This week the Bad Dads ride across South America with The Motorcycle Diaries, Walter Salles’s 2004 drama starring Gael García Bernal as young Ernesto Guevara and Rodrigo de la Serna as Alberto Granado.

Before the main feature, the Dads count down their favourite movie motorcycles, from Arnie’s shotgun-reloading Harley in Terminator 2 to Tom Cruise going full Cruise in Top Gun and Mission: Impossible, the Easy Rider chopper, Indy’s sidecar, Tron’s light cycles, Dumb and Dumber’s scooter, John Wick’s katana bike fight, Fonzie’s Knucklehead and Dan’s beloved World’s Fastest Indian.

What We Covered

• Top 5 Motorcycles: a surprisingly rich category covering choppers, scooters, sidecars, sci-fi bikes, stunt riding and Tom Cruise’s apparent allergy to helmets.
• La Poderosa: the battered Norton 500 that carries Ernesto and Alberto until it absolutely cannot, giving the film its comic engine and its road-movie shape.
• Memory vs rewatch: Sidey remembers seeing the film at the cinema and discovers he had misremembered the pair as having one bike each.
• Ernesto and Alberto: the Dads enjoy the friendship, the teasing, the appetite for adventure, and Alberto’s role as a funny, earthy foil to Ernesto’s more serious awakening.
• A journey through inequality: miners, indigenous communities, poverty, illness and exploitation gradually turn the trip from lads’ adventure into political education.
• The leper colony: the San Pablo section becomes the emotional centre of the film, especially Ernesto’s refusal to accept easy divisions between people.
• Che without the T-shirt: the group discuss how the film shows the conditions that could radicalise someone without reducing Guevara to a poster, slogan or merch logo.
• Show, don’t tell politics: Sidey praises the film for making its points quietly; Reegs notes the documentary-like authenticity; Cris reflects on education, knowledge and the ability to imagine different power structures.
• Travel as transformation: Dan highlights the idea that any journey like this, at that age and through those conditions, would inevitably change you.
• Final images: the airport farewell, the real Alberto, the closing text and the real photographs give the film a wistful, reflective ending.

Key Quotes / Moments

• “I thought they had a motorcycle each.”
• “I need your clothes, your boots and your motorcycle.”
• “Top five motorcycles. I’m amazed that we’ve not done this before.”
• “He’s not the same me anymore.”
• “It doesn’t ram his ideology down your throat.”
• “A strong recommend all round.”

Verdict

A strong recommend from the Dads. The Motorcycle Diaries is praised as warm, funny, beautiful and quietly powerful — a road movie about friendship, privilege, poverty and the moment a person starts to see the world differently.

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We love to hear from our listeners! By which I mean we tolerate it. If it hasn't been completely destroyed yet you can usually find us on twitter @dads_film, on Facebook Bad Dads Film Review, on email at baddadsjsy@gmail.com or on our website baddadsfilm.com.

Until next time, we remain...

Bad Dads

This week the Bad Dads take on Akira, Katsuhiro Otomo’s 1988 anime classic: part cyberpunk biker movie, part psychic apocalypse, part body-horror nightmare, and still one of the most influential animated films ever made.

What We Covered

• The motorcycle connection: Sidey picked Akira partly off the back of motorcycle week, with the famous “Akira slide” still instantly recognisable decades later.
• Neo-Tokyo and the set-up: The Dads discuss the opening destruction of Tokyo, the rebuilt dystopian city, biker gangs, riots, unemployment, militarised politics and general “not a happy place” energy.
• Kaneda, Tetsuo and the Capsules: Kaneda’s iconic red bike, Tetsuo’s resentment, the gang hierarchy, and the way their childhood friendship feeds the film’s final emotional punch.
• The psychic test subjects: Takashi, the other child-like espers, the hospital experiments, telekinesis, hallucinations, and the film’s blend of sci-fi plot with surreal nightmare imagery.
• Tetsuo’s transformation: From headaches and glass-of-water Force powers to satellite lasers, a metal arm, body horror, and a final monstrous collapse into flesh, pain and chaos.
• Akira himself: The reveal that Akira is not really “the guy on the bike”, but a dissected psychic force preserved in jars under the Olympic Stadium.
• The animation: Reegs praises the film’s restless visual movement; Dan says the craft makes you forget any resistance to animation; Sidey calls the full-mutant Tetsuo sequence incredible.
• Influence and legacy: The gang spot echoes and connections to The Matrix, Drive, Watchmen, 2001, Clockwork Orange, The Warriors, Godzilla destruction, and later anime/body-horror culture.
• Subtitles vs dubbing: Dan finds an English version in the “depths of the internet”, while others stick with Japanese and subtitles.
• Cris watch status: Cris did not get to the film because he could not find it properly and refused to watch it on a phone — fair, frankly.

