[00:00:01] Speaker A: Only one man has ever broken out. Now 5 million lives depend on two men breaking in. We are the spy fi guys, and this is the rock.
Hello, and welcome back to the spy fi guys, where we cover spy fact, spy fiction, and everything in between. I'm Zach.
[00:00:22] Speaker B: And I'm Christian.
[00:00:24] Speaker A: Today we are back with a classic action movie from a bygone era of action movies, and we are joined by a guest star.
[00:00:35] Speaker C: Hi, everybody. This is Lance.
[00:00:37] Speaker A: So, Lance, you have joined us from Tom Clancy movies.
[00:00:41] Speaker C: I have. I've done mostly Clancy movies, a couple James Bonds. So this is, like, my first non non franchise. Non franchise. But it does have Sean Connery, so there is somewhat of a tie in.
[00:00:55] Speaker A: So my understanding, Lance, is that you requested this movie specifically. Why is that?
[00:01:01] Speaker C: I did.
[00:01:02] Speaker B: Oh, Zach, did I give you that impression?
[00:01:07] Speaker A: Was my understanding incorrect?
[00:01:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I just said, let's get it, lance on for the rock.
[00:01:13] Speaker C: Because Christian. Christian and I were talking about the podcast at a Ydez James Bond fan club event, and I was like, oh, my gosh, I love that movie. He's like, oh, we should have you on for it. I'm like, that would be cool.
[00:01:26] Speaker A: And that was that was that.
[00:01:29] Speaker B: But this is actually a special occasion. This is our 100th act regular episode, so not including your dead drops, your micro dots, etcetera. This is our 100th, you know, regular episode. And of course, you know, we figured we'd do something fun for this. So bring back Lance, which I think if.
[00:01:46] Speaker C: If memory serves me correctly, I was here for your 50th one, too.
[00:01:50] Speaker B: Really? Huh.
[00:01:51] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:01:53] Speaker B: Let's see.
[00:01:55] Speaker A: So congrats on 100 episodes. Christian, did you think we've made it this far?
[00:01:59] Speaker B: Hundred regular episodes, so even more than that. But, yeah, it's. It's been a journey. 50 clear and present danger. You're right. You were on our 50th.
[00:02:09] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:02:10] Speaker A: Christians got their receipts.
[00:02:12] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:02:14] Speaker C: You guys have done a great job with the podcast. It's always fun. It's always entertaining. So the fact that you're at 100 regular episodes is absolutely no sock to all of your listeners. So congratulations, both of you. It's an awesome job.
[00:02:26] Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you. So we've all seen this movie before, presumably.
[00:02:32] Speaker C: Yes. In fact, I just rewatched it again this morning.
[00:02:35] Speaker A: So, Christian, I mentioned before we started this episode that I had a hot take on it.
[00:02:40] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:02:40] Speaker A: I don't know if you remember when.
[00:02:42] Speaker B: I told you, you want to go into that.
[00:02:44] Speaker A: No, I guess we can wait on it. I saw it a long time ago, and then I saw it too long ago to really remember it. That well. And then I watched it, of course, this week in preparation for recording.
[00:02:55] Speaker B: I feel like I saw this somewhat recently because, as listeners may remember, I've been going through all of Sean Connery's filmography. I've gone through all of his, like, theatrical releases. There's a few things that were, like, tv movies that he was in that I haven't seen yet. I know a few documentaries, actually just watched his, like, he narrated the. Was it 1982 World cup, like, documentary. So I watched that recently. So. But I watched this as part of my, you know, covering his whole filmography.
And then I. Yeah, rewatch it again this week for the podcast.
[00:03:27] Speaker A: If you do documentaries that he narrates, isn't there gonna be, like, a ton of them?
[00:03:31] Speaker B: No, that was the only one, really. And he has one that he starred in that was sort of like a documentary about Edinburgh, and there's one that's about. It's called the Bowler and the bunnet, which I have not been able to track out a us copy of it that's really about unions and sort of, like, you know, upper management versus, you know, the working class.
And that was the only thing that he ever directed. But we're getting off topic a bit here, so. No, there's actually not that many things he narrated.
[00:03:56] Speaker A: All right, so should we get started with the rock, then?
[00:03:59] Speaker B: Yeah, let's. Let's get our. Our synopses.
[00:04:02] Speaker A: Okay, so, as always, we have our poetry synopsis. I don't know if Lance was briefed to bring one. You could if you wanted to.
[00:04:11] Speaker C: Oh, no, I'm. I'm familiar.
[00:04:13] Speaker A: You didn't bring one, Zack.
[00:04:15] Speaker C: I didn't. I didn't bring one because you have special flair to it. So that. That's Zack thing.
[00:04:20] Speaker A: Okay, so here's our haiku. Disgruntled marines, 5 million people at risk, winners. Fuck prom queens.
[00:04:30] Speaker C: Ooh, I like it.
[00:04:32] Speaker B: All right, all right.
[00:04:33] Speaker C: Mainly because you used bad words. That was awesome.
[00:04:36] Speaker A: Yeah. I should have said language warning. And then here comes some more language warning for the limerick. But, of course, this is the rock, so you should expect some bad language here. Anyway, here comes the limerick.
When the general took the VX, he got between Stan and some seps, pursued John through the city. The results were not pretty, but the tunnels are just too complex.
[00:04:58] Speaker B: Nice, nice. Nicely done. I like it. I like it.
[00:05:01] Speaker C: You need to come up with, like, a book of all of your. Tell me poetry.
[00:05:06] Speaker B: You actually. We need to write these down somewhere. So we have all of you. Do you have all of them, like, in a document.
[00:05:11] Speaker A: They're all on separate documents for all the separate.
[00:05:15] Speaker B: Okay. All right. Because. Yeah, I would love that. We need to. If we ever, you know, do the thing where we put together show notes for each episode.
[00:05:22] Speaker C: Include those 100%.
[00:05:25] Speaker A: Thank you, guys. Very sweet. And then here is the actual IMDb plot summary. Mild mannered chemists and an ex con must lead the counter strike when a rogue group of military men, led by a renegade general threatened a nerve gas attack from Alcatraz against San Francisco.
[00:05:41] Speaker B: All right, all right. Pretty succinct. So, with the plot, we start with a montage. There's a military funeral going on. You've got a radio voiceover. We see General Hummel, played by Ed Harris. Ed Harris. I kept wanting to say Ed White. No, that's the astronaut Ed, because he plays an astronaut. He plays John Glenn in the right stuff. So I'm like, wait, and. And he's in Apollo 13. No, he's not. Ed White. Ed Harris. Thank you.
Putting on a uniform, and you get, like, a voice over him speaking to the armed Services Committee, demanding that, you know, these men get full. You know, their families get full benefits. He's denied. And you see a gravestone. And did you notice what the gravestone says?
[00:06:26] Speaker C: It's his wife.
[00:06:28] Speaker B: It just says his wife.
[00:06:31] Speaker A: Yeah. Another giant leap forward for feminism.
[00:06:34] Speaker B: Oh, man.
[00:06:35] Speaker A: I mean, right away with this movie, you get the music, you get the military funeral, and you can tell this is a. A manly, manly movie. For manly.
[00:06:43] Speaker B: It's a Michael Bay movie.
[00:06:46] Speaker A: Usually. At least. Michael Bay movies have at least one character. Main character in it, but not this. Two main characters.
[00:06:55] Speaker B: Two female characters, at least.
[00:06:58] Speaker A: Okay. But, yeah, his wife is his wife.
[00:07:02] Speaker B: Just the fact that that's her scripture on the gravestone. His wife.
[00:07:09] Speaker C: Well, that probably means if. I'm assuming that obviously, it's got to be a military cemetery, which.
Yeah, because he was. While he was walking by. And then there was the Marine honor guards that went by, which we can talk about later with spy versus fiction, even though it's not really spy movie. But, you know, spouses are allowed to be married or. Sorry. Or buried. Same thing, depending on your views on marriage.
It says his wife. And he probably has a tombstone that's already predisposed, uh, to be near her.
I mean, as a general in a marine, he would obviously be afforded that, so.
[00:07:50] Speaker B: Right. Oh, interesting. I didn't think about it that way. So now I'm kind of curious. If I go. Hmm? If I.
[00:07:56] Speaker C: If you go to Arlington, you will see spouses buried there.
[00:07:59] Speaker A: Yeah, but they're not going to say his wife.
Right. That's the problem. I don't know.
[00:08:05] Speaker B: Now I'm kind of curious. I will. We need to do a field trip to Arlington Cemetery to see if there's any, you know, any gravestones that says his wife.
[00:08:14] Speaker C: Yeah, I was trying to think of that, too. It's unfortunately been way too long since I visited the cemetery. But I think there is some type of spousal identification. I mean, may not say his wife.
[00:08:28] Speaker B: But I think there's an awful lot of time on his wife.
[00:08:32] Speaker C: Right.
[00:08:33] Speaker B: Important thing he does is he, you know, makes a speech to his wife.
His wife. And leaves his medal of honor on her gravestone.
[00:08:43] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:08:44] Speaker B: And then he assembles a couple of his, you know, former troops to carry out a heist. They pretend to be an inspection team. I noticed that, you know, when they're carrying out the heist, they're using non lethal rounds.
[00:08:57] Speaker A: There's a part where a guy uses dual wield pistol. Dual pistols, because, yeah, nothing's cooler than dual wielding in the nineties.
[00:09:06] Speaker B: Yeah. Stealing this gas and, you know, while they're stealing it, they accidentally drop one vial of the glass and the man is trapped inside and, you know, basically melts his face off.
[00:09:17] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right. There was a couple that guys in this part, Doctor Cox from scrubs, and it's very hard to see him as anything other than Doctor Cox.
[00:09:30] Speaker B: I rewatched office space the other day and I was like, oh, hey, Doctor Cox is here playing not Doctor Cox. That's weird.
[00:09:36] Speaker A: I usually think of him as a comic, but not this time.
[00:09:39] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. So we go over to the FBI laboratory in DC where we meet Stanley Goodspeed, played by Nicolas Cage. And him and his coworkers are, you know, mucking around with like, you know, Rube Goldberg machines that are setting things on fire and stuff like that. You know, he gets a delivery to the office, you know, because he didn't want his girlfriend to know that he spent $600 on a Beatles LP, which I can appreciate. And as there, as his co workers are criticizing, why didn't you just buy a cd, spend $14.99. Remember cds?
[00:10:13] Speaker C: Vaguely.
[00:10:14] Speaker A: It's like, yeah, which one has the staying power?
[00:10:16] Speaker B: But vinyl is back. Vinyl's back, baby.
[00:10:19] Speaker C: It is.
[00:10:20] Speaker A: This is such a, it feels like it's such a Michael Bay thing. Like this never comes back.
[00:10:27] Speaker B: No, I think it's just showing. It's just supposed to show that he's quirky and weird and not your average FBI agent.
[00:10:32] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:10:33] Speaker C: Well, you also notice in that scene where he gets the thing, they're all wearing lab coats except for him. He's wearing a suit.
[00:10:40] Speaker B: Right.
[00:10:40] Speaker C: So he's definitely dressed different.
[00:10:42] Speaker B: A suspicious package which might have sarin gas in it. Apparently, it's some. I don't remember who sent it to whom, but there were Serbians and Bosnians involved, which really marks it of the time of the nineties.
[00:10:56] Speaker C: Right. Because you got to remember, this is all pre 911, so.
[00:10:59] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:11:00] Speaker C: Terrorism wasn't exactly the highlight on the newsreels every night.
[00:11:04] Speaker B: No, no, but, yeah, so he goes into, like, his clean room environment with an attorney, and the trainee is mucking up. Like they. Like, they opened it up the box, and there's, like, a bunch of dirty magazines, and there's a baby doll. And the idiot trainee is, like, playing with the baby doll. And of course, moving the arm releases the gas. It's just roast of gas.
[00:11:25] Speaker A: This is a great scene. Very exciting.
[00:11:27] Speaker B: Yeah, it gets tense. The sprinklers aren't working. They tell them to inject themselves with atrophy to keep their heart going. That trainee freaks out real quick. Real quick.
[00:11:40] Speaker A: Maybe he's not suited for this kind of job.
[00:11:42] Speaker B: He should not be in this job. Like, no, my God. Like, was it his first time in that, like, clean room environment? Because he's, like. He freaks out immediately instead of trying to clear his, you know, think clearly and follow, you know, Goodspeed's lead.
[00:11:59] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:12:01] Speaker B: But, yeah, Goodspeed manages to. They get the sprinklers on, and they, you know, he managed to diffuse the bomb. Everything's good.
[00:12:09] Speaker A: So I listened briefly to a podcast. I don't remember what it's called, but it had a pretty good premise, which was movies as dungeons and dragons adventures.
[00:12:20] Speaker C: See it.
[00:12:21] Speaker A: The first one I listened to was the rock, and one of the PCs was, of course, Nicolas Cage. And they did this scene, and they were, like, rolling the dice to, like, disarm the bomb. And I was like, wait a minute. How is this going to work? Because if he fails to disarm the bomb, there's no movie because he'll just die. So then I was like, this is actually not as good of an apprentice as I thought.
[00:12:42] Speaker B: I'm curious. Yeah, well, he may have had a.
[00:12:45] Speaker C: Plus fly to alchemy.
[00:12:46] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, that's an interesting premise, but, okay. I mean, next thing, good speed at home. He is. Is he naked? When he's playing the guitar, it looks like he's naked.
