Paperaxle Reviews "The Beaver"

Mel Gibson once took his fame, bottled it up, shoved it up his ass, and lit the fuse. After the subsequent implosion, he now wants to uncork his butt and continue with his career.

I'd been hearing about this movie for a long time. Originally Steve Carell or Jim Carrey were going to star in this movie, but they soon lost interest, leaving Mel Gibson as the first person since Robert DeNiro (in "Taxi Driver") to be interested in Jodie Foster's "Beaver" (and that's a huge reach for such a dumb joke).

I used to like Mel Gibson, even when he was directing those movies in foreign languages that you needed a Rosetta Stone to translate. Then one day he was stopped for a DUI and was arrested by two officers he referred to as "Sergeant Sugar Tits" and "Captain Christ Killing Jew". Then he drank some more, divorced his wife to live with his longtime girlfriend and had another kid, beat her up and got himself arrested again for domestic violence, and then I, like any good Catholic would, gave up Mel Gibson movies for Lent, and never went back.

Until yesterday.

"The Beaver" is the story of Walter Black (Mel Gibson), the CEO of a large toy company who suffers from severe depression, which is affecting his career and his personal life. The stock in his company is nearly worthless, his wife (played by Jodie Foster, who also directed the film) wants a divorce, his two sons don't want anything to do with him.

Walter is living in a cheap hotel room, and does nothing but sleep and feel sorry for himself. He runs across a hand puppet (the "Beaver") in a dumpster one day and takes it to his hotel room, and, during a bout of attempted suicide, the "Beaver" comes to life. Walter can only relate to others through the "Beaver", which Walter wears constantly throughout most of the rest of the movie, and the "Beaver" begins to help him put his life back together.

Although there are some funny moments during the movie, it deals honestly and intelligently with a very serious subject. I very much enjoyed this movie, and would highly recommend it to any fan (or ex-fan) of Mel Gibson. This is the first time I enjoyed a Mel Gibson movie in several years.

The downside of this movie is that it will not get a wide release. It was released on May 6th, to limited showings, and is, by all accounts, a box office "flop", with the worst showing of a Mel Gibson or a Jodie Foster movie ever. This movie was due to be in wide release on May 20th, but the plans for that have been scrapped.

Keep this one in mind when it makes its DVD release in a few weeks. It's well worth an hour and a half of your time.