Movie Review: Signs (2002)

Genre: Suspense Drama  

Director: M. Night Shyamalan  

Starring: Mel Gibson, Joaquin Phoenix, Cherry Jones, Rory Culkin, Abigail Breslin  

Running Time: 106 minutes  

Synopsis: Widower Graham Hess (Mel Gibson) lives on a farm in rural Pennsylvania with his children Morgan and Bo (Rory Culkin and Abigail Breslin), as well as his younger brother Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix). Graham was the former local priest, but lost faith when his wife was killed in a car crash. Strange crop circles start appearing within Graham's corn fields, followed by reports of similar crop patterns from around the world and then alien spaceships in the skies above multiple cities. As a seemingly cataclysmic event draws near, Graham has to find ways to protect his family.

What Works Well: In this intimate exploration of faith and belief, writer and director M. Night Shyamalan zooms in to the family level at a single location as Earth-threatening events approach. While there are moments of suspense and unsettling encounters with aliens (counterbalanced with touches of humour), the narrative is free from elaborate special effects and large-scale scenes of destruction. Instead the focus is on scarred emotions, internal conflicts, and the invisible lines connecting past events with future opportunities. The dialogue is often unusually thoughtful and heartfelt, seeking core human attributes where fear, resignation, familial love, and hope interact.

What Does Not Work As Well: The background story of the extra-terrestrial threat is no more than a sketched-in catalyst, and this unfortunately extends to the less-than-plausible weaknesses of this supposedly advanced invading force.

Key Quote:

Graham: Is it possible that there are no coincidences?

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Movie Review: Father Stu (2022)

Genre: Biographical Drama  

Director: Rosalind Ross  

Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Mel Gibson, Jackie Weaver, Malcolm McDowell  

Running Time: 124 minutes  

Synopsis: In Montana of the 1980s, Stuart Long (Mark Wahlberg) is drifting through life as an amateur boxer. His mother Kathleen (Jacki Weaver) lives nearby, but his frequently drunk father Bill (Mel Gibson) is in California, the family having never recovered from the childhood death of Stu's brother. When the boxing injuries add up, Stu relocates to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career. He falls in love with Carmen (Teresa Ruiz), a devout Catholic. She introduces him to her church community before an accident changes his outlook.

What Works Well: Director and writer Rosalind Ross sprinkles humour into a search-for-purpose biographical drama, and allows Stu to remain true to himself as his life takes unexpected twists. The spiritual tones are prominent but well controlled by healthy skepticism, and the romance between Stu and Carmen is an effective catalyst. In a commanding central performance full of zest, Mark Wahlberg undergoes a couple a startling physical transformations from unkempt boxer to a man of religion. He is ably supported by Mel Gibson's angry-at-the-world father and Jacki Weaver's still-hopeful mother.

What Does Not Work As Well: The aesthetics, sets, and sense of time and place rarely rise above monotonous blandness, while the title's revelation of Stu's ultimate destination ensures his journey is amiable but also predictable.

Conclusion: A feel-good story about finding passion while confronting adversity.



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Movie Review: Tequila Sunrise (1988)

Genre: Crime Drama  

Director: Robert Towne  

Starring: Mel Gibson, Michelle Pfeiffer, Kurt Russell, J.T. Walsh, Raul Julia  

Running Time: 115 minutes  

Synopsis: Los Angeles narcotics detective Nick Frescia (Kurt Russell) is pressured by Federal Agent Hal Maguire (J.T. Walsh) to bring evidence against Dale "Mac" McKussic (Mel Gibson), a former drug dealer who now claims to be straight. Nick and Mac are former high school buddies and maintain a strained friendship, but now Nick uses restaurant owner Jo Ann Vallenari (Michelle Pfeiffer) to try and uncover Mac's secrets. A love triangle develops just as notorious drug lord Carlos arrives in town, seeking Mac's help to move a big shipment.

What Works Well: In the first act, director and writer Robert Towne delivers some sharp dialogue and makes excellent use of vivid colours and sharp silhouettes to paint an intriguing context. A stellar cast features stars Gibson, Pfeiffer, and Russell radiating charisma, ably supported by J.T. Walsh.

What Does Not Work As Well: Once the premise is established, the drama bogs down in repetitive and tiresome character dynamics. Dubious romance elements dominate, Jo Ann disintegrates from cool and collected to a shuffling puddle of scattered emotions, and many scenes hammer away at the same themes of mistrust and lies. The third act arrival of an over-animated Raul Julia signals the disintegration of narrative coherence into a mess of bewildering motivations and unlikely actions.

Conclusion: Starts with fizz but rapidly fizzles.



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Movie Review: On The Line (2022)

Genre: Thriller

Director: Romuald Boulanger

Starring: Mel Gibson, William Moseley

Running Time: 104 minutes

Synopsis: In Los Angeles, Elvis Cooney (Mel Gibson) is the host of a late-night call-in radio show suffering from stagnant ratings. On the evening of his birthday, Elvis' regular producer and co-presenter Mary (Alia Seror O'Neill) introduces new technician Dylan (William Moseley). A routine night takes a dark turn when caller "Gary" claims to be at Elvis' house and threatens to kill his wife and daughter as revenge for the callous treatment of a former co-worker.

