“You can’t be a prick all your life and then just say never mind.”

Mel Gibson’s sheer charisma covers a multitude of sins in Jean-François Richet’s Blood Father, an unexpectedly effective action comedy that avoids many pitfalls of its genre but could have benefited from a focused rewrite or two.

When a wayward young woman (Erin Moriarty) finds herself on the lam from a Mexican cartel after accidentally putting a bullet through the neck of her drug trafficker boyfriend (Diego Luna), she frantically dials up her estranged father from a payphone. Her daddy, Link (Gibson), is a reformed alcoholic and ex-convict out on parole, running a grungy tattoo parlor out of his mobile home. He’s also about as jacked as any sexagenarian you’re likely to meet (indeed, one wonders what Mad Max: Fury Road might have been like with this ferocious old man Gibson reprising his role as Max Rockatansky). Despite the misgivings of his sponsor (William H. Macy), when duty calls, Link sets off on an impromptu road trip across the dusty Southwest with his daughter, first escaping and later confronting the drug lords she’s offended.

The unusual father-daughter dynamic works well in this scenario (it’s thankfully not a retread of Taken), and Peter Craig’s script (adapted from his own novel) has plenty of ideas bouncing around about the nature of violence, addiction, gun fetishization, and counterculture rebellion, as well as the way society understands these things and the way our government regulates them. To wit, Moriarty’s introduction comes when she is denied the purchase of cigarettes because she doesn’t have ID, then walks out of the supermarket with enough ammo to supply a small army; Gibson’s comes at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting where he laments that all of his life skills and even his old friends are now considered parole violations. All of this is handled through quip-laden dialogue, and while Craig’s writing is generally a layer deeper than standard action movie fare, there are numerous instances where a punchline feels like a placeholder that never got filled in with the right zinger, and even more where the writer fruitlessly and pointlessly indulges in crass blathering.

All that aside, Gibson knows how to handle himself in this type of film. The action sequences suffice, and the actor’s ability to convey bravura and charm simultaneously allows the film to find a welcome tongue-in-cheek tone. Strong supporting roles from Michael Parks, Dale Dickey, Miguel Sandoval, and Thomas Mann also go a long way toward keeping up the momentum when the script and direction are lacking. It’s an appealing throwback through and through, and one gets the sense that Link’s mid-crisis suggestion that he hasn’t had this much fun in years might apply to the film’s star as well.