[00:12:56] Speaker A: I think he's supposed to be. Yeah.
[00:12:57] Speaker B: Yeah. And his girlfriend comes home. He makes a, you know, off, offhanded comment about how the world is terrible and no one should even think about bringing up a child in this, you know, in this world.
And of course, that's when she tells him pregnant.
[00:13:14] Speaker A: That's right.
That was a good dynamic.
[00:13:17] Speaker B: Yeah. And she also proposes to him.
[00:13:20] Speaker C: I thought was funny that beforehand, you know, he had just gone through this, know, the world sucks. And she says it's pregnant.
And then he has kind of like that, like a cool, not in like a nineties or seventies fonzie cool kind of way, but he's just very plain about it.
[00:13:38] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:13:39] Speaker C: And then he's all sudden you're like, yeah, this is great. This is great. And she's like, 7 seconds ago you just said we shouldn't bring a kid to the world. He's like, well, a lot's changed in the last 7 seconds.
[00:13:49] Speaker B: Yep. I've got the exact quote in my favorite quotes so we can revisit that.
[00:13:55] Speaker A: Okay. So I don't want to be a negative nancy.
[00:13:58] Speaker B: Oh, here we go.
[00:14:00] Speaker A: Here we go.
[00:14:01] Speaker C: You wouldn't be you if you weren't a negative Nancy. Zach, come on.
[00:14:03] Speaker B: Let's be.
[00:14:03] Speaker A: Thank you.
So here's the thing. I understand this is like a dumb Michael Bay popcorn action movie, but there's some inconsistency here. Only in this one part do we see Goodspeed has this negative view of humanity. And it never comes back. That so? Imagine the movie when they confront General Hummel and Hummels like the military screwed over my guys. I'm just trying to get some justice. I almost was kind of wondering if Goodspeed might be sympathetic to that point of view since he's so cynical too. But he never is.
[00:14:37] Speaker B: I don't think he's generally cynical. But if you just spent, you know, the last couple, you know, last hour or so having to tensely defuse a bomb that was probably going to kill you dosed in sarin gas with sprinklers. Not worrying, working. You'd probably need some time to decompress.
[00:14:55] Speaker C: Oh, absolutely. Because he's getting shot at. He's no, had all kinds of, like, I did get a little bit of the second Indiana Jones movie when they're going through the tunnels and I think we can talk about that later. But yeah, I mean, he. He's had a hard couple hours. Yeah, because you also got some. And I got to throw this in because it's my thing. I got some real Jack Ryan vibes when he was just like, what do you mean? I gotta go out there.
[00:15:23] Speaker B: He's the everyman, you know, analyst who gets put out into the field. I could see that.
[00:15:27] Speaker C: Right, right.
[00:15:29] Speaker A: But Jack Ryan's portrayed as just a straight up good guy. And don't they even call Goodspeed a Boy scout at one point?
[00:15:34] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:15:36] Speaker A: So I'm like, why not just, like, lean into that and have him have a pro social worldview, so to speak?
[00:15:42] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, he does. I think you're just in the really, this only existed to have a comedic beat of, you know, we should never have a kid. Oh, I'm pregnant. That's all that it was. Zack, you're reading way too much into it.
[00:15:54] Speaker C: Well, actually, though, I think that's an important character point for.
For Goodspeed in that definitely as Christian can relate to, is that, you know, once you realize you're going to be a father, you know, in that very, very moment, you. Your life is instantly changing your perspective. Potentially, I'm assuming this is the case in Goodspeed is now maybe 170 degrees different.
So, I mean, that. That's why he. He has that, you know? Yeah, life sucks, you know, don't bring a kid to like, oh, my God, the world is a beautiful place.
[00:16:33] Speaker B: All right, so next up we go, we finally get to Alcatraz. There are a bunch of tours going on. Hummel is on one of the tours and so are some of his other men. And Hummel sees a couple of kids on the tour and tells kids to tell their teacher to go back to the boat.
He's like, you know what? That's nice of him, because he doesn't want kids to get stuck in this, you know, situation.
[00:16:57] Speaker A: Right?
[00:16:58] Speaker B: And we meet Ranger Bob, who. I'm a little sad we never come back to Ranger Bob.
[00:17:03] Speaker A: Maybe there's a deleted scene somewhere where he gets his momentous and he has.
[00:17:06] Speaker B: The tourists check out the cells and lock them in temporarily. But as soon as they're locked in, the, you know, the mercenaries or Hummels men take over, you know, lock him in another cell. The choppers come in with more soldiers taking over the island. They set up some anti motion devices in the showers. Hummel has a big speech, invokes, you know, the Patriots, as in not the team, but like, you know, the revolutionaries.
[00:17:35] Speaker A: He compares himself to George Washington kind of made me roll my eyes a bit.
[00:17:39] Speaker B: Talks about why he's doing it, because, you know, he. Vietnam, he's been running Marine Corps recon missions and the fatalities of, you know, black op operations, quote, top gun over the wrong line in some map, those families don't get benefits. So that's what he's here for. Yep. So he's trying to get those family those benefits and also get some money to pay off his men, which is.
[00:18:05] Speaker C: One of the things, I think, that actually makes this movie really good. I mean, you're above average action film. Is that. I mean, yeah, Hummel is doing bad things. There is no denying that.
[00:18:18] Speaker B: Right.
[00:18:19] Speaker C: You see his point and you're like, yeah, no, absolutely. This guy is. Is spot on. And he's actually a likable kind of character.
[00:18:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:18:30] Speaker A: I mean, you need a good villain, and no villain thinks they're the villain.
[00:18:33] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:18:35] Speaker A: He seems to have a little bit of self reflection.
[00:18:38] Speaker C: He knows he's a villain because that's why if you go back to where he's at, the gravestone of his life, his wife, you know, he has a little mini speech to her that he could never do this while she was still alive, in that hopes that he. She can understand and forgives him. So he knows he's about to do something wrong. He knows he's going to be a villain.
[00:19:05] Speaker B: We get, you know, meeting with the Pentagon in some sort of situation room where Hummel calls them, and Hummel makes his speech again about how 83 men under his command died with no benefits. And I wants money from a Pentagon slush fund.
[00:19:20] Speaker A: He knows, like, everything. He knows there's an illegal slush fund, and he's. He's one step ahead of them at every turn because he knows how it works on the inside. Those are interesting.
[00:19:30] Speaker C: And I'm not going to lie. When. When he kind of puts the. The one young kid who was the. Supposed to be the chief of staff puts him in his place.
[00:19:38] Speaker B: President. Yep. Yeah.
[00:19:40] Speaker C: I'm not going to lie. I enjoyed that part.
[00:19:42] Speaker B: Yeah.
So the. What they've stolen is, you know, rockets full of ex nerve gas. And, you know, I like the way that. Yeah, I think it's the same. Chief of staff is asking how many dead from one of those. 60 or 70. Oh, 670 is not bad. 60 or 70,000.
[00:19:59] Speaker C: Yeah, that was the other thing, too. It's like, you know, all of the.
The generals and stuff that were in the situation room, I mean, they know Hummel and. Yeah, even when the young guy was, you know, trying to be, I don't say dismissive, but kind of just being jerkish, for lack of a better word, the other generals were like, you don't know who you're talking about. We know this man. This is a good, honorable man.
[00:20:25] Speaker A: Makes you wonder if they actually believe that he was going to do it.
[00:20:29] Speaker B: You know, they seemingly do.
[00:20:32] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:20:32] Speaker B: Otherwise, they wouldn't do all of what's about to happen.
[00:20:35] Speaker C: Right. And do you really want to take that chance that he doesn't?
[00:20:39] Speaker B: That's a fair point, Lance.
[00:20:40] Speaker A: Apparently they do, because I never get the impression in the movie that they ever consider just paying him his money. It's like they immediately go with one or two.
[00:20:48] Speaker B: The United States does not negotiate with terrorists. There we go.
[00:20:52] Speaker C: The army general, who I'm assuming is the chief of staff, even when he's talking to Hummel, he's like, you know what our stance on terrorism is of not giving into terroristic demands.
So, I mean, they do highlight that.
[00:21:08] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:21:08] Speaker A: There we go.
[00:21:09] Speaker B: Yep, yep. Try to figure out some other options. Apparently, the standard countermeasure for, like, a nerve toxin like that would be some sort of napalm.
[00:21:19] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:21:20] Speaker B: VX is resistant to it, but there is a other napalm, like, you know, substance they can use, which is thermite plasma backup. They need the FBI's best chemical biological specialist.
[00:21:33] Speaker A: And there's just one man who can help.
Do you feel like there's a little bit of social commentary here about, like, the increasing mad scientist levels of lethality of the weapons the us government comes up with and just never uses?
Why would you even have. Why would you even have a weapon like VX?
[00:21:52] Speaker C: Well, they actually describe why. In. In the movie, when Nicolas Cage is talking to. To Womack, I think when he's asking him, it's like, you know, do you know this stuff? And he's giving him the whole history, that. Of how it was accidentally discovered and so on and so forth. Like, we didn't do this on purpose. But, hey, since it's here, since it.
[00:22:12] Speaker A: Exists, you might as well make, like, a shit ton of it and put.
[00:22:14] Speaker C: It in, because if we don't, somebody else will, of course.
[00:22:20] Speaker B: So we cut to what the FBI's best comical biological specialist doing at this moment, which is having sex on the roof with his girlfriend. Fiance, unclear.
[00:22:30] Speaker C: Girlfriend, I think still technically at this point.
[00:22:33] Speaker B: Yeah. He gets the call that he knows, go to San Francisco. Carla is upset, and he says, you know, well, you know, why don't you just come with me? You know, it's probably just a train exercise. You can spend some time on the roof. And we continue what we didn't finish.
So we next go to the Situation room, where they're strategizing about how they're going to make this happen. There are tunnels under the prison that they can utilize, but they need firsthand intelligence of the prison. However, no one from the prison staff is helpful. Most of the old guards are either dead or don't know anything about that.
[00:23:08] Speaker A: There was a funny thing. They're like, where's the warden? Oh, he died in the seventies.
[00:23:13] Speaker B: Yeah, right.
[00:23:14] Speaker A: You guys was like, Michael Bean as the leader of the Navy SeALs.
[00:23:17] Speaker B: Always good to see Michael Bean.
[00:23:19] Speaker C: I think the majority of the movies I've seen, Michael being in Hedgesthem plays.
[00:23:24] Speaker B: A SEAl commander or something similar.
[00:23:26] Speaker C: Or something similar. Or even, like in the original Terminator movie, he was still kind of the special guy that had to go back.
[00:23:35] Speaker B: Yep. Yep. It was fun to see there.
[00:23:37] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. He plays that role very well, though. He's very convincing.
[00:23:42] Speaker B: But, yeah. So Womack is like, there may be one.
[00:23:45] Speaker A: There's another. Just one man who can help. Just one.
[00:23:48] Speaker B: But him and another FBI FBI guy arguing over whether or not to let. Let him out and acknowledge his existence.
And here's where we meet for the first time. John Mason, played by Sean Connery. He's got, you know, a beard and long hair.
And we have Stanley meeting Womack on this, like, next to a plane that they're about to get on. So this is what you were talking about, Lance, when he's, you know, Womack's asking Stanley if he knows about VX. Yeah. And says there's, you know, discovered accidentally. And he compares it to champagne and how champagne was, you know, discovered accidentally as well.
[00:24:25] Speaker A: Get a little bit of, like, spectrum here.
Easily distracted, but not a good sign.
[00:24:32] Speaker B: Yep. So we cut over to. Back to San Francisco at Pier 39. Oh, actually, you know what? I had never asked any of you, but seems relevant. Anyone ever actually been to Alcatraz?
[00:24:45] Speaker C: No, never even been to San Francisco.
[00:24:47] Speaker B: I see. I've been to San Francisco a couple of times. I've taken a boat tour near the rock, but I ran out of time to actually go on the rock, so I need to. The next time I'm in San Francisco.
[00:24:59] Speaker A: So I think my girlfriend has been to San Francisco, and she made the comment where she's like, alcatraz isn't that far away from the coast. You could probably swim it. And I was like, mmm. No, I think it's harder than it looks.
[00:25:12] Speaker B: I feel like Mythbusters did a, you know, did a thing about whether you could actually swim it. I know that they did a test for, like, the three people who actually did escape Alcatraz and whether or not they could have actually survived.
[00:25:26] Speaker C: I've seen that episode.
[00:25:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:25:28] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:25:28] Speaker A: Have you seen the movie with Clint Eastwood?
[00:25:30] Speaker B: I have not. Is that escape from Alcatraz?
[00:25:33] Speaker A: Yeah, it's called Escape from Alcatraz.
[00:25:35] Speaker B: Probably an adaptation of that story. Yeah, that's right. You know, bringing up Pier 39 and that whole area of, you know, San Francisco. I love San Francisco. Um, but, yeah, next time, I need to actually go to the rock. All right. So the FBI takes over Pier 39, set up a field office, and then Womack and Stanley arrive there. We find out some intel owned Mason. He was imprisoned in Alcatraz in 62, and he escaped in 63, and they need to find out how he escaped the rock.
[00:26:03] Speaker A: Oh, that's right.
[00:26:04] Speaker B: We meet special agent in charge Paxton, who is in, who goes to interrogate Mason. And Paxton is getting played by Mason.
