Jackson Booth-Millard
After the Oscar wins and nominations for the brilliant Hacksaw Ridge, the Braveheart leading star and director is slowly getting back into Hollywood's good book, and I was looking forward to watch him return his action movie routes, directed by Jean-François Richet (Assault on Precinct 13). Basically teenager Lydia (Captain Fantastic's Erin Moriarty) buys bullets for her boyfriend Jonah (The Terminal's Diego Luna), after loading up, he and his gang go to kill a tenant family who apparently stole money stashed in the walls of their rented house. Jonah kills another tenant, then ties up another and forces Lydia to kill her, she then accidentally fires the gun at Jonah, shooting him in the neck, apparently killing him, she escapes the crime scene. Lydia contacts her estranged father John Link (Mel Gibson), an American war veteran, ex-convict and recovering alcoholic, out on parole after serving seven years in prison. John picks up Lydia and takes him to his trailer house, he learns that she is not only a drug addict but also an alcoholic. Some time passes, but Lydia continues to receive text messages from an unknown number, death threat from the gang members, she explains her situation in detail to John. One night, members of Jonah's gang try to force themselves into John's house, opening fire and trying to ram it with their SUV, until John's neighbour and sponsor Kirby (William H. Macy) and other armed residents rush to intervene, forcing the gang to retreat. John was initially determined not break the conditions of his parole, but he reasons that going to the police will put Lydia in danger, so they flee together, on the run Lydia tells John about running away from home, and about Jonah, who turns out to be a well-connected member of a Mexican drug cartel. After stopping at a motel and narrowly escaping a cartel, John attempts to get help from his former mentor and friend Preacher (Michael Parks), who makes a living by collecting and selling war memorabilia, but Preacher changes his mind after learning there is a reward for turning in Lydia. John overpowers Preacher and his wife Cherise (True Blood's Dale Dickey), and escapes with Lydia on a 1997 Harley Softail, they are pursued by two of Preacher's men, they are both killed in the chase. While Lydia dyes her hair to obscure her identity, John shaves his beard, he travels to a prison where he meets his former cellmate Arturo Rios (Miguel Sandoval), who has information about Jonah's connections, he learns Jonah stole the money himself from the cartel, blamed the tenants, and murdered them to cover his tracks. At the motel, Lydia receives a call from Kirby that she in danger to meet him at a crowded public place like a theatre, there Lydia is confronted by Jonah, who survived his injury, she is abducted by him and his gang. After leaving the prison, John calls Kirby, but Jonah answers, revealing that he captured Kirby, and kills him, John warns Jonah about harming Lydia, citing his knowledge of his connections, he offers his own life in exchange for his daughter, and they arrange a meeting at a secluded spot in the desert. John goes back to Preacher's place and picks up a landmine and some grenades, arriving at the meeting point, he improvises a booby trap with the landmine placed under his bike. John is tied up by the men and put in the car with Lydia, as they prepare to leave, two men move the bike and are killed by the explosion, John kills the gang member inside the vehicle, but Jonah escapes. The other gang members have found a vantage point in the rocks above, John is wounded by gunshots, he and Lydia take cover behind the car, John forces the remaining gang member to get closer, the two fatally shoot each other, Lydia tearfully watches his father die in her arms. In the end, Jonah is arrested and incarcerated, he comes face to face with a a visibly hostile prison gang led by Arturo, one year later Lydia is attending a support group, she reveals that she has been sober for a year and expresses gratitude to her father. Also starring Richard Cabral as Joker, Thomas Mann as Jason the Motel Clerk and Raoul Max Trujillo as The Cleaner. Gibson doesn't seem to have lost his mojo in the genre that made him a star, Moriarty is good as the vulnerable teen, Luna is a relatively good villain, Macy is worth mentioning as the hero's sponsor, and Parks as the creepy white supremacist. You could argue that it echoes themes in the Taken series, without the kidnap element of course (well, not until near the end), and you cannot take any of it seriously, it is just a load of guns blazing, fast chases and explosions that will please the crowd, nothing wrong with that, a reasonable action thriller. Worth watching!
