BLOOD FATHER
US, 2015, 88 minutes, Colour.
Mel Gibson, Erin Moriarty, Diego Luna, William H. Macy, Miguel Sandoval, Michael Parks.
Directed by Jean- François Richet.
Mel Gibson has been through very hard times in the last decade, personal crises, anger outbursts and prejudice, alcoholism, damaged relationships. And, he has been off the screen for most of the decade and has not directed a film since Apocalypto (2007). So, the question has arisen, at age 60 is his career over? In 2016, not so. He is starring in the thriller, Blood Father, and he has directed her a high profile war film, Hacksaw Ridge.
In many ways this is a routine action show, high octane, as they say – and it does involve cars and motorbikes.
The villains in the film are bikies and the tough enforcers of the Mexican drug cartels. covered in tattoos – handy for Link, Gibson, who has spent years with the bikes, nine years in jail, has learned and practices the tattooist trade and is able to recognise the meanings in tattoo designs and so assess the muscle that is pursuing.
His teenage daughter, who has not lived with him but with her wealthy mother, has disappeared for four years. She is seen teamed up with one of the cartel bosses, in love with him, pressurised to take part in violent raids with him, literally coked up. When he wants her to shoot someone and she finds she can’t, despite the drugs, her gun goes off with her boyfriend becoming the target.She decides to go on the run but also to phone her father who lives in a caravan out in the desert, going to AA programs, tattooing with a good supportive friend, William H. Macy, as his sponsor.
The film runs for under an hour and a half so the action tends to move, the daughter coming home, thugs tracking her down, gunshots, the overturning of the caravan, father and daughter hot footing it from the trailer camp, finding out what is happening – and Link still has some contacts in prison who enable him to get the background of his daughter’s boyfriend, and the increasing dangers they are in.
Link decides to call on an old friend about whom he was silent in his years in prison and believes he can ask favours. He is an old bar bikie, with Vietnam memories, played intensely and strangely by Michael Parks.
While the setting is California, the film was made in New Mexico with good desert and mountain location photography, just the place for a showdown, the cartel thugs presuming they are supreme and certainly underestimating Link and his shrewdness and ingenuity.
So, daughter in peril, contact with father, father helping daughter, both on the run, problem solved, but not without a great deal of pathos.
The film was directed by Jean- François Richet, best known for his double French film series, Mesrine, the story of a celebrated French criminal played by Vincent Casell and the remake of John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13.
1. A basic action story? Father saving daughter? Daughter in peril, the father in peril, criminal pursuit? Fights?
2. The title, the relationship between father and daughter, blood relationship but alienation, the daughter living with her mother, running away, turning to her father after many years? The father communicating again with his daughter, their sharing the experiences, the final reconciliation?
3. The New Mexico landscapes, the California setting, the caravan park, the towns, the desert, the hideaways?
4. The musical score?
5. Lydia, her age, with Jonah, the relationship, his power over her, the raid on the house, the violence with the guns, Jonah giving her the drugs, wanting her to shoot the woman, her fears, the gun going off, Jonah being wounded, her thinking he was dead? Escaping from his associates? Her telephoning her father, the years of no contact with him, asking for his help, to escape?
6. Link, Mel Gibson character, age, result, the beard, the facial lines? Seeing him first at the AA meeting, his talking about himself and his failures in life, character, drinking, prison? Receiving the phone call, promising the money, driving to meet his daughter, picking her up, taking her to the caravan? His reliance on Kirby, Kirby as his sponsor, in the adjacent trailer, their banter together, good friendship?
7. Lydia, exhausted, not telling her father all the truth? The attack by the thugs, the shooting, the crash into the caravan, Kirby and his friends warning them off?
8. Link, the decision to leave, the broken down car, starting at the last minute, evading the police? The two going on the run, driving through the desert, the phone calls to Kirby, the motel, the young man being helpful, the television news, the posters, the car and his helping them to escape? The arrival of the cartel hitman and his shooting the police, shooting at the car?
9. Link and his decision to contact his prisoner friend, asking for the information? Later shaving off his beard, the visit to the prison in his suit, getting the information, knowing all about Jonah, the cartel, relationships, his skimming the money, using Lydia?
10. Travelling to see Preacher, memories of the past, Parks as a father-figure, Link going to jail and not revealing the truth about him? The woman, tough, the gun? Preacher and his dealing with souvenirs, especially neo-Nazi memorabilia? As a cover? His talking with Link, his antagonism towards Lydia, knowing her from the past, knowing about her being with her rich mother, his criticisms of her as being spoilt? The gun, Link getting the gun, their escape, on Link’s old motorbike, the pursuit of the bikers, the shootings and crash? Link later returning,
confronted by Preacher, Link shooting him, taking the grenades?
11. The thugs and Jonah capturing Kirby, interrogating him, the car, shooting him? Taking Lydia? The phone calls, the rendezvous, Link and his riding through the desert, leaving the bike, Lydia and Jonah and the group in the car, the men going down to the bike, its exploding? The shooting of the sniper and his death? The fighting the car, Jonah shooting, Link killing the man, Lydia and Link escaping?
12. The pathos of Link being wounded, his final words, the reconciliation with his daughter?
13. A year later, Lydia at the AA meeting, turning her life around? The prison sequence, Jonah in jail, Link’s contact and their converging on Jonah?
14. A regular kind of peril, danger, inventions, violence drama?
