Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Blistering performances.

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 Gibson is great in the main character, filling the film with his withdrawn personality and his mysterious past.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.

The Man Without A Face (1994)Plot In A Paragraph: Chuck (Nick Stahl) wants to leave home, but can't make the grade for military school. Then he finds out the disfigured recluse named McLeod (Gibson) living nearby is an ex-teacher.It's a very touching and sad movie, and it doesn't fall into some of the clichés that you would expect. Nick Stahl gives a great performance and I think it features one of Gibson's best performances. Without going into spoiler territory, I hate a lot of what happens during the second half of the movie, and I was close to tears at the end. It took me a while to recognise where I knew Chucks sister (Gabby Hoffman) from... Eventually I placed her in one of my top 10 movies of all time (Field Of Dreams) There are small roles for Geoffrey Lewis and Richard Masur.Hamlet showed Gibson wasn't scared of taking chances; and instead of a safe choice Gibson chose this character driven movie as his first directorial effort. The Man Without A Face grossed $24 million dollars to end 1993 The 67th highest grossing movie of the year.

"The Man with out a Face" is the story of an eccentric teacher with a unique gift of reaching emotionally distraught pupils and fuelling their ability to learn. Calamity strikes his life in the form of a car accident while transporting a particularly responsive pupil home from a competition, who unbeknownst to him had developed a fixation with him. Even though he is an exceptional teacher he is ill-equipped, at the young age of 26, to deal with the ensuing escalation. When he tries to set the boy straight he regretfully is too harsh in the effort and the boy panics causing the accident. It kills the boy and leaves the teacher permanently disfigured.The scaring is symbolic of the internal wound he carries inside from guilt, coupled with the reinforced rejection of society, first in response to the accident, by jailing him for involuntary manslaughter and then as it treats him as a monster due to, first and unchallenged impressions of the appearance of his scars.Years later another struggling young boy enters his life, who will not take no for an answer, and convinces the teacher to tutor him for an entrance exam to a military college he is desirous to attend. His unorthodox style brings perspective and enlightenment to more than just the subjects for the entrance exam but also to the boys life and his own. They find in each other both true friendship and the dignity and lightening effects of grace. Learning to trust in the face of all the apparently well meaning yet paranoid and unruly responses of those who assert themselves to be responsible and clear.This film brings a wonderful insight to the mistaken impressions that can happen in society when the right questions are never asked within the mind and heart of the individual or by officials. And once asked, whether they are clearly heard or not, without the bias of agenda. It also addresses the question of what people believe societal authorities should be acting upon and what they actually are constrained to. How the disconnect between the personal desire for truth to rule the day conflicts with the assumptions made by those in the legal system, which admittedly is driven not by interested in justice but rather the strict application of the code, the way it exists at the time of an offence.The film exposes the nature of the corruption of the individual through the weights of life and error and the rationalization of the fear of facing that nature, in order to see the truth ourselves. The clear truth, the honest truth, that we are all flawed, all monsters and all, contrastingly, capable of extending grace to lift that weight in the lives of others, if we are willing to dare, with a little empathy and simple understanding, enter a path that can result in a better kind of life.This battle, that continues to go on everywhere, between the desire for personal accountability to oneself and through this the collective governing of society by conscience and respect contrasting the desire to throw that responsibility on external representatives who society has dubbed authorities, and through that become victim to the fickle impressions of a few.The resultant situation exposes the the very real hypocritical nature that exists in the dichotomy in most cultures today. Leaving only the impression of dignity, the vainer of office and the shallowness and illusion of control when confronted by the true dignity of someone with moral substance. That which exists in the hearts of those who except the challenge of stepping into the work of needful change.A very good watch, if you will allow yourself the change.Volpe Verte. Aug. 2nd 2014.

There are such special people in our lives that we cherish regarding them as those who left an undeniable trace on our memory lane. These people left a bit of themselves in us not through words but deeds that awed us. Yes, example speaks far more powerfully than words. Such is the theme of this wonderful movie where you cannot see everything if you rely solely on the basic senses. Amidst a lot of reviews on the movie, Roger Ebert's observation occurred most convincing to me: "this movie's theme is trust" while "the most striking element is the intelligence of the language."Chuck Norstad is a simple youngster, there is nothing unusual about him. Yet, some delicacy of his character and inner conflicts resulting from his upbringing, the absence of a man in the family, some confusion stimulated by female dominance in his house do not allow him to listen to his own inner voice, his male voice. An ambiguous situation in his home truly considers a serious obstacle. His peers, therefore, ignore him and mock him. His destiny, however, grants him with a wondrous gift, a teacher like no one else, one Mr Justin McLeod, misunderstood terribly by the locals, a man seemingly living as a recluse within the walls of his own world, a tutor, a friend, a face that will always be with him from the moment they fist meet. Yet, far is the way from overcoming the fear of "otherness" of this man to friendship of uncommon and unpredictable price...The movie's major strength, apart from the two wonderful performances that I am going to discuss later, lies in the austere form it takes. That is clearly revealed in the language (somewhere, images speak more than script, elsewhere, the script is clever and very much corresponds to the feelings of particular scenes). It is no preaching, prescriptive picture of human relations, it is no wordy script delivered with considerable pomp, it is just a simple, natural and genuine depiction of growing friendship that does not take into account any borders, like age difference, some background rumors or any other prejudice. Consider, though, that this friendship, which is also tutorship, does not exclude any storms of diverse emotions, torments, confusion. It is no oasis of idyll in the boy's escape world. It is natural, growing under the custody of mutual loyalty and honesty. And performances?No wonder that all the supporting cast appear in the shadow of the two leading characters, Nick Stahl as Chuch and Mel Gibson as McLeod. What a wonderful duality the two deliver in their roles, what a splendid bunch of diverse human emotions!Nick Stahl gives a tremendous performers for his age delivering all that is necessary for is role and supplying us with additional assumptions about the boy of his age. The difficult age of puberty is handled in a respectively subtle manner. In one scene, we see him looking at the Playboy magazine and there is a slight indication of the strong connection between the visual and mental stimuli. What this boy sees is deeply carved in his psyche, what he experiences is deeply influenced by his ever-going unpredictability. However, he is most interesting in the relation with Justin McLeod: the growing trust, the growing desire for loyalty, mutual understanding and, foremost, ability to think on his own. He is a good student who has a good teacher, the one who helps him, inspires him to discover the complexities of the world around, including hard, witty, challenging, rewarding moments. Mel Gibson is impressively captivating as a disfigured character, a man of great inner conflicts and intense abandonment, yet, a man who can beautifully capture the very essence of good vs evil. One of the most memorable moments is when he recites Shakespeare's MERCHANT OF VENICE to little Chuck and focuses on the aspect that, seemingly, refers to his personal situation. Inspiring and touching. His early meetings with Chuck are most interesting, though. The growing confidence endangered from time to time by some vague, even bizarre reactions memorably build up emotional resonance of the relation that is crucial for the story to be rightly interpreted. We do not find out much about his past, that does not matter. We are to conclude as the boy is to conclude who the man is once you get to know him in reality and put aside all you have merely heard of him.An educational film highly worth seeing! A movie that captures the gist of those few human relations that deserve to be called 'friendships.' Yes, a human being can be far more to another human being than just a sheer stranger, someone who meet and pass by, whose face you easily forget. He can be a unique 'face,' somewhere out beyond the edge of the crowd, which, for some short period perhaps, gives freely and generously moments of grace.