Best: The Year Of Living Dangerously (1982)
Co-star Linda Hunt got the Oscar kudos for credibly playing a man despite really being a woman, but Gibson’s equally impressive in this drama from buddy Peter Weir.
He plays Guy Hamilton, an Australian reporter who's stationed in Indonesia, where President Sukarno is turning the landscape into a bombsite. Gibson gives his hero guts, and there’s no denying he looks all kinds of smart in a suit.
Worst: Payback (1999)
Brian Helgeland’s first film as director, and one that suffered from annoying studio tampering. It shows. The theatrical cut of Payback amounting to little more than a showcase for explosions and never-ending chase scenes.
Gibson plays Porter, who’s been betrayed by his ex-wife and former partner. Payback is a bland, mildly entertaining thriller that isn’t able to live up to its intriguing concept.
Best: The Bounty (1984)
Gibson had big boots to fill with this new retelling of the mutiny on the Bounty, a British Royal Navy ship. Previous films that told the tale had starred Errol Flynn, Marlon Brando and Clark Gable.
To his credit, Gibson’s interpretation of Fletcher Christian - who seizes control of the Bounty from William Bligh (Anthony Hopkins) – is on par with the character work he’s accomplished elsewhere. Gibbo refuses to turn Christian into an all-out villain, which works in the film’s favour, even if Gibson later regretted the ploy.
Worst: Lethal Weapon 4 (1998)
Three sequels and 12 years after the original Lethal Weapon , the wear and tear is beginning to show in Gibson’s pair-up with Danny Glover. That’s probably because, by now, buddy cop movies are the thing of bargain buckets and DTV.
Still, Weapon 4 has a good crack at being a decent fourquel, recruiting Jet Li, Rene Russo and Joe Pesci for another action-packed spin around LA’s criminal underworld. There’s no denying, though, that this is now getting very tired indeed.
Best: Hamlet (1990)
Now we’re getting serious. Gibson has become so confident in his craft that he decides to take on The Bard for this Franco Zeffirelli directed adaptation of Shakespeare’s play.
Mel plays the melancholic Danish prince, and holds his own against experienced Shakespearean actors Ian Holm and Alan Bates. Gibson described working with them as like being “thrown into the ring with Mike Tyson”. He comes out mostly unscathed.
Worst: Casper (1995)
A thankless role in this kiddie caper does nothing for Gibson’s CV, the actor appearing briefly during a sequence in which Bill Pullman looks in the mirror and sees himself as Clint Eastwood and Mel Gibson.
We can only imagine that it was Gibbo’s kid who set up this meeting. That, or he was offered a paycheck that he just couldn’t refuse.
Best: Signs (2002)
Helmed by director M Night Shyamalan before he was accused of disappearing up his own proverbial backside, this intimate sci-fi pairs blockbuster storytelling with an affecting, effective low-key approach.
Gibbo’s again playing a fractured man striving for redemption (is that a pattern emerging?), here a priest who’s lost his wife and is struggling with his faith. That an alien appears to have landed in his back garden is par for the course in an atmospheric tale that ebbs with real humanity.
Worst: Forever Young (1992)
Written by JJ Abrams, this sentimental drama has Gibson playing reckless test pilot Captain Daniel McCormick. He’s frozen in a cryonic chamber and wakes up decades later in 1992, only to discover that the world has entirely changed.
An interesting idea, but Forever Young is grating in its sappiness, and suffers from a truly horrible ending. The best reviewer Roger Ebert can commend it for is having “its heart in the right place”.
Best: Braveheart (1995)
Gibson gets behind the camera for a second time after 1993’s The Man Without A Face , bagging himself five Academy Awards – including the coveted Best Picture and Best Director.
He deserved the accolades. Braveheart is a raw, unflinchingly violent retelling of history’s Sir William Wallace. Who cares if the factual accuracy is way off? With Gibson at the film’s centre giving it his all as Wallace, not to mention the Hollywoodised Battle of Stirling Bridge, Braveheart is a towering achievement in filmmaking.
Worst: FairyTale A True Story (1997)
Gibson’s back playing uncredited bit parts, FairyTale continuing the Casper trend as he appears for mere moments in a part that amounts to nothing more than a cipher.
He’s the father of Frances, a young girl who discovers the existence of fairies when she manages to capture them on camera. Gibson does little more than leave his daughter for war, and then return at the end of the movie. A sad state of affairs.
