Transcript

Sully (Commando)

Kiss my ass.

Matrix (Commando)

I can't hear you.

Sully (Commando)

I'll say it a little louder then, get fucked.

Matrix (Commando)

Listen, loyalty is very touching, but it is not the most important thing in your life right now. But what is important is gravity. I have to remind you, Sully, this is my weak arm.

Sully (Commando)

You can't kill me Matrix. You need me to find your daughter.

Matrix (Commando)

Where is she?

Sully (Commando)

I don't know. But Cooke does. I'll take you where I'm supposed to meet him.

Matrix (Commando)

But you won't.

Sully (Commando)

Why not?

Matrix (Commando)

Because I already know. Remember Sully, when I promised to kill you last?

Sully (Commando)

That's right, Matrix, you did.

Matrix (Commando)

I lied.

Steve

It's 2 Dads 1 Movie. It's the podcast where two middle aged dads sit around and shoot the shit about the movies of the 80s and 90s. Here are your hosts, Steve Paulo and Nic Briana. Hello everybody. Welcome to another episode of 2 Dads 1 Movie. I'm Steve.

Nic

And I'm Nic.

Steve

And today we're talking about the movie Commando from 1985. We're wrapping up the month of January with, I don't know, in some ways maybe like the most quintessential Arie action flick. Like it just feels like such an Arnold action movie. Right?

Nic

Yeah, for sure. I definitely would describe this as kind of the, the most condensed, like the purely distilled version of Arnie that you can find. This is Black Tar Arnie. You know, if you love what Arnie does, this has a lot for you. Yeah, so I can't wait to talk about this one, man.

Steve

We'll get into it in just a minute. Before we do, I want to say to listener, hey out there, go check out our website@2dads1movie.com. We've got all kinds of stuff going on there, including if you sign up for an account, you can see sneak previews of upcoming episodes. You can explore the connections between the films that we've covered. Look at things like our stats, which is really interesting. It shows like how many times we've given fives to movies that are totally undeserving of it. You can totally rag us for it. You can reach, reach straight out and contact us from there. So check it out. 2dads1movie.com. The number two and the number one. Okay, this is Commando. This is Janu, Arnie and Nic. This was your choice. So tell us a little bit about your history with Commando.

Nic

Yeah, I might have picked this one up on TV at some point in my teens, but definitely in college. This is where my love of Commando really accelerated. We had know very few DVDs to choose from. And if you were tired of somebody showing you the Matrix or the beginning of Saving Private Ryan over and over, yet to watch actual cinema sometimes.

Steve

True.

Nic

And that's where Commando stepped in. I just feel like this gives you such a great spectrum of Arnie's stuff, good and bad.

Steve

Right.

Nic

And this movie is just not very serious. And it's. I appreciate I told you this before, since we started the podcast. I appreciate a 90 minute movie so much now. Like it gets an extra star for being 90 minutes generally, you know.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

But yeah, so it was fun and we would always watch it and we would like bust on it, like make jokes during it and stuff. So this was like, really a part of my, like, early 20s and I've loved it since then.

Steve

That's fantastic.

Nic

What about you, Steve?

Steve

The first time that I saw the movie Commando was three days ago.

Nic

Amazing.

Steve

Somehow this one missed me. I'm not even really sure how. Like, like I said, like we saw Predator a few weeks ago and talked about it. That's like one of my favorite movies of all time. I adore Predator. I love movies. Like, I mean, all the movies we've. For January, True Janu, Arnie, True Lies, and Total Recall, whatever. There's so good Terminator and Terminator 2.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

I grew up loving Arnold Schwarzenegger. Somehow for some reason I never watched Commando. I don't know why, but now I have. Yeah, we'll leave it at that for now. Let's get into the episode. How about just the facts on Commando? Here we go. The movie Commando was released on October 3, 1985 with an R rating and a running time, Nic, as you said, of exactly 90 minutes. It is really a. It's a sweet spot. Right? Directed by Mark L. Lester and written by Stephen E. D', Souza, who we've seen before. He, of course, the screenwriter for Die Hard, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ray Don Chong and Dan Hadiah. Scores on Rotten Tomatoes, 68%. That's a respectable fresh score. Not too bad. IMDb. IMDb. A 6.7. It's so funny. They sound so similar, right? 6.7 out of 10? 68 out of 100. Really? A 6. 7 on IMDb. Oh. Oh, my kids aren't listening. Thank God. 6 7. That score on IMDb is actually kind of on the low side.

Nic

Right.

Steve

Compared to a 68 on rotten tomatoes, which is a little better. We get a thumbs down from Gene Siskel and a thumbs up from Roger Ebert on Commando did not win any awards, at least nothing I could Find worth mentioning, however, it was nominated for a 1986 Saturn Award. And if you've listened to the show, you know the Saturn Awards are kind of sci fi, fantasy action, kind of sometimes horror like focused award show.

Nic

We have a lot of Saturn Award nominees on our show.

Steve

It's just like our milieu maybe. Exactly. It was nominated for the 1986 Saturn Award for best special Effects. It did not win, but it was nominated on a frankly incredibly modest budget. Even an 85 of $10 million. It brought in 57.5 million at the box office, 5.75 times what it cost. Just definitely a blockbuster. No doubt about it. Especially at rated R. You don't tend to see as many multi hundred millions or whatever on a rated R film.

Nic

Absolutely.

Steve

A couple extra facts on this. I'm going to start throwing in a few of these here and there. Arnold himself reportedly was paid $2 million for this movie. So 20% of the film's budget went to paying its star. And then of course Jenny Arnold's character, John Matrix, his daughter is played by at the time, 13 year old Alyssa Milano, who we all know and love. But many other actresses, mostly in a similar age range at the time, were also auditioned for the role. Winona Ryder who was 14 at the time. Shannon Doherty, also 14. Elizabeth Shue who was 22 when she auditioned. And that would have been a little, that would have been a different story maybe.

Nic

Yeah, you would have had to shoehorn her into that role.

Steve

Hey. Oh. Similarly too old for this role. Patricia arquette who was 17, Drew Barrymore who was 10 and Jennifer Connelly who was 15. They all auditioned for the role of Jenny Matrix. Uh, and then last thing, 1985 in general, this was the year that started. I don't know. I know this was a thing when I was, you know, growing up. I'm sure it was for you too, Nic. Stallone versus Schwarzenegger used to play in our friends backyards. It was more like Rambo vs Schwarzenegger because Stallone's main kind of big, big super soldier role was John Rambo. But that started the 85 started that sort of paradigm because Rambo First Blood Part 2 also came out in 1985. Of course it did like 300 million or something in the body was massive hit compared to Commando. But it did kind of start off like hey look, there's these two muscle bound idiots who play super soldiers. Let's, let's continue to compare them for the rest of their careers.

Nic

Well, in Rambo too, I mean he definitely that's where he became this kind of Superman soldier guy. Just the way that John Matrix is in Commando.

Steve

Absolutely.

Nic

Who I don't think until the very end even gets a scratch on him, which is what I love there. You're not. You're not going to. I got a big ass grin on my face because I cannot wait to dive into this fucking movie. Are we ready to. Ready to roll.

Steve

Kick it off, man. All right, kick it off.

Nic

So cold open. We love cold open. A lot of fine cinema has it and it really gets at a key part of the human condition. As somebody who's in charge of the garbage for their household, which is waking up in the morning to the sound of a garbage truck down the street that you did not prepare for.

Steve

Right.

Nic

There's almost nothing worse than that. I'd say maybe like a really loud fire alarm, but even then, a lot of times you're false alarm. You're rarely like false garbage truck. But so basically garbage trucks coming down the street. And you see this man kind of struggling to bring his garbage down.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And he's dragging his barrels down and he says to the garbage men, oh, I was afraid you'd miss me. And then one of our favorites, Bill Duke, steps off the back of the truck, very calmly pulls like a machine gun out of the back of it, says, don't worry, we won't. And then they just mow him down.

Steve

Yeah, a couple things. First of all, they're Uzis, which is just like such. I think, I feel like it's the classic 80s action film Overkill Gun. Like, no. And there is no point at which an Uzi is used. And yeah, that's definitely the appropriate tool for the job. Like, you. You needed the Uzi.

Nic

Right?

Steve

Right. It's always like, we're going to make a show of it, you know, kind of thing. And yes, I. When he popped on screen, I literally wrote in my notebook, one of my first notes is, is that Bill Duke.

Nic

Yay.

Steve

Do love.

Nic

I love Bill Duke.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

So then kind of continuing the cold up. And basically what we find out later is these are like the former members of John Matrix's his team that are all kind of getting killed in. In very funny ways by Bill Duke. The. The next thing he does is he's at a Cadillac dealership. So these are his. His lines to start the movie are, don't worry, we won't. And I like Cadillacs. I mean, he is like putting a Shaquille o' Neal level Shakespearean acting display on here.

Steve

Hey, Chuck, you Know, you know what I like best about the Cadillac, Chuck? I like the price.

Nic

The price. So. So, you know, he kills the. The car dealer guy. And then it shows this other guy getting on a fishing boat, right. Drives away and his boat blows up. So that's our cold open. And now we kind of start into the credits.

Steve

Yeah, we get. We get four minutes into the movie. We've got three bodies.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And the body count in this is ludicrously high. I did not do the math. I don't know if you did it or not or looked it up, but it is a lot of bodies. We start fast.

Nic

We'll talk about the math a little later.

Steve

But yeah, so my, my note, what I noticed. Right.

Nic

So what do you think?

Steve

The cold open's great. I loved all this stuff. It is a little, you know, if you don't know, as I did not going in kind of the storyline, it's a little confusing as what exactly is happening here. But it gets cleared up fairly quick. And you know, when we start into the kind of title sequence, credit sequence thing, it's just a lot of Arnold biceps carrying a log. Like, I don't know, it's a trunk.

Nic

A telephone pole sized log.

Steve

It's a tree trunk, really, is what it is.

