Perhaps the biggest bonus to come from Brian Cox‘s lauded turn in the hit HBO series “Succession” is that it made him just viable enough to get a few indie feature films made, little grace notes added to a career worth celebrating.

One was “Mending the Line,” letting him play a grizzled vet who teaches fly fishing as a way of coping with PTSD in younger men just stepping away from the military. Another is “Prisoner’s Daughter.”

He plays a man of violence who says “I’m not that guy any more,” but who will end his life in detention, sent “home” to live with his estranged daughter when a cancer diagnosis gives him months to live. She’s broke, a struggling single mom with a smart-but-bullied tween and an abusive addict for an ex.

And that simple description tells you everything that’s going to happen in this simple story. But with sensitive direction from “Twilight” survivor Catherine Hardwicke, sympathetic casting and some very good performances, this becomes a poignant tale with bitterness turned into forgiveness, mistakes and misdeeds rendered into redemption.

Max is the old man of the yard, moving among the population with weariness not wariness at his age. There may be others in the Nevada state prison who still carry grudges. But years of surviving, “getting clean” and sober and helping others do the same have made him almost beloved.

So when he gets that pancreatic cancer death sentence, the warden gives him a shot at spending his last months under house arrest, in his old house with the daughter (Kate Beckinsale) who has it now.

And even though he knows “we’re blood, not family,” not any more anyway, he reaches out.

“I’m getting out soon,” he tells her. “Like I give a s—,” isn’t exactly a welcome response. Not that he didn’t expect it.

But Maxine — and yes, the name’s on her list of grievances — is a 40ish ex-Vegas dancer who has to hustle waitress and strip club custodial work to keep herself and son Ezra (Christopher Convery) housed and fed. When we meet her, her stoned and scary ex Tyler (Tyson Ritter) storms into one work place, demands to see his son, punches her boss and gets her fired.

Yeah, he’s a drummer. And an addict.

If Max has money, he can come stay. But don’t expect a reunion. Don’t expect pity. “I don’t want you bringing your past in my house.” And don’t tell her son you’re his grandfather.

“I’m not interested in making you feel better before you die.”

Ezra’s a mouthy kid with a lot of questions for this new “uncle” he never knew existed. He’s unduly attached to his no-good Dad and facing trouble at school, where it doesn’t matter that a whole gang is bullying and beating him up. He gets suspended, too.

Well, not really. The screenplay, the punishment we see and hear doled out and the editing don’t reflect that.

But maybe the “uncle” who “used to be a fighter” can help the kid with the fresh black eye. Maybe he has favors from “inside” that he can call in “outside.” Maybe he can, you know, have a word with the ex.

Producer and screenwriter Mark Bacci’s script is undemanding redemption story comfort food. But this cast redeems that.

Cox conveys guilt, a desire to “square things” with everyone — old foes and daughterly grudges — in this character and this understatted performance. He makes us believe he’s every inch a guy “who could write the book on ‘sh—y fathers.”

Beckinsale adds “earthy” to her repertoire, a 50ish actress who lets the years denote the hard mileage life the 40ish Maxine has lived.

Young Convery does solid work in support of these two, convincing as a kid with a medical condition, an increasingly dire bullying situation at school and a desperate need for a father figure.

And Ernie Hudson drops in as another of Max’s old friends from his old life, bringing dignity and a modest resolve to do right by his fellow inmate via the boxing gym he runs, started “outside” by Max’s seed money from “inside.”

There aren’t a lot of surprises when characters behave the way a thousand screenplays have ordained they must, but the little moments of indulging their better angels, and their worst, give “Prisoner’s Daughter” a gritty, B-movie authenticity that is intensely satisfying.

And this gives Brian Cox another way to remind us that even though he “died” in “Succession” and that series ended, that’s not all he can do and that’s not all she wrote as far as his lauded career is concerned.

Rating: R for language and some violence

Cast: Brian Cox, Kate Beckinsale, Christopher Convery, Tyson Ritter and Ernie Hudson.

Credits: Directed by Catherine Hardwicke, scripted by Mark Bacci. A Vertical release.

Running time: 1:40