This week the Bad Dads go big. Very big. City-smashing, helicopter-swatting, nuclear-lizard big.

Sidey has been watching the modern Warner Bros / Legendary MonsterVerse with his daughter, and the results are a full kaiju download covering Godzilla, Kong: Skull Island, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Godzilla vs. Kong, and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.

What We Cover

• Sidey’s family MonsterVerse marathon and why his daughter was hooked
• The difference between classic Japanese Godzilla, the 1990s Matthew Broderick version, and the modern Legendary / Warner Bros series
• Kong: Skull Island and its excellent mix of Vietnam-era war movie, lost-world adventure and giant ape carnage
• Samuel L. Jackson, John Goodman, John C. Reilly, and why Kong looks “like a badass”
• Godzilla: King of the Monsters, including Mothra, Rodan, King Ghidorah, Monarch, Charles Dance, and Ken Watanabe’s heroic nuclear sacrifice
• Godzilla vs. Kong and the eternal playground question: giant lizard or giant monkey?
• Mechagodzilla, Apex Cybernetics, and why the monsters teaming up is exactly the kind of nonsense we came for
• Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, Scar King, little ape business and the expanding Hollow Earth mythology
• Why the human drama in these films often feels like an interruption between monster fights
• Godzilla Minus One and the contrast between Godzilla as hero and Godzilla as terrifying destructive force
• Why huge CGI monsters smashing things remains deeply satisfying when done properly

Choice Quote / Pull Line

“They’re obviously completely stupid, but I really love big kaiju, big monster movies. They’re so cool.”

Episode Angle

A loving, sweary, spoiler-friendly defence of the MonsterVerse as premium switch-your-brain-off blockbuster entertainment: not always smart, not always coherent, but frequently brilliant at giving audiences exactly what they paid for — enormous creatures battering each other while humans explain things near laptops.

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Bad Dads

This week on Bad Dads Film Review, the dads head into deep space for Project Hail Mary — a Ryan Gosling-led Andy Weir adaptation about astrophage, reluctant heroism, alien engineering, musical communication and the most loveable rock-spider in modern sci-fi.

What we covered

• The return to Podcast Mountain after a week off, with Sidey explaining why recent recording plans went slightly sideways.
• Sidey and Reegs seeing The Streets at Alexandra Palace, immediately considering Iceland, and generally having a far better time than Sidey later had in Malta.
• Malta being very hot, not especially relaxing, and a strong avoid unless you are on the picturesque ferry to Gozo.
• Family hotel movie nights, including a MonsterVerse run and the crushing parental disappointment of Raiders of the Lost Ark being switched off for being boring.
• Ryan Gosling news from Comic-Con, including Ghost Rider, Star Wars, and whether anyone can make Ghost Rider look good on screen.
• Gosling’s range: Only God Forgives, Lars and the Real Girl, The Gray Man, blockbuster charm and oddball credibility.
• Andy Weir, The Martian, and why the dads respond to optimistic science-problem movies where clever people solve practical disasters.
• The central crisis: astrophage is eating the Sun’s energy, reducing solar output and threatening Earth.
• The Hail Mary mission as humanity’s last desperate throw, sent to Tau Ceti because that system appears mysteriously resistant to the astrophage problem.
• Ryland Grace waking from stasis with no memory, dead crewmates, a HAL-like computer and a beard that suggests deep-space personal care needs work.
• The flashbacks revealing Grace as a molecular biologist turned school teacher recruited by Eva Stratt to help understand astrophage.
• The moral ugliness of Grace not volunteering for the suicide mission, then being sedated and sent anyway after the intended crew are killed.
• The grim Earthside stakes: collapsing sunlight, food-chain panic, frightened children and governments handing Stratt extraordinary power.
• First contact with Rocky, the engineer from Erid whose own planet is facing the same astrophage disaster.
• Rocky’s musical language, the translation process, and the dads’ comparison with Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
• The two-ship friendship: different atmospheres, pressure barriers, xenonite tunnels and two scientists learning to trust each other through diagrams and experiments.
• Rocky’s look: rock-like, spider-like, toy-like and somehow instantly endearing.
• The discovery of taumoeba, the organism that eats astrophage and offers a possible solution for both Earth and Erid.
• Rocky saving Grace at huge personal risk, then Grace choosing to use his remaining fuel to save Rocky when he realises Rocky’s ship is in danger.
• The film’s optimistic message: cooperation across species, cultures and worlds is the only thing that saves anyone.
• Grace ending up on Erid, teaching alien children about Earth, and the dads enjoying the full-circle return to teaching.
• The reported $200 million budget, worldwide box office heading toward $700 million, UK-built Hail Mary sets, and Gosling’s likely “double bubble” as star and producer.