Nic

And I think this might answer our question from the Predator episode about his ability to hoist that other much smaller tree trunks, like up into the tree.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Is. Is. Are John Matrix and Dutch the same guy? Similar.

Nic

They certainly are the showcase of Arie, right? The total like bicep close ups and all this stuff. And then, you know, he sees a reflection in his axe and it looks like, oh, he's going to have to turn around and plop it into somebody's forehead. But then it's just his beautiful daughter and they're hugging and then the music changes and there's this like hilarious scene of like daddy daughter tenderness. Over the top. Cheesy, right?

Steve

It's like Arnold Schwarzenegger is suddenly playing Snow White like this. And Jenny's one of the dwarfs. These are all his woodland pals.

Nic

It is. It is insane. And a couple things about this scene, all right, this was one that killed us back in the day. And the scene of them just like hand feeding the deer. So we would always say like, you know, oh, Arnie feeding the deer. That was a thing.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

The first time I ever went to Vegas, we were at a blackjack table. One of our roommates from college almost blackout drunk. And the dealer was named Arnie. And he kept Saying, feed the deer Arnie. Feet. Feed the deer. Feed the deer, Arnie. And he got kicked out of the casino for pulling cigarettes out of the Ashtrans. Fucking. It was very bad. But anyway, feed the deer Arnie was great. Number two, the playful daddy daughter ice cream date.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

Where she smashes the ice cream into his face. I picture like an alternate version of this movie where it's like him and Bill Paxton in True Lies where it makes him so mad that he just smashes her face on the table and then like snaps back into reality. So that stuff really makes me laugh.

Steve

I feel like. I feel like the middle ground would be even funnier. It's like if he looks upset with her and just goes, what are you doing? Why would you do that to my face? Don't you want your ice cream? Yeah, I love. So then she makes him a sandwich and there's kind of like. It's like them at the house. I mean, in general, it's really. It's really cute. Right. And it gives us this understanding of the. Of Arnold's character. I don't think we got a name of yet, but John Matrix and his current, you know, living situation, which is clearly. This is his daughter. You know, he loves her very much. She clearly loves him very much. And they're just coexisting. It looks like, you know, somewhere near like Bear Mountain or something like Southern California, but up in the mountains. And, you know, it's like this really wonderful, sweet sort of thing. She makes him a sandwich, though. And this is. I've got two kids who, you know, like to help cook and they want to do more and more of that. And it's, you know, we're letting them do as much kind as they can. Yeah, they're a little younger than her. Alyssa Milano was 13 when she filmed this. So I'm just assuming the characters around there and my kids are a little younger. But when. When he. When she puts the sandwich down in front of him and he goes, what's in this? And she says, you don't want to know. I was like, yes, I do. Now I want to know even more now. I absolutely must know before I'm putting this thing in my mouth. What the fuck is in this sandwich? Yeah, like, how can you. How can you just be like, okay, I'll eat this anyway.

Nic

Bites into it. But I have food allergies. No, it has shellfish.

Steve

No. Tree nuts.

Nic

Oh, my God. Yeah. Really good. And then. And then. This is a great 80s joke here. So he's flipping through one of her teen like magazines and had Boy George on the COVID And he says, why don't they just call him Girl George? It would cut off all the confusion. It's like, what a perfect, like, dad joke. But for a dad in 85, that's a fire joke.

Steve

It is, it is. It is. It is funny how few years it takes for like a very innocent sounding dad pun to go like, is this like transphobic? Like, what are we like, you know, are we like. This is. Do we really need to do this?

Nic

Yeah, yeah.

Steve

It doesn't take that many years to get there.

Nic

But it's also, I mean, right down the middle of the plate. The guy's name is Boy George.

Steve

Stephen d' Souza got better with his one liners. I feel like this was the, this was the warm up to Die Hard.

Nic

Exactly.

Steve

His writing got much better in Die.

Nic

Hard, Steven d' Souza's minor league movie here. So, so all this, like, perfect, you know, oh, daddy, I love you. I just want to live here in the mountains peacefully forever. I'm so glad you're forever retired from the military.

Steve

Fore.

Nic

You hear a helicopter coming off from the distance.

Steve

Right?

Nic

So it. But it's, you know, a friendly helicopter.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And basically General Kirby, who is wearing the shittiest looking bit of uniform I've ever seen. It's just like a black sweater with a name tag and like two stars. But then the other guys have cool ass uniforms on.

Steve

But he's got those cool like shoulder pads, sort of reinforced parts on his sweater. Pretty good.

Nic

I.

Steve

Pretty good.

Nic

You know, I feel like if you're with the camouflage guys, you got to be in the camouflage version of your. But you know, it was a real mission. So basically, basically Kirby comes and he, he's Matrix's former commander and he's like, hey, you know, someone's snuffing out all the members of your team. So we sent our two, you know, two of our best guys here to protect you. So. So he's protected forever.

Steve

Yes, totally protected forever. So Kirby goes to leave after, you know, saying, hey, we'll leave these, these guys with you and everything will be fine. And I think before the helicopter has even crested the hill in the distance, John looks up and, and kind of raises his, uh, his face to the wind like a, like a, like a predator hunting prey. And then, you know, dives to the ground, I believe as snipers kill the two or at least shoot the two soldiers, killing one of them. And you know, they're able to, they're under attack now, but, you know, they're able to sort of kind of get away. He's able to. To get Jenny momentarily to safety. Yeah. But yeah, they're under attack. And it was like, I love the soldiers. There's something about like, you know, he's like, you know, you're downwind. Use that to your advantage, you know, he's like, what is it downwind? Do you think I'll smell them? He goes, I did.

Nic

Is the best. He's all the Predator team in one guy. So that's his Billy. He's the Voltron that becomes of all the Predator guys.

Steve

That's so sick. Because he's got the bad jokes of Blaine and Hawkins mixed together. He's got, you know, Max, sort of like one light threatening one liners.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

He's got Billy's tracking, you know, and if we asked him to, he could probably speak Spanish. Like poncho. That's right.

Nic

And he. And he has Dylan and Dutch's biceps, one on each. So. So he's basically like, all right, chill out a minute. I gotta go get my guns in the shed. And he has like, great armory. Gunship.

Steve

Yeah, great armory. I'm, you know, frankly just spoiler, I guess, but disappointed that doesn't come back later. Yeah, we never go back to that. I'm like, that is such a cool armory that he's got, like, at his mountain house.

Nic

Definitely, definitely. Very, very Arnie. You could tell he helped design that. But basically this happened incredibly fast. He gets upstairs, the one guard that was wounded and kind of survived, like, just falls out of the door.

Steve

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Nic

And then one of the bad guys is sitting there holding this, like, little paper heart that his daughter had put on the fridge. You know, I love Daddy. And he's just like, hey, man, relax. Everything's cool. And they're driving down the hill with his daughter. She's been kidnapped. So he basically says, hey, if you want your kid back, you better cooperate. Right. And then Arnie.

Steve

Wrong, Wrong.

Nic

Blast him away.

Steve

Oh, man.

Nic

Okay, real quick. And then I'll. And then I'll hand it over. So he's got to go pursue these guys. And they're going down the hill and he runs out to his car.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

And of course, they've disabled his car. This was one of the things that, when we were watching in college, killed me, and we still quote to this day. So during the scene, he reaches in and pulls out like the distributor cap or whatever was just loosened, right?

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And our friend Brian Bush said they put wires in My car. And any of the dudes that I went to school with, like, to. To this day would know that. So they put wires in his car, and he basically, okay, well, I'm just gonna roll this thing down the hill and see what happens.

Steve

He's gonna ghost ride the whip. Yeah. He's a big hyphae fan. And he's. You know, this is. I know this is before Mac Dre, you know, by quite a few years, but that's okay.

Nic

He's shorty.

Steve

There you go. Oh, yeah. Tell me when to go. Right now. Go ahead. Now. So, yeah, he gets in and he's like, well, if I can't drive the vehicle, I am on top of a mountain, basically. Maybe I can just ride it down. This actually reminded me of. There was. In high school, I was hanging out with some. Some folks. You would know them as well. We were hanging out at Jay Patura's house up in. Up in Blackhawk or near there, where there's a lot of hills and stuff.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And someone decided, hey, I bet we could coast out of here all the way to the guard house at the bottom. And it's like, okay, yeah, we probably could because it's, like, pretty high. So I'm in the car behind, driving, and then one of our friends in the car in front of. And I'm coasting, which includes, of course, utilizing the brakes.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Just not the gas.

Nic

Right.

Steve

As I watch the car in front of me careen towards, you know, a turn, slam into the curb, breaking the front axle of the vehicle. Like, it was the most ridiculous thing. It was like, so what do you think coasting means? Was kind of the conversation we had afterwards you should have had before. But that's what 17 year olds do.

Nic

He gets out, he's like, which one.

Steve

Of y' all put wires in my car? Exactly. But he. Odd. They also, as it turns out for Mr. Matrix here, they also cut his brakes, which is. Which is a problem because, you know, I was thinking to myself, well, at least he still has his brakes. He'll be able to control his scent.

Nic

No, he's controlling a little. He's doing some, like, type moves a little bit. But, yeah, I mean, he's trying, but luckily his timing is pretty good.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And he kind of causes an accident with them. His Blazer immediately explodes, and then he climbs up a hill unarmed, and there's like six guys with machine guns pointed at him, and he just grabs the end of. It's like a kid where the parents pointing in their face and the kid Grabs the finger.

Steve

Plus, I'm pretty sure machine gun barrels get hot. Not 100% sure because I'm not a gun connoisseur, but I do think there's heat involved in the. In the firing of a weapon.

Nic

Yeah. Yeah. So basically they end up, you know, overcoming him and they. They tranquilize him.

Steve

That's right.

Nic

But before he's knocked out, he sees the face of this really Freddy Mercury looking guy who's wearing, like, a chainmail vest and he's like his old teammate Bennett. And we get the great Bennett. I thought you were dead. You thought wrong.

