A gritty, twisty one-night siege thriller that actually looks great (yes, you can see what’s happening). The RIP throws Matt Damon and Ben Affleck into a paranoid, internal-corruption nightmare where everyone feels suspicious and every conversation sounds like it has a second meaning.

The setup

Miami PD captain Jackie Veles is executed by masked hitters after sending one last message and ditching her phone in the river. The FBI descends on the TNT squad (Tactical Narcotics Team), grilling Damon’s Dane and Affleck’s JD Byrne with a barrage of insinuations—then drops a key reveal: the lead agent is Affleck’s brother (Scott Adkins), and it gets physical.

What we dig into

• The “big score” tip: Dane gets a text about serious cash—then tells each teammate a different number (immediately sketchy).
• The money house: a run-down suburban place with a single pristine attic space hiding buckets of cash—enough to bring cartel heat and dirty cops out of the woodwork.
• Procedure vs panic: phones confiscated, on-site double counts, and the creeping feeling that everyone has an angle.
• Corruption lore: VCAT baggage, rumours of a cop “crew” that hunts cash stashes, and the sense the real enemy is inside the system.
• The siege and the switch: masked shooters, cartel contact, and the film’s central fun: constantly reassigning blame as the night spirals.
• Motifs that land (and one that doesn’t): the tattoo mantra (“Are we the good guys? We are, and always will be”), the “see another sunrise” thread… and the slightly daft full-circle beat at the end.

The verdict

This is Knives Out with tattoos and automatic weapons—a clean, propulsive plot, strong tension, and a solid Damon/Affleck double-act. It’s not subtle about cop-mythology, but as a contained, twist-forward thriller with a great cast and tight pacing, it’s an easy 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 [email protected] or on our website baddadsfilm.com.

Until next time, we remain...

Bad Dads

We went in expecting a messy anthology and came out with a genuinely original love letter to Oakland, 1987 — four stories that start as separate vibes and then click together in the final act like a mixtape that suddenly makes sense.

The setup is pure mood: people spilling out of a cinema after The Lost Boys, a bright green “something in the air” glow hanging over the city, and a pulpy, comic-book style that flirts with Sin City / Scott Pilgrim energy. It’s stylish, funny, and—when it wants to be—ferociously violent.

What we cover in the episode

• The anthology structure: four chapters that interconnect and payoff later, with Oakland culture (music, venues, street energy) doing most of the heavy lifting.
• Chapter 1: “Strength in Numbers – The Gilman Strikes Back”
  A straight-edge punk club gets terrorised by Nazi skinheads… and the punks decide they’re not taking it anymore. We talk wish-fulfilment retribution, the myth-making tone, and the film’s “300-style” brawl choreography.
• Chapter 2: “Don’t Fight the Feeling”
  Two women from rap group Danger Zone get their shot at a battle with Too $hort — and turn it into an 80s feminist mic-drop. The ice-cream shop scene with a vile, racist cop is one of the most uncomfortable (and effective) bits in the whole film.
• Chapter 3: “Born to Mack” (Pedro Pascal)
  A one-last-job crime thread that flips into tragedy and revenge. We dig into how this segment links the others, and why it feels like the “spine” of the film.
• Chapter 4: “The Sleepy Floyd Story”
  A real NBA legend (29 points in a quarter) gets turned into a Kill Bill-style revenge myth — samurai swords, home-invasion carnage, and a final twist that goes full pulpy sci-fi.
• The big theme: modern, direct, and not subtle — Nazis can get in the bin. The film turns that into catharsis, and it lands.

The verdict

This is a labour-of-love movie: inventive, ridiculously well-styled, packed with music, and shot so you can actually see what’s happening in dark scenes (rare these days). It does get very bloody—especially the final stretch—but it’s never boring.

If you want an episode with hype, plot breakdown, and us arguing where the film crosses from “clever urban legend” into “absolute madness,” this one’s for you.

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 [email protected] or on our website baddadsfilm.com.

Until next time, we remain...

Bad Dads

This one starts the way all great cinema analysis starts: Dan’s birthday sandwich (father-in-law today, Dan tomorrow, Mrs the day after), a bit of life admin, and then straight into neon sci-fi with Tron: Ares.

