Icon has dropped the first trailer for the new Taken reworking that we never knew we wanted and needed – Blood Father. Check it out above.
Mel Gibson – our once proud Aussie son whose name lit up marquees in a range of film genres, but whose career nose-dived after a string of anti-Semitic comments, various domestic abuse allegations, and that whole thing with the female cop – is back in badass action mode, and I for one didn’t realise how much I missed his presence on screen.
Gibson’s comeback path has been twisty to say the least, and usually involved him playing against type, so it’s good to see him back in the action genre where some of his greatest work lived. French director Jean-François Richet (Assault On Precinct 13) takes the reins of this one, and while the Mel-ster is looking a little more grizzled, a little less movie star handsome these days, I think it totally works. I buy him as that character, and although it seems like it’ll be like a lot like a Payback knock-off mixed with the aforementioned Taken, I’m pretty ok with that. As long as he can kick ass, take names, and crack wise all while rocking a sturdy beard, I’m willing to gloss over any unoriginality in the storytelling.
Here’s the official synopsis:
After her drug kingpin boyfriend frames her for stealing a fortune in cartel cash, 18 year old Lydia goes on the run, with only one ally in this whole wide world: her perennial screw-up of a dad, John Link, who’s been a drunk, a drug addict, a motorcycle outlaw, and a convict in his time, and now is determined to keep his little girl from harm and, for once in his life, do the right thing…
BLOOD FATHER, also starring William H. Macy, Diego Luna, and Erin Moriarty, opens in Australia on August 25, 2016.