FILM REVIEW OF ''HACKSAW RIDGE" (2016)

Although over twenty years have elapsed since he directed the Oscar-winning, Best Picture “Braveheart” in 1995, Mel Gibson hasn’t lost his touch as a topnotch director.  The pugnacious, bloodthirsty, fact-based, World War II spectacle “Hacksaw Ridge” (**** OUT OF ****) ranks as the first memorable battlefront epic of the 21^st century.  Hollywood hasn’t marched out a significant WW 2 film for inspection since 1998 when Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan” landed on the silver screen.   Mind you, after the Allied soldiers stormed the Normandy beaches in France, the Spielberg saga degenerated into a soggy sandbag of a movie.  I grew up in the 1960s when Hollywood produced patriotic movies and TV shows about World War II by the dozens.  As far as I am concerned, “The Longest Day” (1962) still tops “Saving Private Ryan.”  While it didn’t wallow in the savagery of “Saving Private Ryan,” “The Longest Day” constituted a far more meaningful movie because it covered all sides of the combat.  Comparatively, “Hacksaw Ridge” takes place in the Pacific rather than Europe and depicts the bloody battle of Okinawa, where U.S. troops encountered suicidal Japanese soldiers entrenched in caves that eventually became their tombs.  Feisty filmgoers may complain that Gibson didn’t detail the entire sordid story.  For example, those flame-thrower wielding G.I.s not only incinerated Japanese troops, but also roasted the natives who had been forced to fight alongside with the Japanese.  Some island women committed suicide out of fear of getting raped, while others resorted to spears to defend themselves against the invading troops.  The ferocious, R-rated blood, gore, and aggression--visceral in every respect as it should be—that Gibson has staged serves to remind moviegoers that this 82-day battle constituted the bloodiest military campaign in the Pacific.  While “Hacksaw Ridge” shows us that “war is hell,” this wholesale carnage celebrates the heroism of a unique WW 2 hero.  Former “Amazing Spiderman” actor Andrew Garfield does a slam-bang job of playing real-life American Army Medic Private First Class Desmond T. Doss who made history as the first conscientious objector to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor.  The irony of “Hacksaw Ridge” is that it commemorates the exploits of a Seventh-Day Adventist who sought to save lives rather than destroy them.

Now, you’d think a movie about a conscientious objector would be very dull, but “Hacksaw Ridge” is far from dreary.  Robert Schenkkan, who wrote four episodes of the World War II mini-series “The Pacific,” and “Efficiency Expert” scribe Andrew Knight follow our protagonist, Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield of “The Amazing Spider-man”) from boot camp to his baptism under fire at Okinawa.  They also deal with his reckless youth when he almost killed his younger brother and later disarmed his drunken father after the latter had abused his mother.  The bulk of the action concerns the trials and tribulations that occurred after he enlisted.  Desmond informed his Army superiors that he had no use for guns, and he refused to drill with, much less discharge a rifle on the firing range. Desmond suffered the wrath of not only his military superiors but also soldiers that he trained with, and both went to extraordinary lengths to oust him from the Army.  Indeed, the Army tried to court-marshal him and his barracks buddies battered and ridiculed him because they figured that he was a yellow-livered coward.  Smitty Ryker (Luke Bracey of “Point Break”) was one of the barracks ringleaders who did everything possible to make life unbearable for Desmond.  Captain Glover (Sam Worthington of “Avatar”) and Drill Sergeant Howell (Vince Vaughn of “The Wedding Crashers”) were just as despicable, too.  Nevertheless, neither Desmond’s fellow soldiers nor his superiors had any luck in running him off.  He sticks out the worse of everything and goes into action as a medic.  When the troops get to Okinawa, they experience combat at its most tragic.  The Japanese never know when to stop and they live for the opportunity to kill Americans, even trotting out to ostensibly surrender but then pulling out guns and grenades to kill, kill, kill.  Just about every appendage of the human body is either blasted off or blown off.  Desmond watches grimly as rats gnaw on the decomposing bodies of American and Japanese soldiers.  Nothing about combat in “Hacksaw Ridge” is glamorous.  Everybody is shocked and surprised when Desmond ascends a cliffhanger escarpment, draped with a heavy-duty cargo net, and rescues one-by-one, 75 wounded soldiers during the night who had made his life a miserable hell in boot camp.  Suddenly, they reassessed this gawky looking lad and worshiped him like a saint.

