On Blu-ray/DVD/VOD: FORCE OF NATURE (2020) and THE LEGION (2020)

FORCE OF NATURE
(US - 2020)

There'll no doubt be a knee-jerk, cancel-culture reaction among some to trash FORCE OF NATURE sight unseen just because they object to Mel Gibson being employed. But if you take the time to actually watch it, you'll find so many more valid reasons to hate it. An utterly, depressingly perfunctory Lionsgate/Grindstone DTV time-waster, FORCE OF NATURE is directed by Michael Polish who, with his twin brother Mark, formed the once-promising Polish Brothers team behind the 1999 cult indie hit TWIN FALLS IDAHO. That's a generation ago at this point, and after 2003's higher-profile NORTHFORK flopped, the brothers never really regained their momentum. Michael is flying solo here in hired-gun mode for this Puerto Rico-shot high-rise mayhem/disaster movie hybrid set during a Category 5 hurricane bearing down on San Juan (think THE RAID: REDEMPTION meets THE HURRICANE HEIST). Burned-out, suicidal cop Cardillo (Emile Hirsch) and rookie partner Pena (Stephanie Cayo) are sent to an apartment complex to force two stubborn residents to evacuate: aging German Bergkamp (Jorge Luis Ramos) and terminally ill retired cop Ray (Gibson), whose doctor daughter Troy (Kate Bosworth, Polish's wife) is desperately trying to get him to the hospital so he doesn't miss a dialysis treatment. Ray is a surly pain in the ass suffering from kidney and lung issues with some bonus colitis, and fears that if he goes in the hospital, he won't come out. But there's a bigger issue at hand: psycho criminal John the Baptist (David Zayas) and his crew are made aware of a Van Gogh painting worth $55 million that's in one of the units of the building, and with everyone presumably evacuated, all they need to do is go through each unit to find it. But they need to get rid of the unexpected witnesses, and thus begins a "survive the night" scenario as two separated groups--one with Cardillo, Troy, Bergkamp and tenant Griffin (Will Catlett) and the other Ray and Pena--are forced to take on a ruthless, trigger-happy John the Baptist as the hurricane rages around them.

This is serviceable B-movie material handled in the dumbest and least-inspired, DIPSHIT KEY LARGO way possible. Polish never really establishes the layout of the apartment complex, so it's hard to tell where anyone is in relation to others. Introduced taking an epic, gun-pointed-at-his-own-head Decompression Shower (© David James Keaton), Cardillo's baggage involves his accidentally shooting his ex-girlfriend and fellow cop back in NYC, which sent him on a downward spiral that landed him in San Juan, and somehow, the whole city knows about it ("How do you know about that?" he asks John the Baptist, who replies "I'm John the Baptist...I know everything!"). Griffin has a cop-hating black panther (!) locked up in a room in his apartment (!!), so you know there's no way that won't come into play at some point, and rest assured, Cory Miller's script makes it happen in the most idiotic way possible. Third-billed Gibson is on total Bruce Willis duty and really isn't in it all that much--in fact, Willis was set to play Ray until he backed out and Gibson replaced him. Imagine if you can an installment of Lionsgate/Grindstone's landmark "Bruce Willis Phones In His Performance From His Hotel Room" series that Willis deemed unworthy of his time. Cancellation-era Gibson has done some fine work in under-the-radar gems like BLOOD FATHER and DRAGGED ACROSS CONCRETE, but he's just phoning it in here, playing Ray as an older, near-death variation of the plays-by-his-own rules Riggs from LETHAL WEAPON. I can deal with Gibson being an asshole anger management case offscreen while still respecting his work onscreen. But he's gotta try harder than FORCE OF NATURE. (R, 91 mins)


THE LEGION
(US/Spain - 2020)

After a half-dozen production company logos, you're barely a minute into THE LEGION when you hear Oscar-nominated actor Mickey Rourke mispronounce "Caligula" as "Ca-lig-lee-uh" and you know you're in for something special. Rourke seems hellbent on squandering whatever reputation he has remaining with his one-day-on-the-set clockpunch of an appearance in this laughably cheap, incompetently-made melodrama set in 62 AD. As a disgruntled general named Corbulo, Rourke--with an eye patch, highlighted hair, Lee Press-On Nails, and enough mascara on his visible eye to make him the next face of L'Oreal (because he's worth it)--spends almost all of his screen time alone, against an obvious greenscreen, mumbling and ranting at a bust of Nero using curiously present-day vernacular, whether it's dropping F-bombs or complaining about a rival's "grubby little hands." Corbulo is peeved that Nero chose another general, Paetus (Joaquim de Almeida), to lead Roman troops into Parthia, where they've been surrounded on all sides by enemy forces and will likely die of starvation and exposure if they aren't killed first. Paetus and his adviser Marcus (Vladimir Kulich) decide to send soldier Noreno (Lee Partridge) on a foreboding mission across treacherous terrain to get to Corbulo and beg him to marshal his troops to rescue the Roman forces.

If that sounds a little like 1917 by way of ancient Rome, you're not far off, aside from the fact that THE LEGION makes Uwe Boll look like Cecil B. DeMille, is saddled with a pitifully low budget, and can almost muster a cast of tens despite having 41 credited producers. Most of the film is dedicated to Noreno running, running, and running some more, periodically stopping to battle a Parthian soldier he might encounter or rescue a young woman (Marta Castellvi) from being raped (she repays the favor by firing an arrow into the chest of a Parthian soldier who's attacking Noreno). He does some soul searching with an aging hermit named Saul (Bosco Hogan) and finally makes it to Corbulo's stronghold, where his arrival is announced and is met with Mickey Rourke mumbling, in the parlance of 62 AD, "A messenger? Where the fuck is he?" The big climax is a long, meandering discussion between Corbulo and his mistress Amiriah (Bai Ling), who has to talk him off the ledge and set him straight after the diva general refuses to help Paetus. Delivering performances that'll make you appreciate the dedication and pride that Steven Seagal takes in his craft, Rourke and Ling audibly flub lines and mispronounce words to the point that they might just be deliberately fucking with director Jose Magan, a veteran Spanish producer making his debut behind the camera (represented by the gaffe-afflicted credit "Directed Jose Magan"). Other than Xavier Gens' Lovecraftian COLD SKIN, Magan is hardly a producer of repute, having bankrolled the entirety of the unwatchable 2001-2006 output of Spanish non-auteur Maria Lidon, aka "Luna" (STRANDED, THE LIFE, MOSCOW ZERO). THE LEGION is bad enough that it almost feels like another craptacular Luna project, but Magan seems awfully proud of it: he's also credited with the story, producer, executive producer, line producer, casting director, post-production coordinator, and "financial services." So I guess there's only 38 producers if you count the three times Magan credits himself. (R, 96 mins)

In Theaters/On VOD: THE PROFESSOR AND THE MADMAN (2019)

THE PROFESSOR AND THE MADMAN
(Ireland/France/Iceland - 2019)

Directed by P.B. Shemran (Farhad Safinia). Written by Todd Komarnicki and P.B. Shemran (Farhad Safinia). Cast: Mel Gibson, Sean Penn, Natalie Dormer, Steve Coogan, Stephen Dillane, Ioan Gruffudd, Eddie Marsan, Jennifer Ehle, Jeremy Irvine, David O'Hara, Anthony Andrews, Laurence Fox, Lars Brygmann, Bryan Murray, Sean Duggan, Olivia McKevitt, Brendan Patricks, Shane Noone. (Unrated, 124 mins)

A longtime dream project that Mel Gibson's had on the backburner since purchasing the movie rights to Simon Winchester's book when it was released in 1998, THE PROFESSOR AND THE MADMAN ultimately became a nightmare of behind-the-scenes clashes and multiple lawsuits. Gibson began developing it as far back as 2001, when the great John Boorman (DELIVERANCE, EXCALIBUR) was set to write and direct. That fell apart and Boorman's script was reworked in 2007 by Todd Komarnicki (SULLY), with Luc Besson attached to direct, but that was right around the time that Gibson's traffic stop and other offscreen problems essentially made him persona non grata in Hollywood for at least the next decade. Nine years later, with numerous international financiers, Gibson finally got THE PROFESSOR AND THE MADMAN going with a new script by his friend and APOCALYPTO collaborator Farhad Safinia, who would also be making his directing debut. It was near the end of filming in Ireland in 2016 that disagreements began to develop between Gibson/Safinia and Voltage Pictures head Nicolas Chartier, when the pair asked for an additional $2.5 million for five additional days to shoot some scenes that they insisted had to be done on location at Oxford University (Trinity College was filling in for Oxford until then). Chartier rejected the request, telling them that they were already behind schedule and over the $25 million budget, so Trinity in Dublin would have to suffice.