Key moments / quotes

• Sidey says “hopes were high for Project Hail Mary” because of the Gosling/Andy Weir pedigree.
• Dan explains the title through American football: the last desperate throw into the end zone.
• The dads note that Grace “didn’t fucking volunteer”, which makes Earth’s plan morally spicy even if the stakes are existential.
• Rocky’s musical tones immediately bring Close Encounters to mind.
• The group enjoy the idea of a sci-fi film built around “scientist guy figuring shit out”.
• Cris appreciates that the film is warmer and more colourful than the bleaker spaceship sci-fi he usually struggles with.
• Sidey reads the Grace/Rocky relationship as a story about different worlds working together on the same problem.
• Cris highlights the happy ending, the little rock children and the satisfying “don’t go back / actually he should go back” emotional turn.
• Sidey notes the film has done serious box office business against a huge production budget.
• The final verdict lands simply: “Strong? Strong. Strong. Yeah. Strong.”

Verdict

The dads give Project Hail Mary a unanimous strong recommend. They respond to the Andy Weir problem-solving structure, Ryan Gosling’s easy likeability, the film’s optimistic tone, and especially Rocky — an alien sidekick/friend/co-scientist who turns the film from simple survival story into something warmer and more memorable.

It is big-budget, accessible sci-fi with a hopeful streak: funny, emotional, smart enough to feel satisfying, and powered by the very Bad Dads-friendly idea that cooperation beats panic, even when the Sun is being eaten.

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Bad Dads

This week on Bad Dads Film Review, the dads dive into Luc Besson’s cult aquatic epic The Big Blue — a nearly three-hour blend of freediving rivalry, French mysticism, Jean Reno charisma, dolphin longing and some deeply questionable romantic choices.

What we covered

• Le Grand Bleu: the original title, the French phenomenon, and whether saying it properly makes the film any shorter.
• The director’s cut runtime and the general feeling that 168 minutes is a lot of ocean.
• The black-and-white childhood opening in Greece, where Jacques and Enzo’s friendship/rivalry begins.
• Jacques witnessing his father’s diving death, and how the sea becomes both trauma and home.
• Enzo’s adult introduction: Jean Reno in full swagger mode, rescuing a trapped diver and somehow turning it into a payday.
• Jacques as scientific anomaly: slowing his heart rate, bonding with dolphins, and generally behaving less like a man than an aquatic screensaver with cheekbones.
• Rosanna Arquette’s Johana, who falls hard for Jacques and makes some bold career decisions in pursuit of a man who would rather be underwater.
• The freediving championship sequences, including the dads trying to understand how niche sport fame works.
• Breath-holding records, Kate Winslet’s lungs, pure oxygen cheating, and the grim reality that most of us are good for about 35 seconds.
• Enzo and Jacques’ rivalry: affectionate, macho, dangerous, and meaningful mostly because Enzo needs it to be.
• The film’s underwater photography, which everyone agrees is often genuinely impressive.
• The score, which won a César and still gets absolutely battered here.
• Cris’s appreciation of the costumes, wetsuits, shirts, colour coordination and general seaside style.
• The dolphin break-out sequence, aka the brief Free Willy section of the film.
• Enzo’s fatal final dive and Jacques’ decision to return him to the depths.
• Jacques’ final choice, Johana’s pregnancy, and whether the ending is poetic transcendence or a man abandoning responsibility via dolphin.

