BEFORE: William H. Macy carries over from "Welcome to Collinwood". I forgot to mention yesterday that "Welcome to Collinwood" was available for FREE on YouTube, which is how I was able to watch it while in Massachusetts, away from my DVR. You know a movie's probably not going to be great if you can see it for free on YouTube, right? I can watch some movies that are taking up space on my DVR on my phone when I'm away from home, but not all of them, it depends on the channel. Today's film is also on my DVR, but the Spectrum app WILL allow me to watch it on my phone when I'm traveling - like most things, there's no rhyme or reason to the system, some things you can do and some things you can't. I just wish all of streaming video could get organized somehow, under one big umbrella that would allow you to access Netflix, Hulu, AmazonPrime, Disney+, HBO Max, etc. through one system. You know, like TV channels. We sort of had that through our Playstation, which I use to connect to SOME of those services, but then Hulu became incompatible with that system - between the PS3, my phone and my computer, I can get all the streaming services we subscribe to, but there's no one device that allows everything to be watched on a large screen, and that's annoying.
Headed back to New York today, have to work on Monday, even though I really don't want to. It was nice to take Friday off as a Mental Health Day, but I can't really afford to do much of that.
THE PLOT: An ex-con reunites with his wayward 17-year old daughter to protect her from drug dealers who are trying to kill her.
AFTER: All right, lunch at Cracker Barrel in Connecticut, now we're back home. Drive took about 5 hours, but that included the stop for lunch and two rest stops - no real traffic to speak of, and we had good weather, so the traveling part could have been a lot worse. And we stopped at the Foxwoods Casino on the way up, the buffet there is still closed, but it might re-open in March, according to the casino's web-site. I love that place - and they had renovated it just a few months before COVID shut it down. We had lunch on Saturday with my parents at their senior living facility, the food was fine so at least I know they're eating well. Then we had dinner at a place called the Midway in Dedham, MA, a place that's been there since 1947, largely unchanged. I never ate there when I grew up in the area, but when I heard it was still around, even after the pandemic, I figured I should eat at this throwback place at least once in my life. I got their signature dish, the pot roast, which was, well, underwhelming. There were better looking specials like meat loaf, prime rib and pork chops, I wish I had gotten one of those - but then I'd always have been wondering about the pot roast.
This movie is a similar throwback, to the days of Mel Gibson action movies, like "Mad Max" and "Lethal Weapon", before he got in trouble for DWI or whatever and called some female police officer "Sugar Tits". Remember that? He got himself cancelled before it was cool to be cancelled, and then he kind of built his career back, despite claims of sexism and anti-semitism. Maybe people just found other celebrities to be more mad at, like Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Matt Lauer and Bill Cosby. Mel, on the other hand, has made quite few movies in the last five years, like "Boss Level" and "Fatman" and "Dragged Across Concrete", plus 6 movies with 2022 release dates! Two of those are still on my list, but I can't link to them right now and still make it to February 1 on time. (For that matter, I could have linked to "Elvis" from "Blonde" via Xavier Samuel, but that would also have thrown me off track. Gotta know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em.)
IMDB calls this a "French action crime thriller", but I'm not seeing the French part - OK, the director is French, but this film is in English and looks like it was shot in America, the villains are a Mexican drug cartel, as in "The Marksman", so, umm, how is this a French film?
Mel's character here, John Link, is a tattoo artist, former prison inmate, recovering alcoholic/addict, and father to an absent teen, who turns up again needing his help when she gets in trouble. Seems she accidentally shot her drug-dealer boyfriend during a shakedown - he'd been stashing drugs and money in various houses, and paying or allowing people to live there as cover, but then some things went missing, and he was threatening the residents to get them back. Lydia's the one who bought the bullets at the Wal-Mart, so anything that went sideways would probably get traced back to her. So out of desperation she calls her father, but just bringing her into his residence, with her being wanted and carrying drugs and a weapon, well that's a whole turducken of parole violations for him.
The drug dealers show up at his trailer, and he learns everything he needs to know about them from their tattoos (convenient...). They trash his trailer, but get scared off by the neighborhood watch. Link goes on the run with his daughter, but the cartel keeps finding them, probably by tracking Lydia's phone. This is a huge NITPICK POINT, why doesn't Link figure out how the cartel keeps finding them? OK, maybe he didn't know his daughter had a cel phone and was getting texts from them, but maybe he should have figured it out or asked her about this?
John and Lydia hide out with an old army buddy of his, Preacher, who sells Nazi and Confederate army memorabilia on-line. Nice gig. But Preacher wants to turn Lydia in to the cops for the reward, so they take off again, with Link stealing back his old motorcycle, only to have the cartel track them down, again and again. Link has to make another stop, back to his old prison to find his old cellmate, who's got a connection to the head of the cartel. Turns out the drug dealer is the one who's been stealing the money and blaming his tenants, and John can go over his head and turn him in to the leader of the cartel. But why, WHY would he leave his daughter alone to go run this errand? This just gives the cartel an opportunity to kidnap her (and his AA sponsor) and drag him in to a final showdown.
I guess how you feel about the way this one shakes down depends largely on how you feel about Mel Gibson - if you're still holding a grudge against him for whatever reason (the film "What Women Want" would be enough of one...) then you're probably not going to root for his character here, despite all his attempts to be clean, sober and a decent, protective father. But if you're longing for the days of all those great action movies he made in the 1980's and 1990's, then maybe you'll give him a shot at redemption. It's up to you, really.
Also starring Mel Gibson (last seen in "Listening to Kenny G"), Erin Moriarty (last seen in "Driven"), Diego Luna (last seen in "Berlin, I Love You"), Michael Parks (last seen in "Smokin' Aces 2: Assassins' Ball"), Miguel Sandoval (last seen in "Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her"), Dale Dickey (last seen in "Leave No Trace") Richard Cabral (last seen in "Snitch"), Daniel Moncada (last seen in "The Mule"), Ryan Dorsey, Raoul Trujillo (last seen in "Cold Pursuit"), Thomas Mann (last seen in "Lady and the Tramp" (2019)), Brandi Cochran, Katalina Parrish (last seen in "The Ridiculous 6"), Cameron Cipta, Tait Fletcher (last seen in "The Contractor"), Vic Browder (last seen in "The Marksman"), Chris Livingston, Tony Whitecrow, Lori Dillen.
RATING: 5 out of 10
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