Bill Burr does his standup comedy.

Old Dads has a 22% critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an 88% viewer rating and you know what? That makes complete sense. Because the film is basically nearly two hours of Bill Burr’s standup comedy, so the people who are going to go see it are likely already fans of Burr’s content. And considering film critics are generally the kind of spineless mama boy crybabies that Burr makes fun of, and also they’re not being bribed by the studio like normal, they’ve already made up their minds.

Bill Burr plays Jack Kelly, an aging dad struggling to exist in a world that has kinda left him behind. His buddies and work pals Connor Brody (Bobby Cannavale) and Mike Richards (Bokeem Woodbine) sell their business to a startup whose sociopathic millennial new CEO immediately fires everyone above a certain age despite that being very illegal. Jack gets chewed out by the prissy school principal for being two minutes late and, in usual Bill Burr fashion he escalates the issue. Jack gets caught up in the school fundraiser and has to make sure it’s a success if he wants his kid to have a good future.

Meanwhile at work, Jack and the crew get roped up in finding Ed Cameron (C. Thomas Howell) because his loser boss wants him as the company’s new spokesman. Mike is dealing with his girlfriend getting pregnant despite his vasectomy, and Connor is dealing with his wife being cold and heartless and scary in the bad way.

Old Dads reminds me of Dennis Leary’s appearance in Demolition Man, effectively an extension of his stand up comedy. If you don’t like Burr’s style of mocking the younger people and all the stupidity that comes along with them, this film won’t have much for you. Outside of maybe the inevitable ending where Burr admits that maybe he’s actually wrong about a lot of this stuff and he needs to accept that the world is a different place where you can’t just start fights with people over small slights because it inevitably falls on the people you love.

The problem with Old Dads is that it’s barely a movie. There’s a whole three act structure, don’t get me wrong, but the purpose of the film is basically a stretched out stand up special. Burr’s comedy is great because it zips from one joke to the next without too much filler. Here however we get the three stage act where Burr tells his joke, a caricature reacts to the joke and explains how it’s offensive, and then Burr goes on a tirade about how it actually is funny. It’s the same fault that most film adaptations of short movies, or full length movies based on SNL skits tend to go down.

It’s hard to get involved with the characters because they do mostly feel like set dressing, exaggerated caricatures to serve as punchlines for Burr’s comedy. The actors themselves do a fine job, and it’s not like there aren’t real people like them somehow existing out there in the real world. But to have them compacted into an hour and 44 minute movie that barely justifies its runtime feels like a lot to digest. They tried to pump way too much plot in this movie without justifying it, and it does often feel like the movie is speedrunning through the plot points despite the long length.

Should you watch it? If you’ve got Netflix, sure, why not? If you’re not a fan of Burr’s comedy there is literally nothing for you here.

Rating: C+