[00:26:13] Speaker A: These interrogation scenes with Mason go on a little bit long, in my opinion.
[00:26:17] Speaker B: I enjoy. I enjoy seeing the difference. You show the difference, really, between Paxton, who is, you know, straight up FBI by the book.
[00:26:26] Speaker C: Yeah, he's his career.
[00:26:27] Speaker B: Yeah. And Mason knows exactly how to play him. And he even gets. Well, this is stupid. On Paxton's party, you know, flips him a quarter and said, here's a quarter to call your lawyer.
[00:26:39] Speaker C: Right? Which, for those members of the audience who are not old enough quarters, what, you needed to use a payphone until.
[00:26:46] Speaker B: They upped it to $0.50.
[00:26:48] Speaker A: Yeah, it used to be a dime.
[00:26:51] Speaker C: It did.
[00:26:52] Speaker B: And so instead, Womack sends Stanley in to talk to Mason. You know, he's not a career FBI. He's, uh, you know, a biochemical person.
[00:27:00] Speaker C: He's just an analyst.
[00:27:01] Speaker B: Yeah, I was about to say it.
[00:27:03] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:27:04] Speaker B: So Stanley is stammering. Uh, he gets tricked into removing Mason's handcuffs, but actually does get him to sign the pardon and agree to help them.
[00:27:14] Speaker C: Very good cop, bad cop vibes from this.
[00:27:16] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:27:17] Speaker A: So I guess I'll mention it now, my hot take about this movie, which is, I think the first time I watched it, I didn't. I wasn't aware they were trying to make it seem like John Mason and James Bond were the same person.
Going back and watching it the second time, I'd never really felt like he acted like James Bond.
[00:27:36] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:27:37] Speaker A: And then going back this time, I could see a little bit of bond, this kind of glimmer through, but I really didn't see any of it in this prison scene because Bond. Hold on, hold on. Because Bond is always, like, too cool for school, and he never gets, like, emotional or whatever.
[00:27:54] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:27:55] Speaker A: And Mason just does not like that.
[00:27:58] Speaker B: Yeah. But we've never seen Bond locked away for 30 years.
[00:28:02] Speaker A: That's true. That's right. Also, Mason's a real chatty Cathy in a way that bond is not.
[00:28:08] Speaker B: How do you think he gets all these villains to monologue?
[00:28:12] Speaker A: Yeah. He lets them talk.
[00:28:14] Speaker C: Or the bond girls.
[00:28:15] Speaker B: Yeah. Or that. Yeah. I will say the time that the longest we've seen Bond in prison wasn't die another day where he's in prison for, like, 18 months.
[00:28:24] Speaker C: Right.
[00:28:26] Speaker B: And he's quite emotional after that.
[00:28:29] Speaker C: Just a bit.
[00:28:31] Speaker A: All right, fair enough.
[00:28:33] Speaker B: But I will. I'll get more to your theory in our spy fact versus spy fiction. So, you know, Mason uses the. His chair to break the coin in half.
And as soon as Goodspeed gives the pardon to Womack, he tears it up. And Mason uses the coin to cut through the one way glass, which. That's not very strong one way glass.
Like, if that's the case, he could have just thrown the chair at it and it probably would have broken. Probably because it's not like he. Because he cuts it in a big circle and then just breaks through it with his elbow.
Stanley tries to tell Carla not to come to San Francisco, but she is, like, right about to get on the plane, and she's mad at him because, like, you just told me not to come. Why are you telling me? Or you just told me to come? Why are you not telling me to not come?
[00:29:22] Speaker A: I can't believe that Stan called his wife in front of the dangerous, possibly a serial killer prisoner. He truly is a chemist.
[00:29:29] Speaker B: Okay, we don't know that he's a serial killer.
[00:29:33] Speaker A: Well, they said he's incredibly dangerous.
[00:29:35] Speaker B: Okay, sure.
[00:29:36] Speaker A: Close enough.
But also, I did like Carla coming to San Francisco because it raised the stakes. As if they weren't high enough already.
[00:29:43] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, those are.
[00:29:44] Speaker A: Good choice.
[00:29:45] Speaker B: Yeah. So they get to the Fairmont because Mason has requested, you know, a shower, a shave and the feel of a suit on his skin.
[00:29:53] Speaker A: That's very bombard.
[00:29:54] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. See, so I like how he's. He's singing in the shower and to distract, like, is he singing? What is he singing? If you're going to San Francisco, if.
[00:30:05] Speaker C: You go to San Francisco, be sure to wear flowers in your hair.
[00:30:08] Speaker B: That's right. And I like how he gets, you know, that the cord that you use to hang up your wet clothes from the shower and orders a bunch of food. And then the stylist arrives, and the.
[00:30:23] Speaker A: Stylist is quite a stereotype.
[00:30:26] Speaker B: I enjoyed him.
[00:30:28] Speaker A: Well, sure.
[00:30:30] Speaker B: Womack tells him that he has to do this all with clippers, no scissors.
[00:30:34] Speaker A: He said he could kill you with those scissors, which is great.
[00:30:37] Speaker C: Which to get the haircut that he did with just clippers. That was really good.
[00:30:41] Speaker B: Talented.
[00:30:41] Speaker C: Yeah, super talented. I'm like, I need that guy.
[00:30:44] Speaker B: Right, right. So all the FBI agents are distracted because they're eating the room service food. You know, Womack and Mason are talking, and Mason gets Womack to shake his hand, you know, and then he loops the dryer cord around his wrist, throws Womack off the balcony.
[00:31:03] Speaker A: This part was pretty wild.
[00:31:05] Speaker B: I wonder how they found out by actually doing that. I'm sure that they had a cable on the guides, too, but literally, when they were filming this at the Fairmount, they didn't know they got a bunch.
[00:31:15] Speaker C: The actually Christian, I think, was the Beaumont. They were at the Beaumont Hotel, I.
[00:31:20] Speaker B: Thought was the Fairmont.
[00:31:21] Speaker C: The Fairmont was where Goodspeed and his girlfriend, slash, now fiance. We're going to stay.
[00:31:26] Speaker B: It's called the fairmount, but it was the standing in for. It was the Biltmore.
[00:31:31] Speaker C: Biltmore. Yeah. Okay. I'm sorry.
[00:31:33] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. So he throws him off the balcony, Mason escapes, and Stanley goes after him. And this is where we get some pirates of the caribbean music or what really? Sounds like it.
[00:31:46] Speaker A: Oh, really? I don't think I noticed that.
[00:31:48] Speaker B: Also enjoyed. As they're going to the kitchens, the subtitle says, cursing and Tagalog. So those were some filipino cooks back there.
[00:31:55] Speaker A: Oh, I didn't see that in my subtitles.
[00:31:58] Speaker B: The Mason steal a humvee where Stanley's the word I'm looking for. When you take the. When the. You know, when a cop takes the cars. I mean, I need this car for something.
[00:32:10] Speaker A: Commandeering.
[00:32:11] Speaker B: Commandeering this vessel. Yes. And he commandeers a Ferrari. And there's this big car chase through San Francisco.
[00:32:18] Speaker A: Great car chase.
[00:32:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
And during that whole scene, Mason is calling information to find someone named Jade Angelou.
[00:32:28] Speaker A: There's a part where he speaks German, too, or at least he could understand it. I like that.
[00:32:33] Speaker B: Crashes. You know, one of the trolleys crashes, almost crashes into Stanley's borrowed Ferrari. And we get the classic Michael Bay low camera shot focusing on the protagonists.
[00:32:48] Speaker C: Christian, I think the reason why you got pirates of the caribbean vibes is because Hans Zimmer did the music for both.
[00:32:54] Speaker B: Yeah, I knew it was the same. But like, this one, definitely, if you listen to it, especially as they're, like, running down through the Fairmont, it's very pirates of the Caribbean, definitely.
[00:33:03] Speaker C: And I'm. I'm not gonna lie. I may have gotten more than one speeding ticket listening to this soundtrack.
[00:33:09] Speaker B: It's a good soundtrack.
[00:33:11] Speaker A: Just like the part with the cable. Cardinal. Another San Francisco like moment. I can't believe nobody got killed when it gets, like, flipped over.
[00:33:20] Speaker B: Recovered from all that, Stanley asks his coworker to look up Mason's record. Apparently there's, you know, can find no one under his name, but they do. He was able to track down who was transferred to that prison in 72.
And there's no name, but they do have all his other information, like health records and everything. And of next of kin, who just.
[00:33:42] Speaker C: So happens to be his daughter, who.
[00:33:45] Speaker A: Just so happens to be in San Francisco, which is a little bit convenient.
[00:33:48] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a little convenient.
[00:33:50] Speaker C: Well, but actually, it kind of makes sense, though.
[00:33:52] Speaker B: Oh, wait, no, that does make sense, because he escaped from the rock, right?
[00:33:56] Speaker C: And he met his daughter's mother at a Leonard Skynyrd concert somewhere in San Francisco.
[00:34:06] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:34:06] Speaker A: Is Leonard Skynyrd San Francisco, or just to know this is a detail.
[00:34:12] Speaker C: Just a detail.
[00:34:13] Speaker B: We have Stanley going to Jade's house as she's leaving. She's meeting Mason, but brought a friend with her just in case. They're meeting in the palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, and Stanley's, like, following them.
Jade asks why he was imprisoned, and he's vague about it.
[00:34:32] Speaker A: I appreciate that Jade is kind of like the audience because the audience doesn't really know much about him either.
[00:34:39] Speaker B: But not too long after the FBI finds Mason and Stanley covers for him with Jade or covers for Wood Jade for him. Or he's working with the FBI on this case. Yes.
[00:34:52] Speaker A: Or he lies to make the dad look good when he doesn't have to. Yeah, it's very nice.
[00:34:56] Speaker C: Well, he had a lot more. I mean, because he was eavesdropping in on the conversation with his daughter. And I think he got more of an insight of the kind of person that Mason is, maybe.
And he definitely. And I think actually, he was covering more for the daughter than. Than for Mason.
[00:35:18] Speaker B: Oh. It was more for her sake than for his.
[00:35:20] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, that's. That was my take on it.
[00:35:22] Speaker B: Yeah, I can see that.
[00:35:24] Speaker A: Yeah, I can see that, too. So more James Vaughn vibes in the next scene with the briefing when he's kind of talking down to people, including.
[00:35:31] Speaker B: Michael Biehnde command center. He's giving intel at a certain point. He says, I need to be under the rock to remember what the next step is. But of course, Womack doesn't want him to go, but Commander Anderson wants Mason if he has the actionable intel. And he also wants Womack to be there because, you know, Womack was under the impression he's just going to walk them through how to, you know, diffuse everything. He was like, no, you're the expert. You need to be with us.
[00:35:54] Speaker A: I think you mean he wants Stan to go, not Womack.
[00:35:57] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, Womack. Sorry, Stan. Stanley, not Womack. Sorry about that.
[00:36:00] Speaker A: Yeah. So having been told to stand, like, I might notice, he, like, freaks out, by which I really mean he does a Nicolas Cage moment, which, um. I know people love Nicolas Cage. I like Nicolas Cage, too. But the Nicolas Cage isms in this movie. I did not care for her so much.
I hope you guys know what I mean when I say that.
[00:36:23] Speaker B: Zeus's butthole, that one.
[00:36:25] Speaker A: Yeah. Like, it just felt, like, so nineties, especially because nobody else acts like that, and he doesn't even act like it most of the time.
[00:36:34] Speaker B: What do you guys think? Yeah, I mean, it's his trademark, so I kind of expected it, so I wasn't, you know, shocked that it happened.
[00:36:41] Speaker A: Well, sure. Doesn't have to like it, though.
[00:36:44] Speaker B: Yeah, fair enough. Hummel is talking to the Situation room again. He gives them a deadline of 17 hours. So there's your ticking clock, Zach.
[00:36:52] Speaker A: Love it.
[00:36:53] Speaker B: But the thermite plasma is not ready and is unknown whether it will be ready before 17 hours. So they have to greenlight the seal incursion.
Commander Anderson, aka Michael Bean, briefs the SEAL team. They load onto the choppers, and Mason gets his requested supplies, which were like, I don't remember what all they were, but the seemingly random stuff.
[00:37:19] Speaker A: Right. So a couple things here. Michael Bean does not exactly. He's not a motivational speaker in this part. He's like, most of you are probably going to die. It's going to be really, really hard, but we got to do it. So good luck with everybody then. Also, my note is he gets the atropine, which is the big needle that goes into your heart. And there's a weird editing choice because someone's like, give him the atrophy, but you can't see who's talking.
[00:37:44] Speaker B: Oh, the is that they did it, but realized that they didn't have it, so they had to have someone do it in post. Yeah.
[00:37:52] Speaker A: Like an ADR. Oh, yeah. Give them the atrophy in here.
[00:37:56] Speaker B: Yeah, but, yeah. So. And then they dive and get onto the island, submerge in water. Yep.
[00:38:01] Speaker A: Using, like, those. Those underwater propeller things.
[00:38:04] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:38:05] Speaker A: My girlfriend had a funny comic is they're like, eagle one to home base. We've entered the water like, their code name is Eagles. And she said, why are they called eagles if they're in the water?
[00:38:14] Speaker B: It's pretty good.
[00:38:16] Speaker A: Shouldn't they be more like dolphins?
So that amused me.
