Gibson’s draw enough to keep ‘Edge of Darkness’ on track

This time, it’s personal … again. The familiar template: Mel Gibson is a lone martyr out to get the bad guy(s) who hurt his loved one(s). He ends up icky-sticky bloody and staggering woozily from the physical pain he endures — resorting to his trademark, perverse expression of masochistic gratification — before exacting vengeance at the eleventh hour.

It’s an old saw for the wrinkly former heartthrob who plays the lead in a feature film for the first time in almost eight years on “Edge of Darkness.” Following three “Mad Maxes,” four “Lethal Weapons,” one “Braveheart” and innumerable other action-oriented thrillers, he does show here that — even as his looks fade — he retains that essential magic combination: He can still tap both movie star “it” quality and legit acting chops to keep over-the-top material compelling.

And that’s what he must do in his latest to compensate for a narrative that starts strong, but becomes more preposterous as it moves along.

Boston police Detective Thomas Craven (Gibson) witnesses the assassination of his daughter Emma (Bojana Novakovic) on his own doorstep. A worker in nuclear research and development, she is strangely ill at the time of the murder. The grief-stricken father commences an investigation to exact vigilante justice on the perpetrators.

But the clues lead to a massive conspiracy including environmentalists, nukes, government corruption and a number of standard-issue movie types. There’s the ambitious/suspicious business tycoon (Danny Huston), the slick Republican senator from Massachusetts (of all things) and the mysterious CIA “fixer” (Ray Winstone, star of today’s other opener, “44 Inch Chest”).

Remaking and Americanizing a BBC miniseries he made in the 1980s, capable Bond film director Martin Campbell (“Casino Royale”) conjures a few very exciting individual action scenes here. But he must distract from an effective father’s revenge saga with themes of sensationalized political paranoia and 007-style motifs of megalomania and a secret nuclear weapons lair.

The adaptation by classy screenwriters William Monahan (“The Departed”) and Andrew Bovell (“Lantana”) leaves something to be desired and leaves good actors with less than fully developed roles to play.