Bad Dads Film Review

Bad Dads
  • 5.0 (16)
  • FILM REVIEWS
  • UPDATED SEMIWEEKLY

Several years ago 4 self confessed movie fanatics ruined their favourite pastime by having children. Now we are telling the world about the movies we missed and the frequently awful kids tv we are now subjected to. We like to think we're funny. Come and argue with us on the social medias. Twitter: @dads_film Facebook: BadDadsFilmReview Instagram: instagram.com/baddadsjsy www.baddadsfilm.com

  1. Midweek Mention... Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence

    12/24/2025

    Midweek Mention... Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence

    Homoeroticism, honour codes, and the least festive “Merry Christmas” ever recorded. This week’s pick looks like a seasonal warm hug by title alone, but it’s actually a POW-camp psychodrama where Christmas is basically just another opportunity for humiliation, beatings, and cultural misunderstanding. The core triangle Lawrence (Tom Conti): the cultural bridge. He respects Japan’s traditions more than the other prisoners do, but still can’t square the camp’s brutality with the language of “honour.”Celliers (David Bowie): quiet defiance, charisma, scars, and a refusal to surrender mentally even when physically broken.Yonoi (Ryūichi Sakamoto): the commander whose obsession with honour is also clearly entangled with fascination/desire — especially towards Celliers — and whose self-loathing (the “missed coup / lost honour” backstory) bleeds into how he runs the camp.What the film is really doing This isn’t a “war movie” in the guns-and-heroics sense. It’s a study of shame and power: The Japanese guards are trapped by their own code: surrender is incomprehensible, confession is weakness, punishment is “order.”The prisoners are trapped by their code: resistance is identity, humiliation is poison, compromise looks like collaboration.And between them is Lawrence, trying to keep men alive with language — while knowing language isn’t enough.The flashback that explains everything Celliers’ confession about failing to protect his younger brother (and the brutal boarding-school initiation) is where the film stops being “about the camp” and becomes “about the kind of violence men normalise.” That shame mirrors Yonoi’s shame. Different cultures, same wound. The moments you won’t forget The mock execution: Bowie refusing the blindfold because it’s “for them.”The Christmas scene: Hara drunk on sake, Lawrence spared, and the phrase that becomes the film’s ghost.The public kiss: Celliers’ desperate, weaponised tenderness to stop an execution — the emotional bomb that breaks Yonoi.The ending, years later: Lawrence visiting Hara, now the condemned man, and the final line delivered with a tragic calm:“Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence.” Verdict Not festive. Not cosy. Not easy. But brilliantly acted, quietly devastating, and still unusually forward-thinking in how it frames desire, masculinity, and shame without turning it into cheap scandal. If you want tinsel: watch Elf. If you want a Christmas film that leaves a bruise: this is the one. You can now text us anonymously to leave feedback, suggest future content or simply hurl abuse at us. We'll read out any texts we receive on the show. Click here to try it out! We love to hear from our listeners! By which I mean we tolerate it. If it hasn't been completely destroyed yet you can usually find us on twitter @dads_film, on Facebook Bad Dads Film Review, on email at baddadsjsy@gmail.com or on our website baddadsfilm.com. Until next time, we remain... Bad Dads

