DEAD DROP: "Argylle"

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Greater the spy, the bigger the lie. We are the spy fi guys, and this is Argyle. Welcome to the spy fi guys, where we cover spy facts, spy fiction, and everything in between. I'm Christian. [00:00:21] Speaker B: And I'm Zach. [00:00:23] Speaker A: And today we've got a dead drop for you. We are covering the Matthew Vaughn film Argyle, starring Henry Cavill and a bunch of other. Yep, although funnily enough, he is probably the least featured member of the cast here. [00:00:38] Speaker B: Even though we get stopped billing. Yeah, so the only thing I really knew about this movie was I saw the trailer like six times before various movies. [00:00:46] Speaker A: Yeah, that is the joke on the Internet that this trailer has been out in front of everything for forever now. See, I seeing this trailer because I had heard about it for a long time before I even saw trailers. I knew that Henry Cavill was going to be in the spy movie. So of course that piqued my attention because he is oft rumored to be in the running for Bond. So just to see what he'd like in a spy movie, I was curious. [00:01:16] Speaker B: Is it safe to say that he's out of the running for now? [00:01:19] Speaker A: I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. Who knows? No one knows. No one knows what the broccoli's are going to decide to do, what eon is going to decide to do. But when I first saw this trailer, I think I told you this. I had this theory that this was going to be a reverse spies in disguise. The cat was Henry Cavill. [00:01:39] Speaker B: Somehow I don't recall that. [00:01:43] Speaker A: I've told someone that. [00:01:44] Speaker B: But in a movie like this, where there's a lot of twists, it's not totally out of left field. [00:01:51] Speaker A: Let's get to our summaries. [00:01:53] Speaker B: Okay, so here, as always, is our poetry synopsis. And here come the spoilers. Okay, spoilers start right here, right now. You have been warned. There's a lot to spoil in this movie. Here come the spoilers. And they're not going to stop. So with that in mind, here is our haiku, which I feel encapsulates the movie more than any other haiku I've ever written. [00:02:14] Speaker C: So here we go. [00:02:14] Speaker A: Oh, boy. [00:02:17] Speaker B: A lonely writer. Few too many twists and turns. Cat in a backpack. [00:02:24] Speaker A: All right, I'll go with it. [00:02:26] Speaker B: And here comes our Haiku. There once was an amnesiac named Kyle who dreamed up an agent R Kyle. She's no longer Ellie, but her cat is still Alfie. She had what it took the whole while. [00:02:39] Speaker A: The Ellie Alfie rhyme was a bit of a stretch, but I'll give it. [00:02:43] Speaker B: To you it always. And here is the real IMDb plot summary. A reclusive author who writes espionage novels about a secret agent in a global spy syndicate realizes the plot of the new book she's writing starts to mirror real world events in real time. I actually didn't really get the impression that that was what was happening in. [00:03:02] Speaker A: The movie, but okay, yeah, that's interesting. I mean, yeah, it's not quite that things are mirrored in real time. Let's just say. [00:03:13] Speaker B: No, I wouldn't say that. [00:03:15] Speaker A: So we start off. We meet Agent Argyle, played by Henry Cavill, who works with this other guy named Wyatt, played by John Cena. They're growing up. This assassin named Lagrange, who's played by Dua Lipa, who is apparently some sort of singer or something. I'm not hip up on my singers. They dance and reveals that she knows who he is, and so does everyone in the club. They have a nice big car chase. Argyle and Wyatt chase after her, and she kills their other ally, Kira by shooting her in the chest. [00:03:47] Speaker C: Right. [00:03:48] Speaker A: But John Cena, Wyatt managed to pull Lagrange off her motorcycle. She's escaping, interrogate her, find out that she works for the same people they do, the directorate, which means they're dirty. [00:04:02] Speaker B: Which is just like alias. I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of spy. Would you say it's safe to say it's a spy movie cliche that people they've been working for are the bad guys the whole time. [00:04:12] Speaker A: It doesn't happen as often as you might think. [00:04:15] Speaker C: That's true. [00:04:16] Speaker B: We've covered a lot of spy movies on this podcast, and it hasn't happened that much. [00:04:21] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:04:22] Speaker B: Do you remember the Bourne identity? Because I feel like this movie is just the Bourne identity. [00:04:26] Speaker A: It is in certain ways. Yeah, sure. And that is a case where. Yes. Okay, that's the other big one. Is Treadstone not being rosy clean, shall we say? [00:04:38] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. [00:04:40] Speaker A: Yeah. So Lagrange commits suicide. Argyle and Wyatt cut their comms. And this is all revealed to be a book reading by author Ellie Conway, who has written four Argyle novels. She is a waitress who started writing after she had a big skinny accident. [00:04:53] Speaker B: One thing this movie does really well is setups and payoffs. I know we talked about this before. There's a lot of stuff that gets set up, and I didn't see anything that didn't get paid off. So I like that. [00:05:04] Speaker A: Other than hints that the cat might be Henry Cavill, I mean, you're going. [00:05:09] Speaker B: To have to point those hints out because I sure didn't see them. [00:05:13] Speaker A: But yeah. So she goes back home. She's trying to write her ending for her book. For book five, she's struggling to come up with an end. We also meet her cat, Alfie, the aforementioned cat, who's a scottish fold cat. [00:05:26] Speaker B: Christian, I have a question for you. Is Alfie CGI? Because this was the subject of much discussion. Well, I assume that when he goes flying around in the air, he clearly looks CGI, but, I mean, when he's just sitting there or when he's in the backpack, he's a real cat. [00:05:41] Speaker A: He's a real cat. He's actually Matthew Vaughn's cat. And I don't know if you've heard all these rumors. Before the movie came out, there was rumors that the actual author, because there is an actual book, Argyle, which I've started reading, and it says it's written by Ellie Conway. But there were rumors that Taylor Swift wrote it because she has a scottish fold cat. [00:06:06] Speaker C: Wow. [00:06:06] Speaker B: That's the second most ridiculous Taylor Swift theory I've heard today. [00:06:12] Speaker A: Yeah. And apparently Matthew Vaughn has disputed this, but said that she has been inspired in a way because his daughter, or daughters, I forget if his