• Mel Gibson’s fourth film as a director and second archiveable film after 1995’s Oscar-Winning Braveheart
  • Gibson is an auteur—reminiscent of Peckinpah in some ways, Walter Hill, maybe Herzog a little– John Milius especially—violence, masculinity, revenge—all important themes for Gibson.
  • He clearly could do anything he wanted here after the success of The Passion of the Christ– a foreign-language film, no known actors, a blood-bath of a film shot in the jungle in Mexico here. Expensive set pieces
  • A talented crew- the DP from Dances With Wolves, James Horner doing the score, Thomas Sanders did the product design- from Coppola’s Dracula film and would go on to work with del Toro on Crimson Peak
  • Fall of civilization from within in the opening titles
  • Opens with humor, Gibson telling us this is their Eden of sorts—and that comes crashing down of course with sadism, torture (other themes for Gibson)—there’s not a ton of nuance—like James Cameron, DeMille- there’s a pure evil here as in Passion and Braveheart—a bit lumbering and general
  • Shot with digital camera– not quite the achievement 2006’s Miami Vice is from Michael Mann on digital but still- this is a very good film, gorgeous
  • Stunning sacrificial set pieces
Stunning sacrificial set pieces
  • A shot at 72 minutes moving in on removing the beating heart—and from behind the skyline of the set pieces in a row—dazzling
A shot at 72 minutes moving in on removing the beating heart—and from behind the skyline of the set pieces in a row—dazzling
  • Death to the conquerors by panther, snake, bees—biblical – the boar killing in the opening coming back around
  • A potent scene-  Spanish ships coming in at the beach in the finale
A potent scene-  Spanish ships coming in at the beach in the finale
  • Recommend leaning Highly Recommend. I do think it is Gibson’s strongest work to date as a director