What Works Well: Although On The Line carries some some superficial echoes from Talk Radio (1988), director and writer Romuald Boulanger has something else in mind, and gradually shifts the dial to a more physical mystery-in-the-making. Star Mel Gibson can still command the screen, and occasionally succeeds in elevating the routine skulking-around-an-empty-building premise.

What Does Not Work As Well: With the villain confined to a stock voice on the other end of the line, the threat is nullified into nothingness. The script struggles to both prolong the drama and justify the increasingly violent episodes, ultimately betraying the relatively easy-to-predict twists.

Conclusion: The radio signal fades into background static.



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Movie Review: Get The Gringo (2012)

An action thriller, Get The Gringo mixes mean humour, plenty of violence, and many sweaty characters, all of them up to no good.

Dressed as a clown and frantically escaping with millions in stolen cash, an audacious thief (Mel Gibson) crashes his car across the border wall and into Mexico. He is promptly arrested by corrupt Mexican border guards, who also steal the stolen money. Known only as the Gringo, the thief is thrown into El Pueblito prison, which in reality is a ramshackle city run by crime lord Javi (Daniel Giménez Cacho) and his goons. The Gringo starts to chart his way through the prison's social structure, and befriends the scrappy 10-year Kid, who is in the prison with his Mom (Dolores Heredia).

Javi has a special reason to pay attention to the Kid, and becomes more interested in the Gringo when he learns about the stolen money. Meanwhile, corrupt US Embassy official (Peter Gerety) is intrigued by what the Gringo may be hiding, while the original victim of the theft, San Diego-based master criminal Frank (Peter Stormare), is determined to get his money back and extract revenge by any means.

An irreverent, almost cartoonish adventure, Get The Gringo offers large dollops of silly fun. Co-writer and co-producer Mel Gibson narrates with a Bugs Bunny attitude, and director Adrian Grunberg doesn't pause long enough for any of the plot gaps to undermine the entertainment value. This is a high-paced, self-aware romp where nothing is too serious, but plenty of people are nevertheless badly hurt.

All the characters are criminals of the past, present, or future (or all three), including Mom and her 10-year-old son, who is already plotting a murder as intensely as he badgers for cigarettes. The Gringo is just the most well-adjusted of all the bad guys, navigating his way out of every jam and straight into the next, usually bigger, mess, but always somehow finding time to instigate his own brand of trouble.

Most of the action takes place at El Pueblito, here presented as a vibrant world for the Gringo to discover. The shanty town is filled with entrepreneurs, everyone from drug dealers, taco peddlers, tattoo artists, real estate agents, and guards out to make a buck as long as Javi gets his cut. Grunberg esures something nefarious is happening in every corner, and bathes the visuals in reds, yellows, and oranges expressed at maximum heat. When the time comes for the bullets and grenades to fly, a combination of slow motion cinematography and surreal staging underline the campy mood.

A liver transplant surgery subplot, Clint Eastwood impersonations, a mass federal police raid, Pancho Villa's gun, a surrogate father-son bond, and hints of romance are all somehow jammed into the 96 minutes. Get The Gringo is never short of ideas, most of them of the all-out-wacky variety.



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Movie Review: Conspiracy Theory (1997)

An semi-serious action thriller, Conspiracy Theory piles on the escapades but skimps on the the foundations.

In New York City, taxi driver Jerry Fletcher (Mel Gibson) is a paranoid conspiracy theorist. He also has a crush on Justice Department lawyer Alice Sutton (Julia Roberts), who is still grieving the murder of her father, a judge. After Jerry publishes his latest conspiracy theory newsletter and mails it to a subscription list of five people, he is suddenly apprehended and tortured by government-type goons led by the mysterious Dr. Jonas (Patrick Stewart). Jerry escapes and connects with Alice for help. She gets caught up in his crazy world and tries to decipher what is going on in his frazzled brain, as multiple assassination attempts are made on his life.

Conspiracy Theory provides jaunty, non-stop entertainment with a glib attitude. It is also frustratingly shallow. Despite a running length of 135 minutes, writer Brian Helgeland take an awful long time to reveal a coherent plot line, and then proceed to bungle it. The main conspiracy apparently swirls around a never-seen dead person, a never-seen defendant, and a never-seen assassin, all linked to a secret defunct government program. Director Richard Donner omits actually showing any of the events that define the plot, and instead Mel Gibson's Jerry blurts out the jumbled details a few minutes before the closing credits.

Otherwise, the movie is a long series of chases and escapes interspersed with Jerry's conspiratorial ramblings. Donner assembles the action scenes with welcome coherence, and injects the right doses of madcap humour to relieve the intensity. The presence of Gibson and Julia Roberts injects star power, but cannot help the lack of narrative discipline. Gibson brings a shifty manic energy to the role, and Roberts does enough to avoid decorative status. Patrick Stewart delivers a prototypical villain with some inspiration from Laurence Olivier. 

Jerry's trundled flight from a torture chamber while strapped to a wheelchair is a highlight, and other good moments are found in his cramped apartment, a showcase for a runaway mind demanding locks on coffee cans inside a locked refrigerator. It's no surprise but still delightful that Jerry anticipates an intrusion and plans a comprehensive self-destruct procedure. Conspiracy Theory does not dwell on logical impetus, but does enjoy the resultant rational madness. 



