I didn’t beat a path to see Mel Gibson and Jean-Francois Richet‘s Blood Father because it felt like too much of a rage-driven exploitation retread — a grizzled, tattooed dad with a criminal past protects an alienated, errant daughter from drug dealers. I figured it might be another Get The Gringo, which no one paid attention to. Yes, it managed an 88% Rotten Tomatoes rating when it opened on 8.12, but I still resisted. I figured at least some of the critics were giving Gibson a sympathy pass or paying tribute to the charismatic big-bucks hotshot he used to be.
Well, I was wrong. I finally watched Blood Father last night (it’s streaming on Amazon prior to the 10.11 Bluray debut), and damned if isn’t a highly efficient action-exploitation flick, like something Don Siegel might have made in his prime. It’s tight and well-layered, the writing is character-driven and flavorful and often amusing, the action is grounded and realistic (credit Richet, who directed those excellent, similarly grounded Mesrine flicks from ’08) and the performances deliver well above the usual for this kind of fare, especially in Gibson’s case.
It just works all around and never feels cheap or sloppy or self-mocking. It was clearly assembled by pros who were committed to making something smart and extra-punchy.
Some critic called it “a small gem…a good old-fashioned chase picture, thickened with pulp.” But that makes it sound like it’s mainly an adrenaline flick for the animals. Which it is to some extent, but Blood Father (which is based on a 2006 Peter Craig novel) is also a first-rate character study of a classic bad hombre (ex-con, rage monster, former alcoholic) trying to walk the straight and narrow as well as a mildly affecting father-daughter relationship thing.
