Supposedly for the kids ...
But critics slam Mel’s role in ‘Daddy’s Home 2’, writes
IF YOU’RE looking for fun family fare this Christmas, why not try Daddy’s Home 2? It stars that lovable scamp Mel Gibson. You know, the actor who hit his girlfriend in the face so hard that (she has claimed) her teeth broke, and was reportedly recorded telling her “if you get raped by a pack of . . . it’ll be your fault”? Yes, that Mel Gibson.
News of Gibson’s casting in a family-friendly comedy raised a few eyebrows.
The sequel to 2015’s critically panned blockbuster Daddy’s Home casts the Bravehart star as gruff alpha-male Grandpa Kurt, who arrives to upset the delicate friendship between sensitive Brad (Will Ferrell) and his wife’s ex-husband, Dusty (Mark Wahlberg).
It currently holds a “rotten” 0% approval rating from review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, and Gibson’s character has been seen as one of its worst flaws.
Grandpa Kurt appears to be a parody of Gibson’s own erratic and foul-mouthed image. At one point he tries to entertain his grandchildren by telling them a joke: “Two dead hookers wash up on the shore . . . ”
The film’s director, Sean Anders, said: “The movie we made has an optimistic view of people making mistakes but growing and changing for the better.
“When we went through and read the script with Mel in mind, we felt he would be absolutely perfect for the part and we thought he would be very funny in the role.”
The critics disagreed. IGN called the film mean-spirited, half-hearted and unfunny, while culture news site Vulture branded it toxic.
By appearing alongside Gibson on screen, and singing his praises in interviews to promote the film, Ferrell and Wahlberg are telling their fans they should forgive Gibson, that they should laugh and move on.
“It’s a bunch of really talented people being very creative and having fun,” in Wahlberg’s words.
Ferrell went further: “[Gibson is] going to open audiences’ eyes with how great he is in comedy”.
Ferrell’s suggestion that Gibson could be back by re-launching himself as a star of family movies seems odd. Gibson hasn’t appeared in a child-friendly film since the Wallace and Gromit-esque animation Chicken Run, 17 years ago. Using family entertainment now as a stepping-stone to rebuild his commercial career seems crass and self-serving.
Despite its often adult humour, Daddy’s Home 2 is being promoted towards a family audience. Deadline Hollywood, in an unusually complimentary review, wrote: “It’s fun and forgettable stuff, but at least you can take the kids to this one.” You can, but should you?
Gibson, a recovering alcoholic, has taken steps to distance himself from the most widely publicised blot on his career; while being arrested for drunk driving in 2006, he called a female police officer “sugar t*ts”, and ranted that “Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world”.
Drink can make us say things we later regret. It’s unlikely that a sober Gibson would have called the actress Winona Ryder – whose Jewish relatives died in Hitler’s concentration camps – an “oven-dodger”, an appalling remark she claims he made while drunk at a party in the mid-90s.
But not all Gibson’s behaviour can be blamed on drink. Last year he said he had been completely dry for at least 10 years.
This would mean the actor was stone-cold sober when he chose to hit his then-girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva in 2010 (a violent act he admitted to in court). Nor would he be able to claim it was “just the drink talking” in the series of tapes which surfaced from that time, in which a voice that sounds just like his tells Grigorieva she looks like a “b **** in heat” and would deserve to be gang-raped.
Gibson’s presence has undeniably tainted the film. As one reviewer put it, “everyone and everything in it seem[s] uncomfortably sinister . . . and ‘uncomfortably sinister’ isn’t really a selling point in a family-friendly comedy.” – The Telegraph
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