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Movie Review: Bird On A Wire (1990)

A comedy thriller, Bird On A Wire features plenty of madcap action and good laughs, with star charisma just about rescuing an exceptionally flimsy plot.

Rick Jarmin (Mel Gibson) has been living in hiding for 15 years as part of the FBI's witness protection program, after he testified against corrupt Drug Enforcement Agency agents Sorenson (David Carradine) and Diggs (Bill Duke). Now working at a Detroit gas station, Rick is spotted by lawyer Marianne Graves (Goldie Hawn), the woman he loved but had to suddenly abandon 15 years prior.

At the same time corrupt FBI agent Weyburn (Stephen Tobolowsky) teams up with Sorenson and Diggs to find and terminate Rick. He is forced to go on the run, taking Marianne with him as they scamper across the country evading killers and trying to contact the only FBI agent Rick trusts.

Boasting a script likely written on the back of a greasy napkin, Bird On A Wire never takes itself too seriously. This is a loud, brash and polished star vehicle for Mel Gibson and Goldie Hawn to bounce around the landscape and actively find trouble around every corner, while actively hatching excuses to appear shirtless, pantless and in lingerie.

Director John Badham amplifies every chase scene (and there is one every 10 minutes) to encompass over-the-top derring-dos, crashes and explosions, thus necessitating that the bad guys suffer a severe case of bad marksmanship. Rick does get shot in the rear-end early (setting up laudable Gibson and Hawn equal opportunity bum reveals), but otherwise Sorenson and Diggs receive a pathetic return on a huge investment in automatic weaponry and ammunition.

Badham's pacing is near-manic, constant motion and scenic locations (all filmed in British Columbia) forging a robust strategy to blast past the non-existent plot. The repartee and chemistry between Gibson and Hawn are adequate but lean more towards humour and away from sizzle. The trio of bad guys suffer most, provided with barely any dialogue and not even rising to the status of cartoon villains.

Bird On A Wire has no serious intentions, but flaps vigorously and looks good doing it.



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Movie Review: The Year Of Living Dangerously (1982)

A drama and romance, The Year Of Living Dangerously enjoys the tense setting of a foreign country on a knife's edge, but sacrifices much of its political intrigue in favour of a trite romance.

It's 1965, and Australian Broadcasting Service journalist Guy Hamilton (Mel Gibson) arrives in Jakarta on his first foreign assignment to cover rising tensions in Indonesia, where President Sukarno is whipping up anti-Western sentiments and fending off Communist threats. Hamilton socializes uneasily with other veteran foreign correspondents, and establishes a working relationship with local fixer and cameraman Billy Kwan (Linda Hunt).

With Billy's help Guy secures a coveted interview with the communist party leader, and then meets Jill Bryant (Sigourney Weaver), the assistant to British military attache Colonel Henderson (Bill Kerr). A romance starts to blossom between Jill and Guy, while tensions rise in the country with rumours of an arms build-up and impending coup, and Billy grows increasingly disillusioned with the Sukarno regime.

Two stories vie for attention within The Year Of Living Dangerously, and ultimately director Peter Weir opts to maximize the romance elements between the naive journalist and sophisticated government agent. An argument can be made that with two alluring and photogenic stars in Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver at his disposal Weir made the right choice.

But this is also an opportunity wasted, because the film invests heavily in a sense of place wracked by political uncertainty, and the setting is wasted on what transforms into a pretty traditional and rather unmemorable story of mutual infatuation.

The first half of the film is better. Adapting the book by Christopher Koch, Weir carefully creates an Indonesia beset by poverty and governed by an autocratic President losing his grip on power. With nervous soldiers at every street corner and mobs taking over the streets, Hamilton finds himself a misfit with a group of caustic journalists covering a country in the throes of unraveling.

After acclimatizing to the oppressive heat he latches on to the beguiling Billy to guide him through the political swamps. And the character of Billy, with his secret files, shadow puppets and eloquent prose, emerges as the best thing about The Year Of Living Dangerously. With Linda Hunt superb in a male role filled with complexity and self-doubt, the film occasionally threatens to break into genuinely thoughtful commentary about the third world's complex relationship with great military powers.

But Weir then shortchanges the politics and investigative journalism, as these elements become a distant backdrop to Hamilton and Jill courting each other and pondering the sense of starting a relationship when she is scheduled to shortly leave the country. For awkward periods Gibson defaults to stock angry young lover mannerisms, and the sense of menace unfortunately seeps out of the dark and hot Indonesian nights.

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Movie Review: Chicken Run (2000)

A stop-motion animated comedy thriller, Chicken Run delivers warm laughs and self-effacing action.

In rural England, Ginger (voice of Julia Sawalha) is a smarter-than-most hen always hatching plans for a group escape from the chicken farm of the ruthless Melisha Tweedy (Miranda Richardson) and her hapless husband Willard (Tony Haygarth), where chickens are summarily killed as soon as they stop laying eggs. All of Ginger's escape plots fail and she spends plenty of time in solitary confinement dumped into a bin.

