Father and stepfather Dusty and Brad join forces to make Christmastime perfect for the children. Their newfound partnership soon gets put to the test when Dusty's old-school, macho dad and Brad's gentle father arrive to turn the holiday upside down. After a sudden change in plans, the four men decide to take the kids to a luxury resort for a fun-filled getaway that turns into a hilariously chaotic
I try not to discuss the conditions of the screenings at which I see the films I review, for obvious reasons. But I feel
like it’s only right, for the sake of transparency and instructiveness, to discuss the New York City screening of Daddy’s
Home 2, which was a semipublic “sneak preview” of the film alongside the press screening, as so many of the larger studio
releases are. Aside from the usual multiplex audience grievances, I also had a grown adult man threaten to “start some
trouble” with me after I asked his wife if she could turn off her iPhone flashlight during the movie. (It takes a lot of
tact and nerve to shush or ask anything of your fellow moviegoers, especially when the viewing experience they’re daring
to sully is Daddy’s Home 2.) Anyway, this angry man loved the movie, as did the rest of the packed house, who were eating
up the misadventures of Mel Gibson and Mark Wahlberg with a spoon. I say this not to denigrate them, but to note that
nothing I say after this paragraph matters.
So, Daddy’s Home 2. It’s the sequel to Daddy’s Home, a modern family comedy beloved by Sofia Coppola and quietly seen by
millions at the end of 2015 when everyone was paying attention to a Star Wars movie. In the sequel, whose premise is
almost identical to Bad Moms sequel A Bad Moms Christmas, the Daddy versus Daddy action is compounded by the addition of
two more Daddies. Will Ferrell, who plays milquetoast, minivan-driving stepdad Brad, is joined by his father, played by a
glowing John Lithgow at his most effusive. When they meet at the airport, they kiss on the lips multiple times. Wahlberg,
who plays bad-boy original daddy Dusty, is joined by his father Kurt, played by Gibson.
If you have seen Gibson in promotional material for Daddy’s Home 2 and recoiled, this film is not for you, nor is it
interested in winning you over. Daddy’s Home 2 is aimed at the most amnesiac, uncritical segment of our population, for
whom it would never occur to connect the dots between Gibson’s documented anti-Semitism and abuse of women and his
character’s objectification of them here, nor scenes of children wielding firearms with recent/perpetual gun violence.
It needs our ignorance to survive. But it would be one thing (and still not a great one thing) if Gibson’s casting was
used to set him up as a buffoon, a laughable model of masculine overkill. Unfortunately, Daddy’s Home 2 is perverse
enough to not only make Gibson the straight man, but to actually make him the audience surrogate.
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