Welcome back Mr Gibson, and what a great come back it is. His first major acting performance since 2002, Gibson plays Detective Thomas Craven a veteran Boston homicide cop, who is also a single Father to 24 year old Daughter Emma (Bojana Novakovic), his only child. Emma returns home for an apparent vacation from her job, where she soon develops odd symptoms of vomiting blood, before totally freaking out and screaming at her Dad to take her to a Doctor, and also declaring that ‘There’s something I should have told you!‘. The ungrateful cow then gets blown away in a drive by shooting on her Father’s doorstep without even telling him what it was he needed to be told (evidently the plot would have ended here but it would have been nice!) Initially the shooting was thought to have been intended for Detective Thomas Craven himself, but as he drops into detective mode he starts to uncover Emma’s secret life as an activist and begins his decent into a deep dark cavern of a government conspiracy!
Cue the help of a man working for the government, solely for the purpose of covering things up so this conspiracy doesn’t rear it’s seedy little head. This man is called Jedburgh, and he’s played by returning cockney hard-man Ray Winstone! But I’m afraid that from his first appearance in the film I couldn’t help but see him in the Bet365 adverts and was half expecting him to go into his spiel: “Bet365.com is all about the inplay, it’s all about The Next Person Killed, The Number Of Suspects, The Time It Takes You To Solve The Mystery, The Number Of Bullets Fired, The Final Prediction Of The Plot-line!” It was however quite nice to see him back on the big screen doing things other than his sell out adverts, and his character was everything you would expect. Just Ray, in his black suit/white shirt combo, being really cockney! But being serious for just a moment, Winstone gives a pretty good performance, once you see past the adverts, and by the end of the movie you’ll find yourself really warming to the character.
Mel Gibson plays the part of Thomas Craven absolutely superb, showing that he hasn’t just rehashed previous characters from past movies and has infact proven why he is still considered as a talented actor. Thomas Craven as a character is one that I really took a shine to, and I would even say that he’s been my favourite character in a movie for quite some time. It was a shame that he would only be making one outing in ‘Edge Of Darkness‘ (Warner Brother’s, is it too much to ask for you to do a couple of prequels, so we, or at least I can see Thomas Cravens back story? Please!) It would also seem that Thomas Craven has done for Ginger Ale what James Bond did for Martini, asking for one whenever the opportunity presented itself. The only downside to Mel Gibson’s performance is that his Boston accent sometimes slipped into Family Guy’s Peter Griffin, but it did present opportunity for another Family Guy feature length movie spoof so I’ll let it slip!
Little do people know is that the movie is actually a remake of a television series of the same name from the 80’s, made here in old Blighty for the BBC (God Save The Queen!) It’s a series that I haven’t actually seen yet, however the roller coaster ride of a storyline in the film, and a mild love affair with the character of Thomas Craven has driven me to purchase the original series, and that’s something I don’t do very often!
Overall, although I know we’re hardly into it, Edge Of Darkness has put itself firmly in my best films of 2010 list and I would recommend you all to get your asses to the cinema to see it, if not for the excuse to watch a decent thriller at least to see what you think of Mel Gibson’s superb Peter Griffin impression! So stick it to the jews and get yourself to the nearest cinema to watch Gibson in action… Go now, what you waiting for!
Mojo
(As usual, here’s the trailer!)
No comments:
Post a Comment