one or two daughters are Taylor Swift fans. And that's why they got the scottish fold cat, and that's why it comes around. [00:06:34] Speaker B: I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if this movie gets big, if those scottish cats are going to be popular, because they're big and they're cute and they're adorable. [00:06:42] Speaker A: Yeah, no, they're already popular because of Taylor Swift. [00:06:45] Speaker B: Oh, right. Of course. Taylor Swift is going to make that Travis Kelsey guy really popular. That's what heard. No, no, we're not done. So is Ellie Conway a real person? Or is it like, when books by. Exactly like that. Okay, well, how long has the archive book been out? [00:07:08] Speaker A: Came out like, maybe a month or two ago. [00:07:13] Speaker B: Oh, so it was for the. Yes. Oh, okay, I see. That's. [00:07:21] Speaker A: Well, it's Argyle's origin story so far, so it's interesting and it is actually good reading. It reads like a spy novel, so I'm entertained. So far. [00:07:34] Speaker B: That's all we ask for, a spy novel. Classic cat lady, where she's, like, alone and sad and drinks wine, and when her mom tells her to find a man, she's like, I don't want to, for some reason that's never actually explained. [00:07:49] Speaker A: Doing fine on her own. [00:07:51] Speaker B: Yeah, she don't need to. And she is doing fine on her own. Do you see that? [00:07:56] Speaker A: She's a world renowned author, so yeah. Who needs a man? [00:08:00] Speaker C: There you go. [00:08:01] Speaker B: There's only one man in her life and that man is Agent Argyle. [00:08:05] Speaker A: Exactly. So she sends her mom the manuscript and tells her. And her mother reads it and tells her that the current sort of cliffhanger ending is a cop out and suggests that she'll come down for the weekend, help her out. [00:08:20] Speaker B: So, Christian, this only occurred to me after the movie was long over, but this whole thing of that's not an ending. It's not a cliffhanger, it's a cop out. Yeah, that made me wonder if the movie was going to end with a. [00:08:34] Speaker C: Cop out. [00:08:38] Speaker B: For this meta movie. [00:08:40] Speaker A: Well, we'll get to it, but. So instead she starts writing one more chapter and she has argyle sort of in her mind's eye as she's writing. And I enjoyed that. As she's writing the words, Henry Cavill starts saying them. And then as she's like, wait, no, this is terrible. Argyle says those things too. It was fun. [00:09:01] Speaker B: Is this the part where he's in Hong Kong that you're referring? [00:09:03] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:09:05] Speaker B: Okay, so here's the thing, Christian. I didn't feel like that was a bad ending. I didn't feel like it was a. [00:09:10] Speaker A: Cop out ending where they said, oh, we need to go to London and all, but. And there's reasons why the mom thinks it's cop out and we'll get to that. [00:09:20] Speaker B: Yeah, the. Right. The mom has ulterior motives to keep her. [00:09:23] Speaker A: Yep, that's just true. [00:09:24] Speaker B: But yeah, no, I was like to take down the director at once and for all. [00:09:30] Speaker C: I thought that was a good. [00:09:31] Speaker B: Yeah, that was fine. [00:09:32] Speaker A: It's fine. But the mom has a motive and we'll say why later. So Ellie decides she's going to take the train up to her parents place instead of her mom coming up, she brings Alfie in a backpack, which these apparently are real things for cats to travel in. Taylor Swift does bring around her cat in a backpack similar to this. It does not have an argyle pattern on it, though, apparently. [00:09:58] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I like the cat backpack and I've seen other ones that don't look like that, but yeah, it's very realistic. [00:10:06] Speaker A: On the train, she meets Aiden who's got like long hair and a beard. He's got a bit unkempt and he's reading her book, but doesn't realize that she's the author until he gets to the very end and sees her picture on the dust jacket. [00:10:19] Speaker B: Yeah, sure he does. I'd rather say so this reminded me of. And the spy came in from the cold. When Lacare is like, the real spy is always the last person you think is the spy, which is like someone who's, like, dirty and slubby and you don't want to be around them. That's totally Sam Rockwell here. [00:10:37] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:10:38] Speaker A: So he very casually reveals that he's a spy, and the toll train car is full of spies, and they're coming after her. As they start to attack her, Aiden fends them off, and Ellie starts having hallucinations, seeing Argyle Henry Cavill in Aiden's place as he's fighting them off, and they escape out of the back of the train with a parachute. [00:11:00] Speaker B: I mean, I don't know. The fight scene was like, fine, I. [00:11:02] Speaker A: Guess it was entertaining. I like the switching between Sam Rockwell and Henry Cavill. That made it entertaining. [00:11:10] Speaker B: That was neat. There was also a little bit of setup and not a payoff where this guy gives Ellie the old lazy eye, this guy with a beard, and she's like, hey, what's up? And then we do see him later. I thought for sure he was going to be an assassin. [00:11:25] Speaker A: The setup was that they almost get a little flirty, and she says, no, the seat's taken. And then as they escape, he sees her again, and with Aiden, he says, that's your type. That's all the payoff you need for that. [00:11:40] Speaker B: I missed that line. I heard someone call him Romeo, but that was it. I didn't hear that. I like the premise of someone who writes about spy novels being pulled into a spy story, but I feel obligated to say it's not original. Have you ever seen this movie called romancing the Stone? [00:11:58] Speaker A: I know of it in that it's basically one of. Is that Tom Selleck? No, I think it's Kurt. No, I'm thinking of the other. So I've heard of it as Indiana Jones type movie. [00:12:14] Speaker B: Yeah, it's Indiana Jones, but more of, like, a romance. And the title sucks. I don't know who thought of that title. The premise is a woman who writes romance novels gets pulled into. It's more of a classic adventure story than a romance story. But there is romance there. I didn't see it, though. There's a movie called the Lost City with Sandra Bullock, right? [00:12:33] Speaker A: Yeah, there was. Yeah. [00:12:36] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:12:36] Speaker B: And then also sort of Castle, the tv show. A guy who writes detective novels becomes a so. But I was like, this is good because we haven't seen the spy version of that. [00:12:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:12:47] Speaker B: And we get