Image copyright © by Marcus Trahan

Blood Father

(2016)

I understand why Mel Gibson was attracted to this script. Mel has a Jesus complex, and likes any movie where he can be shown to suffer, and he suffers plenty here. Why anyone else would like it is a puzzle to me. In the opening scenes Mel’s junkie, drunken daughter, who has gotten herself involved with some serious drug dealers, is there when a mass murder happens, and in fact shoots one of the people herself. (Okay, they forced her to, and so what?) Then she comes crying to Daddy Mel when the druggies come after her to kill her. Sorry, honey, I subscribe to the principle that if you are committing a felony and someone gets killed, you are as guilty of murder as the actual murderer is. If she were my daughter, sure, I’d do all in my power to stop the killers … but she’s not my daughter, and I don’t give a rat’s ass about her. She can rot in jail for the rest of her life. It’s very tough for me to enjoy a movie where there is not someone I’m rooting for, and I didn’t see anyone like that here.