Review: Edge of Darkness (15)***

Last year, Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck and Rachel McAdams headlined an accomplished distillation of the BAFTA award-winning 2003 mini-series, State of Play.

Now, we have more political intrigue and corporate skulduggery in Martin Campbell's slick reduction of the 1985 BBC mini-series, Edge of Darkness.

The film condenses six episodes of suspense into an engrossing two hours, transplanted to Boston.

Campbell directed the original television series and has subsequently proved his mettle with blockbusters including Casino Royale.

His credentials with high-octane action sequences come in useful for the sporadic set pieces here, and the orchestrator of the carnage is homicide detective Thomas Craven (Mel Gibson), a veteran of the Boston Police Department, who is looking forward to a visit from his daughter, Emma (Bojana Novakovic).

A happy reunion turns to tragedy when a masked assassin guns down Emma on the steps of the family home. Consumed with grief, Thomas shuns support from fellow detective Whitehouse (Jay O Sanders), preferring to investigate his daughter's murder on his own terms.

As Craven edges closer to the truth and Emma's involvement in the Northmoor research facility, the government hires shadowy figure Darius Jedburgh (Ray Winstone) to silence the detective. But he has his own agenda.

Edge of Darkness begins at a canter but slows noticeably in the plot-saturated middle act when Craven experiences beatific visions of his daughter from childhood.

Gibson has played the embattled father before in Ransom and he weeps convincingly when he's not beating up shady individuals.

Confrontations with Jedburgh lack the necessary tension – it's a pity that Robert De Niro was replaced by Winstone over "creative differences". The veteran would have brought more gravitas and menace.