Movies Episodes

This week on Bad Dads Film Review, the dads brave record-breaking heat, abandon the man cave, and review Shane Meadows’ This Is England (2006) — a bruising coming-of-age drama about grief, belonging, skinhead culture, racism, and the poisonous simplicity of nationalist hate.The episode starts with the recording circumstances becoming part of the texture: England are playing later, it is unbearably hot, birds may or may not be audible, and the dads are adopting the careful pacing of an England tournament side. From there, Sidey frames the film as the second Shane Meadows pick after the much-loved Dead Man’s Shoes, while Pete explains how Meadows often drew from lived experience, with Shaun Field loosely based on Meadows himself.The dads praise the film’s 1983 setting as almost painfully accurate: the corner shops, council-house interiors, clothes, hair, glasses, playgrounds, charity-shop trousers, and anti-Thatcher atmosphere all feel completely lived-in. Shaun is introduced as…

This week on Bad Dads Film Review, Sidey, Reegs, Dan and Cris get on the road for Walter Salles’s The Motorcycle Diaries, the warm, humane, politically charged travel drama about young Ernesto “Che” Guevara and Alberto Granado crossing South America on a rapidly dying motorcycle.The episode opens with the usual Bad Dads detours — football, podcast housekeeping, dubious intros, David Walliams antipathy, and some listener follow-up — before the Dads rev into a Top 5 Motorcycles discussion. The nominations range from the iconic to the ridiculous: Arnie’s Harley-Davidson Fat Boy in Terminator 2, Tom Cruise’s Kawasaki in Top Gun and Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation, the Easy Rider Captain America chopper, Indy and Henry Jones Sr. in the Last Crusade sidecar, Tron’s light cycles, Dumb and Dumber’s scooter, John Wick’s katana bike fight, Fonzie’s Harley, Judge Dredd-style sci-fi bikes, and Dan’s heartfelt case for Burt Munro and The World’s Fastest Indian.That motorcycle theme lead…

This week on Bad Dads Film Review, Sidey, Reegs, Dan and Cris head into Neo-Tokyo for Katsuhiro Otomo’s landmark 1988 anime, Akira — a film of biker gangs, psychic children, military coups, exploding cities, and one of the most famous motorbike slides in cinema.The episode opens, naturally, with Cape Verde apparently “thrashing” Spain nil-nil and a warning that football chat may start bleeding into the pod. From there the Dads connect Akira to the recent motorcycle theme, with the iconic “Akira slide” providing an obvious bridge into one of animation’s most influential images.Reegs guides the plot through the aftermath of World War III, the rebuilding of Neo-Tokyo, the Capsules biker gang, Kaneda’s red bike, Tetsuo’s resentment, and the discovery that the mysterious Akira is not quite the character most first-time viewers expect. The group dig into the psychic test subjects, Colonel Shikishima, the hospital sequences, Tetsuo’s power spiral, the Olympic Stadium, the jars of Aki…

This week on Bad Dads Film Review, the dads begin with a very on-brand Top 5 Holidays segment — cancelled flights, Malta dread, mogging relatives, childhood package holidays, karaoke trauma, and the usual British-abroad horror — before moving into Charlotte Wells’ devastating debut feature, Aftersun (2022).The main review focuses on Sophie, an adult looking back through camcorder footage of a holiday she took in Turkey with her young father Calum when she was 11. The dads discuss how the film works less as a conventional plot and more as an emotional reconstruction: memories, fragments, gestures, half-understood moments and the adult Sophie trying to understand what her child self could not see.Reegs leads the breakdown of the film’s structure: the camcorder opening, the recurring rave imagery, the cheap holiday resort, the single-bed room, Calum hiding cigarettes and pain, the expensive scuba mask, the rug, the karaoke scene, the beach/sea imagery, Under Pressure, and the fin…

This week on Bad Dads Film Review, the dads review Abigail (2024), Radio Silence’s blood-soaked vampire/crime-comedy about a kidnapped ballerina who turns out to be much more than a bargaining chip.The discussion kicks off with the film’s biggest structural problem: the marketing gives away the vampire twist almost immediately. Reegs frames the intended joke as the characters thinking they are in a slick, quippy heist movie while the audience already knows they are actually trapped in a quippy horror film. Dan, who had avoided the poster details as much as possible, got closer to the intended reveal experience and was expecting something more like The Omen or The Ring.The dads walk through the setup: Abigail’s Swan Lake opening, the assembling of the anonymous criminal crew, Giancarlo Esposito’s Lambert giving everyone Rat Pack aliases, and the group discovering that the girl’s father is the mythical underworld figure Kristof Lazaar. From there, the episode tracks the film’s g…