Believing the film wouldn't be complete without these Oxford-shot scenes, Gibson told Chartier that Safinia wasn't being permitted to sufficiently finish the film. Gibson sued Voltage Pictures for breach of contract, claiming the film wasn't completed and he was guaranteed final cut, with Safinia also suing, claiming copyright infringement, accusing Voltage of never finalizing his contract, thus "his" script (which still contained some of Boorman's and Komarnicki's work) was never officially handed over to them. When Voltage released a statement accusing Gibson and Safinia of trying to "hijack the movie," Safinia sued for defamation. A judge ruled in favor of Voltage all around, and when Safinia's planned 160-minute film was whittled down to 124 minutes with neither Gibson nor Safinia's input, Gibson unsuccessfully tried to prevent it from being screened for potential distributors. These lawsuits kept the film on the shelf over 2017 and 2018 until a settlement was reached in early 2019, with Gibson removing his producer credit and any mention of his Icon Productions company. Safinia also successfully petitioned to have his name removed as director and co-writer, with credit now going to the non-existent "P.B. Shemran." Also absent is any mention of Boorman, still credited as a co-writer in initial press releases, in festival reviews, and on IMDb, but whose name is nowhere to be found on the released film. A troubled production, for sure, but there was a time when a prestige period piece starring Mel Gibson and Sean Penn would've been one of the most anticipated films of its year instead of one that gets a buried on VOD like a state secret by lowly, Redbox-ready Vertical Entertainment, with seemingly everyone involved actively distancing themselves from what sounds less like a battle of artistic differences and more like an alpha-male pissing contest.

With that kind of chaotic backstage melodrama, you'd think THE PROFESSOR AND THE MADMAN would be a folly of category five shitstorm proportions along the lines of LONDON FIELDS, another recent film left unreleased for several years due to endless litigation. It's a handsomely-produced period piece with meticulous production design that's often beautiful to look at and undeniably sincere in its approach, and while this Gibson-disowned version has some all-too-obvious red flags for post-production discord, it has other problems for which Gibson and Safinia should probably be held accountable. An account of the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, THE PROFESSOR AND THE MADMAN focuses on Prof. James Murray (Gibson), a Scottish autodidact and linguist and self-taught expert in over a dozen languages, who successfully lobbies the powers that be at Oxford to entrust him with the task of compiling every word in the English language and its origin into a comprehensive, epic volume ("We are about to embark on the greatest adventure our language has ever known!" he declares). He estimates it'll take five years, but the project soon becomes too daunting, even with research assistants Henry Bradley (Ioan Gruffudd) and Charles Hall (Jeremy Irvine). It also places a strain on his family, with wife Ada (Jennifer Ehle) dutifully supporting him but truthfully not very enthused about moving their large family to a smaller home as Murray obsesses over his all-consuming project. The OED hits a brick wall, not helped by sneering publisher Philip Lyttleton Gell (Laurence Fox, conveying the erudite pomposity that his dad James and uncle Edward have projected so masterfully throughout their long careers) and supercilious Oxford board member Benjamin Jowett (Anthony Andrews), both of whom deem Murray's self-education dubious and a dishonor to the university ("I wonder if it's time to ease our gentle Scotsman off his little perch," Jowett harumphs).

Realizing it will take much longer than five years to complete the dictionary, Murray comes up with the idea of having a "dictionary by democracy," asking the general public to contribute words and origins, with Murray and his assistants determining the validity of the info provided (a pre-Wikipedia of sorts). Their largest selection of entries comes from an unexpected source: Dr. William Chester Minor (Penn, in his first feature film since 2015's THE GUNMAN), an American expat, paranoid schizophrenic and PTSD-afflicted Civil War vet being held at the Broadmoor Asylum for the Criminally Insane after killing a married father of six that he mistook for a wartime enemy. Minor is also a gifted surgeon and intellectual who earned reading privileges in the asylum after saving the life of an injured guard. He also feels remorse for what he's done and offers his military pension to his victim's widow Eliza (Natalie Dormer), who reluctantly accepts after briefly turning to prostitution to support her children. She begins to visit Minor in the asylum, he teaches her to read, and she slowly comes around to forgiving him after witnessing the extent of his mental illness. Dr. Murray visits and befriends Minor as well, which causes friction with the Oxford board when he insists that a known murderer be lauded as a major OED contributor.

Frequently heavy-handed and filled with barely-concealed allusions to Gibson's own personal quest for redemption, THE PROFESSOR AND THE MADMAN benefits from his solid, committed performance, but almost everything else is miscalculated to varying degrees. As in Komarnicki's script for SULLY, the film needs a villain where there really isn't one, so Gell and Jowett are there to undermine Murray and stonewall the OED at every turn for no legitimate reason at all aside from manufactured drama. Likewise at the asylum, the kindly and benevolent Dr. Richard Brayne (Stephen Dillane) suddenly does everything short of twirl a mustache while maniacally cackling to make Minor's life a living hell, starting with cutting off visits from Murray and Eliza and eventually barbaric forms of "therapy" like violently-induced vomiting that he blames on "catalepsy." Maybe some of this was explained in the excised 40-odd minutes of footage, but as presented here, Minor's deteriorating condition (starting with a self-castration) lacks a proper buildup. Not helping matters is a wildly overacting Penn, who's been given carte blanche to gorge on a buffet of scenery by Safinia and Gibson, who also seriously bungle the time element. There is one major instance where the blame can obviously be laid on some sloppy editing in post, as evidenced when Eliza's daughter slaps a white-bearded Minor, who's next seen in his room shouting "Look what you've done!" and his beard is suddenly dark brown, making it almost certain that the scene doesn't belong where Voltage's editors have placed it. But elsewhere, it becomes a huge distraction when Penn's Minor seems to be the only person who ages over the course of the film, set from 1872 to 1910. With a big, bushy salt-and-pepper beard, Gibson looks exactly the same from start to finish, as does everyone else and, save for the final shot at a Murray family gathering, neither Murray's nor Eliza's kids ever grow up as the story progresses and the decades pass. There's also some extensive Minor voiceover in letters he sends to Murray and it's clearly not Penn's voice reciting it. These goofs and haphazard stitches aside, what's here is a compelling story. Penn seems to keep himself in check in his initial scenes with Gibson (who is really good here), and the film also offers nice supporting turns from Eddie Marsan as a sympathetic asylum guard and Steve Coogan as Murray's biggest supporter on the Oxford board. But this is a compromised work that represents the vision of an executive producer doing damage control, and not that of the producer-star who spent a decade-and-a-half trying to get it made and was perhaps too close to it for his--and the film's--own good.

In Theaters/On VOD: DRAGGED ACROSS CONCRETE (2019)

DRAGGED ACROSS CONCRETE
(US/Canada/UK - 2019)

Written and directed by S. Craig Zahler. Cast: Mel Gibson, Vince Vaughn, Tory Kittles, Don Johnson, Thomas Kretschmann, Michael Jai White, Jennifer Carpenter, Laurie Holden, Fred Melamed, Udo Kier, Tattiawna Jones, Justine Warrington, Jordyn Ashley Olson, Myles Truitt, Vanessa Bell Calloway, Noel G, Primo Allon, Matthew Maccaull, Richard Newman, Liannet Borrego. (R, 158 mins)

"I'm a month away from my 60th. I'm still the same rank I was at 27. I don't politic and I don't change with the times and it turns out that shit's more important than good honest work." 

