Blood Father

There are few more exhil­a­rat­ing sights in all of cin­e­ma than Mel Gib­son unleash­ing a world of hurt on a bunch of crack-eyed, greasy-haired crooks. In the lean yet mus­cu­lar Blood Father, French direc­tor Jean-François Richet (Mes­rine) proves just that by suc­cess­ful­ly cast­ing the sea­soned action star as an ex-con and recov­er­ing alco­holic sim­ply named Link.

From his dust­bowl base some­where in the Cal­i­for­nia desert, he runs a tat­too par­lour called, erm, ​‘Miss­ing Link Tat­too’, but his hum­ble exis­tence is rude­ly dis­rupt­ed by estranged daugh­ter Lydia (Erin Mori­ar­ty) who resur­faces after fatal­ly clash­ing with her lowlife drug deal­er boyf (an extreme­ly ham­my Diego Luna). Sin­cere in his will to repent pre­vi­ous untold sins, Link is ini­tial­ly reluc­tant to fight fire with fire when some local car­tel punks swiss-cheese his trail­er. His neigh­bour and AA spon­sor Kir­by (William H Macy, great as ever) repeat­ed­ly tries to per­suade him to stay on the straight and nar­row but to no avail – Link’s mad as Mel, and he’s not going to take it anymore.

Iron­i­cal­ly, the redemp­tion Link seeks arrives only after he breaks parole in emphat­ic, high­ly enter­tain­ing fash­ion. Beard­ed, beefed up and cov­ered in prison ink, this is by far the most intim­i­dat­ing Gib­son anti­hero since Porter from 1999’s Pay­back and his most dan­ger­ous­ly charis­mat­ic since Lethal Weapon​’s Mar­tin Rig­gs. Cru­cial­ly, there’s an emo­tion­al vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty about the char­ac­ter too. Maybe it’s his age – the creased brow, the grey­ing hair, the world-weary wis­dom behind his pierc­ing eyes – but there’s some­thing sober­ing about Gib­son’ per­for­mance here, a psy­cho­log­i­cal frailty which grounds the film in some­thing real and relatable.

In a no-non­sense throw­back crime-thriller that admit­ted­ly sets the bar pret­ty low for itself, Gib­son does what he does best, and that’s more than enough. The fact that he (deserved­ly) spent the best part of the last decade in exile was on reflec­tion Liam Neeson’s gain and Hollywood’s loss. When it comes to dish­ing out old-school street jus­tice and set­tling scores, there’s still no one bet­ter equipped.