Gibson back in suspense-thriller

MANILA, Philippines - Casino Royale’s director Martin Campbell returns to familiar territory in Edge of Darkness, an action-mystery film starring Mel Gibson as a detective looking into his political-activist daughter’s death and uncovering layers of governmental conspiracies in the process.

As homicide detective Thomas Craven investigates the death of his activist daughter, he uncovers not only her secret life, but a corporate cover-up and government conspiracies that sets a major collision between Thomas’ vendetta for her daughter’s death with the government’s top secret agents cleaning up the evidence.

The back story might be the most interesting part of Edge of Darkness, and no, that doesn’t refer to star Mel’s somewhat checkered history. Casino Royale and Mask of Zorro director Martin Campbell remakes a BAFTA award-bejeweled six-hour BBC mini-series he directed 25 years ago. Yet as with the recent State of Play, the mini-series-to-movie transfor standing, relatively limited action should also dampen box- office prospects.

Given his association with revenge plots both as a director and an actor, Mel’s first star turn since Signs and We Were Soldiers in 2002 is well suited and finds him in fine form. He’s Thomas Craven, a tough Boston cop, who sees his only daughter, Emma (Bojana Novakovic), gunned down in front of him early on.

At first, the assumption is that some enemy of Thomas’ must be responsible. Yet Emma’s fidgety demeanor and bouts of nausea soon point to another, more insidious culprit and a dense web of corruption — one that involves the major government-connected corporation for which she worked, headed by the imperious Jack Bennett (Danny Huston) from a sprawling hillside facility.

Thomas’ search for answers also bring him into contact with a shadowy fixer named Jedburgh, wryly played by Ray Winstone, who seems content to let the cop pursue his mission so long as it doesn’t interfere with his own. Haunted by visions of this daughter, Thomas assures him, “I’m not gonna arrest anyone,” but that doesn’t mean there won’t be considerable collateral damage as he begins overturning rocks.

William Monahan (The Departed) provides the screenplay for the GR Film Production.