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Mel Gibson’s ‘Blood Father’ Trailer Channels ‘Mad Max,’ ‘Taken,’ Shows No Mercy

By David Cornell
Published on: 04:25 PST, Jul 8, 2016

Mel Gibson is back to being crazy, and the new Blood Father trailer proves it. Set in a desert scenario, he seems to be channeling his old Mad Max persona as he takes on the drug cartel and tries to protect his daughter, played by Erin Moriarty.

As many of his older fans know, Gibson had his cinematic breakthrough with Mad Max, the story of a police officer who has everything taken from him. His family, his home, and his friends are gone, and all he has left is his Interceptor (the car) as he takes on the wildest criminals in the wasteland just to get by. Admittedly, it wasn’t until The Road Warrior that we finally saw the character at his action-packed best.

Shortly after Beyond Thunderdome marked the end of his run as the wasteland wanderer, Mel Gibson came back with even more crazy behavior in Lethal Weapon, playing the mentally unstable officer Martin Riggs. He has had several beloved action roles in his career, and shortly after starring in the M. Night Shyamalan disaster Signs, it started going downhill. His racist rant going public didn’t help him look any saner in the real world either.

It appears Gibson is attempting to come back as a lead in a movie that might remind you more of Liam Neeson’s Taken than anything he’s done before. Payback was almost close, but it didn’t get much attention. In the Blood Father trailer, he plays John Link, an ex-convict tattoo artist much like Mickey Rourke in The Expendables. When he gets a call from his daughter, who the trailer says he hasn’t seen in years, he realizes she’s in a lot of trouble with a drug cartel and the police. He races over to help her in any way he can, and then everything goes wrong and they have to escape.

Mel Gibson appears to be continuing a recent trend of shows where there doesn’t appear to be a clear protagonist. Breaking Bad was AMC’s award-winning debut with the concept, with a story where the only innocent ones left in the end are Walter White’s children. Then we had John Wick, where Keanu Reeves comes out of retirement as the hitman who takes out hitmen.

In the Blood Father trailer, it appears that Mel Gibson’s character has put his criminal past behind him. Then his daughter needs his help fending off both sides of the law after she kills her criminal boyfriend.

By the end, it appears Mel will channel Mad Max once more as he wields a gun and a car to take out everybody in his way.

Another stand-out performance comes from William H. Macy, who plays Kirby Curtis, Mel’s sponsor. He comes face to face with what may be drug runners, aims a rifle at them, and says, “You just picked the wrong rednecks.”

It’s unknown whether moviegoers are ready to see Mel Gibson play a crazed hero once more. His role in The Expendables 3 didn’t seem to get much attention, but that may have been due to being surrounded by too many big name action heroes.

By the end of the Blood Father trailer, the audience is faced with the question, “How far would you go to protect what’s yours?” Much like Payback, it may be time to get ready to root for the bad guy again.

Will you be catching Mel Gibson, William H. Macy, and Erin Moriarty in Blood Father? The film hits theaters on August 12.

[Image via Why Not Productions Wild Bunch]

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