Jewels and The Duallists

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 through cinema’s treasure box to see which jewels genuinely sparkle and which belong in Claire’s Accessories.

Then it’s back to 1977 for Ridley Scott’s stunning directorial debut, The Duellists. Harvey Keitel and Keith Carradine play two French officers locked into a 15–year feud that starts over a petty slight and escalates into a lifelong obsession. We get into:

• Honour as addiction – why one of them simply cannot let it go, ever
• How the film turns duelling into a ritual of pride, stubbornness and self-destruction
• The way the weapons, stakes and scars escalate with each encounter
• Ridley Scott’s eye for light, landscape and costume on a tiny budget
• Why the ending works so well, and what it says about victory, defeat and identity

There’s also the usual Bad Dads nonsense: road-trip chat, Christmas hats in December, grumbling about “live-action everything” culture, and a detour into glass onions, murder mysteries and moving house back pain.

If you like:

• Period dramas with gorgeous visuals and nasty steel-on-steel showdowns
• Character studies about pride, masculinity and grudges that outlive their purpose
• Movie list chaos that jumps from Disney to French noir to jewellery-based heists

…then this is a perfect episode to jump into the pod.

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Until next time, we remain...

Bad Dads