With his 2015 cannibal horror/western BONE TOMAHAWK and his 2017 grindhouse B-movie prison face-smasher BRAWL IN CELL BLOCK 99, musician and author-turned-filmmaker S. Craig Zahler established himself as a bold new voice in cult cinema (presumably as a goof, he also scripted 2018's PUPPET MASTER: THE LITTLEST REICH). Can one appropriately follow up a film where Vince Vaughn tears a car to pieces with his bare hands? Well, the gritty and amazingly-titled cop thriller DRAGGED ACROSS CONCRETE is Zahler's most ambitious provocation yet, weaving complex characterizations, multiple storylines, bursts of truly shocking violence and splatter and several startling plot turns into a compelling crime saga that runs a sprawling 158 minutes. Zahler's cache in genre circles hasn't come without controversy, with detractors hurling accusations of racism and branding his films as right-wing fodder for the Trump crowd. Cop, and by association,  vigilante movies, have been labeled fascist fantasies for decades, going back decades to Clint Eastwood in DIRTY HARRY, Gene Hackman in THE FRENCH CONNECTION, and Charles Bronson in DEATH WISH. Zahler's characters do and say despicable things I don't see him defending or excusing their actions. Understanding the mindset of a political viewpoint doesn't necessarily mean tacit endorsement or justification. Perhaps it complicates things by showing that these characters have a human side and might be doing very wrong things for what they perceive to be right reasons, but Zahler isn't being overtly political here. It's more likely a sign of the times and the cultural environment where the younger generation of film critics have focused less on writing about the films and more about "hot takes," expressing themselves, airing their own grievances, looking for things to be offended by, and making a huge production out of how woke they are. That's really no way to watch movies, people.

He's obviously aware of the criticisms of his work, and even before watching DRAGGED ACROSS CONCRETE, one has to marvel at how well Zahler has his trolling game down: how much sheer chutzpah and raw balls does it take to make a movie about corrupt, racist cops in 2019 and cast Mel Gibson in the leading role? Few things piss off woke pop culture publications more than Gibson finding gainful employment, and his presence here can be seen as a test of separating the art from the artist or at least exposing the film's pre-release detractors for doing exactly what they're doing: passive-aggressively rehashing and reviewing Gibson's past transgressions instead of reviewing the movie. Gibson has lost none of his power to command the screen, turning in his best work in years as Detective Brett Ridgeman, a veteran cop in Bulwark, a fictional, good-sized lower-to-middle class city that's seen better days. Partnered with the younger Anthony Lurasetti (Hollywood conservative Vaughn, in his second Zahler film), Ridgeman is hardened, cynical, embittered, and a ticking time bomb. He does his job and refuses to play nice, and while his and Lurasetti's arrest records are exemplary ("Two wings of the penitentiary are filled with our collars...maybe three"), they're suspended for six weeks without pay when someone records Ridgeman using excessive force during an arrest, dragging a suspect (Noel G) out of the window on a fire escape and forcefully pressing his boot down on his head. The cell phone footage makes the local news, and while Ridgeman blames it on a society gone soft (sounding like a Fox News host when he barks "We get suspended because it wasn't done politely...the entertainment industry, formerly known as the news, needs villains" like a talking point), his former partner and current boss Lt. Calvert (Don Johnson) uses the opportunity to remind him "There's a reason I'm behind this desk running things and you're still out there on the streets."

Neither Ridgeman nor Lurasetti are in positions to go six weeks without pay. Lurasetti is about to splurge on an engagement ring for his girlfriend Denise (Tattiawna Jones), and Ridgeman is feeling pressure from multiple directions. His wife Melanie (Laurie Holden) is a former cop who was forced into early retirement when she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and with the reduced income, they had to move to a crummy neighborhood where their teenage daughter Sara (Jordyn Ashley Olson) is regularly menaced by a group of black kids ("I was never a racist until we lived in this neighborhood," Melanie laments). Pissed that he's got over 30 years on the force with nothing to show for it and refusing to take a temporary security gig, Ridgeman calls in a favor from posh clothier and connected criminal Friedrich (Udo Kier), who tells him about a vaguely-defined job being orchestrated by associate Lorentz Vogelman (Thomas Kretschmann). With a reluctant Lurasetti onboard ("This is bad...like lasagna in a can"), the pair stake out Vogelman's apartment building for several days before piecing together some semblance of what he might be up to. Meanwhile, in a parallel storyline, just-paroled ex-con Henry Johns (Tory Kittles) arrives home to find his junkie mother (Vanessa Bell Calloway) working as a prostitute. Forced to grow up early after his closeted gay father abandoned the family ("Pops is a yesterday who ain't worth words") and wanting a better life for his mother and his wheelchair-bound little brother (Myles Truitt), Henry teams up with old buddy Biscuit (Michael Jai White), who gets wind of a job offer for a getaway driver.

Despite its gargantuan length, DRAGGED ACROSS CONCRETE is never dull and never crosses the line into self-indulgence. Like BONE TOMAHAWK and BRAWL IN CELL BLOCK 99, it unfolds like a novel, drawing you in and letting the story and the characters breathe and take form and find their voice at its own leisurely pace. It's a good 100 or more minutes before all the plot lines converge (Jennifer Carpenter also figures in with a small but pivotal role as a nervous first-time mom having severe separation anxiety on her first day back to work after having a baby three months earlier), and Zahler is in no rush to get anywhere. Its twists, turns, and detours recall JACKIE BROWN-era Quentin Tarantino, and while Zahler may lack QT's signature pop culture, "Royale with cheese" pizazz, the novelist in him has a way with words that is uniquely his own and fits perfectly with the bleak, abrasive, nihilistic vision of DRAGGED ACROSS CONCRETE's world. Zahler stops short of rooting for Ridgeman and Lurasetti, but he manages to humanize them in the antihero cop tradition of DIRTY HARRY's Harry Callahan and THE FRENCH CONNECTION's Popeye Doyle (speaking of Doyle, there's a character who would never fly in woke 2019). DRAGGED ACROSS CONCRETE is an equal opportunity offender, whether Ridgeman and Lurasetti are pretending they can't understand a hearing-impaired female perp speaking clear English (Lurasetti: "Sounds like a dolphin voice") or one of Vogelman's goons needing to cut open a corpse (it's a long story) and being reminded "Careful you don't open the liver...it's the worst smell in the world, especially with a black guy," or the numerous bits of overt homophobia. DRAGGED ACROSS CONCRETE takes place in an ugly and dangerous world filled with ugly and dangerous people. Though it has its share of humor (watch Gibson's seething slow burn on the stakeout as Ridgeman clocks Lurasetti--it's also a vintage Vaughn moment--at 98 minutes to finish an egg salad sandwich, finally snapping "A single red ant could've eaten it faster"), it's a furious, ferocious, and fearlessly uncompromising gut punch of a film that isn't pretty, doesn't play nice, and isn't easily shaken.

In Theaters/On VOD: AIR STRIKE (2018)

AIR STRIKE
(China - 2018)

Directed by Xiao Feng. Written by Chen Ping, Yang Hsin-Yu, Zhang Hongyi, Yushi Wu, Xiaoqi Li and Qiao Wa. Cast: Bruce Willis, Ye Liu, Rumer Willis, Seung-Heon Song, William Chan, Wei Fan, Nicholas Tse, Bingbing Fan, Chen Daoming, Adrien Brody, Lei Jia, Gang Wu, Su Ma, Yongli Che, Yuanzheng Feng, Le Geng, Ning Chang, Simon Yam. (R, 96 mins)

Shot in 2015 and initially known as both the prophetically self-fulfilling THE BOMBING and later as the more inspirational UNBREAKABLE SPIRIT, with a price tag reported to be anywhere between $65-$90 million, this mega-budget Chinese government-funded epic has been hacked down by about 25 minutes for its straight-to-VOD US release under the generic, Redbox-ready title AIR STRIKE. Embarrassingly cheap-looking despite being the most expensive Chinese film ever made at the time it went into production (it was also shot in 3-D, but that was scrapped during post), with aerial dogfight sequences and visual effects that recall the kinds of computer animation that looked dated in the 1990s, AIR STRIKE looks like INCHON if remade by The Asylum. The making of the film seems far more interesting than anything that ended up onscreen, a jumbled hodgepodge of characters and events taking place in 1939 during the Second Sino-Japanese War, where Japan launched near-constant bombing raids that decimated Chongqing. There's three different storylines, with characters sometimes intersecting and ending up in places and you have no idea how they got there (the Chinese characters are badly dubbed in English, while the Japanese villains get subtitles). There's former pilot Xue Gangtou (Ye Liu), injured on a mission and reassigned to military intelligence, where he's to ensure that a truck with a secret McGuffin cargo must gets to Chongqing, complete with a half-assed WAGES OF FEAR crossing over a precarious bridge. There's a team of fighter pilots overseen by constipated-looking US military adviser Col. Jack Johnson (top-billed export value Bruce Willis), who barks orders and has to whip them into shape. And there's tons of gratuitous mahjong at a local bar.

