This week, the dads head down under for Chopper — the semi-biographical crime film that introduced the world to Eric Bana’s raw, terrifying range. Directed by Andrew Dominik (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford), it tells the story of Mark “Chopper” Read, Australia’s most notorious criminal, self-mythologising psychopath and folk hero rolled into one.
Part prison horror, part dark comedy, Chopper opens with its antihero stabbing a rival inmate 15 times for crossing a line, and somehow only escalates from there. Over 90 intense minutes, we follow his chaotic life of stabbings, betrayals, botched kidnappings and baffling logic — punctuated by moments of grim humour and unexpected lucidity.
In this episode we get into:
🔪 Eric Bana’s breakout performance — from TV comic to one of the most menacing, magnetic screen presences of the 2000s.
🏛️ Fact vs. fiction — how the real Chopper blurred truth and myth, and how much of this film you can actually believe.
🩸 Violence as character study — how brutality in Chopper veers between horrifying, absurd, and disturbingly funny.
🧠 The psychology of Mark Read — narcissism, paranoia, and why he thought he was doing the police a favour.
🎤 Post-prison celebrity — the bizarre Australian fascination with Chopper’s later life as a TV guest, writer, and stand-up act.
It’s one of those episodes where you find yourself laughing, then immediately questioning why. Chopper is as funny as it is disturbing — and the Bad Dads dig into every contradiction of its violent, charismatic subject.
🎧 Listen in for brutal quotes, absurd anecdotes (“look what you made me do”), and why Eric Bana risked his sanity to play a man who once cut off his own ears just to get moved to another prison.
We love to hear from our listeners! By which I mean we tolerate it. If it hasn't been completely destroyed yet you can usually find us on twitter @dads_film, on Facebook Bad Dads Film Review, on email at baddadsjsy@gmail.com or on our website baddadsfilm.com.
Until next time, we remain...
Bad Dads
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