Troy Kennedy Martin gave police dramas flawed officers and conspiracy thrillers people worth worrying about. We rate him most highly when the characters remain clear, even as the dangers grow strange; Edge of Darkness is the place to start.
Fi1m perspective
In Edge of Darkness (1985), Bob Peck makes the dangers of a nuclear thriller feel painfully personal. Kennedy Martin gives him more to do than explain the conspiracy, while Joe Don Baker brings welcome pleasure to the acting as Darius Jedburgh. We were grateful for Baker’s presence, because his enjoyment of the part stopped the seriousness becoming oppressive. Both performances benefit from writing that cares about people beyond their usefulness to the plot.
Kennedy Martin had already helped change what a television policeman could be. As creator and writer of Z-Cars (1962), he brought flawed officers into a more realistic police drama. Feature films followed with The Italian Job (1969) and Kelly’s Heroes (1970). His taste for action and humour went with an interest in television that moved and relied less on dialogue, an ambition that makes the talkier stretches of his later work particularly disappointing.
His credits on The Sweeney (1975) were as a writer; Ian Kennedy Martin, his brother, created the series. John Thaw and Dennis Waterman make its rule-breaking detectives forceful and funny, while the drab London locations keep their aggression uncomfortably close to ordinary life. It remains gripping television, with a caveat: its pleasure in the detectives too often excuses how they behave.
The return to television brought Reilly: Ace of Spies (1983), then the six-part Edge of Darkness. Director Martin Campbell keeps the crime story gripping while giving Kennedy Martin’s stranger ideas room to unsettle us. The writing is less dependable when it leaves us struggling to understand why an unanswered question matters. Some passages demand more interpretative work than they repay, and the cast should not have to compensate for writing that could have been clearer.
Michael Mann’s Ferrari (2023) has a different problem. Men explain manufacturers and balance sheets in wood-panelled offices, while Shailene Woodley’s Lina is left with little beyond patient hurt. The drivers barely get a distinguishing feature each, which is thin provision from a writer capable of giving thriller characters such life. The road sequences and Penélope Cruz make the film worth an evening, but the middle hour is weighed down by explanations. Start with Edge of Darkness, and do not assume every moment of confusion is your fault.
Biography
Troy Kennedy Martin (15 February 1932 – 15 September 2009) was a Scottish screenwriter for film and television. Born in Rothesay on the Isle of Bute, he attended Trinity College Dublin. He created the BBC police series Z-Cars (1962–1978), writing the first episodes and returning for the final one, and contributed to series including The Sweeney and Reilly, Ace of Spies.
His film screenplays include The Italian Job (1969), Kelly's Heroes (1970) and Red Heat (1988). He wrote the 1985 BBC serial Edge of Darkness, an award-winning anti-nuclear thriller. His screenplay for the biographical film Ferrari (2023), based on a book by Brock Yates, was completed before his death and later directed by Michael Mann.