In an interview with “Deadline Hollywood,” Mel Gibson explained what impressed him about Desmond Doss. “The guy didn’t carry a weapon, never fired a bullet, was a conscientious objector who thought it was wrong to kill under any circumstances. But he had the guts to go into the worst place you can imagine and stick to his convictions, armed with nothing else but sheer faith. Walk in and just do the impossible, which is courage under fire unparalleled because he didn’t do it in a split second or decision or moment. He did it again and again and again.”  Indeed, Gibson and his scenarists faced a gargantuan task in adapting Desmond Doss’s life. Usually, Hollywood embroiders facts to heighten the melodrama. Had the filmmakers adhered to actual events, “Hacksaw Ridge” would have seemed just ‘too good to be true.’  Lack of space prohibits me from going into detail about Doss’s life and the values that shaped him.  Most of those details seem wholly incredible.  Squeamish spectators may have difficulty sitting through the last half of “Hacksaw Ridge” when body parts start flying.  Meanwhile, bloodthirsty moviegoers may find themselves champing at the bit as Gibson fills the first half of with Desmond’s sudsy romance with his future wife, Dorothy Schutte (Teresa Palmer of “Lights Out”), particularly when he sneaks his first kiss and she slaps him. Altogether, “Hacksaw Ridge” qualifies as unforgettable from fade-in to fade-out.

FILM REVIEW OF ''GET THE GRINGO" (2012)

Mel Gibson is back in top form as a gimlet-eyed career criminal in freshman director Adrian Grunberg's "Get the Gringo," (*** OUT OF ****) a gritty, gory, hard-boiled crime thriller set inside a corrupt Mexican prison, like Tijuana's El Pueblito, where anything goes. Good movies don't dawdle, and rarely does this bullet-riddled, shoot'em up about life behind bars telegraph its next move. Any prison where an inmate's family can move in with him while he serves time is pretty unusual. This prison resembles something out of a trigger-happy Robert Rodriguez actioneer. Men come and go with loaded weapons in plain sight. You can even shell out bucks for a shot of heroin administered by needle in a grungy shop. Everything in this replica of Tijuana's El Pueblito has a price. As an anonymous convict, Gibson provides the kind of voice-over we usually hear in a loquacious Martin Scorsese film. Gibson's sarcastic commentary about El Pueblito with its unusual routines and procedures highlights the surreal nature of the squalid setting. Nobody delivers a bad performance, and Hollywood regulars like Bob Gunton, Patrick Bauchau, and Peter Stormare flesh out the film with familiar faces.

You never really know for certain where things are going in this violent, amoral, tongue-in-cheek, 95-minute melodrama."Get the Gringo" opens with Driver (Mel Gibson of “Payback”) and his wounded partner in clown outfits careening down the highway with cops in close pursuit. Desperately, Driver plows his car through the border fence, and the Mexican police arrest him. The Texas police try to persuade their Mexican counterparts to remand him into their custody. Instead, one glance at two duffel bags bulging with a million dollars prompts the Mexicans to keep him on their side of the border. Once Driver lands in the big house, he gets chummy with a 10-year-old kid (Kevin Hernandez of "The Sitter") who is plotting to exact revenge on another criminal, Javi (Daniel Gimenez Cacho of "Cronos"), who killed his father. The 10-year old's mother and father were incarcerated for selling narcotics. Initially, Driver uses cigarettes to bribe the youngster into silence. You see, the youngster saw Driver rob a fat, slimy heroin dealer after he set a fire to create a distraction. Afterward, Driver decides to use the youth as his eyes and ears inside the prison. Interestingly, "Get the Gringo" could be compared to the silent Charles Chaplin comedy "The Kid" because an adult sets out to help a less fortunate child. Primarily, the filmmakers use the child to make Driver appear more sympathetic. Gradually, Driver learns the ropes and uses them to get ahead of the opposition. 

