‘Like Father Like Son’ Trailer

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree in the upcoming modern thrillerLike Father Like Son. Set for a day-and-date release early next year, the film features Bandit star Dylan Flashner as Eli, a troubled teenage man whose father waits on death row for a first-degree murder conviction. Seeing the same tendencies and triggers emerging in himself, he strives to break his family’s cycle of violence, though it’s easier said than done. Finding a way off of the path his father went down becomes his sole priority worth doing absolutely anything for as everything in his life crumbles around him. Collider can offer an exclusive trailer that shows Eli’s tardy descent as dear venerable dad, played by Dermot Mulroney, taunts him about his urges.

The footage kicks off with the incident that started it all – Eli’s father viciously stabbing a bully to death after watching them push around another kid. While his father heads off to prison, Eli is left to bear the scars of his crime. He tries to live a normal life, attending therapy, aspiring to be a writer, and getting a girlfriend, but everything unravels when he gets a call from death row, and he’s encouraged to answer. Flashes of Eli’s violence and anger are briefly shown before his father chides him to “remember whose son you are.” Suddenly, the same brutality comes out in full force when Eli comes across a man attacking a woman in an alley, striking him repeatedly over the head in an incident that mirrors his father’s heinous crime. Those violent urges continue to escalate as he takes them out on the people around him and finds himself in increasingly threatening situations, showing that there may be no resisting what’s inside of him.

Much of Like Father Like Son’s active is focused on, as the title suggests, the father and son duo of Flashner and Mulroney, but there’s also a solid cast around them. Ariel Winter, coming off of a recent stint on Star Trek: Lower Decks, plays Eli’s girlfriend, with The Big Bang Theory star Mayim Bialik playing his therapist and Vivica A. Fox rounding out the main group. Jim Klock, Prima Apollinaare, and Eric Michael Cole are also on the call sheet. For Mulroney, this is just the latest role in a busy 2024 that has also seen him take up the mantle of Chief Pascal in Season 13 of Chicago Fire. On the huge screen, he’s appeared in the crime thrillers Depravity and Guns & Moses, as well as the horror flick Blackwater Lane, with a role in the Jacob Keohane-led Laws of Man coming up on January 10.

Who Is Behind ‘Like Father Like Son’?

Behind the camera for the emotional thriller is Barry Jay, who most recently helmed the haunting A Way Out in 2022. The realms of horror and thrillers are both familiar to him between his other two films, Ashes and Killer Therapy, his stint writing the wraparound story on the anthology film Patient Seven, and his production credit on the high-profile Friday the 13th fan film Never Hike Alone. Lionsgate partner Grindstone Entertainment, which recently released the Sylvester Stallone actioner Armor, is backing Like Father Like Son.

Like Father Like Son is set to hit theaters and release on digital and on-demand on January 31. Check out the trailer in the player above.