Edge of Darkness is not just a remake of the 1980's BBC TV mini-series but is also a re-imaging of it, transplanting the characters to the United States. This story is a thriller about a Boston cop's daughter being murdered in front of him, and him tracking down her killers to take his revenge.
I went into this film having not remembered that I'd already seen a trailer for it, one which had the laughable line of "I'm the guy with nothing to lose" - it's a line which is so cheesy you know you'd struggle not to laugh if you heard someone use it.
The film is about Detective Thomas Craven (Mel Gibson) welcoming his daughter home just for her to be shot dead in front him. The Boston media assume that her father was the intended target and he uses this to his advantage to allow him to work on the case. Before she dies she shown signs of some sort of illness due to a nose bleed and vomiting, shortly afterwards we learn she was a nuclear research assistant which pretty much tells you what the rest of the film is about - it's obvious she was suffering from radiation poisoning, but Craven doesn't realise this until he goes to her apartment in Massachusetts.
Whilst there he comes across a Geiger counter amongst her possessions and realises the lock of hair he took whilst visiting her body in the morgue is radio active. This then sends him on a mission to the company where she worked in an attempt to track down her killers and what it was she died for. It's pretty obvious when you see the CEO of the company that he's going to be the bad guy - he just looks evil, especially after him asked Craven how it felt to lose his daughter. Of course he could have just been a bit insensitive because he's not good with people, but alas he was the villain of the story. The company Craven's daughter worked for was a government contractor which dealt with nuclear stockpiles to produce dirty bombs that used non-US parts so they could make a hit look like a terrorist plot. That sort of plot-line is an obvious play to those who don't trust the US government and think 9/11 is shrouded in conspiracies. Personally I think it's daft to think the government would do such a thing as the thing about lies is that they tend to get found out, and when they do it's usually possible to prove them beyond a shadow of a doubt.
It's quite amusing to then see Craven avoiding the companies goons who are out to kill him, and along the way he encounters Jedburgh (Ray Winstone) who is there to stop people like Craven from connecting A to B. I think based on the investigative ability of Thomas Craven I think that whatever government organisation Jedburgh really worked for he didn't really need to do much though I think Winstone had the best performance in the film. His role is as a cold and calculated killer whom you never actually see kill anyone until the very end when he "wraps things up". It does seem like Jedburgh pities Craven and is seen to help push him in the right direction in places. Following the scene in the doctor's surgery it suggests that Jedburgh has an inoperable brain tumour which probably explains why the film ends the way it does.
Craven's investigations seem a little clumsy and even after speaking to a whistle-blower who is hit by a speeding car AFTER she's explained what's going on he seems to not fully grasp what's going on despite the fact it is so blatently obvious. Speaking of that scene with the car, it was expected that something would happen to get her out the way, but when it did happen it was very sudden and I'm ashamed to admit that I did still jump at it.
The ending for the movie isn't quite what I expected - I won't go into any detail as it's the one part of the film that isn't obvious immediately, but I think it rounded the story off quite nicely and tied up the loose ends. For a thriller it requires surprisingly little thought which I found quite unusual considering the story is about a detective trying to learn the truth. I think for it's predictability it somehow manages to make itself enjoyable for possibly the wrong reasons, but I did enjoy seeing this at the cinema. I'm not saying it's one to see at the cinema as I think it's the sort of film which you'll probably only see once and may be best leaving for DVD or Blu-ray.
