Transcript

Intro Clip

So once we kidnap super cop, then what?

Intro Clip

Tiny surgery.

Intro Clip

I'd like to take his. His face off.

Intro Clip

Yes.

Intro Clip

If you excuse me, I have to use the little boys wee wee room.

Intro Clip

Cass, you want to take his face? Yes, his face. Awful. The eyes, nose, skin coming off.

Intro Clip

The face.

Intro Clip

No more drugs for that man.

Steve

It's two Dads one 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. It's another episode of 2 Dads 1 Movie. I'm Steve.

Nic

And I'm Nic.

Steve

And today we are talking to you about the movie Face Off. And I didn't even preface this. I just want to say Face off because I have been looking forward to doing this movie honestly, since before we started the podcast. Because I think we talked about it a few weeks ago.

Steve

Cagevember is one of the first things I thought up when I was like, I want to do a podcast about movies and movies from the 80s and 90s. I want to do Cagevember. I want to do. I didn't know it was going to be November at the time, but I want to do a Nicholas Cage thing.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And most of the reason I wanted to do a Nicholas Cage thing was so that I had another excuse to rewatch Face off and talk about it. And so here we are. John Woo, John Travolta, Nicholas Cage, Face Off.

Nic

I am so excited to be a part of this, Steve. Yeah.

Nic

This one, I think hit us both around the same time. So I am psyched about it. You picked this one. Why? Why'd you pick this?

Nic

I think you probably have myriad reasons why you did.

Steve

Why wouldn't you pick it is first off. But, you know, just looking at the whole cagevember idea and Nicolas Cage stuff, this was like such a classic coming together of so many elements of Nicolas Cage's career in the mid to late 90s. It is a bonkers premise in a big budget action movie from a superstar director where he's paired alongside another great character, another great actor. And, you know, so just like in the Rock when it was Michael Bay and Sean Connery, and just like in Con Air when it was John Cusack and Simon west, like, this is great stuff and it's really just insane.

Steve

It's like Cage level insane.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Which is great. So, but before we get to it, I want to tie all these movies together and I think it's important I written up a little bit of a timeline of like, how do we get the movie Face Off?

Nic

Beautiful?

Steve

Because it's not an easy thing to get a movie with this bonkers level of premise, with this size budget done in this way. So how did we get Face Off? It's all because of Sam Raimi, Quentin Tarantino, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. And why? I'll tell you why.

Steve

In 1993, John Woo is hired by Universal to direct his first English language film. Wu, of course, was super, super, super successful in Hong Kong. Hard Boiled the Killer, Better Tomorrow, like these great movies. And so Universal Studios wants to bring him over to the US and do an English language action film. So he looks at a bunch of scripts and he passes on a bunch of martial arts films.

Steve

He's like, I don't want to do just a straight martial arts film. I've been doing those for a little while. He looks at this, like, sci fi script that is a face swapping story. It's set far in the future. It's much more science fiction.

Steve

He's like, I don't really want to do sci fi. That's not really my jam either. He settles on the script for Hard Target. And so Jean Claude Van Damme acts in, you know, stars in John Woo's first English language film in Hard Target. Calling it English language might be a stretch because it was Van Damme, but going into this, Universal is super nervous about, like, they invited him over, but it's also like, new director Hollywood.

Steve

Will he get along with Van Damme, who was an enormous star at the time? Right, yeah. And so they assigned Sam Raimi, the director, director, to go, like, kind of watch over the production of Hard Target and, you know, keep an eye on Wu, help him out if he needs it, you know, let us know if it's going really bad and we'll set you, we'll put you in place instead.

Nic

Okay.

Steve

What they didn't know is that Raimi already believed that the Killer was the greatest action movie ever made.

Steve

So he's already a huge John Woo fan. He is quoted as saying, John Woo at 70% is still going to blow away most American action directors at 100%. So Sam Raimi didn't do a damn thing. He let John Woo be John Woo. He let John cook.

