The Shrinking Effect Of Adaptation - Edge Of Darkness

The television original of Edge of Darkness ran to close-on six hours. It screened in 1985 and was a huge critical success not least because it fed the liberal frenzy against Thatcherism and played into Gaia Theory. Nothing wrong with that. The filmed version transports the action to Boston, Massachusetts in 2010 and loses much of the fanciful Gaia thread. 

The film stars Mel Gibson. Any picture with Gibson brings its own unintended baggage to the table. Gibson has said some pretty unsavoury things - often about the English (whom he seems to detest - a widely acceptable piece of racism) and more notably about Jews. This nastiness does not remove his efficacy as an action star but does taint it.

So what do we have in this transplanted and stunted adaptation. We have a serviceable action pic but hardly a hint of the currency that so marked the televisual original. Was it worth the effort? Probably not. 57/100.