Blood Father 2016

     This film is an adaptation of a novel by Peter Craig.  Link is out of prison, two years sober and on probation.  He lives in a trailer in the California desert and he makes a living as a tattoo artist.  His daughter Lydia gets mixed up with some very rough drug dealers.  She calls Link and asks him to bail her out of her jam.  She needs $2000, she’s on both drugs and alcohol.  She comes to stay with him for a while in the trailer but the dealers are not letting her off this easy.  They come to get both of them and anyone else inside the trailer. 

     This film reminded me of the Taken franchise with Liam Neeson and Maggie Grace.  In this case, Lydia walked into her problems without being taken.  There was a time when Gibson was personally doing everything possible to derail any kind of film career on both sides of the camera!!  I thought it was interesting in a scene with Lydia in a market.  She could buy boxes of bullets but she needed to be carded for a pack of Camel Lights?  There was also a complaint from one of the dealers about the missing cigarettes!!  There isn’t much new here but there are some good scenes and stunts.  3 ½* (I liked this movie)

88 min, Action directed by Jean-Francois Richet with Mel Gibson, Erini Moriarty, Diego Luna, Michael Parks, William H. Macy, Miguel Sandoval, Dale Dickey, Richard Cabral, Daniel Moncada, Ryan Dorsey, Lucien Dale.

Note:  Imdb 6.4 out of 10, 88% critic 63% audience on Rotten Tomatoes, Roger Ebert 3*, 3.9* out of 5* with 1032 reviews, Metacritic 66 out of 100 with 16 critics 6.7 out of 10 with 77 reviews.

Special Note:  Filmed in Belen and Laguna, New Mexico.  Originally, in 2008 Sylvester Stallone was planning to direct and star in this film.  In Lethal Weapon 2 of 1989, Mel Gibson also lives in a trailer and gets shot at by the bad guys.  Gibson was had a job as a tattoo artist in Fathers’ Day 1997 with Robin Williams and Billy Crystal.  Richet also directed both Mockingjay films, The Town with Ben Affleck and the Mesrine epic.