Blood Father

Cert: 15A. Now Showing It’s been a strange decade for Mel Gibson who, after stints as both heart-throb megastar and then respected director, slid into the wilderness of bad reputation. Recently spotted sampling the delights of Dublin as he shoots The Professor and the Madman, he is back in cinemas this week doing a Liam Neeson. Now 60, in Blood Father Gibson is an angry daddy out to protect his estranged daughter. It’s simple, old-school, rough enough and does exactly what it says on the tin.

Gibson plays John Link, grizzled ex-con trying to stay sober in a remote Californian trailer park under the sponsorship of Kirby Curtis (William H Macy).

He must live under strict parole conditions or risk going back to prison. But when his estranged daughter Lydia (Erin Moriarty) calls after being missing and on milk cartons for three years, what is a daddy to do? The 17-year-old has fallen foul of her boyfriend’s (Diego Luna) Mexican gang cohorts and is on the run. They soon track her down to her father’s trailer, so daddy and daughter head out on the road looking for a solution.

Directed by Jean-Francois Richet, who made the amazing Mesrine movies, from a screenplay by the very talented Peter Crag and Andrea Berloff, this is a film that knows what it wants to be and delivers it exactly.

Blood Father is a slick talkin’, cliché peddlin’, fairly violent and sweary old-school pulp fiction chase movie.

It won’t leave you thinking for days but it is enjoyable, actionpacked and a bit knowingly silly.

It is easy to see why Gibson was once such a big star and Moriarty holds her own well alongside him.