If your Tron knowledge is basically “glowing lines, lightbikes, and that vibe,” you’re fine — this film mostly plays in the real world, and asks a simple question: what happens when programs from the Grid step into reality?

The hook

Two tech giants are racing to crack the next breakthrough:

• ENCOM, led by visionary philanthropist Eve Kim (trying to build tech that helps the world)
• Dillinger Systems, led by Julian Dillinger (weaponising the future)

Dillinger’s flex is terrifyingly straightforward: laser-built constructs — vehicles, weapons, even soldiers — “printed” instantly into existence. The catch (and the film’s ticking clock): these creations normally degrade after ~29 minutes.

What we dig into

• Ares (Jared Leto) as a “program-soldier”: built for control, but quickly starts developing something dangerously human — curiosity, empathy, judgement.
• The “permanence code” McGuffin: Flynn’s old work hints at a way to make constructs last — which flips the film from flashy demo into existential threat (and/or world-changing miracle).
• A full-on real-world lightbike chase: glowing trails carving through traffic, near-misses, collateral chaos — the biggest “this is why Tron exists” sequence.
• AI awakening… without deep philosophy: it doesn’t pretend to be Ex Machina. It’s more “stylish action thriller” than serious tech parable — and we call that out.
• Athena as the escalation engine: when the second-in-command takes “by any means necessary” literally, the film goes from corporate rivalry to open urban warfare.
• The ending teases: Dillinger’s next evolution, Ares going rogue, and sequel-bait that actually works.

The verdict

We’re blunt about it: this film isn’t saying anything profound about humanity and technology. What it is doing is delivering a clean, coherent action plot, a proper ticking-clock hook, and a visual/audio assault that feels like a two-hour music video in the best way.

Even the resident sci-fi sceptic came out surprised: watchable, clear stakes, great set-pieces, banging soundtrack — and sometimes that’s enough.

If you want an episode where we:

• break down the plot without pretending it’s smarter than it is,
• obsess over the chase scenes and Grid aesthetics,
• and argue whether “29 minutes to live” is a flaw or a feature…

…press play.

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 [email protected] or on our website baddadsfilm.com.

Until next time, we remain...

Bad Dads

We start this one the only way we know how: Pete quits his job (casually), we open a bottle of potentially corked wine (possibly poisonous), and then—somehow—end up reviewing Avatar 3, despite half the room not even watching Avatar 2.

Pete’s approach is simple: he’s not here to defend or attack Avatar. He’s here to report back from the front lines of three hours and ten minutes of James Cameron doing what James Cameron does.

The setup (in plain English)

You’ve got:

• Jungle people (from Avatar 1)
• Sea people (Avatar 2)
• Now: Fire people (Avatar 3)

The grief and revenge angle ramps up after the events of the second film, and the new “fire clan” are positioned as more brutal, more pagan, and basically built to escalate the conflict. The humans (the “sky people”) are still doing what humans do: exploiting the planet, weaponising alliances, and trying to crack the next big advantage.

What we actually talk about

• Skipping straight to film three: why it’s weirdly possible, because these films run on a repeating template.
• Spider and the “air-breather” idea: a human kid embedded with the Na’vi, and the implications if humans can reverse-engineer breathing on Pandora.
• The fire clan: their volcanic backstory, their vibe shift from the earlier tribes, and the “new enemy faction” energy.
• The villain problem: how characters keep “dying” in ways that clearly don’t stick, setting up sequels forever.
• The big third-act battle: yet another massive end set-piece, but with a new environmental twist that feels… very convenient.
• The core contradiction: the storytelling is bloated and recycled, but the spectacle is undeniable.

The verdict

Pete’s take lands here: these films are ridiculous, repetitive, and absolutely stunning to look at. As cinema experiences, they’re hard to argue with visually. As stories, they’re basically a shiny loop — but a shiny loop that keeps making a billion dollars.

If you want to hear us:

• unravel the plot without pretending it’s deep,
• argue about whether Avatar has any cultural footprint at all,
• and admit (through gritted teeth) that Cameron’s visuals are still operating on a different level…

…this episode is for you.

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 [email protected] or on our website baddadsfilm.com.

Until next time, we remain...

