In the new film “Old Dads” on Netflix, the US comedian Bill Burr takes on Generation Y, the Millennials, and deals with the softened and over-correct zeitgeist. But his “Boomer” friends don’t look particularly happy either.
That’s what Old Dads is about: Jack Kelly became a father at 46, is now 51 and has a second child on the way. Because of his 5-year-old son, he constantly has to deal with 30-year-old parents who have completely different views on the world, proper behavior and raising children than he does.
Actually, his life has been going great up to this point: he has set up a joint company with two of his childhood friends, Connor and Mike, that sells retro jerseys, he loves his wife and his son and everyone seems to have more or less come to terms with his occasional outbursts of anger . Of course, scooter riders shouting “Share the road” while blocking the road infuriates him – but so what?
Most of the film’s highlights are already covered in the trailer:
In order to finance his son’s private school, the three friends sold their cool company and now get to know a 30-year-old boss who, as a welcome gesture, fires everyone older than 35. In other ways, disruptions suddenly seem to be opening up in men’s lives:
A comedy program becomes a movie
That’s what’s special about Old Dads: Anyone who knows and appreciates the comedian Bill Burr will also like the film. Because the film stages Burr’s comedy routines.
In a comedy program, Burr once explained that women win arguments with their men by teasing the men until they say the C-word, a taboo in English. Then they would have automatically won the argument. It is precisely this word that puts Jack Kelly in an insoluble dilemma.
Old Dads is the struggle of a man who loses his control over reality and suddenly finds himself confronted with 30-year-olds who question everything he believes in and which, from his point of view, is completely logical – and somehow he doesn’t have any good arguments. Because the 30-year-old is always about feelings and he can’t feel them.
In the film’s most beautiful scenes, you can feel Jack Kelly’s desperation when millennials say something like: “I wasn’t there, but I feel incredibly hurt” or “The C-word is the N-word for women.”
How do you say that you are still relevant and cool, that you still have something to say, when in the eyes of others you are slowly making room for something new? Burr lives in constant fear of being the uncle at the family party who somehow embarrasses everyone and who it’s best not to ask about certain things.
For someone who is used to saying whatever comes to mind because otherwise he will explode, this world is like hell:
“You’re afraid of getting into trouble, that’s your whole generation’s problem,” his character shouts desperately at one point.
But, as with his comedy programs, you notice that Burr always takes a critical look at himself and his generation. Because Burr and his contemporaries don’t get off very well: there’s a lot of ducking to be seen. You think modern things are totally stupid without ever having thought about them.
Problems are ignored, the same things are always made fun of, mainly others, and most problems would resolve themselves if you would just shut up for 3 minutes and swallow your anger. But that just doesn’t work.
Ultimately, all the other characters except the three men remain a bit pale: the “30-year-olds” are mere caricatures who exist so that they can say things that drive Burr mad. The partners of the three heroes are also only sketched in outline: the normal one, the bitchy one, the cool one. At least the antagonist, a scheming kindergarten director, is wonderfully passive-aggressive with every sentence.
The highlight of the film is clearly the dialogue scenes, in which Bill Burr can shine with exactly the comedy that his fans have loved him for for years: introspection, sudden outbursts of anger over trivial things and, again and again, an ironic break in what he has just said.
Kelly is happy that a passerby agrees with him in a trivial argument about whether vaping is considered smoking or not. Finally someone sensible! Kelly seems to think, before the passer-by turns out to be a nasty racist.
In the history of MeinMMO we once reported on Bill Burr. A Twitch streamer got in a lot of trouble when he repeated one of the comedian’s gags:
Twitch bans MMO streamer for hateful behavior against women – Takes back the ban