Mel Gibson Seeks Redemption in ‘Blood Father’

Mel Gibson knows a thing or two about making horrible mistakes that can tarnish one’s life. He was one of the last major movie stars, whose name alone could demands a $20 million payday. As a director, he won an Oscar (one more than Alfred Hitchcock or Stanley Kubrick!) and helmed the highest grossing R-rated movie of all time in The Passion of the Christ, which he also made a sizable amount of money off of due to financing it himself. Then it all came crashing down as Gibson became a magnet for scandal, and the dark cloud of being labeled anti-Semitic and racist hung over the once proud movie star. You can’t defend any of Gibson’s words or actions in this dark chapter of his life, but he was smart enough to see the shift in his public perception and really drifted into the background for the past decade.

As Link in Jean-François Richet’s new action film Blood Father, Gibson plays a character that isn’t too far removed from the fallen icon’s reality. Link is a grizzled man, an ex-con that has burned bridges and ruined his life. He clings to his sobriety with the help of his trusted sponsor Kirby (William H. Macy) and makes a living by doing tattoos in his trailer for his trailer park neighbors in the desert of Southern California. An unlikely chance for redemption comes Link’s way when his estranged daughter Lydia (Erin Moriarty) comes back into his life. Lydia got mixed up with some bad people, having recently ended her relationship with the violent drug dealer Jonah (Diego Luna) by shooting him the neck. She has her own set of drug related demons and Link sees a mirror version of himself in the mounting mistakes of long missing daughter. After the cartels come for Lydia in a violent confrontation, Link finds himself in violation of his parole and hits the road with his daughter. The two must evade the police and the cartel’s hitmen if either is to survive and find redemption for their past mistakes.

Redemption is the central theme of Blood Father – whether we’re talking about Gibson’s character, the fact that Gibson seems to be using the character as a means of projecting some self-reflection, or that its director Jean-François Richet is redeeming himself after his previous attempt at making an American film with the underwhelming remake of Assault on Precinct 13. For the most part, everyone comes through with their redemption narrative. Gibson gives a performance that is both endearing and unhinged with a sharp sense of humor that elevates the material and reminds us why Gibson was one of the biggest movie stars in the world. Gibson’s Link is a fascinating character because of the actor’s own troubled past, and Link’s struggle to maintain his sobriety in the face of overwhelmingly stressful situations adds another strong dramatic undercurrent to the main narrative of attempting to save his troubled daughter.

A lot of credit for Blood Father’s successes should be credited to its screenwriters Peter Craig and Andrea Berloff. It would be easy (and rote) to simply have Lydia as a damsel in distress, the daughter perpetually in need of saving, but she’s written as a much more nuanced character with three dimensions. She’s in need of help, yes, but she’s not entirely helpless and on numerous occasions in the movie she’s able to facilitate solutions to problems when Link is unable. Erin Moriarty gives a strong performance that encapsulates the character’s vulnerability without making her entirely weak. While there might be some problematic elements about her backstory, the movie works mostly around these issues without emphasizing their troubling aspects.

Blood Father isn’t an action-packed piece of filmmaking, though it certainly has its moments of action. The film really propels based upon the narrative momentum, creating tension from situations and character. But when it does come down to the action scenes, Jean-François Richet does an excellent job in keeping it viscerally exciting while maintaining visual clarity. For all the good Richet does, there’s one particular scene that would’ve had an amazing moment of impact that is entirely bungled through shoddy editing, though I would say that’s really a lone moment as far as the action is concerned.

We’ll have to wait and see if audiences are ready to forgive Mel Gibson. He’s said and done horrible things in the past, but whether we’re talking about Gibson himself or his character Link, nobody whose transgressions haven’t resulted in massive bodily or psychological harm are beyond redemption. The fact is Gibson dug himself into a deep hole that has permanently sullied his reputation personally and professionally. Part of healing is realizing there’s a problem in the first place, and Blood Father is step in the right direction. It’s a movie that draws on thematically on its stars past failings and utilizes that edge for an entertaining piece of action cinema. If only all redemption tales were so thrilling.