Ridley Scott Episodes

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 t...

When a notorious gangster escapes from custody while being transported to Japan, rebellious but inept cop Nick Conklin (Michael Douglas) sets out to recapture him at any cost, in Ridley Scott’s action thriller BLACK RAIN (1989). Slightly more thoughtful than it might first appear, with America's position as a global power analysed through the lens of an unengaging and drawn-out organised crime saga that never quite gets going. A likeable performance from Andy Garcia as unfortunately beheaded par...

BLADE RUNNER (1982) is director Ridley Scott's sci-fi masterpiece; a huge influence on both movies and popular culture as a whole, a nightmarish vision of the future, a triumph of world building, lighting, and sound design with still excellent looking special effects and also it's a total bore. Set in the grimy, rain-soaked streets of a dystopian 2019 Los Angeles, Harrison Ford stars as Rick Deckard, a weary ex-cop forced back into his old job as a 'Blade Runner', assigned to hunt down and 'reti...

Ridley Scott's terrific depiction of the events of the Battle of Mogadishu kicks off Operations week as we watch 2001's BLACK HAWK DOWN. I thought I was being so clever picking this, with the disastrous events of Operation Gothic Serpent in which US troops extracted General Mohamed Farrah Aidid from the Somali capital at a terrible human cost providing the backdrop to a memorable scene of impromptu battlefield femoral artery surgery. If I'd patted myself on the back any harder at the idea of pic...