The other chickens on the farm include the dim-witted and constantly knitting Babs (Jane Horrocks), the elderly Fowler (Benjamin Whitrow), who cannot stop talking about his days in military service, and champion egg-layer Bunty (Imelda Staunton). Nick and Fetcher (Timothy Spall and Phil Daniels) are two scavenger rats who steal supplies to support Ginger's escape plans.

The fate of the chickens appears sealed when the Tweedys decide to convert their egg farm into a mass production chicken pie factory. But one day the cocky and laid-back American chicken Rocky Rhodes (Mel Gibson), a circus act escapee, lands at the farm, giving Ginger hope that he can teach all the chickens to fly in preparation for a mass escape.

Directed by Peter Lord and Nick Park, the duo behind Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run is 80 minutes in the life of enterprising chickens on the farm, drawing inspiration from The Great Escape to deliver cheeky humour and unlikely thrills. With a good balance of smart, stodgy, charming, doltish and evil characters, the film carries plenty of appeal for younger audiences, peppered with enough wit to satisfy adults.

The film offers simplified lessons in leadership, honesty, teamwork and perseverance, with side-orders of friendship, loyalty and rising to the challenge. Even a pecking romance eventually blossoms amidst the desperate attempts to find an escape plan that actually works.

The stop-animation artwork is conceived with painstaking care, the seamless camerawork creating a fluid and enjoyable cinematic experience. The chickens are provided with hands, teeth and sympathetic eyes to make them accessible. Most of the action takes place within the chicken coops, with one memorable excursion into the fiendishly productive pie-making machine.

The voice acting is full-bodied, Julia Sawalha a stand-out in providing Ginger with an iron will to escape and a yearning to experience freedom outside the farm fence. Jane Horrocks contributes plenty of laughs as the clueless Babs, and Benjamin Whitrow nails the insufferable old fart Fowler. Mel Gibson is less engaged as Rocky.

Full of madcap energy, Chicken Run is an unwavering commitment to fly the coop.

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Movie Review: Payback (1999)

A tongue-in-cheek neo-noir film with a throwback 1970s edge, Payback is a rollicking fun time, filled with sharp dialogue, a smooth anti-hero and jarring violence.

A career criminal known only as Porter (Mel Gibson) has been double crossed, shot and left for dead. With his wife Lynn (Deborah Kara Unger) and partner in crime Val Resnick (Gregg Henry), Porter had just stolen $140,000 from a Chinese gang. But Lynn and Val conspire to relieve Porter of his $70,000 share, with Lynn shooting Porter in the back for good measure, upset that he was having an affair with call girl Rosie (Maria Bello). Val uses most of the money to buy his way back into a powerful criminal organization known as The Outfit, run by Carter (William Devane) and Fairfax (an uncredited James Coburn).

Porter recovers and sets about plotting his revenge with violent methods, demanding the return of his $70,000. Lynn overdoses on heroin, and Porter tracks down Val through drug dealer Stegman (David Paymer). But his exploits attract a crowd, and soon the Chinese gang, including S+M dominatrix Pearl (Lucy Liu) are on his tail, as well as two crooked cops. The closer Porter gets to Val, the more he tangles with the leadership of The Outfit, all the way up to kingpin Bronson (Kris Kristofferson).

Porter, narrating: Crooked cops. Do they come in any other way? If I'd been just a little dumber, I could have joined the force myself.

Directed and co-written by Brian Helgeland, Payback is a gritty, aggressive thriller. With a bad-guy hero carrying a kick-ass, dead-already attitude and Mel Gibson at his absolute cool peak, the film oozes danger with extreme prejudice. The story understandably stretches Porter's capabilities beyond rationality, but otherwise the mix of sardonic humour, punchy action and unconstrained ballsiness among bad guys and worse guys is triumphant.

Carter: There's an old expression that's served me well: "Do not shit where you eat."

A big part of the film's appeal is the investment made in Porter as a character. He is humanized both in his sense of honour among thieves, and through his relationship with Rosie, two flawed sinners drifting sideways until they meet each other. The oily Val Resnick is also provided with plenty of latitude to come to life as the antithesis of Porter, a criminal without scruples just looking for his version of the good life.

Carter, to Resnick: Do you understand your value to the organization, Resnick?...You're a sadist. You lack compunction. That comes in handy.

The everything-including-the-kitchen-sink elements work surprisingly well. Lucy Liu has a blast as the dominatrix turned on by violence; her depraved arousal in bed next to Resnick as he is being threatened by Porter summarizes the film's unconstrained wickedness, culminating in Porter's classic let her work quip. The gun-toting Chinese gang, the crooked cops, and the ever mounting layers of sleaze up the ladder of The Outfit all add to Payback's enjoyable insanity. Veterans William Devane, James Coburn and Kris Kristofferson glide in with mounting levels of evil smarminess.

Pearl, seductively: I've got a few minutes.
Porter: So go boil an egg.

The film's colour palette is a mixture of bleached greys, blacks and browns, appropriate for an underworld rife with backstabbing. Payback goes into the sordid corners of criminality, and lands on a pile of misanthropic revelry.