Steve

John did.

Nic

The great Vernon Wells. I mean, he's been in a lot of movies that we, like, had a hell of a couple seasons with the Toronto Blue Jays alongside Jose Bautista.

Steve

Might be a different Vernon Wells.

Nic

Not sure.

Steve

We'll have to look into that. We'll have to look into that. Well, here's the thing, though. I got, I gotta say, my first introduction to one of the two big villains of the movie. I'm gonna call myself less than impressed. Yeah, Bennett is not particularly muscular. He's actually quite soft in the middle. I argue that is not a chainmail vest. Looking closely at it, it really looks like it's crocheted. Like, it's just fabric. I think it's made of yarn.

Nic

It's his version of chainmail, I suppose.

Steve

So he's got the, you know, psychotic Australian Freddie Mercury mustache, the fingerless gloves, the leather pants, and the crocheted pullover vest. This is the least intimidating bad guy of any movie I've ever seen. Least intimidating.

Nic

He is. He is hilarious. It's really funny. And all your points are well taken, especially the not muscular thing. And like, I'm sorry, we saw Predator. There are plenty of guys you could have casted that. I mean, imagine a bad Jesse Ventura or a bad Carl Weathers or something.

Steve

Even Shane Black, who wasn't particularly buff, still had a more imposing figure than Bennett does.

Nic

It's a really funny version of the character. And he always, always cracks me up. I love all the choices they made. He looks like he's in Mad Max Furry Road.

Steve

Right. Which, of course, he was in the Road Warrior. So.

Nic

Yeah. Oh, God. So. So they kidnap. They kidnap.

Steve

Right.

Nic

John Matrix. And basically, the point is. All right, we need you, Dan Hadiah.

Steve

Who?

Nic

I don't know if we need to say anything about Dan.

Steve

I mean, I love Dan Hadiah, but he will, for me, always be Cher's dad in Clueless. More than any other particular role, I'm sure That is not. You know, I'm sure if you asked people who are real big Dan Hadiah fans, that would not be. Yeah, right. The signature role of his career for them. But for me, it always will be. That character is so funny to me in that movie. And, you know, we'll obviously get to. To that high school comedy someday on the show. But yeah, Dan Hadiah is here and look, I like him. He's a good actor. What is going on with this accent?

Nic

I swear to God, there was no coaching other than I just do an accent.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Like, it doesn't make any sense.

Steve

It's wild. It's wild. I wrote down in particular after writing a note that Dan Hadi's accent is kind of trash. Velasquez. He keeps pronouncing this. This person that they want John to go assassinate in their country of Valverde, which, by the way, and looking it up, I found out is actually also the location of Predator. The fictional Central American nation of Valverde is where they have to go across the border in Predator to go. It was used in several other movies.

Nic

Actually, that I see that it was. Yeah. That they made it up for this or this was the first appearance, but it's been another.

Steve

Exactly. It was a pretty common, like generic Central American banana republic. Yeah. Right. For. For 80s movies. And so. So, yeah. So they need to go. He need. They want John to go to Valverde where apparently he had operated in the past. So these guys all know him, you know, whatever. And assassinate the current leader. So that Dan Hadia's character, Arus or something like that. Yeah. Gets to become. Yeah. Gets like take back over maybe. I think he must be like an exiled despot, basically.

Nic

Totally.

Steve

So this is the thing and John'. No, I'm not going to do that. That's crazy. Like, whatever. He's like, well, you know, basically you don't. We'll kill your daughter. And so there's. The plan is to get him on an airplane.

Nic

Yep.

Steve

And two guys will go with him to the airport and one of them will travel with him all the way to Valverde. And so then there's a guy who needs to see him get on the plane and. And basically call in to say, yeah, he got on the plane, we're good. Then 11 hours later they say they're going to land in Valverde and the guy getting off the plane with them has to call in. Yeah. Be like, we're here, he's here, blah, blah, blah. I'll let you know when the job's done. And the idea is like, hey, if either of those don't happen, your daughter's dead. Right? Like, we're killing her, like, not playing around. So it's like, you know, look, you got to do what you got to do. Like, you know, they've got her. He can't, he can't escape with her right now. He's got no way out. So let's go for it, I guess.

Nic

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, he's all right. Well, he's, he's stuck, at least in the beginning of this plan. Quickly, it flashes back to his house, where Kirby and the other army guys have arrived to see kind of the carnage there. And Kirby just quickly asked the guy, any sign of Matrix? And the other guy goes, no, just bodies. And he's like, are there any. Should we look for any more or whatever? He's like, if Matrix is involved, you're gonna expect a lot more. Like, oh, I love. It's just like Colonel Troutman and Rambo. So, I mean, this is, this is Schwarzenegger's Rambo, too.

Steve

There are so many parallels between this.

Nic

Okay, so, so these couple guys here that are set to take Arie to the airport. Richards is the, the tall black dude in, like, the safari looking outfit. It looks like. That's not for a mean guy. That's for, like, a cool, fun guy to wear, you know, it's kind of a bummer that he's dressed like that.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And then the other guy, who we've seen in some other movies, I forget the actor's name right now, but in the warriors, he's the warriors come out and play guy who's clanking the bottles together with his fingers. Sully, who to me, look morally. Sully and I are not on the same page anywhere as far as a character in a movie. That cracks me the fuck up. Sully has it for me.

Steve

That's great. I, I, My biggest thing was I was constantly distracted when all three of these men are on screen together about how enormous Arnold and, and the large black man are and how tiny Sully is. Yeah, Guy's got to be 5, 2. Like, at best, he is a strip, for sure.

Nic

He's a shrimp, for sure. He does one of my favorite insulting things where he puts like a $20 bill in Arnie's top shirt pocket.

Steve

Right. Hats.

Nic

It's like, get some beers and Valverde. It'll let everyone have some more time with your daughter. This guy's percentage of lines that are like, increasingly the scummiest shit you've ever heard is really, it's really amazing. It's really amazing.

Steve

I do love. We got it. We get an I'll be back from Arnold here right as he's like getting out of the car. Which is great because I just love self referential like that. Like you know, and then. Yeah. Like when Sully says that like first of all I, I almost gasped with just how disgustingly forward that comment is knowing that Jenny is like a young teen. Yeah. And he's like, you'll funny guy. Solely I like you. That's why I'm going to kill you last. Yeah. It's like I thought to myself, nah man, you should definitely kill him first. I wonder what will happen later.

Nic

Okay, so, so Artie, Arnie and Richards now get on the plane. And, and I love. You know what, it could be a potential tag for us is flying without baggage.

Steve

Oh, interesting. Yeah.

Nic

Because I feel like that shows up a lot.

Steve

It does. Yes.

Nic

So Arnie and Richards kind of escorts them on the plane and they sit down first class. Not bad of the Valverde future dictatorship to treat. Treat him a little bit. And the steward asks, you know, any carry on luggage. And he's like, just him. Really good. The guy gets, the guy gets pissed off. So already asked for a blanket and a pillow.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Snaps this guy's neck, covers him up and before he stands up he says, you'll have to excuse my friend. He's dead tired.

Steve

So bad. So now he's got to find a way off the plane because the plane has started moving like the doors closed. It's starting to taxi out to the Runway. He's got to figure out how to get off the plane. Luckily for him, I mean he couldn't know this. But Sully is kind of watching the plane taxi off towards the Runway and he's decided, good, they're on the plane, it's moving, I can go. But in the meantime, John's trying to get off that plane. So he goes down into the cargo hold. It's like it looks like a 747. It's actually on multiple like levels. He goes down to the galley and then he's able to go towards cargo where we get the guard dog of.

Nic

The 80s, the official guard dog of the 80s, the Doberman pinch.

Steve

It gets barked at by a Doberman, luckily in a cage, not actually a threat to him. But then he gets down towards the landing gear. And when this happened my first thought was bye bye pinball. But you know, so yet again, somebody is leaving or attempting at Least to leave a plane through the landing gear, which could be a tag, especially if we end up doing Toy Story 2, because then that'll be another time when that happens. But yeah, so. So this happens where he's now doing the whole thing. He's got to, like, climb down onto the landing gear. And I was wondering why he wasn't.

Nic

Just letting go immediately letting go right away.

Steve

Because it's like, yeah, that'll hurt, but it probably wouldn't. Well, here's the thing. It would barely hurt John Matrix, he's a Donald Schwarzenegger action character, but even a normal human probably wouldn't get. Get seriously injured. I don't know. Maybe it depends how fast you're going at that. But the wheels were still on the ground, so it wasn't a super long distance. But he holds on. And pretty quickly it's obvious why, as the plane actually takes off, it kind of crosses over. And I don't haven't flown in and out of LAX enough to know for sure, but, like, there's marshland or something, I guess, right past the Runway.

Nic

Yeah, I think it's.

Steve

And he drops off.

Nic

Convenient swamp for him to plop into.

Steve

It would be the kind of thing if you were coming into or leaving SFO in San Francisco. Yeah, you got a lot of water to deal with there, but I don't know. So LAX apparently has some swamp land or marshland right outside its runways, and he's able to drop off into the marsh. And so now his buddy is off, and there's an important kind of thing I think we maybe missed this year where they. He specifically asked, how long till you land in Valverde? And the. And the wait, the waitress, the stewardess says 11 hours.

Nic

That's right. So he set it. We get it on his watch there. He set his watch as soon as he fell 750ft, like, directly into a read that impaled him. He set his watch very quickly to 11 hours.

Steve

Also, just for the record, if you're flying essentially south from LAX for 11 hours, you're getting to Buenos Aires, not Central America. Like, that is way more time than would ever be necessary to fly to this fictional country. Yeah. Unless it is nearly Antarctic South America, then. Yes, then it would take that long. So just. Just a little thing, but that's okay. They need time to, you know, sort of allow for this ticking clock to happen so that there's enough time for the. The. The story to take place basically, is kind of where we're at. And this is also one thing I want to mention is this whole plot device of this 11 hour flight and everybody being out of, you know, sync or out of contact during that time. Another piece that just would never work in the era of cell phones. Right. If anybody in this movie, any of the bad guys had a cell phone, Jenny's dead in the first act, basically. So luckily, that's not the case. He can be out of pocket and also undetected for a certain amount of time. He's got this clock running.

