REVIEW: 'Darkness' riddled with problems

GRADE: c-

EDGE OF DARKNESS

Cast: Mel Gibson, Ray Winstone, Danny Huston, Bojana Novakovic

Director: Martin Campbell

Theaters: Hollywood, Tinseltown, Carmike, Chapel Hills, Cinemark

Rated: R (for strong bloody violence and language)

Running time: 1 hour, 57 minutes

Although he has directed two very successful films (including the behemoth “The Passion of the Christ”), Mel Gibson has not appeared on screen in nearly 10 years. Since that time, he’s been at the center of a drunken, racist tirade and a very messy affair/divorce.

So, doubtless, the actor and many who like him (and let’s be honest, it’s nearly impossible not to root for the man) were hoping that “Edge of Darkness” would represent a second coming of sorts. Regrettably, while Gibson’s fans will find much to like in his performance, there is little else to recommend in this defective, altogether lame thriller.

Gibson plays Thomas Craven, a Boston police detective whose only daughter is brutally murdered in front of his eyes. While he and his fellow officers assume it was a bungled attempt on his life, it soon becomes clear that his daughter was involved in a conspiracy connecting a powerful defense contractor and the U.S. government. But the more Craven pokes around, the more of a target he becomes.

Martin Campbell (“Casino Royale”) directed the original 1985 BBC miniseries on which this American remake is based. A rock-solid director if ever there was one, Campbell falters uncharacteristically with the reconstituted material.

“Edge of Darkness” can’t quite decide what kind of film it wants to be, and, as a result, stumbles around awkwardly for the better part of its running time before collapsing in a ludicrous-looking heap by the end.

Is it a gritty and bloody police procedural (after all, it was authored by William Monahan, who also penned the superb “The Departed”), a ’70s-esque paranoid political thriller, or perhaps a supernatural fantasy with shades of “Ghost” and “The Lovely Bones.”

While “Darkness” starts off as and occasionally returns to a rough and realistic core, it so quickly devolves into a nefarious, one-dimensional comic book story, (with a villain to match) that we can’t possibly be expected to take it seriously. Mustache-twirling Danny Huston (psychopaths are rarely successful businessmen except in films like this) struts around in the sort of 1960s-era James Bond lair that “Austin Powers” so effortlessly mocked.

There are few things worse than a film that has entire scenes, characters and events that roam freely like feral orphans, abandoned by the plot. “Darkness” is replete with them. As the film builds to its (mostly satisfying, but outrageous) climax, it makes less and less sense. Entire scenes are not only unnecessary, they contradict those that came before and after them. While there are some very strong bits here, as well as some brief but sizzling dialogue, it is never enough to persuade us that the film at any time knew what it wanted to be when it grew up.

“Darkness” gives up its secrets far too early to then never employ misdirection or a blindsiding twist to make it all worthwhile.

Gibson, for his part, is solid. He is aging, to be certain, and we take the maturing of our action heroes — particularly ones as good-looking as Gibson — especially hard. But he’s doing it as gracefully as can be under the circumstances. Beneath the deepening lines and noticeably thinning hair is a star who still knows how to deliver scenes of bracing intensity and self-flagellating anguish.

Unfortunately, the script demands that Craven squelch his grief beneath an icy resolve long before it’s necessary or believable. And once the detective begins to comprehend the full dimensions of the conspiracy out to get him, he never once acts like a man in the crosshairs, even as all those around him begin dropping like flies.

Then again, Gibson (who spends half this film acting in front of a sink) isn’t the most interesting character in “Darkness.” The always-interesting Ray Winstone is. Winstone plays one of those shadowy government operatives with whom you have meetings only in dark parking garages and whose job it is to ensure that secrets remain firmly in place. But Winstone, like everything else in the film, is totally wasted. We can perceive a satisfying, if tragic, endgame coming together for Winstone and Gibson, but, of course, the film chooses not to go there. Worse, it probably never even picked up on the opportunity.