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Considering how often the term "A-list" gets thrown around these days -- and how apparently inclusive it's become -- perhaps it's time to remind ourselves that there are, truly, only a handful of male movie superstars currently employed in Hollywood. In fact, you could probably whittle the number down to a nice round four -- a kind of Mount Rushmore of Fame: Tom Cruise, Harrison Ford, Bruce Willis and Mel Gibson.
We're omitting from consideration any trendy young turk who can't open a movie (meet Brad Pitt) or formerly big stars who sabotaged their already floundering comebacks with cult-inspired kitsch classics (John Travolta, that's your cell phone that's ringing). We're also leaving out anyone who did a few good movies but now treats his career like a humanitarian crusade, and every new project like its a three-hour public service announcement. (Tom Hanks, this means you; Robin Williams, also take note.) We're skipping over those who earn their millions by making funny faces or fart noises. (Jim Carrey, your ears are burning, and Adam Sandler -- don't even think about it.) And we're not talking capital-T thespians either -- no Pacino and no Roberts, either Duvall or DeNiro. We're talking big smile, big box office, larger-than-life, each-movie-an-event, face-known-round-the-world, top-of-the-world-Ma movie stars. We're talking Cruise, Ford, Willis, Gibson.
But, we further submit that one of these stars is not like the others. Or, to put it another way, if this is the Mount Rushmore of Fame, then Mel Gibson is Teddy Roosevelt, a.k.a. The Headscratcher. The "They put that guy on?" guy. The "You know, with a little dynamite he could be turned into Franklin Roosevelt really easily" guy.
How can we say this? Consider, if you will, the following list, compiled by the good people at Mr. Showbiz, and released in conjunction with Gibson's latest film, The Patriot. It is a list of Mel Gibson's ten best films, and it goes something like this:
- Braveheart
- The Road Warrior
- Gallipoli
- Mad Max
- Lethal Weapon
- Hamlet
- Mrs. Soffel
- Tequila Sunrise
- The Year of Living Dangerously
- The Bounty
What do we notice about this list? Essentially, that if these are the ten best films Mel Gibson has ever made, then he hasn't made very many good films at all. Like three, maybe. We'll give you Gallipoli, The Year of Living Dangerously, and, okay, Braveheart, since it won an Oscar™ and everything. As for the rest: Well, Lethal Weapon was fun, and a fine little action film, but if it's the fifth best thing you've ever done in your career, then something has gone horribly awry. And please -- The Bounty? Or Mrs. Soffel, a film whose primary charm lies in the fact that it conveniently rhymes with "This is awful"? Or Tequila Sunrise? Yes, that's an acceptable movie to have in your all-time top ten -- if you're Kurt Russell.
The more you think about it, the more you realize that Mel Gibson -- once the prettiest thing to plop down in Hollywood since Paul Newman shot stick in The Hustler -- has, in his dotage, turned into a kind of high-rent Kevin Costner. Both are sex symbols with alluring eyes and bland everything else. Both have built their careers on playing exactly one kind of role, over and over and over again, and both have the luxury of a dependable film franchise to inject said careers with the occasional, defibrillator-like jolt. (Gibson has Lethal Wepon; Costner has aging jock movies, a de facto franchise.) And both are among the more absurd yet correct answers in the trivia category, "Men who have won more Best Director Oscars™ than Martin Scorsese."
In fact, doesn't The Patriot have a whiff of The Postman about it? Sure, it won't be as long (nothing was as long as The Postman) or as bad (nothing was as bad as The Postman) but it's another vanity project that lets an aging star wrap himself in Old Glory for a few hours of tedious sermonizing, with some horse-riding thrown in for good measure. Since we've duly stripped Kevin Costner of his fame, isn't it time to take a good, long look at Mel Gibson?
How famous, exactly, does Mel Gibson deserve to be? Well, we'd like to downgrade him to a Kevin Costner, though Costner himself deserves to be bumped down to, say, a Dennis Quaid. So let's split the difference...
But first, in the interest of fairness -- because we at Fametracker are all about the fairness -- let's compare Gibson's top ten list with, say, a top ten list of Harrison Ford films, compiled by us, and which looks something like this:
- Raiders of the Lost Ark
- Star Wars
- Blade Runner
- Witness
- The Empire Strikes Back
- The Fugitive
- American Graffiti
- Clear and Present Danger
- Force 10 from Navarone
- Presumed Innocent
Even without cheating and putting on Apocalypse Now, it's easy to compile ten decent-to-excellent-to-legendary Harrison Ford films. Sure, maybe it's not fair to compare Gibson to Harrison Ford, but even Bruce Willis has a more impressive Top Three (Pulp Fiction, Die Hard, The Sixth Sense) than Mel. And if you want your mug on Mount Famemore, you have to be prepared to play with the big boys. Perhaps it's time to get that dynamite.
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