4 stars (out of 5)
By R. Kurt Osenlund
Mel Gibson adopts a mean Boston accent in “Edge of Darkness,” a nervy fatherly revenge thriller that marks the former A-lister's first major starring role in eight years. Though at times allowing a nasally tinge to overtake some of its potency, Gibson wears the accent exceedingly well, growling out words like “dawtuh” with the kind of rugged intonations characteristic of someone who's spent many a grueling decade in Southie. More importantly, the accent allows Gibson to slip that much more inside his character (a veteran Boston police detective investigating his daughter's murder), thus allowing us to move that much further away from the Gibson we've come to know since he last graced the screen. It's what Tom Cruise should have done in “Valkyrie”: mastered the details of his filmic persona just enough so that the star is there, but the less-than-attractive extracurricular activities are far from thought.
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