Bad Dads

This week’s episode begins in full “Bad Dads” mode: we’re recording with barely any gear in sight, arguing about blinking lights, and realising—mid-flow—that “Island Week” might have scrambled everyone’s brains. But the chaos is fitting, because the film we tackle is The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996)… a movie so famously cursed it feels like it was assembled in a panic from whatever footage survived the production.

Based on the H.G. Wells story, it follows Edward Douglas (David Thewlis), a plane-crash survivor rescued at sea and dumped onto a remote island run by the mysteriously missing (and very infamous) Dr. Moreau (Marlon Brando). Douglas is told not to wander. Naturally, he wanders—straight into a nightmare lab of human–animal hybrids, bizarre rituals, and creatures that look like they were costumed by a school drama department on a tight deadline.

What we cover in the episode

• Why this film is notorious: the on-set chaos, the director being fired two days in, and the sense the final cut is basically a patchwork survival story.
• Brando’s “what am I watching?” performance: whiteface, robe, bizarre headgear, godlike status on the island… and an energy that suggests nobody was in control.
• Val Kilmer as peak 90s disaster energy: an increasingly unhinged presence, and how behind-the-scenes dysfunction seems to bleed into the film itself.
• The hybrids: early reveals, dodgy prosthetics, worse CGI, and one moment that completely breaks the brain (yes, a human-llama birth).
• The island society: worship, obedience via pain-inducing implants, and the whole thing drifting into cult vibes.
• When it goes full pantomime: the uprising, the armory, and the film’s most unintentionally hilarious image—a creature firing a machine gun with a hoof.
• A bleak, messy ending: power vacuums, violence, and an escape plan so flimsy the biggest concern becomes… why isn’t he wearing a hat?

The verdict

This isn’t a “good film” recommendation. This is a you-have-to-see-it recommendation. It’s only about 90 minutes, it’s weirdly breezy, and it’s endlessly watchable as a cinematic car crash—especially if you enjoy hearing us dissect disasters while laughing at the parts that clearly should not be funny.

If you like cult curios, notorious flops, and episodes where we’re basically reviewing the production meltdown as much as the movie itself—this one’s for you.

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 [email protected] or on our website baddadsfilm.com.

Until next time, we remain...

Bad Dads

This episode begins, as ever, in total disarray: missed jokes, football updates, wine anxiety, and the creeping realisation that the best material always happens before the mic is on. Then Dan drops a bombshell: The Night Manager is so tense he physically struggled to finish it.

And that’s the hook.

Based on John le Carré’s novel, The Night Manager is a six-part espionage thriller starring Tom Hiddleston as Jonathan Pine, a hotel night manager pulled into a covert operation to bring down international arms dealer Richard Roper (a towering Hugh Laurie). Set against the backdrop of the Arab Spring, it’s a story of guilt, infiltration, and moral compromise — where every smile hides a weapon and every ally might be a leak.

We talk about:

• Why this is one of the most gripping British series of the last decade
• Hiddleston’s transformation into a Bond-adjacent undercover operative
• Hugh Laurie’s chilling reinvention as “the worst man in the world”
• The mechanics of building a fake identity and earning trust from monsters
• Olivia Colman’s ferocious MI6 handler and the cost of doing “good”
• The unbearable tension of near-misses, close calls, and cliffhangers
• John le Carré’s MI6 roots and why his work still defines spy fiction

It’s sleek, paranoid, adult television — the kind where you pause episodes just to steady your nerves. With a new season finally arriving, this is the perfect moment to (re)discover it.

If you like espionage with teeth, villains who smile while they ruin lives, and stories where nobody is truly safe, this episode is your invitation to dive in.

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 [email protected] or on our website baddadsfilm.com.

Until next time, we remain...

Bad Dads

This episode begins the only way we know how: absolute chaos. We veer from wills, tits, and Stranger Things before eventually remembering we’re meant to be talking about a film. If you’re new here, that’s the show.

The film in question is Guy Ritchie’s The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare — a swaggering WWII caper based on a real black-ops unit hand-picked by Churchill and Ian Fleming. Set in 1941, it imagines the birth of modern special forces: not rules, not honour, just twenty feral specialists sent in to break things and terrify the enemy.

