"Hacksaw Ridge" is one of the best films of 2016, and I'm the least surprised man in America. Mel Gibson is poised to reclaim his standing among the industry's elite, and there's not a damn thing the PC police can do about it. I shouldn't even have to talk about his "comeback", and it's insane to me that he hasn't been behind the camera in ten years. As you know, a barrage of bad press between 2006-2011 turned the beloved "Braveheart" star into an embattled outsider, despite his healthy long-term relationship with moviegoers. I don't wish to delve into the specifics, but for the record, I never believed Mel Gibson was a bad person. We love a fall from grace, and the media relished every misfortune that befell the inaugural 'Sexiest Man Alive'. His trials and tribulations are simply a reminder that huge celebrities are, in fact, human beings. Movie gods aren't as indestructible as their onscreen counterparts, and they aren't immune to the same pitfalls and personal problems that plague mere mortals. Besides, the ONLY thing Mel Gibson or ANY entertainer owes us is a solid distraction from our own lives. Mel has been doing that better than most for over three decades now. The positives BY FAR outweigh the negatives in regards to the REAL Martin Riggs. I know you like Tom Hardy. So do I. He's got a ways to go, though. Let's talk about the legend that you almost forgot.
Mel was born in upstate New York in 1956 and was the sixth of eleven children. His father Hutton(a controversial writer and "Jeopardy!" winner in 1968) moved the Gibson clan to his mother's native Australia at the height of the Vietnam War. An aimless 18 year old Mel joined a Sydney theater group at the urging of his sister after graduating high school in the mid-'70s. He performed in many plays en route to nabbing his first film role, the 1977 surfing flick "Summer City". Medical student-turned-indie director George Miller was searching for "a spunky young guy" around this time to play the title character in his dystopian demolition derby "Mad Max". He didn't have to search for long. With an international gross of $100 million on a $350,000 budget, "Max" became one of the most profitable films EVER made, and Mel would receive worldwide fame and recognition as the grungy, leather-clad crusader in this 1979 sensation and it's superior sequel "The Road Warrior". Gibson would enter the Reagan era as one of the hottest actors on the planet, a position he wouldn't relinquish for a very long time.
Mel's popularity attracted the attention of director Peter Weir, and he was cast in a pair of acclaimed historical dramas, "Gallipoli" and "The Year of Living Dangerously", proving he was more than just a life-sized action figure. "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome" arrived with substantial hype in 1985, and Gibson(now a husband and father)had little time to digest his dizzying rise. If Mel wanted off the merry-go-round, his next project would make it impossible. "Lethal Weapon" is the gold standard of buddy cop movies, and his LAPD dynamo Martin Riggs was a franchise-starter that ensured superstardom for at least the next decade. "Lethal Weapon 2" made A LOT more money than the original in '89, and "Lethal Weapon 3" made more money than the second one in '92. What I'm trying to say is that you can have those "Fast and the Furious" fools. I grew up with Gibson and Glover, and they would absolutely destroy Vin Diesel and Paul Walker. Anyway, in between all those Richard Donner-directed shoot-outs, Mel made "Tequila Sunrise", "Bird on a Wire", "Hamlet", "Forever Young" and "Maverick". All were hits.
Mel reached the pinnacle of his profession with his 1995 masterpiece "Braveheart". Perhaps inspired by the success of then-rival Kevin Costner's "Dances with Wolves", Gibson directed and starred in the stirring tale of 13th Century Scottish freedom fighter William Wallace for which we're all eternally grateful(he made a relatively quiet directorial debut with 1993's "The Man Without a Face") and was rightly rewarded with the Academy Awards for Best Picture/Director. He returned to straight-up movie star duties in Ron Howard's "Ransom", and protected Julia Roberts(filmdom's number-one female circa 1997) in the thriller "Conspiracy Theory". The "Lethal Weapon" family took their final bow with a lucrative fourth episode the following year. I shouldn't have to tell anyone over the age of 20 that Gibson towered over Tinsel-town with the two Toms(Hanks and Cruise) back when George Clooney was a TV guy and Robert Downey Jr. was a regular at rehab. The new millennium looked like more of the same thanks to "Payback" and "The Patriot". He still had "What Women Want". But things were about to change.
For some reason, Mel completely lost interest in headlining Hollywood hits, because 2002's "Signs" was the last time he did that(M. Night Shyamalan took a similar sabbatical, as far as quality is concerned). A new venture represented a seismic shift in the public's perception of the handsome and popular star that was practically untouchable in the '80s and '90s. Is Mel Gibson anti-Semitic? Let me clarify that "The Passion of the Christ" was another impressive piece of work by an extraordinarily talented filmmaker, but the question dogged Gibson throughout, making me wonder if the $370 million domestic box office total was worth it. The film was a phenomenon, but Mel spent as much time defending his devout Catholic beliefs as he did soaking up the praise and adulation that usually accompanies a movie of this magnitude. A drunk driving arrest overshadowed "Apocalypto", as many made it clear that they were no longer on his side. His infidelity exposed a hypocrisy, and when an aging Gibson decided that he wanted back in FRONT of the camera again after a seven-year absence, few were willing to go along, a far cry from the good ol' days. It didn't help that "Edge of Darkness", "The Beaver", and "Get the Gringo" were bad movies.
Mel took a lengthy hiatus, or was rather forced into one, after devolving into a tabloid target. Sylvester Stallone got him out of the house for 2014's "The Expendables 3", and I must mention that he was the best thing about it. "Hacksaw Ridge" confirmed what I always believed to be true- that Mel Gibson is as skilled a storyteller as the great Clint Eastwood. I don't need to see him act anymore. I have plenty of old favorites I can pop in whenever the mood strikes. But I'd better never again see him kept away from the art form that he spent most of his adult life furthering or I'm going to flip out worse than he did in that infamous phone call. He's done more good in this world than all of his butt-hurt haters could ever dream of. Go protest Donald Trump if you don't like what I'm saying. This man is an artist. God bless Mel Gibson. Amen.
