Mel is surprised to see a review of Edge Of Darkness without "Jew Hater" in the first sentence.

Edge of Darkness is a film born of paranoid times for paranoid people. But, unlike actions films of yore, the objects of terror are not Muslim jihadists or any other classic xenophobic Hollywood stereotype. No, the threats posed to the American people in Edge of Darkness are the slimy, ratfuck cocksuckers of the private sector and the government representatives in collusion with them. And in a society where just about any dumb chud can take a break from their daily routine of inhaling KFC Double Downs and Jersey Shore fist pumping sessions to sign onto Wikileaks to read classified government cables detailing war crime atrocities and secret documentation revealing corporate misconduct, Edge Of Darkness is the type of movie that may cause some viewers to temporarily forget that Mel Gibson is a miserable, anti-Semitic lunatic and shit a brick of steaming, self-righteous vindication.

Unfortunately, Riggs has to fly solo without Murtough in Edge of Darkness

Mel Gibson plays Thomas Craven, a hard-nosed, lone wolf Boston Homicide Detective. His life consists of a simple house, an estranged daughter and a job that seems to be the only thing that he gives a flying fuck about. After Craven’s daughter, Emma (Bojana Novakovic), starts vomiting and showing signs of severe illness during a rare visit with Dad,  Craven tries to rush her to the hospital. Unfortunately, the reunion ends abruptly when Emma receives a fatal shotgun blast to the stomach from two masked assailants on Craven’s doorstep (* See Spoiler Below). Craven quickly links his daughter’s death to her former employer, Northmoor, a company responsible for bringing millions of dollars into Massachusetts’ economy and funneling money into the campaign fund of a currently elected senator. And, in a huge surprise for anyone that hasen’t seen at least one or two government thrillers, Northmoor’s business dealings are extremely confidential.  As Craven’s investigation continues, he learns that his daughter’s death is a result of her outing Northmoor to a watchdog group that had  plans to expose Northmoor’s creation of dirty bombs with ID’s tagged to foreign countries for the U.S. Government.

But he has somebody else on his side.

As Craven makes it up the chain of command in his quest for revenge, Edge of Darkness does not even bother to fuck around with red herrings. The film makes it very clear that Jack Bennett (Danny Houston), the CEO of Northmoor, is the party responsible for Emma’s death. And in an action movie cliché that would make Charles Bronson proud, Bennnett’s sentence is to be given from the barrel of Craven’s handgun.  There is also a throwaway subplot involving a private contractor from England  that betrays the U.S. government’s order to clean up the Northmoor mess and instead enacts vigilante justice by pumping hot lead into  acorrupt senator and his entourage of sycophant cronies,  for no other reason than to boost the body count in the movie.

More so than a thriller or drama, Edge Of Darkness is structured like a  porn; the audience waits in anticipation for the  proverbial money shot when Craven will unload his pistol into Bennett and the other shady, shitheels responsible for his daughter’s death. With that said, Edge Of Darkness will appeal to two types of viewers: alarmists who rally for a  call to arms after watching an episode of Jesse “The Body” Ventura’s Conspiracy Theory or someone with the wacky idea (EOD director Martin Campbell?) that cutting up the film stock of Ransom, Payback and Conspiracy Theory and arbitrarily splicing them into a single film would be a totally awesome idea.

Alleged Photos of Mel Gibson's DUI arrest.

* Spoiler: The Jews are not Emma’s  killers.