The fact that Lionsgate is AIR STRIKE's US distributor might make it a backdoor installment in the studio's landmark "Bruce Willis Phones In His Performance From His Hotel Room" series, but he's onscreen quite a bit here and actually takes part in some of the--albeit mostly greenscreen--action sequences. But he finds other ways to make his participation something special and display his utter contempt for what he does for a living, whether it's vacillating between several-day stubble and being clean-shaven in a single scene with no regard for continuity (this happens several times, and what kind of by-the-book US military honcho in 1939 sported trendy stubble?) or, in one scene that has to be seen to be believed, breaking out an anachronistic, open-mic-night-level Christopher Walken impression when the Chinese pilots throw him a surprise birthday party, going off on an obviously improvised monologue about a watch his father gave him. Did Chinese director Xiao Feng even realize his star was amusing himself by dropping a PULP FICTION reference into the middle of a scene? Willis is even visibly smirking while he's doing it. His daughter Rumer gets third billing for a 20-second bit part as a nurse, and she's been unconvincingly dubbed over with a British accent. Oscar-winner Adrien Brody turns up for two brief scenes in the not-even-remotely-pivotal role of "Steve," an American volunteering at a Chongqing orphanage and getting blown up before we even figure out who he is (an entire subplot with his character has been cut for the US release, perhaps as a bizarre tribute to the actor's mostly scrapped work in Terrence Malick's THE THIN RED LINE). Bingbing Fan, the hugely popular actress, model, and pop singer and China's highest-paid superstar, also puts in a few sporadic appearances. Her summer 2018 disappearance and subsequent re-emergence and tax evasion scandal (she's reportedly been fined the equivalent of $130 million by the Chinese government), combined with one-time producer Zhi Jianxiang being a fugitive on the country's most wanted list after fleeing China when he was hit with fraud and money laundering charges related to this project and 2015's IP MAN 3, resulted in the cancellation of the long-shelved film's belated Chinese release just a week before its American debut.

It's worth pointing out that the shots of Bruce Willis
above AND below come from the SAME scene.

Adrian Brody pleading with his
agent to get him in a better movie.

It's hard to imagine AIR STRIKE being good in any incarnation. The original Chinese version reportedly ran 120 minutes, but given its legal issues at home, the truncated, 96-minute American cut, supervised by veteran editor Robert A. Ferretti (TANGO & CASH, DIE HARD 2, UNDER SIEGE) might be the only one available for the foreseeable future. Prior to taking on this massive epic, director Xiao Feng only had one other film to his credit, the 2012 war drama HUSHED ROAR, which was unreleased outside of China. Helping out under the credited guise of "consultant" and creative adviser is the unlikely Mel Gibson, then in one of his periodic Hollywood pariah periods prior to his Oscar-nominated resurgence as a filmmaker with 2016's HACKSAW RIDGE. Ostensibly brought aboard because of his experience in hard-hitting battle scenes, it's possible Gibson had a hand in directing Willis and Brody, as almost all of the combat and action sequences are just a blurred blizzard of atrocious and aggressively unconvincing CGI. Other experienced Hollywood pros were hired by the Chinese producers in an advisory capacity, including cinematographer Conrad W. Hall (PANIC ROOM, OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN), credited as "special effects consultant," and the late, great Vilmos Zsigmond as a "cinematography consultant" to the film's own D.P. Shu Yang. An Academy Award-winner for his work on 1977's CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND and also the renowned cinematographer of MCCABE & MRS. MILLER, DELIVERANCE, and THE DEER HUNTER among many others, Zsigmond was a legend in his field when he died in 2016 at the age of 85. Sadly, AIR STRIKE will go down as his final work, though there's nothing here to indicate that he, Hall, or Gibson were able to help in any way. The kind of movie where six screenwriters are credited and the best any of them can come up with is the one man who knows the contents of the truck's secret cargo's last, dying words being "The truck...is carrying...aaaaggghh..." as he keels over, AIR STRIKE is one of the most bewilderingly awful films of the year. I mean, seriously. What the fuck happened here? What can you say about a movie that's such a garbage fire that 2018 Bruce Willis is one of its positives?

AIR STRIKE director Xiao Feng on the set with "consultant" Mel Gibson.

In Theaters: HACKSAW RIDGE (2016)

HACKSAW RIDGE
(US/China - 2016)

Directed by Mel Gibson. Written by Robert Schenkkan and Andrew Knight. Cast: Andrew Garfield, Sam Worthington, Vince Vaughn, Luke Bracey, Teresa Palmer, Hugo Weaving, Rachel Griffiths, Richard Roxburgh, Nathaniel Buzolic, Matt Nable, Firass Dirani, Luke Pegler, Ben Mingay, Nico Cortez, Goran D. Kleut, Milo Gibson, Robert Morgan. (R, 139 mins)

Directing his first film since 2006's APOCALYPTO, Mel Gibson shapes this biographical account of WWII hero Desmond Doss (1919-2006) into an unflinching, graphically violent look at one man taking a personal stand amidst the horrors of war. Co-written by Robert Schenkkan, who scripted several episodes of the HBO mini-series THE PACIFIC, HACKSAW RIDGE is also filled with the kind of epic suffering endured by Gibson protagonists, whether it's BRAVEHEART's William Wallace or THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST's Jesus, right down to some crucifixion and baptismal imagery in the climax, almost depicted as a resurrection of sorts. The first conscientious objector to be awarded the Medal of Honor, Desmond (Andrew Garfield) grew up in the hills of Lynchburg, VA, the son of drunken, bitter WWI vet Thomas (Hugo Weaving), who's still shell-shocked by his experiences and wracked with survivor's guilt after he was the only one of his friends to return home alive. A family of Seventh-Day Adventists, Thomas has instilled in Desmond and the rest of the family--wife Bertha (Rachel Griffiths) and their other son Hal (Nathaniel Buzolic)--a deep belief in non-violence and the idea there is no circumstance in which even touching a gun is justified. Thomas is enraged when Hal enlists, and despite his protests, Desmond enlists as well, feeling a sense of duty but vowing to stick to his anti-gun beliefs by volunteering to be a medic ("Instead of taking lives, I'll be saving them," he tells his father). Promising to marry his nurse girlfriend Dorothy (Teresa Palmer) during his first furlough, Desmond joins the Army and all goes well until he refuses to handle a weapon.

Of course, he's immediately branded as a coward by everyone from bullying fellow recruit and all-around alpha-male Smitty (Luke Bracey) to drill sergeant Howell (a miscast Vince Vaughn), and Captain Glover (Sam Worthington). It also doesn't help that his religion's Sabbath is on Saturday, a day in which Desmond refuses to train. Glover orders a psych evaluation for an easy Section 8 discharge, but when Desmond is deemed of sound mind, Howell is instructed to make his life hell. Desmond is routinely singled out for non-existent infractions, for which Howell punishes the entire group with 20-mile hikes and having their weekend passes revoked. Desmond is beaten by his fellow recruits and refuses to back down. He's eventually court-martialed, and it's decided--with some input from a high-ranking General who fought with Thomas--that Desmond can serve his country as a medic and do so without the protection of a weapon if he so desires. After marrying Dorothy, Desmond is shipped off with the others to Okinawa to take the Maeda Escarpment (recreated on location in Australia, where the entire film was shot), known as "Hacksaw Ridge." Many men are killed in seemingly endless battles with Japanese soldiers, and after Glover orders a retreat, Desmond remains atop Hacksaw Ridge, dragging surviving soldiers to the cliff and rappelling them down one by one. Working himself to the point of mental and physical exhaustion after seemingly answering a call from God, his hands raw and bleeding profusely from rope burns, Desmond single-handedly saved the lives of 75 men at Hacksaw Ridge.

