7 Most Hilarious Father Son Relationships Captured On Film

There's a certain level of bad parenting society is willing to laugh at when it comes to fathers. Provided the dad shows up and has his heart in the right place, we'll promise not to tell his wife if we see his kid eating a cigarette, and we'll even give him a thumbs up if he remembers to pack his first grader's lunch, no matter how many packages of pudding are inside. I'm sure that annoys the hell out of the average mother who competently multitasks fifteen different things each morning without a single screw-up, but then again, it's sort of insulting to men that we expect even the smarter, more dedicated ones to be a little better than woeful when it comes to the day-to-day trials of parenthood.

Regardless of who it's insulting to, it's great for the film industry. The history of movies is filled with hundreds of father-son relationships that are loveably stupid and borderline reckless, and audiences have never had a problem laughing their asses off over the goofiness. Even as people have gotten bizarrely obsessed with preventing any harm from befalling their own children, we've never lost our willingness to giggle at dads giving the kids pizza for breakfast and letting their toddlers ride around the house on the family dog.

Earlier this year, the Adam Sandler/ Andy Samberg comedy That's My Boy took the idea of the hapless father to the extreme. With the film debuting on Blu-ray and DVD,the release got a few of us around here arguing about our favorite father/ son relationships in comedies. What follows are seven we're particularly fond of.


Big Chris And Little Chris From Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels There's nothing in the world Big Chris cares about more than his son Little Chris. Unfortunately, the thing he cares about second most is collecting debts via brutal and aggressive force. This one-two punch makes him a bit of a strange parent. On the one hand, he's definitely raising his kid to be a sociopath. He enlists Little Chris in his schemes and uses him as a lookout and accessory, which probably isn't the way Cliff Huxtable would have done it. On the other hand, he does work to spend time with Little Chris, is a fierce advocate of take your son to work days and disciplines the little guy when he swears. Plus, by the end of the film, he's set aside enough money to raise his boy whether he continues working or not. I'm not sure whether the balance falls more toward good dad or bad dad, but either way, Big Chris and Little Chris' relationship is hilariously original and bizarrely touching.