Mel Gibson is one actor, producer, writer, and director who has had a lot of highs and lows in his career over the past few decades. After a terrible dip in his career in the mid-2000s, it looks like he is starting to produce great material once again, starting with his new film, Hacksaw Ridge. This is what is known about Hacksaw Ridge with its release date and the future of Mel.
Deadline Hollywood revealed that a screening of Mel's latest film, Hacksaw Ridge, had a 10-minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival. It is not common for standing ovations to happen at this particular festival, and Gibson and the actors (which included stars of Andrew Garfield, Vince Vaughn, Hug Weaving, Teresa Palmer, and Luke Bracey) eventually walked down to the audience to interact.
Hacksaw Ridge is about Desmond T. Doss, a conscientious objector who saved 75 men in Okinawa, and he never carried a gun. It is a faith-based film showing the horrors of war, and Gibson has stated how much the real-life situation inspired him.
A recent report on Patheos states that Gibson made some slight changes to Hacksaw Ridge to make it more acceptable for Christian audiences. He cut out all of the f-bombs and taking of the Lord's name in vain, as reported by Brian Godawa, a Christian novelist, screenwriter, and blogger. The film still has a lot of blood and gore violence befitting a war film.
Gibson's new film is also receiving good reviews from those who have seen it, with a 9.3 showing on the imdb page. This is a good sign that his career is on the up and up again.
After all, Gibson is a man who started his career with action films like the original Mad Max and Lethal Weapon series. After that, he was seen as the Sexiest Man Alive and started doing romantic comedies as well as gritty action films such as Braveheart as well.
He had established himself as a Christian family man with The Passion of the Christ, which achieved much praise from the Christian community as well as mainstream reviewers as well in 2004. The film was has been viewed by many critics as anti-Semitic, and Gibson himself was accused of anti-Semitism at that time.
Unfortunately, his career and personal life took a disastrous turn with his arrest of driving under the influence (DUI), and then making very anti-Semitic comments afterward. He received treatment for his alcoholism as well as visiting Jewish leaders and apologizing, and he has had other controversial things come up with Oksana Grigorieva, the mother of Gibson's daughter Lucia.
There is a bit of a controversy that the actor/director did bring up at the Venice Film Festival, as it has been reported on MSN that Mel believes that Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice is a piece of s___. Part of it is Mel's beliefs that real heroes don't wear Spandex, and the his film was done at a lower budget than most superhero films.
Mel Gibson has taken a few roles since those darker days, appearing in films like Edge of Darkness and the recent Blood Father, both darker films about a father and his daughter. He also played the main villain in Sylvester Stallone's Expendables 3, and did an incredible job.
It has actually been 10 years since Mel has directed a film, and he is off to a good start with this one. Hacksaw Ridge will premiere in American theaters on November 4, 2016. His next project is going to be familiar and ambitious as he will handle the sequel to The Passion of the Christ with The Ressurection.
