The Man Without a Face

It has a schlocky title and a rocky start, but then something happens - The Man Without a Face finds its rhythm and its grip, seizing the audience and propelling us straight through to the dewy climax. [25 Aug 1993, p.C2]

Minor reservations aside, The Man Without a Face is a moving and substantial achievement. [25 Aug 1993, p.1]

The Man Without a Face saves itself from sugary sweetness by presenting the friendship of McLeod and Chuck against a harsh small-town background. The screenplay takes off in some strong directions, while Gibson, in his first film as a director, keeps it honest all the way. [25 Aug 1993, p.E1]

Gibson stages the movie episodically, as a series of quiet actors' moments; his direction is scrupulous, tasteful, and, I'm afraid, rather sodden. By the end, he wrings a tear or two, but more from the story's sentimental outline than from anything he does to fill it in.

The story is full of good feelings, but as one sits there it all seems so predictable that you can't help but ask the point of it all. [27 Aug 1993, p.C]

The Man Without a Face also manages to be an expression of Gibson's well-known political and sexual conservatism. It goes to some lengths to pay homage to John Wayne (three times) while the anti-war left of the '60s is brutally caricatured as a bunch of effete snobs, and the women in this movie are just in the way. [25 Aug 1993, p.c1]

Usually, I am not so persnickety about such things, especially with first-timers, but the accumulation of mis-matched shots is so great that you have to wonder why some of the more experienced crew members weren't climbing the rafters to say “Whoa, Mel.”

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

This film is the debut of Mel Gibson as director, in a film where also it plays the main role, as a man who lives away from the other people due to his past and a serious deformation of his face, having by sole company and friendship a young boy, who asked him for private lessons in order to become a military. The film gives a very interesting message about the differences between people, the prejudices and the distorted way we sometimes look at people who are simply different from us. This is the great moral beauty of the film, which shows us that ugly faces may not mean evil intentions, and that we should not judge people without knowing them. Gibson is great in the main character, filling the film with his withdrawn personality and his mysterious past. Although the film isn't excellent, its a good exercise in direction of a multifaceted actor.