Edge of Darkness.

[Johnno]

I managed to find a re-release of this 80's BBC thriller at my local (well stocked) DVD hire place. I remember watching it in the 80's and enjoying it then, it still holds up remarkably well today. Eric Clapton did the haunting score, Martin Campbell the director went on to Golden Eye.

There are these remarkable characters throughout the whole deal including a couple of strange old school tie quasi MI6 boys, a crusty old mining union secretary who has sold his soul, a likeable Texan CIA agent who comes back from some skirmish with his weapons of choice amongst his golf clubs.

It won a stack of awards and was so well received it was repeated almost immediatly in the UK.

Plot:

http://www.cassiopedia.org/wiki/index.php?title=Edge_of_darkness

The story of Edge of Darkness revolves around police officer Ronald Craven. In the first episode Craven, a widower, is returning home with his daughter Emma, having picked her up from a meeting of an environmental organisation at her University campus. On the doorstep of their home Emma is shot dead, apparently as part of a botched attempt on Craven's life by a criminal he had been responsible for convicting. Searching through Emma's belongings, Craven is however surprised to find a loaded handgun.

As Craven travels to London to investigate, he begins to discover that there was far more to his daughter's murder than was at first suspected. She was involved with various anti-nuclear activities, and as Craven traces those she was involved with he uncovers a global web of government conspiracy, encompassing British involvement in Northern Ireland, CIA involvement in underwriting/undermining environmental campaign organisations, the privatisation of the nuclear industries, and then-President Reagan's Star Wars missile defence plans. All this is centred on the mysterious nuclear facility at the fictional Northmoor, and potentially involving the fate of the entire human race.

Throughout his investigations, Craven is accompanied by visions of Emma, and it is never clear whether she is actually appearing to him as a ghost or whether she is a product of his imagination. He is also aided by the more corporeal form of CIA agent, Darius Jedburgh, who at first appears to be an adversary and then seems to be working on the same side. Craven also comes to realise that Emma's death was part of a wider attempt to cover up the illicit manufacture of weapons grade plutonium within a privately-managed UK nuclear reprocessing plant.

Reviews.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/classic/edge/reviews.shtml

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090424/usercomments

They don't make them like this anymore.

 

[Divide by Zero]

I saw the 2010 version starring Mel Gibson the other day and it was great.
The main difference is that this one was based in the USA with Jedburgh as a British man instead of American.

The new version has more of a conspiracy in terms of the war on terror! Northmoor in Massachusetts is secretly manufacturing "foreign specification" dirty bombs and the senator turns a blind eye as that contractor gives him a lot of campaign donations.

This movie would be a great advertisement for public finance of campaigns, LOL.


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1226273/

 

[The rabbit]

Watched the series when it first come out.Music from Eric Clapton was moving to . One of my faves of all times alongside " A very British coup" and "House of cards"

 

[Ninas]

This movie is definitely a thriller and well worth watching...

I especially like the part where the psychopathic character Jack Bennett(Danny Huston) asks Thomas Craven(Mel Gibson), "How does it feel?" meaning how it felt to lose a daughter, to suffer that much, to feel. A while later in the freeway, Craven stops him and asks him the same question at gun point.

The underlying feeling I got from Craven's character is the tremendous pain he feels at the loss of his daughter and him trying to keep his composure to solve the case. This is very subtle but is becomes apparent when he's at the park and hears his daughter voice.

Great movie indeed