The Edge of Darkness

Edge of Darkness, by William Monohan and Andrew Bovell

To be paid six figures for screenplays that use lines from your other screenplays kind of makes me sick. Enough with "You gotta decide which side you're on. Hanging on the cross or banging in the nails." Mr. Monohan has used it twice by my count and it's a little irritating. For one thing, what if you don't believe in Christ?

Another writer who did this was Lawrence Kasdan with Raiders of the Lost Ark and some other flick I've forgotten where he had the woman kissing him in one spot then another until he finally reached the lips.

It wouldn't surprise me if Mel Gibson asked that the line be added even though it was in another screenplay because from his body of work, it's clear that he thinks of himself as Christ, or wishes he could have been. In this movie everyone's a martyr and the body count is about twenty or so -- I wasn't going to count but there were so many it started to feel absurd. A cop out of control, totally abusing his authority in trying to find out who killed his daughter. Eh. Whatever. The movie felt strangely dull and emotionless, although tense at times. Body of Lies, the other movie to use the cross/nails choice metaphor was better but there you had an actor/artist who does not have an agenda. Gibson's agenda is to portray himself as victim/martyr and it dulls the ability to feel for the character.

His homophobia makes it a strange choice to fist a puppet in his latest movie, but perhaps he just thought of it as fisting a beaver. I can't believe they allowed that movie to be called The Beaver. And I can't believe there aren't more jokes going around. Go figure.