Before long Driver's nemesis Frank (Peter Stormare of "The Million Dollar Hotel") dispatches professional killers to ferret out the millions that Driver stole from him. They track down the crooked cops who arrested Driver and start cutting off toes to recover the purloined millions. Meantime, Driver struggles inside the prison to gain Javi's confidence and engineer a deal so he can get out, go back to America, and kill Frank. Driver has no respect for anybody but himself, and he abhors Javi with a passion. It seems that the bathrobe-clad prison kingpin has singled out the 10-year old for preferential treatment. As it turns out, the youth has a liver compatible with Javi's blood type, and Javi needs a fresh liver.  Javi hires a surgeon (Patrick Bauchau of "A View to a Kill") to harvest the youngster's liver and transplant it into his body.  Interestingly, "Get the Gringo" could be compared to the silent Charles Chaplin comedy "The Kid" because an adult sets out to help a less fortunate child.  Indeed, aside from the urchin who befriends him, Gibson is as virtuous as Saint Peter compared with the murderous malcontents who populate the prison.

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Life in "Get the Gringo" is cheap, and death occurs when you least expect it. Three armed guys stroll into the prison at one point and try to ice Driver. They hit everybody but Driver. Bodies litter the premises. The Warden (Fernando Becerril of "Ravenous") informs Javi, who rules the prison with his thugs, that the government plans to shut them down as a consequence of the gunfight. Of course, the whole point to any prison picture is how the hero manages to escape. Happily, Gibson survives with everything intact, while the treacherous villains bite the dust. Grunberg orchestrates several chaotic shoot-outs, and Gibson is by no means a typical convict. When they fingerprint him, the authorities discover that he has burned off his fingerprints. Everybody is out to take advantage of him, even some treacherous Americans, but Driver turns the tables on everybody.

 "Blackout" production designer Bernardo Trujillo has performed miracles with the closed down Veracruz prison where "Get the Gringo" was lensed on location. Grunberg and Trujillo have managed to recreate a world teeming with the dregs of humanity, a microcosm of Hell, where men degenerate into brutish savages and display no qualms about killing each other. Basically, what you've got is survival of the fittest in the worst place on Earth. This miserable hell hole turns out to be a paradise ripe for the plucking for the self-serving Driver who has just eluded the Texas police with several millions of dollars in loot.

Initially, "Get the Gringo" was entitled "How I Spent My Summer Vacation." At least the latter title has some irony, but "Get the Gringo" gets to the point quicker and summarizes the action. Director Adrian Grunberg gives a good account of himself. The prison setting looks thoroughly authentic, and Grunberg relies on Mexican music to evoke the culture. Fans of Mel Gibson who haven't seen him in a gripping action thriller since his "Lethal Weapon" days won't feel like they have been shortchanged. Gibson has done nothing like "Get the Gringo," and no Hollywood epic has depicted life behind bars as "Get the Gringo." Life below the border has never been presented so pungently unless you've seen something comparable like Luis Buñuel's 1950 crime movie "The Young and the Damned."  Incidentally, "Get the Gringo" is available in America only as a video-on-demand through Direct TV, while the film is showing in theaters in the rest of the world.

FILM REVIEW OF ''EDGE OF DARKNESS" (2010)

Mel Gibson delivers a devastating performance as a grief-stricken dad in “Casino Royale” director Martin Campbell’s remake of his own 1985 BBC mini-series “Edge of Darkness.” This revenge-themed rampage about a veteran Boston homicide detective who investigates the mysterious murder of his only daughter and the suspicious role that a shady corporation may have played in her death is far too gritty for its own good. No, “Edge of Darkness” (**1/2 OUT OF ****)is nothing like previous Gibson outings, such as either the charismatic “Lethal Weapon” franchise, “Conspiracy Theory” or “Payback.” Campbell and scenarists William Monahan of “The Departed” and Andrew Bovell of “Head On” alternate between Gibson’s investigation and surreal scenes between Gibson and his dead daughter that compare with similar scenes in the Peter Jackson movie “The Lovely Bones.” Meantime, Gibson remains appropriately grim-faced and humorless throughout this heavyweight but predictable 118-minute police procedural, political conspiracy thriller. Older, wiser, but every bit as lean and mean as he was in his “Mad Max” movies, our hero neither spouts witticisms nor has a twinkle in his eye. Basically, “Edge of Darkness” does not qualify as a big-dumb action opus with far-fetched stunts. The R-rated violence is brief, bloody, and brutal, something that will make the squeamish squirm. Mind you, it is fantastic to see Gibson back on the big screen after an eight-year hiatus, but this is not the kind of movie that you want to celebrate afterward with beer and pizza. The supporting cast, including Bojana Novakovic, Caterina Scorsone, Danny Huston, Jay O. Sanders, Peter Hermann , Ray Winstone, Shawn Roberts, and Tom Kemp, is commendable. Nevertheless, the tragic finale, the lackluster villains, and the shortage of enough surprises all undercut this suspenseful police thriller.