Nic

So, yeah, so it's good. So we're like, all right, stakes set. We're ready to roll with time here. I. I enjoy the score of this movie. The repeating, like, steel drum, steel drum. Michael Scott playing his steel drum in his office. It's great.

Steve

I literally stopped the movie to point this out to my wife, who was not actually watching with me. She's not a fan of this kind of movie, but, like, I paused it while she was watching her Brit box, you know, crime drama that she walks, watches. And I said, when I say steel drum, like, what kind of environment do you think of? And she was like, we're talking like the Caribbean, you know, like Jamaica, the Bahama, something like that. I'm like, yeah, this movie takes place entirely in Los Angeles and a little bit in, like, Santa Barbara later. Right. But it's like, that's basically it. And there is steel drum in, like, every scene. I don't understand why.

Nic

I think, yeah. I mean, the Bob Marley story didn't have as much steel drum. There's like, yeah, I like it. I like the score. I enjoy it. It works for me. So, yeah. So now we're back in the airport and. And Arnie's kind of like. Like, he's making his way across the Runway, right? We see the flight attendant on the phone.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

On the pay phone. And Sully, who should just be like, all right, well, I'm done. And now I'm gonna get on with business. He cannot help himself because he's made the call.

Steve

He's made the call to say, John.

Nic

He'S on the plane, right? And he's like, talking to her while she's having a phone conversation.

Steve

Insane.

Nic

And if you're watching this for the first time, you're probably thinking, man, this is as rude as it gets.

Steve

No, it's 1985. I knew it was gonna get worse.

Nic

She ends her conversation with, okay, well, I like you too.

Steve

I like, you killed me.

Nic

Yeah. And Sully is like, yeah, like you said before, he's a five foot two dude.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Looks like a total douchebag. He would be like a hanger on of Ellis from Die Hard. He'd be like, Ellis's like, third level friend, right? And he's wearing a suit that looks like it's made out of, like, the carpet from an airport or a casino or something. It's one of the worst suits I've ever seen.

Steve

And also sized for his father, it.

Nic

Really is a David. What's his name? From Talking Heads.

Steve

Oh, David Burn.

Nic

Yeah, it's a David Burn suit there.

Steve

Yeah. But the. The stewardess. The character's name is Cindy, I believe. Right. Played by the beautiful Ray Don Chong. And.

Nic

And great actress, great name. I love Ray Don Chong. I love saying.

Steve

And also so far out of Sully's league, it's not even funny. Like, this is not somebody who would give that. Oh, my God, the time of day.

Nic

Yeah. Not only is he, like, you know, not good looking, I'm sure he's smells bad. He's not charming. He's openly an asshole. He's like, yeah, there's nothing he's offering here.

Steve

Speaking of how he smells, you know, for sure, it's 100% just completely overdone. Like, London gentleman. Like, you know, some kind of crappy, like, 1980s cologne straight out of Macy's.

Nic

He has. He has the model Rick Martel's novelty giant cologne thing that he sprays himself with every morning. Yeah. So he ends up, like, following her all the way to the parking garage while Arnie is kind of. Arnie has an eye on Sully. Like, Sully is the key to finding out where my daughter is. Right. And as he. He's like five feet behind her and she is still being very nice, she finally ends it with like, look, he's like, oh, you don't know what you're missing. And she's like, from here it looks like a nightmare. Now would you please leave me alone? And then the most earnest I've ever seen any actor deliver this line. And I know it's not cool now, but it makes me laugh. Very hard is him looking at her and going, you fucking whore. It's just there's so much hate. It's like he accessed every. I don't know, man.

Steve

Flipped. He flipped a switch there to go from, like, flirting with, like. Yeah, it was pretty wild. But it gives us that much more of an indicator of just who Sully is. Yeah, he's a terrible guy. So. So the hint. So then John basically carjacks Cindy sort of. Not before ripping the seat out of her car, which it's never really another.

Nic

Like, hey, we haven't shown how strong this guy is last few.

Steve

Okay.

Nic

All right.

Steve

So he rips the seat out of her car and sits on, like, sit.

Nic

Lower with no seat, I suppose, but.

Steve

He'S still his head' still above the, like, door. And, I mean, he's still visible from there. And now what is he sitting on? Is he sitting on, like, the track or whatever that the seat used to move back and forth on? I don't know. Very strange. Couldn't be comfortable. He tells Cindy to follow Sully's car. He's driving a Porsche, so, you know, easy to follow, but it's like a pretty interesting. It's not like a chase because they're trying to, like, not make it obvious that they're following him. But they are having to kind of drive a little crazy because Sully drives a little crazy. They get to the Galleria. They get to a mall. Same mall.

Nic

T2 Galleria.

Steve

That's right. The. All the sequences. And so when we get the T800 and 1000 first meeting each other. Same mall.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And. And basically, you know, they follow Sully into the mall, basically. Right. And so. And then. So now he's got something with him. Is that right?

Nic

Yeah. So Sully goes into the mall before when Matrix and Cindy are driving there. It's very funny that she's kind of trying to get information from him or whatever. He's like, some. This guy wants me dead. She's like, well, I understand. I've known you for 10 minutes, and I want you dead, too. She's got. She's firing off a few lines. I think she's great in this. But there's something I hadn't caught before that really cracked me up, is he's like, I'm retired army or whatever. She's like, oh, so my taxes pay your pension? Or she's like, I'm paying for you to fucking carjack me right now. Yeah. So we're at the mall and Sully goes in. Sully has a briefcase, and it looks like he's got some other business that he's doing there, right? So he's on his way to. To meet some dude in there. And Arnie's, you know, telling Cindy, like, look, you have to follow this guy and.

Steve

Right.

Nic

Get me in there somehow. Like, that's the only chance I have. Cindy very nicely. I mean, I'm sure she's terrified, right? But she's going along with this very.

Steve

Initially, except that she then immediately Alerts security.

Nic

Yeah, I guess she's good at, like, playing along until she can get safe.

Steve

It's classic stewardess, basically. Right. You know, you tell that. You tell the customer whatever they want to hear because you're locked on a plane with them. By the time you go talk to the captain, it's like, so we're going to need police at the landing airport to get this guy as soon as we land. Yeah, whatever. So she does alert the mall cops. And there's a lot of them. Like, there are so many. You know, we hung out in a lot of malls in the 90s. I know I did. I'm sure you did as well. And I don't ever remember at any given moment seeing more than like, two security guards at a time.

Nic

Yeah. You imagine the biggest emergency, there'd be four or five guys that are there, and then the rest would have to be coming in. But, yeah, this place was like. It's like every store was a Zale. Yeah. And they just, like, had guards, had.

Steve

Their own cards, except they're all wearing the same uniform.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

But I do love one guy gets on the. On the radio to kind of get the attention because they basically. She points out John, you know, he's kind of half hiding behind a pillar. Yeah. And she goes, that guy's. You know, he kidnapped me. And he's like, trying to hurt me or whatever. And so the guy is like, we need all units, you know, to like, this spot, whatever. This is one gigantic.

Nic

Yeah, so. So that guy. And then he had been like, hitting on some girls before he got this call. And when he gets it, he goes to them, he's like, you want to see me kick some ass?

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And he's kind of like a Michael Winslow looking guy. He looked a lot like Michael.

Steve

Skinny, like. Yeah.

Nic

So another. Another Sully line here, because now he's in there and he's meeting with, like, the most cartel looking guy in one of those shitty mall bar, restaurant things. And he says. The thing he says about the mall is it's a great place for Hunt and Slash.

Steve

Oh, God. Just the grossest way to put it, dude. Hunt and Slash. I cringe the second I heard it. It's so gross.

Nic

So in the meantime, yeah, we've got. There's a commotion now because all these guys are coming after Arie. Sully knows something's up.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Oh, he sees Cindy in there.

Steve

Oh, that's right.

Nic

And he's like about to be like, oh, hey. And then he sees what's going on and he's like, I got to make a phone call. And again, cell phones.

Steve

That was a quarter.

Nic

I need a quarter.

Steve

That was the first time that I was kind of like, why didn't just grab his cell phone? I went, oh, right, 1985. Like, not even. There wasn't even you would think that.

Nic

Guy might have a cell phone in 85.

Steve

85. I feel like there really weren't even car phones outside of, like, limousine or like, you know what I mean? Like that level. And nobody carried around. That would have been those. Those shoulder mount, you know, the other.

Nic

World War II communications.

Steve

Like the satellite phone thing. If you were like, super rich, maybe. But, like, generally, I mean, by 89. Yeah, 85 was early. So. Yeah. So he's got a rush to payphone.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And as you know, Matrix is having to fight off all these security guards. And, like, you know, he's doing a good job generally trying not to kill them, but. Yeah, you know, we'll see what happens, know. But he goes and he chases Sully down. He gets into a phone booth, which Matrix just picks up, I love. As if it weighs nothing at all. Rips it kind of off of its bearings or whatever. Pretty wild. Yeah.

Nic

And just like, you know, tumbles it over and everything.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And then, like, right after that, this sequence is what, maybe my favorite in the movie. So he picks the phone booth, flips it over, and then some of the 75 cops that are there, the security guards who are all mall security, who have guns. Guns and stuff, which I don't.

Steve

I don't remember that.

Nic

I don't know if that's gonna happen. So. So they jump on him and he, like, jumps up and rip. Like, pushes his arms out and they go flying like he just busted out of a pile of dead leaves. It's so funny that they just scatter everywhere.

Steve

It's very, very comic book like this. This is, you know, MCU before the mcu, right.