We talk about:

• The shift from “civilised” warfare to winning at any cost
• Henry Cavill as a proto–James Bond, recruited straight out of prison
• The opening “Swedish fishermen” massacre as a mission statement
• Cartoon-level violence, moustaches, one-liners and Guy Ritchie excess
• The joy of watching war movies ditch decorum for chaos
• Why SAS: Rogue Heroes makes the perfect companion piece

It’s not subtle. It’s not serious. It’s loud, slick, and gleefully ridiculous — a war movie powered by bravado and bad behaviour.

If you like explosions, rule-breaking, and men with absolutely no fear of death, this episode (and this film) are for you.

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 [email protected] or on our website baddadsfilm.com.

Until next time, we remain...

Bad Dads

Benoit Blanc is back — but not in the way you might expect.

In this episode, we dig into Wake Up Dead Man, the third entry in Rian Johnson’s Knives Out series, and quickly realise this isn’t just another playful, sun-drenched whodunnit. The tone is darker, stranger, and far more morbid than Knives Out or Glass Onion, leaning hard into religious imagery, guilt, confession, and moral rot.

Set around a remote church and a fire-and-brimstone priest, the film opens with what looks like an impossible murder: a man stabbed in a sealed room, in full view of his congregation. From there, Blanc circles a tight group of suspects — each with motive, history, and secrets — as the film toys with classic murder-mystery rules… and then quietly breaks a few of them.

What we talk about in the episode:

• The tonal shift — why this feels closer to gothic noir than cosy Agatha Christie
• Religion, confession, and judgment as thematic engines, not just window dressing
• Whether the mystery is too Scooby-Doo or intentionally rejecting “fair-play” sleuthing
• A stacked cast and who actually makes an impact (and who doesn’t)
• Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc: more observer than solver this time — for better or worse
• The film’s final act, revelations, and why it left us oddly unsatisfied despite clever ideas
• How it stacks up against Knives Out (still the gold standard) and Glass Onion (the loudest sibling)

We also get into a broader debate about modern murder mysteries, Netflix’s influence on structure and pacing, and whether this series is drifting away from the thing that made it work in the first place: watching a brilliant detective actually do the detecting.

If you like your whodunnits bleak, talky, and a little unholy — or if you just want to hear us wrestle with a film that’s clever, flawed, and deliberately frustrating — this one’s for you.

🎧 Listen to the full episode for the deep dive, the disagreements, and our verdict on whether Wake Up Dead Man is a bold evolution… or a mystery that forgets to be fun.

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 [email protected] or on our website baddadsfilm.com.

Until next time, we remain...

Bad Dads

Die Hard is the kind of “comfort violence” film that never gets old!

It’s a Christmas film for structural reasons, not vibes.
Christmas isn’t just background dressing. The party only happens because it’s Christmas, the building is half-staffed because it’s Christmas, McClane is only in LA because it’s Christmas, and Hans’ whole timing depends on a holiday lull. Remove Christmas and the plot collapses.

• McClane isn’t an action hero at the start — he becomes one.
  He’s scared, he bleeds, he’s improvising, and he’s basically running on stubbornness and spite. That’s why it’s satisfying: it’s competence earned under pressure, not superhero nonsense.
• Hans Gruber is the real blueprint villain.
  He’s calm, intelligent, funny, and actually seems like he has a plan. Rickman makes him feel like he’s doing theatre while everyone else is doing an action film. It’s why the film still plays now.
• Ellis is the most realistic character in the whole thing.
  Not “realistic” as in good, but realistic as in: give a coke-sniffing corporate gobshite a crisis and he’ll try to negotiate his way into being important. Then immediately get shot.
• The Powell/McClane friendship is pure genius.
  They barely share a scene, but it lands emotionally because it’s built on voice, trust, and the fact Powell is the only person treating McClane like a human being instead of a “situation.”

And yes: a 24/7 Die Hard channel is basically the final form of Christmas television. Even if you don’t watch it, it’s reassuring that it exists, like a lighthouse for divorced dads and men in dressing gowns.

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 [email protected] or on our website baddadsfilm.com.

Until next time, we remain...

Bad Dads

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 [email protected] or on our website baddadsfilm.com.

Until next time, we remain...

Bad Dads