Mike: Erica hates clowns, and the trailer for Mel Gibson's latest, Get the Gringo (formerly How I Spent My Summer Vacation, a title I liked better), showed Mel in a clown mask. So I knew I was going to have to watch this by myself. I first heard about it a few years ago and was excited to see it. After all that Mel has been through lately, I wasn't taken that much by surprise that this was skipping theaters in favor of a VOD release, albeit an unprecedented on at that with DirecTV.
Ain't
It Cool News partnered with Gibson to have a special screening in ten
cities, with a live Q&A with Gibson immediately following the
presentation. In order to win a ticket I had to write about my favorite
Mel Gibson movie, and was very happy to find out that I ended up with a
ticket. I was very excited about seeing the movie.
The
screening was at the Regal in Union Square - a theater I've been to
many times but not very often in the last few years, as AMC gets most of
my business now. So it was pretty nice to be back here. I was hoping
the show would be in one of the auditoriums with a balcony, but
unfortunately it was in a regular room. There was a special screening of
The Raven going on at the same time and a huge crowd showed up
for that. I got there super early, fearing I might not get in, but it
ended up being only 2/3rds full. I was relieved that the usual gang of
free ticket folks weren't there - they always make events like these in
NYC a nightmare in and not worth your time, but my guess is that writing
about their favorite Mel Gibson movie was too much effort.
Anyway,
the movie finally started at 8 PM. It was nice to see Gibson back on
the big screen again with another bad ass character. And right off the
bat, he's a real bad ass. The old Mel Gibson we used to love so much. As
the film progresses, he softens a bit, and that was my main problem. I
understand that a character needs to have an arc, but here it just
wasn't at all plausible. The Gibson at the beginning of the movie is far
too different from the one you see at the end.
The
production values were good. I could see the post-production budget
being a bit limited - the effects aren't as polished as I'm used to
seeing on the big screen. But the film has a slight direct-to-video feel
to it, and it has nothing to do with the way it looks. It's because of
the dialogue. Get the Gringo tries very hard to be clever and to
deliver as many memorable one-liners as possible. Sometimes it succeeds,
but too often it feels forced or out of place.
I
can't really complain, though. I wanted to see Mel Gibson in another
action movie, and that's what we get. There's plenty of craziness to
make the movie enjoyable and worth watching - especially for just $10 on
VOD - but the film misses its mark with the dialogue and by turning Mel
Gibson from a hard ass into a softie.
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