The Beaver: Mel Gibson can do crazy


Walter Black (Gibson) is first seen floating in the chlorinated limbo of his back-yard swimming pool; barely able to formulate a sentence, he's been diagnosed as "hopelessly depressed" and, once his exasperated wife (Foster) kicks him out of their Westchester digs, he's ineptly suicidal. As Walter trembles, drunk and disconsolate, on the ledge of his motel roof, the movie's mysterious Cockney-accented voice-over (a ruder version of the gecko that sells insurance on television) is revealed to be that of Walter's manic self — a ratty hand puppet discovered in a dumpster that, once it starts talking to him, offers him a means to reinvent himself back into the world.


Mel Gibson in
Mel Gibson in


Starring Jodie Foster, Mel Gibson, and Anton Yelchin. Directed by Jodie Foster. Written by Kyle Killen. 91 minutes. Rated PG-13.

Speaking through, even as he hides behind, his furry friend, Walter returns home. His younger son is delighted; his wife gets with the program once the Beaver explains he's been prescribed by a shrink. Walter jogs and showers with the puppet; he also uses it to address his employees, inspiring them to mass-produce something called the "Mr. Beaver Wood-Cutting Kit." The puppet is even there for the movie's kinkiest (and most inadvertently funny) scene, as Gibson enacts some hot conjugal sex with the movie's perpetually harried-looking director.

Gibson gives Walter's manic jag suggestive verisimilitude — particularly after the wood-cutting kit becomes a runaway hit and he takes to the airwaves, appearing with the Beav on Good Morning America, riffing with Jon Stewart, and interviewed by Terry Gross, who wonders why Walter needs his prop for a radio show. There's no way that Jim Carrey or Steve Carell, each formerly attached to the project, could have supplied this frisson. Gibson might be no one's idea of a method actor, but his pleasure playing nut-jobs, most apparent in the comic thriller Conspiracy Theory, seems weirdly confessional. (His more celebrated predilection — being beaten up onscreen — is also present, at the hand [sic] of the Beaver.)

Shot in autumn 2009, The Beaver was shelved when the monster from the Gibson id erupted last summer with revelations that he was verbally and physically abusing his girlfriend, and it has returned as something like a celluloid explanation. (Gibson pleaded no contest to a battering charge a week before the movie had its world premiere at South by Southwest.) Thanks to this lurid prequel, The Beaver is both exploitative and humanizing; thanks to Gibson's convincing conviction, it goes surprisingly deep into madness before resolving itself in a nimbus of new-age platitudes.


In Little Man Tate, Foster directed herself as the mother of an immaculately conceived kid genius; in Nell, Foster herself was the genius, a backwoods wild child with an invented language. She takes the maternal role in The Beaver — allowing Gibson the fun of babbling like a hyperactive 8-year-old — but she clearly identifies, having cited her own struggle with depression in flacking the movie. Perhaps that's the problem. Mel's character isn't on Prozac, but the movie is — a succession of bland camera setups, cued to a highly conventional score. If only the direction were half as nutty as the script or as whacked-out as its star!

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Brooklyn Bridges
Brooklyn Bridges

I thought Mel Gibson did an awesome job in the movie and I think people aren’t watching it because he is in it. I know he did and said some pretty horrible things, but people do make mistakes. I just found out the movie is now available at Blockbuster and customers looking for a new provider can switch to DISH and get Blockbuster Free for 3 months. There are over 100,000 titles including unlimited movies, TV shows and games. You can also go into your local Blockbuster store and do 5 in-store exchanges per month and some new releases are released before Netflix and Redbox. People can get blu-rays for no extra fee and there are no due dates or late fees which makes it a lot better than Netflix and Redbox. Not only is DISH offering this value, but is the only company to utilize Sling Technology and offer customers the ability to watch live and pre-recorded content streamed on the Apple or Android Mobile Device outside of their home. There is no company offering a value like this and now that I work at DISH Network, I’m always recommending that people check it out at!


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