    29 min
  2. Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale

    12/19/2025

    Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale

    Horns, Hostages, and Human Trafficking Santa – Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010) This week on Bad Dads Film Review, we go full Finland and unwrap a Christmas movie that answers the question nobody asked: what if Santa Claus wasn’t a jolly gift-giver, but an ancient, horned, child-snatching nightmare buried under a mountain? Our main feature is Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (dir. Jalmari Helander), a wintery sci-fi/horror-dark-comedy that feels like The Thing wandered into a folk tale, got frostbite, and decided to start a black-market Santa operation. The setup is instantly great: a US drilling team blasts into the Korvatunturi mountain and hits something that absolutely should not be thawed. Nearby, reindeer herders start finding their animals slaughtered, children begin disappearing, and weird petty theft spreads through the village — radios, hairdryers, potato sacks… all vanishing like some grim Advent calendar of doom. At the centre is young Pietari, a kid who’s convinced Santa is real… and that Santa is coming to punish him. While the adults argue about Russians, borders and compensation invoices, Pietari is reading ancient texts about a pagan “Santa” with horns, and building literal Home Alone-style defences because he thinks he’s next. Then things get properly deranged: a naked, feral old man is caught in a wolf trap baited with a pig’s head — and the locals start to suspect they’ve found Santa. Turns out they’ve found one of his helpers… and the rules are simple: no swearing, no aggression, no “bad behaviour”, because these elves replicate and escalate like gremlins with hypothermia. Suddenly it’s old, nude men everywhere, and the film leans into it with alarming confidence. The finale goes full Goonies-in-a-blizzard: helicopters, a reindeer pen used as a trap, kids in sacks as bait, dynamite in the ice, and a plan so insane it only works because everyone is too cold to argue. And then the ending swerves again — from folk-horror survival to capitalism speedrun — as the village realises the “elves” are worth money, hoses them down, trains them up, and ships them around the world as mall Santas in crates like festive livestock. It’s bizarre, dark, and very funny in a “wait… did they really just do that?” way. It’s not cosy. It’s not sweet. It is snowy, grim, inventive, and weirdly brilliant — with proper atmosphere, real faces, and a premise it commits to without winking at you. Strong recommend. You can now text us anonymously to leave feedback, suggest future content or simply hurl abuse at us. We'll read out any texts we receive on the show. Click here to try it out! We love to hear from our listeners! By which I mean we tolerate it. If it hasn't been completely destroyed yet you can usually find us on twitter @dads_film, on Facebook Bad Dads Film Review, on email at baddadsjsy@gmail.com or on our website baddadsfilm.com. Until next time, we remain... Bad Dads

    23 min
  3. Midweek Mention... Elf

    12/17/2025

    Midweek Mention... Elf

    Sugar, Cheer, and Corporate Trauma – Elf (2003) This week on Bad Dads Film Review, we crack open a modern Christmas classic and ask the hard questions: how much maple syrup is too much maple syrup, and is Christmas cheer a viable alternative energy source? Our main feature is Elf (dir. Jon Favreau), the 2003 festive juggernaut that turned Will Ferrell into a full-blown Christmas institution. Ferrell plays Buddy, a human accidentally raised as an elf at the North Pole, who travels to New York to find his real father – a joyless publishing exec played with peak deadpan misery by James Caan. We get into: Why Elf works when so many studio Christmas comedies don’tFerrell’s perfectly calibrated performance: total sincerity, zero cynicismThe fish-out-of-water chaos of Buddy vs New York (elevators, taxis, raccoons)Corporate burnout, absent fathers, and why this is secretly a film about emotional illiteracyZooey Deschanel’s Jovie as the anti-manic-pixie manic pixiePeter Dinklage’s Miles Finch: tiny man, nuclear rageForced perspective, stop-motion throwbacks, and Bob Newhart quietly holding the whole thing togetherWe also talk Elf on the Shelf fatigue, Christmas parenting arms races, and why forgetting to move a plastic elf at 6am is more stressful than most full-time jobs. Yes, the ending leans hard into mass sing-along cheer-powered magic. Yes, it’s shameless. But Elf earns it by committing fully to warmth, kindness, and the radical idea that being nice to people might actually matter. A rare Christmas movie that works for kids, parents, and deeply cynical adults who swear they “hate festive films” but somehow still quote this one every December. Strong recommend. You can now text us anonymously to leave feedback, suggest future content or simply hurl abuse at us. We'll read out any texts we receive on the show. Click here to try it out! We love to hear from our listeners! By which I mean we tolerate it. If it hasn't been completely destroyed yet you can usually find us on twitter @dads_film, on Facebook Bad Dads Film Review, on email at baddadsjsy@gmail.com or on our website baddadsfilm.com. Until next time, we remain... Bad Dads