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Movie Review: Ransom (1996)

A child kidnapping thriller, Ransom enjoys excellent production values, a committed Mel Gibson performance and a determination to accentuate the cerebral aspects of crime gamesmanship.

Tom Mullen (Gibson) is a successful businessman, the head of a major airline that he created from humble beginnings. He lives in a swanky Manhattan condominium overlooking Central Park with his wife Kate (Rene Russo) and young son Sean (Brawley Nolte). However, there is a shadow hanging over Tom's business dealings involving unproven accusations of illegal payments to avoid a union strike. The Mullens' world is plunged into a nightmare when Sean is abducted during an outdoor public event. Tom and Kate soon receive a ransom demand for $2 million, and FBI Agent Lonnie Hawkins (Delroy Lindo) takes charge of the investigation.

The kidnap mastermind is New York Police Detective Jimmy Shaker (Gary Sinise), who is disgusted with Tom's seemingly shady business ethics. Jimmy's crew consists of girlfriend Maris (Lili Taylor), tech expert Miles (Evan Handler), and brothers Clark and Cubby (Liev Schreiber and Donnie Wahlberg). Sean is handcuffed to a bed and blindfolded while Jimmy makes his demands, with Tom and Kate wondering how much they can trust Lonnie's advice. When an arranged money drop goes bad, Sean's life is placed in grave danger, and Tom decides that a fundamental change in negotiating tactics is needed.

Directed by Ron Howard, Ransom is an intelligent thriller which relies on plot and characters and resists most impulses to engage in mindless action. The film remains grounded in relative foundations of reality, and the kidnapping ordeal enjoys a trio of excellent, out of the box twists. The drama is well paced, the two hours of running time efficiently used to recount a story rich in detail and resolve.

The script by Richard Price and Alexander Ignon gets the fundamentals right by investing in both sides of the kidnapping. While Tom and Kate's trauma does get the majority of attention, a significant amount of time is spent with Jimmy and his gang, humanizing the criminals and building to an effective climax where the need for complex decisions will come to the fore at the individual level.

The central twist in the negotiations, a ploy too clever to reveal, sets the film off in a new direction and radically changes the dynamic between Jimmy, Tom and Kate. It's an idea both foolish and audacious, and sets the film apart from most other kidnap thrillers. Of course all daring initiatives can suffer from the law of unintended consequences, and Ransom rides one wild notion straight into another, victim and perpetrator locking horns and engaging in a new battle of wits within an unexpected context.

Howard infuses the film with his usual commitment to quality, and Ransom enjoys lush cinematography courtesy of Piotr Sobocińsk, attractive locations and the occasional on-the-street burst of dynamism. Not unexpectedly, there are hints of big budget over orchestration in some scenes, Howard always choosing multiple helicopters and hordes of extras when more intriguing and more modest options were perhaps available.

Mel Gibson delivers a surprisingly effective performance. He tones down both his boyish charm and his manic intensity, and settles into the relatively steady tone of a concerned father who nevertheless will not subdue his entrepreneurial inclination to seek a different and better solution. Gary Sinise offers a perfect foil as the smart and determined police detective moonlighting as a criminal, although more background on what fueled Jimmy Shaker's motivation would have been welcome. The rest of the cast is brimming with talent and provides solid support.

Canny and resourceful, Ransom delivers a satisfying pay off.

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Movie Review: Air America (1990)

A Vietnam War serio-comedy, Air America is a lightweight and episodic film about civilian pilots engaged in illicit CIA flights over Laos.

It's the late 1960s, and despite official protestations from President Nixon that there is no meaningful US involvement in Laos, on the ground there is a full scale secret CIA operation to drop supplies to friendly forces willing to fight the Vietcong. To maintain the cloak of deniability, a motley crew of civilian pilots are recruited and employed by the fictitious Air America. Charismatic Gene Ryack (Mel Gibson) is one of the pilots, and he is operating a gun-running side business for personal profit. Young pilot Billy Covington (Robert Downey, Jr.) soon joins him, after encountering licensing problems by flying his traffic helicopter too low over the LA freeways.

The Air America flights are also being used by corrupt local military commander General Soong (Burt Kwouk) for drug trafficking, the CIA in effect facilitating the illegal trade in narcotics. As Covington starts to realize the scale of the operation, the danger posed by anti-aircraft fire from undefined "unfriendlies", and the carefree, fatalistic attitude of the pilots, things are complicated by the arrival of a US Senator (Lane Smith) on a fact-finding mission. Meanwhile, a refugee camp run by Corinne Landreaux (Nancy Travis) is located next to an opium-producing poppy plant field, placing a large group of civilians in danger.

Air America is an underwritten, largely inconsequential film, leaning heavily on Gibson and Downey Jr. for star power, plus a soundtrack of late 1960s music. With no real plot, it is doubtful whether director Roger Spottiswoode ever really knew what kind of film he was making, other than holding on to some vague notion that it may be a good idea to meld the cynical comedy of Good Morning, Vietnam with the counter-culture irreverence of MASH.

