Father’s Day is upon us, which means it is time for dads everywhere to sip from their #1 DAD mugs, even if they know deep within their hearts that they’re probably more like Top 10, maybe Top 15. But while there are countless great dads in real life, the supply of great Dad Movies is more limited, especially with so many of their greatest champions making DTV movies or self-financing eleven-part western epics that will never be finished. But in the spirit of sports, which I’m told is something some other dads quite enjoy, let’s turn this into a competition. Which recent movie star is the true Dad Movie champion?
First, let’s establish some ground-rule eliminations. Matt Damon and Christian Bale have starred in perhaps the Dadliest movie of the past decade, 2019’s Ford v. Ferrari. It makes our recent list of Dad Movies Through the Ages, handily, and Damon in particular has become a later-period patron saint of the Dad Movie with the Bourne movies, Stillwater, Air, and an working relationship with Christopher Nolan. But he and Bale still lean a bit more on the side of prestige pictures than Dad Movie pulp. For that matter, Damon’s pal Ben Affleck makes a lot of Dad-friendly pictures, but he gives off a divorced vibe that is probably accurate but also not particularly simpatico with a lot of dads’ self-image. Jason Statham and other action heroes don’t do enough historical stuff to qualify. Plus, there’s a certain faded-megastar quality that makes for the perfect Dad Movie star – someone who was far from niche at their peak, and is still a well-recognized name, but has leaned more into a certain type of movie in their later middle age.
As such, your current Dad Movie contenders are determined to be Kevin Costner, Harrison Ford, Russell Crowe, and Gerard Butler. Let them fight!
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Kevin Costner
Five-Picture Dad Movie Canon: The Untouchables; Bull Durham; Field of Dreams; Tin Cup; Open Range
Strengths: Baseball; sometimes other sports; cowboys; playing dads or dad-like mentors to Superman, Jack Ryan, etc.
Weaknesses: Questionable racial politics and loyalty to Mike Binder (see Black or White) (no, don’t); sinking fortune into confusing western of indeterminate length
Number of Westerns: 8
Analysis: Costner’s Dad Movie Canon could be twice as long, and he certainly has dad cred from his mentor roles. But the man hasn’t made a true classic, even within this subgenre, in ages.
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Harrison Ford
Five-Picture Dad Movie Canon: Blade Runner; Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, specifically; The Fugitive; Clear and Present Danger; Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Strengths: Taking a punch; pointing figures; growling
Weaknesses: Bad taste in character-actor parts; relatedly, appearing in the only bad Captain America movie.
Number of Westerns: 1
Analysis: Harrison Ford probably could have taken this title at any point through the mid-2000s, but a lot of his best and most-seen performances in the past decade have been in legacy sequels. Nothing wrong with that; he seems quite engaged in sequels to Blade Runner and Star Wars. But his big concession to the classic Dad Movie crowd has been on TV, where he does one of those Taylor Sheridan western shows — though that’s not the one counted here; that would be the misconceived Cowboys & Aliens, illustrative of how he has sometimes eschewed meat-and-potatoes thrillers in favor of nerdier fare.
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Russell Crowe
Five-Picture Dad Movie Canon: The Insider; Gladiator; Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World; 3:10 to Yuma; The Nice Guys
Strengths: Ham; performing exorcisms for the Pope; playing Superman’s biological dad; semi-secretly being hilarious
Weaknesses: Ham; not offsetting dourness by hosting SNL often enough
Number of Westerns: 3
Analysis: Russell Crowe has really embraced genre in his later years, which is a mixed blessing; sometimes he’s doing something as fun as The Pope’s Exorcist, while other times it feels like he’s squandering his occasional career as a character actor.
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Gerard Butler
Five-Picture Dad Movie Canon: 300; How to Train Your Dragon and/or Reign of Fire (depending on your age); Den of Thieves; Angel Has Fallen; Copshop
Strengths: Consistency; lack of pretension
Weaknesses: Compulsive collaboration with Ric Roman Waugh; sheer volume of terrible movies
Number of Westerns: A shameful zero!
Analysis: As the youngest of this bunch, Butler has made an impressive play for the title. But he needs more Den of Thieves-level junk classics and fewer genuinely low-rent stuff like those horrible Has Fallen movies. (Angel gets a pass for being a Fugitive knockoff.)
Our Call: With the western-appearance bonus points, it’s really between Crowe and Costner. Does Crowe lose cred for not being American? Is Costner the only contemporary movie star you could accuse of being in too many westerns?! Does Crowe gain points for being cooler than Mel Gibson, while Costner loses them for being not as cool as Clint Eastwood? Ultimately, dads have to pick the guy who works best for them. But Crowe might be the surprise champion here. Maybe spend your Father’s Day watching The Water Diviner while standing up off to the side of the TV.
Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn podcasting at www.sportsalcohol.com. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others.
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