Edge Of Darkness - Blu-ray Review

'an overly sentimental and decidedly under-developed mess'

With Casino Royale's Martin Campbell at the helm and sweary-Mel in the lead, there's no way on earth that Edge Of Darkness should have been anything other than solid Friday night thriller material, there to excite your weekend-ready brain at the end of a testing work schedule.

Unfortunately, through some absolutely crazy directorial miss-steps from the man who rescued the Bond franchise not once but twice, it ends up being an overly sentimental and decidedly under-developed mess, where the few joys come from the interaction between Mel's gravelly-voiced policeman and Ray Winstone's under-developed Jedburgh. Both actor's have screen presence to burn and although the prospect of seeing Mel opposite DeNiro, whom Winstone was a late replacement for, makes the mouth water even more, the Englishman is a fine substitute.

Part of Edge Of Darkness' problem though, is that it doesn't seem to realise that these two titans of on-screen shouting are its biggest asset, cooking up instead a script based on Campbell's BBC show of the same name which separates the two of them for far too long. Jedburgh too is woefully under-developed and his on-screen moralising represents little return for what we suspect are weightier decisions made out of view of the audience.

Strangely too, the raw Mel we saw in Payback - a highly entertaining 'Friday night film' if ever there was one - is replaced by a moping Mel, struggling to cope with the death of his daughter. Whilst his sorrow is more than understandable, the way Campbell wallows in it isn't, providing us with a spectre-like visage of the now deceased Craven Junior and a final shot which screams 'ill-judged' like not much else before it.

Look further...

'could have benefited from being a bit more exciting and a little less brooding' - Cinema Du Meep, 2.5/4