The result in Air America is a sputtering film punctuated by visual highlights that barely connect to each other. Downey is dangled from a helicopter for a long ride that is maybe supposed to be hilarious, and Gibson and Downey are trapped in a helicopter that in turn is trapped high up in a tree, nose-down. They unbuckle their seat belts for a stunt-man descent that is maybe supposed to be thrilling. These are the sort of scenes that work well in a 90 second trailer, but in the context of a film searching for a purpose, they are obvious crowd pleasers papering over the almost total absence of substance.

The one scene that does work well has Covington crash landing a stricken large transport plane on a dusty airfield. Spottiswoode prolongs the inelegant crash into an endless, sardonic sequence, the plane lumbering to a slow halt thanks to lazy friction and countless obstacles that get in the way but never with any finality.

A really late, desperate attempt to create a moral dilemma for Ryack, with his guns and Corinne's refugees vying for attention, smacks of a tacked-on drama that lands with a dull thud.

Irrelevant and largely forgettable despite the star charisma, Air America falls many lengths short of a useful runway.

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Movie review: What Women Want (2000)

A romantic comedy with a supernatural spin, What Women Want enjoys impressive star power but rides roughshod over its clever premise and fumbles the search for an attractive tone.

Advertising executive Nick Marshall (Mel Gibson) is a magnet for the ladies but treats them with dismissive disdain. Divorced from Gigi (Lauren Holly) and an absentee dad to his 15 year old daughter Alex (Ashley Johnson), Nick is shocked when he is passed over for a promotion. Instead, his boss Dan Wanamaker (Alan Alda) hires Darcy McGuire (Helen Hunt) to lead the creative team, in an attempt to reorient the firm's ad campaigns to better appeal to women.

While trying on women's products to get in touch with his feminine side, Nick suffers an electrocution accident, and gains the supernatural ability to hear the inner thoughts of women. After first panicking and visiting therapist Dr. Perkins (an uncredited Bette Midler), Nick starts to use his new powers to advance his career. He gains inspiration from the hidden thoughts and feelings of women around him, and starts to steal Darcy's ideas to enhance his credentials on women-oriented campaigns. But Nick and Darcy also start to fall in love, complicating his attempts to undermine her performance.

What Women Want playfully tackles the age-old topic of men wishing they could better understand women. The premise has plenty of potential, and the film enjoys moments of good humour, befuddlement and personal awakening as Nick hears the inner thoughts of new boss Darcy, daughter Alex, barista Lola (Marisa Tomei) and office girl Erin (Judy Greer).

But director Nancy Meyers frequently bludgeons the film towards the ridiculous, encouraging Gibson to overact to distraction. Whenever there is a choice between subtle and stupid, Meyers chooses the low road, aiming for the broad laugh and glaring emotion when a more astute direction was available. The film hurtles towards the obvious, and in its rush misses opportunities to delve into gender issues with sensitivity. Thanks to a tonally challenged script, the workplace tensions between Nick and Darcy don't work as planned. What is intended to be competitive comes across as collaborative, undermining the latter part of the film's dynamic. With the romance between Nick and Darcy also difficult to digest, the better moments are in the subplots with Alex and Erin.

Nick's powers allow him to try and bridge the generational divide with his daughter, and several moments in the father-daughter journey bravely delve into awkward territory. Even more promising, but less developed, is Nick suddenly becoming aware of Erin's depressed state as an effectively invisible woman shuffling files within the office, wondering whether anywhere cares if she is even alive. Through Erin's story the film hints at important issues related to gender gaps and power dynamics in the workplace, and with more courage, Meyers could have better explored this territory.

Much less successful is the subplot involving Lola the frustrated barista, which is introduced, developed and then truncated with heavy-handed clumsiness, Marisa Tomei emerging as the film's main casualty.

With Frank Sinatra classics dominating the soundtrack and adding to the triple-underline attitude of the film, What Women Want places the delivery burden on Gibson and Hunt to bring the film home. The two attractive stars make the most of the material but are only rarely able to steer in thought-provoking directions. What Women Want poses good questions, but provides answers that are more frivolous fun and less fascinating flavour.

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Movie Review: The Beaver (2011)

A mental illness family drama, The Beaver boasts excellent performances and tackles its grim subject with laudable sensitivity, but ultimately veers towards awkward maudlin territory.

Toy company executive Walter Black (Mel Gibson) is struggling with severe depression. His wife Meredith (Jodie Foster) and two children, including teenage son Porter (Anton Yelchin), try to cope as best as they can. Porter, who wants nothing to do with his sick father, runs a high school side-business writing essays for other students in exchange for money, and is approached by popular cheerleader Norah (Jennifer Lawrence) to write her valedictorian speech.

After being kicked out of the house by Meredith, Walter sinks into the abyss and attempts suicide. He fails, and in an alley dumpster stumbles upon a beaver hand puppet. Adopting an English working class accent, Walter starts to communicate through the beaver, giving the stuffed toy a personality and regaining his ability to function. Things initially look up and Walter moves back home and inspires his company to find success with a new beaver-themed toy. But as Porter starts to get to know Norah's secrets, the beaver puppet fully takes over Walter's life, and his mind is pushed into its darkest corners.

