Edge of Darkness [Blu-Ray]

Ever since Taken revived the school-of-Death Wish revenge thriller in 2008, there's been a marked revival in bloody, "this time it's personal" shoot-'em-ups. Deftly combining crowd-pleasing throat punches and international intrigue, Taken inspired all manner of spawn, which fall somewhere on its well-balanced axis of dumb action and taut suspense. In the former category, we have stuff like 2009's Law Abiding Citizen. In the later, there's Edge of Darkness, a remake of a 1985 British miniseries that doubles as an on-screen resuscitation of aging star Mel Gibson. Directed by Martin Campbell (who also helmed the BBC mini-series, but is best known on this side of the pond for his frenzied re-imagining of the James Bond franchise), Edge of Darkness sees Gibson as a slouched Boston cop sent into an underworld of corporate espionage and shady government cover-ups after his daughter is gunned down on his doorstep. The typical pattern of scorned daddy gunning down the bad guys is enlivened by larger concerns, namely an illegal nuclear weapons manufacturer (played with well-heeled grease ball charm by Danny Huston) trying to cover his tracks by murdering anyone who came close to unearthing his fiendish plot. "I'm getting too old for this shit," Gibson opines in an interview included on this disc, nodding to Danny Glover's default catchphrase from the Lethal Weapon films that rocketed Gibson to action movie stardom in the late '80s. He may not be able to weather all the sucker punches and car chases, but as Gibson has aged he's grown to more perfectly embody the grizzled, Charlie Bronson-style action hero of yore. His wall of coiffed brown hair may have receded, but his searing glare remains. Gibson most likely takes himself a bit too seriously to commit to a late game action movie resurgence, but Edge of Darkness makes a strong case for why he should. Also on this disc: nine short "Focus Point" featurettes profiling Campbell, Gibson, the film's score and other titbits, as well as a handful of deleted scenes, including one which should have remained in the final cut, where Gibson manically informs Huston, "I'm gonna get ya."