It takes a little over an hour before the story gets to Hacksaw Ridge, and the carnage starts with an extremely effective jump scare more suited to horror movie. Dumping untold gallons of blood and hurling around more innards than an Italian cannibal movie, Gibson doesn't shy away from making combat look as raw and realistic as possible (naturally, some conservatively-used CGI splatter takes you out of the moment, but it's mostly practical effects). Bullets rip through flesh and skulls in ways that put this on par with the opening of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN and the endless suffering of Jesus in THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST. While he'll always be a pariah to a certain degree, Gibson is clearly a complex and troubled man beset by frequently public demons. His efforts as a filmmaker have a shared vision, even his 1993 directing debut THE MAN WITHOUT A FACE, thus far Gibson's only directorial effort that didn't involve graphically gory feats of human endurance. Gibson's heroes are outsiders and rebels, either by choice or by fate. They are men who stick to their beliefs in the face of any and all adversity and are willing to endure whatever physical and psychological suffering to demonstrate that belief and prove their conviction. And when you see the frayed tensions in the Doss family and the things that led Desmond to take his stand, particularly in his relationship with his father, a man who loves his family but too often treats them horribly because he can't forgive himself for being the only one of his friends to come home from The Great War alive, one can't help but wonder how much of that applies to Desmond Doss and Mel Gibson. There's an argument that Gibson's complicated relationship with his own father, an on-the-record Holocaust denier who--and this is not to excuse Gibson's tabloid transgressions--undoubtedly planted the seeds for some of the beliefs that have led to so much turmoil in Gibson's life. On and off the battlefield--the graphic gore aside--it's easy to dismiss HACKSAW RIDGE as corny Americana and Garfield's performance as overly earnest. Of course, Desmond gets not one but two "I was wrong about you" mea culpas, one from Smitty and one from Glover, and Vaughn's Howell scaling the cliff and uttering "We're not in Kansas anymore" is a line that should've been axed at the first read-through.  But it was a simpler era and a time of different values and Desmond Doss, who died in 2006 and is shown in an interview snippet at the very end, was a what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of guy. To that end, HACKSAW RIDGE is a powerful film that both honors Desmond Doss and functions as another intensely personal look into the abyss for Mel Gibson.

Cpl. Desmond Doss receiving his Medal of Honor
from President Harry Truman in 1945

In Theaters/On VOD: BLOOD FATHER (2016)

BLOOD FATHER
(France - 2016)

Directed by Jean-Francois Richet. Written by Peter Craig and Andrea Berloff. Cast: Mel Gibson, Erin Moriarty, William H. Macy, Diego Luna, Michael Parks, Miguel Sandoval, Thomas Mann, Raoul Trujillo, Dale Dickey, Richard Cabral, Daniel Moncada, Ryan Dorsey. (R, 88 mins)

Is it possible to cover a new Mel Gibson movie without rehashing the very public meltdowns over the past decade? Is it OK to like Mel Gibson onscreen again?  To praise his acting without sounding like you're defending the man himself? After 2011's badly-received THE BEAVER, Gibson didn't seem to have much of a future as anything other than a Hollywood pariah. Aside from an occasional friend like Jodie Foster standing by him, nobody wanted anything to do with him. 2012's slight but enjoyable actioner GET THE GRINGO premiered on DirecTV before Gibson managed to score two nearly identical over-the-top, self-parodying villain roles in MACHETE KILLS (2013) and THE EXPENDABLES 3 (2014), but that appeared to be the extent to which anyone was willing to cast him. This fall brings the WWII epic HACKSAW RIDGE, Gibson's first directing effort since 2006's APOCALYPTO (the trailer just says "From the Academy Award-winning director of BRAVEHEART," never mentioning Gibson by name), but before working on that, he starred in the French-financed BLOOD FATHER, which is finally getting a limited theatrical and VOD release two years after it was completed. If you have any doubts about whether the now-60-year-old Gibson's still got it, BLOOD FATHER should put any of those concerns to rest. Lean, mean, crude, and scuzzy, the hard-R BLOOD FATHER is an unabashed old-school exploitationer.. Films of this sort are usually of the pre-fab cult movie variety, imbued with a smug sense of hipster snark and winking, entitled self-awareness. Not BLOOD FATHER. Propelled by what may very well be Gibson's most ferocious performance in a long career with no shortage of them, BLOOD FATHER is the sort of throwback B-action grinder that puts the pretenders to shame.

Based on a novel by THE TOWN screenwriter Peter Craig, who co-wrote the script with Andrea Berloff (STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON), and directed by Jean-Francois Richet (the surprisingly engaging ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 remake, and the two-part French gangster saga MESRINE), BLOOD FATHER has Gibson as John Link, a grizzled recovering alcoholic and ex-con who now lives a solitary life in a California desert trailer park. He does tattoos to make ends meet, but otherwise spends most of his time in AA meetings with his neighbor and sponsor Kirby (William H. Macy), staying focused on his sobriety, and wondering if he'll ever see his missing daughter Lydia (Erin Moriarty) again. He hasn't been a part of her life since she was a kid, but she calls him out of the blue. She's on the run after accidentally shooting and presumably killing her shitbag boyfriend Jonah (Diego Luna), the nephew of a powerful, south-of-the-border Juarez cartel boss. Link is enraged to see that scheming, unreliable junkie Lydia is indeed her father's daughter, but he's sympathetic to the fact that she was born into shit and never had any role models growing up, so he wants to help. It isn't long before Jonah's crew traces her to Link's trailer, sending Link and Lydia on the run, with cartel flunkies, cops, as well as a psychotic Sicario assassin called The Cleaner (Raoul Trujillo) always close behind.

Its plot doesn't win any points for originality, but the execution makes for one of the most gleefully and entertainingly nasty movies of the year. An explosive Gibson is a junkyard dog in this, getting angrier by the scene in ways that are alternately terrifying and funny (when Jonah's crew starts shooting his trailer, Link fires back, raging about all the parole violations he's committing), eventually going completely off the chain when he seeks the help of his old biker gang leader Preacher (Michael Parks) and his old lady Cherise (Dale Dickey, the second-string Melissa Leo), only to have them attempt to sell out father and daughter for the reward money. There's also some humorous touches throughout, like broke-ass Preacher reduced to selling his neo-Nazi swag online. Gibson's performance almost functions as a de facto confessional at times. When he's recounting the sins of his past, Link confronts those transgressions head-on and it's sometimes hard to tell where Link ends and the craggy, weathered-looking Gibson begins, whether he's talking about all the people he's disappointed and alienated, or observing Preacher's white supremacist merch and quipping "Still backing the losers, I see." The role is tailor-made for the fallen star at this point in his life and career, and it's his best work in years. Sure, there's some dumb plot points, like Lydia taking forever to figure out that she's being tracked by the GPS on her phone or being required to do stupid things to advance the story, but it doesn't matter. This is the Mel Gibson Show from start to finish. You don't have to like him and it's a certainty that he'll always remain persona non grata with a good number of moviegoers and industry insiders, but there's no way you can watch BLOOD FATHER and deny that he's still a movie star who knows how to command a screen.

