Blu-ray Review: 'Blood Father' Is The Perfect Mel Gibson Comeback Film, But Will Audiences Care?

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Lionsgate
Lionsgate
It feels like Mel Gibson is on about his fourth “comeback” by now, and it’s a testament to how much goodwill he has built up both personally with coworkers and audiences that there’s any sort of
demand for him. Edge of Darkness, following his infamous anti-Semitic outburst during a DUI, was the first and biggest go at it again as a lead actor, grossing over $40 million, but then came the secretly recorded racist tirades, and he’s been more-or-less reduced to stunt-casting cameos ever since, in the likes of Machete Kills ($8m domestic) and The Expendables 3 ($39m domestic). Both movies cast him as the villain, which seemed like a canny acknowledgement of public perception, but neither really turned things around for him, perhaps because they were too jokey. As any fan of pro-wrestling knows, if you want to make your “heel turn” (lingo for switching to a bad guy character), you have to start with an element of truth, and take it larger than life. Come to think of it, actors know that too.

Blood Father, which lasted in theaters for two weeks and, according to some sources (Lionsgate did not officially report domestic gross) has made barely over $1.4 million internationally, first shows us Gibson’s character John Link in an AA meeting, directly addressing the camera with a litany of what he’s done wrong, how he’s hurt people, and how he intends to stay sober from here on. There’s more: Link, like Gibson, is also a religious man who takes the creation story literally, and may or may not be bigoted, hanging out with Holocaust-denier types and insulting Mexicans by saying they’re stealing our jobs. He is also a man who has lost everything, but by golly will be a hero to his equally messed-up daughter nonetheless if it kills him. Now that’s how you do this redemption thing right. And in a year when half the U.S. presidential campaign hinges on being able to say anything you like, regardless of offensiveness, with no repercussions, suddenly a guy like Gibson (and his character, Link), who has actually apologized for his outbursts and taken the consequences, doesn’t seem so bad.

He’s called Link, by the way, in order to facilitate “missing Link” jokes about both his wild-and-crazy beard and life more-or-less off the grid (it’s extra-ironic since Gibson has said several times he doesn’t believe in evolution). Link’s living in a trailer outside of L.A. and working as a freelance tattoo artist when the daughter (Erin Moriarty) who has been missing for years comes back into his life, having recently shot and (she thinks) killed her master-criminal boyfriend Jonah (Diego Luna). Dad sees that she’s a junkie, so he screams at her some and gives her tough love, but when Mexican gangsters come by to shoot up his trailer, he decides to say screw the parole, he needs to keep his daughter safe, and besides…doing crazy illegal stuff is kinda fun, really. Though he does keep calling his AA sponsor Kirby (William H. Macy) to ensure he doesn’t go back to the booze. Killing, sure. But whiskey? Too far.
And it works, because body count aside, Gibson is this guy. This is an actor whose first big break in Mad Max came when he showed up the audition having been in a bar fight. The lines on Gibson’s face are believably the lines on Link’s, too. Tom Hardy had difficulty replacing Mel as Max because he seems like such an introvert, you just don’t buy he’s an insane lone warrior of the apocalypse. With Gibson, you believe it even without an actual apocalypse happening, though some of the car and bike chases in Blood Father bring back fond memories of that lone cop in the outback. And in the end the movie doesn’t take him quite all the way down the hatred hole, as Link is shown to have at least one Latino ally in prison, and a Nazi-phile friend he can no longer support named Preacher (Michael Parks, giving the performance Kevin Smith wishes he could get out of him).
French director Jean-Francois Richet was a fan of the original novel by Peter Craig (who also cowrote the script), and he has his regular D.P. Robert Gantz shoot it like it’s mythology – an America that’s still the wild west, all high contrast and sepia tones to show every wrinkle these leads have earned in their wild lives. Moriarty holds her own as Link’s daughter, in a performance reminiscent of a less self-aware Ellen Page.


