Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Old Dads’ on Netflix, a Comedy About Out-of-Touch Gen X Men Directed By Bill Burr

Bill Burr parks in the director’s chair for the first time with Old Dads (now streaming on Netflix), a clear-cut R-rated comedy based on his standup comedy material, which is based on his life, so calling the movie “semi-autobiographical” isn’t far off base (but calling it a BOATS movie – you know, Based On A True Story – isn’t quite right). He shapes his angry-guy stage persona into a character for the movie, playing a hot-tempered family man who frequently struggles to comprehend the changing world around him. And “frequently struggles to comprehend the changing world around him” is, I must admit, watery doublespeak for “pissed off at younger generations and their irritating PC culture.” Will Burr’s vital and challenging livewire standup be as potent in the guise of broad narrative comedy? Let’s find out. 

OLD DADS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: It’s an idyllic scene, Jack (Burr) out in the yard, playing catch with his son Nate (Dash McCloud) as his pregnant wife, Leah (Katie Aselton), watches nearby. It doesn’t take long to spot the flaws in the Norman Rockwell painting, though – every little thing makes Jack fly off the handle, whether it’s an annoying dipshit diddlefarting on a scooter and slowing down traffic, or the school principal (Rachael Harris) chastising him for being two minutes late to pick up Nate. The school principal who’s instrumental in recommending the kid to the top-notch school Leah wants to send him to. The school principal who doesn’t take kindly to being called that one particular word that’s even worse than that one really bad one. Right. THAT word. I mean, the principal lady is insufferable, and she kind of deserves to be taken down a peg, but maybe there’s a better way to deal with the situation, and maybe Jack isn’t capable of using the better way. So he gets in some fairly deep shit with the school and with his tolerant, but increasingly unamused wife.

Jack has a support network: his best pals Mike (Bokeem Woodbine) and Connor (Bobby Cannavale). Actually, “support network” may not be the right phrase. “Enablers” might be a better description. All three are family guys in their late 40s/early 50s, all losing touch with modern times. Mike’s divorced with adult kids and a girlfriend, Britney (Reign Edwards). Connor is clearly the VP of his unit, dominated as it is by his wife Cara (Jackie Tohn), who lets their mild terror of a son freely mildly terrorize others. The three men just sold their throwback-sports-memorabilia business to a large company, which means they’ve cashed in, allowing Jack to afford an expensive private education for Nate. It also means they now report to corporate overlords, who’ve appointed a 20-something haughty pissant named Aspen (Miles Robbins) to be their manager. “He looks like he’s in a musical about janitors,” quips Jack.

This is the setup for a variety of loosely strung-together episodes in which Jack f—s up. In order to make nice with the principal, he agrees to spearhead a school fundraiser. He and Mike and Connor go on a road trip for work, and are secretly filmed saying dumpsterloads of politically incorrect stuff. All three of them face discord on the domestic front, too – Jack���s hotheadedness is a growing issue, Mike fears commitment after his divorce, Connor is weary of being routinely emasculated. Jack has a card for a psychotherapist in his pocket, and it feels like a small miracle that he didn’t burn it to ash with the embers from his cigar. Maybe it’s time for him to take a good long look in the mirror and make a change? Yeah, I guess so. 

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Do not – I repeat, do not – confuse Old Dads with Old Dogs. Otherwise, 2023 gave us three movies in which standups turned their acts/personae into movies: Bert Kreischer’s The Machine, Sebastian Maniscalco’s About My Father and Burr’s Old Dads, and if we want to compare them in terms of quality, Burr’s is the best of the bunch. 

Performance Worth Watching: Burr has proved himself to be a rock-solid actor (he’s quietly great in The Mandalorian and The King of Staten Island), and his performance holds Old Dads together when it seems on the verge of falling apart at the seams.

Memorable Dialogue: A sample exchange: 

Aspen: I was suspended indefinitely.

Jack: I think that’s Millennial for “fired”!

Sex and Skin: Topless women wearing stringy things in a strip club.

Our Take: You can sense that Burr’s trying to find a sweet spot between comedy and drama with Old Dads, which is something of a highwire act for a first-time director. He doesn’t seem interested in venturing full-hog into the realm of broadly exaggerated adult-oriented male-bonding comedies like The Hangover or The Night Before; he’d rather leaven it with truth culled from real-life experiences, rendering situations – e.g., a particularly heated verbal brouhaha between Jack and Leah – with weight and consequence. The result is a men-behaving-badly comedy that isn’t afraid to question that bad behavior, or sometimes venture into the realm of medium-heavy domestic drama. It’s uneven in its pacing, a patchwork of scenes that just barely hold together thanks to the strength of Burr’s credibility as one of the world’s best working standups, which helps cover for his lack of polish as a filmmaker. 

Those of us who are familiar with Burr’s comedy specials will find some of the material here familiar in tone and content. The situations take aim at cancel culture and the hypersensitivity of younger generations, and occasionally address the travails of fatherhood, all funneled through the familiar volatile exasperation of Burr’s persona. But where his standup is more nuanced and incisive in its provocation, Old Dogs boils his questions and assertions – and inevitable self-examination – down to near-sitcommy thinness. The material is more potent straight from the horse’s mouth than if it’s wedged into a traditional movie narrative. The lengthy, improvised near-tangents of Burr’s stage routine don’t cleanly translate to scripted dramedy; the film tends to pluck one-liners from his standup and filter them through fictional scenarios, thus rendering them blunted and less effective. 

This isn’t to say the movie doesn’t inspire laughter or isn’t at least occasionally insightful – it’s functional and entertaining, and Woodbine, Cannavale and Burr kindle some fairly fruitful comic chemistry. This is a long way of saying I liked Old Dads but wanted to like it more, because it’s Bill f—ing Burr addressing the conundrums of hetero Gen X suburban dads who think they’re still cool and badass, but are essentially out of touch with significant swaths of current social and cultural realities. In some ways, I resemble that guy who’s terrified of the past and terrified of the future, and is feeling old despite trying to be youthful, and probably needs to talk to a professional in order to sort that shit out. The film speaks to my slice of the demographic pie directly and sympathetically, but isn’t afraid to challenge any potential resistance to progress.

It’s important to note that Burr never implies that what Jack says and does is right; it just takes him a minute to figure out that he needs to point the finger at himself instead of at others. Smartly, Burr doesn’t pretend to have any answers – this is a portrait of a guy who’s muddling through it the best he can with good intentions and, inevitably, a willingness to change. I feel like I’m reviewing the ideologies of Burr’s overall body of work more than just this movie, but Old Dogs is absolutely an extension of his standup, which is so potent and probing and complex – and funny, let’s not forget funny – you can’t help but be an apologist.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Old Dogs doesn’t quite meet expectations for a project spearheaded by Burr, who could use some seasoning as a director. But even though the movie stands on wobbly legs, it never topples over.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.