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How entertaining? ★★★★☆
Thought provoking? ★☆☆☆☆ 8 May 2012
This article is a review of HOW I SPENT MY SUMMER VACATION. |
“Like my old mother told me, ‘F*ck off loser’,” Driver (Mel Gibson)
And so begins the latest attempt to rehabilitate Mel Gibson’s public and professional personas. It is extremely difficult to review a Gibson picture. His reported views are offensive, and meltdowns disturbing. Before he aired his opinions, Gibson was at the top of the Hollywood tree, a charismatic actor and talented director, a purveyor of violent entertainment. It is far from easy to separate the man now from his work, though I will try.
And so begins the latest attempt to rehabilitate Mel Gibson’s public and professional personas. It is extremely difficult to review a Gibson picture. His reported views are offensive, and meltdowns disturbing. Before he aired his opinions, Gibson was at the top of the Hollywood tree, a charismatic actor and talented director, a purveyor of violent entertainment. It is far from easy to separate the man now from his work, though I will try.
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Co-written and starring Gibson, and making his feature directing debut, Adrian Grunberg, together they have fashioned an old-school vehicle that appears to be a reminder of why the LETHAL WEAPON star was such a bankable behemoth – this is wild and funny and action packed. HOW I SPENT MY SUMMER VACATION is a hark back to MAVERICK and PAYBACK – amorality and carnage.
An exciting car chase along the US–Mexico border kicks things off. Driver is dressed as a clown with a bag full of money. Ending up on the latter side of the fence, and about to be handed to US police, the Mexican cops spy the loot and decide to put the Driver in their prison – “You’re corrupt, we’re corrupt; the only difference is that we’re honest about it.” Stealing stolen money, is that ever a good thing for those who aren’t the leads in a film? Driver is in a less than pleasant environment, but also one with incongruously less constraint. “Is this a prison or the world’s sh*ttiest mall?” Gibson narrates. There’s even a grocery store. Free to move around at will within a mini-fortress slum, Driver not only has to survive (and he is extremely resourceful), but find a way out. A corrupt embassy official, the police, and a bunch of assassins are circling him. A sarcasm soaked voice-over, well-orchestrated mayhem, and plenty at stake – including a burgeoning attachment to a mother and son who live in the penitentiary – had this been made 10 years ago, this would’ve been box office gold.
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