Director Martin Campbell is a bit of a hero to me. He’s the man responsible for successfully re-booting the James Bond franchise TWICE with Goldeneye (which was so awesome it also spawned one of my favorite videogames of all time) and Casino Royale which was so good I developed a bona-fide heterosexual man crush for Daniel Craig and gave me hope that, one day, despite my semi-blondish hair, I too might be able to don a tuxedo without feeling like a chump, bed impossibly attractive women, quaff martinis without any possibility of a hangover and gamble recklessly with the Crown’s money. Unfortunately, this 2 hour movie re-boot of his own 6 hour, 6 part 1985 BBC television series, much like the movie adaptation of the BBC miniseries State of Play, fizzles out on its “good on paper” promise like an abandoned, half-drunk, past it’s sell by date, bottle of champagne in the lonely hotel room of one of Bond’s broken-hearted conquests.

But then again, the real story here is Mel Gibson and his first acting role since 2002’s Signs (not counting his excellent turn in The Colonel in February last year on The Jimmy Kimmel Show).

Whatever you make of Gibson’s troubled personal life, and the plotholes that unravel in the third act of this William Monahan (The Departed) scripted thriller, there is no denying that there is nobody better at playing a man devoted to paternal payback than Mr. Gibson. It was 31 years ago that a fresh faced Gibson made his indelible debut in Mad Max, playing a leather clad post-apocalyptic police officer who goes after the motorcycle gang responsible for the death of his wife and son. Remember, when Mel said things like: “The chain in those handcuffs is high-tensile steel. It’d take you ten minutes to hack through it with this. Now, if you’re lucky, you could hack through your ankle in five minutes. Go”. The scenario and background may have evolved through Lethal Weapon, Braveheart, Ransom, Payback and The Patriot, and Gibson’s hair may have steadily receded, but a quest for justice, irrespective of the blood-letting that may be entailed, has been ever present.

This time he plays a veteran Boston detective who goes on a revenge-fueled hunt for whoever killed his 23-year-old daughter. However, the film opens with Mel picking up his daughter at the train station and offering her ginger ale to settle her stomach. Even in these early scenes, Mel has a world-weary, wrinkled gravitas about him that I haven’t seen before. You’re just getting used to this when, suddenly, his daughter gets a random nosebleed, which as a time honored movie trope can only really mean one thing: she’s shit out of luck. Mel grabs his badge, but tellingly not his gun (a tad careless I dare say), and rushes his daughter to the hospital.

But they don’t get far. Just barely across the threshold, in fact, before a ski-masked man screams “CRAVEN!” before unloading a sawn off shotgun into the body of Craven’s daughter before speeding off in a car. BOOM! 5 minutes in and we know everything we need to. Indeed, the scenes of stoic mourning that immediately follow this are absolutely brilliantly played by Gibson and really amp you up for Gibson to snap, grab his gun and go on a name-taking rampage. Craven convinces his superiors that, as he was the apparent target, it’s logical that he is permitted to abstain from the standard leave of absence that would have been imposed upon him as a result of the murder of a close family member and is instead allowed to investigate his own attempted murder. His bumbling Boston cop colleagues think that Craven was the target of the attack and compel him to open up his case files and look for enemies. However, when Craven discovers a Geiger counter and gun in the backpack of his daughter’s belongings he begins to suspect her death may be linked to her work at NorthMoor, a radioactive waste management company in the Massachusetts countryside.

Unfortunately for all you action aficionados out there — this ain’t no Taken and what follows is a bit insipid and a little bit uninspired.

Craven’s investigation eventually leads him to Jack Bennett (Danny Huston), the head of the research institute where Emma worked. Bennett tries to slither his way out of implication in the murder (by literally channeling a snake) but isn’t quite convincing enough for either Mel or the audience — mainly because he always plays the conniving, duplicitous corporate villain. I would have loved to have seen a massive plot-twist with this character.

He also meets Ray Winstone, in a slightly un-fulfilling and bewildering role as Jedburgh — a government “fixer”. Apparently, Robert De Niro was originally going to play this role but pulled out because of “creative differences.” I would have loved to see Gibson and him face-off.

Eventually the investigation leads Craven into a political conspiracy on a wider scale, involving a Republican Senator from (somewhat prophetically) Massachusetts, that could have been interesting for the audience if it had gone somewhere, but interests Craven not a jot: he just wants to kill those responsible for his daughter’s murder and be done with it.

Although, Martin Campbell interjects some welcome moments of pace and violence to the proceedings, the movie ultimately ends up feeling more like a whodunit mystery film than a pulsating, vigilante thrill ride. It’s a damn shame because the moments we do see of Mel in action, tease at what could have been. Highlights were the realistic and visceral knife fight between Craven and a younger adversary, a heart-stopping death duel between Craven and a car armed with nothing but his gun and a death stare that could reverse the melting of the polar ice caps and some other general moments of gun-rammed-into-face badassery.

However, it’s not enough really — of anything. There’s too little character development, too little back story to the conspiracy, too little action and, fatally for me, a climax that’s flaccidly anti-climatic. Frankly, it’s all redolent of a 6 hour movie reduced to 2 hours, rather than a re-imaging of the TV series to suit the big screen. Yet there’s enough promise to make me want to check out the original and if you’ve got major withdrawal symptoms from Mel on the big screen then it’s definitely worth a watch as his performance doesn’t disappoint. However, if you’re looking for a funner, more obvious, less serious, father-daughter revanchist action fest I think you’d be better served by staying inside in the warmth and comfort of your own home and popping in the DVD of Taken for some absurdly satisfying fun. Or perhaps, if you’re so inclined, maybe start a little Mel marathon of his past hits. I know I’m going to — it’s about time I watched Braveheart again and brushed up on my Australian accent.

Think Edge of Darkness was the shit? Think it was literally shit? Let us know in the Comments Section.

Related posts on 30ninjas.com:

• Edge of Darkness Clip 1
• Edge of Darkness Clip 3
• Edge of Darkness Clip 2
• Wes Craven Will Direct Scream 4
• Mel Gibson Is Too Old for Mad Max
• Lethal Weapon Team Reunites Against the Russians