The Rent Boy’s Moustache

A selection of faux moustaches: any of these could have been worn in the movie.

A New Film by Mel Gibson

Gibson wrote, directed, produced and starred in this epic coming-of-age tale about a young boy who finds his great-grandfather’s fake moustache in the attic of the family’s home.

Worn in the days when the great-grandfather was the star of a famous vaudevillian act, the moustache had been packed away along with various other family skeletons until the meddling young Roger Cox (played by newcomer Terry Dactyl) discovers it and puts it on. Suddenly the world is a different place for young Roger as he is seemingly possessed by the spirit of his dead ancestor, Roger Cox I (played by Gibson), who appears in spirit form and instructs the boy to do the most abhorrent acts, such as eating the family cat.

It is the boy’s father, Roger Cox III (also played by Gibson), who realises the forces that are at work and, in a fit of rage, throws the boy out on his ear. Young Roger is forced to eek out a living as a rent boy in New York’s Central Park, where he falls prey to some of the most evil predators ever imagined (most of them played by Gibson).

The film then takes a religious turn and young Roger finds solace with a local catholic priest, Father Phil McCracken (played by Gibson), and spends his days as an altar boy, all the time wearing the moustache as he lights candles and incense and tends to the needs of his saviour.

It is here (during an intense prayer session) that Roger discovers the truth about his family’s past and sets about avenging the wrongs done to his great-grandfather, leaving a trail of death and destruction in his wake. In a final, horrifying, and somewhat deus ex machina-type twist, Roger realises that if he’d only taken off the moustache none of this would have happened.

Nothing new here from Gibson 2/5