Key moments / quotes

• Sidey clocks the film as having a “runtime of 73 hours”.
• Dan admits he chose it and remembered liking it, but that it was not as great as he remembered.
• Reegs describes the Amazon Prime aspect-ratio problem as so bad he had to find another version to watch it properly.
• Sidey asks whether Luc Besson edited it himself, because surely someone should have said: “This is not a fucking three-hour movie.”
• Reegs objects to the film romanticising Jacques, describing the ending as abandonment of a pregnant woman through grief and dolphins.
• Cris likes the style more than the film: the beachwear, shirts, boat shoes, wetsuits and Italian flag diving suit all get more enthusiasm than the story.
• Dan still has affection for the film’s imagery, Jean Reno and the childhood memory of its oceanic grandeur.

Verdict

The dads admire the look, the water photography and Jean Reno, but the film takes a pasting for length, pretension, thin characterisation, the writing of Johana, and Jacques being less romantic hero than emotionally unavailable dolphin botherer.

A very Bad Dads kind of strong recommend: if you have three hours spare and absolutely nothing else to do, you might come away with some nice water and a deep desire to watch football instead.

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Bad Dads

This week on Bad Dads Film Review, regular programming is temporarily suspended because the World Cup has taken over. No movie this time — instead, Sidey, Dan, Cris and Reegs look ahead to England v Argentina on Wednesday 15 July 2026, and ask the most important question in football: is it actually coming home?

What we covered

• #ICH: the birth of “It’s Coming Home” energy and why this World Cup feels different.
• England’s long road from the lows of Euro 2008, Steve McClaren’s brolly, Iceland, and the underachieving golden generation.
• Why the modern England setup has changed: St George’s Park, elite player development, the under-21 pipeline, and a squad that actually seems to like each other.
• Gareth Southgate’s legacy: restoring pride and culture, even if tactical caution may have cost England against Italy, Croatia and Spain.
• Thomas Tuchel’s England: more intensity, better defensive structure, set pieces, positive substitutions, and a clearer tactical plan.
• England’s tournament so far: not always dazzling, but resilient, adaptable and capable of raising the level when the opposition demands it.
• Hydration breaks: cynical advert break, useful tactical reset, and Dan’s preferred toilet window.
• England’s attacking identity: direct, vertical, fast and built around Kane’s movement, Bellingham’s late arrivals, and wide players who can stretch tired full-backs.
• The “starters and finishers” idea: Madueke as chaos engine, Saka as late-game punishment.
• Argentina’s threat: shithousery, tempo control, physicality, Romero, and the small matter of Lionel Messi.
• Cris’s theory that England win if they keep the tempo high and make Argentina run.
• Predictions: Cris 3–0 England, Reegs 3–2 England, Sidey/Dan closer to 1–0 or 2–1, possibly after extra time.
• Sidey’s BetBuilder: Gordon to score, Romero booked, England to go through.

Key moments / quotes

• Dan opens with the unavoidable: “It’s coming home.”
• Sidey describes it as “a change to regular programming” because the World Cup has taken over.
• The group revisits the old England problem: club rivalries, players sitting at separate tables, and a golden generation that never really became a team.
• Cris backs the development pathway argument, noting how promoting from within helped bypass old rivalries.
• Dan gives Southgate credit for putting pride back into the shirt, even if he was not always convinced by him as a manager.
• Reegs frames Tuchel’s England as reflecting “some of the best things about English football”: intensity, defensive security and set pieces.
• Cris says England are not Spain, France or Brazil in terms of central artistry — they are more direct, more vertical, more “crash bang wallop”.
• The group agrees Messi is still the great unknown: maybe the old days are gone, but nobody wants to be the team that finds out they are not.
• Sidey’s gambling-adjacent closing thought: Gordon goal, Romero yellow, England through.

