Bad Dads Film Review

This week the dads step into glamorous 1960s Europe with Blake Edwards’ The Pink Panther (1963) — the first outing for Peter Sellers’ bumbling Inspector Clouseau. For many of us, this was like watching it for the first time. Sure, we’d caught bits on Sunday TV over the years, but sitting down start-to-finish was a new experience — and a surprising one. Despite being branded a Clouseau movie, Selle...

South Korea. 1979. Forty days to an assassination. We dive into Woo Min-ho’s icy political thriller The Man Standing Next — a gripping, true-events drama about KCIA director Kim Gyu-pyeong (played by Squid Game ’s Front Man, Lee Byung-hun ) as he weighs loyalty, country, and a bullet. What the film’s about After years in President Park Chung-hee ’s inner circle, Kim watches the regime harden: poli...

This week the dads take on Mad to Be Normal (2017), a little-seen British drama starring David Tennant as the controversial Scottish psychiatrist R.D. Laing. Set in 1960s London, the film follows Laing’s radical experiment at Kingsley Hall, where doctors and patients lived side by side without medication, shock therapy, or the heavy hand of institutional psychiatry. Instead, Laing championed empat...

This week’s episode is positively huge (and Hugh-filled). 👼 Heretic We dive into Heretic (2024), the claustrophobic new thriller from A24 in which two young missionaries find themselves trapped in the home of Hugh Grant — who’s swapped his floppy-haired rom-com persona for a sinister host obsessed with theology, control, and blueberry pie. It’s equal parts scripture, serial killer, and Monopoly r...

This week, the Dads dust off their morning suits and dive into Richard Curtis’ runaway hit Four Weddings and a Funeral . Mike Newell’s rom-com was the film that turned Hugh Grant into floppy-haired royalty, introduced us to Andie MacDowell’s enigmatic Carrie, and made swearing at alarm clocks a national pastime. We talk through all four weddings (and, yes, the funeral), unpacking: Hugh Grant’s car...

This week on Bad Dads Film Review , we double up on trouble (and laughs) with our Top 5 Twins before diving headfirst into Greta Gerwig’s billion-dollar juggernaut Barbie . 👯 Double Vision From Arnold and Danny in Twins to the terrifying Grady girls from The Shining , via Tintin’s bumbling detectives and even a detour into real-life Hollywood doppelgängers, we explore the weird, wonderful, and oc...

How do you film the unfilmable? That’s the challenge at the heart of Michael Winterbottom’s Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story , a delightfully meta take on Laurence Sterne’s famously chaotic 18th-century novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman . In this week’s episode, the Dads dive into a film that blurs every boundary — between adaptation and behind-the-scenes drama, betwe...

Welcome back to Bad Dads Film Review ! This week we’re crunching numbers, making shady deals, and talking shop with our Top 5 Businesses in film and TV before heading to the Costa del Crime for our main feature — The Business (2005) , a slick, sun-drenched British crime drama from Nick Love. 📈 Top 5 Businesses in Film & TV 1. Acme Corporation – Looney Tunes Purveyors of rocket skates, explodi...

Welcome back to Bad Dads Film Review ! This week we’re donning our Ray-Bans, sliding across the living room floor, and revisiting the film that launched Tom Cruise into superstardom — Risky Business (1983) . Equal parts coming-of-age comedy, satire, and cautionary tale, it’s a movie that defined a certain brand of 80s cool while slyly critiquing the era’s obsession with wealth and success. Directe...

Welcome back to Bad Dads Film Review ! This week we’re diving deep into the underworld of cinematic mentorship and criminal patronage with our Top 5 Godfathers (but no, not that Godfather), followed by a look at Jacques Audiard’s powerful crime drama, A Prophet (2009) . Grit, transformation, and the shadows of paternal influence are the order of the day. 🧑‍🦲 Top 5 Godfathers (but not The one) Wi...

Welcome back to Bad Dads Film Review ! This week we’re heading back to the early 2000s with Paid in Full (2002) , a gritty street-level crime drama from director Charles Stone III, which dives deep into the Harlem drug scene of the 1980s. The film stars Wood Harris, Mekhi Phifer, and rapper Cam’ron in a fictionalised take on the lives of real-life hustlers Azie Faison, Rich Porter, and Alpo Martin...

Welcome back to Bad Dads Film Review! This week, we’re blowing out the candles and unwrapping a nostalgia-packed episode with our Top 5 Birthdays in Film and TV , followed by a dive into Happy Gilmore 2 — the long-awaited, fan-service sequel to Adam Sandler’s 1996 cult classic. Spoiler alert: it’s still not about the golf. 🎉 Top 5 Birthdays in Film and TV Bilbo Baggins' Eleventy-First Birthd...

