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Blood Father

  • 2016
  • R
  • 1h 28m
IMDb RATING
6.4/10
70K
YOUR RATING
Mel Gibson in Blood Father (2016)
An ex-con reunites with his estranged wayward 16-year old daughter to protect her from drug dealers who are trying to kill her.
Play trailer1:53
9 Videos
99+ Photos
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An ex-con reunites with his estranged wayward 17-year old daughter to protect her from drug dealers who are trying to kill her.An ex-con reunites with his estranged wayward 17-year old daughter to protect her from drug dealers who are trying to kill her.An ex-con reunites with his estranged wayward 17-year old daughter to protect her from drug dealers who are trying to kill her.

  • Director
    • Jean-François Richet
  • Writers
    • Peter Craig
    • Andrea Berloff
  • Stars
    • Mel Gibson
    • Erin Moriarty
    • Diego Luna
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    6.4/10
    70K
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Jean-François Richet
    • Writers
      • Peter Craig
      • Andrea Berloff
    • Stars
      • Mel Gibson
      • Erin Moriarty
      • Diego Luna
    • 238User reviews
    • 166Critic reviews
    • 66Metascore
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • Videos9

    Theatrical Trailer
    Trailer 1:53
    Theatrical Trailer
    International Trailer
    Trailer 1:31
    International Trailer
    International Trailer
    Trailer 1:31
    International Trailer
    Redband Clip
    Clip 1:08
    Redband Clip
    Clip
    Clip 1:12
    Clip
    Clip
    Clip 1:03
    Clip
    Exclusive Clip
    Clip 1:03
    Exclusive Clip

    Photos215

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    + 209
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    Top cast56

    Edit
    Mel Gibson
    Mel Gibson
    • Link
    Erin Moriarty
    Erin Moriarty
    • Lydia
    Diego Luna
    Diego Luna
    • Jonah
    Michael Parks
    Michael Parks
    • Preacher
    William H. Macy
    William H. Macy
    • Kirby
    Miguel Sandoval
    Miguel Sandoval
    • Arturo Rios
    Dale Dickey
    Dale Dickey
    • Cherise
    Richard Cabral
    Richard Cabral
    • Joker
    Daniel Moncada
    Daniel Moncada
    • Choop
    Ryan Dorsey
    Ryan Dorsey
    • Shamrock
    Raoul Max Trujillo
    Raoul Max Trujillo
    • The Cleaner
    • (as Raoul Trujillo)
    Brandi Cochran
    • Lydia's Mother
    Katalina Parrish
    Katalina Parrish
    • Link's Client
    Cameron Cipta
    • Freckles
    Lucien Dale
    Lucien Dale
    • Blonde Boy
    Joanne Camp
    Joanne Camp
    • Cashier
    Thomas Mann
    Thomas Mann
    • Jason Motel Clerk
    Tait Fletcher
    Tait Fletcher
    • Bartender
    • Director
      • Jean-François Richet
    • Writers
      • Peter Craig
      • Andrea Berloff
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews238

    6.470K
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    Featured reviews

    6tomgillespie2002

    Pure B-movie exploitation

    After years of hard-drinking and heavily publicised, hateful rants, Mel Gibson has seen his career plunge from the A-list to the, well, non-existent list. He was once one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood, handsome enough to draw a female audience with lighthearted rom-coms, and suitably bad-ass enough to tackle the meatier action roles. He of course only has himself to blame, but Gibson has been slowly and quietly carving himself a niche with the few features he's done over past few the years - Edge of Darkness (2010), How I Spent My Summer Vacation (2012) - as a gruff enforcer not necessarily on the right side of the law.

    With Jean-Francois Richet's Blood Father, the years of hard living etched on Gibson's face have never served him better. His character John Link, the recovering alcoholic ex-con getting by as a tattoo artist in a trailer park, acknowledges his past mistakes in the opening scene at an AA meeting, almost as if Gibson himself is pleading forgiveness for his behaviour. He is trying to live straight and keep his parole officer happy, but his peaceful existence is soon turned on its head when his daughter Lydia (Erin Moriarty), missing for years, turns up with the police and a Mexican cartel hunting her down. Fearing losing the daughter he failed when she was still a child, John takes her on the road and uses the skills he learned as a criminal to keep her out of harm's way.