Verdict

Confidence is high, but nobody is fully relaxed because England are England and Argentina are Argentina. The dads are backing England to go through, but with varying degrees of emotional self-protection.

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Bad Dads

This week on Bad Dads Film Review, we review The Life Ahead, the 2020 Netflix drama directed by Edoardo Ponti and starring Sophia Loren as Madame Rosa.

It is a film about grief, trauma, community, memory, faith, chosen family, and a young boy called Momo who is running out of safe places until he collides with an elderly woman who understands pain better than most.

What we covered

• Monday-recording energy after England’s glorious World Cup defeat of Mexico at the Azteca.
• Recent watches including The Armstrong Lie, Marco Pierre White, Cape Fear, Shot Caller, The Boys, and some explosive dynamite nominations.
• Sophia Loren’s return in a film directed by her son, Edoardo Ponti.
• Madame Rosa: Holocaust survivor, former sex worker, carer for the children of other sex workers, and a woman still carrying deep fear of doctors and institutions.
• Momo’s introduction: stealing Rosa’s candlesticks in the market, trying to stash them badly, and giving possibly the least heartfelt apology ever.
• Dr Cohen’s attempt to place Momo with Rosa, and the negotiation that moves from “absolutely not” to a deal once the money improves.
• Rosa’s household: Babu, Yosef, Lola, and the mix of Jewish, Muslim, Catholic, immigrant, queer and street-level lives around her.
• Lola as a transgender sex worker, parent and former boxer, and the dads’ discussion of how the film includes a lot of identity and community threads.
• Momo being given a job by Mr Hamil, who helps connect him to his Muslim and Senegalese heritage.
• Momo’s parallel life as a young hash dealer, including his quick success, his maths brain, and the fishmonger/drug dealer who tells him never to mess him about.
• The recurring lioness imagery and how it connects to Momo’s mother, protection, Senegal, faith and abandonment.
• Madame Rosa’s decline: the rain episode, the staring spells, dementia-like symptoms, and Momo covering for her to preserve her dignity.
• Rosa’s hidden basement room, her Auschwitz tattoo, her Jewish memories, and the place she has built to feel safe.
• The promise Rosa extracts from Momo: do not let them take me to hospital.
• Momo’s guilt when Rosa is hospitalised while he has been out drinking and dealing.
• The hospital “jailbreak” and the return to the basement, where Momo tries to keep his promise.
• The fake mimosa plant Momo makes for Rosa, and why that gesture becomes one of the film’s most moving moments.
• The ending: Rosa’s death, the funeral, and Momo walking away with Lola and Mr Hamil as a fragile new family unit.
• Sophia Loren’s screen presence at 86: still fiery, still commanding, and especially powerful in the largely silent final section.
• Ibrahima Gueye’s debut as Momo, which the dads thought was hugely impressive.
• The criticism that the film is sometimes too broad, too sweet, and a bit treacly — touching on many serious subjects without fully developing all of them.
• Why the drug storyline, in particular, feels like it could have gone somewhere darker but is resolved quite softly.
• The film’s Puglia setting, warm colours, Italian street life, and very direct community feeling.

Key quotes / moments

• Sidey notes that this is probably his first proper Sophia Loren film.
• Reegs calls the film “a bit treacly, a bit saccharine,” and argues that it throws too much in without examining enough of it in depth.
• Cris argues that the breadth is part of the Italian community texture: different faiths, identities, politics, histories and people all trying to get by.
• Dan responds strongly to the setting, the culture, and the idea of people with difficult lives still trying to do something decent for a child.
• The fake mimosa plant stands out as the small gesture that shows Momo has changed.

Verdict

A strong recommend. The dads acknowledge that The Life Ahead is well-intentioned and sometimes too broad or sentimental, but the performances, warmth, setting and emotional generosity carry it. Sophia Loren is excellent, Ibrahima Gueye is terrific, and the film’s simple message — damaged people can still look after each other — lands.

