Blood Father (2016)

Truly Dreadful Film

Awesome Movie

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Most viewers will be pleasantly surprised with the plot and character ark of this film. It has a good pace and really does not drop off anywhere throughout the film. If your a fan of Mel Gibson (or even if your not), he is true to form like in Lethal Weapon or Ransom. He looks to be in amazing shape and his character comes across gritty, worn, and heart broke. Like a soul wandering through the world looking for meaning. His daughter is played by Erin Moriarty who showcases great range and emotion through the story. truly great performances on both ends. There is action/drama/and some raw humor. What the lengths a father will go to protect his daughter is defined here.

Down and out John Link (Mel Gibson), an ex-husband, ex-convict, and ex-alcoholic with a runaway 18-year-old daughter whom he hasn't seen in four years, addresses his AA support group. If he only knew that his daughter Lydia Jane Carson (Erin Moriarty) has just accidentally shot her longtime junkie boyfriend, Jonah (Diego Luna), when his gang intruded on a family's residence and killed someone. As she is on the run from the gang, he soon will be. Link supports himself by his tattoo parlor that he runs in his dilapidated trailer that is located in a wasteland. As the gang searches for Lydia she calls up dad, asking for $2,000. They make arrangements and he picks her up and takes her to his trailer. Not long after she sees the trailer in daylight, she says, "It kind of looks like you miss the comforts of jail." Ah, the little muddler of bad decisions has spoken! Anyway, somehow the bad druggie gang tracks down Link's remote trailer (in the dark!) and eventually wrecks it. Why it was done is a mystery. After all, they didn't really know that Lydia was hiding inside. But the jig is up and Link and daughter go on the lam. As the two flee, there are various adventures and escapes that involve lowlifes, a seedy hotel, a chase by Confederate/Nazi bikers, etc. A trailer buddy has helped him (Kirby = William H. Macy, an undeveloped character). But eventually the bad guys capture the little duffer and Link has to rescue her. Will he make it? Will Lydia survive? Anyway, that is the plot. Of significance in the film is the reconciliation, the restoration of the relationship between father and daughter, and this issue covers much of the movie's mid-section. The chemistry between the two leads works just fine, including the generational gap differences. Ultimately there is enough grit, witty dialog, and action so that Mel Gibson fans will not be disappointed.

Lydia Carson (Erin Moriarty) is running with gangsters under the control of boyfriend Jonah (Diego Luna). He tries to force her to kill but she ends up shooting him instead. On the run from the gangsters, she seeks help from her estranged ex-con father John Link (Mel Gibson).It's one of those hard crime thrillers where it's important to point the camera at Erin Moriarty's butt. I don't want to hate on people who revel in butt shoots. For me, it moves it away from a good hard neo-noir thriller. There's value to that move but without it, the movie could try for something darker and more brutal. Mel Gibson has it in him to be in a cruel viscous movie and this is set up for that. This is not that. It's a bit of action fun with a sprinkling of grimy dirt and an old hand in the genre. It works as such but it's not much more than that. The father daughter chemistry is fine. Gibson gives as much as he can. It tries to amp up the dialogue. It adds up to a solid B-movie.

Most people will expect "Blood Father" to be a modest, run-of-the-mill, action thriller with an uninspiring story but it's actually much better than that. Whilst its plot wouldn't win any prizes for originality, its fast pace, brilliant dialogue and well-choreographed action sequences make it compelling to watch and a storming performance by Mel Gibson (who does anger and frustration so well), adds plenty of intensity and edginess. The well-drawn characters at the centre of the story are a father and daughter who have to go on the run together and their unorthodox relationship and entertaining banter provide a great deal of interest and enjoyment as they both gradually discover that they're actually much closer to their own redemptions than either of them realise.Lydia Link (Erin Moriarty), a teenager who ran away from home a few years earlier, is living with her 30-year-old boyfriend, Jonah (Diego Luna). He's a drug dealer with family connections to a Mexican drug cartel and as part of his operation, uses a number of "stash houses" in which he stores some of his merchandise. When it appears that the drugs in one of the houses have gone missing, Jonah and his gang, accompanied by Lydia, go there and terrorise the tenants. When this doesn't produce any useful information, Jonah kills the man of the house and having given Lydia a gun, orders her to shoot the woman. After a few moments of hesitation and panic, Lydia accidentally shoots Jonah in the neck and thinking that she's killed him, immediately goes on the run. Terrified and with no-one else to turn to, she phones her estranged father, John (Mel Gibson), and asks him for money and whatever help he can give her.John Link is an ex-con and recovering alcoholic who lives in a trailer park and earns money as a tattoo artist. His only remaining friend is Kirby Curtis (William H Macy) who is his AA sponsor and lives in one of the neighbouring trailers. After his long career as a criminal, John is desperately trying to go straight and live a peaceful life but when his long-lost daughter contacts him for help, he can't refuse.After meeting up with Lydia, John takes her back to his trailer where he thinks she can lay low for a while but this soon proves to be impossible when some members of Jonah's gang turn up and demand that she be handed over to them. When John refuses, they ram and topple over his trailer with their SUV and it's only when some of his armed neighbours appear on the scene that the gang eventually decides to retreat. Realising that there's no way that they can safely remain at his home; John decides to go on the run with Lydia to escape the danger that she's in from Jonah's gang. It soon becomes clear however, that her predicament is worse than they realised as she's also being pursued by a Mexican drug cartel hit-man and the police who are following up their investigations into what happened at the stash house. A number of very tense and dangerous situations then follow as John and Lydia repeatedly come close to being killed before events lead them to the story's final, violent confrontation.One of the surprises of this movie is how well the relationship between John and Lydia is depicted as, after years apart, they rapidly build up a rapport which often involves sarcasm on John's part whenever he realises that his daughter has made so many of the same mistakes that he's made in his life. Despite the hard-boiled nature of some of their exchanges, the underlying affection that they feel for each other is constantly apparent and the subtlety with which this is conveyed is one of the most impressive features of Gibson and Moriarty's performances."Blood Father" is full of humour and witty one-liners (e.g. "she's every loser's lucky day" and "Kid, you've got the mindset of a battered housewife") and is also well-directed with great use being made of its locations and a neat symmetry being achieved by the similarity of Gibson's first appearance on-screen and Moriarty's last. This is definitely a movie that impresses with its well-disciplined and no-nonsense approach and will certainly exceed the expectations of most people who see it.