Trigger Warning: Like Father Like Son utilizes frequent use of unexpected fast cuts with visual imagery accompanied by white flashes which may disturb photosensitive viewers.
What makes a killer a killer?
For centuries, this question has been asked by plebs and academics alike, trying to discern what it is that inspires bloodlust or, at minimum, the festering, gnawing desire to murder. This question has become fodder for stories of good fighting evil that go back to the oral tradition, when it began as gods and monsters propagating violence unto humanity. Now, however, that’s just a regular Tuesday on Fox, CBS, or any other channel (over-the-air or streamer) in either television or feature-length form as stories involving the worst of humanity battling against the saintly for our collective souls. But that’s not enough to make it feel personal for people who need to feel like it’s they who are in danger, not just the concept of a group; thereby inspiring stories in which the central characters look inward at the monster within themselves. This is the concept for writer/director Barry Jay’s (The Way Out) latest film, Like Father Like Son, which centers a young adult grappling with his own burgeoning urges as his father sits in prison for a similar crime. As much as Jay wants to tell a compelling, thrilling nail-biter in which we, the audience, observe a possible horrible inevitability, there’s absolutely no tension whatsoever in the tale, made worse by frequent choices of style over substance which disturb the flow and undercut the sincerity, and a religious element that never quite connects to the whole.
L-R: Jim Klock as Jake and Dylan Flashner as Eli in the thriller, LIKE FATHER LIKE SON, a Lionsgate release. Photo courtesy of Lionsgate.
While wrapping up his job cleaning a bathroom at a park, Gabe (Dermot Mulroney) witnesses a bully brutally attack someone and steps in, killing the bully in the process. Now on death row, his son Eli (Dylan Flashner) grapples with the “why” of his father’s actions, all while trying to come to grips with his own rising violent urges, urges that look to break through the surface even as he finds some respite from his downward spiral life with runaway Hayley (Ariel Winter).
Dermot Mulroney as Gabe in the thriller, LIKE FATHER LIKE SON, a Lionsgate release. Photo courtesy of Lionsgate.
Set in 1990, Jay’s script wants to ask big questions regarding the violence that we do on the daily. Not just the murder that Gabe commits, an action that seems unjustifiable even with the inhumane actions of the bully (using slurs, personal property destruction, physical violence), but the micro-aggressions Eli experiences just trying to live his life. A few examples are a boss who yells and demeans instead of supporting his employees, a loss of a car despite being on top of payments, and a slew of other interactions with people that, when piled on top of one another, make one feel completely helpless in the face of adversity. Thus the question becomes, is the violence justified? In 2025, there’s now language for the type of feeling that Eli has (dysregulation) which explains some of why he jumps straight to boiling over instead of walking away as no other options seem available. But this isn’t really an excuse seeing as there are equal opportunities to transform his future by making different choices, something which Jay makes clear through various choices within the script. This is what makes the violence within Like Father harder to process and several supposed twists difficult to believe, not because one doesn’t understand that sometimes violence is an appropriate reaction (witnessing someone getting hurt and jumping in to defend them), but that there is a point where it can go too far and things shift from altruism to sadism. This line is walked smartly by Jay and is the best thing about the film, creating opportunities for Eli to fall, heal, try to redeem himself, and fail again, demonstrating that the struggle to be a good person is difficult within a system that seems designed to have anyone caught within it fall. However, we’re told more often than we’re shown that Eli wants to be a good person and this is where the film’s intent truly struggles.
Ariel Winter as Hayley in the thriller, LIKE FATHER LIKE SON, a Lionsgate release. Photo courtesy of Lionsgate.
From the start of the film until before the climax, the audience is shown potentially a few months, not even a year, of Eli’s life. We’re breadcrumbed information about him as a child, but, otherwise, we are given no reason to understand why Eli is so horrified by his father outside of witnessing the violence his father committed. Is it possible that seeing this would cause Eli to want to shutter all connection? Sure. But what is Eli giving up in the process? Given the title of the film, Gabe and Eli’s relationship is paramount to understanding the internal struggle that Eli faces throughout the runtime and its certainly one that we see Eli grapple with as it relates to these urges he’s currently battling, yet this doesn’t seem like a thing that’s new for Eli. In which case, we can’t help but wonder what their relationship was like before the incident. Were they close? Strained? Barely in contact and on the verge of estranged? One can be horrified by a parent’s violence and still want a connection, yet it’s unclear why Eli responds in such a way other than the narrative needing there to be a means to tease out necessary information and making the two physically and emotionally at a distance creates the internal logic to manufacture this. One of the stylistic choices that Jay makes to convey the father-son connection despite their circumstance is to overlay images of Gabe overtop Eli as if to imply they are the same, the visage of Gabe being a close-up of Mulroney in prison and accompanied by sharp white flashes. These moments are akin to the way intrusive thoughts violently appear in one’s mind and strongly channel Eli’s turmoil, but the repetitious use doesn’t amplify the tension or disquiet so much as grow tedious in their homogeny. In this way, Like Father tells us it’s a psychological thriller without actually providing information or setting up circumstances in which one feels even a trickle of a mystery. It certainly doesn’t help that the timeline is completely truncated and, therefore, hardly believable as it tries to create situations of violence in which ethics or morals are paramount (yet wouldn’t be handled in the way they are), and inserts Judaism as a religious element that serves no purpose beyond adding weight to a single cinematic moment without any actual relation to the characters or text of the film.
Vivica A. Fox as Louise in the thriller, LIKE FATHER LIKE SON, a Lionsgate release. Photo courtesy of Lionsgate.
To Jay’s credit, the questions within Like Father Like Son are worth exploring. Not only that, the places he’s willing to take the story in the climax of the film in pursuit of navigating these complex questions are both bold and interesting. The trouble is that the rest of the film is too stuck in trying to mean something through its symbolism that what we get on the surface is a slog to stay engaged with. The performances, save for Mulroney, all seem to be in a different film and often disconnected from each other, even in the same scene. The repetition of the Gabe/Eli psychological connection is only beaten by the use of transitional overhead shots of Los Angeles serving as the shortcut from one scene to another, even if the scene in between is exceedingly brief. Even the use of bad people-as-victims is overwrought and unhelpful in trying to keep Eli sympathetic, as if that makes a difference within the intended scope of the film: what makes a killer a killer? If one is supposed to be questioning the means of transitioning from innocent member of society to killer, is a distinction between victims necessary? If so, what does it mean to the individual when such a distinction is made versus a hardline ethical believe? Is killing wrong if the victim is a sex offender, a Nazi, or a genocidal maniac? Is the killing wrong if the only crime is being a basic homophobic asshole? There’s a big distinction between the crimes and the film doesn’t make as large a case as it seeks to because it struggles so hard with keeping our perception of all the crimes as the same despite their massive disparity, a disparity that outshines any intention the film seeks to communicate.
In theaters, on VOD, and digital January 31st, 2025.
Final Score: 1.5 out of 5.
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Categories: In Theaters, Reviews, streaming
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