Originally published at: A new taxonomy of the "Dad Thriller" movie genre | Boing Boing
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The vibe is “action movie you might be able to convince your wife to see because it’s sort of about politics, science, and/or legal stuff.”
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Um, or your wife just has awesome taste in movies.
(From me, a lady who grew up on all these films and thinks they are peak cinema. Also my dad watched a VHS tape of The Fugitive probably once every weekend for years)
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There is probably nothing wrong with the wife’s taste in movies, even if she doesn’t enjoy dad thrillers, though…?
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IME dads and moms watched these films willingly because they were there, you could take a teen with you and not be accused of child abuse, and they had a sort of classic film callback that made them seem classy and smart like you were rich and educated enough to eat at Fridays instead of Chilis.
There’s no accounting for taste (mine is atrocious of course) so… I don’t really care about these types of stories usually, but they’re almost always really well made films overall.
I feel like most of my formative years were spent watching these things with either my parents or my grandparents.
I love how people just project their own dysfunctional family vibe and gender politics onto every other family in the world though… not creepy at all. Yessss… aaaaall women between the ages of 15 and 90 watched these films in their heyday because “dads” wanted them to. Suuuuure that’s how economics works.
Creativity and memory have a scary relationship.
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What rubs me the wrong way here is the “convincing” bit.
I make a suggestion, she makes her decision. And that’s it.
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Mom thrillers, brother-in-law thrillers, cousin Bob from Montana thrillers.
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I find most of the examples in the “Cops and field personnel”, and some of the related ones in the Venn diagram below it, to just be straight up “Thrillers” or “Action Movies” and am not really seeing the “Dad” part.
Se7en, Die Hard, GoldenEye, Mission: Impossible, Broken Arrow, Con Air…
(Arranged roughly from “Thriller” to “Very silly Action Movie,” but what do I know?)
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Are we just calling white people stuff “Dad” stuff now?
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“Movies with a grown up plot but you can let your kids watch” is a genre in itself and somewhat lacking nowadays? My kid is in that weird age where he thinks he’s too old for kid stuff but still thinks anything with too much smooching is grooooossssss, I definitely find myself going back to 80s and 90s movies to find stuff he’ll like.
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This post made me want to rewatch “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” which certainly is descended from this genre, and want more films like it.
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So, basically, every action movie made before the early 1980’s. For Pete’s sake, internet critics, watch movies made before you were born.
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Everyone has their own taste but who doesn’t like the original Die Hard? It’s just like, perfect.
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I think it’s really an underserved area too, at least by Hollywood films. I think anime and games have a better grasp on that space right now.
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Yes, my kid has gotten into anime and manga because of this! He loves Cells at Work!
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When the Dad Thriller’s protagonist doesn’t have a professional degree and isn’t an agent of the state (i.e. “the businessman”), the probability increases that a large portion of the audience (especially the conservative white Boomer dads) ends up rooting for someone who’s actually the villain of the piece.
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To be fair its hard not to root for Alan Rickman/Jeremy Irons in their respective Die Hard films.
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Yes, but they’re not the protagonists. I’m talking about the southwest corner of his Dad Thriller protagonist compass. “Falling Down”, “Disclosure”, “The Game”, really most post-1980 thrillers starring Michael Douglas.
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lol, no. Independence Day is not in the same meta-genre as The Pelican Brief, nor is Se7en anywhere near Broken Arrow.
There is new genre of blogspam called “The thing you like is just as trash as the thing you’re better than” which I am also better than.
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Original or remake?
Because Obi-Wan Smiley remains unsurpassed.
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