Welcome back to Bad Dads Film Review! This week, we saddle up for a gritty supernatural western as we take on Clint Eastwood’s High Plains Drifter — a film that’s equal parts revenge tale, eerie morality play, and genre deconstruction. With Eastwood both in the saddle and behind the camera, this one takes the dusty tropes of the western and coats them in something much darker. 🌵 The Plot: Ghosts,...

Welcome back to Bad Dads Film Review! This week, we’re doing something a little different in honour of Cris’s birthday – and what better way to celebrate than by diving into a handpicked selection of actors whose careers, films, or sheer star quality connect (tenuously or not) to our resident birthday boy. There’s no Top 5 this time around – instead, it’s all about Helen Mirren, Kate Beckinsale, K...

Welcome back to Bad Dads Film Review ! This week we’re trading bullets for custard pies and gangsters for tap-dancing tweens as we revisit Alan Parker’s delightfully eccentric musical comedy Bugsy Malone (1976). It’s a film that plays like a Prohibition-era crime saga — if it were directed by Roald Dahl and cast entirely with children. 🕵️ Main Feature: Bugsy Malone (1976) Set in a stylized version...

Welcome back to Bad Dads Film Review ! This week we’re taking a tumble — both literally and metaphorically — as we break down our Top 5 Falls in Movies and TV , followed by a closer look at the slow-burning, Palme d'Or-winning courtroom drama Anatomy of a Fall . No kids' section this time around — just a lot of bodies hitting the floor (sometimes figuratively). 🪂 Top 5 FALLS in Movies &...

Welcome back to Bad Dads Film Review! This week we’re hanging off helicopters, sprinting across rooftops, and disarming nuclear bombs with the pulse-pounding Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018) . Strap in as we break down the sixth entry in the franchise that somehow keeps getting better with age — just like Tom Cruise’s running form. Directed by Christopher McQuarrie , Fallout is a masterclass i...

Welcome back to Bad Dads Film Review! This week’s episode packs a punch as we dive into Top 5 Juniors in Movies and TV , followed by a deep dive into the intense war thriller Warfare (2025) . No kids’ TV show this week — we’re keeping it strictly grown-up. 🎯 Top 5 Juniors in Movies and TV Indiana Jones Jr. (Young Indiana Jones / Indiana Jones Series) Before he became the famed archaeologist, we m...

Welcome back to Bad Dads Film Review ! This week, we’re stepping into the ring with Hands of Stone (2016), the boxing biopic that tells the story of legendary Panamanian fighter Roberto Durán. Directed by Jonathan Jakubowicz, Hands of Stone chronicles the life and career of Roberto Durán, one of boxing’s most iconic and ferocious competitors. The film stars Édgar Ramírez as Durán, delivering a fie...

Welcome back to Bad Dads Film Review , where this week we're ticking all the right boxes with our Top 5 Watches in film and TV. From time-stopping devices to classic wrist candy, we’re delving into the chronometers that do more than just tell time. 🕰 Top 5 Watches in Film and TV 1. The Rolex Submariner – James Bond Series The ultimate symbol of spy sophistication. First worn by Sean Connery i...

Groovy, baby! Welcome back to Bad Dads Film Review , where this week we’re throwing on our crushed velvet, dialling up the mojo, and time-traveling back to the swinging '60s with Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997). Directed by Jay Roach and written by (and starring) Mike Myers, this outrageous spy spoof remains one of the most quotable and culturally impactful comedies of the...

Welcome back to Bad Dads Film Review! This week we’re embracing all things angular, round, and abstract with our Top 5 Shapes in Movies & TV , diving into Ruben Östlund’s Triangle of Sadness , and finishing up with a charming kids' pick: Shape Island . It’s geometry, but make it cinematic. 🟦 Top 5 Shapes in Movies & TV 1. The Monolith – 2001: A Space Odyssey A perfect black rectangle...

Welcome back to Bad Dads Film Review! This week, we’re descending into the mind-bending, minimalist sci-fi thriller that is Cube (1997). A cult favourite from Canadian director Vincenzo Natali, this low-budget psychological puzzle box is as disorienting and claustrophobic as it is thought-provoking. Cube begins in medias res: a group of strangers wakes up in a strange, sterile room with hatches on...

Welcome back to Bad Dads Film Review! This week we’re spinning in circles—in the best possible way—with our Top 5 Loops in film and television. Whether they’re time loops, narrative loops, or just delightfully circular plot structures, these stories keep us guessing and coming back for more. We’re also checking out Armando Iannucci’s razor-sharp satire In The Loop and revisiting the chronologicall...

Welcome back to Bad Dads Film Review! This week, we’re bending time, smashing starships, and looping through one of the most mind-bending episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation : Season 5, Episode 18 – "Cause and Effect" . It’s a perfect example of how sci-fi can take a deceptively simple concept—what if you’re stuck in a time loop?—and turn it into a suspenseful, clever, and surpris...