I live for, and write about, movies, TV and toys.
Lionsgate
Lionsgate
It feels like Mel Gibson is on about his fourth “comeback” by now, and it’s a testament to how much goodwill he has built up both personally with coworkers and audiences that there’s any sort of demand for him. Edge of Darkness, following his infamous anti-Semitic outburst during a DUI, was the first and biggest go at it again as a lead actor, grossing over $40 million, but then came the secretly recorded racist tirades, and he’s been more-or-less reduced to stunt-casting cameos ever since, in the likes of Machete Kills ($8m domestic) and The Expendables 3 ($39m domestic). Both movies cast him as the villain, which seemed like a canny acknowledgement of public perception, but neither really turned things around for him, perhaps because they were too jokey. As any fan of pro-wrestling knows, if you want to make your “heel turn” (lingo for switching to a bad guy character), you have to start with an element of truth, and take it larger than life. Come to think of it, actors know that too.

Blood Father, which lasted in theaters for two weeks and, according to some sources (Lionsgate did not officially report domestic gross) has made barely over $1.4 million internationally, first shows us Gibson’s character John Link in an AA meeting, directly addressing the camera with a litany of what he’s done wrong, how he’s hurt people, and how he intends to stay sober from here on. There’s more: Link, like Gibson, is also a religious man who takes the creation story literally, and may or may not be bigoted, hanging out with Holocaust-denier types and insulting Mexicans by saying they’re stealing our jobs. He is also a man who has lost everything, but by golly will be a hero to his equally messed-up daughter nonetheless if it kills him. Now that’s how you do this redemption thing right. And in a year when half the U.S. presidential campaign hinges on being able to say anything you like, regardless of offensiveness, with no repercussions, suddenly a guy like Gibson (and his character, Link), who has actually apologized for his outbursts and taken the consequences, doesn’t seem so bad.

He’s called Link, by the way, in order to facilitate “missing Link” jokes about both his wild-and-crazy beard and life more-or-less off the grid (it’s extra-ironic since Gibson has said several times he doesn’t believe in evolution). Link’s living in a trailer outside of L.A. and working as a freelance tattoo artist when the daughter (Erin Moriarty) who has been missing for years comes back into his life, having recently shot and (she thinks) killed her master-criminal boyfriend Jonah (Diego Luna). Dad sees that she’s a junkie, so he screams at her some and gives her tough love, but when Mexican gangsters come by to shoot up his trailer, he decides to say screw the parole, he needs to keep his daughter safe, and besides…doing crazy illegal stuff is kinda fun, really. Though he does keep calling his AA sponsor Kirby (William H. Macy) to ensure he doesn’t go back to the booze. Killing, sure. But whiskey? Too far.

And it works, because body count aside, Gibson is this guy. This is an actor whose first big break in Mad Max came when he showed up the audition having been in a bar fight. The lines on Gibson’s face are believably the lines on Link’s, too. Tom Hardy had difficulty replacing Mel as Max because he seems like such an introvert, you just don’t buy he’s an insane lone warrior of the apocalypse. With Gibson, you believe it even without an actual apocalypse happening, though some of the car and bike chases in Blood Father bring back fond memories of that lone cop in the outback. And in the end the movie doesn’t take him quite all the way down the hatred hole, as Link is shown to have at least one Latino ally in prison, and a Nazi-phile friend he can no longer support named Preacher (Michael Parks, giving the performance Kevin Smith wishes he could get out of him).
French director Jean-Francois Richet was a fan of the original novel by Peter Craig (who also cowrote the script), and he has his regular D.P. Robert Gantz shoot it like it’s mythology – an America that’s still the wild west, all high contrast and sepia tones to show every wrinkle these leads have earned in their wild lives. Moriarty holds her own as Link’s daughter, in a performance reminiscent of a less self-aware Ellen Page.
Recommended by Forbes

In addition to several trailers for other Lionsgate action movies, including the Gibson-directed Hacksaw Ridge, the only Blu-ray extra is a behind-the-scenes featurette, but thankfully, it’s a good one. Director Richet speaks mostly in French, which may explain the lack of a commentary track, but Gibson participates fully too, describing his acting technique as having been method once upon a time, but being more instinctive these days. And we see him on the set both offering directorial pointers and being that wacky guy we used to love in the Lethal Weapon movies.
So is it time for audiences to forgive Mel Gibson? It’s not my place to tell those offended how to feel; I can only say that if you now have trouble separating the actor from the role, this a movie that barely asks you to. As such, it is a decent test case if you’re unsure how to feel about him. It is also a reminder that the best action movies generally don’t have any completely pure good guys in them. Much like life itself.
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