Movie Details
| Title: | Edge of Darkness | |
| Director: | Martin Campbell | |
| Year: | 2010 | |
| Genre: | Film Noir | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 02.01.10 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (3)
- Casino Royale
- Cast a Deadly Spell
- Eskimo Nell
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 02.01.10 | Studio Movie Grill | I'm putting this in the film noir genre on my calendar, because even though it isn't fully a noir, it's the closest I've seen a studio release come in some time. Slightly off topic, I think the invention of irony in the 60s is the main reason we so rarely see good noir anymore. Also off topic, fuck our internet-fuel paparazzi/celeb-life-minutia obsession. Mel Gibson got drunk and said some stupid shit five years ago, and has been off the big screen ever since. That sucks, and the first time he appeared on screen here I realized how much I missed the old psychopath. I'm sure Lee Marvin (the first badass that came to mind) got drunk and said stupid shit all the time. If he had been penalized five years every time that happened, think how much we'd have missed out on. I know there were problems in the opposite direction back in Old Hollywood (e.g., covered-up rapes, murders, etc), but can't we find a happy balance where actors can act like humans (i.e., screw up) and not get hyper-analyzed for it. I mean, I know the answer is no, but still. Moral of the story: Mel Gibson should be in more movies. Anyway, the plot here wasn't overly complex from the audience's perspective. We could figure out up front several key facts that initially eluded Gibson. So my enjoyment of the film came not from trying to figure out what was going to happen next, but in watching Gibson trying to figure it out. That "everyman just trying to keep his head above water" aspect of the film is what gave me the noir vibe. I also dug that he had to struggle a bit to solve the various mysteries he was presented with. It stood in stark contrast to the ultra simplicity of movies like Taken or The Da Vinci Code, which are what I call Matchbook Movies. It's been a while since I used that term on this calendar, but a Matchbook Movie is any movie where a major character is able to track down a secondary character after finding a discarded matchbook with the name of a seedy club or bar on it. The time where that gimmick could legitimately get pulled off is years past. Now it's just lazy. I don't remember if Taken or Da Vinci actually had literal matchbook moments, but they definitely had figurative matchbook moments. For example, there's a scene in Taken where Liam is watching some dudes play cards, and one just happens to say the same phrase that Liam heard earlier under suspicious circumstances, which lets him know that he has found his man. What was I talking about? Oh yeah. Edge of Darkness is not necessarily a smart movie, but it is a lot less dumb than Taken. It also features two great True Men Talking scenes between Gibson and Ray Winstone. Forget the anemic Pacino/De Nero Talking showdown in Heat... I'll take these two sequences any day. It's late and I'm tire and a little buzzed and I feel like I'm being kinda overdramatic with these notes. Let's just leave it with the fact that I really liked this one and leave it at that. |