‘My stomach hurts from laughing so much’
Comedian Bill Burr’s directorial debut, Old Dads, is being called a must-watch by comedy fans.
The film, that dropped on Netflix on October 20, sees the 55-year-old US comic play the part of an old dad – similar to him in real life – called Jack who takes issue with the wokeness of the world, much like he does in his stand-up routines.
Thankfully Jack – like Doug in The Hangover – has his trusty mates at hand – Bobby Cannavale and Bokeem Woodbine – to help him navigate parenthood.
But Jack’s brand of parenting doesn’t go down well with everyone, like the prissy principal at his son’s private school, or his millennial tech boss. Both Jack’s boss and his wife, played by Katie Aselton, want him to seek professional help for his anger issues. Naturally, he refuses.
“When a middle-aged father and his two best friends sell their company to a millennial, they soon find themselves out of step and behind the times as they struggle to navigate a changing world of culture, career and fatherhood,” the synopsis for Old Dads reads.
On the Facebook movie fan page, Netflix Bangers, people have found the flick pretty funny.
“Old Dads funniest comedy I’ve seen in ages!” one viewer wrote.
A second added: “I like Bill Burr anyways… he says what he thinks. He wrote, directed, and produced it a lot of his comic buddies were in it as well.”
While a third remarked: “I love Bill Burr as a stand up comedian and basically his comedic routine comes out in this movie, I can relate since I’m in his age group and feel exactly the way he does with the woke culture.”
On X people were pretty complimentary also, with one fan saying their “stomach hurts from laughing” so much.
Others were surprised the movie got past the “woke sensors.”
On Rotten Tomatoes it didn’t fare so well with a critics rating of just 17 per cent. The audience score, however, was 90.
Oliver Jones as the Observer noted: “Rather than challenge himself, Burr instead uses the film to adapt his schtick into a three-hander bro comedy addressing the generational divide regarding modern mores and language.”
And Todd McCarthy at Deadline Hollywood Daily wrote: “A boorish and obnoxiously vulgar comedy that, since it can’t claim any other great distinction, might well have been expressly written to break the all-time record for use of the f-word in the major studio movie.”
CNN’s Brian Lowry said: “As hot as he is on stage, Bill Burr picked a lousy time to try migrating his angry-guy act to movies, as he does in the fitfully funny Old Dads.” W
Anna Menta at Decider wrote that while “at first glance” the movie appears to be for dads who want to raise “a little man and not a f****** pussy”, like using the term “snowflake” as in insult and think the 1980s was the greatest decade of all time – Burr does appear to have an “agenda beyond lamenting the ‘woke mob’.”
“In fact, buried beneath hackneyed jokes about gender neutral party themes and cancel culture, Burr has an important message for his ageing male fanbase: Go to therapy.”