Directed by Foster, The Beaver is a worthwhile exploration of an important subject matter, made more real by Gibson's well publicized battles with alcoholism, manic-depression and public self-destruction. Despite some unnecessary narration that attempts to inject a trace of misplaced humour, for the most part the Kyle Killen script makes interesting choices. Walter's depression is presented as an incapacitating disease, and the hand puppet as an alternative form of communication that helps to separate Walter from himself, allowing him to confront many of his demons. The parallel story of Porter doing his best to escape his father, struggling with his own creeping black clouds and discovering that even popular kids like Norah have a lot to hide, adds a creditable multi-generational dimension to the drama.

While the first two thirds of the film are assured, the final act starts to unravel. Meredith is too demanding, the beaver is too controlling, Porter's world disintegrates and Norah's issues as a rebel with a sad past hiding in cheerleader clothing are just too convenient. Then Walter and the beaver engage in a battle of wills that barely avoids unintentional comic status, only to be followed by violent plot developments out of the schlocky horror drawer. The film never recovers and defaults to a yawn of an ending.

But despite the film's loss of direction, the performances are consistently good. Mel Gibson dominates as Walter and is exceptional in bringing to life a hand puppet with a unique personality of its own. Foster is believable as a wife struggling to hold herself and her family together in the face of a husband's dissolution, while Anton Yelchin is suitably dour as Porter, wanting any fate other than like father, like son. Jennifer Lawrence, one year before her 2012 breakout in The Hunger Games and Silver Linings Playbook, gives Norah plenty of depth and personality beyond the standard troubled potential girlfriend role.

A case of an intriguing idea provided with decent execution, The Beaver has a lot of good things to say but not the legs to necessarily walk all the talk.

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Movie Review: The River (1984)

A drama about the hard life on an independent farm, The River is an adequate story about the struggle to save a way of life, limited by its simplistic depiction of good and bad.

In a Tennessee valley, Tom and Mae Garvey (Mel Gibson and Sissy Spacek) and their two kids run a family farm located near a raging river, growing corn as their main crop. Frequently battling against flooding and poor prices, Tom is deep in debt and barely holding on. Other nearby farmers do go bankrupt, and their property is scooped up by the ruthless Joe Wade (Scott Glenn), Mae's former lover and the owner of the big local business looking to build a dam and flood the entire valley to improve water supply.

When Tom's finances take yet another turn for the worse, he is forced to seek temporary work in a remote town, leaving Mae and the kids to tend the farm. Tom finds himself unintentionally harming the livelihood of others, while his absence opens an opportunity for Joe to make his move to try and reclaim Mae's affection. A bad crop and yet another flood push the Garveys to the limit.

Part of a series of films from the mid-1980s highlighting the plight of the small farmer, The River keeps its focus small and the emotions intense. Directed by Mark Rydell with sumptuous, close-up dominated Vilmos Zsigmond cinematography, the film rumbles from one predicament to the next, as Tom's story unfolds like a traditional country song: a flooding river, overturned machinery, dwindling finances, no more credit from the bank, poor returns from an auction sale, bad crops, and an overheating tractor. Even the cow dies. It's all a grim, unrelenting daily struggle for survival.

The only thing going for Tom and Mae is their love for each other, and amidst all the agony Rydell takes the time to show the strong bond between husband and wife that allows both of them to persevere. It does not hurt that Mel Gibson, who powers through the movie with a singular I'm-busy-broke-and-bitter-so-don't-bother-me expression, must be the handsomest farmer ever, and Spacek, in an Academy Award nominated performance, conveys understated and deep passion for both the land and her man.

Rydell takes one interesting detour away from the rigours of farm life. When Tom goes looking for any type of income to keep the farm afloat, he finds a job that piles agony onto others who are as desperate as he is. The film still manages to portray Tom as victim unknowingly trapped into a messy situation, but he learns a harsh lesson that even righteous indignation can have its limits when survival is at stake.

The conflict between small farms and big business is simplistically represented, a draw-by-crayons battle between good and bad, with the small, dedicated family-run farms representing hard graft and good traditions, while big business is all about greed and destruction. Scott Glenn presides over the boardrooms of evil with an effective if humourless stance, but the entire asymmetrical battle is portrayed with the sophistication of a fairy tale. The River runs strong, but very much in a predictable direction.

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Movie Review: Mad Max (1979)

An exceptional car chase thriller filled with spectacular destruction, Mad Max launched the careers of star Mel Gibson and director George Miller, and proved that Australian cinema is capable of high-energy, violence-drenched action dramas.

In Australia of the near future, civilization is showing sign of breaking apart at the seams. Wild criminal Nightrider escapes from prison, steals a police car and roars down the highway. After a destructive chase, Nightrider is stopped dead in his tracks by the ace pursuit officer on the force, Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson). Toecutter (Hugh Keays-Byrne) and Bubba Zanetti (Geoff Parry), take over the leadership of Nightrider's motorbike gang. When the bikers terrorizes a small town, Max and his partner Goose (Steve Bisley) arrive on the scene and arrest gang member Johnny The Boy (Tim Burns).

When Johnny is released due to the absence of witnesses, he gets into an altercation with Goose, who becomes a prime target for Toecutter and his goons. Max feels the stress getting to him, so his boss Fifi (Roger Ward) affords him a vacation. Max sets off to the country with his wife Jessie (Joanne Samuel) and young son, but Toecutter is lurking.

