My weekly movie reviews. You can also read these on letterboxd.
This week focuses on three movies directed by Mel Gibson, including his new film FLIGHT RISK.
FLIGHT RISK (2025)
Rating: 2 out of 5 Stars
Mel Gibson’s new movie is more of a head-scratcher than a nail-biter. The big question is why did Mel make this movie? Was he so desperate to direct that he took anything he could get funded? Nearly every project he’s been rumored to direct in the last decade or so, from his proposed WILD BUNCH remake to his Viking movie to even his fifth installment in the LETHAL WEAPON franchise, was more interesting than FLIGHT RISK.
From the opening frame, I couldn’t understand Mel’s reasons or methods. Why use a CGI establishing shot of a motel when you could easily pay for 2nd unit to grab a quick wide shot at a real location? The question persists when he cuts to a wide shot of an airfield with CGI characters approaching the plane. Why oh why? How difficult would it have been to find some air strip wherever they filmed the rest of the movie and just put CGI mountains in the background? These decisions set the movie on an incredibly bad start and it sadly doesn’t get much better.
Topher Grace’s performance is annoying, not funny. Worse, Michelle Dockery can’t carry the picture. She never succeeds in involving the audience on her journey. I never cared enough about her and part of that blame goes to the script’s flaws but her weak performance is partially responsible. Only Mark Wahlberg, as over-the-top as he plays it, does good work here. At least he’s fun to watch as the sicko assassin, chewing every moment his character is conscious like a bad guy from a cheap 90s action movie. And that’s sort of what FLIGHT RISK is, except I’d rather watch one of those movies instead.
It’s difficult to understand why Mel made this movie and it’s also difficult to understand how he made it. How could the director of BRAVEHEART and APOCALYPTO have delivered this crap? How could he have overlooked or accepted some of these awful production mistakes like how bad Marky Mark’s bald makeup looks? How could he have stomached this script without throwing up? If he resurrects his directing career with PASSION 2 or another passion project, FLIGHT RISK will look like a weird blunder in his otherwise impressive filmography. Let’s just hope this isn’t a sign of his next phase as a filmmaker.
Watched at Yakima 10
APOCALYPTO (2006)
Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars
It’s embarrassing to admit but this was my first viewing of Mel Gibson’s Mayan adventure film. At the time of its release, I wasn’t interested in his work, swept up in the controversy of his personal life. Sitting in my Tubi queue for quite some time, I finally decided it was time to watch APOCALYPTO as Gibson is about to release a new film.
Most of the talk about this period action picture revolves around the chase which occupies the last 40 minutes of the movie. It is an impressive piece of film craft but what I admired more was everything that came before the chase begins. The world building is fantastic, every scene full of rich detail, cultural depth in the production design, makeup, wardrobe, and weaponry. Because this Mayan world Gibson recreates seems so strange compared to our own, the film plays like a fantasy, like we’ve truly stepped into another world. In fact, most films in that genre, LORD OF THE RINGS for instance, don’t have this level of detail and it occurred to me that the best way to make a “fantasy” film is to set it in an actual historical context, ideally one as far removed as possible from European history.
This is an astounding feat for Gibson, more ambitious than his work in BRAVEHEART or PASSION and he pulls it off. Arguably, this is a better made movie than his Scottish epic, a more mature work, though it doesn’t have the passion that makes that film so memorable.
Watched on Tubi.
THE MAN WITHOUT A FACE (1993)
Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars
An outlier in his directorial body of work, THE MAN WITHOUT A FACE is a quiet, non-violent drama that feels more like it was directed by Rob Reiner than Mel Gibson. I’ve always had affection for the film and wanted to watch it again for the first time in a couple decades as Gibson’s latest is about to hit theaters.
These days I see the flaws in Gibson’s debut more than I did as a teenager. His performance is too rigid at first. The opening thirty minutes aren’t gripping. It takes a while for the movie to involve us. As Gibson’s character eases up about half-way through, I was reminded that he’s always at his acting best when he plays loose, somewhat wild characters. The second half of the picture is much stronger, especially as the relationship between he and the boy becomes closer.
It’s the fallout of the third act that has the more dramatic impact. Decades ahead, the narrative touches on the cancel culture of today. The way everyone makes assumptions and turns against Gibson’s character is painfully relevant. These kinds of movies (THE HUNT, THESE THREE) will always strike a personal chord for me. But it’s not that which touches me most about Gibson’s debut: it’s the final scene with him graduating and seeing his friend on the edge of the field. That moment has stayed with me for twenty years and I’m sure it will for another twenty.
Watched on Tubi.