Steve

Very nice. And then Wu is hailed as a visionary. Critics don't care for Hard Target, but action fans recognize it as a massive success and wu's breaking into the American English language film world. Okay, so that was 93 in 94, Quentin Tarantino does a little Movie called Pulp Fiction, which resurrects John Travolta's career. Right.

Steve

At that point, Travolta had done recently. Done what? Like look who's talking, right.

Nic

And a couple of really various sequels. He wasn't.

Nic

Yeah, he wasn't.

Steve

He wasn't doing a listing much at that time, but. But he is. His career is resurrect. Resurrected by that.

Steve

In 1995, Nicholas Cage breaks out of the career slump that he was in since he was in Moonstruck and our last film, Raising our zone in 87 by turning in an Oscar winning performance in Leaving Las Vegas. Of course he wins that Oscar in 1996. Right. That's when that Oscar ceremony occurs. So the Academy fets Nicholas Cage with the best acting Oscar for Leaving Las Vegas in 96.

Steve

Travolta gets into the action game. He's like, I want to be an actor. Pulp Fiction was a crime. There's some action stuff. I want to get into this.

Steve

John Woo is looking to do his second English language film, Broken Arrow. So Travolta joins up with Wu for the first time alongside Christian Slater in Broken Arrow, a fun movie. That same year, Cage also joins the action game. It's his first action movie when he stars in the Rock alongside Sean Connery. So we now have 1986 has occurred and both these men are really in their first action movies, like for real.

Nic

Wow.

Steve

Then in 97, Cage and Travolta come together as the action star duo that John Woo needs to go back and get that sci fi face swapping script and bring it to the modern day and make it a current day thing because that's what his concept requires. And he can do this only with Cage and Travolta, the two kind of most psychotic action movies of the action stars at the time. The original concept for Face off was very sci fi set in the future. Wu passed on it back then chose to do Hard Target, but they decided that trio made it work in the modern day setting.

Steve

But that's it. That's how going back to Universal, inviting Wu over and him doing Hard Target with Jean Claude Van Damme and Sam Raimi not being the watchdog Universal thought they wanted. Really set all this up to get to where we are, to where we get a movie like Face Off.

Nic

God, that butterfly effect is magical sometimes, huh?

Steve

It is a lot of fun.

Nic

Sometimes it's a butterfly spreading its wings, sometimes it's Van Damme doing the splits.

Steve

Yeah, exactly, Right. So, yeah, so I, and I, you know, like you said, you Kind of hinted at it before. Like this again, like, Con Air. This was, you know, the summer between our junior and senior year of high school.

Steve

This was prime time to, like, watch this kind of movie. And this was definitely a theater watch for me. What about you? Theater watch for sure.

Nic

And this also is a movie that Occupied Space is my favorite movie of all time.

Steve

For a while.

Nic

When I first saw this, I was blown away by it. And this. You know, there's other things that we've already talked about that I had seen around this time. But to me, I think this was just so above and beyond because I did, like, the little tinge of sci fi element to it and the action stuff.

Nic

I hadn't seen the other John Woo films before I saw this, so this was my first exposure to, you know, the way to shoot someone is to dive sideways with two guns in slow motion while a bunch of seagulls are flying in your face.

Steve

Right?

Nic

So, like, it was, to me, it was the coolest shit I'd ever seen at the time. And this movie has some bonkers and really great, really innovative action sequences. And it's just kind of like boom, boom, boom.

Nic

I mean, it's a long movie for the type of movie that it is, but there's not a ton that that drags too much that really weighs it down. So at the time, this was perfect for us. Like, for me being 16, 17, not going to have a girlfriend for another nine years, probably, like, this was right where I wanted to be.

Steve

Absolutely. All right, man, let's jump into the facts on Face off, get through this preamble and get into the movie.