Miller achieves a vision of a society teetering on the brink of breakdown, but not quite there yet. Mad Max is set in the transition zone where marauders are about to confirm their rule of the road, but the police have just enough about them to still make a fight of it. Meantime, in the small towns that dot the roads, law and order are very much losing the battle to anarchy and mayhem.

As such, Mad Max occupies an inventive space where Max and Jessie can still try to carry on a normal family life, Fifi will try to hold together a police force, and Goose believes that he is indestructible, but also a space where the violent methods of the likes of Nightrider, Toecutter and Bubba Zanetti are slowly but surely taking over and erasing the vestiges of a once normal society.

Made on a shoestring budget of $400,000 but achieving the slick look of a movie costing at least ten times as much, Mad Max thrives on its underground cult ethos. Cinematographer David Eggby fills the screen with roaring kinetic energy, placing his cameras nose to nose with angry engines to capture the beauty of unconstrained horsepower. The chase scenes are lucid art in motion, punctuated by hair-raising stunt work. And on the rare occasion when the choppy editing betrays the budget, Mad Max just wears with pride its medal for exceptionally honest effort .

Mel Gibson, at 23 years old, has few words to say but makes a big impact. Demonstrating coolness as a policeman and warmth as a family man, Gibson's appeal is unmistakable. By providing him with a job, boss, colleagues, wife and child, the role immediately allows his persona to go beyond the traditional mysterious silent stranger. Max is a normal human being with a full life, and if he is going to get mad, it's going to be for some damn good reasons.

Joanne Samuel's surprisingly central performance as Jessie is packed with the treasures of couplehood, and she represents everything that is about to be lost as civilization gives way to creeping nihilism. According to this trajectory, in the future loving wives and doting mothers will have no role to play, and Samuel, who stepped into the role at the last minute, provides Jessie with the genuine sensuality that keeps Max sane while the world of policing exposes him to the non-stop cavalcade of insanity.

Mad Max is a classic high-octane adventure, a one-way ticket to a future where crushing pessimism is only exceeded by the glory of horsepower.

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Movie Review: Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981)

A massive boost of kinetic energy, Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior is a superlative glorification of mechanized carnage. The old fashioned Western theme of the loner hero coming to the aid of a desperate community is given a new, post-apocalyptic desert setting, and an overdose of destructive mayhem.

In a world utterly annihilated by nuclear warfare, the search for oil is the one remaining quest for the few surviving humans. In the barren deserts, former police officer Mad Max (Mel Gibson) drives his V-8 Pursuit Special, with only his dog for company. Max spends his days looking for gas and dodging violent marauders driving an assortment of bikes and modified trucks. The outlaws are led by The Humungus (Kjell Nilsson), a muscular brute of a man, but the real freak is his second-in-command Wez (Vernon Wells), a mohawked, bug-eyed killer.

Max meets and overpowers the Gyro Captain (Bruce Spence), the somewhat sane pilot of a rickety gyrocopter. To preserve his life, the Gyro Captain reveals to Max the location of a besieged settlement where the residents have built an oil drill and refinery, accumulating a large supply of oil. Pappagallo (Michael Preston) is their leader, and his people include the silent but deadly boy known as the Feral Kid (Emil Minty), and Warrior Woman (Virginia Hey). The settlement is surrounded by The Humungus and his men. Max may have the skill, knowledge and courage to help the settlers break the siege and transport their precious oil cargo to a safer place, but he has to decide if he wants to get involved with the problems of other people.

One of the pinnacles of Australia's film industry, Mad Max 2 is an unrelenting experience. The action starts early and does not abate, as an economy of words and an abundance of commotion combine to create a thrill ride. Director George Miller is focused on constructing a wondrous sensory experience, and the film is a feast of strange men and strange machines battling for survival. Mad Max 2 becomes a fantasy of imaginative toys and costumes given unfettered freedom to roam and collide in the wide open desert.

Mel Gibson as Max established himself as an action hero in the Clint Eastwood mould, the strong, silent, confident type, replacing words with results. Gibson is not required to do much in terms of emoting, but his cool presence in black leather, driving the fastest car, carrying the biggest gun, and showing the least fear, creates potent presence.

Apart from the character of Max, there is no room for subtleties in this world. The Humungus, Wez and their men are bad as bad can be, decked out in post-punk dregs, blood-thirsty savages looking for the next victim to brutalize. Pappagallo and his community are all good, dressed in white, keepers of the flame of humanity's belief that there is more to life than barbarism.

Max does not fit in either camp, a man tortured by the death of his family (in the original 1979 Mad Max) and still deciding if there is any hope for the re-establishment of civilization. He takes his time deciding if and when he wants to help Pappagallo, and his motivations for doing so remain primarily about self-preservation rather than any belief in a greater good.

Mad Max 2 unfolds at an astonishing pace. The film is an ode to powerful vehicles travelling at ridiculous speeds, unconstrained by rules or limits. The crashes, flips and turnovers are jarring in their intensity, supplemented by astounding stunt work. The climax is an incessant pursuit to the death, 30 minutes of motors running fully open as brutishness chases down hope. When it comes to saving the future, Mad Max 2 finds plenty of heart, and it's measured in rpms.

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