    15 min
  4. Fairs & Islands

    12/12/2025

    Fairs & Islands

    Fairs, Fixed Games, and Failed Backhands – Islands (2024) This week on Bad Dads Film Review, we’re off to the fair and then straight to the Canaries for a slow-burn midlife crisis with added camel corpse. We kick off with our Top 5 Fairs – everything from sinister funfairs and pleasure islands that definitely aren’t safeguarding-approved, to world expos, tunnel-of-love metaphors, and the sheer horror of Simply Red – Fairground lodging itself in your brain for days. Along the way there’s a rollercoaster quiz nobody asked for, Orson Welles on a Ferris wheel treating people like ants, and the usual detours into Bruce Springsteen, Brighton Rock, and Tom Hanks getting magically statutory in Big. Our main feature is Islands (dir. Jan-Ole Gerster), starring Sam Riley as a washed-up ex-tennis pro coasting through life as a resort coach in Fuerteventura. His days are a loop of hangovers, half-arsed lessons and meaningless flings… until a young British family arrive, bringing: A talented 7-year-old with a suspiciously decent backhandA magnetic, possibly femme-fatale mother who may or may not be telling the whole truthA lad-mag husband who promptly disappears after a night outWe dig into: Riley’s quietly brilliant, physically lived-in performance as a man sleepwalking through his own lifeThe film’s sun-drenched, slightly haunted resort vibe – all sand dunes, empty courts and bad decisionsClass, envy and the gap between “living the dream” and being totally stuckThat unforgettable helicopter-lifted dead camel shot, and what it says about escape, failure and being in too deepIf you like your films low-voltage but tense, your characters deeply flawed, and your movie chat filthy, tangential and only loosely under control, this is a strong entry point into the pod. Hit play, take a swing, and see if you make it off Trash Island for grown-ups. You can now text us anonymously to leave feedback, suggest future content or simply hurl abuse at us. We'll read out any texts we receive on the show. Click here to try it out! We love to hear from our listeners! By which I mean we tolerate it. If it hasn't been completely destroyed yet you can usually find us on twitter @dads_film, on Facebook Bad Dads Film Review, on email at baddadsjsy@gmail.com or on our website baddadsfilm.com. Until next time, we remain... Bad Dads

    42 min
  5. Midweek Mention... Isle of Dogs

    12/10/2025

    Midweek Mention... Isle of Dogs

    Isle of Dogs (2018) – Trash Island, pandemics, and very good boys In this episode of Bad Dads Film Review, we head to Wes Anderson’s stop-motion Japan for Isle of Dogs, a film where man’s best friend is dumped on a toxic wasteland by a fascist cat-loving dynasty, and the only person who gives a toss is a 12-year-old boy in a stolen plane. We follow Atari and his pack of exiled hounds – Chief, Rex, King, Duke and Boss – as they trek across Trash Island in search of Spots, the missing bodyguard dog who may or may not have become the stuff of cannibal legend. Along the way we get robot attack dogs, poison sushi, hacked kill-switches, and a haiku that brings a dictator to heel. We talk about Wes Anderson’s unmistakable style even in animation: the hyper-detailed sets, deadpan framing, fight scenes rendered as swirling dust clouds, and dogs whose fur moves like living sculptures. We dig into the cast (Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Jeff Goldblum, Scarlett Johansson), the film’s pandemic politics, propaganda and AI war-dogs, and the criticisms about cultural appropriation versus what feels like a pretty sincere love letter to Japanese cinema and design. There’s also time for the Bad Dads to confess their real-life dog feelings (ranging from “not a pet person” to “my dog is a tiny menace”), marvel at the sheer effort behind every two-second shot, and argue that Anderson’s animated films might be the best entry point for people who bounce off his live-action work. If you’re into: Stop-motion that’s so detailed it makes your eyes hurtDystopian politics smuggled into a story about lost dogsPacks of flawed, funny, loyal mutts trying to do the right thing…this episode is a strong recommend and a good place to jump into the pod. You can now text us anonymously to leave feedback, suggest future content or simply hurl abuse at us. We'll read out any texts we receive on the show. Click here to try it out! We love to hear from our listeners! By which I mean we tolerate it. If it hasn't been completely destroyed yet you can usually find us on twitter @dads_film, on Facebook Bad Dads Film Review, on email at baddadsjsy@gmail.com or on our website baddadsfilm.com. Until next time, we remain... Bad Dads

