Action and drama

FILM: Blood Father
CAST: Mel Gibson, Erin Moriarty, Diego Luna and William H Macy
DIRECTION: Jean-Francois Richet

Directed by Jean-Francois Richet, the man behind the remake of Assault On Precinct 13, Blood Father stars Mel Gibson as a man named John Link. He’s recently been paroled and has quit the bottle, thanks to some help from his sponsor Kirby (William H Macy), and is making a new life for himself as a tattoo artist.
He lives in a trailer in the American southwest and more or less keeps out of trouble. Then one day he gets a phone call from Lydia (Erin Moriarty), his estranged daughter. She’s been missing in action for a while now but calls him out of the blue because she needs his help. John never really gave up hope when she went missing, so he’s quite enthused to hear from her even if it’s under circumstances that are less than ideal.
While Lydia was off doing her own thing away from her old man, she was running with some Mexican gangsters. She got involved with a man named Jonah (Diego Luna) and during one of their runs, things got bad and she wound up shooting him. Now she’s essentially on the run from those gangsters. John sees this as a chance to reconnect with his daughter and make up for past mistakes, but of course, along the way he’ll have to break parole about as often as he’ll have to break some necks. John’s not going to let the bad guys get to his girl, no matter how much all of this might frustrate Kirby.
This movie might string together a bunch of cliches as far as the plot is concerned, but it does this well. Maybe more surprising is how strong the character development is here. Yes, there are some pretty intense action set pieces and the chance to see Gibson busting heads and shooting bad guys will certainly be the main draw here, but there are dramatic moments between father and daughter that are quite well done.
The characters are nicely fleshed out and have some depth to them. Just as much of this stems from the performances, however. The movie plays to Gibons’s strengths as an action hero.
Some of the dialogue is pretty funny, witty even, but not to the point where it feels out of place with what’s happening to our characters. The action scenes are grounded, never too over-the-top, and more exciting and tense for it. - IJ