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Bad Dads

This week on Bad Dads Film Review, we head into early Scorsese territory with Mean Streets, starring Harvey Keitel as Charlie and Robert De Niro as Johnny Boy.

It is New York, 1973: Catholic guilt, bar-room bravado, small-time gangster pressure, unpaid debts, family loyalty, loaded silences, unloaded guns, and the unmistakable beginning of the Scorsese crime-movie language that would later explode into Goodfellas.

What we covered

• The famous opening idea: “You don’t make up for your sins in church. You do it on the streets.”
• How clearly the film points toward later Scorsese: Catholicism, crime, music, neighbourhood codes, restless camera moves and men trapped by loyalty.
• Harvey Keitel’s Charlie: a young man trying to be a gangster, a good Catholic, a loyal friend, and a decent person — all at once, badly.
• Charlie’s guilt, the candle-burning, and the sense that a few Hail Marys are nowhere near enough for what he thinks he deserves.
• Robert De Niro’s Johnny Boy as a reckless human hand grenade: charming, funny, dangerous, and absolutely allergic to consequences.
• Johnny Boy’s debts, the pressure from Michael, and why the lack of respect becomes almost more dangerous than the lack of money.
• The rooftop gun scene, including the attempt to shoot the light off the Empire State Building.
• The “mook” bar fight — possibly the most memorable use of the word “mook” in cinema history.
• The corrupt cop casually taking a bribe after the bar fight.
• Teresa, Charlie’s relationship with her, and the family/friendship knot that keeps Charlie tied to Johnny Boy.
• The grimy restaurant kitchen scene and its spectacularly dubious food hygiene energy.
• The ending: the drive-by shooting, Scorsese’s possible cameo as the gunman, the crash, the sirens, and the refusal to offer neat redemption.
• The low-budget invention: LA standing in for New York in places, Scorsese’s family and friends appearing, and the camera-rig drunk shot attached to Keitel.
• The fashion: De Niro’s hair, the sideburns, the silk shirts, and the sheer 1973 Italian-American wardrobe content.

Key quotes / moments

• Sidey spots the Goodfellas DNA almost immediately.
• Dan calls Johnny Boy “a human hand grenade.”
• Reegs remembers the “mook” scene as the thing that stuck with him from the film.
• Cris singles out De Niro’s hair and later the restaurant kitchen, which looks like one of the worst episodes of Kitchen Nightmares.
• The dads admire the film as the raw blueprint for Scorsese’s later, more polished crime films.

Verdict

A strong recommend. The dads recognise that Mean Streets is looser and rougher than Scorsese’s later work, but that is part of its power: it is gritty, restless, funny, violent, Catholic, and absolutely foundational.

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Bad Dads

This week on Bad Dads Film Review, we review Sidney Lumet’s 12 Angry Men, the 1957 jury-room classic starring Henry Fonda and Lee J. Cobb.

A young man’s life is on the line. Eleven jurors are ready to convict. One juror wants to talk. From that simple setup, the film becomes a tense, brilliantly engineered argument about reasonable doubt, prejudice, memory, class, personal baggage and the terrifying confidence of people who think they are definitely right.

What we covered

• The beautifully simple setup: a death-penalty murder case, a hot jury room, and a judge who seems very ready to go home.
• Juror 8’s position: not “he is innocent,” but “I am not convinced beyond reasonable doubt.”
• The first 11–1 guilty vote and how quickly the accused boy could have been sent to death row.
• The supposedly unique switchblade, and the moment Henry Fonda produces an identical knife.
• The old man’s testimony, the timing experiment, the passing train, and whether the witnesses could really have seen or heard what they claimed.
• The boy’s cinema alibi, and why forgetting details under stress might not prove guilt.
• The glasses clue and the late “Sherlock” moment that shakes the logical stockbroker juror.
• Juror 10’s racist rant and the powerful staging of the rest of the room turning away from him.
• Lee J. Cobb’s Juror 3, whose anger toward his own son becomes tangled up with the fate of the defendant.
• Sidney Lumet’s craft: the rehearsals, the sweat, the lowering camera, the tightening room, and the way the film becomes more claustrophobic as it goes.
• Why the premise can be remade in different countries and eras as a way to examine each culture’s justice system and prejudices.
• Whether some of the jury-room behaviour would cause a mistrial in real life. Short answer: probably yes, especially the duplicate murder weapon.