it in the beginning. It doesn't sustain through the whole movie, but we'll get there when we get. [00:12:52] Speaker A: Ellie wakes up in a cabin where she's given a big info dump. Apparently, the stories that she's been writing have actually happened. I don't think they were happening in real time necessarily, but they've happened. And Ritter, who is the director of the division, which is the real life counterpart to. In the books, they're called the directorate. [00:13:13] Speaker B: Sorry, what's it called in the movie? [00:13:15] Speaker A: The division. [00:13:17] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. That made me think of the video game the division. Yeah, we used to play that together. [00:13:23] Speaker A: Yeah. So the division has also gone rogue, just like the directorate in her books. And they're also looking for the silver Bullet drive, which has all of the intel that would reveal them to the world. And the last place it was known to be in was London, just like in the book. [00:13:37] Speaker B: So they need Ellie to figure out, like, well, what's going to happen next in your story. Remember Ellie? Think, think. And she's like, I can't. I don't know. [00:13:44] Speaker A: They go to the Albert memorial where the meat was supposed to take place. Ellie sort of goes through her process and tries to figure out what the next part would be. They figure out, through tracking lists of satellite dishes, the apartment would be on Coburg street. They narrow down to, like, three, and they see that one of them is on Coburg street, as in Prince Albert Sachs. Coburg, whose monument they're at. [00:14:05] Speaker B: Yeah. So now it's kind of like national treasure. [00:14:09] Speaker A: So they check out the apartment, find it's empty except for a hidden storage under a floorboard, which has a notebook and a boat key. Now, this whole time, ritter and division have been watching them and were able to follow the same clues. They send waves of men after them, but they managed to escape using the hacker's escape plan. Through the roof, off the roof, jumping onto a crash mat, and then take the boat out. [00:14:32] Speaker B: So, these action scenes were my favorite. And my favorite part of the whole movie is when someone throws a grenade at Ellie. She throws it at Owen instead of just away, and then he gets launched into an easy chair by the force of the grenade. So when it's Sam Rockwell, he's, like, just flailing in the air, but when it's Henry Cavill, he looks like he's like, I meant to do that. [00:14:55] Speaker A: Like, landing in the. Yep. [00:15:00] Speaker B: So I also wanted to comment. There's a part where Owen. That's his name, right? Owen goes through fighting everybody, and he tells Aiden, tells Ellie, you need to crush this guy's head. Basically kill someone in cold blood. [00:15:14] Speaker C: Okay. [00:15:15] Speaker B: And I was like, is this supposed to be funny? Is this supposed to be scary? What am I supposed to be feeling here? What do you think? [00:15:24] Speaker A: I think it was supposed to play off as funny, but also in a sort of ridiculous way. As in, like, he's crazy. Why? This is funny. [00:15:33] Speaker B: So this reminded me. Have you ever seen the A Team movie? [00:15:38] Speaker A: Yes. [00:15:39] Speaker B: With Liam Neeson? [00:15:41] Speaker C: Yes. Okay. [00:15:42] Speaker B: Do you remember how Ba Baracus can't kill people and then at the end he learns to kill people and it's like a sweet, magical moment? [00:15:50] Speaker A: Yep. [00:15:51] Speaker B: And I was like, this is really weird. [00:15:54] Speaker C: You don't remember that? [00:15:56] Speaker A: I vaguely recall that, but yeah, I guess so. I don't know. [00:16:00] Speaker B: So anyway, it just reminded me of that callback to the 18 movie. [00:16:04] Speaker A: So Ellie and Aiden hide out in a cheap motel and Ellie is starting to trust Aidan. But she overhears Aidan on the phone saying that he wants to put a bullet in Ellie's head. Which is like, what phrasing. [00:16:20] Speaker B: I mean, this guy's a professional spy. He really ought to know better than that. I found this part of the movie to be probably the least plausible part of the whole thing. It's like clearly just there for some manufactured drama. [00:16:34] Speaker A: Well, no, there's actually a good reason. Because this gets her to call her parents, or at least specifically her mom. [00:16:41] Speaker C: Right. [00:16:41] Speaker B: They need the professional spy to do something stupid so that the next part of the plaque can happen, which I don't love. [00:16:48] Speaker A: Anyway, so she calls her mom, who comes to meet her in London, and she arrives at their hotel and revealed that the dad is actually ritter, head of division, which I thought was an interesting twist. I noticed that. Oh, we haven't seen her dad at all. He's always just off screen or something. So I'm like curious. Wonder who's going to be. And it turns out to be Ritter. [00:17:07] Speaker B: It is a good twist. Ritter is the guy who is the fineborn now. Guy who yells fine born now over and over at his underlings. That's what he's done so far in. [00:17:16] Speaker A: The movie, except not born. [00:17:19] Speaker B: Well, yeah, but that's what find Ellie now if you want to go there. [00:17:24] Speaker A: Yeah. He's played by what's his face. [00:17:27] Speaker B: Brian Cranston. [00:17:28] Speaker A: Cranston. [00:17:28] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:17:29] Speaker A: So he was talking to her. He looks at the hacker's notebook and as soon as he's looking at it, he's taking photos with his glasses of those, isn't he? [00:17:39] Speaker B: Which, yes, he doesn't normally wear glasses, so that's a giveaway. [00:17:43] Speaker A: Or maybe he does when he's Ellie's. [00:17:45] Speaker C: Dad, right? [00:17:47] Speaker B: They keep mentioning her dad, but they haven't shown him. I knew there was going to be some kind of reveal. I didn't see that one coming though. [00:17:53] Speaker A: So Aiden comes in and says that these aren't your parents. And her mom holds a gun to Ellie's neck and Aiden shoots her mom and knocks out her dad. [00:18:05] Speaker C: Right. [00:18:05] Speaker A: And they escape but have to end up having to leave the cat behind. [00:18:09] Speaker B: Yeah, that was pretty emotional. He even says, okay, I'm not going to force you to leave the cat behind, but if you do, you're going to die. [00:18:17] Speaker A: Well, it's on Ellie because she forgot the cat as they were running out. And I even thought I was like, wait a minute, what about the cat? As she's like running out with him and she has a choice to either go back or escape to safety. [00:18:31] Speaker B: I was thinking, what about the cat? [00:18:32] Speaker A: The