Nic

The shady dude that Sully was meeting. He runs out of the restaurant. No one's even going after him. But he's just like, oh, there's something happening. And he starts shooting immediately, gets shot and his briefcase full of cash. Just Sprink Mall below.

Steve

Love it.

Nic

Just like, love it. Here we go. Mark L. Lester. Let's make this thing as over the top as possible.

Steve

This also, I think, you know, another thing we've seen at least in a couple movies, I know for sure, T2, and I know it'll come in some others we have scheduled to do later. Chaos in a Mall. Yeah. Very common kind of thing. It feels like in this era, but. Yeah. So we get. We get. Just like with Terminator 2. We get massive chaos in the mall here. Oh, man. So, yeah. So now Sully leaves. He's gotten to his car, and basically Cindy and John have to chase him down in Cindy's car. Now John is driving. Yeah. And he looks like he's the same height as he was sitting where there was no seat. And now she's sitting where there's no seat and looks normal. Yeah. And she even mentions, you ripped the seat out of my car. So it's not like they're trying to make us forget that happened. It just doesn't make any sense, like, who's sitting where. Yeah. Why. But still don't know why he ripped that seat. I'll never understand why he rips the seat.

Nic

It looked cool.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Yeah. So. And there's. They're on this car chase. They're going up the hills after the. After Sully. I think they're on the mountain road that leads to the trailer park from the last Starfighter.

Steve

Very similar.

Nic

Because I was just like, dude, this looks familiar here.

Steve

Good old Southern California brown hills, you know?

Nic

Oh, my God. And then this is really. This is really what it's all about here. So Sully manages to kind of roll his car onto the side, and Arnie crashes so hard and killed them both instantly. Especially no seats. That would indicate no seat belt.

Steve

No seat. Neither of them wearing a seat belt. She's not in a seat at all. The car's a convertible with the top open, everything. They both should have been flung from that vehicle.

Nic

Crazy.

Steve

Many, many feet. Probably off a cliff. Like, really? That movie over. Cue the end. Like, they're dead.

Nic

Yeah. Yeah. So he pulls. He pulls Sully out of the. Out of the car, and basically he finds, like, a motel key in his car.

Steve

That's right.

Nic

So he's like, you know, where is she? Like, what's happening? And he grabs him by his ankle, and he's dangling him over the cliff.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

Maybe with a little bit of a help of, you know, somebody put wires on his ankle or something.

Steve

You think?

Nic

But it's so funny. He was like, remember, Sully, this is my weak arm. And he's dangling him, trying to get info, and finds out that, okay, the motel key is the thing that I need to know. And we get the classic line, you're better at the. Arnie, you want to fire this one off?

Steve

Hey, you said you'd kill me last, John.

Nic

I lied Remember, Sully, when I said I'd kill you last?

Steve

Was. That's right. Remember when I told you I'd kill you last? I lied.

Nic

So good. So there goes Sully. And then he just casually walks back. And I don't know what Cindy had been doing that whole time because she's just like, what happened to Sully? And he goes, I let him go.

Steve

That's right, I let him go. Yeah. Where was she? If she wasn't paying attention to what was happening? Like, what else. What else was going on around her? Yeah. Was she comatose briefly from the crash?

Nic

I mean, that's believable, I guess. Otherwise she was like, ooh, I've never seen a Porsche before.

Steve

Is just on its side or whatever. Right. Because then he has to, like, flip the car over.

Nic

It over, and then it's fine.

Steve

She's like, you don't have a car. And he goes, now I do.

Nic

So bad.

Steve

Oh, God. Okay, so now I think we cut to. To a compound. Jenny is arriving. Or we get a scene of her with Bennett and Arias, like, showing up at this compound, which we're not really told much about where it is. Like, we don't know how far they've gone. Whatever. It's clearly like. Like guards and with machine guns, like the whole deal. So this is where she's going to be held for now. And. Yeah, so. So there's that. We just get a.

Nic

We just get a sense she's like.

Steve

Put in this room basically with nothing in it. And so now she's. She's a prisoner. We know where she is.

Nic

Yeah. And while Cindy and Matrix are now, you know, driving to try to get to the next place, he's explaining a little bit more about her daughter. And this is like one of the only serious things in the movie where he's talking about, you know, I've been in Army Special Forces. Like, I do the stuff that's so secret I can't even talk about it. And, you know, when my daughter was doing this, I was here when this was happening. So he's like, making up for lost time. And he's like, you know, this is my fault that she got kidnapped.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And I'm kind of like, I don't need this in this kind of movie. We don't need emotions, Right. No, but, you know, that's the explanation of it. So at least it's not like all the stuff I've done in the army where was good.

Steve

He.

Nic

He said something about like, I wish I wasn't there for some of it. So. So now. Now we find the motel, right?

Steve

So we get to the motel. There's. They've got a key. So they go to the room that the key is for. And they're starting to kind of look around and search. While they're searching for. They don't really even know what. I don't think they're just looking for any kind of indication of where Jenny might be. Cook, the Bill Duke character, he shows up in his car to the motel and kind of catches them mid search. And a fight. Fight begins, right?

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And there's a gun initially, but Matrix is able to knock the gun out of his hand, I think. And then do they both have knives or they just fighting? I can't remember exactly.

Nic

They're fighting.

Steve

A lot going on.

Nic

Yeah, there's a lot happening here. And there's those sick decorative glass blocks that are just getting housed every time they're throwing each other into the wall.

Steve

So classic 80s those things.

Nic

It's really good. So there's kind of like a T2 style Terminator fight. Right. And of course you have to go through a wall.

Steve

Right.

Nic

And you never go through a wall into an empty motel room. That's boring as.

Steve

Right.

Nic

It has to be a naked couple who are. And filming. There's a camera on a tripod.

Steve

Yes. That was like, what? I thought this was interesting because at first I didn't notice that. And it was like as the scene with them ended and they went in back into the room, I caught it kind of out of the corner of my eye while I'm watching the fight. And I go, oh, wait, they were like making a porno or something. Like, what? How weird. What a strange detail to include.

Nic

Seriously.

Steve

Like, I'm not against it or anything, but it's just an odd detail.

Nic

It was funny. Maybe they planned on like. There was a deleted scene where after all this melee, Arnie walks in and pops the VHS tape out of the camcorder. Like puts it in his jacket pocket and leave. So yeah, basically in this fight with Cook, they're going back and forth, throwing each other around and Cook ends up just getting impaled on some like bars that were sticking up out of the ground from. They've broken earlier.

Steve

Very Pacific Heights. Not really sure where the thing.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

The guy falls on came from necessarily. Right, right.

Nic

So they. They gotta search Cook's car now. They're looking for clues and I think they basically found. They find a location of something.

Steve

Well, they find like a receipt. Like basically you buy like for Jet Fuel or plane fuel, basically. And it's. And. And she. We find out here that Cindy, not just as a stewardess, but has been training to be a pilot and has been learning how to fly. So she knows like a fair amount about some of this stuff. And she mentions, like, the kind of plane fuel like. Like, we can go, like, let's go to that place because. But that's what it is. Like they make chemicals and they make fuel or something like that. So they go to this place called Patria, I think is the name of the place place. One thing I noticed as they drive up to it, it's like an industrial, you know, facility of some kind. There was like a really green mist of coming out of the building that I thought for sure was going to mean something at some point. Like I'm. I'm of the mind. I watch movies and I've been doing it, I think more so since we started this project, like, trying to watch for things that, you know, like a Chekhov situation. It might come up later where it's like, oh, that looks important. I should remember that. We have that. This movie keeps tricking me. We don't see his armory in the mountain house again. We don't. This green mist doesn't mean anything. Like, so many things that, like, they should be deliberate choices that like, have some, you know, some effect on the plot or the characters end up not. But there is this green mist coming off of a fairly large section of this building. I don't understand why.

Nic

Hey, it looks cool.

Steve

It does. It looks very cool.

Nic

Chemicals. And part of them coming in is this chain link fence that of course is locked together with a chain and a padlock. And Arnie just grabs a chain and rips it open like it's a. Like a cheap zip tie.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

Oh, my God. That's crazy. Yeah. So they. They get inside here and, you know, he's crawling through the. Where this warehouse and they're trying to find this plane. This is kind of the clue they're looking for, right? And it's all full of all this weaponry and there's all these soldiers around and shit. But he's able to sneak around until he gets into this map room or whatever. He kills one of my favorite random henchmen, Branscomb Richmond, who's been in a lot of shit. He was on the TV show Renegade.

Steve

Okay.

Nic

If you've seen him in the last recent years, he has a lot of accessories on.

Steve

Okay.

Nic

So basically, yeah, he conveniently ends up in this room, which basically has. Has A map with a circle of exactly where they're going to go and a receipt stapled to it with, like, it's the most convenient set of documents. I really love it. But he lets Cindy in through the window.

Steve

That's right.

Nic

You know, she's able to tell him this.

Steve

Two things I love about this is she. He had told her, go around the corner, like, before he goes to sneak in. Yeah. He has no idea where he's going, but apparently he led her directly to the window to the room he needed to get to, because when he goes and, like, looks out, she's right there.

Nic

And he.

Steve

He helps her in. Second, the island that this. That they need to go to is already circled on the map. And then he draws, like, with the. The T square or whatever, like, you know, latitude and longitude markers and, like, you know, an X code, but. But the X is in the middle of a circle already drawn on the map.

Nic

It's like. It's like Crocodile Dundee looking at his watch and then looking at his son to tell somebody what time it is. Oh, my God.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

There was a photograph of the plane and then a receipt for the fuel. And of course, he's like, oh, that many gallons is probably exactly how much it would take to get to this island and back.

Steve

And she said, the type of fuel is for a seaplane. She knows all this stuff, which is very convenient. I love that.

Nic

I love it.

Steve

But she does know all that stuff. So I think this is when they then go. They go to leave, but he's like, we got to get some equipment.