Key quotes / moments

• Reegs calls it “an incredible piece of science fiction” because it imagines people being persuaded by rational thought.
• Sidey points out that the film never proves innocence; it proves doubt.
• Cris remembers watching the Henry Fonda version with his dad.
• Dan compares its single-room effectiveness to the pleasure of low-budget, high-idea films like Coherence.
• The dads admire how every line either reveals character, advances the plot, or exposes someone’s bias.
• Dan lands the final group verdict: this is “four agreed men.”

Verdict

A unanimous and very strong recommend. The dads see 12 Angry Men as one of the strongest black-and-white films covered on the podcast: precise, gripping, brilliantly performed and still painfully relevant.

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Bad Dads

This week the Bad Dads take a midweek spin of the Amazon Prime roulette wheel and land on The Bad Education Movie, the 2015 big-screen send-off for Jack Whitehall’s BBC Three sitcom. Sidey is not thrilled. Reegs has seen some of it before. Cris has only caught the ending. Dan is mostly wondering how all this happened.

What We Covered

• Amazon Prime roulette: With no planned theme and a hectic week, the Dads pick numbers, scroll through Prime, and end up with The Bad Education Movie.
• Sidey vs Jack Whitehall: Sidey clarifies that Jack Whitehall may be lovely in real life, but the posh, fumbling, “I’ve said a swear word” comic persona absolutely grates.
• The sitcom-to-film set-up: A BBC Three comedy becomes a feature-length send-off, following teacher Alfie Wickers and his suspiciously adult-looking class.
• Amsterdam chaos: Mushrooms, the Anne Frank museum, a stolen model, E.T. bicycle imagery, and an early sign of the film’s comic level.
• Classroom carnage: Harry Enfield appears, the PTA are unimpressed, and a hamster gag goes full Richard Gere.
• Cornwall instead of Vegas: The school trip ends up around the Eden Project rather than the intended big blow-out, with Cornish stereotypes and a fake liberation movement driving the plot.
• Running gags: Fencing, the unfinished C-L-A tattoo, the tourist helicopter, gentrification, Tarquin, and the Cornish Liberation Army all get set up and paid off — just not, in the Dads’ view, amusingly.
• Gross-out humour: The relic/foreskin/pork-scratching gag, the Cornish strip club, zip-lining nudity, and repeated close-ups of Jack Whitehall’s anatomy take the film firmly into loud juvenile territory.
• The cast: The Dads note a surprisingly large cast, including Harry Enfield, Iain Glen, Matthew Horne and Clarke Peters, while repeatedly asking why some of them are in this.
• The broader Whitehall question: The episode detours into Jack Whitehall’s mainstream TV appeal, his safe-bet presenting persona, American audiences, and Michael Whitehall’s industry background.

Key Quotes / Moments

• “There’s only so good that somebody can make you look.”
• “This was chosen in a sort of lottery-type fashion.”
• “I’m sure he’s very nice… but I don’t find him funny.”
• “This makes Brothers Grimsby look quite nuanced.”
• “All the jokes that they set up, they do pay off. They’re just not funny.”
• “Top five worst things I’ve watched for the pod.”
• “Strong avoid for me.”

Verdict

A strong avoid. Sidey finds the film loud, juvenile, exhausting and almost entirely unfunny, placing it among the worst things watched for the podcast. Dan agrees with a strong avoid, Reegs recognises the sitcom background but does not rescue it, and Cris’ “strong recommend?” is pure mischief.

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Bad Dads

On this episode of Bad Dads Film Review, the team reviews The Brothers Grimsby — also released as Grimsby — Louis Leterrier’s 2016 spy-action gross-out comedy starring Sacha Baron Cohen and Mark Strong.

