Film Review Episodes

In this episode of Bad Dads Film Review, Sidey, Dan and Reegs review Jack Reacher (2012), Christopher McQuarrie’s Tom Cruise action thriller adapted from Lee Child’s One Shot. They discuss Cruise’s controversial casting as the famously large Jack Reacher, the comparison with Alan Ritchson’s Prime Video version, the opening sniper attack, James Barr being framed, Rosamund Pike as Helen Rodin, David Oyelowo as Detective Emerson, Robert Duvall as Cash, Werner Herzog as the Zec, the bar fight, the practical car chase, the conspiracy around Oline Archer, the quarry finale, Reacher’s execution-style version of justice, and whether the film works better as a solid pulpy thriller than as a definitive Reacher adaptation. The episode also includes a Top 5 short people discussion covering Dustin Hoffman, Prince, Danny DeVito, Daniel Radcliffe, Verne Troyer, Warwick Davis, Charlie Chaplin, Napoleon, Michael J. Fox and Michael J. Anderson.

The Bad Dads return from a slightly chaotic break for Project Hail Mary, the Ryan Gosling-led adaptation of Andy Weir’s sci-fi novel. Before getting to the film, there is catch-up chat about Sidey and Reegs seeing The Streets at Alexandra Palace, Sidey’s Malta holiday being far too hot to properly enjoy, and some family hotel movie nights that included a MonsterVerse binge and the alarming discovery that Raiders of the Lost Ark can apparently be dismissed as boring after half an hour. The conversation moves into Ryan Gosling, partly because Comic-Con has thrown up fresh talk of him circling Ghost Rider and a new Star Wars project. Sidey and Cris make the case for Gosling as an unusually reliable modern movie star: someone who can handle glossy blockbuster material like The Gray Man, stranger mood pieces like Only God Forgives, and more vulnerable work like Lars and the Real Girl. That makes him a good fit for this kind of accessible, problem-solving sci-fi. The dads frame Projec…

The Bad Dads head underwater for Luc Besson’s The Big Blue, or Le Grand Bleu if you want to sound sophisticated while drowning slowly in late-80s synth. The discussion starts with the film’s scale: 168 minutes in the director’s cut, which immediately becomes one of the main charges against it. Dan chose the film and remembers liking it years ago, but even he admits this is a very long movie — the sort of film you watch over several evenings because holding your breath for the full running time would be medically inadvisable. The dads work through the black-and-white childhood opening in Greece, where young Jacques Mayol and Enzo Molinari are established as boys shaped by the sea in very different ways. Enzo is cocky, competitive and already built around status; Jacques is quieter, gentler and more emotionally fused with the water. Jacques’ father dies in a diving accident, an early trauma that seems to bind Jacques to the ocean rather than drive him away from it. As adults, t…

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! Welcome back to Bad Dads Film Review! Today, we're spotlighting our Top 5 Johns in film and television, celebrating characters that have left a memorable mark on screen. After that, we'll dive into a review of Rambo: Last Blood, featuring one of cinema's most iconic Johns, and then lighten the mood with a look at the quir...