If you’ve been a Netflix subscriber for any amount of time, then you’ll know the drill by now; the streaming service drops a brand new original movie with a solid enough premise and a smattering of recognizable faces, which then takes a pasting from critics but receives much more positive notices from audiences before reaching the summit of the charts. Right on cue, enter Old Dads.
The feature-length directorial debut of Bill Burr – who also plays the lead role and co-wrote the screenplay – focuses on a trio of middle-aged best friends who all experience the trials and tribulations of fatherhood later in life, a shared experience they struggle to wrap their heads around either individually or collectively.
Sure enough, Old Dads has been taking a beating from critics, and at the time of writing has failed to elevate itself above a 20 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Flipping the script as often tends to be the case with Netflix’s biggest and brightest exclusives, the movie happens to have been heavily endorsed by viewers to the tune of an 89 percent user rating.
Ticking off the third – and most important – item on the to-do list, Old Dads has also debuted as the second most-watched feature on the global rankings after reaching number one in 26 countries and breaching the Top 10 in upwards of 50 more, per FlixPatrol.
Incredibly, the one title it couldn’t dislodge was Will Smith’s risible Gemini Man, which just goes to show that bad movies are among the platform’s most reliable performers.