In this episode

• England week, recorded in the heat with the dads trying to finish before England kick off
• Pete’s return to the podcast, Dan’s absence, and Reegs charging the show with bringing the game into disrepute
• Top 5 England, interpreted very loosely and therefore correctly
• English stereotypes in film: bad teeth, bad food, villains, tea, class, accents, and mayonnaise in every supermarket sandwich
• Fawlty Towers, Basil Fawlty, “Don’t mention the war”, John Cleese, Connie Booth, and only needing 12 episodes to become immortal
• Sidey’s childhood Morris dancing, complete with bells, sticks, pagan energy, and possible darkness
• Cris’s first memory of England via Italia ’90, Gary Lineker, black-and-white TV, Romania after the revolution, and the schoolboy joy of Lineker’s unfortunate bowel incident
• Dave England from Jackass, yellow snow cones, giant hands, Bam Margera, and whether Jackass has run its course
• Reegs on Chris Morris as a great English exponent of absurd, shocking satire with moral integrity: The Day Today, Brass Eye, Jam, Nathan Barley, Four Lions, and The Day Shall Come
• Films and figures with England / Englishness attached: This Is England, The English Patient, Hugh Grant, Sting, Guy Ritchie, Lock, Stock, Snatch, Sherlock Holmes, Blackadder, London black cabs, fake taxis, and World Cup songs
• Cris nominating James Bond as the foreigner’s English archetype: classy, gadget-heavy, car-driving, womanising, and very stereotypical
• Reegs choosing The Impossible Job, Graham Taylor, Ronald Koeman, “Do I not like that?”, and English football’s appetite for destroying managers
• Pete inflicting Grimsby / The Brothers Grimsby on the group
• The dads’ expectations going in, Sidey deliberately avoiding it, and the reputation of the film after the Rebel Wilson allegations around Sacha Baron Cohen
• Louis Leterrier’s action credentials: The Transporter, Now You See Me, The Incredible Hulk, and the surprisingly strong action staging here
• Scott Adkins appreciation, the “Ukrainian Ben Affleck” / Boyka chat, and calls to do an Undisputed movie
• The opening sex-in-a-bed-shop gag and the film immediately declaring its level of subtlety
• Nobby’s Grimsby life: 11 children, one grandchild called Django Unchained, a son called Skeletor, and the “Luke because he’s got leukemia” joke
• Mark Strong as Sebastian, MI6’s most lethal agent, and the very good first-person action sequence influenced by Hardcore Henry director Ilya Naishuller
• Isla Fisher, Ian McShane, Penélope Cruz, Rebel Wilson, Gabourey Sidibe, Johnny Vegas, Ricky Tomlinson, and Daniel Radcliffe / Donald Trump legal-disclaimer jokes
• The brothers’ backstory: orphaned, separated in childhood, and Nobby sacrificing his own future so Sebastian can be adopted
• The movie’s attempt at sincerity, and why it is mostly undercut by everything else being relentlessly stupid
• The poisoned dart sequence, the “left testicle” escalation, and Mark Strong playing total nonsense completely straight
• The pre-ejaculate callback and the point at which Pete’s wife apparently started laughing properly
• The South Africa section, heroin detour, seduction misunderstanding, and blocked toilet gag
• The elephant sequence: foreshadowed by National Geographic, then pushed to an absolutely filthy breaking point
• Penélope Cruz’s villain plot: a “World Cure” scheme that is actually a eugenics / population-control virus targeting the poor via the World Cup final
• The dads questioning the film’s attempted class satire when so much of the movie has already made working-class Grimsby the punchline
• The pitch invasion climax, fireworks, the virus in the rockets, and the brothers taking one for the team
• The hospital ending, elephant semen as accidental antidote / skin-elasticity miracle, and the pan-pipe gag
• Whether the film is actually good, or just so committed to its stupidity that it becomes funny

Bad Dads consensus

• Sidey: Expected to hate it, laughed much more than expected, and lands on a strong recommend despite admitting the film probably is awful in many obvious ways.
• Pete: Also gives a strong recommend, arguing that while lots of it is preposterous and eye-rollingly stupid, the bits that hit deliver proper belly laughs.
• Reegs: Notes that it is not nearly as sharp satirically as Borat or Brüno, and that the class satire is muddled, but agrees the extremity and straight-faced delivery make it work more often than expected.
• Cris: Enjoys the ridiculousness and joins in the disbelief at just how far the film pushes each gross-out set piece.

