In the 90s everyone seemed to be getting a rougher edge to their characters, and fathers in the movies were becoming a lot more edgy in some ways than ever before. They were less the friend, the buddy, the go-to guy, and they were a lot more into being tough, a man’s man, and so on and so forth. The dads in the 90s were the guys you came to if you had a problem but the chance of them resolving it nice and peacefully wasn’t that great. The dads in the 90s were often the type that would go after whoever hurt them or their families with a baseball bat or something heavier, or would have found a way to be even nastier. Then of course there were those that were conniving and didn’t seem to know how to be great fathers even when they had the opportunity standing right in front of them. Ah yes, 90s dads on film were kind of, awkward at times.
Here are some good examples of 90s dads on film.
5. Disturbing Behavior – Dr. Edgar Caldicot
The doctor isn’t quite as prevalent in this movie as you might think he should be but his work is up close and full-on crazy since the kids in the town are good and gentle and kind, until they get aroused. Then the program they’re put under seems to go a little wonky and they start getting a little violent, to put it mildly. But if you’re wondering just how he qualifies as a doctor he had a daughter that he left in a loony bin at one point before the film and two of those still unaffected by the program find her. The worst part is when he’s confronted with it he doesn’t seem to care, stating that she was never that bright anyway.
4. Goodfellas – Henry Hill
When your father’s been a criminal since he was young it’s kind of hard to expect him to stop, but Henry Hill was the kind of guy that got more dangerous and more paranoid as time went on. Being his kid couldn’t have been easy when that kind of stuff started to go down and the idea that Jimmy Burke could and would have tossed Henry’s family in the trash just to get ride of them seems like something that would make you want to belong to another family. Plus, if even half of the movie is accurate then Hill was high a lot of the time and out doing his own thing the rest of it. Was he a good dad? It’s hard to know.
3. American Beauty – Col. Frank Fitts
Now we’re getting into the really scary dads since Fritts was the kind of guy you didn’t just pop off to since he would likely do something about it. Of course when he confronts his own son about being gay he seems more like a sad old man, but if his son would have continued to press him it’s hard to say where it would have gone. He’s the kind of guy that will probably back down if someone really gets in his face and challenges him, but if he can get the upper hand and force his will upon someone else he’d probably do it without hesitation. That’s kind of cowardly in a way, but it’s still kind of scary.
2. Braveheart – King Edward “Longshanks”
Forgetting how inaccurate this movie was for the moment, King Edward was a monster. In real life it’s not known if he was this bad unless you talk to a historian, but in the movie he was pure evil. He didn’t think twice about instituting prima nocta, which would allow the local lords, his men all of them, to sleep with a wife on her first night of marriage in order to breed the Scots out of their lands. Try to say that this isn’t just evil and you might have a serious argument on your hands. Plus the subversion of the Scottish lords, in the movie mind you, was the act of a cruel but tactical mind that never stopped thinking of a way to destroy his enemy.
1. Casino – Nicky Santoro
Nicky is a guy that just got worse and worse as the film went on. In the beginning he was a tough guy without a doubt, but as the film wore on and he made Las Vegas his home he became the kind of guy that would whack just about anyone if they crossed him the wrong way. He even went so far as to threaten his former friend, the same guy that he was supposed to be protecting. By the time his end came around you had to think that it was long overdue.
Dads in 90s films were something else. It as almost as though the filmmakers were trying to find the new style of dad that was needed for cinema.
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