    27 min
  6. Jewels and The Duallists

    12/05/2025

    Jewels and The Duallists

    The Duellists (1977) & Top 5 Jewels – honour, obsession, and very stupid men with swords In this episode of Bad Dads Film Review, we kick things off with our Top 5 Jewels – a glittering mix of cursed stones, crime magnets and wildly impractical accessories. From the Pink Panther diamond and Uncut Gems’ black opal to Titanic’s Heart of the Ocean, Baz Luhrmann’s blinged-out Great Gatsby, Moana’s glowing heart of Te Fiti, and even that doomed chandelier in Only Fools and Horses, we rummage through cinema’s treasure box to see which jewels genuinely sparkle and which belong in Claire’s Accessories. Then it’s back to 1977 for Ridley Scott’s stunning directorial debut, The Duellists. Harvey Keitel and Keith Carradine play two French officers locked into a 15–year feud that starts over a petty slight and escalates into a lifelong obsession. We get into: Honour as addiction – why one of them simply cannot let it go, everHow the film turns duelling into a ritual of pride, stubbornness and self-destructionThe way the weapons, stakes and scars escalate with each encounterRidley Scott’s eye for light, landscape and costume on a tiny budgetWhy the ending works so well, and what it says about victory, defeat and identityThere’s also the usual Bad Dads nonsense: road-trip chat, Christmas hats in December, grumbling about “live-action everything” culture, and a detour into glass onions, murder mysteries and moving house back pain. If you like: Period dramas with gorgeous visuals and nasty steel-on-steel showdownsCharacter studies about pride, masculinity and grudges that outlive their purposeMovie list chaos that jumps from Disney to French noir to jewellery-based heists…then this is a perfect episode to jump into the pod. You can now text us anonymously to leave feedback, suggest future content or simply hurl abuse at us. We'll read out any texts we receive on the show. Click here to try it out! We love to hear from our listeners! By which I mean we tolerate it. If it hasn't been completely destroyed yet you can usually find us on twitter @dads_film, on Facebook Bad Dads Film Review, on email at baddadsjsy@gmail.com or on our website baddadsfilm.com. Until next time, we remain... Bad Dads

    37 min
  7. Midweek Mention... Duel

    12/03/2025

    Midweek Mention... Duel

    A nameless truck, an everyday salesman, and 90 minutes of pure escalation: this episode is all about Steven Spielberg’s debut feature, Duel (1971). We talk through how a simple setup – Dennis Weaver’s mild-mannered David Mann driving to a routine meeting – turns into a relentless nightmare when he’s targeted by a grimy tanker truck that seems less like a vehicle and more like a stalking predator. From suburban driveways to dusty California highways, we track every swerve, near–miss, and increasingly desperate decision as a casual overtake turns into a life-or-death duel on the road. Along the way we get into: Road rage and paranoia – why Mann feels like a “cuck vs truck” case study, and how the film weaponises every tiny driving irritation into something sinister.The truck as a character – the battered Peterbilt, its collection of license plates, its “face” in the grill and headlights, and the choice never to fully show the driver.Minimal cast, maximum tension – how Spielberg keeps it gripping with basically one man, one truck, a diner, a school bus and a handful of side characters.Set-pieces that still work – the diner sequence and “which guy is it?”, the stalled school bus, the railway crossing shove, the Snake-O-Rama phone box attack, and that final hillside showdown.Spielberg’s emerging style – low-mounted cameras to fake speed, clever blocking, the way he maps the whole journey out on paper, and the stunts he only had one chance to get right.Production trivia – its origins as a TV movie, the brutal shooting schedule, why the truck doesn’t explode, and how its death roar later turns up in other Spielberg classics.If you like tight, stripped-back thrillers, if you’ve ever shouted at another driver, or if you’re curious to hear three dads pick apart early Spielberg craft as much as they laugh about it, this is a good place to jump into the podcast. You can now text us anonymously to leave feedback, suggest future content or simply hurl abuse at us. We'll read out any texts we receive on the show. Click here to try it out! We love to hear from our listeners! By which I mean we tolerate it. If it hasn't been completely destroyed yet you can usually find us on twitter @dads_film, on Facebook Bad Dads Film Review, on email at baddadsjsy@gmail.com or on our website baddadsfilm.com. Until next time, we remain... Bad Dads

