Flight Risk proves Mel Gibson is still too toxic for mainstream audiences

Had the Mark Wahlberg vehicle Flight Risk, which topped the US box office last weekend with a modest but far from disastrous $12 million gross, been directed by most competent journeymen filmmakers, then it would have been a case of job done, box ticked and onto the next project. If you were told, however, that it was made by an Oscar-winning filmmaker whose previous movies have been large-scale dramatic epics — and who, frankly, would have done a far more interesting job with The Brutalist, although its overtly Jewish themes may have given him considerable difficulty — then the first question most people would ask is “Why?” And then when you’re told the director in question is Mel Gibson, the response is usually “Ah” and “Oh.”

Gibson’s name was nowhere to be seen on the (anemic) trailer for Flight Risk, which was happy to trumpet the film as from the director of Braveheart, Apocalypto and Hacksaw Ridge — all masterpieces, all movies from a hugely distinctive and exciting filmmaker — but was obviously concerned that Gibson’s reputation in 2025 Hollywood is still too toxic to inflict on unwitting mainstream audiences. Wahlberg remains just about an A-list star, although you get ten points if you can name his last three successful films, and supporting actors Michelle Dockery and Topher Grace are recognizable enough faces. The film’s premise — a mob informant is being transported to testify against his boss, and a hitman is posing as the pilot — is schlocky compelling enough. But Gibson should be the MVP, in any normal world.

The reasons why he isn’t are well documented. He went from being one of the biggest stars in the world in the eighties, nineties and early noughties to being an industry pariah after he was arrested for DUI in 2006 and made a choice series of antisemitic, homophobic and misogynistic remarks in the process. A comeback was carefully stage-managed, with the assistance of famous friends such as Jodie Foster and Robert Downey Jr., but, unbelievably, he managed to sink that too, with 2010 allegations of domestic violence, complete with suspiciously useful tapes in which Gibson directed all manner of slurs towards his ex-partner Oksana Grigorieva. He continued to get acting roles, but they were far beneath his considerable abilities. By the time that he had a rage-fueled monologue as the villain in Expendables 3, declaring, “So you tie me up like an animal, leave me to the slaughter, you humiliate me, disgrace me,” it was hard to differentiate actor from character.

Then, somewhat surprisingly, a comeback worthy of Hollywood came with Hacksaw Ridge, an anti-violence WWII epic made on a relatively tight budget in Australia. It quadrupled its budget and was nominated for several Oscars, including Best Film and Best Director for Gibson. He also had a high-profile supporting role in Daddy’s Home 2, which may not have been much of an artistic challenge, but nevertheless made a lot of money and seemed, once again, to have placed him on the Hollywood map. Mel Gibson was back in town.

Except, of course, he isn’t. He’s worked prolifically over the past few years, but apart from the John Wick spin-off The Continental and the still-underrated police thriller Dragged Across Concrete — the latter of which, incidentally, shows what a magnificent actor he is — there is very little that you may have seen. Films like Confidential Informant and Desperate Road not only have interchangeable titles and storylines, but Gibson has joined the ranks of former A-listers like John Travolta and a pre-illness Bruce Willis, simply showing up in straight-to-streamer filler for a few days for a payday. Hollywood may have allowed him to return to work, but there are too many people who would consider starring opposite him impossible — or, for that matter, being directed by him — for it ever to return to the A-list days of yore.

Gibson today makes no secret of his conservative leanings, being one of Hollywood’s relatively few Trump supporters. The president returned the favor by appointing him one of his “special ambassadors” to La La Land, along with Sylvester Stallone and Anaconda’s Jon Voight, and Gibson approvingly commented to Sean Hannity that, “I’m glad Trump’s here at the moment…it’s like Daddy’s arrived and he’s taking his belt off.” While armchair psychologists may find plenty to unpack there, those of us who remain divided on the issue of Gibson the off-screen man may be relieved that he has managed to get Flight Risk off the ground, as it were, but cannot help wondering whether this uniquely gifted director has a more interesting movie in him next.

 Still, there may be potential salvation in the form of a long-gestating, long-teased sequel to his smash hit The Passion of the Christ. Gibson has suggested that it will star a de-aged Jim Caviezel as Jesus, and commented that “I think in order to tell the story properly you have to really start with the fall of the angels, which means you’re in another place, you’re in another realm. You need to go to hell.” If there is anyone alive who knows about Hollywood purgatory – and worse – it is this particular man. Time will tell whether Passion of the Christ 2: Angel Delight will be a flop or a hit, but the past two decades have shown one thing, and that is that you cannot keep Mel Gibson now. And that, for many, is a cause to sing Hallelujah.