It is impossible to review a relatively new movie featuring Mel Gibson without first addressing the controversy surrounding the man.  While what happened to him occurred a long time ago, there are many who still cannot stomach watching a film featuring the actor.

I can’t blame people for having that opinion.

It seemed Mel Gibson’s life went seriously off the rails at that time and he himself has stated he was in another frame of mind at that time and heavily into drinking…a mix that could have resulted in tragedy instead of what actually happened: Mel Gibson became a Hollywood pariah.

To some extent, he’s still there and the proof is obvious.  When Hacksaw Ridge, the critically acclaimed WWII drama he directed was released this year, TV commercials for the film stated something along the lines of: “From the director who brought you Braveheart” yet nowhere was it mentioned that director happened to be Mel Gibson.

So for those who simply cannot see a Mel Gibson film without being reminded of the things he did, Blood Father is obviously not for you.  For the rest, here’s my review…

Blood Father is a low budget “B” action movie featuring Mel Gibson in the title role.  His character, Link, is a curious amalgam of the “real” Mel Gibson and the types of characters he is best known to play.  Characters who hide an inner rage and may be just a little crazy yet are, in the end, noble and trying to do what’s right.  Like Mad Max or Martin Riggs, these people aren’t supermen.  They carry a lot of hurt inside and can barely contain it.  They will also fight for their loved ones and, quite literally, step in front of a bullet for them.

As the movie begins, we see Link in an AA meeting (here’s where real life, I suppose, mixes with fantasy).  Link talks before the group, offering a “state of the state”-type statement, that he’s been sober for two years and living clean.  Clearly the past has scarred him, bad, yet he’s fighting along, trying to do what’s right.

Link lives in a shabby trailer (not unlike Martin Riggs!) and works as a tattoo artist.  On the walls of his trailer are posters for his lost child.  Clearly, he misses her badly and wants to get back to her.

Meanwhile, we catch up on Link’s daughter, Lydia (Erin Moriarty) and find she’s mixed up with the wrong crowd.  They’re a group of violent, drug dealing Mexican traffickers who are in the process of strong-arming (and killing) people who worked for them.  Lydia can’t handle the scene and, accidentally, shoots her boyfriend and flees his violent friends.

Having no one to turn to, she calls Link and asks for some money so she can disappear.  Link hurries to get her but soon enough he’s confronting the violent Mexican traffickers as well as the police while trying to save his daughter’s life.

As mentioned above, Blood Father is a low budget “B” action film and I suspect if it wasn’t for Mel Gibson’s presence, and pretty damn good acting, the film might easily have disappeared without much of a trace.  Mind you, the way it was handled by the studios did a pretty good job in burying it anyway (I heard almost nothing about the film until it was available on VOD), so any success the movie has -modest though it likely was- is a testament to the quality of the film alone.

And there is quality here.

For most of the film’s run I enjoyed the movie, though I have to admit I groaned more than a little at the way Lydia allowed the bad guys to track her (Come on, girl, its understandable your old man doesn’t know about modern technology but don’t you know Apple iPhones can be tracked?!).

Anyway, regardless of this, the film moved along well and the action sequences were tightly cut, exciting, and never over the top.  There is even one action sequence involving Mel on a motorcycle that echoed Mad Max in the very best way possible and was, to me, the highlight of the film.

But having said all that, the film did have issues.

The biggest flaw, to me was the casting of Ms. Moriarty in the role of Lydia.  Don’t get me wrong, Ms. Moriarty is a damn fine actress.  I think she played her role as well as she could.  But she just didn’t fit the part of a drug snorting/boozing runaway who was at the edge of a precipice and coming down the drugs/booze while in the care of her father.  In this movie she’s supposed to be a young version of Link, something her father is all too painfully aware of so he hopes to clean her up and offers her something he never had: A second chance.

Again, Ms. Moriarty, IMHO, is a good actress but she looked a little too “clean” for this role and I found it hard to believe she was someone who lived on the streets for several years before returning to her father.

However, this was a minor problem compared to the movie’s climax, which for me was something of an abrupt dud.

As I said before, this was a low budget film and the climax of the movie makes that all too clear.  The final shootout proved to be the film’s least exciting action sequence, and it boggles my mind that was the case.  There was little tension and a resolution that felt hurried and, ultimately, hurt the film more than the miscasting of Ms. Moriarty.

Sadly, one can have 3/4ths of a damn good film ruined by the last 1/4ths.  While I don’t believe the lame ending of Blood Father completely wiped the film out, it took all that good will and, unfortunately, squandered it in a less than exciting shootout.

I truly, truly wish the film had done something a little better here.

Regardless, while Blood Father may have its flaws, it is an exciting (for the most part) film that features Mel Gibson in a familiar type role, one that he handles quite well.  Considering some of the other “geriatric” action films of late, even with its missteps Blood Father is worth a look see.

Here’s the film’s trailer which, unfortunately, gives a little too much away…