To truly appreciate Edge of Darkness—and by no means do I believe anybody should feel obligated to—you have to understand how well it works within the confines of its genre: the forgettable crime drama. Its anti-thesis would have to be something exceedingly similar, except shoddily done. A recent fine example of such an antithesis would be Taken.
Both are rousing tales of vindictive ass-kicking by a haunted parent. In Edge of Darkness, Mel Gibson plays Boston cop Tom Craven who is driven to find out why his daughter is murdered by his side, at his front door. In Taken, Liam Neeson plays Bryan Mills, an ex-spy who must rescue his daughter from Albanian sex traffickers in Paris.
I don’t need to tell you who plays anybody else, because they aren’t important or you won’t recognize them. The one exception is Maggie Grace, playing Mills’ daughter Kim. As an avid viewer of Lost, where she played Shannon, I had trouble taking her for the 17 year-old she is supposed to be.
Casting aside an almost criminally trite portrayal of human trafficking, one of the major problems of Taken is how it mishandles the daughter character. I wasn’t nearly as concerned about Kim as Craven’s daughter, Emma. Taken goes out of its way to paint Kim as virginal (a dubious proposition to begin with), supposedly to increase the tension when she is about to be deflowered by a heavy-set Arab sheik at the end. I was more concerned about Kim’s bad-seed friend, with whom she traveled to Paris, who discreetly disappears by the end of the film, dead or lost in the maze of a seedy Parisian underworld. [Ed. Note: I have been informed that this is not so. She does show up in the movie, but still--not taken to safety by Mills on screen.]
Emma is shot within the first twenty minutes of Darkness, so the audience can stop being ‘concerned’ for her, and start actually caring about her. I think this plot decision helps us empathize with Craven better than we can with Mills. The anonymous Bojana Novakovic, who plays Emma, has a simpler part, because we’re only supposed to see her agitated, but she does more with it than Grace.
I also appreciated how Darkness is, well, darker than Taken. That Darkness ends with tragedy makes it all the more poignant and believable. It’s also satisfying, if you can take satisfaction with the ending of Hamlet. The very end of the movie is maudlin and unnecessary, more cinematic and easily discarded by the audience if desired. The tail end of Taken is jaw-droppingly stupid.
The only real problem I have with Darkness is Mel Gibson’s terrible Boston accent. Obviously, everybody is aware that we’re watching Gibson, who is notably not from Boston, and could have easily suspended our disbelief if he had stuck with his naturally mild Australian. I mean, this isn’t a Dennis Lehane adaptation after all.
Edge of Darkness is rated R for strong bloody violence and language. Taken is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence, disturbing thematic material, sexual content, some drug references, and language.
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See, I thought Taken was amazing and that Edge of Darkness was crap. But I am quite provably a troglodyte, given that I dislike hoppy beers.
ReplyDeleteTaken integrates social issues in a way that does not interfere with the plot, while Edge of Darkness is choppy and unrealistic (if you want to talk trite, talk conspiracy movies -- if I see another one, I might just vomit)and completely separated from reality. Edge of Darkness gave plot twists without adequate precedent (which makes bad detective novels and worse conspiracy movies, only really appreciable in camp humor), whereas Taken just was.
In Taken, the hero had a purpose, and reminded us that most girls in such situations don't get heroes (the friend she came to Paris with was in a side room in the home of that "I'll find you" "Good luck" stooge, tied to a bed, virtually unrecognizable). Edge of Darkness is another pointless revenge movie with no moral lesson except something stupid about conspiracy and corruption, which is no moral lesson.
I liked a few things. There were a few good depictions of grief at the beginning, and his obsession with her relics was interesting (unfortunately, it had a plot purpose). Everything was visually quite appreciable. The random police officer at the end was a quickdraw and just took out a main character.
Unfortunately for Taken, the climax was rather climactic and heroic. I, sadly, also quite appreciate that it was not a documentary on human trafficking while still capturing its open threat and disgusting danger. In fact, it seemed like they actually did research into how the operations may have been run. If they had actually included twelve-year old girls, I might have wished Liam Neeson to grind the crooks to pieces with spiked shoes.
I admit, Taken is not the best movie out there, but it's not forgettable. Not in the least. And Edge of Darkness was so choppy and pointless, that I can't really see much quality in it. And I had forgotten it. I confused it with The Book of Eli, which I have seen and of which I think highly, with reservations.