Nic

Right before going, he says, are we going to the plane? He's like, no. Where are we going? Shopping.

Steve

Shopping. That's right. So they go to an army surplus store.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And basically, this is. This is the. They couldn't get the. Him back to his own armory because it's too far away. So this is sort of the replacement armory.

Nic

Exactly.

Steve

And it's like, I really wish there'd been a way to make it his instead. But they go through, and it also, you know, very similar to, like, T2, the underground armory, you know, that Sarah Connor sets up that they go through in T2, where they're picking stuff off the walls. You know, lots of movies do this, right. The Matrix does this. Like, so many great movies do this, where it's like you're just picking stuff off the walls. Love it.

Nic

And it was like a secret button. So it's just normally like an army surplus store that sells. Sells cargo pants and shitty compasses. But then there's always a secret button that opens up the machine gun and bazooka room. And you can go in there and there's grenades and everything's laid out so nicely. It's just like a little boy's dream there.

Steve

As. As a first time watcher of this movie, there was a great aw moment for me here, which is they're going through. He's grabbing shotguns and rifles and machine guns. He gets a rocket launcher. She even asks, what's this? He goes, the rocket launcher, you know, missile launcher, Whatever. He says. So she's like putting stuff in this cart and then he picks up a minigun. And I'm like, yes, we have another minigun situation.

Nic

Oh.

Steve

Cuz that's when the cops show up and arrest him and he doesn't get the minigun. Luckily, Cindy has already packed up the car, I guess. And it's not.

Nic

Yeah, it seems like most of the stuff or some is already in the car.

Steve

Apparently, you know, it's a convertible full of now weaponry right in front of the place being robbed. But she's not a person of interest at all. Like the cops don't even look her way. So they arrest. Matrix tricks. And actually I was kind of surprised by this. I thought to myself, I was like, damn, he's actually like been arrested like that. What are they gonna. How are they gonna fix this?

Nic

Yeah, you notice that they arrest him and they just lead him unhandcuffed into the back of the. Oh, I didn't notice that he's not handcuffed at all. He hasn't been searched or anything because he still watch on it.

Steve

Oh my God.

Nic

Yeah, so. And he's telling the cops, he's like, call General Franklin Kirby. He will explain everything. And the guy's like, oh yeah, Kirby. Yeah, I think we picked him up last night. Like good dismissive cop. And you know, if I'm the cop, I'm saying the same there. It's like, dude, you were just robbing a surplus store. I don't think there's an army directive for this.

Steve

Tell it to the judge, sort of like. But yeah, so. So they're driving off ostensibly to take him to jail. And so Cindy follows in the car and this I love. She pulls up alongside the cops. I think they're stopped at a stoplight, maybe pulls up alongside and the cop looks over and goes, hey. And like says to his buddy that it's a hooker. Yeah, when is the hooker ever the one in the car?

Nic

Seriously?

Steve

Isn't the hooker on the street? And the Car drives up to her, like, how does this supposed to work? And aren't you a cop? Such a weird reaction.

Nic

No, it is crazy.

Steve

They believe she's a hooker or whatever. So as they start driving away, I.

Nic

Think she gets up and stands up in the car. So basically the light turns green and they drive away. And then they're kind of looking at her in the rear view, like, what is she doing there? She's standing up in the car, and then all of a sudden, she puts the rocket launcher over her shoulder. Shoulder hits the button, it goes back, it goes backwards.

Steve

Destroying, like, a bus stop or something. Just. Just demolishing this poor bus stop, like.

Nic

But luckily she had a second shot, and she turns it around, and it's the most perfect shot of all time. Like, right. No injury shot to anybody in the vehicle. Right under the tire. Flips it perfectly perfect. And she comes up and she picks up when she.

Steve

When she fired the missile the wrong direction, I thought, okay, that's pretty funny. Yeah. What's she gonna try now instead of that? Then she turns the thing around. I go, oh, no, no, no, dear. You don't know how to use. Like, clearly you don't know how to use this. So then she does it. And I'm thinking about, like. I'm literally thinking to myself as I'm watching this, like, she's, like, gonna kill him like this. Yeah. What is she doing? Sure enough, though, that, like, yeah, she, like, skips the rocket, like, under the. The truck, and it all works out fine. And then I love. He has. How did you know how to do that? And she goes, I read the instructions. Yeah, Love it. Love it. Totally good answer, Cindy. Nice work.

Nic

Oh, man. So, yeah, so now they're cruising there. They're trying to get to this plane, and they're. They're heading towards the plane, and they've got their bags of stuff, and they haven't quite been discovered yet, but these guys kind of see them as they're getting.

Steve

Getting in the plane. Yeah.

Nic

So we got a shoot out here, and Cindy's trying to get the thing flying. And of course, you know, I've never seen a plane. You're only ever flying a type of plane that you've never seen in your life. Right. It's never like, oh, sick. This is the same plane I trained on. It's always like, what. Where are. What is thing?

Steve

This thing has, like, too many engines. She's used to a Cessna. This is too big. It's not a. It's. She says, I mean, it's not a plane. It's a canoe with wings.

Nic

Yeah, it's this old, like, seaplane.

Steve

And then she complains that there's no LED readout. I'm like, yeah, I don't want to touch that led. I thought LED was a newer technology, but I don't know, I guess it only is in televisions.

Nic

And. And so Arnie's like shooting at these guys and like going back in like, come on. And then. I don't love this line, but I think it's fun. Funny. When he hits it, he's like, come on, you piece of. And then he hits it.

Steve

He goes, fly or die.

Nic

And fonzies it. And then the. The plane just fires up and starts.

Steve

Yeah, but we did get a cut. I don't know. There's like right before they arrive there, we just get a quick cut that Jenny is still in the room that she's being held in, but has started kind of looking. She like opens up these windows and sees they've been boarded up. This like French door sort of thing right near has been boarded up. But she starts kind of trying to figure out. Out if she can get out. I don't know if this is when she. I think this is just when she discovers the boarded up room. Later she'll like, get a tool to come.

Nic

Yeah. And I think like a piece. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kind of figuring out like her outsides. And then we get a quick General Kirby, I think where they're talking about. Because now he's had word he's at the site of the surplus store and stuff.

Steve

And somebody did call him, apparently. Yeah.

Nic

And then one of the guys says to him, he's like, what are you expecting? And he goes, World War Three. So again, just good Colonel Troutman type shit.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

As they're flying, you've probably picked this up. They're flying towards the island in the plane. And it cuts to a Coast Guard radar guy saying, hey, what? You're not allowed to fly here. Bill Paxton.

Steve

That's right. It was Bill Paxton for sure. He's the guy.

Nic

So good to see. So good to see.

Steve

Bill Pack, very early role. Obviously I didn't look to see just how early in his career this was, but obviously an earlier role. I think this must have been before weird science, right? Yeah, 86 or 87. So yeah, that was. That's always my. When I think Bill Paxton, early role, Weird Science is the first one that comes to mind, not having seen this before, but yeah, he's there and he's basically Telling him. And then so they have to try to. She, he says something like, can you fly under the radar? And she's like, well, not marine radar, which like makes sense, it's a different kind of thing. But she's still able to sort of.

Nic

She says, or something, listen, if we have any pilots or any Coast Guard people listening the show@2dads1movie.com because she says if I fly it low enough, the waves will mask our location. Which seems like, well, that sounds a lot like crashing into the water. Like, sure, that sure solves your radar problem.

Steve

But it regardless, they are able to approach the island, which I think they said earlier was like off the coast of Santa Barbara, so a little further north of la, but still, you know, Southern California. They're able to land on the water far enough away from the island apparently that they're, you know, going to avoid sort of detection from the, the shore or something like that. They find a place to, to chill. So he basically gathers up all his.

Nic

Equipment and well, first he puts a speedo on. For some reason he strips down to a speedo to row like half a mile to shore instead. Clothes that he already had on the.

Steve

Big lifeboat sort of raft, right. That he's in. But this is now when he arrives on shore. This is like sort of the very famous brief montage of like suiting up, right? And he's like coloring on himself and like, you know, he's putting eye black under his man boobs or whatever he's doing. It's bizarre, but he's doing all this stuff and sort of camouflaging himself and putting on the vest. And so it's now he's in the class, he's in sort of the outfit from the, the, the movie poster, right? That's what he's looking like.

Nic

He's holding every possible weapon right now. He's holding hundreds of pounds of machine guns and everything. Yeah. So he's ready to roll back at where Jenny's at. We get a quick, quick little scene of the most intimidating bad guy of all time. Bennett.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

One of these soldiers says to him, he's like cutting a little girl's throat is like cutting warm butter. And then Bennett's like, I love listening to your little piss ant soldiers trying to talk tough. It makes me laugh. If Matrix was here, he would laugh too. And like he's big up in Matrix. Like every time he's talking about him it's like, oh, he's in love with Matrix. Yes. And that's the point of this whole.

Steve

Thing, he can't have him, so no one can have him.

Nic

Exactly.

Steve

That's Bennett's deal.

Nic

So. Yeah. Arnie, ready to roll. And now I think we see Jenny kind of starting to chip away a little bit.

Steve

She's somehow. I can't remember exactly what the tool. She figured some way to take the door handle off the inside of the door. Now she's not. She's smart enough not to just try to walk out because there are guards and stuff, but she's able to use it to sort of start to pry away the boards on the boarded up French doors. Right. So first of all, why they would put her in a ground floor room? Don't ask me. That's mistake number one.

Nic

It seemed like there were 56 different rooms in that there was a big building and.

Steve

But. Yeah, but. So she has started working on an escape plan. Yes, basically. And getting her. Her way out. I also believe at this point we get a quick cut over to the country of Valverde where the plane has landed. So we are now at the point where camera. What you said his name Richards, or is that the name of the.

Nic

Yeah, I think that's what it was.

Steve

The guy, basically the dead guy sitting in next to John Matrix's old seat, he's going to be discovered and the people there expecting the two of them to get off the plane are about to figure out that they're not going to. So time is of the essence.