In Theaters/On VOD: STONEHEARST ASYLUM (2014)

STONEHEARST ASYLUM
(US - 2014)

Directed by Brad Anderson. Written by Joe Gangemi. Cast: Kate Beckinsale, Jim Sturgess, Ben Kingsley, Michael Caine, David Thewlis, Brendan Gleeson, Jason Flemyng, Sinead Cusack, Sophie Kennedy Clark, Guillaume Delaunay, Edmund Kingsley. (PG-13, 112 mins)

With the release of his 1998 breakthrough NEXT STOP WONDERLAND, director Brad Anderson was the latest in a seemingly endless parade of Miramax's Next Big Thing wunderkinds in the '90s indie-film explosion. But the field got far too crowded to compete and since 2001's SESSION 9, Anderson has been known primarily as a suspense and/or horror filmmaker when he wasn't paying the bills by taking TV directing gigs on shows like THE WIRE, FRINGE, TREME, and BOARDWALK EMPIRE. THE MACHINIST (2004) and TRANSSIBERIAN (2008) earned Anderson significant acclaim if not mainstream success, and after misfiring with the terrible VANISHING ON 7TH STREET (2011), he rebounded with his first box office hit, the Halle Berry suspense thriller THE CALL (2013), which opened strong before falling apart and turning into a stupid revenge thriller. Anderson's latest film is the intriguing STONEHEARST ASYLUM, dumped in six US cities and on VOD by Cannon cover band Millennium with the opening credits still sporting--at least in the VOD edition--its original title, ELIZA GRAVES, which is a telling indication of how much support the film is getting from its distributor.

There's a generic "Based on a story by Edgar Allan Poe" credit and STONEHEARST uses the writer's 1845 short story "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether" as a starting point before venturing off on its own path. Poe's story, with its inmates-running-the-asylum twist, isn't enough to sustain a feature-length film, though there have been direct adaptations like Juan Lopez Moctezuma's THE MANSION OF MADNESS, aka DR. TARR'S TORTURE DUNGEON (1973) and Jan Svankmajer's LUNACY (2005), and the idea has turned up in various films over the years, such as the anthologies ASYLUM (1972) and TALES THAT WITNESS MADNESS (1973), not to mention a kickass 1976 jam by The Alan Parsons Project. Scripted by Joe Gangemi, who also wrote 2007's effective and little-seen WIND CHILL, Anderson's film takes place in the late 1890s, with Dr. Edward Newgate (Jim Sturgess) arriving at the titular location in the middle of nowhere in rural England. He hopes to gain clinical, hands-on experience as an alienist--a specialist in asylum medication--and is to work under the facility's superintendent Dr. Silas Lamb (Anderson's TRANSSIBERIAN co-star Ben Kingsley). Almost all of Lamb's patients come from the aristocracy, dumped at the asylum by their prominent families and promptly forgotten as embarrassments and outcasts with such afflictions as epilepsy, "incurable homosexuality," and chronic masturbation ("I've never seen the harm in chronic masturbation," Lamb concedes in one of the film's numerous bits of dark humor). Lamb's unorthodox treatment of his patients allows them to basically roam free inside the facility, with close supervision by his strong-arm, Mickey Finn (David Thewlis). The sympathetic Newgate takes particular interest in the beautiful Eliza Graves (Kate Beckinsale), committed to Stonehearst by her father after she attacked her abusive husband, gouging out an eye and biting off an ear. Eliza claims she's not insane and Newgate believes her, but he stumbles onto a bigger problem when he discovers filthy, malnourished prisoners being kept in a dungeon underneath Stonehearst. The leader of these prisoners identifies himself as Dr. Salt (Michael Caine), and claims to be the real superintendent of Stonehearst Asylum, explaining that Lamb led a revolt among the inmates and took over, imprisoning Salt and the staff in the secret dungeon.

And with that, STONEHEARST ASYLUM is about 1/3 over and it's done with what it's going to use from Poe's story. The rest is a mostly enjoyable, old-school, atmospheric gothic chiller that suffers from a muddled, draggy middle as it stretches to nearly two hours. In keeping with the flavor of the Poe adaptations from the 1960s, this could've easily lost 20-25 minutes and been a much more efficient and effective work. Once Newgate is convinced of what Salt is telling him, Anderson and Gangemi spend far too much time with Newgate dithering around with Eliza (despite her top billing, Beckinsale is really a supporting character here, which may not have been the original intention considering it was once called ELIZA GRAVES and technically still is) and trying to convince Lamb and Finn that he's not on to them. The story takes a few genuinely unpredictable turns, such as the rationale behind Lamb's overthrow of Salt and his staff, and a twist at the end that's very well-executed even though you can more or less see something coming, as there is one very familiar and busy character actor in the cast that you know must serve more of a purpose than his one brief scene at the very beginning. STONEHEARST ASYLUM makes very good use of its dark, foreboding sets, looking very much like an old-fashioned mid '60s or early '70s period horror where you can imagine any combination of gents like Vincent Price, Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Michael Gough, Herbert Lom or Patrick Magee in the roles played by Kingsley and Caine (how can you not love seeing those two working together?), with Patrick Troughton, Nigel Green, or Oliver Reed in Thewlis' role and Robert Powell, Ralph Bates, or Ian Ogilvy in place of Sturgess. Given the shoddy nature of most Millennium joints, STONEHEARST could've easily turned out like one of those numerous T&A-filled dueling Poe revivals that Roger Corman and Harry Alan Towers were cranking out in the late '80s. Surprisingly, despite shooting in Bulgaria and listing Avi Lerner as an executive producer (Mel Gibson also has a producer credit), it turned out looking quite classy for the most part. Even the visual effects and greenscreen work, done by the Swedish company Filmgate instead of Lerner's usual Bulgarian clown crew at Worldwide FX, are well above average for a Millennium production.

As evidenced by its scant distribution, there isn't much of a market for STONEHEARST ASYLUM in today's multiplexes. It's too restrained and low-key for the Halloween crowd and not serious enough for the arthouse, but a film like this is a welcome respite from the quick-cut, shaky-cam histrionics of today's horror scene. Sturgess and Beckinsale are good, and Caine is terrific in his few scenes as the harumphing head doc trapped in a prison of his own making, but it's Kingsley who steals the film, attacking his role with gusto but holding it at just the point where one step further would take him into hammy overacting. If only its midsection weren't so lethargic and plodding, Anderson might've had a really nifty little throwback gem here. It's not scary as much as it's ominous and moody, but as it is, it's well-acted, handsomely put together, and entertaining enough that die-hard devotees of Poe, AIP, 1960s Hammer (with touches of the opulent Italian castle horrors of the likes of Mario Bava and Antonio Margheriti), and 1970s Amicus will probably get more out of it than the casual moviegoer in search of cheap jump scares.

In Theaters: THE EXPENDABLES 3 (2014)

THE EXPENDABLES 3

(US - 2014)

Directed by Patrick Hughes. Written by Sylvester Stallone, Creighton Rothenberger and Katrin Benedikt. Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Mel Gibson, Harrison Ford, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Wesley Snipes, Antonio Banderas, Dolph Lundgren, Kelsey Grammer, Randy Couture, Terry Crews, Jet Li, Kellan Lutz, Ronda Rousey, Glen Powell, Victor Ortiz, Robert Davi. (PG-13, 127 mins)

The third installment of Sylvester Stallone's throwback-to-'80s-action franchise is decidedly the weakest for a variety of reasons, starting with the PG-13 rating. One of the most enjoyable things about the previous two films was its absurdly over-the-top violence, even if the splatter was unconvincingly digital (though an effort was made to wetten things up in THE EXPENDABLES 2), something Stallone has seemed to embrace since turning 2008's RAMBO into the goriest jungle actioner that Ruggero Deodato never made. Both prior EXPENDABLES films were huge hits domestically and internationally, so it's a mystery why distributor Lionsgate and Cannon cover band Millennium/NuImage insist on watering things down to appeal to younger audiences. If the paltry box office of THE LAST STAND, BULLET TO THE HEAD, ESCAPE PLAN, GRUDGE MATCH, and SABOTAGE prove anything, it's that today's teenagers aren't going to see '80s action dinosaurs in theaters. Liken it to a washed-up '80s hair metal band going on tour: if they go out solo, they're playing shitty dive bars with 20 people in the crowd. Send them out on a four or five-band nostalgia package tour, they can book arenas all summer long. Casual moviegoers no longer care about new solo efforts from Stallone or Arnold Schwarzengger or Dolph Lundgren or Jean-Claude Van Damme, but throw them on the same bill, and you've got a hit.