[00:38:21] Speaker B: Yeah. So they get to the dead end, and Mason proposes going through these furnace gears that they look like, you know, the masters from Galaxy Quest.
[00:38:29] Speaker A: Yeah, I have that note.
So absurd. But I thought he was going to make them all go through it, which would have been ridiculous, but not so much.
[00:38:38] Speaker C: I think that that shows why he had to be there, because they had to do it. None of them were going to make it.
[00:38:45] Speaker B: No.
[00:38:45] Speaker A: This one also felt like a video game where you have to, like, do something really complicated and then you pull a lever and a door open so your NPC buddy can come with you.
[00:38:53] Speaker B: Yep. Something. Pretty much, but, yeah. So he apparently memorized the timing, and he goes through, and they think that he left them. But then he opens the door and we get the line. Welcome to the knock.
[00:39:05] Speaker A: This is a good line. Out of context, I don't like it quite as much, but in context, it was great.
[00:39:10] Speaker B: Yeah. So they go further through the tunnels, but Hamil's men are suspicious. They sense that something is up.
[00:39:17] Speaker A: There's a prison rape joke around here somewhere.
[00:39:19] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:39:21] Speaker A: Misen says something about it. I was too busy covering my butthole or something like that.
[00:39:25] Speaker B: No, he basically says what his usual day is. More exciting than my usual day.
[00:39:29] Speaker C: Right.
[00:39:29] Speaker B: I forget what the other thing is. Avoiding prison rape in the showers. And then he makes a comment about how. Which is happening less often. So maybe I'm losing my sex appeal.
[00:39:40] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, that's it.
[00:39:41] Speaker C: Which I was like Sean Connery. You're never losing your sex appeal.
[00:39:45] Speaker B: How old was he when he got the sexiest man? A lot people. Sexiest men alive. He was, like, in his sixties.
[00:39:51] Speaker C: Yeah, it was ridiculous.
[00:39:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:39:54] Speaker C: It also gave me hope.
[00:39:57] Speaker B: Keep dreaming. No, I'm kidding.
[00:40:01] Speaker C: No, you're spot on. I do have delusions of grandchildren, but I'm also a realist.
[00:40:06] Speaker A: Who cares what those magazines think anyway?
[00:40:08] Speaker B: Yeah, but they go right under the shower room, which is where they had set up those motion sensors. Now, the marines or the CEO's sensor. There's something not right. So they send a camera up like one of those little wire cameras.
[00:40:21] Speaker A: Like a periscope.
[00:40:22] Speaker B: Yeah. See that? There are motion sensors across the manhole covers. And so they're trying to move it, but unknowingly set off one of the additional sensors. Yeah.
[00:40:31] Speaker A: Created by Doctor Cox earlier.
[00:40:33] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. So Hummels men go to the showers. The seals go up into the showers while Stanley and Mason stay below with one other marine. And there's a big standoff, which, to.
[00:40:47] Speaker C: Me, this is the best scene in this movie, unfortunately.
[00:40:51] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:40:52] Speaker C: In fact, it's actually one of my favorite movie scenes, period.
[00:40:55] Speaker A: It's very scary.
[00:40:57] Speaker C: It's scary. It's. It's intense. The dialogue between Hummel and Anderson is just. No, I first saw this when it. When it came out back in 96, and I wasn't. I wasn't active duty Air Force yet. And so it's like, okay, it was intense then, but now, you know, 24 years later and retired and, you know, fully under, having a better understanding of, you know, the speech when Michael Bay is not Michael Bay, but Michael Biehn is, you know, talking about, you know, defending the country against all enemies foreign. And he highlights. And domestic mystic.
[00:41:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:41:36] Speaker C: Good lie.
They're. They're going back and forth. And he's like, you know, I'm giving you an order. And he's like, I can't give that order back and forth. And then you have the accidental bricks dropping, which they think is, you know, someone's opening firing, you know, who shot first, kind of revolutionary war thing.
And then you had that. That fight, that fight scene, and it.
[00:42:01] Speaker A: Wasn'T even really a fight. It was more like, no, it wasn't.
[00:42:03] Speaker C: It was a massacre. But just the emotion behind all of it was just so tragic.
[00:42:09] Speaker B: And as that's happening, you have Hummel tell it, trying to tell his man to cease fire because he doesn't want any of this.
[00:42:15] Speaker A: It was like the Marines all getting killed in aliens, but a lot better. Same idea, though.
[00:42:20] Speaker B: But, yeah, at the end of it all, like. And you have. Yeah, the one Marine who is with Mason and Stanley still in the tunnel, and he's like, in there, like, don't, don't go. Don't go. And he has a have to. And as soon as he gets up there, he is also killed. So all of the marines here are killed.
[00:42:36] Speaker A: I think you mean the seals, but, yeah.
[00:42:38] Speaker B: Thank you. Thanks, seals.
[00:42:39] Speaker A: Do you think somebody writing the movie was, like, wanting to make the Marines the bad guys for some reason they have, like, beef with the Marines?
[00:42:47] Speaker C: No, I don't think so. They were highlighting the fact that these guys were Marine recon.
[00:42:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:42:55] Speaker C: And Marine Recon is like the pinnacle of the Marine Corps. Sorry. To other marines who were not recon.
[00:43:03] Speaker A: Just wondering.
[00:43:05] Speaker C: No one's gonna be, as much as I love the air force and as much as I make fun of it, no one's gonna be afraid of a bunch of air force dudes. Let's be real.
[00:43:14] Speaker B: But, yeah. So Mason takes the gun and radio off of one of the seal who fell down the manhole, which is the same CEO who, you know, was down there with them.
Mason was. Wants to get off the island, but the FBI orders Stanley to go after him.
[00:43:31] Speaker A: And we also get Mason's backstory. He's like, he knows every dirty secret the United States has for the past 50 years, basically.
[00:43:38] Speaker B: Yeah. J. Edgar Hoover had files on everyone, and Mason stole microfilm that contained all of those secrets.
But he was caught at the canadian border when he was trying to escape, and he was held without trial, and.
[00:43:51] Speaker A: That'S why he's so mad.
[00:43:52] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:43:53] Speaker A: Which, I don't know, don't you think spies ought to be? It's like, if you're a spy, you know, you're gonna get imprisoned without trial.
[00:44:01] Speaker B: Sure. And I guess he doesn't have to.
[00:44:03] Speaker A: Be happy about it, though. No, it's just not righteous anger. It's just anger.
[00:44:09] Speaker B: It's anger. And I think it's also anger, like, personified in Womack, because Womack was the one who brought him in. So if you saw the person who brought him in, you in, or, you know, imprisoned you 30 years later, you'd be pissed off, too.
[00:44:25] Speaker A: I think you might also, like, lied to him in some way.
[00:44:28] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. I'm sure. I'm sure there's. There's probably some more backstory that we don't know to that, but. Yeah. So Stanley tries to convince Mason to stay. He tells Mason about the rockets, and he can defuse him. Reveals that he is a.
He's not a terrorist, anti terrorism guy. He is a biochemical specialist.
[00:44:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:44:51] Speaker B: And Hummels, you know, marines figure out that there's still some people alive because the. The SeaLs gun and radio are missing. So they firebomb the tunnels, and there's.
[00:45:05] Speaker A: A slow motion move, which is funny.
[00:45:08] Speaker B: Yeah. So, yeah, Stanley and Mason, you know, run. They dive under the water, and Mason, you know, takes Stanley to the morgue on the rock, gives him a gun, is where you get that speech about, you know, doing your best.
[00:45:23] Speaker A: Okay, so I have a hot take about this. I feel like somebody came up with the line, winners go home and fuck the prom queen.
[00:45:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:45:30] Speaker A: And then they put it into the movie.
[00:45:31] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:45:32] Speaker A: You know, it feels like a line written, not a line someone would say. And also, I didn't like the setup. Like, goodspeed disarms chemical bombs for a living. I don't think you would kind of be the kind of guy who would say, well, at least we did our best. You know? He's the kind of guy who'd be like, hell, yeah, I'm going to go out and do it, because no one else can. It feels like they wanted to set up Sean Connery for a good line, so they gave Stan a line that doesn't fit the character. And I know I'm being a negative nancy again, but I stand by it.
[00:46:02] Speaker B: Okay, I'm just wondering how you can see that here. But you were so hyper focused on it before of a setup just to have a good line.
[00:46:11] Speaker A: When was I set up on it?
[00:46:13] Speaker B: Before the pregnancy thing, how that line doesn't fit the rest of his character. And it's really just to have that line. And you were very hyper focused on it.
[00:46:22] Speaker A: Yeah, I know. I guess maybe because this line is more famous and I like it more.
[00:46:26] Speaker B: All right. Masonde does a knife throw to kill one guy. There's a big shootout. One guy gets killed by an air conditioner falling on him.
[00:46:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:46:36] Speaker B: For the first time, we get to see how the rockets are dismantled. I like how Connery, like, is actually looks frightened when he realizes what all of the, like, all of these things are good finally.
[00:46:49] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:46:50] Speaker B: You just get to see, you know, Stanley in his element of, you know, dismantling everything. Cool, calm, collected as he's doing a. And he grabs the, you know, control chip out of it, or the guidance chip. Yep.
[00:47:01] Speaker A: He knows what's going on.
[00:47:03] Speaker B: And hummel again figures out that someone's still alive. So he sends men to the morgue. We get more shooting. We get a mine cart. Why are there minecarts under Alcatraz?
[00:47:17] Speaker C: I did like the one part, though, when Goodspeed takes everything out and he's trying to concentrate, and the guy that got killed by having the air conditioner fall on him, his legs twitching, and he's like, you've been around dead bodies before. Is that normal? And he's like, yeah, it can happen.
[00:47:34] Speaker B: He's like, yeah, you want me to kill him again?
[00:47:36] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:47:36] Speaker A: The Minecart part I thought was a little silly.
[00:47:39] Speaker B: It's very silly.
[00:47:41] Speaker C: Well, this is where I got the Indiana Jones and the Temple of doom.
[00:47:44] Speaker B: Oh, definitely. Definitely. Yep, sure. There's the whole fight. They, like, get to the end of the track.
[00:47:50] Speaker A: They burn Doctor Cox to death.
[00:47:52] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, that's right. Did we know that Mason worked for british intelligence before now or just now? I think we had his background as being SAS, but I know that. I don't know if we knew he was british intelligence.
[00:48:03] Speaker A: Yeah, I think they mentioned that.
[00:48:05] Speaker C: Yeah, I don't think they did specifically say that he worked for british intelligence. But I think back in the beginning, when Womack is telling the other FBI guy who Mason is, maybe they're talking about him, and he was like, he. Because he was like. Because he was working for british intelligence, they denied.
[00:48:23] Speaker B: Oh, you're right. You're right.
[00:48:24] Speaker C: He existed either. So.
[00:48:25] Speaker B: Okay. I couldn't remember, but, yeah, here's where he says that he was trained by the best. British intelligence.
[00:48:30] Speaker A: Yeah, there you go.
[00:48:31] Speaker B: Hummels men take a hostage and make an announcement over the speakers to Mason and Stanley that they're going to kill this guy unless they return the guidance chips. And Mason takes that moment to smash the guidance chips that they have, and there's three left that they still need.
[00:48:45] Speaker C: To get, which I thought was a good scene. It was like the. The whole. It's like, okay, there's no going back there. You can't negotiate with things that we don't have because.
Good speed. Again, I don't think you can highlight enough is so out of this element here.
[00:49:01] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:49:01] Speaker C: That. That he would have been like, okay, well, I'll give you the chips, let the guy go. And Mason sensed that. He's just like, let me see the chips. And then just smashes them off.
[00:49:10] Speaker A: Not exactly beating the labels of domestic terrorists. Bye.
[00:49:15] Speaker C: Right.
[00:49:16] Speaker B: So he tells Stanley to go find the other three rockets while he stalls Hummel. That's right. Now, Mason confronts Hummel, and, you know, Hummel asks, you know, name and rank, soldier. And is his captain. And it's actually. Or he said. He says, name and rank. Sailor.
[00:49:30] Speaker A: Sailor. Yeah, right. Part of the bond theory that he.
[00:49:33] Speaker B: Knows he's a sailor, but he says, actually it's soldier. And it says Captain John Patrick Mason. John Patrick being the first and middle name of another character that Blantz is well familiar with.
[00:49:45] Speaker C: I did smile at it. I did.
[00:49:48] Speaker B: Being, of course, you know, John Patrick Ryan. Jack Ryan's character, full name, which I.
[00:49:55] Speaker C: Wonder if he picked that up during the hunt for Red October.
[00:49:58] Speaker B: Maybe. Maybe. But, yeah, so. And he's SAS. So this is one of the things that, well, doesn't quite line up with him being bond, because obviously, Bond was in the british navy, not in the, you know, british army. So if anything, he would have been SBS rather than sas, if anything.
[00:50:17] Speaker C: Yeah, but most people don't know about the SBS, but Sas is pretty more common.
[00:50:22] Speaker B: Pretty common, yeah. Or pretty well known. Yeah.
[00:50:24] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:50:25] Speaker B: Stanley goes and finds another rocket, takes out the guidance chips. But when he does, two of Hummel's men chase. Find him and chase him and capture him.
[00:50:35] Speaker A: There's a lot of ups and downs in this second half of the movie.
[00:50:38] Speaker C: But they did make a point, though, that when he was. When Goodspeed was hiding from the two marines chasing him, that the one chip that he was able to get, he followed suit and also smashed that chip.