whole movie falls asleep in the car as they're driving away and wakes up on their way to a french vineyard where she meets a real Alfie who is a former CIA director or deputy director played by Samuel L. Jackson. [00:18:46] Speaker B: I like the way they showed he's a sports fan when you first meet him because he's got jerseys on the wall. So hideout. [00:18:52] Speaker A: And so he says it's time for you to meet the real agent Argyle. Or our period Kyle. Agent Rachel Kyle, who is Ellie's actual identity. [00:19:05] Speaker B: Our second twist of many twists. [00:19:09] Speaker A: I'll admit. I like the way they rolled it out. R Kyle. [00:19:14] Speaker B: Yeah, you love that pun stuff. [00:19:17] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:19:18] Speaker B: The line time for you to meet the real agent Argyle was in all the trailers and I definitely thought Henry Cavill was a real person. I mean, the movie's what's what's. Why not one more? [00:19:32] Speaker A: Well, so it turns out that all of the adventures that Argyle went on happened to her. It turns out also that Aiden was the real life Wyatt, so he is know built like John Cena. [00:19:45] Speaker B: And I liked this. I actually liked it a lot. I thought a lot of this movie was dumb, but I did like how they explained how she had the idea for all her books because they're memories. I thought that was a really good and plausible explanation. It did make me wonder why they didn't come after her. Super. [00:20:03] Speaker A: Well, there's a good reason for that. So Aiden reveals that Rachel was supposed to go to the meet at the statue, but she instead disappeared. Her body was found by division and their psyops expert Vogeler brainwashed Rachel into thinking that Ritter and Vogeler were her parents and that she had a skinny accident. And they give her a notebook with details from her missions to encourage her to write the Argyle styles. And for five years waited for her to write the next part, which is what they needed. It's where the silver bullet was. So that's why they didn't come after sooner. Because they needed that. And that's why the mom was encouraging her to write the next chapter. [00:20:43] Speaker B: I do like patient bad guys. Bad guys who can buy their time. [00:20:49] Speaker A: If they can't find the silver bullet, no one else can. So they have no real worry. I assume so. They just need to get it however long it takes. [00:20:58] Speaker B: They're protecting themselves. [00:21:00] Speaker C: Yep. [00:21:01] Speaker A: Aiden also reveals that what happened to Kira, her getting shot by Lagrange also happened in real life. And Alice brings up that she was going to bring her back in another book. Apparently a fan wrote to her and said a way that could bring her back. Apparently there's a spot called the vascular corridor where if you shoot them very close to the heart and you get it clean straight through, they can survive. [00:21:27] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:21:27] Speaker B: Through and. [00:21:29] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:21:30] Speaker B: So Kira is the only person who doesn't have an analog. She's just herself, I guess. [00:21:34] Speaker A: I think Lagrange too. Ritter and Alfie are both simultaneously decoding the hacker's notebook. Find out that the silver bullet is in Arabia guarded by the keeper of secrets, who's played by Sophia Bottella. [00:21:47] Speaker B: This whole part was so regressive. I don't know if it was supposed to be like on purpose or something, but it was the kind of thing you get from a movie from like the. [00:21:55] Speaker A: Reminded me of what it's in. Like John Wick. [00:21:58] Speaker B: Three. [00:21:58] Speaker A: There's something like this too. Or is it two? I don't remember. [00:22:01] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. I think the part where they show her with the veil on, I was like yikes. [00:22:06] Speaker A: So they go to the desert. They're dressed like Argyle Lagrange from the beginning. And Aidan gets her act to actually dance and reveals that they were a couple. [00:22:17] Speaker B: He's like, I was in love with you. [00:22:18] Speaker A: I like Sam Rockwell's character because especially I'm thinking of in Iron Man Two, his characters always like to dance. Or also Charlie's angels one, I think. Yeah, his characters always like to dance, I think. So when he's trying to get her to dance, it's like, okay, this is classic Sam Rockwell. [00:22:35] Speaker B: Yeah, the Internet loves Sam Rockwell. I do like here how he doesn't look like the traditional leading man like Henry Cavill. [00:22:43] Speaker C: Right? [00:22:43] Speaker B: Good contrast with him. He's like kind of out of shape, too. [00:22:46] Speaker C: Yes. [00:22:47] Speaker A: Ellie is taking up to meet the keeper of secrets, who tests Ellie. And Ellie is about to stumble. And she looks over to a reflection and sees Argyle again and basically sees the last hallucination she'll have of him saying, you've got it. From here on out, he's like, you. [00:23:06] Speaker B: Don'T need me anymore, which was kind of cool. [00:23:08] Speaker A: Yeah. So her memory has mostly returned. [00:23:11] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay. So, Christian, I got to say, I liked the beginning of the movie a lot more. I like the idea of, like, she's an author of a spy book who needs to use her author skills, kind of like Castle, to figure out what happens next. From this point on, my enjoyment plummets because it's just another spy action movie, and she's almost like a different character now. [00:23:34] Speaker A: I can see where you're coming from. I sort of like the reveal, though. It's the change between Samantha and something Hollywood. Charlie. [00:23:46] Speaker B: Charlie Baltimore. [00:23:48] Speaker A: Yes. [00:23:49] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:23:49] Speaker B: Right. [00:23:49] Speaker A: So I like the think, and I like seeing sort of the layers of, I was not disappointed because up till that point right here, she's still Ellie. And so you see the change over to like. So I thought that was interesting. [00:24:05] Speaker B: By bluffing out the keeper. [00:24:08] Speaker C: Yep. [00:24:08] Speaker A: So she looks at the silver bullet USB and finds that not only are information on Vogler and Ritter on there, but information on her and her sort of assassinations and secret missions and that she was seemingly unlike Argyle. She was a loyal division agent, and she wasn't going to give Wyatt or Aiden the file. [00:24:33] Speaker B: It's like another, he's, she's our Kyle. He's over here for the other team, blah, blah, blah, et cetera. [00:24:39] Speaker A: She goes back to Aiden, and they're about to have a big