    21 min
  8. Frankenstein (2025)

    11/21/2025

    Frankenstein (2025)

    Frankenstein (2025) – Tech bros, trauma, and a super-horny monster movie on Netflix Mary Shelley by way of Guillermo del Toro feels almost too perfect, and Frankenstein (2025) absolutely leans into that match-up: lush Gothic sets, grotesque body horror, tender fairytale beats, and a very modern anxiety about people who build things they can’t control. In this episode, the Bad Dads dig into Netflix’s lavish new take on the classic, framed in the icy Arctic as Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) and his Creature retell their shared nightmare from two sides. Along the way we get abusive fathers, creepy power dynamics, “18th-century tech bro” energy, and more limb-sawing than is probably healthy for a school night. We also talk about how weird it is that this $120m movie technically “bombed” at the box office but only because it was dumped into cinemas for a week to qualify for Oscars, and what that says about modern streaming, awards campaigning and how success is measured now. In the episode we cover: Netflix’s blink-and-you-miss-it theatrical release strategy and why the film only made $144k in cinemasOscar Isaac’s monstrous turn as an abusive, glory-hungry surgeon vs the Creature’s unexpected gentlenessMia Goth, Christoph Waltz with gold shoes, Charles Dance as the worst dad alive, and why this is a strangely “horny” FrankensteinThat brutal opening on the ice: shattered legs, ship-tipping strength and a monster that just won’t dieGenerational trauma, perfectionism and how Victor immediately becomes the same kind of father he hatesThe forest/fairytale stretch: mice, a blind old man, found family, and the heartbreaking deer sceneAll the grisly stuff: hanging bodies, severed limbs, skinned wolves and why the practical sets and make-up look incredibleFrankenstein as an AI / tech parable – creating something powerful, sentient and uncontrollable, then trying to kill itThe big split on the pod: is 2.5 hours richly earned or just too long for a story we already know?Mary Shelley’s original novella, written at 18 on a dare, and how its ideas still infect modern thrillers, conspiracy stories and sci-fiIf you like your horror Gothic, your monsters tragic, and your movie chat equal parts thoughtful and filthy, this is a good jumping-on point. Hit play, hear us argue about runtime, thirst over Oscar Isaac, side-eye Mia Goth, and decide for yourself whether this Frankenstein is a modern classic or just an overbuilt monster. You can now text us anonymously to leave feedback, suggest future content or simply hurl abuse at us. We'll read out any texts we receive on the show. Click here to try it out! We love to hear from our listeners! By which I mean we tolerate it. If it hasn't been completely destroyed yet you can usually find us on twitter @dads_film, on Facebook Bad Dads Film Review, on email at baddadsjsy@gmail.com or on our website baddadsfilm.com. Until next time, we remain... Bad Dads

    31 min
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About

Several years ago 4 self confessed movie fanatics ruined their favourite pastime by having children. Now we are telling the world about the movies we missed and the frequently awful kids tv we are now subjected to. We like to think we're funny. Come and argue with us on the social medias. Twitter: @dads_film Facebook: BadDadsFilmReview Instagram: instagram.com/baddadsjsy www.baddadsfilm.com

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  • Creator
    Bad Dads
  • Years Active
    2019 - 2025
  • Episodes
    577
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2025 Bad Dads Film Review
  • Show Website
    Bad Dads Film Review

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