This week on Bad Dads Film Review, the dads head to Italy — via Denmark — for Netflix’s gentle food-and-feelings romance Toscana (2022), a film about a joyless Michelin-adjacent chef, an inherited Tuscan estate, rustic olive oil, family trauma, and one extremely unfortunate fiancé.Before the film, there is a suitably leafy Top 5 as Dan’s plant theme produces killer tomatoes, Audrey II, Ents, Leon’s beloved houseplant, Martian potatoes, Interstellar corn, Batman’s blue flower, Tomacco, Swamp Thing, Groot, and a suspicious number of plant puns from Reegs. There is also a sombre walking football update after Dan and Sidey’s side suffer playoff-final heartbreak on penalties.The Toscana discussion follows Theo Dahl, a precise Danish fine-dining chef whose father’s death sends him to Tuscany to sell the family restaurant. There he meets Sophia, argues about ice cubes, rediscovers food “by feel”, agrees to cook a wedding to push up the sale price, and inconveniently falls for the bri…

This week on Bad Dads Film Review, the dads saddle up for DC’s supernatural western misfire Jonah Hex (2010) — a film with Josh Brolin, John Malkovich, Megan Fox, Michael Fassbender, Will Arnett, Michael Shannon, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Lance Reddick, somehow compressed into a chaotic 80-minute runtime.The discussion covers Hex’s rushed origin story, his half-burned face, his ability to interrogate the dead, Gatling guns mounted on horses, Megan Fox’s noble-prostitute plot-device role, and John Malkovich’s Quentin Turnbull trying to blow up America’s centennial celebrations with inexplicable glowing cannonballs.Sidey is especially brutal, calling it a contender for the worst films ever covered on the pod — not quite Cats, but firmly in the danger zone. Dan is more forgiving, mainly because it is short, Josh Brolin is watchable, and Megan Fox looks “smoking” throughout. Reegs spots the kernel of a better supernatural western buried under the mess, while Cris, having skipped the…

This week on Bad Dads Film Review, the lads record outside in the Jersey heat, chat Lego and TV catch-ups, run a Top 5 Travellers/Gypsies segment, then head into Netflix survival thriller Apex (2026).The review follows Charlize Theron’s lead character through an outback nightmare that starts as a hiking trip and turns into a predator-vs-prey cat-and-mouse game with Taron Egerton’s deeply unsettling Ben. The dads discuss the shift from survival thriller to full horror-adjacent territory (including the cannibal twist), standout tension sequences, and the physicality of the stunts.They also cover the film’s pacing, atmosphere, and realism beats (weather, terrain, isolation), with consensus that while you can guess the broad direction, the journey is gripping and nasty in all the right ways.Verdict: Unanimous strong recommend.

This week on Bad Dads Film Review, the lads tackle Saipan (2025) — the football drama built around the infamous Roy Keane vs Mick McCarthy bust-up before the 2002 World Cup.After some classic warm-weather and football-season banter, the episode gets into the film’s central conflict: elite standards colliding with international-camp chaos. The review covers Keane’s mentality, the training-ground conditions, federation politics, and why this fallout still divides opinion.The dads discuss the performances in detail — especially the actor playing Keane and Steve Coogan as McCarthy — and debate whether the film is balanced or occasionally cartoonish in how it dramatizes events.A key thread through the conversation is that the film doesn’t fully force a “right side”; it presents enough for the audience to choose whether Keane’s demands were justified or whether his delivery cost Ireland too much at the worst possible time.

This week the dads dive into SPL: Kill Zone (aka Sha Po Lang), Wilson Yip’s 2005 Hong Kong crime-action bruiser starring Donnie Yen, Sammo Hung and Simon Yam. It starts as a murky cops-vs-triads thriller and gradually mutates into one of the most punishingly physical final acts of 2000s action cinema.Before any elbows start flying, the show opens with a chaotic and very Bad Dads Top Five Dons segment: gangland patriarchs, TV antiheroes, cartoon icons, football references, and at least one deeply questionable tangent. Standard service resumed.

This week the Bad Dads dive into The Eight Diagram Pole Fighter (1984) — a Shaw Brothers revenge classic packed with brutal choreography, wild practical stunt work, and pure old-school kung fu energy.

This week the Bad Dads take on Song Sung Blue, a true-story music biopic starring Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson as a couple whose Neil Diamond tribute act brings fame, chaos, near-tragedy, and heartbreak.

This week the Bad Dads lace up for The Bleeder (2016), the chaotic true-life story of Chuck Wepner — the New Jersey heavyweight who went 15 rounds with Muhammad Ali, inspired Rocky, and then nearly imploded under fame, booze, coke, and bad choices.

This week on Bad Dads Film Review, the dads dive into The Untouchables. In this episode, they break down the film, share what still works, what aged oddly, and where it lands in the all-time ranking chat.Expect classic Bad Dads energy, strong opinions, plenty of banter, and a few unexpected rabbit holes along the way.

This week on Bad Dads Film Review, we are completely out of our depth ranking the "Top 5 Evils" in cinema, leading into our review of the painfully tense thriller, Speak No Evil.Expect more mustache twirling than a Victorian villain convention. We break down James McAvoy's terrifyingly charismatic performance hosting a weekend from hell. Is it basically a horror version of Curb Your Enthusiasm where every cringe gets you closer to being stabbed? Yes. The Dads debate middle-class politeness, red flags, and why you should never stay at a stranger's country house.

