The movie trailer hit heavy rotation on N.F.L. playoff broadcasts and elsewhere earlier this month. A pilot played by Mark Wahlberg is flying a federal agent and a government witness in a tiny airplane. But the pilot, it seems, is actually a hit man sent to kill the witness. Chaos ensues.
“You don’t watch it,” the trailer promises in all capital letters. “You experience it.”
None of the actors, including Wahlberg, are identified by name — the agent is played by Michelle Dockery (“Downton Abbey”), the witness by Topher Grace (“That ’70s Show”) — and the filmmaker is alluded to simply as “the acclaimed director of ‘Braveheart,’ ‘Hacksaw Ridge’ and ‘Apocalypto.’”
The movie poster is similar: Wahlberg’s is the only name in large type; the top promises, “From the award-winning director” of those three films; and only at the bottom, in far smaller type, is the director’s name: Mel Gibson.
Gibson — who won the directing Oscar for “Braveheart” and was nominated for “Hacksaw Ridge” — was also of course once one of Hollywood’s most bankable actors. He is also the same person who in 2006 made antisemitic statements to a police officer who had pulled him over for speeding (Gibson pleaded no contest to drunken driving and apologized for the statements), was heard on tapes leaked in 2010 shouting racist remarks at his then-girlfriend and this past fall stated that Kamala Harris has “the I.Q. of a fence post.”
Gibson’s return to the director’s chair for the first time since “Hacksaw Ridge” nearly a decade ago coincides with the return to the White House of President Trump — who last week named Gibson and two other notably conservative entertainment-world figures, the actors Sylvester Stallone and Jon Voight, as “special ambassadors” to Hollywood. In that light, “Flight Risk” provides a case study in how the culture industries will navigate a political reality in which conservatism feels culturally ascendant, yet the most successful mass products invariably have something for everyone.
By all indications, “Flight Risk” is an apolitical, tightly paced thriller best viewed with popcorn accompaniment. (Reviews are not yet available.)
“This movie looks more like he and Mark are having fun,” said Russell Schwartz, a veteran theatrical marketer and professor at Chapman University, adding that it appears to be “not a diatribe, it’s just a good, old-fashioned B+ or A- action movie.”
Gibson has done limited press promoting the movie. He appeared on the prime-time Fox News show “The Ingraham Angle” and the conservative cable network NewsNation (disclosing that his family home in Malibu, Calif., had burned down in the recent fires).
A spokesman for Gibson referred an inquiry to Lionsgate, which is distributing the film. Lionsgate declined to comment.
Gibson also appeared this month on “The Joe Rogan Experience,” the hugely popular podcast whose host became a prominent player in last year’s presidential campaign after Trump appeared as a guest on the show and Rogan endorsed Trump in the days leading up to the election. Rogan attended Monday’s inauguration ceremony inside the Capitol.
On the show, Gibson discussed his conservative Catholic beliefs (he rejects the Second Vatican Council) and his thinking on evolution. (“The Darwin thing? I don’t really go for it.”) He said he has three friends whose Stage 4 cancers were gone after they took holistic cures.
Gibson also promoted “Flight Risk” in broadly welcoming terms. “It’s a hoot,” Gibson said, adding, “I just want people to have a nice little ride.”
Gibson’s strategic press appearances could market to filmgoers who find his politics appealing without alienating others, said Casey Kelly, a professor of rhetoric and public culture at the University of Nebraska. It “makes the content seem taboo, countercultural, rebellious,” he said, “which is really appealing to young men.
“Being anti-woke is a brand more than it is content,” Kelly added. “Mel Gibson’s films aren’t anti-woke. It’s a way of making a name for yourself.”
Fred Cook, a public relations veteran who is a professor at the University of Southern California, said it was common for a movie to be marketed as different things to different audiences. Trailers for “Joker: Folie à Deux,” he noted, often elided the extent to which last year’s sequel to “The Joker” was a musical.
“They just didn’t play up that aspect of the movie, which is a huge factor, because they didn’t think it would appeal to people,” Cook said.
Gibson’s planned next film might be more challenging to market so carefully. He has said he plans to start production soon on a sequel to his 2004 blockbuster “The Passion of the Christ,” by some measures the most successful independent movie of all time, which was criticized for anti-Jewish tropes.
The follow-up, in which Gibson says Jim Caviezel will reprise his role as Jesus, will concern the Resurrection and more, Gibson told Rogan — from “the fall of the angels to the death of the last apostle.”
“You have different goals,” Gibson added, contrasting “Flight Risk” with this new project. “The next thing I’m going to tackle is more profound for me — it’s going to take more out of me.”