    With Mad Max (1979) clearly serving as an inspiration, Blood Father is pure B-movie exploitation. It's the kind of film you could imagine being made in the 70's with Peter Fonda in the lead role and Roger Corman producing. That said, and despite the odd explosion of action and violence, the focus is mainly on character. While this would normally be a good thing, it does so via every cliché imaginable. There's the wanted posters, news reports in dingy hotel rooms, changing of hair colour, and a climactic shoot-out, and it frequently felt like I had seen the film before. It's best when at its most furious, racking up the tension as Link faces a neo-Nazi biker gang and Lydia's drug-lord ex-boyfriend Jonah (Diego Luna). It might just be enough for Hollywood to embrace Gibson again, and from his performance here, I realised just how much I miss him.
    8BA_Harrison

    He's still got it.

    When runaway teenager Lydia (Erin Moriarity) accidentally shoots her drugs cartel boyfriend, she makes a desperate run for it, asking for help from her estranged father Link (Mel Gibson), a tough ex-con still on parole. Together, father and daughter go into hiding, pursued by vicious killers.

    I know that Mad Mel doesn't think very highly of the English (or anyone who is not an Australian/American Catholic, for that matter), but I'm still a fan, and Blood Father proves that he still has what it takes, the star putting in a moving performance as a caring father who will do anything to protect his daughter.

    This isn't an all-out action-fest, which might disappoint some viewers (although there are some great action scenes to be had)—it's a tale of redemption, with a flawed character doing his best to make up for past mistakes, which seems very apt: perhaps Hollywood should learn something from this film and give its troubled star one more chance.

    Best moments: the opening bit of satire—16 year-old Lydia buys countless packs of bullets at a store without a problem, but is carded when it comes to cigarettes; the motorbike chase scene (nice to see Mel toting a shotgun once again); and what's that? Mel making fun of himself in a scene in which he spews hatred of minorities? I had to laugh.

    7.5 out of 10, rounded up to 8 for IMDb.
    7TruthTwentyFour

    Is this Mel's comeback?

    Pretty fitting role for this man right? A recovering alcoholic... Pretty certain Mel was as drunk as a skunk when he committed career suicide lambasting Jewish people, and everything else under the sun. Fast forward a decade later, and I ask myself has he been humbled... Seen his evil ways and has now returned to us born again? In recovery? I don't know. What I do know is Mel Gibson has always owned anti-hero roles like this. He was good at them back then, and apparently a decade later he still is.

    So... This film kicks ass. It has heart. It hits all of the right notes for a Father revenge flick, and his performance hits all of these notes way way better than a movie like Taken. This film is well worth a watch, and I can't decide whether I should feel guilty or happy about this.

    I guess it all depends on whether this guy is still a jerk, or has woken the hell up. Ultimately though, what does it really matter? We have this thing in our society where celebrities have to be likable acceptable public figures, like politicians, or they're kicked to the curb. When really what does it matter? They're just actors doing a job. They could be a jerk and a great actor, or a saint and an awful actor. It really just relates to the caliber of their work, and I have to say, whether he is the former or the latter, he nailed this role like he did so often back in the day with other roles like this--back when everyone liked him.

    Pretty good movie...
    searchanddestroy-1

    The resurrection of Mel Gibson

    It was so refreshing for me, and I am sure for many other people, to see in this film the re birth of this such great actor and director Mel Gibson. His performance in this film reminds me the one he had six years ago in EDGE OF DARKNESS. Nearly the same topic with a lost father in search of his daughter, or in avenging her death. In both features, Mel Gibson is at his top. And I am also pleased that this latest film was made by a French director, already guilty of ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13, back ten years ago. I won't mention the MESRINE films. Not for foreseeable plot and also a bit depressing, although not totally clichés ridden. But it remains an excellent crime flick. I really hope that Mel Gibson will rapidly be back to the top.
    8Ser_Stephen_Seaworth

    Mad Mel's back to settle the score.

    When we first meet John Link, Mel Gibson's grizzled ex-con anti-hero in his latest thriller Blood Father, he's in the midst of an impassioned soliloquy at an AA meeting. A self-proclaimed "real success story," Link is a recovering alky two years out of the slammer, whose wife left him and whose daughter is in the wind, leaving him with no one in his corner and with no one to blame but himself. It's a fitting noir-esque introduction to Link, but also—perhaps more appropriately, especially as he's talking straight at the camera when he says it—it seems to be coming from Gibson himself.

