Synopsis
An ex-con reunites with his estranged wayward 16-year old daughter to protect her from drug dealers who are trying to kill her.
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Cast
- Mel GibsonJohn Link
- Erin MoriartyLydia
- William H. MacyKirby Curtis
- Michael ParksPreacher
- Thomas MannJason
- Diego LunaJonah
- Dale DickeyCherise
- Miguel SandovalArturo Rios
- Lori DillenSheila
- Richard CabralJoker
Recommendations
- 85
TheWrap
If you can separate the art from the artist — as most of us do at some point, or there’d be almost no movies or plays or novels or music or paintings left to enjoy — it’s a stone-cold gas. - 83
The Film Stage
Blood Father, directed by Jean-François Richet (Mesrine, Assault on Precinct 13), works remarkably well as a grindhouse throwback, sporting a screenplay (from Peter Craig and Andrea Berloff, based on Craig’s novel) that’s better than it has any right to be. - 80
The Guardian
As comeback projects go, Blood Father is stellar. It’s a wonder Quentin Tarantino, the king of career resurrection, didn’t get to Gibson first. The actors completely tears into the role of Link, a battered and disgruntled ex-con. Richet matches him, delivering a muscular and deliriously entertaining B-movie that is sure to play like gangbusters with genre aficionados. - 67
The Playlist
Operating for much of its running time with an equal balance between guilty pleasure grittiness and decent father/daughter drama, the film’s conclusion tips toward the latter in an unconvincing shift toward sentimentality and Life Lessons that not only is out of place, but betrays John’s own code of stoic endurance. - 67
The A.V. Club
Without Gibson’s baggage, it’s easy to appreciate the movie as a minor throwback to the R-rated action films of the ’80s and early ’90s, which similarly mixed the very lurid and the very wholesome, even if the action scenes don’t live up to the genre’s heyday. - 63
Slant Magazine
The film shrewdly capitalizes on Mel Gibson's off-screen embarrassments and controversies. - 60
Variety
Blood Father is trash, but it does capture what an accomplished and winning actor Mel Gibson can be. Just because he lost his bearings, and his career, doesn’t mean that he lost his talent. - 58
IndieWire
By no means a great piece of filmmaking, Blood Father nevertheless recaptures some of the rough attitude of Gibson's "Mad Max" days, as he shoots, growls and head-butts through a routine tale of angry drug lords.