We kick things off with a deep discussion about Cris's newly cultivated mustache (a strong Luigi vibe, according to Dan), before breaking down the chaotic chemistry of a blind man and a deaf man trying to solve a murder. From Kevin Spacey and Joan Severance to hilarious police station escapes involving a gold coin and Shalimar perfume, the Dads debate whether the comedy holds up today.

In this episode of Bad Dads Film Review, the crew is completely out of their depth covering the "Top 5 Floods" in cinema history, before diving into the 2025 Latvian animated masterpiece, Flow.After navigating the high waters of cinematic floods (including a nod to the flipped cruise ship of The Poseidon Adventure), the main feature takes center stage. Flow follows a cat surviving a catastrophic flood alongside a capybara, a lemur, and a large dog. With no humans, no explanation, and zero dialogue, it still managed to beat out Inside Out 2 for Best Animated Feature at the 97th Academy Awards. The Dads break down why this quiet film earned their absolute strongest recommendation.

This week, the Bad Dads wade deep into "The Bathtub" to review Benh Zeitlin’s indie darling Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012). Facing off against apocalyptic floods, giant prehistoric boars (Aurochs), and the harsh realities of off-the-grid poverty, six-year-old Hushpuppy carries this movie on her tiny shoulders.

In this episode of Bad Dads Film Review, the crew (minus Dan) takes on Christian Gudegast's 2018 heist thriller *Den of Thieves*. Reegs and Cris break down the high-testosterone showdown between an elite crew of ex-military bank robbers and a morally bankrupt Sheriff's unit led by a swaggering Gerard Butler. Described as *Heat* on protein shakes and tribal tattoos, the film delivers intense action and a surprising amount of fun. Despite Sidey not having seen it yet, the glowing review and strong recommend from Reegs and Cris (who gave it "Five tens outta five") have convinced him to add it to his watchlist.

God's Pocket (2014)In this Pocket Week episode, the dads dig into *God's Pocket* (2014), one of Philip Seymour Hoffman's final releases. They unpack the film's bleak tone, grimy neighborhood setting, and chaotic chain of events around Leon's death, Mickey's funeral-money horse bet, and the escalating violence that follows. The verdict: strong performances (especially Hoffman), interesting moments, but an uneven film that lands as a moderate recommend.

In this episode of Bad Dads Film Review, the hosts venture into the Australian Outback to review the 1971 classic Walkabout. Directed by visionary filmmaker Nicolas Roeg in his solo debut, the film stars Jenny Agutter, Luc Roeg, and David Gulpilil in a haunting story about two civilized schoolchildren stranded in the wilderness who are rescued by an Aboriginal boy on his traditional rite of passage.The Dads (Dan, Reegs, Sidey, and Cris) discuss the film's stark contrast between modern, regimented society and the natural world. Topics include the film's almost entirely improvised 14-page script, the stunning cinematography, the absurdity of maintaining a formal school uniform in the desert, and philosophical debates on human evolution and modern conveniences.Despite Dan initially confusing it with another desert survival movie involving a dog, the hosts uniformly praise Walkabout for its hypnotic pacing and powerful thematic depth. If you enjoy visually driven 1970s cinema or t…

The Conspiracy (2012)Trust no one. Question everything. And definitely don't answer your phone if it just repeats your own number back to you. This week, the Bad Dads (minus Pete, who is off skiing) review the 2012 found-footage thriller The Conspiracy.Directed by Christopher MacBride, this low-budget Canadian indie starts as a fake documentary exploring the psychology of conspiracy theorists before spiraling into a full-blown survival horror about the very secret societies it's investigating.The Setup: We meet Aaron and Jim, two documentary filmmakers who set out to profile Terrence, a stereotypical street-preaching "kook" with a megaphone and a house completely wallpapered in newspaper clippings connected by red string. Terrence is arguably the best character in the film, blending wild paranoia with genuine historical psy-ops (like the Lusitania and the Gulf of Tonkin) to make you question reality.The Disappearance: When Terrence suddenly vanishes, Aaron inherits his…

This week the dads work late for Steven Shainberg's Secretary (2002) — one of the more unusual love stories in American independent cinema, and almost certainly the most interesting thing James Spader has ever worn a tie for. But first: a very thorough Top Five Secretaries list. Dolly Parton, Mad Men, Ghostbusters, Batman Returns, The Simpsons, Beetlejuice, Moneypenny through all her iterations, and the West Wing. It's a good one. Top Five highlights: Doralee Rhodes (Dolly Parton) from 9 to 5...

This week the dads tackle Paul Verhoeven's infamous erotic thriller — the fourth highest-grossing film of 1992 and quite possibly the most rewound VHS tape in rental shop history. Basic Instinct turns 33 this year, and it's still just as wild as you remember. In this episode: The legendary interrogation scene and the great Wayne Knight sweating debateWhether Sharon Stone knew — and whether Paul Verhoeven is telling the truthNick Curran: the "anti-Columbo" and arguably cinema's least heroic he...