The closest Mel Gibson will get to a cheap porno.

I took a gander at Mel Gibson’s Wikipedia page today to learn that the man starred in seven films in 2022. Precisely seven more films than I have seen Mel Gibson in from this year. And one of them is on Tubi? Oh Mel, I’m so disappointed. It was made as a partnership between Grindstone Entertainment and Emmett Furla/Oasis, the latter of which is the studio behind the Bruce Willis elder abuse movies from the last couple years.

Hot Seat is one of those films that constantly makes you go “yeah that makes sense.” Looking at the filmography for writers Leon Langford and Colin Watts you’ll see their entire portfolio consists of shorts and yeah that makes sense. Gee I wonder why two woefully incompetent writers can’t get jobs doing real movies. There are eight production companies on board and yeah that makes sense. Lionsgate shoved this off to Grindstone, their production studio equivalent of Alan Smithee and yeah that makes sense. The director is James Cullen Bressack, a guy who only gets work in Hollywood because of nepotism and I imagine he works for Quiznos coupons. Bressack’s dad is Gordon Bressack, the genius behind shows like The Smurfs, 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo, Animaniacs, Ducktales, etc. Ellen Gerstell, his mom, is a famous voice actress going all the way back to the 80s. James was involved in the elder abuse Bruce Willis films as well as a couple late era Steven Seagal films where Seagal abuses Asian prostitutes and those poor chairs his fat ass sits in.

Hot Seat stars Kevin Dillon as Orlando Friar, a man who constantly looks like he just got done weeping before the cameras rolled again. Orlando’s wife is divorcing him because creativity is dead and Kevin Dillon is going through his own divorce. In fact the six figure payout is probably why he’s doing this film and why he looks severely depressed. He gets caught up in the dumbest Saw trap when he discovers that his office chair has been rigged with explosives and he’s been tasked with making some hacking to get money for another hacker man. Speed 3: Geriatric Slumber. Orlando Friar is an ex-hackerman, meaning he can click keys on a keyboard really fast and hack things even though he says “I’ve been out of the game for a while.”

The dialogue in this movie is absolutely horrible, like it was written by hack fraud short film writers. The characters often act like they’re not even in the same room and they don’t have consistent personalities often dipping into terrible cliche one-liner. A cop says “if you two are the bomb squad then blow me.” The hacker says “you may not have killed anyone, but you’ve taken more lives than I can ever hope for.” Orlando pulls out his RGB keyboard because it helps him hack faster so we know the creators hired a real tech expert, and he specifically listens to royalty free classical music to help him work.

Sam Ashgari is here as Sgt. Tobias, a man who never knows quite what to do with his hands during a scene. Mel Gibson says “well the queen’s the most important player on the board. Just check the facts, what’s the next move chief,” a line that doesn’t make any more sense in context. You just know the writers have no self-awareness for their own lack of talent.

The great thing about Mel Gibson is that even when he’s phoning it in, which he clearly is here, he’s still the brightest star in the room. Shannon Doherty is looking good and seems full of energy given her recent health problems, although she’s bored as hell the whole time. Kevin Dillon needs to stop looking at daughter character Zoey (Anna Harr) like the two are banging off-set, which also might explain the divorce. Ava’s acting is worse than Ross Patterson’s in FDR: American Badass. The big twist in this movie is really goddamn stupid and obvious from the first five minutes, again because the writers are idiots. I’ve heard Kit Boga do better grandma impressions than the fake voice at the start of this film. Nobody reacts to things like human beings react to things and I’m not just referring to bad scene direction with CG explosions.

Hot Seat is proof you can take a loser director out of the Asylum but you can’t take the Asylum out of the loser director.

Rating: F