[00:50:49] Speaker B: Oh, yes. He. He destroyed that thing. Yep, that's right. We see Stanley and Mason put into cells and that, you know, there are two rockets left. And we see Mason, for some reason, making a rope. Is it like, and I was wondering here is like, is the implication that he's gonna hanging himself with that? I don't think that's his type, but I'm like, is Michael Bay trying to trick the audience into thinking that?
[00:51:13] Speaker A: I never thought that was gonna happen personally.
[00:51:16] Speaker B: No, no.
[00:51:16] Speaker C: I didn't think it was gonna kill him.
[00:51:17] Speaker B: So I knew I didn't either. Was like, all right, so he's just foreshadowing what's gonna happen. I was. It's not like he's not trying to do some bait and switch about how Mason's giving up or things. It was like, because if he was trying to do that, it didn't work.
[00:51:28] Speaker C: Right. And this also has what Zach was talking about earlier, some nick cages where he's just laying in his cell going, I take pleasure of gutting you, boy. And repeats it over and over again because that's what the marine that caught him was telling him over and over again.
[00:51:43] Speaker A: Was that the candyman or a different one?
[00:51:45] Speaker B: I think that may have been, yeah. What is that actor's name? Tony Todd, of course, is also famous. Well, famous among trekkies as being Kern Worf's brotherhood.
[00:51:57] Speaker C: Oh, yeah.
[00:51:59] Speaker B: Well, yes. So we get back to the situation room, we find out that the thermite plasma is operational, and we get a nice classic pilot's briefing.
[00:52:08] Speaker A: A nice raising of the stakes. Yeah. In case there was, wasn't enough tension.
[00:52:13] Speaker B: Lance, are these supposed to be air force guys?
[00:52:16] Speaker C: So about this.
[00:52:18] Speaker B: Oh, oh, I asked the question.
[00:52:21] Speaker C: Oh, my God. Yeah, I was going to bring this up later when we were.
[00:52:25] Speaker B: Well, let's talk about analysis.
[00:52:27] Speaker C: Let's talk about analysis right here. Okay, so first off, they were supposed to be, you know, marines that were doing this, but. Yeah.
[00:52:36] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:52:37] Speaker C: Because they're talking about f 18s, right? Which the air force does not have.
[00:52:42] Speaker B: No, that's Navy or not at all.
[00:52:46] Speaker C: Exactly. And. But when they're getting the pilots briefing, if you notice, one of the pilots was played by Jesus himself, Jim Caviezel.
[00:52:55] Speaker B: I did notice that.
[00:52:57] Speaker C: And I'm like, you know, they really do, like God on their side.
See what I did there? But they're all wearing air combat command patches on their flight suits. And I'm like, okay, why are there air force pilots flying f 18s?
But then where I really lost it was when they were guiding the f 18s out.
[00:53:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:53:20] Speaker C: And they had US Air force written.
[00:53:22] Speaker B: On the side of the f 18.
[00:53:25] Speaker C: Of the f 18.
[00:53:25] Speaker B: I missed that.
[00:53:28] Speaker C: I'm not gonna lie. My soul started to cry a little bit.
[00:53:31] Speaker B: Oh, man.
[00:53:33] Speaker C: Oh, God. You know, was there not like a military advisor in this movie whatsoever?
[00:53:39] Speaker B: You know, I'm sure there had to have been because, I mean, well, actually, now I'm kind of curious because I know, at least on a lot of his later productions, you know, Michael Bay would always, you know, get buy in from the military so he could get all the toys.
[00:53:55] Speaker C: Right.
This was in the nineties, and that was really before, you know, all of that really started happening. I mean, you kind of had it in the beginning, really, with. With Top Gun.
[00:54:07] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:54:09] Speaker C: Which was Terry Bruckheimer's brother that I know. That was Washington, one of the Scots. I can't remember which one.
[00:54:16] Speaker B: Tony Scott, who directed.
[00:54:17] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Who unfortunately passed away.
[00:54:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:54:21] Speaker C: That's when they really started getting the military buying. But it was not necessarily that big of a deal.
But then as movies were coming out and portraying military more, they wanted the authenticity of it. And, I mean, there are. There were a few military projects that were like, we want nothing to do with this.
[00:54:38] Speaker B: Right.
[00:54:38] Speaker C: Like, this is absolute garbage.
[00:54:40] Speaker B: What are some of those? Now, I know that I've watched some recently that they're, like, they had wanted to do. Have nothing to do with them.
[00:54:48] Speaker A: Oh, um, there's a famous one called Iron Eagle.
[00:54:52] Speaker B: I don't.
[00:54:53] Speaker C: That movie doesn't exist in my world.
[00:54:54] Speaker B: I love that movie unironically.
[00:54:59] Speaker C: I hate it so much. That's. That's the Air Force's version of Battleship.
[00:55:02] Speaker B: It is. Oh. Oh, well, except battleship actually got buy in from the. The Navy, didn't it?
[00:55:09] Speaker C: I don't want to talk about that.
[00:55:10] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Anyways, I'm just looking at, like, Michael Bay's filmography. That was like, um, maybe it started with Pearl harbor. That's when he really started to get that by and then definitely with the Transformers films, right? Obviously 13 hours and. Yeah. So, like, that's where he really starts to get those. But that buy in, I don't. Maybe even Armageddon. I don't know. Actually, I'd have to look about that production history of that. But, yeah, like, so maybe there wasn't. There may have been. Maybe there was. This was before that time when he would get that buy in from the military to really play with all the toys.
[00:55:41] Speaker C: If he actually had buy in for Armageddon, then there's a bunch of air force people that need slapped really hard.
[00:55:47] Speaker B: Okay, so it's got to be. Must have been with pro.
[00:55:49] Speaker C: Oh, God. Yeah. The garbage, military garbage in that movie was just so off the charts.
[00:55:56] Speaker B: Oh, man.
[00:55:58] Speaker C: I mean.
[00:55:58] Speaker B: So this is our second Michael Bay film then, isn't it, with Pearl harbor?
[00:56:03] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I guess so.
[00:56:05] Speaker B: Back to this movie. Still in their cell, Stanley asked Mason why he didn't tell, you know, the FBI where the microfilm was. He doesn't get a straight answer. But we see Mason what Mason was actually making that rope for. He was making a rope so he could use the rope to trigger the door latch, which if it was this easy to break out of the thousand Alcatraz, how did more prisoners not do it?
[00:56:29] Speaker C: Well, to be fair, they probably had guards walking by.
[00:56:32] Speaker B: That's true.
[00:56:33] Speaker C: He does kind of give him a straight answer in that. He was like, well, no. He's like, well, as soon as I gave him the film, then they were going to suicide me.
[00:56:41] Speaker B: That's right. He does say that. I forgot that. Yep. But I guess the other point of, you know, all right, if you get out of the cells, you're still on an island.
[00:56:49] Speaker C: Yeah. Now what?
[00:56:50] Speaker A: That's the real track.
[00:56:51] Speaker B: Go back over to. To hummel, and we get his two trigger happy captains who are wanting to launch the rockets.
[00:56:59] Speaker C: And those two is where we get the real villains of the movie, I thought.
[00:57:03] Speaker B: Yeah, so actually. And if we go back to the way beginning when he's giving his briefing and his patriot speech to the men, we find that everyone else besides those captain and their men he's worked with before. But those two are highly recommended, so they're not people who were necess. They're there for the money, really.
[00:57:20] Speaker C: Right.
[00:57:21] Speaker A: So I want to hear your guys thoughts about something.
[00:57:24] Speaker B: All right, let's hear it.
[00:57:25] Speaker A: As you know, I like to write the movie sometimes. So what do you think? If the candy man had said, I'm sorry, General Hummel, but my mother's sick and he points a gun at him.
[00:57:36] Speaker B: I don't get it.
[00:57:37] Speaker C: I don't either.
[00:57:38] Speaker A: Like, he doesn't just want the money because he's greedy. He actually needs the money.
[00:57:42] Speaker B: Oh, okay, that was not well phrase, but now you get your point. Also, he needs, he has, because he has a motivation beyond just I want the money.
[00:57:56] Speaker A: Yeah, I understand. This is a manly action movie for men, and we like black and white morality, but there's already been a little bit of grayness.
[00:58:03] Speaker B: Oh, there's a whole lot of greatness with Hummel.
[00:58:06] Speaker A: So what's wrong with a little more?
[00:58:08] Speaker B: Because, I don't know, it just, it feels out of place. I don't know.
[00:58:12] Speaker C: Because you needed somebody who was the actual dick, maybe.
[00:58:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:58:18] Speaker C: And that's true. Those two captains were quintessential dick.
[00:58:24] Speaker A: I mean, yeah. You want somebody to hear when he launches them through a window, right?
[00:58:28] Speaker C: Cause even the one, their one sergeant, I mean, you could see as when they would focus on his scenes every now and then, especially when they do get ready to launch one of the rockets, and he's like, should we really be doing this? Are we doing this for real?
[00:58:45] Speaker B: Stanley and Mason are escaping. Mason apparently knows that Hummel won't do it because he, you know, looked in his eyes and saw that he's a soldier, not a murderer.
That's right. Not a lunatic. Yeah.
[00:58:57] Speaker A: It makes you wonder if some of the, like, psychology people at the Pentagon couldn't have come to the same conclusion.
[00:59:03] Speaker C: Well, they probably did, but, you know, like we were talking about earlier, I. Even if there is a 1% chance that he's going to basically take out San Francisco, could you really afford not to take action against him? And the answer to that is, and.
[00:59:22] Speaker B: That message is brought to you by Ben Affleck's Batman.
[00:59:27] Speaker C: Well played.
[00:59:29] Speaker B: There's even a 1% chance about.
[00:59:32] Speaker C: We have to do it.
[00:59:32] Speaker B: If there's even a 1% chance.
It's like you, like, almost said his line verbatim. Oh, does he know what he's doing?
[00:59:41] Speaker C: Actually, I didn't.
And I apologize for the horrible Batman impersonation.
[00:59:47] Speaker B: Oh, man. Anyways, speaking of, you know people who have been in other Michael Bay movies. Ben Affleck.
[00:59:54] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:59:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:59:56] Speaker B: You know what? I want to rewatch Armageddon sometime soon. I got into a bit of a, you know, astronaut movie kick. And so I was like, all right, you know what? I haven't seen this in a long time. And funnily enough, you know, you know which two Michael Bay movies are in the criterion collection? This one it's the rock and it's Armageddon. What?
[01:00:18] Speaker A: Bad boys?
[01:00:20] Speaker B: No, no, just those two. Yep.
[01:00:22] Speaker C: One of the fun parts about Armageddon, though. I know, I know. We're not with that movie, but still, what they like to do with new scientists at NASA is happen and watch that movie, and they have everything that's wrong.
[01:00:35] Speaker B: Oh, but there's so many things.
[01:00:38] Speaker C: Oh, God. Yeah. That's definitely a movie that you have to leave your brain at home for.
[01:00:41] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
[01:00:42] Speaker C: I mean, it's entertaining. Don't be wrong. I love that movie, too.
[01:00:45] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
[01:00:46] Speaker C: But.
[01:00:46] Speaker B: All right, so where are we? Oh, yes. So the pan on gun calls Hummel and says that they want another hour. Mason decides he's gonna to get off the island, but Stanley says he's going to go and take on all of those marines by himself and almost immediately gets captured.
[01:01:04] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:01:06] Speaker B: Thankfully, Mason comes back and rescues him. Says he doesn't want his child to grow up without a father because he.
[01:01:12] Speaker C: Knows what that's exactly like, which is great.
[01:01:15] Speaker A: That's a great character moment.
[01:01:17] Speaker B: Yeah. So Hummel and his men are preparing one of the rockets for launch. There's a dramatic launch. It's launched right at Oakland. So I sue. And is that they say, oh, the football game. Could they not use? Did the Raiders not give them permission to use their name?
[01:01:34] Speaker C: You mean the 49 ers?
[01:01:36] Speaker B: Oakland.
[01:01:37] Speaker C: Well, they were in San Francisco, so.
[01:01:39] Speaker A: The missiles fired at Oakland.
[01:01:41] Speaker B: Isn't. Weren't the Raiders used to be at Oakland?
[01:01:44] Speaker C: They did, but. But when the missile flew over the stadium, it was definitely a whole sea of red and gold, which is 49 ers colors.
[01:01:53] Speaker B: So they wanted to hedge their bets. Because they say, because I assume that. Well, then again, maybe it's like, you know, the Washington commanders, they don't actually play in Washington, but it would be ironic if the Oakland. We're talking to people who don't know sports here. It would be ironic if the Oakland Raiders didn't play in Oakland, but the 49 ers did play in Oakland.
[01:02:16] Speaker C: That would be a reality twist.
[01:02:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:02:18] Speaker C: Right. They could have been playing Oakland at the time.
[01:02:20] Speaker B: Oh, oh, it could have been that. Yeah, that'd be an interesting. Yeah. If it was, like, Oakland Raiders versus 49 ers or something. I don't. I just.
[01:02:27] Speaker C: We'll go with that. Yeah, we'll go with that.
[01:02:29] Speaker B: Uh, but, yeah, Hummel aborts it right above the stadium, which makes it go. Return out to sea and crash in the water.