Nearly bloodless action and a PG-13 rating aren't going to bring in the kids, nor is the presence of Kellan Lutz, whose tip-frosted turn in the unwatchable THE LEGEND OF HERCULES should've clued Millennium chief Avi Lerner in to the fact that Kellan Lutz isn't happening. But they attempt it here anyway as the aging Expendables are sidelined for the entire middle of the film after Hale Caesar (Terry Crews) is nearly killed and head honcho Barney Ross (Stallone) breaks up the band to bring in new blood in his vengeance-fueled pursuit of international arms dealer Conrad Stonebanks (Mel Gibson). With the help of wisecracking government operative Bonaparte ('80s action icon Kelsey Grammer), Ross puts together a younger, fresher, high-tech team that includes Smilee (Lutz), Luna (MMA fighter Ronda Rousey), Mars (boxer Victor Ortiz), and Thorn (Glen Powell). It's personal for Ross--when isn't it?--since Stonebanks, long presumed dead, is an original Expendable who turned against his brothers and went rogue for the money. They apprehend Stonebanks at the behest of CIA chief Drummer (Harrison Ford, looking constipated), who orders Ross to bring him in alive because he's set to be tried for war crimes at The Hague. Of course, Stonebanks' goons manage to rescue him since no one bothered to see if he had a GPS tracker on his person, and Ross is left for dead as The Expendables: The Next Generation are kidnapped by Stonebanks. Of course, this means he reluctantly puts the band back together to rescue the newbies, being held at Stonebanks' secret stronghold in "Izmenistan."

Stallone co-wrote the screenplay with the team of Creighton Rothenberger and Katrin Benedikt, whose lone previous credit is scripting another Millennium production, OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN (2013). It hardly matters that Australian director Patrick Hughes (RED HILL) is at the helm, since every Millennium/NuImage joint looks the same, regardless of the cost. They all have dubious-looking greenscreen and amateurish CGI courtesy of the Bulgarian clown crew at Worldwide FX. Other than attracting bigger stars with bigger salaries--which is really where the money goes--there's little difference between an EXPENDABLES movie and any random straight-to-video NuImage title from the 1990s. The explosions are all distractingly phony, and shots of Powell parachuting off a cliff and Stallone running along the top of a building as it collapses look like haphazardly-executed cartoon effects. Plainly visible Bulgarian license plates in scenes set in Arizona and Las Vegas exhibit a carelessness more suited to a 20-year-old Frank Zagarino cheapie than a $90 million summer action movie. The heavy lifting has been farmed out to various FX crews and everyone involved is mostly doing the bare minimum.

That's not to say there aren't things to appreciate throughout. It's nice to see Wesley Snipes on the big screen again, as an imprisoned ex-Expendable known as "Doctor Death," broken out of an off-the-grid Russian prison in a prologue that essentially functions as a Welcome Back party for Stallone's formerly-incarcerated DEMOLITION MAN co-star ("What were you in for?" he's asked. The reply--of course--"tax evasion"). Stallone manages some legitimately heartfelt observations about staying relevant with the onset of age that surprisingly don't rely on quips and one-liners. Ford has an amusing running gag about not being able to understand Statham's accent. There's so many players in the game that almost everyone ends up standing around with little to do. Antonio Banderas is initially amusing as motor-mouthed mercenary Galgo, who desperately wants to be an Expendable (or, as Gibson's Stonebanks calls them, "The Deleteables"), but he overdoes it and a little of him goes a long way. An embalmed-looking Schwarzenegger returns as Trench, but was obviously only around for a few days, since he pops in and out of the story and sits out most of the action, usually waiting with the plane while everyone else goes off for action.  Did you ever think you'd see the day where Arnold Schwarzenegger was chauffeuring other action stars around their movie?  He still has more to do than Jet Li, who turns up very late in the film and doesn't even seem to know his dialogue. Gibson probably comes off the best as Stonebanks, taking the role far more seriously than is necessary. Banderas tries too hard, but where everyone else is awkwardly delivering one-liners that clang to the ground more often than not, Gibson brings some gravitas and a legitimate sense of menace, even though he had a similar megalomaniacal villain role in last year's MACHETE KILLS. Say what you will about Gibson the man--yeah, he's a racist, an anti-Semite, has anger management issues, and is probably an all-around asshole, and several instances of very public and very ugly meltdowns have all but guaranteed these are the only types of roles he's going to get--but there's no denying he's a star and he's still got it.

THE EXPENDABLES 3 has its enjoyable moments, but it's a letdown after the highly entertaining second film, which was really the only one to explore the dinosaur action star notion to its fullest potential. A PG-13 EXPENDABLES with much of the focus on younger additions is tantamount to willful ignorance on the part of Lionsgate, an example of pointlessly fixing what isn't broken. It's defeating the very purpose of the franchise's existence, which was a sort-of winking, self-referential victory lap for aging '80s and '90s action icons. No one's going to see THE EXPENDABLES 3 to watch Stallone pass the torch to Kellan Lutz. If anything, he should be passing it to Scott Adkins--who did appear as a villainous Van Damme's henchman in EXPENDABLES 2--and it should be in a film directed by Isaac Florentine. Not terrible, but way overlong and easily the least of the series, THE EXPENDABLES 3 has taken this fun franchise one film past its sell-by date and made its name a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In Theaters: MACHETE KILLS (2013)

MACHETE KILLS
(US/Russia - 2013)

Directed by Robert Rodriguez.  Written by Kyle Ward.  Cast: Danny Trejo, Michelle Rodriguez, Mel Gibson, Demian Bichir, Sofia Vergara, Amber Heard, Antonio Banderas, Lady Gaga, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Walton Goggins, Vanessa Hudgens, Jessica Alba, Alexa Vega, William Sadler, Tom Savini, Julio Oscar Mechoso, Marko Zaror, Electra Avellan, Elise Avellan, Marci Madison, and introducing Carlos Estevez. (R, 107 mins)

Originating as one of the fake trailers in Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino's GRINDHOUSE (2007), MACHETE was spun off into its own film in 2010, finally giving the great Danny Trejo the spotlight in his own project.  The resulting film, parodying the same grindhouse aura of GRINDHOUSE, was gleefully over-the-top trash with everyone from Steven Seagal, Jeff Fahey, Lindsay Lohan, and Robert De Niro on hand to make fun of themselves.  MACHETE KILLS is more of the same, only sillier, if that's even possible.  Rodriguez isn't so much emulating '70s grindhouse trash anymore as much as he's just making a ludicrous parody of action movies.  There's a good amount of laughs and some even more self-deprecating casting, but it's all just too much.  Running a gaseous 107 minutes, Rodriguez gets pretty self-indulgent with MACHETE KILLS, and it probably would've been better if it had been 20-30 minutes shorter, making it more in line with what it's supposed to be riffing.

 

After seeing his partner and lover Sartana (Jessica Alba) killed while on a covert government mission, Machete is summoned to the White House and assigned by President Rathcock ("introducing Carlos Estevez") to go into Mexico and kill Mendez (Demian Bichir), a revolutionary with a split personality who has a nuclear missle aimed at Washington, DC that's wired to his heart and will launch if his heart stops beating.  During their confrontation, Mendez's evil personality pulls the pin on the heart device, giving Machete 24 hours to dismantle it, which requires the two of them crossing the border into the US (as the film briefly turns into an "...if they don't kill each other first! mismatched-buddy movie) to find the only man who can do it:  megalomaniacal multi-billionaire weapons manufacturer and global terrorist Luther Voz (Mel Gibson).  Voz designed the detonator and has even bigger plans beyond nuking Washington:  he's got a space station hovering above the planet and will be populating it with the richest of the rich after starting a series of global catastrophes.  With crazed, gun-barrel-breasted madam Desdemona (a scenery-chewing Sofia Vergara) and elusive assassin La Chamaleon (alternately played by Walton Goggins, Cuba Gooding Jr, Lady Gaga, and Antonio Banderas) in hot pursuit, Machete gets help from sexy undercover agent Miss San Antonio (Amber Heard), and his old cohort Luz (Michelle Rodriguez) to thwart Voz's nefarious plan of taking over the galaxy.

