Blood Father

Mel Gibson reclaims his action hero mojo in Mesrine director Jean-François Richet's slick pulp thriller, even if it does feel like a trashier carbon copy of Liam Neeson's Taken. Grizzled Gibson is clearly having a ball playing John Link, an alcoholic outlaw Hell's Angel, whose estranged teenage daughter (Erin Moriarty) is on the run from a drugs cartel after a shoot-out provoked by her bad-news boyfriend (Diego Luna). Link's determination to keep her from harm and, for once in his life, to do the right thing, opens the way for bracing road-movie thrills and spills. The tone veers between Gibson's vintage break-out movie Mad Max and Tarantino-style grindhouse gore. William H Macy stands out, too, as Link's AA sponsor while Michael Parks adds multiple creepy levels to his white supremacist role. Not to be taken seriously at any point, this is just a crowd-pleasingly nasty revenge saga, which builds to a surprising and unexpectedly downbeat desert showdown.