Now, Major Baxter, who's, you know, Hummels number two, calls Hummel out and is like, you know, why didn't you do it? Now we look. You know, we look like we are either incompetent or.
[01:02:53] Speaker A: Yeah, it's like home was clearly, like, kind of flailing around. He doesn't know what he's doing, and that was a probably not a good move.
[01:03:01] Speaker C: Well, I think he was. He was flailing around because he was. He realizes at that point, he's pretty much lost. Lost his men.
[01:03:09] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:03:10] Speaker C: Like, the ones that. That he had. He had served with.
They're now dead, and the only one that's left with them is. Is the major. The rest of them are the new guys that he doesn't know.
And those. Those guys are, you know, that's when they're like, as soon as we. We stopped being marines, the second we took hostages, we became mercenaries.
[01:03:32] Speaker B: Right, right.
[01:03:34] Speaker C: You find out they didn't really care about the cost so much. They wanted the money.
[01:03:39] Speaker A: Yeah, not for their sick mothers, either.
[01:03:42] Speaker C: And not for sick mamas or cats.
If they wanted them for cats, I'd have been a lot more sympathetic.
[01:03:52] Speaker B: We find out the thermite plasma is ready, and the president makes the call, and we got to go for the airstrike with thermite plasma. And we get the trigger happy captains, aka the Candymandae. And the other guy who's looked. What is. What else is that guy in. He looks so familiar, but he's got one of those face that just makes you think he's an asshole.
[01:04:18] Speaker A: They have a mexican standoff here. Everyone pointing guns at each other.
[01:04:22] Speaker B: Oh, it's not.
It's the other captain.
[01:04:28] Speaker C: Is he the guy that plays the sergeant? He's been a lot of other movies, too. Like he was in the remake of Total Recall. Couple other different things that he was in.
[01:04:39] Speaker B: He doesn't have a picture on. On Wikipedia, so. No, it's not him. All right, let me go on to IMDb.
[01:04:45] Speaker C: Yep. Bokim Wood dime is the actor that plays him.
[01:04:48] Speaker B: That's the sergeant, right?
[01:04:50] Speaker C: Yeah, correct.
[01:04:51] Speaker B: But who's the other guy? The one who. Who, like, is chasing after Stanley, who's not Tony Todd?
[01:05:00] Speaker A: I don't know.
[01:05:01] Speaker B: Let's see, let's see.
[01:05:04] Speaker C: Gregory spore letter Fry.
[01:05:07] Speaker B: Yep. Hits him.
[01:05:07] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. He he was in Blackhawk down, and also did a spot in true blood.
[01:05:14] Speaker B: Okay, that's not what I know him from. I'm trying to think what it is that I've seen him in, but we got way off course, so let's go back to. Yeah, so that. Yeah, those two captains Fry and. What was that? What is Tony Todd's name? Captain Darrow.
[01:05:31] Speaker C: Captain Darrow, yeah.
[01:05:33] Speaker B: So captains Fry and Darrow confront Hummel. They want their money. We get the big mexican standoff. That's right.
And then Baxter looks like he's going to betray Hummel, but instead shoots.
What does he shoot? He shoots.
[01:05:48] Speaker C: He shoots the sergeant.
[01:05:49] Speaker B: Sergeant, that's right.
And then. Yes. So Baxter and Hummel get shot. And, you know, Mason and Stanley are nearby. And they go, like. They grab Hummel.
Yeah.
[01:06:03] Speaker A: They pull them out.
[01:06:04] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:06:05] Speaker A: Come out for long.
[01:06:05] Speaker B: Ask him where the last rocket is. He says it's in the lower lighthouse. And we see Hummel's death as he, like, falls over now.
[01:06:14] Speaker A: Before he tells her where the last vessel is.
[01:06:15] Speaker B: Yeah, but he tells. Yeah. So Stanley goes to the lower lighthouse to disarm the bomb, and, yeah, Captain Darrow is coming after him. What did we think of this pre mortem post or pre. Pre mortem? What is the. What is the trope called? A pre mortem one liner? There you go. Yeah.
[01:06:36] Speaker C: Well, first he get. He good speed. Gets into a fight with Captain Fry. Yeah, because Hummel is fighting with Tony Todd.
[01:06:48] Speaker B: That's right. He does that. Tony Todd happens first.
[01:06:51] Speaker C: Actually, no, he doesn't, because that's when they're fighting or whatever, and he gives them the whole. Do you like Elton John?
[01:07:01] Speaker B: Yeah. That's what I'm talking about right now.
[01:07:03] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:07:04] Speaker B: Yeah, it's you. You're the rocket man.
[01:07:09] Speaker C: Right. And then he launches the missile at him.
[01:07:12] Speaker B: So what do we think of that pre mortem one liner?
[01:07:15] Speaker A: It's better than some other ones, anyways.
[01:07:19] Speaker B: Yeah. So at that point, Fry comes after Stanley, and one of the glass vials almost gets a.
And Mason is going after a sniper, who is another, on another roof shooting at them.
[01:07:32] Speaker C: Yeah, you're exactly right. I had my. My captain's back.
[01:07:34] Speaker A: Back.
[01:07:34] Speaker B: No worries.
So. And we see that, you know, the f 18s are incoming.
[01:07:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:07:42] Speaker B: So Stanley is evading captain Fry. Mason is taking out other marines, but finally, Stanley confronts the captain, puts the vial in his mouth, and makes him close his mouth. So it goes down into his mouth. He injects him. Stanley injects himself with the atrophy after, you know, trying to avoid it, this entire movie.
[01:08:04] Speaker A: Okay, so, wait, I'm sorry, I have a question.
[01:08:06] Speaker B: Yes, I might have missed this.
[01:08:08] Speaker A: Why did Stan take, like, one of them little tide pods, vx things, and, like, put it in his front pocket where he could easily fall on it.
[01:08:16] Speaker B: And smash it for safekeeping? Because it fell off. So it's not that he took. He deliberately took it. It fell off and almost, you know, went over the edge and again, broke. So he took it. And rather than try to put it back into the thing, which I'm sure would have possibly have resulted in it breaking and others breaking, he said, I'm just putting my front pocket.
[01:08:39] Speaker C: Yeah, it would. It would have cost a lot.
[01:08:40] Speaker B: It would have taken time. Yeah. Yeah.
So that's why. But then it also came in handy later when he wanted to kill Captain Fry.
[01:08:48] Speaker A: Yeah, it did. It was a little bit convenient, but it's lucky that he didn't, like, fall on his face and have it smashed, I guess.
[01:08:55] Speaker C: No, I thought the same thing, too.
[01:08:57] Speaker B: Yeah. No, same thoughts went through my mind, but, yeah, but, yeah. So Stanley, you know, lights the flares. He runs to the edge of the island and is kneeling and, like, is waving the green smoke around. The F 18s are still incoming, but one of the spotters on, you know, in San Francisco sees the green smoke, you know, radios that up the chain. Green smoke. We have green smoke aboard, but one of the f 18 pilots says, too late. I've already dropped. And you see a big explosion. You see Stanley's body go flying.
But we find out that the cells were not hit. It only hit the back of the island. And Stanley, turns out, was actually thrown into the water, which probably saved him.
[01:09:40] Speaker A: Here's, like, the part where the pilot is like, oh, damn it. Yeah, I saw. I hit the button. It seems very unlikely they could go through that chain of command in, like, 5 seconds.
[01:09:50] Speaker C: No, not really. No, I can see it 100%.
[01:09:54] Speaker A: Even something's important enough.
[01:09:56] Speaker C: Yeah, well, none of us important enough, but at the same time, you've got guys who are. I mean, they're waiting to see that green smoke. That's why those spotters are there.
[01:10:04] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:10:05] Speaker C: And so, I mean, they. They've got a direct line to the makeshift command center that I'm assuming was in, like, a warehouse or something.
[01:10:11] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. It was in a pier. Yep.
[01:10:14] Speaker C: Right. And so they're all connected. The pilots are listening in to the command center and so on and so forth. So, yeah, no, I can see that being almost instantaneous.
[01:10:25] Speaker B: Stanley's thrown into the water, and Mason rescues him. And we see Paxton calling for Goodspeed on, like, all radio frequencies. Goodspeed finally responds after he sort of recovered a bit, tells them that the hostages are all alive. And, you know, Womack is demanding to know about Mason and says that. Tells him that Mason died. And he tells Mason that Womack tore up his pardon and that there's clothes and money in his hotel room.
And, you know, if you can get off the island by using, you know, the same, you know, scuba gear that they came in on.
[01:11:05] Speaker C: Which answers the question, how's the old guy going to swim the channel?
[01:11:09] Speaker B: Yeah, there you go.
[01:11:10] Speaker A: There you go. Good point. Good point.
[01:11:12] Speaker B: Mason tells Stanley, as you know, by way of thanks, all this is done. You know, go take a vacation. Go somewhere. Go to Fort Walton, Kansas.
[01:11:23] Speaker A: Yeah, I like that part.
[01:11:24] Speaker B: He's like, forget Maui.
Fort Walton, Kansas. Tells him the name of the church, front pew, hollow leg.
[01:11:34] Speaker C: Wonder what's there.
[01:11:36] Speaker B: So here's the question.
Did they get married at this church and then steal the leg and then ran out the door?
[01:11:44] Speaker A: That would be very efficient. Use the time.
[01:11:47] Speaker C: It would. It would also be like, why are you. It's like, oh, we're just driving through and we want to get married here.
[01:11:52] Speaker A: I don't think Stan is the kind of guy that would have his whole family and friends there and get married.
[01:11:57] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't think he has a lot of friends. And also we see, because we see the car that they're in with the just married and, like, the, like, cans and everything, you know, behind it.
[01:12:07] Speaker A: I mean, presumably they drove it there.
I don't know.
[01:12:12] Speaker B: I think they got married there. And then after the ceremony, he goes and steals the leg and finds the microfilm. And then, like, he. As they're driving away, we see him, you know, using a little, you know, a little scope to look at the microfilm, and it says, you want to find out who really killed JFK?
[01:12:30] Speaker A: He also looks a lot like his character in raising Arizona.
[01:12:34] Speaker C: This party he does kind of. Yeah, mostly the hat.
[01:12:37] Speaker B: Yeah. All right. Yeah. But with that, our movie ends.
[01:12:41] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. I cannot believe I forgot to tell you guys about this. Okay, here's one last thing. So when I was in middle school, there's a tradition every year that the graduating class does a play for the school.
The thing is, there was a rule that every person had to have at least one line, whether they wanted to.
[01:13:02] Speaker B: Do it or not.
[01:13:03] Speaker A: Okay? So nobody wanted to do it. And it always sucked.
It was a brutal ordeal for the people on the stage, the people watching. It sucked. So my year, they said, we have an idea for you guys. You can do the play or you can do a movie, okay? We have a camera, we have editing equipment, and you guys can do a movie. And we were like, that sounds great, because you don't have to memorize your lines. You don't have to be on stage and all of that. So they said, okay, you guys come up with what you want your movie to be about. Come up with, like, a script or, like, a story idea. You know, we'll vote on which script we want to do.
[01:13:43] Speaker B: All right.
[01:13:44] Speaker A: So me, my brother, who was in school with me, and one of our friends wrote a script called attack of the mind.
[01:13:52] Speaker B: Okay.
[01:13:53] Speaker A: Okay. Which is about mimes opening a portal from the mime dimension and taking over the school and being fought by a group of plucky resistance kids.
[01:14:02] Speaker B: Right, right.
[01:14:03] Speaker A: And we were the only ones to write a script, so we made the movie.
[01:14:08] Speaker B: Okay.
[01:14:10] Speaker A: The reason why you bring it up now.
[01:14:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:14:12] Speaker A: The main theme for the movie was the Navy SeAL theme from the rock.
I guess a couple of 8th graders had seen the rock. I have not, of course, because it's rated r. Was this rated r?
[01:14:25] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. There's way too many f bombs for this to be pg 13.
[01:14:28] Speaker B: That's true. Good point. Yeah.
[01:14:30] Speaker A: Yeah. And so it was like the mime attack music. That was what we used.
[01:14:37] Speaker B: Oh, man.
[01:14:39] Speaker A: That was my first association with this movie a long time ago.
[01:14:43] Speaker C: Nice.
[01:14:44] Speaker B: Shall we get into our spy fact versus spy fiction?
Yeah.
[01:14:48] Speaker A: Well, Lance, we traditionally have the guests go first for these things. So do you have anything?
[01:14:54] Speaker C: I think I already brought most of mine up, and that was, in particular the Air Force f 18s.
That really drove me insane.
[01:15:07] Speaker A: Okay, so a little bit of backstory. So Connery, it took a little bit of convincing to get Sean Connery to do the movie.
Jerry Brookheimer, who produced the movie, really wanted him. The original script was much more serious and less fun, so they wanted to add more humor and make the character of John Mason to be more british, more similar to James Bond. Sorry. My source for this is the rock, the crucial rewrite that got Sean Connery on board. By Simon Brew October 2, 2020 from filmstories.com dot. So they basically rewrote the John Mason to be closer to that of James Bond. Like, they added the line about british intelligence. A little hints of zero zero seven in the dialogue. An example where he says, I was special services, military intelligence. They taught me to be a killer. In retrospect, I'd sooner have been a poet or a farmer. Infinitely more honorable professions.
[01:16:01] Speaker C: Of course.
[01:16:01] Speaker A: Sean Connery came on board, and then the movie was a big success.
