EDGE OF DARKNESS

“Edge of Darkness” presents me with problems. The production values are excellent. Money was spent on sets, costumes, technology, cast and crew. Every element of the presentation is first rate.

The story is action packed and moves along at a rapid pace. The use of dream sequences and flashbacks is handled well and is appropriate to telling the story.

Mel Gibson does a competent job in the featured role of a veteran police detective. Ray Winstone, as usual, steals every scene he is in as a hit man with a strong moral compass as he sees his own mortality coming to an end. Bojana Novakovic is fine as the only child of Gibson’s character.

Now, the problem, this film seems like a mixture of “All the President’s Men,” in 1976 and Gibson’s own “Conspiracy Theory” film of 1997. This film always seemed to be rehashing something from older films.

I just never bought into this film on any level, emotionally or intellectually. It is a well made film, but all I asked myself was why it was being shown in 2010, if it had nothing new to say.

It never rose above the tagline of being “yesterday’s news.”