Father’s Day Special: A List of Bad Dads

Father’s Day is a day of heart-felt good wishes, greeting-card sentimentality and down-home celebration. But, hey, not every dad can be Atticus Finch. With that cynical thought in mind, here’s a list of filmdom’s bad dads, offering proof that not every father knows best.

Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood (2007). Danny won another Oscar for his searing portrait of a ruthless oil prospector who adopts an orphan largely because a wistful child is good p.r. When an accident results in the lad turning mute. Daddy Dearest cannot abide having an imperfect son. Once the unfortunate youth reaches adulthood and develops a mind of his own, the remorseless dad ridicules his son’s efforts to speak coherently. Some critics insisted Poppa Bear behaved savagely in hopes of toughening his son up so he’d be able to make his way in the world. I say they’re being much too generous to Day-Lewis’ character.

Albert Finney, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (2007). This was a sadly overlooked gem. You know from the outset that Philip Seymour Hoffman is not Finney’s favorite son, and you can’t really blame Finney. Hoffman’s hands are definitely bloodstained. But in the movie’s chilling final scene, you realize the extent of Finney’s prejudice. Definitely worth renting, but make sure your sons are in another room.

Rodney Dangerfield, Natural Born Killers (1994). Dangerfield always complained that he “can’t get no respect.” And as Juliette Lewis’ gleefully abusive father in Oliver Stones’ wild-’n-woolly satirical melodrama, he didn’t deserve any respect. He meets a grim fate at the hands of Juliette and blood-thirsty b.f. Woody Harrelson as the initial victim of their cross-country murder spree.

John Huston, Chinatown (1974). Bad dads don’t come much badder than Huston’s evil tycoon Noah Cross, whose Biblical name hides a wicked, wicked heart. It seems he fathered a child with daughter Faye Dunaway. When asked by private dick Jack Nicholson how he could do such a thing, Huston grandly replies that there comes a time when a man must prove to himself “that he can do anything.”

Sean Connery, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989). Some viewers were charmed by Connery’s curmudgeonly performance. I thought he was insufferably smug and arrogant, only treating poor Indy kindly when it suited his own purposes. At least Indy proves to be a better dad in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

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