[01:16:06] Speaker C: Here's a couple other things for you, then.
That one of the things that this is all coming from the rocks Wikipedia page. Connery wanted to bring in two additional writers who were british to rewrite his lines, but most of them got, got cut out anyway.
But also, according to this, actually Quentin Tarantino and Aaron Sorkin were brought in to, to help with the script, even though they were uncredited. And can you guess who one of the original actors who was thought to play Goodspeed?
[01:16:46] Speaker A: No idea.
[01:16:47] Speaker B: Oh, I just read this, but go ahead, Lance.
[01:16:51] Speaker C: Arnold Schwarzenegger.
[01:16:55] Speaker B: That would not have worked.
[01:16:56] Speaker C: That would not have worked it well. But apparently he turned down the role because he didn't like the script at all, which I think was probably the best thing for this script, actually.
[01:17:05] Speaker A: Okay, then the other thing I have is about atropine on Wikipedia. So I could not make heads or tails of some of this chemistry. Maybe you guys can. So this is, atropine is a tropane, alkaloid and anti clonagernic medication used to treat certain types of nerve agent and pesticides poisoning. It's also used for deal with slow heart rate and decrease saliva production during surgery.
Troops who were likely to be taken with chemical weapons would carry auto injectors with atropine rapid injection to the muscles of the thigh, kind of like an epiPen, so not the heart like in the movie. In the developed case of nerve gas poisoning, maximum atropine ization is desirable.
And there's a lot of chemistry, which I'm going to skip. But the last thing is atropine was added to cafeteria salt shakers in an attempt to pull. And the staff of radio for Europe during the cold War, which I thought.
[01:17:58] Speaker C: Was interesting, I can confirm the whole. Stabbing yourself in the thigh with the atropine, especially before I went to Iraq and Afghanistan, we had all type of training in courses we had to take, and they're obviously, especially in Iraq with the concern of nerve agents and so on and so forth. Yeah, we were issued atropine packets.
[01:18:24] Speaker A: Did you actually use it?
[01:18:25] Speaker C: God, no.
[01:18:27] Speaker A: Not even in training?
[01:18:29] Speaker C: No.
That was totally simulated they gave you.
It was almost like a child's toy. Like you would practice stabbing yourself. Yeah, but the injector would go. Not into your thigh, it would just go back up into the thing.
[01:18:45] Speaker B: That's the same thing like you have for like epi pens. You always, they always come with a practice injector. Yeah, that does that exact same thing.
[01:18:51] Speaker C: Yeah, sorry. Zach was right. The Max dose was so if you didn't think one was working, you had another one. And typically you weren't the one going to stab yourself with the second one. It was somebody else because you're after the first one kind of like how good speed was. He was. He was down for the count for a few seconds, and exposure, obviously, every second is critical.
[01:19:16] Speaker B: All right, so I've got a few things. So this is about Alcatraz itself from Wikipedia. So it's. Alcatraz island is a small island 1.25 miles offshore from San Francisco. Island was developed in the mid 19th century century with facilities for a lighthouse, a military fortification, and a military prison. In 1934, the island was converted into a federal prison. The strong currents around the island and cold water temperatures made escape nearly impossible, and the prison became one of the most notorious in american history. Prison closed in 1963, and the island is now a major tourist attraction for. I've got this from screen rant. The rock. Nine things that prove John Mason is really James Bond.
One, it's that James John Mason doesn't exist. There was no records of him anywhere because it's a code name. And so all of that, you know, cover theory are all the different differences in history. Like, you know, that he was SAS versus Navy, and all that is all just cover story, and he just remained in his cover.
And so the timeline of it is that said that he. So he escaped or he was imprisoned in 1962. So obviously, Doctor no was released in 1962, and from Rush with Love is released in 1963. So we find that he must have been imprisoned in Alcatraz before or after Doctor no. And then escaped and then did the from Russia with love mission. We actually even have a dropped line in from Russia with love that, you know, his girlfriend, Sylvia Trench, hasn't seen him in six months. Where was he in that six months? Imprisoned in Alcatraz.
[01:20:59] Speaker C: Interesting. But I do. I do have one more fact versus fiction.
[01:21:03] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, go ahead.
[01:21:04] Speaker C: Remember this? There were a number of times in. In the movie, especially when the marines were talking amongst themselves, where they were referred to each other as soldiers.
[01:21:15] Speaker B: Mm hmm.
[01:21:16] Speaker C: No self respecting Marine is going to refer to himself or his comrades as a soldier. They are Marine. 100% Marine.
[01:21:24] Speaker B: Yeah. Because Navy is sailors, air Force is airmen, and the Marines are just marines. Army is soldiers. Right.
[01:21:33] Speaker C: Correct.
[01:21:34] Speaker B: They never would have called themselves force is guardians.
[01:21:39] Speaker C: Guardians, yeah, yeah. Guardians of the Galaxy.
[01:21:44] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. So continuing with this list and continue with. So the timeline. So he stole the microfilm after his last Bond film. Timeline doesn't quite. Quite line up here within even just the rock itself, because, you know, the very last line is, you want to. He'll know who to kill. JFK. JFK and this. But Mason went in in 62. JFK did not get killed. Until 63.
[01:22:06] Speaker A: Yeah, but he stole the information about.
[01:22:08] Speaker B: It, about killing JFK.
[01:22:12] Speaker A: He's the one who did it.
[01:22:13] Speaker C: No, the timeline doesn't figure out if.
[01:22:16] Speaker B: There'S information on the microfilm about who just killed JFK before JFK ever died. But there's a drop line also that he was transferred in 72, so. Or he went into the prison in 72. So Sean Connery's last James Bond film is in 71. Diamonds are forever. So between 63 and 71, he's out, he's working. Although he does go to the US a bunch of times.
Yeah, so he gets recaptured in 72.
Also on this list, James Bond could have escaped Alcatraz. And that Mi six disavows agents if they get captured, as we saw, in diamonds or in die another day. Apparently one of the reasons is also the way he carried himself and their, you know, in their confidence and their approach to things. And the fact that he was with british intelligence. John's daughter. Hold on. I'm kind of curious about this one. If the theories to believe, it's hard to accept the great James Bond would have gotten captured and not attempt to escape. This is justified in one element. The fact that James Mason had a daughter. His daughter reveals she was conceived after one night stand he had with her mother, which is, of course, a very James Bond thing to do.
[01:23:28] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:23:29] Speaker B: Okay, so can you.
[01:23:31] Speaker C: But can you see James Bond going to a Leonard Skynyrd concert?
[01:23:34] Speaker B: So I presume that he was, it says in the bathroom outside of a Leonard Skinner concert. So maybe he wasn't at the concert. He was just passing by and found and picked her up.
[01:23:44] Speaker C: Stretch. But we can go with it.
[01:23:45] Speaker B: I don't know. Yeah, and let's see. Hummel attempts to trick him into giving up his identity. Oh. Because he calls him sailor, which we noted. And so maybe Mason or Hummel actually recognized a navy man when he saw once called him sailor. Tries to trick him into revealing who he really is, but he doesn't. He maintains his cover. But, yeah, I mean, if you want to talk about. I think if you're looking at it just as Sean Connery's, it could fit. It's a fun what if it's that he is James Bond or it's a what if of what happened. What would happen if James Bond had been in prison for 30 years and had. And you see him as an older man. All right, so other things I have for spy fact, for spy fiction.
In the break in to steal the vx gas, we see someone use a beanbag round.
Now, from wikipedia beanbag round, also known by its trademark name flexible baton round, is a type of baton rod fired from a shotgun and used for less lethal apprehension of suspects.
Now, they still can severely injure or kill in a variety of ways. They've caused around one death a year since their introduction in the US. A round could hit the chest, break the ribs and send the broken ribs of the heart. Shot to the head can break the nose, crush the larynx, or break the neck or skull of a subject. This is why many officers are taught to aim for extremities where using a beanbag round. It's interesting. I didn't know that.
Lastly, vx nerve gas.
[01:25:15] Speaker A: Oh, it's real. I thought. I assumed I made it up.
[01:25:18] Speaker B: No, this is from the CDC.
VX is a human made chemical warfare agent, classified as a nerve agent and is one of the most toxic, toxic of all nerve agents. Like all nerve agents, it interferes with the operation of an enzyme that stops muscles from contracting. When this enzyme does not work correctly, muscles are constantly stimulated with contuitous contraction. Muscles exposed people may become tired and no longer able to keep breathing.
So you can be exposed to it through skin contact, eye contact, or inhaling. In the VX vaporization, you can also be exposed to it by swallowing it like we see that one guy, or getting it on their skin or in their eyes. Retouching or eating food contaminated with VX can also expose you to it. Following the release of VX into water, people can be exposed by touching or drinking water that contains Vx. Which raises the point that all those missiles, those missile, that missile that went into the water, now that water in San Francisco is contaminated with the x.
Oh boy. Signs and symptoms include abnormally low or high blood pressure, blurred vision, chest tightness, confusion, cough, diarrhea, drooling eye plane, eye pain, eye tearing, excessive sweat, runny nose, vomiting, nausea, and enlarged doses include loss of consciousness, cardiac arrest, coma, convulsions, paralysis, seizures, twitching. Nothing about face melting though.
[01:26:45] Speaker A: Well, that's for the movie, I guess.
[01:26:47] Speaker B: Yeah. So what to do with your if you're exposed to it, get away from that area, go out. If it's outside, go inside, get it off your body right now, take off all layers of clothing and shower. Dry your face. Now, treatment consists of removing Vx from the. From it. From the body as soon as possible. Antidote Vx are available in a healthcare setting and their most useful is given as soon as possible after exposure. If someone has ingested Vx, do not induce vomiting.
Now apparently, VX actually breaks down slowly in the body. So repeated exposures can build up in the body. People who have had a low dose usually recover. People who have high doses may experience chronic or long lasting symptoms, such as muscle weakness, paralysis, pain, and pins and.
[01:27:36] Speaker C: Needle sensations, which will explain why in the formation that they were in. I mean, it wasn't just one little glass file. There were.
[01:27:46] Speaker B: I don't know how many. There's like 30 at least.
[01:27:49] Speaker C: At least. Yeah, 36 probably doesn't each rack.
[01:27:53] Speaker B: Yeah, that would make sense, because God.
[01:27:55] Speaker C: Knows military loves even numbers.
[01:27:58] Speaker B: Four individual strands. 1234-5678 910. So 40 of them.
[01:28:04] Speaker C: Okay.
[01:28:05] Speaker B: Yeah, that would do it. All right. But that is what I have for our spy fact versus spy fiction. Shall we move on to favorited quotes?
[01:28:12] Speaker A: Yeah. So, Lance, as our guest, would you like to go first?
[01:28:16] Speaker C: Sure. Had a couple. Actually, the one I already talked about earlier, it wasn't just a quote. It was that whole speech that Anderson was giving when they were confronting the marines in the shower.
The other was when Mason turns himself over to Hummelouse and humble is like, do you know who I am? Did they tell you why I'm doing this? Why I'm out here? Or they just using you like they did everybody else? Amazing. Responds with, all I know is that you were big in Vietnam. I saw the highlights on television.
Yeah, that was good. And the other one, this was a more funny one, back when Goodspeed and Carla were doing their thing, and he gets the phone call and that little fun session, and she was like, I am single and I'm pregnant. I'm Catholic. This does not sit well with me, Audrey.
[01:29:06] Speaker A: Michael Bay is Catholic.
[01:29:09] Speaker C: And the last one was. Was also from Mason when they first get him to the jail, and he's. He's talking to. I forget who it was, but he mentions the fact that I've been in jail longer than Nelson Mandela, so maybe you want me to run for president.
[01:29:25] Speaker B: Yes. That was a good line.
[01:29:27] Speaker A: It doesn't feel like the kind of thing Sean Cott or James Bond would say at all.
[01:29:31] Speaker B: I don't know.
[01:29:32] Speaker C: But those are. Those are my favorites.
[01:29:34] Speaker B: Nice. Zach, you want to go? Should I go?
[01:29:36] Speaker A: Yeah, why don't you go, Christian? Because I have a lot.
[01:29:38] Speaker B: All right. I also have a lot. So we'll see how much overlap we have. We talked about this earlier, but, you know, when Carla tells Stanley that he's pregnant and is like, did he really mean all that stuff I meant at the time. At the time? You said it seven and a half seconds ago. Well, gosh kind of lots happened since then.
And then I like from Hummel, we've achieved our position with poise, precision, and audacity. To this, we must now add resolve, which is a nice line from Womack. Call the San Francisco field office. It seemed Alcatraz has just reopened.
[01:30:18] Speaker A: I wonder if that was in the trailer.
[01:30:20] Speaker B: I'm sure it was from. I got two from Mason here. I want a sweet. A shower, a shave, and the feel of a shoot, which is really tying into the sh's. It's like it. It's. It's. Yeah, yeah. My last two are all from Mason, but I really like this one now, Womack, you're between the rock and the hard case.
[01:30:41] Speaker C: Yeah, that was. That was so good and so cheesy at the same time.
[01:30:44] Speaker B: And, of course, the line that was definitely in the trailers. Welcome to the doc.
[01:30:49] Speaker A: That actually reminds me of a dad joke, which is, for some people, prison is a word, but for others, it's a whole sentence.
You guys are dads. You can reuse that.
[01:31:01] Speaker C: No. No.
