After an absence of seven years from the screen as an actor, Mel Gibson is back with us playing a Boston police detective in this remake of the BBC television series of yesteryear. Devised by Troy Kennedy Martin to whom this film is dedicated.

Detective Tom is happy to receive a visit from his only daughter, who alas is sick. So much so Tom (Mel) decides to take her to the hospital. Unfortunately they get no further than the front door when father and daughter are blasted with gunfire and she dies. At first people think it is detective Tom who is in the frame but as he untangles the spider web of intrigue that surrounds his daughter’s life, a tapestry of conspiracy is gradually uncovered.

She was the intended victim and was also poisoned! Why? She was working for a government plant, whose work is a little suspect, working with irregular nuclear weapons for alien use in covert hands.

There are cover ups, twists and turns, shootouts and cascading cars. Oh it’s all there. It has a slight eighties feel about it and Ray Winstone as a Cockney hit man, which is odd but worth a look.

3 stars