Shot in and around Boston by director Martin Campbell, who also directed the six-part series, the movie is a long, complicated affair that has its moments but suffers from an overwrought plot.
On one level, “Edge of Darkness’’ fits squarely in the genre of vigilante movies, including Gibson’s earlier “Payback,’’ as well as “Death Wish,’’ where Charles Bronson plays a quiet architect who, after his wife is murdered, starts killing criminals on the streets of New York. “Hard To Kill,’’ which came out in 1990, brought us Steven Seagal, pre-hairpiece and beluga waistline, as a Chicago detective whose wife is murdered.
Unlike the protagonists in those films, Gibson’s character struggles with his need for revenge in “Edge of Darkness.’’ He kills without panache. Nothing comes easy. He is neither a force of nature nor a wizard detective. He fights to maintain his mental stability in the face of emotional collapse. (His Boston accent is tragic, but no worse than those of countless other actors.)
Gibson is Tom Craven, a veteran Boston homicide detective and single father whose daughter Emma is murdered on the front steps of his house in blue-collar Roslindale. (Roslindale is a nice touch, sited by Boston-bred screenwriter William Monahan, who won an Oscar for “The Departed’’ and cowrote this movie.)
Emma, played competently by Serbian-born actress Bojana Novakovic, returns home from her job as a research trainee at a top-secret nuclear facility that has scads of government contracts. Craven picks her up at the airport and she is vomiting blood before she enters the house. There, the bleeding gets worse. She collapses and her father rushes to take her to a hospital. As they leave, someone in a passing SUV yells “Craven’’ and shoots her.
Gibson gradually learns that he may not have been the target, as he first assumed, and spends the rest of the movie tracking down and ultimately dispatching those responsible for her death.
