by Brendan Foley
Two Cents
Two Cents is an original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team will program films and contribute our best, most insightful, or most creative thoughts on each film using a maximum of 200 words each. Guest writers and fan comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future entries to the column. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion.
The Pick
If Mel Gibson pulls off the career revival he is clearly aiming for, it will be a resurrection as miraculous as the time that dark-skinned Jewish carpenter waltzed out of a cave.
Ten years after the insane drunken rant(s) exposed Gibson as misogynistic/racist/Anti-Semitic/just not a good dude at all, he has returned to cinemas. Currently, Gibson can be seen in the well-reviewed thriller Blood Father, and later this year his WWII epic, Hacksaw Ridge, will open with an all-star cast (including Andrew Garfield and Vince Vaughn) and is expected to be an awards contender.
Gibson went from being one of the most powerful and beloved film stars of his generation to a pariah battling to maintain a position even on the fringe of the industry. Has he committed enough penance to be welcomed back to the town and screens he once commanded?
That remains to be seen. Gibson has kept a low profile in the years since the incident(s), popping up in villain roles in the likes of Expendables 3 and Machete Kills but keeping his own vehicles few and far between.
2012’s Get the Gringo was Gibson’s last starring role before Blood Father. Gibson not only stars, he co-wrote and produced the picture, with directorial duties handled by Adrian Grunberg, an assistant director on Apocalypto.
With Gibson hoping against hope to pull off one of the most unlikely comebacks in Hollywood history, the Two Cents team decided to check out how his movie star credentials were holding up the last time he took a stab at it.
Did you get a chance to watch along with us this week? Want to recommend a great (or not so great) film for the whole gang to cover? Comment below or post on our Facebook or hit us up on Twitter!
Next Week’s Pick:
We’re kicking off something new and a little different on Two Cents this week. We’re proud to be featuring Drafthouse Films in a monthlong exploration of their catalog on Netflix, opening and closing with Joshua Oppenheimer’s acclaimed Indonesia documentaries and filling in some neat and fairly recent picks in between. First up is The Act Of Killing!
9/1 — The Act Of Killing
9/8 — The Invitation
9/15 — The Keeping Room
9/22 — The Final Member
9/29 — The Look Of Silence
Would you like to be a guest in next week’s Two Cents column? Simply watch and send your under-200-word review to twocents(at)cinapse.co!
The Team
Justin: I didn’t read the film’s description so naturally I assumed it was the sequel to The Passion of the Christ. When the film opened with cussing clowns, I began to question this assumption. Perhaps it was a modern retelling, though; so, I held onto the possibility.
When the clown mask was removed and revealed a cleanly shaven Mel Gibson, I realized that he wasn’t playing Jesus. Then, I realized that he didn’t play Jesus in Passion either. Finally, I realized I’d never seen Passion so I really had no frame of reference.
In Get the Gringo, Mel gives the best performance he has in ages. He channels just enough Max and just enough Riggs to remind you that this ain’t his first rodeo… kicking ass, taking names, and showing some big time heart underneath his bravado.
The most intriguing thing about the film is how much of it is rooted in reality. The real life stories of El Pueblito, the Tijuana prison featured in the film, make this tale look very tame. The film provides a window into a little known arena of extraordinary corruption, a unbelievable experimental “prison” that remained in place until 2002.
In short, this is both a solid film worth watching and a great look into a real world that is truly beyond belief… even if Christ never makes an appearance. (@thepaintedman)
Brendan: It’s easy to forget in the wake of all the, ahem, other stuff we now know about Mel Gibson, but he thrived as a movie star for over two full decades because the man has a tremendous amount of talent and charm. Gibson knows how to play to the camera and command the screen better than most of what we try to pass off as movie stars. Get the Gringo isn’t an all-timer, but it’s the kind of fun and loopy pulp that, in a healthier career, would probably be lost in the scrum and re-discovered in a few years.
Grunberg’s got a nice eye behind the camera, and while I would hesitate to call this an action film, the action beats are well-orchestrated fits of mayhem. At its best, Gringo plays like a wackier Sam Peckinpah, with one gunfight in particular luxuriating in the casual collateral damage that bad men with big guns do when they start firing at each. There are enough eccentric touches throughout (including sexual predilection that involves back-hair) to keep things interesting even when the movie falls into your more standard beats.
More than anything, Gringo feels like a testing of the waters. It was Mel Gibson playing to his base and seeing if they were ready to forgive him. They were not, but Gringo suggests that Gibson still has those movie star chops. He just needs to convince audience that he’s still worth a shit. (@TheTrueBrendanF)
Austin:I suppose everyone has their own thoughts on Mel and his very public meltdown, including a horrible drunken tirade. Just the liquor talking, or darkest truths of his heart revealed?
For my part, what I can say for sure is that I still love to see him on the screen. I’ve watched end enjoyed Mel’s appearances in Edge Of Darkness, Expendables 3, Machete Kills, and of course Get The Gringo, which is the subject of this week’s analysis.
What’s become more apparent lately is that he has embraced playing bad guys, both in the sense of villains and antiheroes. Maybe this plays into the darker part of his psyche, or perhaps he understands that audiences now see him as the villain regardless. But Mel’s always had an edge to his best work, and perhaps the greatest compliment I can pay to Get The Gringo is that it reminds me of two of my favorite movies: Payback.
Gringo works on a fairly high concept, taking us with Mel into a bizarre Mexican prison which is essentially an enclosed village with relative freedom within its fortress walls, housing a bustling internal economy and even families with children. Amazingly, this was based on a real such location. And while our protagonist is kind of a scumbag, he’s a morally principled scumbag in a cesspool full of worse ones. (Perhaps a parallel of Mel in the hypocritical cesspool of Hollywood, but that’s a whole ‘nother discussion.)
Audiences definitely weren’t ready to embrace Mel in 2012, and I don’t know if they are now, but for its part, Get The Gringo is a stylish, grimy, and frequently badass serving of pulp that deserves to be seen and appreciated. (@VforVashaw)
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