Final take

The Brothers Grimsby is not elegant, subtle, or especially coherent as satire. It is, however, a film with surprisingly solid action, Mark Strong treating absolute filth like a serious spy thriller, and Sacha Baron Cohen pushing every joke past the point of taste and into a kind of horrible inevitability. The dads feared the worst, laughed anyway, and somehow ended up recommending it.

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On this episode of Bad Dads Film Review, the team reviews This Is England (2006), Shane Meadows’ raw, semi-autobiographical coming-of-age drama starring Thomas Turgoose, Stephen Graham, Vicky McClure, Joe Gilgun, Andrew Shim, Rosamund Hanson, and Jack O’Connell.

In this episode

• Recording outside the man cave in brutal heat, with England playing later and possible background birds
• Returning to Shane Meadows after the dads’ love for Dead Man’s Shoes
• Meadows writing from lived experience and Shaun Field as a loose version of the young Shane Meadows
• The film’s 1983 setting: Falklands aftermath, Thatcher-era mood, working-class Midlands anonymity, and immaculate period detail
• Shaun’s grief over his father’s death and the brutal school bullying around his clothes
• The infamous Mini joke, the playground fight, and Reegs’ detour into the real-world Mini passenger record
• Woody’s gang as surrogate family: underpass tea, derelict-house “hunting”, haircuts, boots, braces, and the gifted Ben Sherman
• Skinhead culture before the racist takeover: ska, soul, punk, clothes, belonging, and style
• Smell, the shed snog, New Romantic fashion, and the very awkward age-gap discussion
• Combo’s entrance from prison and the immediate tonal shift from funny coming-of-age story to something threatening
• Stephen Graham’s performance as Combo: vulnerable, pathetic, charismatic, manipulative, racist, and terrifying
• Combo gaslighting Woody, exploiting Shaun’s Falklands grief, and splitting the gang
• The National Front meeting: respectable presentation, simple blame politics, Frank Harper’s speaker, and Gadget’s “NASHNIL” spelling
• Shaun’s corruption under Combo: racist intimidation, the corner-shop robbery, and the stolen language of national pride
• Lol rejecting Combo and the emotional humiliation that turns outward into violence
• Milky and Combo bonding over music and roots before Combo’s jealousy erupts
• The brutal beating of Milky, Shaun being forced to watch, and Combo’s immediate collapse into remorse
• Shaun throwing the St George’s flag into the sea as a rejection of the racist version of England
• The continuing relevance of the film’s politics from 1983 to 2006 to now
• Strong recommendations for the follow-up series: This Is England ’86, ’88, and ’90

Bad Dads consensus

• Sidey: Strong recommend — sees it as at least a 9/10 and reads the final flag moment as Shaun rejecting the National Front’s corrupted version of England.
• Pete: Strong recommend — praises the film’s lived-in authenticity, performances, and the follow-up series; still holds Dead Man’s Shoes as a 10/10 comparison point.
• Reegs: Strongly positive — highlights the bleakness, the current relevance of the racist rhetoric, and Stephen Graham’s frighteningly layered work.
• Cris: Engaged with the period detail, humour, and discomfort of the film’s tonal shift, particularly once Combo arrives.

Final take

This Is England begins as a warm, funny, scruffy story about a lonely boy finding friends, then slowly reveals how easily grief and poverty can be weaponised by people offering simple enemies and ugly certainty. It is beautifully observed, brilliantly acted, deeply uncomfortable, and still horribly relevant.

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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