Edge of Darkness

A question I get asked all the time: “How can you watch so many foreign and independent films? Don’t you get tired of reading the screen? Isn’t it too challenging?”

Edge of Darkness is the perfect answer. Mel Gibson’s first film in eight years has EXACTLY what most foreign and indie films don’t: tireless minutes of boring, explain-every-detail-to-the-audience exposition.

It’s a “trick” that these lame ass Hollywood movies repeat constantly. So many times during this film, I thought the actors were going to look into the camera and go, “Do you get it? Have we explained it well enough?”

Edge of Darkness, and films of the like, treat their audience like morons, explaining everything, leaving nothing to chance or question.

Don’t get me wrong. Every country occasionally delivers bad cinema, and not every independent film is perfect, but seldom do foreign language films treat its viewers like such idiots.

Oh the movie? Gibson is a seasoned Boston detective (with a God-awful accent) whose daughter is shotgunned down in front of him. He smells something funny, digs deeper and uncovers some ridiculous eco-political nuclear corporate bullshit whistle blowing garbage. Yes, interest dies fast.

There are two action scenes - when the daughter gets shot and when a person gets hit by a car - that pop, but the rest, from Casino Royale director Martin Campbell, is dead in the water (ha. ha. ha.)

Eight years and one anti-semitic rant later, Gibson chooses this as his first flick? Too bad. But really, the main message of the film is this, you had better decide whether you’re hangin’ on the cross or bangin’ in the nails. Give me a break. D-