Nic

Right. And as soon as they make the call, you know, that's it. Right, so. So we see this starting to unfold here. Matrix starts, you know, taking guys out at the camp and it appears that he has walked upon a fake mustache convention.

Steve

It's really.

Nic

There is. Okay, so throughout this scene, this is what makes me laugh so hard. When you were talking about, like, what. How do we figure the number of people that were killed? He kills many guys multiple times each.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

Like it's just. Okay, now try it with this hat and this mustache. It's like they went to a Central American gorilla military themed photo booth and they just had to dig through the trunk of accessories and there's only seven different guys. And they had to like switch up looks.

Steve

Which makes it even funnier that there are 50, 57 stunt actors listed in the credits and there are 40 characters listed in the cast. So there are more stunt actors than actors in the movie. And yet we still get. Get duplicates, basically. I'm not sure exactly how that works.

Nic

It's great. And there's certain. There's Certain inconsistencies here, like, between the sound and what you see and things that really crack me up. He sets this building to explode, and when he detonates it, it shows, like, a model of the building exploding several times.

Steve

And then little tiny action figure guys.

Nic

Like, they have, like, the stands underneath their. They didn't even put sand over that. They. They're like, literally the army guys that.

Steve

They painted them black to make them look a little less obvious. But. Yeah, that's. It's so bad.

Nic

Funny.

Steve

Here's why.

Nic

Saturn Award for best special effects.

Steve

This is. This is why it's a $10 million movie. If it had been a $15 million movie, that would have been better. That would have been much better.

Nic

But you know how I. I love movies that. Where there's models inside. Like in Die Hard, they have the models of the building. So I like to think that he detonated it. And first inside that building, there was a little model of the building that blew up. And then it zoomed. Zoomed out to show us the actual building.

Steve

Sure, sure.

Nic

But God damn, this is so funny. And he goes through, and he is really killing, like, everyone.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

And he is not taking any damage, and he's not really hiding behind stuff. He's just kind of like, oh, as long as I keep shooting. My bullets are also hitting your bullets and you.

Steve

Right. It's wild. Yeah. The number of times that he is not taking cover, that he is not in any way protected, just standing, kind of waving his machine gun back and forth, forth, and they're all shooting at him. Yeah. And not a single. He doesn't get, like, skinned by a ball. I mean, it's nothing. Yeah. This is not even, like, you know. Oh, I hit my ear. Nope, didn't happen.

Nic

Not a thing. Not a thing.

Steve

Just ridiculous. But fun. Yeah. But he's. Now he's approached the mansion, which means I've got to take a moment to mention. I don't know if you're aware of this or not. Yeah, I recognized this mansion immediately. This is the same mansion that is Victor Maitland's mansion at the end of Beverly Hills Concept Cop. So the final sequence of Beverly hills COP in 1984 and Commando in 1985 take place in the same place. It's a. It's a mansion in Beverly Hills that they use to shoot scenes. But, yeah, I recognized it right away because Eddie Murphy and Judge Reinhold run around outside the exact same house in Beverly Hills Cops. So, yeah, so it is the Beverly Hills Cop Mansion. I can't remember the Name of the actual mansion. But it's like it's got like a famous name because it's been used in many, many movies.

Nic

Oh that's funny.

Steve

So yeah, so that's, it's a fun little, little.

Nic

I wonder how high up if you go to visit it, how high up commando is on the list when they're talking about the movies that have been filmed there below Beverly Hills Cop for sure. So, so Arnie ends up, he takes refuge briefly in the, in the tool shed, right? Gardening shed, which I love because it's just like look at all these improvised.

Steve

Weapons surrounding pitchforks and saw blades.

Nic

And boy does he go fucking crazy throwing axes at people. The pitchfork to the chest. He throws a saw blade like a ninja star. And it just like when it hits somebody's skull it does not lose any speed. It just continues to like saw all the way through guys head. He takes a, he takes a machete and of course we get a guy's arm chopped off. For those of you playing at home, missing or artificial limb. That is a two dad's one movie.

Steve

Classic that is becoming the most common sort of connection between our movies is a missing or artificial limb.

Nic

And I feel like the guy who got his arm chopped off had already been killed once and then gets killed still two more times.

Steve

Oh my God, that's awesome. Oh so he gets into the building now and oh and by the way the phone calls come from Valverde and Arias has told Bennett to go kill Jenny. But Jenny has been able to escape. She, she was able to get out of the room through the boarded up part and run off to like it looks like kind of like some kind of entrance to like a facilities something. It's a little hard to tell. It's like, it's like. It's like an electrical shed. And she's able to go underground, right. But she had to go outside first and then she goes back inside but now Bennett's following her and basically with, with a knife. And I'll mention in Bennett's chase of Jenny there are several times where he's not wearing his fingerless gloves and then later is wearing his fingerless gloves. They keep going on and off. Not, not great continuity there from, from the director, but that's okay. So now Matrix has gotten into the mansion. He's still killing guys left and right. I mean it's just a ridiculous body count. But Arias, Dan Hadiah has got to start defending himself. And I noticed that he has a very recognizable weapon. He's using a Steyr Aug Just like Carl and Die Hard.

Nic

Okay.

Steve

Exact same crazy large rifle that. That is used by Carl in that movie.

Nic

Now, do you think the writer, since it's the same writer, wrote that specific gun into it? Could be.

Steve

It absolutely could be. It's, you know, the director is different in the two movies and John McTiernan was a big fan of MP5s, and that was something that he gave to all of. All of the bad guys in his movies. But he did in Predator. He did it in Die Hard. But maybe the stair is specifically a Stephen E. D. Souza thing.

Nic

I'm not sure.

Steve

Yeah, it could be.

Nic

So this shootout with Arias is kind of funny. I mean, it's not. It's not the best action scene. It's just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, going back and forth. But there's a scene where. Where Arias shoots at him. You clearly hear two shots in the sound. And then behind Arnie, this, like, statue of a head is shot. And then there's six bullet holes in the wall right behind it. And, like a horizontal or a diagonal went. It's really funny, dude.

Steve

That might have been because I read that Dan Hadiah was so uncomfortable even with the, like, prop weaponry. Like, he just wasn't comfortable firing the gun and everything that he just. He just. They. It took them a long time to get good takes of him shooting, really that he often was cringing and flinching as he fired the weaponry. And so it was like, apparently took them many, many takes to get it right. So I think they ended up in a point where they had to use not necessarily the takes that lined up up, but just the ones where he didn't look bad.

Nic

Holy. That is very funny. So that's why they never made a Dan Hadai hard.

Steve

Yeah. No, no, that's funny.

Nic

I've never heard of an actor like, being Dan had.

Steve

I would die easily, it sounds like. But yeah, he apparently was not into it. You know, I'm not sure about the details there, but yeah.

Nic

Well, now we have a kind of a final showdown about to happen. And where else to have.

Steve

Wait. We have to mention real quick, Arias is killed by the fact that. So now John Matrix has, you know, ran through several other weapons and has a shotgun.

Nic

Yes.

Steve

And fires and hits Arias, but he doesn't fly out the window. He gets shot six times in a row by the shotgun and then flies out the window. Like, good Lord. Like how the force is either enough to push you out the window or it's not. I'm not quite sure what the sixth Volley really did other than make sure he's dead. But did, you know, got heem. Like he's gone.

Nic

Yeah, he's done. He's done. And you know, even though he's the main bad guy this, it didn't show him doing other than he masterminded the kidnapping. But he wasn't like depicted doing like despicable shit really. So it wasn't quite as satisfying of like as a Cyrus the Virus type killing.

Steve

He's the hands off villain sort of, you know, he's the, he's the CEO of. Yes, exactly. Right.

Nic

So. So now we have to go to a very cinema friendly place for a final showdown here where, where Bennett has chased Jenny now into this like electrical room and then and a boiler room. I mean it's just the classic pipes, electric wires, all kinds of stuff and they end up going down there. Matrix is shot pretty quickly. Yeah, by Bennett the first time.

Steve

He's like really kind of wounded in any kind of way.

Nic

Yeah, it seemed like the way he reacted to it just went all the way through. Which is not a big deal. Anyone out there, if you get shot, as long as it goes all the way through, you're fine. Don't even go to the hospital if you can avoid it.

Steve

Like Junior and toy soldiers, man, he's all good.

Nic

But then this is where, where Bennett or Matrix realizes like, all right, I can beat this guy psychologically. He's obviously like obsessed with me in this crazy way. So he tries to appeal to that. He's like, you know, I only have one arm, come on, you could beat me and you don't need that gun. You know, he gets him to throw his gun down. It's crazy, dude. He's like Jedi mind tricking him.

Steve

And this is a point I didn't write down or remember exactly what Bennett says in this. But he is trying so intimidating and be scary. And it comes off to me like an absolutely unhinged lover who is just pissed at, at at his ex. Like that is what it comes off as that he's just resentful of Matrix and like the life he's built for him post his love affair with Bennett. And it's just like it, it's not intimidating at all. Like again I just. Bennett is so unbelievable as a villain. And the look with Arnold being such a superhuman hero in this there isn't a counterbalance. There isn't a villain big enough in the movie for him.

Nic

Yeah, there needs some kind of like piece of machinery or like predator type thing.

Steve

Like the T1000, the Predator, whatever, all, anytime. You've got Arnold with like a really great action movie on all levels. Part of it is the villains intimidating and big and kind of scary, you know?

Nic

Yeah. And you get, you get Bennett looking like Freddie Mercury saying, come on, John. Fat bottom girls make the world go round. John.

Steve

Bicycle, bicycle. I want to ride my bicycle.

Nic

So we finally, you know, Matrix is able to kind of negotiate this down to a knife fight, which is very impressive. Right. You know, so he's like, come on, throw down the gun and let Jenny go. He gave in quicker than I give in. Like halfway through dry January when one of my friends like slightly gives me a disapproving look for not having a beer.

