Blood Father
Director: Jean-François Richet
Year Released: 2016
Rating: 2.0
Link (Mel Gibson), a tattoo artist on parole, has been searching for his missing daughter Lydia (Erin Moriarty) for some time ... and one day he hears from her, and she's being chased after by the Mexican mafia (led by Diego Luna). Routine exploitation fare with an unsurprising script - Link's streetwise mess has to sacrifice himself to save the child he helped screw up thereby redeeming both of their lives, yadda yadda - that has a neat little speech around the midway point by Michael Parks' character about losers and history and, most importantly, an intense performance by Gibson, who's still an A-list caliber star despite the off-screen ranting (that's what happens when you try to quit cigs, I guess). Am I the only one who finds it curious that this tired exercise in dusty violence was released the same year as Gibson's Hacksaw Ridge, about a medic who refused to kill people? You know what Pvt. Joker said about the Duality of Man....
