On the Line: Starring Mel Gibson

Elvis Cooney is a “shock jock” who stayed rebel, instead of selling out and shilling for the powers-that-be, like Howard Stern did. Unfortunately, that means he has a lot of enemies out there, like “Gary,” the angry caller. Tragically, Gary is also the Michael Moore of psycho-stalkers, who has a habit of killing innocent security guards to express his displeasure with Cooney. He is also holding onto Cooney’s wife and daughter for a grand finale in screenwriter-director Romuald Boulanger’s On the Line, which is now playing in New York.

Cooney definitely has a take no prisoners sense of humor, as poor Dylan, the new production assistant discovers during his first show. Yet, he learns quickly to roll with the punches, just like Cooney’s producer, Mary and the rest of the station staff. However, there is something off about “Gary,” a disturbed-sounding caller—so much so, Cooney insists Dylan get him back on the line.

When he does, Gary drops a bombshell. He claims to have broken into Cooney’s home, where he is holding the radio host’s wife and daughter hostage. Threatening to kill them, the mystery man forces Cooney to play a series of humiliating games on live radio. Of course, Gary, the clever psychopath, always manages to stay several steps ahead of the police and Cooney.

Frankly, Cooney is such an outrageous shock jock, we can actually believe people still listen to him. There are a lot of problems with the film, including some face-palm-inducing twists, but it almost all still works thanks to Mel Gibson. He still has a credible radio voice and an edgy, live-wire screen-presence to carry the film as Cooney. Seriously, how easy is it to believe Mel Gibson could get into serious trouble for the things he says?

Paul Spera (who was terrific as Steven Spielberg in UFOs) is mostly heard rather than seen playing Gary, but his somewhat nasal voice is definitely all kinds of sinister. William Moseley is a little too wide-eyed as naïve Dylan, but Kevin Dillon earns some laughs as Justin, Cooney’s main on-air station rival.

Bandit, Co-Starring Mel Gibson

Robert Whiteman racked up more frequent flyer points than George Clooney in Up in the Air. That was one of the perks of being “The Flying Bandit,” aside from all the free money banks gave him (not voluntarily). He was a good bluffer, who carefully prepared for each heist, but the security of Canadian banks also looks invitingly lax, at least judging from Allan Ungar’s Bandit, which releases tomorrow in theaters and on-demand.

Gilbert Galvan, Jr. was a small-time crook, who headed north in 1985, after escaping from an American minimum-security prison. He adopted the name Whiteman after buying a homeless derelict’s ID to get a job selling popsicles. Poor Det. Snydes might have been saved a great deal of aggregation if the popsicle company had not decided to down-size their bike-cart operation. Instead, he started using techniques he picked up from a theatrical costume store to rob banks, while romancing Andrea, the evening admitting clerk at the homeless shelter he is crashing at. That is definitely a power move.

Whiteman gets plenty of insight into Canadian bank security practices just by asking. Seriously, this story is so Canadian. Of course, Galvan/Whiteman cannot keep knocking over banks in the same town where he wants to make a life with his new girlfriend. To properly expand his business, he takes a loan from Tommy Kay, the local gangster-fence, who becomes his business partner. Soon, Whiteman/Galvan is jet-setting across Canada, holding up branches of his favorite national bank.

Even though Galvan was born here, Kay and Syndes are probably the characters American viewers will most identify with. It certainly helps that Mel Gibson plays Kay with such impish glee. He really has become the go-to guy to elevate okay VOD thrillers to the next level.

Agent Game

Covert ops is a tough business, because there is so much expendability built in—and everyone is always expendable to someone above them. At least, that is the cynical view of intelligence services presented in this film. Fair or not, Kavinsky’s team was recruited to take a fall, but he maybe picks up on the mission’s bad vibes before it is too late in Grant S. Johnson’s Agent Game, which releases this Friday in theaters and on VOD.

Olsen is a high-ranking “deep state” CIA administrator, who is having a bad day, judging from the prologue, showing him firing off shots on the streets of DC. It will take multiple, confusing flashbacks to explain how he reached this point. Somehow, it involves Kavinsky’s team of misfits, whom Olsen personally recruited to snatch and grab an unidentified target.

Then, there are the flashbacks to a black site in an undisclosed Eastern European country, where veteran officers Bill and Harris are interrogating Omar, who was formerly an American-backed revolutionary leader, but the agency seems to think he has gone over to the dark jihadist side. The thing is, the two old hands have been doing this long enough to know Omar’s denials are the truth. However, Visser, Olsen’s loyal enforcer wants them to just bury him and sign-off on the agency’s suspicions.

