Mel Gibson takes the easy option for once.

Forget that The Passion Of The Christ is supposedly anti-Semitic, that it conveniently cherry picks the Gospels and that it’s more like “the most violent story ever told” than the Greatest. What about its real failing, one that’s almost completely overlooked? Why isn’t its director and chief sponsor, Mel Gibson, up there on the cross himself?

Few A-list Hollywood stars have trumpeted their devout Catholicism as loudly as Gibson (except perhaps his lead actor, Jim Caviezel), and certainly none have been as obsessed with depicting and inflicting pain and suffering on themselves onscreen. Wives and girlfriends die (Mad Max, Lethal Weapon, Braveheart), and kids are frequently threatened (Signs), kidnapped (Ransom) or killed (The Patriot). And they get off lightly.

Gibson saves his trademark, the Obligatory Torture Timeout (OTT), all for himself. In film after film, the eyes roll and the body contorts, his cheeks smeared with fake blood as he lets out those gurgled animal bellows, flopping about like a dockside fish. In the Gospel According to Mel, he’s a sinner and by God he’s going to be punished. For example:

In the Lethal Weapon series he’s bound, beaten and electrocuted (that’s just in the first film). And, if no one else will abuse him, he’ll even have a pop at himself. Remember all those self-inflicted shoulder dislocations?

In Conspiracy Theory he’s kidnapped by sinister CIA-types, injected with truth serum, almost drowned and finally shot. Then mysteriously resurrected, ready to reunite with Julia Roberts. Whether it took him three days isn’t clarified.

In Payback he has bullets dug out of his back with a scalpel, he’s run down by a car and is subjected by vengeful mobsters to a game of This Little Piggy with a hammer and his toes, which inevitably start to look like roast beef.

In Braveheart, his crowning glory to date, he’s publicly hanged, gutted and beheaded, all with arms outstretched on a crucifix-shaped sacrificial slab.

So, given that The Passion is basically one long OTT torment and martyrdom doesn’t get any bigger, why stay behind the camera now? Wasn’t all that previous screen persecution just a John The Baptist-style warm-up for the main event?

As flesh tears and blood spurts from cat-o’-nine-tail lashes and nails driven deep – all in lavish close-up - Caviezel grimaces and groans with aplomb. Compared to Mel, though, he’s an amateur. Gibson renouncing his destiny like this is surely a sin, but try to forgive him. Perhaps he finally remembered: he’s not the Messiah, he’s just a very naughty boy. Leigh Singer 19 March 04

The Passion Of The Christ, on national release 26 March 04.

useful link: www.thepassionofthechrist.com