive of uncompromised revenge fuels the basic but well detailed plot development, earning the film a decent nod of respect in its accomplishment of condensing a six-hour British TV serial into a two-hour movie. Gibson, it is obvious from his character's breathtaking, burning will toward retribution against very bad men, wants this to work.It does, and in the gloom of night-time Boston in heavy rain and raging car killings and gut-tearing shootouts, your spirit will be well purged of hope for civilized behavior between greedy men caught up in mortal stress.Gibson is as intense as he's ever been, his face looking hardened, heavily seasoned yet capable of sensitivity. The script keeps him caught up in a methodical tracking of murder. However, the many oh-so-Hollywood contrivances in the action are so glaring as to deny the film any credibly high rating.Thomas Craven (Mel Gibson), veteran homicide detective and loving single father of his 24-year-old daughter Emma (Bojana Novakovic), is shattered when he bears witness to her being gunned down on the steps of his home.The general assumption, by himself and the police, is that it was he, not Emma, who had been the intended target. But, as Thomas, wracked with grief and guilt, begins tracking the murderer, he is uncovering some surprising aspects of his daughter's involvements, perhaps shedding light upon her recent uncharacteristically tense demeanor and episodes of nausea and nosebleeds, Thomas is thinking there may be a lot more to this. Did she have a secret life of which he'd been totally unaware?She was, he is to learn, working for a security-research compound with top nuclear secret ties to the government. It is becoming apparent that it is headed by the overbearingly willful Jack Bennett (Danny Huston) and further that major corruption is involved. Thomas will also find himself in the path of a fixer, that is, an evidence cleaner-upper named Darious Jedburgh (Ray Winstone), who obviously doesn't really care about Thomas' efforts as long as they don't become obstacles in his own goals. The corporate and government cover-up now expands.All performances radiate the compulsions of desperate men, each drawing from the spiraling thrust of the other. The film draws you well into its darkness.