It would be nice to see a new film that actually celebrated the sacrifices of American intelligence personnel, instead of demonizing, but this is not that film. Nevertheless, there is a lot of surprisingly tense intrigue, especially that focused on Bill and Harris in the black site. Eventually, screenwriter Tyler W. Konney and Mike Langer tie everything together, but viewers almost need to take notes to keep track of the various timelines.

Be that as it may, Jason Isaacs and Dermot Mulroney are terrific as the two dubious interrogators. They are credibly smart and world-weary. If there is anyone viewers will identify with in this film, it would be them. It might be frustrating type-casting for him, but Barkhad Abdi (from Captain Phillips) is also quite good as the unfortunate Omar. Scheming against them, Annie Ilonzeh makes a strong, forceful antagonist as Visser. However, Mel Gibson is more than a bit over the top spouting good-old-boy-isms as the villainous Olsen.

Last Looks, with Mel Gibson

Apparently, detective work is a lot like playing an instrument. You get rusty if you stop practicing. Former LAPD Detective Charlie Waldo is about as rusty as it gets, but he retains an intuitive feel for investigating. He is going to need it in Tim Kirkby’s Last Looks, which releases this Friday on-demand and in theaters.

Waldo was once a hotshot media darling on the force, but now he isn’t. He dropped out, living off the grid in a trailer, to wallow in his own angst. However, the press still remembers him, so his old girlfriend, private investigator Lorena Nascimento tries to recruit him to work a Hollywood case with her, so she can trade on his celebrity. Initially, he refuses, but when she disappears, Waldo reluctantly takes on her client, a studio with a star accused of murder.

Hard drinking Alastair Pinch woke from a blackout to find his wife murdered and the cops at the door. He is a self-destructive mess, but he is a good father to his little daughter Gaby. Even though Waldo is not the sentimental type, he inevitably starts to question Pinch’s guilt. Unfortunately, he also takes several rough beatings from a group of gangsters, who seem to think Nascimento slipped him some kind of evidence.

Annoyingly, Last Looks starts with a long, preachy environmental lecture that has no bearing on anything that transpires in the film. Once that is over, screenwriter Howard Michael Gould (adapting his own novel) settles us into a pleasantly grungy Hollywood noir. The degenerate Waldo looks more like a homeless dude on the street than Jack Reacher. He is no superhero, that’s for sure.

In fact, Charlie Hunnam does some of his best work as Waldo. He looks a good ten years older, even before they start applying the dings and bruises. However, the real star is Mel Gibson, playing the hammy alcoholic Pinch. Despite any uncharitable comparisons anyone might draw between the thesp and his character, Gibson plays it to the hilt. He chews the scenery, but he also humanizes Pinch as a father and screw-up coming to terms with his mistakes.

Boss Level: Frank Grillo Tears It Up

Pretty soon there will be a movie about an actor who gets stuck in a time-loop while making a film about someone stuck in a time-loop, so we can’t be sure whether it is the time-loop or the script repeating itself. That day is not today, but believe it or not, the time-loop gimmick can still feel fresh, if it involves enough action and attitude. That is exactly what happens in Joe Carnahan’s Boss Level, which premieres today on Hulu.

Roy Pulver is a bit confused by the motley crew of assassins that keep killing him, but even more so when he continues waking-up at 7:00 AM, to repeat the experience over and over again. He is former Special Forces, so he pretty formidable himself, but the constant grind of it all is starting to wear him down. Eventually, he realizes his genius scientist ex-wife Jemma Wells (whom he still loves, despite his frat boy behavior) may have put him into the mad science Macguffin  to right some kind of wrong.

Sadly, he cannot ask her about it, since she was just murdered while working late in the lab. However, he can still protect his son Joe, who only knows him as a family friend, at least until the world ends each evening, sending him right back to 7:00 AM again.

Boss Level wears its vintage video game inspiration on its sleeve, but it is much more than a nostalgic tribute to Streetfighter and the like. There is a whole lot of humor, heartfelt family values, and old school action baked in. As Pulver, Frank Grillo looks and acts like grittiness personified and he has really satisfying chemistry with Naomi Watts and Rio Grillo (maybe that one shouldn’t be too surprising) as Wells and young Joe, respectively.

Mel Gibson is the Fatman

You're not wrong about the apparent decline of society. Santa can confirm it numerically. He knows when you’ve been good or bad, but these days, folks are more likely to be bad, which reduces Santa’s government toy production subsidy and increases his unit costs. Yet, more people want something for nothing, or in this case, presents, despite some very naughty behavior. One particularly rotten kid even puts contract out on Santa’s life in Eshom & Ian Nelms’ Fatman, which releases in actual theaters this Friday.

