Edge of Darkness (2010)

Edge of Darkness
2010
Dir. Martin Campbell

Overall, I was disappointed. Maybe my expectations were too high, but the fact is there was something about this movie that just wasn't hitting the right buttons like I expected.
There are three things of note here;
First, Mel Gibson is still one of the most commanding presences on screen. He knows how to control a scene and make it his. Gibson is one of our last true "movie stars" and I wish he did more acting these days. He has an uncanny ability to turn emotions on and off when necessary, and this is only complimented by the extremes he can jump to. Also, despite his age, he still handles the action sequences (some more demanding than others) with realistic refinement.
The second thing is, based on what I've seen him in*, Danny Huston is quickly moving from "interesting" to "please don't cast this man" in my book. He does "smug arrogance" extremely well, but that's about it. His ability to show emotion is lacking at best, and non-existent at worst. Admittedly, my view of him is probably tainted by his part in "Wolverine", which was one of the many preventable missteps in that movie. In "Edge of Darkness", he works for the first half of his scenes, when all he's doing is playing "smug arrogance", but as the movie progresses, he becomes outclassed and eclipsed by more capable actors. My opinion, sorry.
Third, and most simple is that Ray Winstone has been criminally underused. The pairing of him and Gibson is, in the least, inspired. These are two men who know how to handle the screen. His character deserved more time and more depth. This is not to suggest the character was crap, only that Winstone, in a beefier role, can take a movie to a new level (just watch "The Departed", a good movie on its own but a better movie because of Winstone).
Anyways, I would say the movie's biggest issue is the script. I have yet to watch the mini-series it is based on (its on the queue) but it seems like that was probably a better format. There is a lot of information coming at you in the movie and some of it is better explained than the rest. I never felt confused or lost to the point that I couldn't make sense of what was going on (in the sense that I never had to pause or rewind the movie because I felt like I was missing a huge piece of information), but once it was over, I couldn't help but feel like there were unresolved issues.
Maybe there is a longer cut out there that resolves this, or maybe I just missed something that was already there, after all, there was a remarkable amount of talent involved in this movie and I have a hard time believing they didn't have the same issues with the script that I did.




apologies for rambling


*From the top: Edge of Darkness, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, 30 Days of Night, The Kingdom, Children of Men, The Aviator, 21 Grams. For the record, I don't remember him in the last four movies. Of the others, I thought he was good in "30 Days of Night" (for whatever that is worth) and I thought he was interesting in "How to Lose Friends...".