conversation about this when they're interrupted by Vogler and other division agents. They sit and have tea and are about to. And Vogler is sort of encouraging her to remember her past. And you keep thinking about what that end of the mission was. She gets her last memories back, remembers that she's the one who actually killed the hacker. When the hacker died, this whole hideup blew up, and she jumped from the window into the water, which is how. [00:25:10] Speaker B: She lost her memory, and it literally blew up. It's like something out of Batman at that point. [00:25:15] Speaker A: It's revealed that the tea is actually drugged. Even Vogler is drugged. And they all pass out and are taken back to the division headquarters. [00:25:22] Speaker C: Yes. [00:25:23] Speaker B: By Carlos, who looks like Billy Mays. [00:25:26] Speaker C: I just wanted to share that. [00:25:28] Speaker A: So, Ellie wakes up in Ritter's office, or Rachel, shall we say, I don't know. I'm going to keep calling her Ellie because I just know her as Ellie. [00:25:35] Speaker C: That's fine. [00:25:36] Speaker A: And he gives her a deal that if she reveals where Alfie the person is, he'll give her back Alfie the cat. And she says that she doesn't care about the. [00:25:46] Speaker B: Oh, the audience is like, no, she really is different. [00:25:50] Speaker A: See, they bring her to Aiden and. Yes. So she's seemingly loyal to division again, tries to get Aiden to reveal where Alfie is. And when he doesn't, she shoots him in the heart. And she's brought back to the big control panel and tries to remember where Alfie is. And she narrows it down via types of grapes and other things like that and shows them where Alfie is, but reveals that the whole time she was doing this, she was actually transmitting the silver bullet data to Alfie. Except. And this is where we get sort of like all these sort of climax pile ups here. [00:26:28] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. [00:26:30] Speaker A: So the data needs to be released from the mainframe. So Ellie knocks out Ritter and steals his badge and then grabs Alfie the cat, who she apologizes to. So he's still in the backpack. So she goes to the armory to stock up. Aiden is revealed to not be dead because Ellie shot him through the vascular corridor which was set up earlier. [00:26:52] Speaker B: Yeah, but the movie even kind of admits that this is like Aiden said. So you're telling me you shot me through a two inch wide with a gun that had no sights, having never picked up a gun in like five years and she says, yeah, that's right. It's like, well, I guess it happened because I'm alive. [00:27:12] Speaker A: I mean, hanging a lashade on it that's out there. We can move on. [00:27:18] Speaker B: Yeah, that's basically exactly right. [00:27:20] Speaker A: They meet up in the armory and I think this is my favorite part of the movie is when they're ending off the waves and waves of division goons with colorful smoke bombs and gunfood. Dance fighting. [00:27:34] Speaker B: Yeah. So it's very Matthew Vaughn. [00:27:36] Speaker A: It's very Matthew Vaughn. It's very reminiscent. I was reminded of the exploding heads from the first Kingsman movie. And just the color palettes. [00:27:45] Speaker B: Yes, that's right. So my girlfriend, who I watched this with, did not like the color. She's like too much color. I don't know what I'm supposed to be feeling. Is it action? Is it dance? I just don't get it. [00:27:56] Speaker A: The answer is yes. [00:27:58] Speaker C: Okay. [00:27:58] Speaker B: I hope I didn't misrepresent her opinion. She can write it in and tell me if I got it wrong, but put it this way, I feel like if a bollywood fan thinks her movie is too colorful, something's up. [00:28:07] Speaker A: That is interesting. That is fascinating that you said that or that she said that, rather. But, yeah, I enjoyed that. And I think, yeah, it was very. I mean, it's a Matthew Vaughn movie. It's what you go in. I mean, if you know what you're going in for, then, yeah, you kind of expect that. [00:28:25] Speaker B: Christian, would you say you're a Matthew Vaughn fanboy? [00:28:28] Speaker A: I don't. Not a fanboy. But I realized, except for stardust, I've seen every one of his movies. [00:28:35] Speaker B: How many movies has he done? [00:28:37] Speaker A: He's directed more or less than ten. It's like seven or eight or something like that. [00:28:42] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:28:44] Speaker A: And we've covered, obviously, X Men, first class on this podcast. He had layer cake with Daniel Craig. All the kingsman's had one of the first kick ass. Second one he didn't direct, but he wrote and produced. And I think, yeah, Stardust is the only one that I'm missing, which I should watch. I wanted to watch for a while. I didn't realize I was Matthew Vaughn. [00:29:03] Speaker B: So curious people seem to think it's decent. But my other observation about this scene is, I've mentioned on Tuesday night gaming my other podcast, plug, plug, plug that. And this is not my observation. I saw this online. Like, when people look back at the movies of this era, they're going to say, this was the era when bad guys holding guns would run up to the hero and the hero would just punch them and take their gun. I would like to amend that to say they will do that to a pop song. This movie had a lot of fight scenes to pop songs. [00:29:34] Speaker A: I'm also a Matthew Vaughn ism. [00:29:37] Speaker B: Well, not just him. It's in all the. [00:29:42] Speaker C: Way. [00:29:42] Speaker A: What was this one set to? I don't recall. [00:29:45] Speaker B: I don't remember any of the songs. I could just tell they were pop songs. [00:29:49] Speaker A: They make their way to the mainframe, but they get caught in this room that's filled with barrels and crude oil ends up getting spilled everywhere. So Ellie asks if all of her memories were implanted. Was she actually good at skating or was that. Know something that Vogel made up? And he's like, no, that was real. You were actually good at skating. So she has an idea to stick knives on the bottom of her boots and turn them into ice skates and manages to take out a bunch of goons with ice skating. Gunfighting. First knife fighting and then gunfighting. [00:30:17] Speaker B: So do you actually like this part. I think by the timbre of your voice, it sounds like you did like it. [00:30:22] Speaker A: I thought it was fun. It was inventive. Like, how often do you see people getting taken off by someone who's doing ice skating moves? [00:30:31] Speaker C: That's true. [00:30:32] Speaker A: It was different. It was inventive. I liked it. Yeah. [00:30:34] Speaker B: I also like a good use of a bayonet. You don't see bayonets very often in movies. [00:30:38] Speaker