Pretty good one from Mel

Mel Gibson made his directorial debut not with “Braveheart” but with “The Man Without a Face”. It’s not a very original film but taking the 1972 novel of the same name, he shows a good head for inspirational material, sanding down rougher edges and knowing when to manipulate and when to play it honest.

He also stars in the film as McLeod, a character with terrible scars over half his body and face. He is a reclusive man, wishing to remain alone in his big house situated on an island right off the coast of Maine. Of what is known of him, he was a teacher at a military academy before his accident, though most are more concerned with the burns than him.

Many of the Island’s residents participate in rumors and gossip about their source- cruel names like “hamburger face” are tossed around and, when one person mentions he might be a Kennedy, another pipes up that he looks like the most famous one. Apparently it wasn’t too soon in 1968 (when the film takes place) to make JFK jokes.

Nick Stahl plays a kid named Chuck who desperately wants to get out of his all-woman house and into a military school. He has a habit of daydreaming, has major questions about a father he never really knew, and several people in his family and his school believe he may have mental issues. He is not close to many men, especially.

But once realizing what McLeod once did for a living, he works up the courage to ask the man to be his tutor. McLeod scoffs at first, but eventually accepts. He has Chuck digging holes, in what we believe is of the Miyagi method of breaking through defenses, and soon a kid who hates poetry and writing is learning about the wonders of Shakespeare, and McLeod is reconnecting with a real live human person again.

One of Gibson’s real gifts as an actor was charisma and he has quite a bit of it here- after a while the scars begin to fall away and we meet a man with vulnerabilities, interests, and passions. We believe he cares about knowledge and learning as much as we see a man trying very hard to live with a regret too big to bring out in the open.

Stahl is solid here, too, playing a kid trying to sort through a dysfunction that isn’t easily defined by a bad home life or troubled past. There’s much he doesn’t know and he’s stand-offish with McLeod, at first, before we realize he’s in need of a man in his life.

Are we, as a society, promised a truth from such people as McLeod or is it their own secret to tell or not tell? The stares and little whispers behind the man’s back add a whole other dimension to the story- McLeod has gone into hiding for a very good and specific reason and once we learn the actual story behind the scars, it makes them all the worse.

There’s another piece to this- in the book anyway. In that McLeod is far closer to Chuck, as well as another boy. Implications of grooming and sex were not just implied but seemingly very evident. The last third of the film also levels those allegations on McLeod but makes them more ambiguous.

In the end we see a friendship between a man and a young boy, while society sees something far more nefarious. Gibson works hard to make it an inspiring story about the former but you also can’t help but feel society has legit concerns about the latter.

The film has good points about people who are actual monsters vs. those we only perceive to be. Society can build up such hatred. But there’s also a flipside that those who seem pure of heart can also have despicable intentions. That’s the part Gibson doesn’t want you to think about on this journey of acceptance and friendship. It works, but it’s not as cut and dry as the film’s message makes it seem.