Steve

I'm like half fine. I have one fucking here.

Nic

So then we get a kind of, you know, a fight, a hand hand fight that is, is pretty even. Although, like you said it not believable.

Steve

Is even because he has the one arm, so there's that part of it. And he's trying to fight with the knife and doesn't have the other arm to really like help him.

Nic

Right.

Steve

So. Because there's a point where I kind of forgot for a moment his arm was busted. And so he like blocks a knife attack. But then Bennett's able to like grab him with a free hand. And I'm thinking myself, where the hell is Matrix's free hand? Oh, right. He can't use it. So it is, in that sense it is a more level playing field. Because look, I'm making fun of Bennett, but it's not like he's not burly at all. Like, he's still like a dude who looks like he can beat some ass.

Nic

Like, he would kill both of us. So Vernon Wells, we apologize. You're the toughest guy that's ever lived.

Steve

Even Vernon Wells now. Yeah, I'm sure he's like 85 or something. Like, I'm still not fighting that guy. No, but, but so, yeah, so the fight happens and you know what, I'll be honest, like, pretty good hand to hand fight. I like the choreography of it.

Nic

I like the improvised weaponry.

Steve

Yeah, Like, I thought this was like, pretty interesting. Didn't love how it ended, personally.

Nic

Oh, well, before, before we get there. Yeah, because. Because there are cool. Couple cool things like ripping a pipe off the wall and then beating, you.

Steve

Know, that was cool.

Nic

Matrix is getting beaten with it. And then this always cracked me up is he throws Bennett into like this wall of like loose electrical and he gets electrocuted for a few seconds. It's like, and then he bounces back. Like that just charged him up. Like, I became more powerful. Oh, you didn't know I empowered by that.

Steve

I'm Electro Spider Man.

Nic

And Arnie had a sequence, you know, so kind of back and forth, hit, hit, hit. And then it was like a. Like a whole bunch of punches all in sequence. Right before you finally threw him against the wall.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And. Yeah. How does Bennett. How does he go out?

Steve

If I remember correctly, Matrix pulls a pipe off the wall or off of some piece with a pipe. Yeah. Throws it like a javelin or spear Penny. It somehow goes straight through the man's chest.

Nic

Yep.

Steve

And into whatever pipe or whatever he's like, is behind him. Because then all the steam from that comes out the pipe.

Nic

Yes.

Steve

Okay, but.

Nic

But look, it's a little unbelievable, but look, they landed the perfect line here. Because when that happens, we get Arnie saying, let off some steam, Bennett.

Steve

It's. It's a good.

Nic

Oh, my.

Steve

It's a good line. And I love that the only reason it was a pipe and the only reason that it went into another pipe was so that the steam could come out. Because, you know, that line was written before the writer figured out, how am I going to fit this in? I really want him to say it. What can I do? It is to make this work. You pigeonholed it in there.

Nic

It's like you can tell. Yeah. You can tell when something is written around a certain thing. And I really love whoever really believed in that line. Like they believed in the. Let off some steam.

Steve

True.

Nic

Of course, at the end, maybe Matrix is walking out. He's carrying Jenny.

Steve

He's one good arm. Yeah.

Nic

He's taking everyone out. The army arrives and General Kirby goes up and he goes, leave anything for us. And we get a. Just bodies.

Steve

Just bodies.

Nic

And then Cindy gets out of the seaplane and it's like, oh, here's your new mom.

Steve

And then they just.

Nic

They let him fly away again. No questioning, no like, weaknesses after the fact. None of that stuff.

Steve

Yeah, it is interesting. Yeah. So that's Commando. That is. That is the whole of Commando.

Nic

And we do get kind of like a Whip 80s song at the end of this movie. I actually dug that song. Like, there's not really any throughout. But then we get. We Fight for Love by Power Station, which actually is a pretty good song.

Steve

I mean, for the time and for the style. I actually enjoyed it. I thought that was, you know. All right, that's not bad. I can dig it.

Nic

Yes. So that is Commando man.

Steve

All right, well, this was your picnic. I think you should give us your breakdown first.

Nic

Dude, this movie, it just makes me so happy. Like I said, if you know me and you know the things that I like, you know that this is chock full of of them. And this is my favorite Schwarzenegger movie. I don't think it's the best film of the Schwarzenegger movies, but this has the most of the that I like and the least of the that I don't like and is a crisp 90 minute. It is Mark L. Lester. I do like some of his other movies. I love Showdown in Little Tokyo of like some other stuff that he's done. This is a five for me. If you love Arnie for the reasons I love Arie and you love that kind of like auxiliary cheesy, the sub boss characters and the lines and everything, think this one makes me very happy. And I don't think we'll agree on this, but for me, from my perspective, this is a five.

Steve

That's great. I love that. I. Look, here's the thing. It's not a five for me, but. But I still really enjoyed this movie. It's the first time I've ever seen it. So no nostalgia for it. Nothing hearkens back to like, you know, drunken nights in like high school or college watching it. Nothing like that. But you know, like you said, it is chock full of cheesy one liners which are great. You know, I love those. I really wish the villain was more intimidating, but that's okay. You know, the action's fantastic, the body counts were crazy high, the weaponry is fun to watch. All those things. A lot of the things that we just talked a couple weeks ago about being what makes Predator so good.

Nic

Right.

Steve

Because those two movies really do line up right. Like we, we watched Predator, we watched Total Recall, True Lies, now this for January. And I feel like of those movies, the two that that are most closely tied to each other are Predator and Commando. They're very similar styles. And I have all the nostalgia in the world for Predator. I first saw that when I was like 12 and then I don't have any for this, but it was still a ton of fun. So I am a three out of five on Commando. I really enjoyed it, but it's like too many things where I was like, okay, that was too unrealistic. Or again, Bennett, like, really a full point came off this movie because Ben, it was just not intimidating to me. But it's still a three out of five. I think it was fun.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And you know it definitely, you know, I think anybody, if you haven't seen this is what I would say if you saw this movie and you're younger and you haven't in a while, go, go dig it up. Because I am sure that if I had any, even an ounce of nostalgia for it, I would have enjoyed it even more. But that makes us an 8 out of 10 on commando, which is pretty solid. Definitely a good above, you know, the other sort of ratings and stuff. So that wraps up January for us. This is the final, what a month. Wednesday in January. Yeah. Fantastic way to kick off 2026. And you know, I don't know if you realize this, Nic, but you know, do you know what next week is next week? Next week?

Nic

February.

Steve

February 4th will be the next Wednesday.

Nic

That sounds like an anniversary of sorts.

Steve

Is the one year anniversary of the start of this very podcast podcast. On February 4, 2025, we released our episode on Groundhog Day. And on February 4, 2026, we are going to start a new. It's not a theme, but it's like a new sequence. Yeah, I think it's something we're going to kick off and really enjoy doing to start off our second full year of working on the podcast. So it's not a theme month. We're not calling it that. We're not tying movies together by any kind of like actor or style or anything. But we are going to walk through what we're calling two dads two decades. We're going to start with 1980 and we're going to watch a movie from 1980 and the week after that, 81 and then 82. So forth all the way up to 1999 in, I think it'll be sometime in June. We'll get that. It's going to take us a while to do it. Yeah, but that's fantastic. This gives us a little structure, I think, for our choices. We'll still go back and forth like we always have. And I'm going to be the one that kicks it off and starts off with 1980. And when I looked at the movies of 1980, I had a lot of choices that I felt like I could make. Yeah, there's so many good movies from that year. One I didn't choose for me. But particular favorite I hope we watch together at some point is like Caddyshack would have been one of my, you know, potential choices. But I've decided to, to kind of go back to a group of filmmakers we've actually already seen once.

Nic

Okay.

Steve

So the Kentucky Fried Theater Boys gave us Naked Gun from the files of Police Squad. And before they did that, they gave US airplane from 1980.

Nic

Oh, baby.

Steve

Zucker. Abraham Zucker's Airplane. This is fantastic. This is the first comedic role for several very dramatic, serious actors, which is so much fun. We'll get into all that next week, but there's something else we're doing next week too, Nic, that I think I should mention. Yeah. Next week we're going on a field trip. I can't wait.

Nic

I love field trips.

Steve

We're going on a field trip to the Cinema 9 podcast where our buddies Mike, Mike and Eric and Travis have invited us to come on and chat about a movie that we haven't done on this show yet and they haven't done on their show. And their show's been around for like five years.

Nic

Wow.

Steve

We're gonna. We're gonna watch Executive Decision starring Kurt Russell and Steven seagal with the Cinema 9 boys next week. I think it'll come out before our episode on Airplane does. So if you're listening, keep an eye out for Cinema nine. Nic and I will be on that next week and you don't want to miss that.

Nic

Yeah. And that's a great podcast. I've listened to a bunch of cinema 9. I think they do a really good job and they're slightly different than us. So even a same an episode on the same film. I think you get a lot listening to both. But yeah, I can't wait to chat with those guys and chat some Executive Decision.

Steve

I. It'll be my second time on their podcast. I actually was. They're like episode 260 some odd. But I was on episode 57 back in 2021 and we talked about get shorty at that time. So that was a lot of fun. So, yeah, so keep an eye out for that. Watch for us on Cinema 9 podcasts podcast. But here on 2 Dads 1 movie, we will be talking about Airplane next week and I'm super excited about that. So that's a wrap. If you like what you hear, and we hope you do, please consider heading over to Apple or Spotify and leaving us a five star review. It really helps new folks find the show. Be sure to check out our website@2dads1movie.com. That's the number two and the number one there. You can explore the movies we've covered, sign up for our newsletter the Rewind, and even get sneak previews of upcoming episodes. We'd also love it if you followed us on Instagram @2dadson movie. Once again, this has been Commando, another episode of 2Dads. One movie. I'm Steve.

Nic

And I'm Nic.

Steve

Thank you so much for listening. We'll catch you next week.

Nic

Thanks, everyone.