[01:31:04] Speaker B: All right, Zach, what do you got?
[01:31:05] Speaker A: Okay, so I like the beginning when he's playing the guitar. And she said, I had such an interesting day. And he said, yeah, I had kind of an interesting day myself. That was after the song and the bomb, when the barber said, all I want to know is, are you happy with your haircut?
[01:31:17] Speaker B: That's a good line. I enjoyed him there.
[01:31:20] Speaker C: That was so good.
[01:31:22] Speaker B: Good.
[01:31:23] Speaker A: Speed is messing up with the interrogation. And somebody says, well, at least he got his name right.
There's a good face off where Stan's pointing a gun at somebody. Or it might have been Mason, actually. And Mason says, I thought you weren't ready to kill. And Stan says, I'm warming up.
Warming up to it. And then finally, I think the president says at the end, a very interesting line. We are at war with terror.
Very interesting.
[01:31:50] Speaker B: Very prescient indeed.
[01:31:53] Speaker C: Which I thought that president's speech, too, was also kind of like giving in to that. They all still understood what Hummel was doing, not that they were praising him for doing it, but they're like, he's got a point.
[01:32:08] Speaker B: He's got a point.
[01:32:09] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. And we're basically going after one of our country's most respected and decorated heroes.
[01:32:18] Speaker B: Now, here's a. Okay, so speaking of rewriting the movie, Zach, would you have liked it if at the end there was like, you see, like a. Something like, you know, president signing some sort of executive order, disbursing monies to those 80, the families of those 83.
[01:32:34] Speaker A: Christian. I should have brought that up, and thank you for bringing it up. That would have been interesting.
[01:32:39] Speaker B: I would have liked that. And in my mind, I feel I thought that that did happen, but I guess I might have been thinking of a different movie where there's a bad guy who's like, has the, you know, you know, a good motivation, but the wrong way about doing it. And I'm like, that happened in some movie that I saw. I can't remember what it was.
[01:32:59] Speaker C: I would have rather the movie ended that way.
As opposed to, do you want to know, really know who killed JFK?
[01:33:07] Speaker A: Yeah. I like movies with that kind of, like, ambiguous an ending that leaves you feeling mixed feelings. Kind of like the arc going into the huge warehouse in the Lost Ark, like, producing that feeling. Or it's like. But. And then it's like, did Hummel really? Maybe he's the one who really won in the end?
[01:33:27] Speaker B: Mm hmm. Yeah.
[01:33:28] Speaker C: Oh, no, exactly. That have been. That have been fabulous.
[01:33:31] Speaker B: That would have made the movie better.
[01:33:33] Speaker A: Then the movie is also, like, saying terrorism works, though, if you do that.
[01:33:36] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that that's. There's the lot. Well, yeah, so it's. It's a true. It's a slippery slope.
[01:33:41] Speaker C: Yeah. But it could also been like, you know, we realized that we were making mistakes, and how we got here, granted, was. Was horrible and shitty, but we're going to still make it, right somehow.
[01:33:53] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:33:54] Speaker C: Yeah, but. Yes. Yeah. Zach, your point of, you know, terrorist winning at the end would have been a bad message.
[01:34:00] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, they may have gotten away with it more before 911 than after.
[01:34:07] Speaker C: True. And it's not exactly like the details of what happened at Alcatraz would have been.
[01:34:16] Speaker B: That's true. That's true.
[01:34:17] Speaker C: It would have been public knowledge.
[01:34:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:34:19] Speaker C: They'd have been on a microfilm for someone later to steal and have the rock, too.
[01:34:24] Speaker B: Actually, I was reading, apparently Michael Bay had a script idea for a sequel to the rock that never got past the concept stage.
God's Goodspeed and Mason, chased by the government after escaping due to possession of the microfilm.
[01:34:41] Speaker A: At least it's not the same movie again.
[01:34:43] Speaker B: Yeah, it would be different. Yeah.
[01:34:45] Speaker C: I think what you just described was almost national treasure.
[01:34:48] Speaker B: Yeah. Which, I mean, he did. He did not like, what is that movie that I'm thinking of where there's, you know, there's a bad guy who had a. Who had a point, and, you know, at the end, they actually do sort of honor his wishes?
[01:35:03] Speaker C: I'm not sure I would need.
[01:35:04] Speaker B: No idea. I will think about. So shall we go to our reviews?
[01:35:09] Speaker A: Yes. And as time for ratings, on a scale of one to ten martinis, one being Avengers 1998 and ten being even better than mission Impossible goes protocol, how would we rate the rock? Lance, as our guest, would you like to go first? You don't have to.
[01:35:24] Speaker B: Oh, no.
[01:35:24] Speaker C: Okay, I'll go first.
Why mess with tradition?
I actually. I mean, I really enjoyed the movie. I thought was a really good action film.
It didn't pretend to be anything else. But really, I, like I mentioned earlier, I loved the fact that Homo's character was a relatable bad guy. That you. You understood why he was doing it. May not have agreed with what he was doing, but why.
So that was good. You said the whole shower room scene is one of my more favorite scenes of movies, period.
[01:35:58] Speaker B: Out of context, that sentence.
What?
[01:36:01] Speaker A: Those shower room scenes?
[01:36:03] Speaker C: Yeah. I realized as soon as I said it, that was probably not the best phrasing ever.
And saying in saying it, you know, the shower scene with the Navy guys would have been. Made it worse.
Little service, humor. But, I mean, there was. There was still enough to where certain things I just couldn't get past the Nicholas cages. I, like Zack said earlier, I definitely could have done with that. I thought it actually detracted from the movie a bit.
You know, the whole f 18 Air Force thing. I think I've made my feelings well known about that. But overall, like I said, I really enjoyed the movie. So I'm going to go with six and a half, but convinced to go up to seven martinis.
[01:36:48] Speaker B: Six and a half or seven?
[01:36:49] Speaker C: I'll go six and a half. Because like I said, the Air force thing really bothers me.
[01:36:53] Speaker B: All right, fair enough. Fair enough.
[01:36:55] Speaker A: All right, Zach, I thought this movie was quite good. I know it had a very good reputation, and I think it held up quite well. Villain was interesting. It's die hard in a prison, but that's okay.
The dynamic between Mason and Stan was good. I didn't really care for the Nicolas cages. I feel like you could have replaced him with someone other than Arnold Schwarzenegger, and it would have probably been just fine. There was a little bit of inconsistent character writing that I mentioned, but it really didn't bother me all that much. I think the movie is quite good. I will give it an eight out of ten martinis.
[01:37:31] Speaker B: Okay.
[01:37:32] Speaker C: I think this may be the first time that Zach has ever rated a movie higher than me.
[01:37:37] Speaker B: Yeah, that's gotta be a record of some sort.
[01:37:40] Speaker C: Well, then that case, I gotta bump it up to seven to make it more respectable.
[01:37:43] Speaker B: All right.
[01:37:44] Speaker A: Air Force inconsistencies doesn't bother me that much. And, Christian, before you give your readings, I am calling you out. Gonna call you out right now for our.
So, last time in August, we did confessions of a dangerous mind, and you gave it a very low rating because it was not a good spy movie.
[01:38:02] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:38:03] Speaker A: So in order to be consistent, I expect you to give this movie a two out of ten because there's effectively no spying in it. So.
[01:38:11] Speaker B: Oh, let's hear it.
[01:38:13] Speaker A: What's your end?
[01:38:14] Speaker B: Oh, come on, Zach.
[01:38:17] Speaker C: I mean, fair's fair.
[01:38:18] Speaker B: It's fair. Yes, it's a fair point. But also, this is a much more fun watch than confessions of a dangerous mind.
[01:38:28] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I understand that. I'm just saying. Are you reading it as a spy movie or not? This is picket.
[01:38:34] Speaker B: Okay. Well, I mean, it depends. See, as always in our. Here, our definitions of spy movies are really, really broad.
Does it mean that it's a movie which contains spies? Does it mean a movie where there is actual intelligence work?
I mean, I will say that there.
[01:38:56] Speaker A: Right. I always rated that as.
I just read it as the movie.
[01:39:01] Speaker B: Okay.
[01:39:01] Speaker A: I don't have any sort of criteria.
[01:39:03] Speaker B: Personally, see, because, I mean, I. Conventions of dangerous mind. Yes. He's working for the CIA. He's an assassin. So he's not carrying out any actual intelligence work. Here we have John Mason, who is british intelligence. You know, he's not just a contract agent. He is british intelligence also. He is providing intelligence, and they name it as such. Ba to, you know, command. Captain. Commander. Commander Anderson.
[01:39:31] Speaker C: Yeah, commander.
[01:39:32] Speaker B: Commander. Commander Anderson. And he asked, and he's telling him, I need that intel. Also, we do have off screen, the theft of microfilm. Microfilm, obviously, very important in intelligence work, especially during the Cold War.
[01:39:46] Speaker A: So there's more than it seems.
[01:39:48] Speaker B: There's more spy action than it seems. Granted, there's, of course, a lot of action there if you dive deep into it. More definitely more so than confessions of a dangerous mind. There is actual. There is actual intelligence elements in this film right now. And I actually did not have any of that prepped, but I did have a feeling you were going to call me out.
But that was all off the top of my head.
[01:40:15] Speaker A: Hold on.
[01:40:17] Speaker B: So, like you, I did enjoy this film a lot. It is.
It is probably Michael Bay's best film, and that is coming from someone who does have a huge soft spot for Pearl harbor. But I. But I do believe this is probably his best film.
[01:40:33] Speaker C: Agreed.
[01:40:35] Speaker B: And, I mean, granted, you know what, the first transformers that you decent. Everything else after that, complete trash.
[01:40:42] Speaker C: Also agreed.
[01:40:43] Speaker B: Older Sean Connery here, even if he isn't playing, if he isn't explicit name is James Bond. It's definitely a James Bond type of role for him and to get him to see him playing that. And, you know, what was he, 60 something at this point? Yeah. Yeah. So you get to see what he. How he would play an older James Bond is a lot of fun. And it's. It's. It's a fun movie. It's great action. I enjoy. I really do like, you know, Hummel and his perspective because obviously, you know, it's something that really important. And like, I, you know, I quoted Top Gun, you know, this. But, you know, basically, this is kind of what happened to Mavericks. You know? Mavericks, dad, he was, you know, over killed in a conflict over the wrong line and one on some map, and he didn't. His family didn't get any benefits from it, and he also had to live with that reputation. So. So I really like that aspect of it. And I think it's a real solid movie. So I'm gonna give it an eight as well.
[01:41:42] Speaker A: Very nice.
[01:41:43] Speaker B: I think if they had ended like I had proposed, I would have bumped it up to a nine.
[01:41:50] Speaker A: That would. That would have been good, too.
[01:41:52] Speaker B: Before we end, I just found this on Wikipedia.
This movie was remade in India.
[01:41:59] Speaker A: Oh, really?
[01:42:00] Speaker B: As city under threat in 2003.
Huh.
We're watching this, right?
[01:42:10] Speaker A: Sure.
[01:42:11] Speaker B: I'm very like, is it really a remake? I've. I will investigate, glance through the. Through that. Through the Wikipedia summary, but I seems to be.
Oh, nevermind. Okay. All right. There is someone who has to. They have to recruit someone who has previous experience of escaping a jail that had never been escaped.
And there are missiles involved. All right, you know what? It's a remake. Yeah, let's. Let's. Let's get. Let's get on that because that sounds fun.
Finally.
[01:42:45] Speaker A: We've been looking for a Bollywood movie for a long time.
[01:42:48] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, I will watch it, but I. I'm probably going to need something stronger than ice tea this time.
[01:42:55] Speaker B: I don't know. I mean, we've. We've had some fun. We've had a lot of fun with our previous indian movie experience, although they were much more serious.
[01:43:03] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:43:04] Speaker B: And this one seems like a crazy action film, which sounds like a lot of fun.
[01:43:08] Speaker A: Yeah. Bollywood has a reputation for crazy action movies. Just look at RR, for example.
[01:43:13] Speaker B: Ah, well, that. That's not Bollywood. That's Hollywood. Just to, you know, make sure. Yeah, but, yeah, Lance, anything you want to promote or hype fire here, just.
[01:43:26] Speaker C: My usual rescuing, especially in adopting senior cats and dogs. Like I always mentioned, you know, everyone wants the kitten because they're. They're cute and cuddly as they are. But, you know, at least with. With the older cat, you know what you're getting. They're lovable. I've got three rescue cats myself. Two, if you're listening and you're part of the apartment complex leasing office. I only have two, so. Yeah, definitely. If you're looking for a great companion, definitely. Highly recommend a senior cat or senior dog.
[01:44:02] Speaker B: Great. Thanks, Lance.
[01:44:04] Speaker C: Thank you.
[01:44:05] Speaker A: Well, thank you for joining us here on the spy fi guys. You can find us on social media at thespy guys, on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and our merch
[email protected], until next time, I'm Zach.
[01:44:17] Speaker B: And I'm Christian.
[01:44:18] Speaker A: And we are the spy fi guys signing off.
[01:44:26] Speaker B: 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 McClellan from incompetech.com, licensed under Creative Commons by attribution.
Films, books, and television shows reviewed by our podcasts are the intellectual property of their respective copyright holders, and no infringement is intended.
[01:44:53] Speaker A: 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.
[01:45:18] Speaker B: You can find our podcast on social media at thespyfi guys on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
