Crazy Mel: Nine to remember

I’m sitting here, on a Monday night, Corona in hand, looking at the sunset, switching from the Colts playing the Jets to “Lethal Weapon” on HD. Can’t imagine things getting much better.

Anyway, watching “Lethal Weapon” got me to thinking about my favorite Mel Gibson movies. See, long before he came out as a religoid wacko, he made a number of decent action flicks – along with some fairly good dramatic films.

Here’s my list:

“Mad Max” : Let’s start off with George Miller’s 1979 post-holocaust study in which Gibson plays the title character, a highway cop caught up in a devolving world. When his best friend and then wife and child are murdered by crazed bikers (led by Hugh Keays-Byrne as the Toecutter), he seeks revenge. And pretty much gets it

“The Road Warrior” : Known in some circles as “Mad Max 2,” this dystopian sequel is, if anything, superior to Miller’s first film. It has Max, now an outlaw, pulling into himself and, only reluctantly, helping a settlement escape an outlaw gang bent on stealing their gasoline. My favorite character: Bruce Spence as the Gyro Captain.

“The Year of Living Dangerously” : Gibson costars with Sigourney Weaver and Linda Hunt (who won an Oscar for playing the androgynous Billy Kwan) in Peter Weir’s film about journalists trying to report during Indonesian riots. Love Gibson, but I thought the movie lost steam with Hunt’s exit.

“Gallipoli” : Gibson plays one of the few Australian soldiers who survives the debacle of a real-life World War I battle.

“The River” : Gibson was thought to be miscast as the co-owner (with his wife, played by Sissy Spacek) of a Southern farm that is threatened by a deadly flood. But he pulled off the role, making it possible for him to break out of movies that accentuated either his looks or his handiness with weapons.

“Lethal Weapon” : OK, it might not hold up the way, say, “Bullitt” or “Dirty Harry” does. But Gibson does show a different side, one that emphasized his tortured soul instead of merely accenting his to-die-for blue eyes. And I’ll say that the three sequels don’t come close to living up even to the original.

“Braveheart” : While I’m not that big a fan of this revisionist historical study, I do admire how well Gibson looks with long hair, a painted face and holding a broadsword. “Freeeeeeedommmmm!!!”

“The Patriot” : Before it devolves into a blood-soaked bit of bad history, this Roland Emmerich film is actually pretty good. And Gibson is standout as a talented, if reluctant, killer.

“We Were Soldiers” : Gibson plays Lt. Col. Hal Moore, a real-life American officer who, in 1965, led his men out of a murderous ambush by North Vietnamese. My favorite character: Sam Elliott as Sgt. Maj. Basil Plumley. Not that Randall Wallace’s film rates with the best of the Vietnam flicks, from “Apocalypse Redux” to “Born on the Fourth of July,” but it’s certainly second tier.