Filled with intentionally dubious-looking CGI and ridiculous levels of violence and gore, MACHETE KILLS is dumb fun, which is the whole point.  But there's no denying that it starts to drag after a while and you wonder if maybe this should've been left as a trailer.  A lot of it is repetitious and could've been trimmed down, like the whole subplot with William Sadler as a racist sheriff on the Arizona border, who keeps calling Machete "Taco."  The character of "La Chamaleon" is funny, but Rodriguez and screenwriter Kyle Ward don't do much with it other than put increasingly unlikely actors in the role for a scene before they disappear.  Only Trejo appears throughout the film, and it's obvious that everyone else dropped by as their schedule allowed ("Carlos Estevez" never interacts with any other cast members--he and Trejo are never in the same shot together--and he actually looks CGI'd in his final scene).   Stone-faced Trejo is still a badass Machete and his emotionless delivery of lines like "Machete don't Tweet" are never not funny.  Between this and his role as the main villain in the upcoming THE EXPENDABLES 3, it's clear that the far-beyond-damage control Gibson is throwing in the towel and diving right into the self-parody phase of his career, probably because there's no other offers coming his way, but still, it's amusing seeing him on a huge set straight out of MOONRAKER and wearing a Darth Vader-like space cape.  Thanks to Trejo and some stars checking their egos at the door, MACHETE KILLS is enjoyable and the actors are having a blast, but there's just too much of it.  It overstays its welcome and simply doesn't know when to quit.  Hopefully, Rodriguez can rein it in a little and keep it to more sensible 85-90 minutes if and when he gets around to the promised third entry whose trailer is featured at the beginning of the film:  MACHETE KILLS AGAIN...IN SPACE!

New on DVD/Blu-ray: GET THE GRINGO (2012) and INTRUDERS (2012)

GET THE GRINGO
(US - 2012)

By this point, it's impossible to watch a new Mel Gibson film without addressing the elephant in the room that is Mel Gibson.  The last several years have been a public relations nightmare for the actor and Oscar-winning director with alcoholism, anti-Semitic and racist comments, domestic violence, and other instances of anger management issues.  Whether he's just really an inherently nasty person or, as he's said on several occasions, manic depressive, Gibson's offscreen problems have taken a toll on his career.  Hollywood and movie audiences forgave him once, when 2010's EDGE OF DARKNESS, his first time in front of the camera since 2003's little-seen THE SINGING DETECTIVE, became a hit.  Gibson showed that yes, he made some mistakes, but he owned up to them, said all the right things, and took his lumps, and as a result, people indeed still liked him and wanted to see his movies.  But then uglier stuff just kept coming out, and despite a passionate defense from co-star/director Jodie Foster, nobody wanted anything to do with 2011's THE BEAVER, which sounded terrible even without Gibson's personal life becoming a tabloid train wreck (he suffers a nervous breakdown and finds he can only express himself through a beaver hand-puppet).  When THE BEAVER bombed ($21 million budget, grossed less than $1 million), Gibson's already-completed south-of-the-border comedy/thriller GET THE GRINGO (originally titled HOW I SPENT MY SUMMER VACATION) could only manage an undignified straight-to-DirecTV release in the spring of 2012 after two years on the shelf.  Gibson tried to put a positive spin on things by saying it's just representative of the changing ways of movie distribution, but let's get real:  nobody wanted to handle GET THE GRINGO because the idea of Mel Gibson and the baggage that accompanies him is just a touchy subject.  Now, whether he's mentally ill or has a drinking problem or is just a colossal prick is up for debate.  His offscreen comments and a lot of his behavior are reprehensible, but his onscreen presence is such that he somehow makes it possible to put all of that aside when he's doing what he does best.  Throughout the history of the movies, with rare exception, audiences have proven to be remarkably forgiving when it comes to entertainers who screw up.  I say this not to defend or excuse Mel Gibson's transgressions, but to just put it in perspective: the movies aren't reality and the actors aren't the people they play. Going back to the silent era, famous people have always screwed up and the gossip rags have always reported it, but today's technological advances, the immediacy of the internet, and the 24-hour news culture have just made it much easier for us to rubberneck in real time when a celebrity implodes.   It's very possible that our big-screen heroes have always been assholes.

Which brings us to GET THE GRINGO, which is actually pretty good.  Gibson does the "cold-blooded anti-hero" thing as well as anyone, and here he's the nameless "driver," thrown into a shanty-town of a prison in Tijuana after crashing his getaway car filled with $2 million through a US/Mexican border wall.  Once in the prison (which he dubs "the world's shittiest mall"), he gets in the middle of a war between a Mexican crime family led by Javi (Daniel Jiminez Cacho) and powerful San Diego mobster Frank (Peter Stormare).  Driver stole Frank's money, and now Javi's crew has stolen it from the corrupt Mexican border cops who kept it for themselves.  Driver befriends ten-year-old Kid (Kevin Hernandez), who's grown up in the prison since his parents were both arrested for drug trafficking.  Kid is in danger since he's the only match in the prison for an acceptable liver transplant for the deathly ill Javi, who's already got Kid's dead dad's failing liver inside of him.  Driver concocts a complex scheme to get Kid and his innocent mother (Dolores Heredia) out of Tijuana while at the same time, playing Javi and Frank against each other.  GET THE GRINGO is a funny, violent, and thoroughly scuzzy film that shows that however chaotic his personal life may be, Gibson still has unquestionable star power.  Driver isn't too far off from Gibson's tough, smartass Porter in PAYBACK, mixed with the single-minded sense of vengeful rage that his EDGE OF DARKNESS character possessed.  Gibson co-wrote the script with longtime assistants Adrian Grunberg (who also directed) and Stacy Perskie, and it plays to his strengths.  Also with the great character actors Bob Gunton and Patrick Bauchau in small roles, Peter Geraty as a corrupt US Embassy official in Tijuana, a couple of masked Mexican wrestlers, and a very Peckinpah-styled shootout dampened only by some dubious-looking CGI splatter (the CGI explosions in this film also have a very SyFy phoniness to them that's a bit distracting).  (R, 96 mins)



INTRUDERS
(Spain - 2012)

This sluggishly-paced horror outing is a disappointment from Spanish filmmaker Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, who made a name for himself with genre fans with his cult hit INTACTO (2002) and the underrated 28 WEEKS LATER (2007).  Children have always been a focal point of the Spanish horror genre, but too much of INTRUDERS feels like a jumble of ideas cribbed from Guillermo del Toro and run through an M. Night Shyamalan filter.  In London and Madrid, two children--British Mia (Ella Purnell) and Spanish Juan (Izan Corchero) are being victimized nightly by a robed, faceless, closet-dwelling boogeyman called Hollowface, a supernatural being trying to steal the faces of children to assemble one for himself.  Mia's father John (Clive Owen) and Juan's mother Luisa (Pilar Lopez de Ayala) are also attacked by Hollowface.  When the attacks continue--and Mia's mother Susanna (Carice van Houten) never manages to see Hollowface--John calls the police and installs a security system, while single mother Luisa takes Juan to a priest (Daniel Bruhl) who thinks the boy might be possessed.  Things get complicated after one Hollowface incident where security footage shows John being attacked by nothing, prompting police to brand him the real problem, especially when a psychologist (Kerry Fox) tells John that he and Mia, who loses her ability to speak after Hollowface runs his hand over her mouth, are experiencing folie a deux, where two individuals with a close bond share the same delusional psychosis.  Eventually, there's an inevitable twist and an explanation that lands with a total thud as the film goes from supernatural chiller to pure Shyamalanian horseshit.  There's some initially interesting ideas and the performances are decent, but it just gets slower and sillier as it proceeds, and the CGI is terrible.  Millennium acquired this for the US and put it on just 33 screens for a $64,000 gross.  Fresnadillo showed much promise with his first two feature films, but he stumbles with the tired INTRUDERS.  He's currently attached to direct the HIGHLANDER remake, a film eagerly awaited by absolutely no one.  (R, 100 mins)