    Directed by Jean-François Richet, who helmed 2008's gripping gangster diptych Mesrine, Blood Father seems at first glance to be another addition to the tried-and-true Gibson formula: a brutal guy on the wrong side of the tracks takes on those who wronged him, often in typically gruesome fashion. Certainly, John Link could be blood brothers with Porter and Driver, Gibson's violent protagonists from Payback and Get the Gringo. Living on the fringe of society while scratching out a living as a tattoo artist from his grungy desert trailer, Link is as blunt and terse as his monosyllabic name would suggest. The difference is that Blood Father feels like Gibson confronting the demons that put him and his career on the skids over the last decade. His performance feels like penance, and not in a negative way. Gibson's mainstay has always been passion—in both definitions of the word—and here he bares himself to the bone.

    Link's efforts to stay on the straight and narrow are complicated by the cataclysmic arrival of his wayward daughter Lydia (Erin Moriarty). Strung-out and on the run from a bunch of bad customers, Lydia's presence puts her father on an inexorable course towards violence—which, of course, he excels at dishing out. And true to form for a Mel Gibson joint, there is no shortage of it: once the blood starts flowing and the bullets start flying, it's hard to stop.

    Gibson's trademark wild-man intensity is in full froth here, and it's always a welcome sight to behold, even if it's been in otherwise subpar productions or against lesser actors. For the most part, fortunately, Blood Father isn't pigeonholed in either category. While some of the dialogue sounds more than a little ponderous (Lydia spends much of the film spitting out sheaves of insight with such precision that you'd think she were a Sorkinian heroine instead of, well, someone who snorts heroin), the rest of it is balanced in taut, punchy lines that would make Hemingway proud. And unlike Get the Gringo, which featured Gibson at the top of his game making his co-stars look downright amateurish, he's bolstered by some reliable names this go-around: among them, William H. Macy as Link's good-natured AA sponsor and Michael Parks as a seedy old contact from his past. In fact, the only real weak link of the cast is Moriarty, whose erratic performance is far too self-conscious and unconvincing for us to really care about her plight. It's only through Gibson that we care (and to his credit, he does and we do).

    Much of Blood Father is a foregone conclusion, all the way up to its bullet-riddled finale. And while the film rarely evinces an inspired note, it's still a good potboiler, and there's nothing wrong with a well-worn story if it's well-told. But with an actor like Gibson at the fore, it becomes something more personal. Blood Father's about a man facing old sins and the grim reckoning that comes with them. And every single one of Mad Mel's is on full display here.

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    Related interests

    Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Sian Clifford in Fleabag (2016)
    Dark Comedy
    Bruce Willis in Die Hard (1988)
    Action
    James Gandolfini, Edie Falco, Sharon Angela, Max Casella, Dan Grimaldi, Joe Perrino, Donna Pescow, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Tony Sirico, and Michael Drayer in The Sopranos (1999)
    Crime
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    Drama
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    Thriller

    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      In 2008, Sylvester Stallone was planning to direct and star in an adaptation of Peter Craig's novel "Blood Father".
    • Goofs
      Lydia is wanted by drug dealers that know her cell phone number, and by law enforcement that could easily track her yet, for some reason, she keeps the phone.
    • Quotes

      Kirby: You know the difference between fitting and proper?

      Link: Well, I'm not a trailer park poet like you, Kirby. You're gonna have to tell me.

      Kirby: Well, it goes like this. I could shove my thumb up your ass right now and it would probably fit...

      Link: Mmm-hmm.

      Kirby: ...but it wouldn't be proper!

    • Alternate versions
      The German extended TV version runs almost 10 mins longer than the original version, with 21 extended scenes and one additional scene.
    • Connections
      Featured in Lost Souls: On the Road with 'Blood Father' (2016)
    • Soundtracks
      Native Blood
      Performed by' Ronald Jean' Quartet

      featuring Jerry Donato

      Written by Ronald Edwin Jean

      Courtesy of Crucial Music Corporation

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    FAQ18

    • How long is Blood Father?Powered by Alexa
    • Why is it called Blood Father?

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • August 26, 2016 (United States)
    • Countries of origin
      • France
      • United States
    • Official site
      • Official site (Japan)
    • Languages
      • English
      • Spanish
    • Also known as
      • Sangre de mi sangre
    • Filming locations
      • Belen, New Mexico, USA
    • Production companies
      • Lionsgate
      • Why Not Productions
      • Wild Bunch
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

    Edit
    • Budget
      • $13,000,000 (estimated)
    • Gross worldwide
      • $6,903,033
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      • 1h 28m(88 min)
    • Color
      • Color
    • Aspect ratio
      • 2.35 : 1

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