Review of Blood Father (2016) by Christopher B — 06 Nov 2016

Review:

I really enjoyed this film, right until the last 5 minutes which was badly written and very disappointing. Its good to see Mel Gibson back on top form, with his intense emotion and brutal action scenes but after such a big build up throughout the film, the showdown at the end really let the movie down. Gibson plays a down and out ex-criminal, John Link, who lives in his trailer as a tattooist, after serving 7 years in jail, and is recovering from an addition to narcotics and alcohol. He's moved away from the brutal biker gang that he use to hang out with, and regularly checks in with his parole officer and chats to his sponsor, Kirby (William H. Macy) on a daily basis, as he lives on the same trailer park as he does. After being missing for years, his daughter Lydia (Erin Moriarty) calls him because she is being hunted down by some crime lord's after a tricky situation went bad, involving her boyfriend Jonah (Diego Luna), so her father agrees to pick her up and take her back to his place. While she is asleep, he finds a bottle of alcohol, drugs and a gun in her bag, so he demands an explanation from Lydia, who just wants some cash so she can start a new life. The crime lord's soon locate Lydia, but she manages to escape with the help of her father, whose trailer gets destroyed by gun fire. With a bounty on there heads, they fight to stay alive with the help of John's criminal contacts and his determination to keep his daughter safe. You really do feel the tension throughout the movie and Gibson's performance was believable and quite touching in parts. His daughter did get on my nerves after a while, mainly because she seemed to not appreciate the extents that her father was willing to go, to keep her safe but apart from that, I really enjoyed it. I would have given it top marks if it wasn't for the ending but it's still worth a watch and I'm surprised that it didn't make more money at the box office. Enjoyable!

Round-Up:

I'm getting a bit fed up with people boycotting Mel Gibson movies, because of his dodgy past and terrible mistakes that he made in life, because the man can act and he always pulls out a top performance. I think it's about time that people put his mistakes behind them because this movie is better than a lot of the big budget movies out there and I would love to see him in a big budget film with some A-list actors. Anyway, this movie was directed by Jean-Francois Richet, 50, who brought you Assault on Precinct 13 in 2005, the popular Mesrine starring Vincent Cassel and One Wild Moment, which also starred Cassel. He really did push Gibson, in terms of performance and emotion in this film, and he portrayed the relationship between father and daughter extremely well but I don't know why the script writers had to end the movie that way. Anyway, now that this movie has been released on DVD, I hope that it pushes Gibson's popularity back up a notch, and that the film gets more credit, which it deserves.

Budget: N/A.

Worldwide Gross: $2million.

I recommend this movie to people who are into their action/crime/thrillers, starring Mel Gibson, Erin Moriarty, Diego Luna, Michael Parks, William H. Macy, Thomas Mann, Miguel Sandoval and Dale Dickey. 6/10.