It was a rough Christmas for Chris Cringle. Present delivery hit an all-time low and coal was higher than ever. Evil little entitled Billy Wenan is definitely part of the problem. He has a long-standing professional relationship with “the Skinny Man,” an embittered assassin, to intimidate his middle school rivals. Naturally, when Wenan gets a well-deserved lump of coal, rather than looking within and examining his own behavior, he lashes out, hiring his regular hitman to kill Santa. It turns out the ruthless killer also deeply resents Santa, so he is more than willing to accept the contract.

Meanwhile, Cringle is suffering from a unique form of post-Christmas depression. To keep the workshop in business, he will have to accept a military contract delivering control panels. That means Captain Jacobs and his men will have added security in place, but they still aren’t expecting the kind of trouble the Skinny Man represents.

Fatman is definitely not a family movie, but it offers up a pretty amusing twist on the Christmas action movie tradition. In a brilliant casting move, Mel Gibson and his Unabomber beard play Cringle, drawing on all our fond Christmas season memories of the original Lethal Weapon. He looks appropriately weathered, but still tough as nails.

He also shares some terrific on-screen chemistry with Marianne Jean-Baptiste, playing Ruth Cringle. There have been a lot of movie Santas, but she might be the most memorable Mrs. Cringle. On the other hand, Walter Goggins basically just makes a serviceable villain as the assassinate, but Chance Hurstfield’s Wenan really is a nasty little kid.

Contenders ’16: Hacksaw Ridge

Cpl. Desmond T. Doss was a lot like Sergeant York, but he held fast to his religious principles. The Army considered him a conscientious objector, even though he voluntarily enlisted. Despite their best efforts to force him out of the service, Doss persevered all the way to Okinawa and the Congressional Medal of Honor. Deservedly tipped for awards consideration, Mel Gibson’s Hacksaw Ridge (trailer here) screened last night as part of MoMA’s annual Contenders series.

Hopefully, this means we can now forgive and forget Gibson’s drunken outburst. The selectivity of the outrage was particularly egregious. After all, Nicki Minaj spent millions to deliberately make a video drenched Nazi-symbolism and got away with a sorry-if-you-were-offended non-apology. Frankly, Gibson is one of a handful of directors who do justice to a film like this. We need them more than we need self-aggrandizing pop ditties.

Regardless, the example a Conscientious Objector winning the Congressional Medal of Honor is one we can all appreciate. Thanks to some boyhood traumas and a father still suffering with PTSD from the first World War, Doss was always a bit socially awkward, but his Seventh Day Adventist faith was very real. He supported the justness of our entry into WWII and duly signed up, but his recruiter clearly misled Doss into believing he could serve as a medic without touching a firearm or training on Saturday (his Sabbath).

Sgt. Howell and Capt. Glover will try to disabuse him of that erroneous notion, but Doss sticks by his guns, so to speak, eventually winning the right to rush into one of the grisliest battles of the Pacific Theater without even a side arm for protection. Yet, his raw courage as a battlefield medic, single-handedly saving seventy-five wounded servicemen (in a manner that is truly better seen than explained), will humble his fiercest critics.

Frankly, Andrew Garfield is embarrassingly miscast in Scorsese’s Silence, but the aw-shucks Doss is squarely in his power zone. To give credit where it is due, Garfield is pretty terrific as the slightly twitchy but deeply devout G.I. Although it is not a super complex role, Teresa Palmer is a humanizing influence on the film as Doss’s understanding fiancée, Dorothy Schutte. Vince Vaughn is nearly unrecognizable unleashing his inner R. Lee Ermey as Sgt. Howell and Sam Worthington is characteristically intense as Capt. Glover. Yet, the most notable supporting player has to be Damien Thomlinson, an Australian veteran of Afghanistan, who lost two legs to an IED, portraying Ralph Morgan, a G.I. enduring a similar experience. Since his dramatic chops are first-rate, many viewers will probably miss the wider significance of his performance, assuming he has the advantage of make-up and prosthetics.

The warfighting scenes in Hacksaw are as intense as anything in Saving Private Ryan, Fury, or any recent WWII film. Yet, the most hair-raising heroism involves the saving rather than taking of lives, which pretty much vindicates Doss, chapter and verse. Still, the first two acts are probably somewhat unfair to the Army. To survive a Hellish battle like Okinawa, the troops need to act as a cohesive unit, which is difficult when resentment and favoritism saps moral. However, Doss really did serve and sacrifice above-and-beyond what he promised (resulting in long-term health issues not covered during the film). He was the real deal, so it is nice to see him finally get wider recognition. Very highly recommended, Hacksaw Ridge should absolutely be in contention, including Gibson for best director. It is now playing in New York at the AMC Empire and screened to a near capacity audience as a selection of MoMA’s Contenders.