Audience Rating: Unrated Binding: VHS Tape EAN: 0794051111937 Format: Color Label: BBC Warner Manufacturer: BBC Warner Publisher: BBC Warner Release Date: 2000-07-19 Studio: BBC Warner Theatrical Release Date: 1986-08-04
Groundbreaking environmental-espionage shocker Edge of Darkness (1985) begins routinely enough but then ratchets the suspense to levels that would have turned Hitchcock himself green with envy. Emma Craven (Joanne Whalley in her first staring role) is a young environmental activist killed in mysterious circumstances. Emma's father Ron Craven (Bob Peck in a star-making performance) will not be silenced and, as a police detective, is uniquely positioned to pursue his own unofficial investigation. He moves from grief to a determination to find the truth, all the while advised and/or comforted by Emma, but is she a ghost or a manifestation of his haunted psyche? Craven digs deeper, uncovering labyrinthine conspiracy in the nuclear industry and, as the body count rises, encounters the garrulous CIA agent Darius Jedburgh (a superb Joe Don Baker) with a mysterious agenda of his own. Accompanied by a haunting musical score by Michael Kamen and Eric Clapton, Edge of Darkness builds on the legacy of Tinker Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley's People to become quite simply the best television thriller ever. --Gary S. Dalkin
Spotlight customer reviews:
Customer Rating: Summary: A Hell of A Mission Comment: Belatedly, I planned to write a review of EOD. However, I find that the rest of you got here first, and have written well-deserved high praise!
I first saw EOD here in the US on a syndicated basis. They chopped it up into two parts, and cut a lot of little "unnecessary" bits (like Craven looking out a second storey window and seeing McCroon stepping out of the trees with a shotgun). The sound quality was fair to poor, also.
We eventually got hold of the 2-cassette VHS copy, and caught all the things we had missed.
This is bravura work, all around. It's a superb cast, with great writing, classic direction, a fine score. If you're not familiar, read the reviews below, and see this, in uncut form if you possibly can. And as Darius Jedburgh said, "It was a hell of a mission, though." Customer Rating: Summary: Scary and emotional Comment: Craven, brilliantly acted by the late Bob Peck, is a highly decorated English police officer, well known for his discretion in politically sensitive cases. He is widowed with a grown daughter. One evening a man previously arrested by Craven shows up on their doorstep with a shotgun. The dauhgter throws herself before her father and gets shot. It looks like a revenge killing gone wrong, but then questions stars appearing: if the murderer was after Craven, why did he fire both barrels into his daughter, how did he escape in the first case, why does he and all other suspects die "resisting arrest", and finally: why is the lock of hair Craven cuts form his dead daughter radioactive?
His need for answers takes him to a nightmarish world of governement paranoia, interdeprtemental intrigue, and secrets hidden from the public "for their own good".
Bob Peck plays the tormented Craven with enormous depth and sensitiviy, creating a truly memorable character that the viewer just will not forget. Customer Rating: Summary: Televisions finest hour � or longer. Comment: A true sin is that "Edge of Darkness" is unavailable on DVD, but you can get all of Adam Sandler's movies. No justice in the world.
Bob Peck & Joe Don Baker get to do the best work of their careers in this in-depth wonder of a mini-series. Others have covered the bases on the plot, so I won't rehash it here.
Suffice it to say it is long overdue to get this gem out in the US. An apparently terrible copy is available in the UK (bad video & bad sound), so I'd call for someone to work on this as a labour of love.
I know you would get an appreciative audience.
Customer Rating: Summary: Masterpiece........ Comment: Firstly let me point out that there is a DVD version of EOD, several actually. The best version is the latest released this year which is a wonderful transfer and includes a documentary on the film, Magnox and has clips of interviews and award ceremonies and discussions on the series. It is on region 2 DVD and is available from amazon uk. I too remember watching this masterpiece unfold when it was originally screened here in the uk. I was only 14 at the time and British television was still producing some wonderful stuff. Even so I knew this was something extra special. It must have planted a seed in my subconscious. Incredibly in 2003 it has lost none of its power and seems just as prescient now as ever. The callous disregard for the individual by corporations, the 'great game' played out between competing security agencies, the conspiracy of silence in the media. The ecology movement. The collusion of government with the malign constituents in our society. Ostensibly though this is still the 'little man's story' and what a central performance from the late great Bob Peck. His personal disintegration is harrowing to behold as he tries to unravel the mystery. Joe don Baker, what can you say about his performance. He is utterly compelling as the old school agency man fighting to keep his head above water. His verbal sparing matches with 'arts council' funded MI5's Ian McNeice and Charles Kay (also superb) are very very funny. Oh the script, what a script. Troy Kennedy Martin the writer provided the most consistently brilliant screenplay for television ever written. Martin Campbell the director sculpts it all into an entity that supplants the TV media. The DVD I saw previously to EOD was Leone's masterwork Once upon a time in America and I can honestly say EOD which bares many similarities is right up there alongside it. I don't think I could give this production a better accolade. Customer Rating: Summary: Criminally overlooked Comment: I have lost count of the number of times I have watched Edge of Darkness, and still seen something new and haunting in its ramifications for our current age. In this deeply disturbing film series the devil is most defintely in its Cold War detail, and Troy Kennedy Martin's script uncovers many of those very real demons that lurk in the international trade of nuclear technology and weapons grade plutonium, the most dangerous material in the world, and which is still clouded in mystery. It is also a mythic story of hope for the future, as Bob Peck's character finds his allies in the strangest of places, even as his enemies are everywhere.The fact that this series has still not come out on DVD is truly amazing, and if I believed in conspiracy theories i might even be suspicious! Who knows! Roll on E of D 2!! We need to be told, now more than ever...
