The first and final shots in "Edge of Darkness" belong in a different movie. They are beautiful, poetic, and dark explorations of ambitious filmmaking. Unfortunately, the sense of wonder these images imply is corroded by the rest of the film.

"Edge of Darkness" wastes little time to establish its characters, mostly because that would detract from the mindless action of the story, before Emma Craven (Bojana Novakovic) is gunned down in front of her father's house.

This sends Thomas Craven (Mel Gibson) on a mission to find her killers and bring them to justice: solo style. Craven basically gathers his information through beating the crap out of various individuals, instead of using the limited cognitive skills at his disposal.

During his investigation, which is actually more like an elongated physical interrogation, Craven is assisted in putting the pieces of the 5th grade puzzle together by Jedbugh (Ray Winstone). Eventually, he comes to the skyscraper of Northmoor, located on a beautiful piece of real estate that would be much more useful to a shepherd than an evil corporation, and confronts Jack Bennett (Danny Huston) about his business dealings. Craven is quickly suspicious of Bennett, mostly because the corporation's incompetence makes it impossible to believe their claims of innocence. The film wants the audience to believe that Bennett is an evil genius, but his actions indicate that he only fulfills half of those attributes.

When everything is revealed, the mystery and corruption of Northmoor is not that complicated or interesting. You get the feeling that the screenwriters thought of the company's motives as an inconvenience, rather than as the central foundation for the conflict within the story.

The film contains many loopholes in its search for authenticity, including the inescapable fact that someone would become wise to the nefarious dealings of the corporation after countless dead bodies keep leading to their doorstep. I know these people are supposed to be relatively skilled at covering these things up, but wouldn't the media begin to do some investigating after the first three dead bodies end up on Northmoor's property. No, because then there would be no movie.When you think about it, some of the revelations of the corporations dealings would have made the brutal murder at the beginning a pointless and rather pain-inducing enterprise. You don't commit a felony when it is not necessary. Any criminal knows that.

Craven must have other emotional causes for going to these extraordinary lengths to avenge his daughter's death. The audience is never given insight into what happened to his wife, but that could provide a possible explanation. The reason this is never unveiled is because this would have forced the screenwriters to provide an emotional core to a story whose only ambition is to get from one gruesome death to another.

Some critics have compared "Edge of Darkness" to "Payback", the 1999 vengeance tale also starring Gibson as a lowlife named Porter, but that film had a personality and was filled with humor. The dead bodies piled up in a similar way to "Edge of Darkness", but there was something relatively harmless about the proceedings. All of those that died were either corrupt cops or members of the mafia. They were all bad guys, Porter especially, and all probably had what was coming.

Many of those that die in "Edge of Darkness" are innocents, which fills the entire remainder of the film with a sadness that is not given proper respect. I am not saying that everyone who dies in a movie must be evil because in fiction, as in real life, many innocent people are killed for the advancement of the wicked. However, all of them must be real people with clear and unambiguous motives, instead of caricatures meant simply to advance the plot. If "Edge of Darkness" wanted to be as serious as it pretends, those left living must be given proper time for the grieving process to take hold.

"Edge of Darkness" doesn't bother with common sense, easy solutions, or intelligent heroes, which would be more easily overcome if it didn't take itself so seriously. The film might work if it were more preposterous, but it never fully sells out. Ultimately, "Edge of Darkness" is an action film where none of the consequences seem to matter. It's like playing a game that isn't fun and not even bothering to keep score.