Edge of Darkness

Martin Campbell’s flaccid revenge thriller Edge of Darkness is Mel Gibson’s first film work since his uncredited cameo in the flaccid 2004 revenge thriller Paparazzi, so there hasn’t been a lot of growth in the interim. To be fair, this film is actually more of a boring mystery, as clean-cut Boston cop Thomas Craven (Gibson) abuses his powers to solve the cartoonishly violent death of his only daughter. Mugging and grimacing like Wallace Beery, Gibson punches and pukes his way through a conspiracy that snakes around arms dealers, national security threats and radiation poisoning. The twist, if that’s what you want to call it, is that there really is no mystery, as everything is laid out for anyone halfway sensible in the first 20 minutes. All the rest is just mopey, exploitative filler—Kiss Me Deadly it ain’t.