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#374 - Blood Father
Jean-François Richet, 2016
After a young woman accidentally shoots her gangster boyfriend, she must go on the run with her estranged ex-con father.
It's hard to think of a much more egregious example of stunt-casting than Mel Gibson's leading role in Blood Father, especially when the film as a whole seems to be built in response to his more controversial real-life actions. This extends from incorporating aspects into his character's bleak back-story (his first scene involves him recounting his wasted life at an AA meeting) to having him symbolically reject his most notorious shortcomings (most notably when he criticises an old friend for selling Nazi memorabilia). On one level, this does come across as a transparent attempt at rehabilitating Gibson's image that borders on hollow gimmickry, but on another level the question of rehabilitation is practically irrelevant here. Blood Father is less interested in giving Gibson any kind of public redemption than it is in telling a lean and straightforward story that may be constrained a little by its B-movie status but demonstrates enough depth and talent within its lean running time to raise it well above average.
That's not to say that Gibson doesn't work in the role - regardless of whether or not he's personally as sincere as his character is, he still fills out the outline with the appropriate combination of world-weariness and righteousness as he does what he can for his daughter. Erin Moriarty manages to hold her own as the daughter in question and their scenes together have believable father-daughter chemistry in terms of both sharp-tongued bickering and more emotionally fragile heart-to-hearts. This could have been poorly handled, but the writing is there to back it up. It really does need to be as the film doesn't really play out like much of an action thriller save for a handful of intense but generally brief scenes (all of which are handled with sufficient technical aplomb). This does not strike me as a significant shortcoming - the minimal moments of action do help to keep the film in check and encourage it to be more interesting in terms of substance. As a result, Blood Father ended up surpassing my modest expectations, if not by too much. I may not be willing to take it too seriously as a comeback vehicle for Gibson (especially when considering the moments that can't help but feel like deliberately overt references to Gibson's off-screen history), but I don't think that anyone should.
Jean-François Richet, 2016
After a young woman accidentally shoots her gangster boyfriend, she must go on the run with her estranged ex-con father.
It's hard to think of a much more egregious example of stunt-casting than Mel Gibson's leading role in Blood Father, especially when the film as a whole seems to be built in response to his more controversial real-life actions. This extends from incorporating aspects into his character's bleak back-story (his first scene involves him recounting his wasted life at an AA meeting) to having him symbolically reject his most notorious shortcomings (most notably when he criticises an old friend for selling Nazi memorabilia). On one level, this does come across as a transparent attempt at rehabilitating Gibson's image that borders on hollow gimmickry, but on another level the question of rehabilitation is practically irrelevant here. Blood Father is less interested in giving Gibson any kind of public redemption than it is in telling a lean and straightforward story that may be constrained a little by its B-movie status but demonstrates enough depth and talent within its lean running time to raise it well above average.
That's not to say that Gibson doesn't work in the role - regardless of whether or not he's personally as sincere as his character is, he still fills out the outline with the appropriate combination of world-weariness and righteousness as he does what he can for his daughter. Erin Moriarty manages to hold her own as the daughter in question and their scenes together have believable father-daughter chemistry in terms of both sharp-tongued bickering and more emotionally fragile heart-to-hearts. This could have been poorly handled, but the writing is there to back it up. It really does need to be as the film doesn't really play out like much of an action thriller save for a handful of intense but generally brief scenes (all of which are handled with sufficient technical aplomb). This does not strike me as a significant shortcoming - the minimal moments of action do help to keep the film in check and encourage it to be more interesting in terms of substance. As a result, Blood Father ended up surpassing my modest expectations, if not by too much. I may not be willing to take it too seriously as a comeback vehicle for Gibson (especially when considering the moments that can't help but feel like deliberately overt references to Gibson's off-screen history), but I don't think that anyone should.