A: True. [00:30:39] Speaker B: But it is kind of ruined because at the end she fires all these guns and it doesn't set the crude oil off for some reason. [00:30:46] Speaker A: Yeah, I'll give you that. That's Chekhov's gun left on the shelf. [00:30:53] Speaker B: It's frustrating because the movie is good at setups and payoffs and it's pretty tight. But that was a big script error in my. [00:31:01] Speaker C: Yeah, fair. [00:31:02] Speaker A: That's fair because I was just more enamored. Know the vision of her doing one of those tight tucks in a turn as she's firing the gun. I was like, wow, I have no idea how much of that is cg. I'm sure there's a bunch of stunt work here. There's parts where Dallas Howard had to have done some. [00:31:24] Speaker C: Yeah, that's right. [00:31:26] Speaker A: They get to the mainframe. But this is where I'm saying. Okay, yes. I'll give you that. There's like too many. Oh, we got to this part. But wait, there's something else. [00:31:35] Speaker B: Yeah, just one more big. [00:31:38] Speaker A: Now. Well, now it's locked with the retinal scanner so they can't get into it. And only one person has the eyeballs to scan it. And it's ritter. And he catches up with them with his big shotgun and is about to kill them when Alfie the cat attacks. Ritter scratches his eyes up. Eden realizes halfway through, oh, wait, the eyes shoots ritter. I have for a second thought he shot the cat. [00:32:02] Speaker B: That would have been a twist. But this movie isn't that dark. I was sure they were going to cut out somebody's eyeball. I guess it's not that kind of movie. What is this movie rated? [00:32:11] Speaker A: Is it rated pg 13? [00:32:13] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:32:13] Speaker B: Okay. So, yeah, that probably would have been a little much. They could have just held his face up to the scanner. One more fight, one more confrontation. Yeah. [00:32:26] Speaker A: So they have to figure out a new plan. So they go top side to reveal that they're actually on a ship in the middle of, I don't know where. [00:32:35] Speaker B: Null. The ocean. [00:32:36] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:32:37] Speaker A: So they plug into a satellite directly to bypass the retina scanner. And they're sending it and know progress is happening. And then Vogler broadcasts a music box with, like, a skater on her that we saw during Ellie's brainwashing. [00:32:53] Speaker B: Yeah. So it's like a river tam turned into killing machine. [00:32:58] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:32:58] Speaker A: Well, it's like, what I've thought of is, like, a Winter soldier, like, command phrase. And it is like, multiple random words too. So she gets Ellie to attack Aiden, and she's about to kill him when someone hits Vogelr over the head and smashes the music box. And. Hey, it's Kira from the beginning. [00:33:17] Speaker B: So. You know what I call this? [00:33:19] Speaker C: Christian. [00:33:20] Speaker A: What? [00:33:20] Speaker B: Ready a cop out. It's actually more like a deus ex machina, I think. [00:33:26] Speaker A: No, it's a payoff and setup. [00:33:29] Speaker B: It's a gray area we can agree to. [00:33:31] Speaker A: No, no, this is definitely a payoff and setup because first of all, it wasn't even a double payoff and set up. Because, first of all, you set up. All right, one that Ellie was going to have this happen to Kira in the books because a fan wrote into her to tell us. So you have one payoff or one setup for there. One set up there. Two setups there. Actually, you have one of the payoffs with. All right, they use that to bring Aiden back. The second payoff is. Who is the fan? Who wrote in? It's Kira. I did. Like that actually happened to her. [00:34:10] Speaker C: Yes. [00:34:10] Speaker B: Okay. That was good. You're right about the fan. I appreciated that. They explained who the fan was and. [00:34:15] Speaker A: How they knew that they've managed to finally get the rest of it transmitted to Alfie. And we sort of transitions to. Instead of Rachel or slash, Ellie and Aiden escaping on a boat. It's now Argyle and Wyatt escaping on a boat from the exploding ship and transition to Ellie reading the end of Argyle, book five. [00:34:40] Speaker B: They literally sail off into the. [00:34:42] Speaker A: Yep. So she asks if anyone has any questions. And then Henry Cavill in a mullet and a yellow Argyle Argyle book shirt stands and says, I don't have a question for you, but you may have a question for me. And there's your cliffhanger. [00:35:02] Speaker B: Clutch cop out if you want. No, it's a good cliffhanger. He also says it in, like, a redneck accent. [00:35:11] Speaker A: Mid credit scene. [00:35:13] Speaker B: Yes. I stayed specifically because I knew you were going to ask about it. And you're going to need to explain it to me. Like what happened. [00:35:21] Speaker A: They're in a pub called the King's man, which is written in the same titles. [00:35:26] Speaker C: Right. [00:35:26] Speaker B: So obviously it takes place in the. [00:35:28] Speaker A: Same Universe when the pub also has the logo of the Kingsman on it as well. A young Aubrey Argyle asks for a cosmopolitan, but no contro, no vodka, no cranberry, just the twist. The barkeep says, you must be in a lot of trouble if they sent you to me. Gives him a box, he opens it. There's a gun and a silencer. And he says, that is a twist. Cut to Argyle, book one. [00:35:55] Speaker B: The movie is coming soon, I guess, no matter how well this movie does. [00:36:01] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:36:01] Speaker A: So I think what's implied here is that basically the next movie in the series will be based on book one of Argyle, which is a book that's currently out. [00:36:10] Speaker B: So it takes place in the Kingsman universe, which means there's a shit ton of secret societies and spy societies, like, running around all in the same. [00:36:22] Speaker A: There's division and there's the Kingsman plus the Statesman. [00:36:26] Speaker B: Yeah, and then all the people the Kingsmen fight. [00:36:28] Speaker A: That's true. So what this implies is that this all happened to Henry Cavill. Like with Mullet, because he has the same haircut as Henry Cavill. So it's all happened in real life somehow. Maybe. And that the whole movie is taking place in the same world as kingsman. [00:36:51] Speaker C: Yes. [00:36:52] Speaker B: It's a good explanation that it also kind of makes sense that Agent Argyle is a real person. If they're memories. I mean, her memory isn't perfect. You can remember that he exists, even if he has a long job. [00:37:04] Speaker A: So what I think is that I have no idea how this is all going to play out, if we'll ever find out anything more about Henry Cavill at the end. But I assume that maybe they sort of mixed in her memories, like the missions with other things from an actual agent who may have made a kingsman. [00:37:28] Speaker C: Yeah, I can see that. [00:37:30] Speaker A: With that, our movie ends. [00:37:32] Speaker C: Yes. [00:37:32] Speaker B: So now it's time for fact versus fiction. I have a few things. [00:37:36] Speaker C: All right. [00:37:37] Speaker A: I have one. [00:37:38] Speaker B: All right. Why don't you go first then? [00:37:40] Speaker A: So the vascular corridor that they talk about, that is a major key point. I looked it up. Doesn't seem to exist. [00:37:47] Speaker B: No. It doesn't even exist on the Internet. Except for one mention. That's the movie, Argyle. [00:37:53] Speaker A: No, I mean there is a thing called a vascular corridor. Let me find it again. 