It had been a long weekend. A hot, exhausting, expensive, long weekend. I was sitting in the back of a car stuck in traffic on the highway. Thirty-six degrees inside because the AC was broken. My girlfriend was fuming next to me. Her parents were in front, both angry and silent.
The specifics of why everyone was mad aren’t important. What mattered was that, after getting home, we’d all be stuck together in my tiny, one-bedroom apartment. I needed to avoid another fight for at least four hours, and then maybe everyone could finally go to sleep and I'd have some peace.
We got home. My father-in-law knew exactly what he was doing when he went straight for the remote: two hours of America’s Got Talent audition videos. The fat ugly dudes, the little bullied girls, the grandmas who lost their homes. Each and every one of them with the voice of an angel. So fucking boring and dull. My father-in-law had complete control of the living room and its mood. I couldn't stand hearing Simon Cowell say “this is the best audition I’ve heard in my life” anymore.
I needed to do something. When my in-law got up to use the bathroom, I grabbed the remote. I had only a few seconds to queue up a movie and hope for the best.
I went with a dad movie. The theory is simple enough: dad movies are the safest, most effective family-truce movies because they let men laugh at themselves without actually challenging the way they see the world. And they're predictably dumb and fun.
These films redeem anger on screen, turning it into something righteous. But it was also risky: my father-in-law looks down on anything that isn’t exactly what he wants. And I knew for a fact that a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie was not his cup of tea.
What’s a Dad Movie?
The definition shifts with the father in question, but generally: predictable action flicks, no gore but creative kills, famous names, a one-man army, and a family under threat. Luckily for me, there are hundreds of Die Hard ripoffs streaming.
And 1995’s Sudden Death is nothing but that. JCVD is a disgraced firefighter working at a stadium during Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals. His son and daughter are there, but so is a terrorist crew. What are the odds? They plant a bomb, kidnap the Vice President, and Van Damme starts killing them with kicks and some very cool improvised weapons. Dumb, fun movie. But it revealed something deeper in my father-in-law.
Redemption
In the car, his anger had isolated him. We were all silent, bored, annoyed. But as soon as Sudden Death started, something changed. JCVD’s anger on screen was useful. When he disguised himself as the goalie and got into a fight on the ice, he was saving his family. And in the real world, that anger was solving our problems too.
The couch suddenly had a common enemy. We roasted JCVD’s wooden acting, the absurd plot, the fights. We tried mocking his flawless ass, but there’s nothing you can say about that. It's anatomically perfect. And because this was a 90s action film, before the age of self-awareness, the movie wasn’t making fun of itself, that was our job.
At first, I tossed out the jokes. Then my girlfriend joined in. Eventually, even my father-in-law started chiming in. The man who had been silently fuming hours earlier was now laughing at Jean-Claude Van Damme.
And just look at this scene:
It's kinda fun, actually, and kinda dumb, and exciting. The kid being yanked around, the mascot brawl with its improvised weapons, the light comedy. Anyone can enjoy it, and anyone can make fun of it. That’s exactly what my father-in-law did.
The important part is that movie anger united us. JCVD was angrily killing people left and right, but his anger was always right. It protected his family. Dad films unite the couch into a collective. Whatever issue we’d had before the movie was postponed.
The Indispensable Father
The real fantasy of dad movies is that they turn anger into something that keeps the family intact instead of something that ruins weekends. In Sudden Death, Van Damme’s fury is always righteous and always rewarded. It's all a system: his perfect ass lifts the leg that will kick the villain to death and lead him back to his children’s love.
In the real world, my father-in-law got to laugh at how dumb that was. But it was a safe laugh, one that didn’t threaten him. He could joke about the movie without ever questioning why anger feels so central to being a man. Dad movies pull off this neat trick: they let men parody themselves without ever feeling like they need to change. You know, logically, that what you’re watching is a dumb fantasy, but it’s still comforting.
Just to underline the fantasy: Van Damme literally disguises himself as the goalie, takes the ice, and makes the perfect save that stops the bomb from detonating. He saves everyone by being good at sports. A regular guy’s dream scenario.
But there's a darker issue at hand: dad movies present dad anger as indispensable. What I mean is that they build the entire idea of family around it. Fatherly rage is the engine of the plot, the glue of the family, the reason the kids love him in the end.
In a way, these films reinforce the unreasonable anger as a solution to every problem. I'm not even talking about being violent, just being angry all the time. Imagine this: you're mad as hell at your family and can't take it anymore, and then a movie comes around and shows you that same anger as something good and just. You're gonna love that shit.
In the final fight, Van Damme battles the villain as he tries to escape on a helicopter. Van Damme kills the pilot, the chopper crashes, and it looks terrible. Really take a look at the helicopter crash in the video; it's cheap as fuck and almost ruins the movie.
But when the dust settles, Van Damme is embraced by his kids. They gush to paramedics about how their dad saved everything and everyone. His violence is justified, heroic, celebrated.
And we all laugh and call it stupid, but that’s the trick of dad movies. They let grown men roast the fantasy while still feeling affirmed by it. You can joke about it, but you still get to enjoy the idea that anger, violence, and perfect Belgian asses are what keep the family together (when in reality, Van Damme's ass would split any family). But sometimes you need a truce: we will go along with the premise of the movie, as long as we don't get into another fight.
Share your thoughts!
Be the first to start the conversation.