The Oscars (and other awards)

The Razzies could not be more wrong about Mel Gibson in Expendables 3

The Razzies put out their nominations today and the list is mostly the usual targets: Michael Bay, Megan Fox, Cameron Diaz, Nicolas Cage. They threw in Charlize Theron because they always like to nominate at least one big-name star who made a mistake and embarrassed themselves. The run down of “nominees” is so predictable, it’s barely worthy of a shrug. And yet there was one nomination that sort of pissed me off even though I know the Razzies are stupid and don’t matter. Mel Gibson for Expendables 3 absolutely does not deserve to be nominated for a Razzie.

Yeah, I get it on Mel Gibson. He’s a reprehensible human being who deserves our eternal scorn and derision for the way he behaved. He’s a walking punchline and it’s all his own fault. I get it. But you know what? That doesn’t mean that Mel Gibson’s work is automatically garbage from here until the end of time.

Did the Razzie people nominate Mel Gibson because he’s an incredibly easy target and that’s all they shoot at, or because they genuinely thought his work in Expendables 3 was crap? If it’s the former, then they’re no better or worse than any of the other thousands of people who take cheap potshots at Mel on a daily basis. If it’s the latter... then they either didn't watch Expendables 3 or they weren't paying attention, because Mel Gibson is fucking awesome in Expendables 3.

Of course I am not going to sit here and defend Expendables 3 as a cinematic work. Is it a bad movie? Yeah, it’s bad. Does the self-aware nature of its badness – it’s intentional badness, if you will – somewhat mitigate the badness? Maybe. I’m not even here to argue whether Expendables 3 can be appreciated on that snarky “so bad it’s good” level. It probably can’t, but that’s beside the point. The issue here is Mel Gibson’s performance, a performance I found badass as hell.

In a movie full of deliberately cartoonish, at times awful, at times merely hammy performances, Mel Gibson brings the real fucking goods. Mel Gibson clearly did not give a shit that his co-stars only cared about flexing their muscles, delivering their one-liners and getting paid. He didn't care that guys like Harrison Ford, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Dolph Lundgren were only in it to take their bows and collect their checks. Gibson attacks his psycho arms dealer character with as much conviction as he ever attacked any character in any film, and when he’s on-screen the sheer power of his off-the-wall Gibsonian madness blows away the cartoon shit quality of the movie and carves out its own incredible space.

In the middle of this terrible comic book blow-off movie is this amazing exercise in pure clenched-teeth psychotic tension. Gibson doesn't just play a stock bad guy, he gives you a sense of who this guy really is, how all the gripes of his lifetime have piled up inside his brain and finally after all these years he’s getting a chance to vent. You can feel Gibson’s own pent-up frustrations coming out in every second of the performance, and it’s riveting to watch. This isn't an old hack leaning on a bunch of tricks or calling forth the ghost of past performances, this is a real actor doing real work in a setting he knows is way beneath him but he doesn't care, because this is his shot and he’s taking it.

It’s a frenzied, magnetic, totally 100% committed Mad Mel performance and it’s awesome. Never for one second does Mel wink at the audience or otherwise ask for the bad laughs his co-stars seem content to invite. Mel goes for it, for real, and demonstrates in just two or three amazing scenes that he still has it as an actor. Mel Gibson can still bring it and the way he blows his action hero counterparts off the screen is proof of that. Every second of Gibson’s performance screams, “I’m better than these meatheads. I always was better than them. I always will be better than them. I am still the fucking man.”

Mel Gibson, maybe the Razzies and a lot of other people have forgotten, used to be considered a top actor. The fact that he’s now forced to make a living in shit like Expendables 3 is a sad state of affairs, and yes Mel is entirely to blame for this circumstance, but we shouldn't let this blind us to the reality of his talent. We shouldn't let our personal feelings about Mel’s behavior cause us to dismiss his continued potential to light up the screen with the force of his crazed personality and pure star presence. We shouldn't get caught up in hating Mel just for the sake of hating Mel.

The Razzies are 100% dead-wrong about Mel Gibson. The Razzie people should watch the movie again, putting aside their prejudice against Gibson and their desire to score easy points by ripping him, and really pay attention to his performance. Really watch what he’s doing. The movie is shit but he’s better than the movie. A lot of really good actors have had to toil in this kind of crap, and they haven’t let it deter them from displaying their ability. Mel obviously made up his mind that he was going to play this for real, not just phone it in or ham it up in cheap fashion for the paycheck, and that is commendable.

Mel knew Expendables 3 might be his last shot to show everyone that he still has it, and he wasn't going to blow it. It’s too bad the Razzie people can’t see this or won’t see it. It’s an injustice that Gibson’s performance is being thrown in with all the other half-assed, lazy, incompetent stuff on the nomination list, because Gibson doesn't deserve it. The Razzies just don’t know what the hell they are talking about on this one.