1 second. [00:37:57] Speaker B: Oh, really? I did some googling. Vascular corridor. Shoot heart, argonnel and nothing came out. [00:38:03] Speaker A: No, there is a thing called a vascular corridor, which specifically is at the l five s one junction. [00:38:11] Speaker B: Oh, that's awful. [00:38:12] Speaker A: Anterior spinal access. Yeah. So I think it is basically just a corridor within the heart. But as for there being specifically one where if you shoot at that right point and then they can survive, doesn't seem to exist. I hope either of us are put on too many lists for having that in our Internet search history. [00:38:36] Speaker B: I'm sure it's fine. I use duckduckgo anyway. That works great. [00:38:39] Speaker A: All right, what do you got? [00:38:40] Speaker B: Okay, so first thing is, I have a bullet USB drive that looks like that. I don't have it on me right now, but it looks pretty much like the silver bullet, except it's bronze and it says guns of a curse on it, which was an old video game that I got a promo for. [00:38:55] Speaker A: I've missed that game. [00:38:57] Speaker B: You remember that game? [00:38:59] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:39:00] Speaker B: And then one time I accidentally left it in my backpack, so I had to pull it out and show it to TSA. But they were like, wow, what a cool usb drive. I guess they never mistook. Really mistook it for a real bullet at any time. Yeah, really? [00:39:11] Speaker A: I'm just surprised that they let you have it. [00:39:13] Speaker B: Yeah, me too. But it's still around here somewhere. [00:39:16] Speaker A: They almost took away my. I have a Batarang money clip, and they almost took it away because they thought I was trying to bring a batarang, like a bladed weapon into the airport. [00:39:24] Speaker B: Yes, I went to the airport. Yeah, maybe the one you got was more sensitive. Okay, so the other one is, there's a line where she asks Aiden, what do you do for a living? And he says, espionage. It's very easy to remember because it was in all the trailers, but literally every movie gets this wrong. So, espionage, according to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, is the practice of spying or using spies to obtain secret information, especially regarding a government or business. So Aiden is not espionage. He does operations, which is in the spy museum because he rescues Ellie and he fights bad guys. So, like, James Bond, technically is not a spy either. He's an operator. The movies always get this wrong. And this. [00:40:12] Speaker A: They also always call CIA people who work for the CIA agents instead of. Yeah, that's true. [00:40:19] Speaker B: And then finally, how easy is it to light oil on fire? Actually, is it true that an errant spark would be enough to kill them? [00:40:27] Speaker A: I feel like they covered this. Oh, no, I think it was lighter fluid they did on, like, mythbusters. [00:40:31] Speaker B: I remember in my brain that gas is actually not that easy to blow up. [00:40:37] Speaker A: Oh, maybe it was gas. [00:40:38] Speaker B: Yeah, or else gas stations would be exploding, like, all the time, which they don't. But according to fireproofdepot.com, crude oil is highly flammable and can erupt at any time, causing massive destruction. So, for example, because of the massive volume of oil, stored fire is always the most likely cause. All workers are at risk if a minor spark ignites them. So that seems legit. [00:41:01] Speaker A: All right. [00:41:02] Speaker B: And then finally, I always wanted, and I probably should have done a micro dot on this, but I was like, how exactly does brainwashing work? So I went to houseuffworks.com how brainwashing works by Julia Layton and Aliyah Hoyt. And an example they pointed to was American POWs during the korean war who were supposedly pretty much by korean and chinese captors. It said at least 21 soldiers refused to come back to the United States when they were set free. [00:41:32] Speaker C: Oh, wow. [00:41:32] Speaker B: So there's a series of steps. We're not going to go through all of them. There's ten steps, which is assault on identity, guilt, self betrayal, breaking point, leniency, compulsion to confess, channeling of guilt, releasing of guilt, progress in harmony, final confession and rebirth. So we're only going to talk about the first one because it's applicable to the movie the assault on identity. So it would begin by denying everything that makes the target who they are. For example, you are not a soldier, you are not a man, you are not defending freedom. And they would be told this for days, weeks or months to the points they become exhausted, confused and disoriented. And the idea is to break down their beliefs. Many psychologists believe that using the term brainwashed to describe what's happening to people know people use the term colloquially, like they talk about like QAnon or anti vaxxers, that being brainwashed by Fox News. Psychologists believe that this is inaccurate because it's know the scientific way that I just described. That is all I got for. [00:42:30] Speaker A: That is interesting. [00:42:32] Speaker B: Yeah, they name drop Mkultra and stuff in the movie, but that's too long to get into right now. [00:42:39] Speaker A: Well, I mean, we'll cover that whenever we end up covering what? The men who stare at goats. All right, shall we move into favorite quotes? I've got two. [00:42:48] Speaker B: So the only one I have is it's like no spy with a stupid haircut is going to stop me or something like that. Like some reference to Henry Cavill having a stupid haircut. And I agree. [00:42:58] Speaker A: Right. The flat top was a choice. All right, so I've got from Wyatt, played by John Cena, you don't answer, you're going to be the same temperature as my coffee right now, which, thanks to you, is ice cold. [00:43:12] Speaker C: Very nice. [00:43:12] Speaker A: And my other