By Greg Vellante
Correspondent

Imagine yourself sitting in an empty room, staring at a completely blank sheet of white canvas.

Now imagine staring at that canvas for just under two hours, and every once in a while, a random person comes out of nowhere and shoots it with a paintball gun.

Would you consider yourself entertained? Do the random bursts of shock and excitement make up for the excruciating periods of boredom in between? This is essentially the experience delivered by “Edge of Darkness,” with the canvas being long, tedious scenes of trite dialogue and butchered Boston accents, and the paintballs replaced by actual bullets spraying blood, not paint.

Mel Gibson’s first return to the big screen since 2002’s “Signs” is a tale of fatherly redemption, conspiracy, and violence, filmed and told against the backdrop of Boston’s city streets. Gibson plays Thomas Craven, a Boston detective whose daughter Emma (Bojana Novakovic) is brutally murdered at his doorstep. Craven dives into a vigilante-fueled investigation, which leads to the uncovering of dangerous secrets regarding Emma’s place of employment.

It’s a Boston film that I myself, and hopefully fellow citizens of Massachusetts, wouldn’t be caught dead placing among the true classics (“Mystic River,” “Gone Baby Gone,” “The Departed”), but it has its moments as an ode to the state.

Local audiences will find frequent humor in the overdone use of accents (Gibson even gets the chance to say car, with the notorious Boston omission of the “r” sound), and amusement in seeing notable locations on screen. Even I couldn’t suppress the laughter when this specific joke delivered a one-two punch of pure hilarity.

“Hey, that’s illegal in Massachusetts.”
“Everything’s illegal in Massachusetts.”

I certainly had my share of laughs, both in regards to jokes and mindless violence, but for the majority of “Edge of Darkness,” I found myself bored to tears. Occasionally, the burst of a shotgun or a witty Gibson one-liner would resurrect my interest, yet minutes later I’d return to a near comatose state. One thing I will say is that when the film packs its punches, it delivers hard.

The violence is brutal and gritty; Mel Gibson making the most out of the movie’s R-rating, as opposed to the PG-13 choreographed artificiality of Liam Neeson in last year’s “Taken,” a similar tale of a father-gone-commando.

The only problem is that while the movie is driven on violence, it’s the most fleeting aspect of the entire film. The majority of it consists of Craven interrogating various people about the conspiracy, while everyone questioned denies, denies and denies some more. Throw in lengthy explanations regarding said conspiracy and a few scenes of emotional manipulation where Craven subtly grieves the loss of his only child.

There’s a scene that finalizes the film, neither boring nor violent, which is extremely touching and dare I say, beautiful. It’s as if that white canvas splattered with paint suddenly transformed into a stunning work of art, if only for a moment.

As for everything that preceded this solitary scene, I can’t deny that my eyelids continuously drooped, my vision teetering on the “Edge of Darkness.”

2 stars out of 4