Veteran Boston homicide detective Thomas Craven (Mel Gibson of “What Women Want”) picks up his daughter, Emma (Bojana Novakovic of “Seven Pounds”), at the Boston Amtrak Station and drives her home. Along the way, Emma coughs up blood and starts bleeding from her nose. Once they reach the Craven residence, Emma gets worse, and Craven and she are heading out the door to the hospital when a masked gunman with a sawed-off shotgun gives Emma both barrels in the torso. The blast lifts Emma off the porch, catapults her backwards through the door, and sends her sprawling in a pool of blood down onto the living room floor. Before Craven has time to react, the killer has vanished into thin air. The news media believes the gunman had targeted Thomas, but instead accidentally killed his daughter. Initially, Thomas shares this mistaken assumption. Later, after he has sifted through his case files, our hero confesses that he has nobody mad enough at him to try and kill him. When he inventories his daughter’s things, he discovers a fully loaded automatic pistol registered to Emma’s boyfriend, Burnham (Shawn Roberts of “X-Men”), who is trying to keep a low profile, too. When Craven visits him, a very paranoid Burnham roughs him up and refuses to talk because he knows that he is under surveillance.

Eventually, Craven visits the North Moor Facility, where Emma worked on classified projects, and speaks to the Chief Operating Executive, Jack Bennett (Danny Huston of “The Aviator”), who expresses his condolences. An urbane Bennett assures Craven that the news of Emma’s demise not only shocked but also saddened everybody at work. Some forty-five minutes into this conspiracy thriller, Craven learns his daughter’s apartment has been ransacked and her computer stolen. He traces Emma’s cell phone calls, but everybody refuses to talk. One night an older man surprises Craven in his back yard. A cigar-smoking spook with an English accent and a District of Columbia driving license, Jedburgh (Ray Winstone of “Sahara”) explains that Emma had been tagged as a security threat to the United States. Craven is still mystified because his daughter told him nothing about her job. As the plot unfolds, our driven protagonist peels the layers off a metaphorically toxic onion and learns about a conspiracy that goes to the highest levels of government. Moreover, he finds himself tangling with gun-toting men in dark suits who cruise around in large SUVs with assault rifles in their arsenal. Before long our hero finds himself in a corner with nowhere to turn and the big guns coming after him.

The original version of “Edge of Darkness” appeared on the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom as a television mini-series about young environmental activist, Emma Craven (Joanne Whalley of the television mini-series “Scarlett”), killed under mystifying circumstances. Her father Ronald Craven (Bob Peck of “Jurassic Park”) of the West Yorkshire constabulary launches an investigation into an isolated nuclear waste storage facility on the Yorkshire dales, runs afoul of a C.I.A. agent (Joe Don Baker of “GoldenEye”) and bad things ensue. Martin Campbell and his writers have altered Troy Kennedy Martin's original teleplay, changed the setting, scaled back the action from 314 minutes to 117 minutes, but everything is essentially the same. Unfortunately, aside from it being Mel Gibson’s comeback film, “Edge of Darkness” boasts a lot of edge and too much darkness. The film unravels during its last half-hour and not even a slam-bang shoot-out can salvage the convoluted plotting. Danny Huston heads up the villains, but they make little, if any impression. The scenes without Gibson lack vigor and add little to the action. “Edge of Darkness” joins a long list of political conspiracy thrillers where the omnipotent villains eliminate everybody until the final scene when an envelope with all the incriminating evidence falls into the hands of the media.

Director Martin Campbell and his talented crew, including lenser Phil Méheux and editor Stuart Baird, have done a fine job staging the action. The scene where a motorist sideswipes a female informant and Gibson's cop character blasts away at the driver after he speeds toward our hero is a dynamite scene. You will never see it coming and that is what makes Méheux's photography and Baird's editing so engrossing. Sadly, the plot muddles up and this amounts to little more than an above-average revenge thriller.