Key Quotes / Moments

• “There’s very little ball content in Akira.”
• “The Akira slide… one of the most famous shots in animation.”
• “It’s like the Force, but way more destructive.”
• “I’m in the revolution, mate. I’m busy.”
• “SOL Campbell” as the orbital laser gag. Obviously.
• “It wasn’t quite Dogtanian.”

Verdict

A strong recommend from the Dads. Sidey calls it a great gateway into anime, Dan enjoys it more than expected and finds the animation absorbing, and Reegs loves the film’s kinetic craft and cultural footprint. Cris remains technically unconverted, but tempted.

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We love to hear from our listeners! By which I mean we tolerate it. If it hasn't been completely destroyed yet you can usually find us on twitter @dads_film, on Facebook Bad Dads Film Review, on email at baddadsjsy@gmail.com or on our website baddadsfilm.com.

Until next time, we remain...

Bad Dads

On this episode of Bad Dads Film Review, the team reviews Aftersun (2022) — Charlotte Wells’ quietly devastating father-daughter memory piece starring Paul Mescal and Frankie Corio.

In this episode

• Top 5 Holidays: package holiday dread, cancelled flights, family trips, airport memories, and British holiday behaviour at its absolute finest/worst
• Sidey’s Malta anxiety and the curse of relatives who “mog” every conversation
• What the dads watched this week, including Spider-Noir, Is This Thing On?, Heat, and other pre-main-feature detours
• Why Aftersun plays less like a traditional plot and more like an adult trying to decode childhood memory
• Adult Sophie watching old camcorder footage of her holiday with Calum in Turkey
• The recurring rave/strobe imagery and Sophie trying to reach the father she only half-understood
• Calum’s hidden depression: cigarettes, self-help books, Tai Chi, money worries, shame, and emotional withdrawal
• The cheap holiday resort details: rep bus, room mix-up, wristbands, dinner run, pool tables, scuba mask, karaoke and tourist entertainment
• The expensive rug as a possible attempt to leave Sophie something tangible
• The brutal karaoke scene with Losing My Religion
• The final dance to Under Pressure and the airport departure ending
• How the film handles male depression and implied suicide without spelling everything out
• Paul Mescal and Frankie Corio’s performances, and why the film rewards intense viewing

Bad Dads consensus

• Reegs: Loved it — brilliantly made, emotionally precise, dreamlike, and rich in detail
• Sidey: Strong recommend — hugely powerful, very well made, but absolutely not a fun watch
• Dan: Strong recommend, with caveats — found it genuinely hard to sit with because it stirred up memories and difficult emotions
• Cris: Did not meaningfully watch it — put it on, went for a wee, fell asleep, and woke up when it was done

Final take

Aftersun is one of those films the dads admire deeply while also warning listeners to choose their moment carefully. It is quiet, ambiguous and emotionally bruising — a film about memory, parenting, depression, guilt, love and what children only understand years later.

You can now text us anonymously to leave feedback, suggest future content or simply hurl abuse at us. We'll read out any texts we receive on the show. Click here to try it out!

We love to hear from our listeners! By which I mean we tolerate it. If it hasn't been completely destroyed yet you can usually find us on twitter @dads_film, on Facebook Bad Dads Film Review, on email at baddadsjsy@gmail.com or on our website baddadsfilm.com.

Until next time, we remain...

Bad Dads