PAPARAZZI

Mel Gibson has been redeemed.

I was so scarred by my attempt at watching The Singing Detective that I temporarily swore off movies produced by Mel Gibson. Consequently, I've been steering clear of Paparazzi since it came out, only to find that it was practically made for me. Nothing like cutting off your nose to spite your face!

Paparazzi is a tidy little revenge thriller, and even though it's of made-for-television quality, it's satisfying in a Punisher kind of way. The gist is this: rising star Bo Laramie (Cole Hauser) hails from Montana, and though he appreciates his success in Hollywood, he's shocked by the relentlessly sleazy behavior of the paparazzi. When they start taking pictures of his little boy, Bo gets angry. When they cause a car accident that leaves his wife (Robin Tunney) severely injured, and his son in a coma, Bo gets even.

Cole Hauser isn't very believable as Hollywood's next big thing, but then again, neither is Paris Hilton and that's not stopping the presses. What makes the movie so fantastic is that the paparazzi are played by Tom Sizemore and Daniel Baldwin, two of my very favorite human train wrecks. Can you imagine how amazing this movie would be if they'd gotten Charlie Sheen to show up? Just seeing Tom and Daniel onscreen together had me over the moon, but when Tom called Daniel "an absolute moron", I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. Has there ever been a more acute case of the pot calling the kettle black? Kevin Gage and Tom Hollander round out the cast of expendable photographers, and you're not a bit sorry when Bo exacts his revenge. In fact, they're such awful, lying, scheming scumbags that you give a little cheer every time Bo craftily takes one of them out.

As if the "absolute moron" scene weren't enough to sell this movie, Dennis Farina plays the detective assigned to investigate the case. I have loved Mr. Farina since his Crime Story days, and yes, I even harbor a little crush on him. He's just so unflappable and quietly funny. He doesn't exactly connect Bo Laramie to the unfortunate events that keep befalling the paparazzi, you can see the wheels turning. He realizes there's something fishy going on, but since the "victims" are so unsavory, he doesn't think too hard about it. See, I told you he was cool.

Paparazzi works on several levels. There's the timely social commentary on celebrities and tabloids. There's the action/thriller part that builds to a nail-biting conclusion as Bo and the paparazzi match wits and face off. There's the Farina factor, the ingenious pairing of Daniel Baldwin and Tom Sizemore, and a cameo by Mel Gibson. Weirdly, the Bo Laramie character kept reminding me of Matthew McConaughey, and at the end of the movie Matthew shows up just to say "hi". I felt like I was watching some sort of fantasy that fell right out of my head, but I assure you it was all real. Mel Gibson has been redeemed.