one is from Wyatt, when he saw Alfie the cat in the backpack, he says the cat's supposed to be in a hat, not in. [00:43:21] Speaker B: A backpack like the cat in the hat. Very nice. I probably should have gone IMDb and look up some. But anyway, now it's time for our ratings. On a scale of one to ten martinis, one being avengers 1998 and ten being even better than mission impossible ghost protocol, how would we rate argyle? [00:43:41] Speaker A: All right, let's hear it. Zach. [00:43:43] Speaker B: I'm anticipating some arguments. I actually thought it was pretty bad. It's an action movie with kind of mediocre action. A spy movie with mediocre spy stuff. A romance movie, except, like, there's barely any romance at all. Went on for an hour too long. [00:44:00] Speaker A: Hour too long? [00:44:01] Speaker B: An hour too long. I was, like, bored by the time they were throwing the gas around or the smoke around, I should say. Yeah, there were way too many twists. The characters weren't really that engaging and they didn't stick with the premise. If they had stuck with the premise that she's a writer and not a spy who gets pulled into a spy world, I think that would have been way better. Instead, it was kind of like spy, which we just watched where you had a cat lady who turns into a badass. So maybe I'm not in a good mood right now. I'm going to be harsh. I was going to give it a two and a half out of ten, but I loved the cat. So the cat gives it one point, so it pushes it to three and a half out of ten. [00:44:44] Speaker A: Fascinating. All right, fascinating. I enjoy this movie and I had no expectations going in other than, okay, I like Matthew Vaughn. So his first movie was layer cake, which it's so different than the rest of his movies. It's fascinating. Have you seen ever seen layer cake? [00:45:09] Speaker B: Sure. I saw it kind of a long time ago, though. I like the part where Miles O'Brien beats up James Bond. And I like at the end when he says, if you figured it out, you're almost as clever as me. [00:45:20] Speaker C: I like that. [00:45:20] Speaker A: And then he gets shot. [00:45:22] Speaker B: I don't like that part. I choose to remember what I choose to. [00:45:29] Speaker A: And I've never seen stardust. I don't know know visually it fits into this. But ever since kick ass and kick ass forward, it's much more in sort of the Kingsman flair vibe. And I enjoy it. I enjoy the first kick ass. So this, for me, I think it is my favorite of his since the first Kingsman. I like the King's man for its period setting. But it wasn't quite what you were expecting from Matthew Vaughn film that still tonalistically not all the way back to layer cake, but Kingsman was know with the colorful action know spectacle. So I enjoyed this a lot. Looking back on what I rated the Kingsman, I rated it eight, which is very generous of it. I will not go as high as that. I'm going to give it a seven and a half out of ten martinis because I enjoyed it. If you're able to turn off your brain and just enjoy the spectacle and the fun of it and, yeah, I had a lot of fun with it. [00:46:34] Speaker B: And the cat. [00:46:35] Speaker A: I know that a lot of the critics out there are giving it just a beating. [00:46:41] Speaker B: Yeah. The first hour, I was like, this is pretty good. Why are people that keep saying this movie is bad? And then it just kept going and going and going. [00:46:48] Speaker A: I mean, I will agree that there is at least one twist too many and maybe two climaxes too many, which is why it's down to a 7.5. [00:47:01] Speaker B: I also wanted to share an observation that the beginning was a screamer. Remember Rob telling us about how night and day was a screamer? [00:47:08] Speaker A: No, I don't remember that, actually. [00:47:10] Speaker B: So I was talking to Rob about, how about we were doing night and day? He said, oh, that movie is a screamer. And I said, what is a screamer? He said, it's a movie where you have two characters. One of them is an action hero who does all the acts and stuff, and then he has a sidekick who screams. [00:47:25] Speaker A: So you're Indiana Jones Willie Scott. [00:47:27] Speaker B: Yeah, that's like the classic example. [00:47:30] Speaker A: I am surprised this is the first time that you mentioned night and day this whole time, because I thought you were going to mention it a. [00:47:36] Speaker B: Well, I mean, you're the Tom Cruise Superfan, but. [00:47:38] Speaker A: Yes, but I was sure that with all the times that she know, kidnapped and taken place against her will, you would be bringing that up, because that's what you love to talk about, that when you bring up night and day. [00:47:49] Speaker B: Yeah, it did make me uncomfortable. That's true. I think it's because halfway through the movie, she turns into the Terminator. So that's probably a bit of a difference. [00:48:00] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's not doing well in the box episode. I don't know if we'll ever get that sequel or follow up or whatever. Maybe he'll fold into his plans for Kingsman three. [00:48:12] Speaker B: Yeah, he moves in mysterious ways. [00:48:14] Speaker A: Yeah. So I'm waiting to see the end of that trilogy, and I doubt that we'll get any follow up to the Kingsman. But, hey, if it happens, I'll watch it. [00:48:25] Speaker B: Very nice. Yeah, he's got some more movies to make. He's to get those numbers up. [00:48:29] Speaker A: All right, well, thank you, everyone, for joining us. You can find us on social media at the spy fi guys on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. That's right, I said Twitter, not x. And you can find our merch store on redbubble.com. Until next time, I've been Christian. I'm Zach, and we are the spy fi guys signing off. Thank you for listening to the spy fi guys. If you enjoyed our podcast, please be sure to give us a five star rating on iTunes. The theme song from this podcast is mistake the Getaway by Kevin McLeod from incompetent.com. Licensed under Creative Commons by attribution. 30 films, books, and television shows reviewed by our podcast are the intellectual property of their respective copyright holders, and no infringement is intended. [00:49:19] Speaker B: This is a personal podcast. Any views, statements, or opinions expressed in this podcast are personal and belong solely to the participants. They do not represent those of people, institutions, or organizations that the participants may or may not be associated with in a professional or personal capacity unless explicitly stated. Any views or opinions are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, or individual. [00:49:44] Speaker A: You can find our podcast on social media at the Spy Fi Guys on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.