Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

I didn’t have any real expectations when I watched Mel Gibson’s directorial debut, Man Without A Face, though I was a little sceptical about how good it would be. It turned out to be a thoughtful film that was a touch too slow, but overall made quite an impression.

Gibson also stars in this movie as Justin McLeod, a man who has been horribly scarred by an accident. Having moved to a new area the villagers shun him, and make up all sorts of strange tales about him because of the typical fear of the unknown or the knee-jerk reaction to his disfigurement that most people feel. No-one is allowed to breach his personal defences until the most unlikely of people, a young boy named Chuck who feels alienated from his family and seeks the help of McLeod when he learns of his former occupation as a teacher. Slowly the permafrost of McLeod’s seems to be melting but various events lead to a situation in which his motives are called into question, and supposed events from his past are dragged into the present. Facing prejudice from every angle apart from Chuck, it seems, McLeod must decide whether the fight he faces will be worth the effort – and Chuck is forced to decide whose side he’s on, and who he believes.

Though I did find that the film took a long time to get going, the script packs a powerful punch with its poignant portrayal of prejudice and the victim’s reaction to it. Gibson gives one of his most studied performances here (appropriately as he is a former Professor!), and Nick Stahl is excellent as the young Chuck. Chuck is trying to find his place in the world, living in the shadow of a father he never knew, and surrounded by girls at home – a terrible fate for any young lad – and puzzled by his oldest half-sister’s seeming unreasoning hatred of him. It’s an emotionally powerful film that due to its subject matter is often uncomfortable viewing. In one way though I felt that the build-up of how terrible McLeod was supposed to have looked lessened the impact when we saw his face – somehow I’d imagined much worse than my eyes beheld (though as I work in a hospital perhaps I can imagine worse than some people?!?!) The scenes of McLeod teaching young Chuck – not just teaching him things but actually how to think – were very well done. Chuck’s induction into Shakespeare was quite amusing too. At a crucial point where Chuck outright asks McLeod if he did something that he was accused of in the past, McLeod refuses to answer directly – asking Chuck to use his reasoning powers to deduce from his own experience if he would have done such a thing. Some have complained about this on message boards that I’ve seen, but I think it was much more effective than is he’d just answered straight out – after all any answer could simply be a lie, and we as the viewer are also forced to ask ourselves the same question.

There were some good performances in the supporting cast too, with Fay Masterson as Chuck’s older half-sister and Gaby Hoffman quite sweet as his other half-sister who is much nicer to him, but whom ironically he is vile to. Geoffrey Lewis is also good as the local Police Chief.

Overall Man Without A Face is a very thoughtful film and achieves most of what it set out to do. I personally feel it would have benefited from a slightly quicker build-up and perhaps the ending wasn’t quite what it could have been, but it certainly was an intriguing film. Recommended.

Other Information

Year of release: 1993
Rating: PG (UK)./ PG-13 (US) for mature subject matter
Runtime: 114 minutes


Related Links

Also starring Mel Gibson:

Bird On A Wire

What Women Want

He also a voiced the main character in Chicken Run


Recommended: Yes