Before Hollywood forgave Mel Gibson of his manifold sins, he did some B-movies, one of which was last year's Blood Father, and I suspect that some of you overlooked it. I caught it on cable not long ago, and it turns out that it's a lot of fun. The scruffy Gibson is an alcoholic ex-con and admitted scumbag. He hasn't had much contact with his young adult druggie daughter, but she's been missing for a while, and he's trying to find her. When she calls him, she's in big trouble, being sought by a drug gang and likely to be killed. Naturally Gibson is going to be there for her.
The action starts early in the movie and hardly lets up for the entire time (I should mention that the movie's a tidy ninety minutes long, which is just about right for this kind of thing). Lots of shooting, lots of chasing, and even a few laughs, with some calm moments interspersed so you can catch your breath. Great cast, including William H. Macy and Michael Parks.
Gibson has a couple of speeches at AA meetings in which he appears to be directly apologizing for some of his past actions. He's making the speeches in character, obviously, so you can decide for yourself about them.
I know some people won't watch this movie just because Gibson's in it, but I found it fast and fun. Just what I needed at the time I saw it.
9 comments:
I liked it. Reminded me of the action movies that were plentiful in the 80's.
I liked it. He put out a few good movies the past few years. "Get the Gringo" and "Edge of Darkness" are well done and he is excellent in them. Also loved his performance in "The Expendables 3." And he directed "Hacksaw Ridge" which was one of the best movies that came out last year.
I'll have to find a copy of BLOOD FATHER. I loved those action movies of the 1980s!
Put me in the "not going to watch it" category.
We liked it. Not a fan of his by any means. Got it by way of the local library system. Thought it was pretty good.
No thanks. Don't care to contribute, however minimally, to his paranoid anti-Semitic worldview.
He was never a bad actor. Just a bad person.
I'm glad you posted this. Been wanting to see it, now I want to see it more ... As far as the anti-Gibson issue, I think the guy got a bum rap to a certain extent. In anger and drunkenness he got caught on tape saying some very disparaging things. His actions in real life never came close to matching that. Who among us in moments of anger haven't gone "low" with some of our comments? Behavior is truth ... And many of those who have no forgiveness for Gibson will flock to the "art" of scum like Roman Polanski and Woody Allen who have proven *actions* that are truly despicable ... Go figure.
I also got to see this because of the local library system as it did not play in any of the dozen cinemas in my neighbourhood.
I think that some of the AA words are off script and played out on the spot in the circle from Gibson.
The film character works best for me with the bearded desert trailer park scruff man waiting for a mission and works less smoothly as the clean shaven man on a mission - why'd he have to clean up his act (dumb question I know!)
d middleton
Post a Comment