Steve

All right, the movie Face off came out on June 27, 1997. That is 21 days, three Fridays after con Air came out. It has an R rating and a running time of 139 minutes. The movie was directed by John Woo and written by Mike Werb and Michael Collier Colliery. Starring Nicholas Cage, John Travolta, and the beautiful Joan Allen.

Steve

Scores. Rotten tomatoes. 93% of rotten tomatoes. Massively fresh score on IMDb. A very respectable 7.3.

Steve

And we get two thumbs up from our homies, Siskel and Ebert.

Nic

Good job, boys.

Steve

Awards. This actually won several awards at the 1998 Blockbuster Entertainment Awards, Cage won favorite actor in an action adventure movie, beating out Travolta. Of course, that's also the year.

Steve

This is the 98 blockbuster entertainment awards, also the year that Cage won favorite actor, period, for his role in Con Air. So he was kind of up against. Somebody's cleaning up Left and right. At the 1998 MTV Movie Awards, Cage and Travolta won best on screen Duo. And the speedboat chase from near the end of this movie.

Steve

One best action sequence at that awards show as well. On an $80 million budget, it took home $245 million in the box office for just over three times what it cost, which is a hit movie for sure. So yeah, those are the facts on Face Off.

Nic

Very nice.

Steve

It's.

Steve

I mean, we just have to get started. Like there's literally my first note is buckle the fuck in. Because it is like it is going right away and you know, there's nothing quite like beginning an action movie with some child murder. I mean that's really kind of really set. So we've got John Travolta's character, Sean Archer, FBI agent, and his five year old son, Mike.

Steve

Mikey, Michael, whatever.

Nic

Little five year old pumpkin pie hair.

Steve

Yeah, little, little bad, little bowl cut on him. Real gross, Terrible, terrible haircut. But they're on a carousel apparently we learn later at Griffith park in Los Angeles.

Steve

And they're just going around, whatever. But then quickly we are shown the, the barrel of a sniper rifle with a scope and everything. And so off in the distance is a mustachioed Nicholas Cage playing the character Caster Troi. And he is, you know, gets down and is like looking at Archer through the, through the scope on his rifle. But unfortunately at one point he like turns to take a sip from his soda and he kind of looks away and when he looks back through the scope, he doesn't see the child at all.

Steve

He just sees Archer and it's his back. It's like a perfect shot kind of thing. So he takes the shot. We actually get a really great little image of like following the bullet for a while, the bullet cam kind of thing and shoots through Sean Archer's back, through his chest and unfortunately killing young Michael.

Nic

Yeah, and really, and this happens very quickly.

Nic

This is just a couple of minutes if that. And yeah, I mean the Travolta character just kind of writhing in the pain of losing his son and secondarily being shot. The scene of the balloons being let go and flying into the air, but, but it doesn't linger. I mean, we don't have to see the kid die slowly. I mean it's terrible, but at least it's not so graphic as far as what it's showing.

Steve

It seems like whatever the bullet that hit him killed him sort of instantly. So there's no suffering. He's not seeing whatever that's all great. But we do get this clear indication and there is a look of, I won't say regret, but there is a look of like, aw, well, that sucks. From Castor Troi.

Steve

It doesn't look like he wanted to kill the kid. He doesn't look happy about that. He's also probably pretty unhappy that Archer continues to crawl along the ground. So he's clearly not dead.

Nic

Right.

Steve

If he had just shot him in the head, the whole movie be done by now. It would have been a one minute movie. But you know, that's.

Nic

But then there would have been nothing for John Woo to do.

Steve

No, exactly six months.

Steve

So we cut to the title card or whatever on the screen says six years later. So now we've gone from 91 to 97 and we have. Castor Troi has lost his boss ass mustache, which I really think is a massive failure. If he could have grown that thing, they should just let him keep it through the whole thing. But I guess that's one of the ways we see time pass.

Nic

Right.

Steve

Very important to show us time passing.

Nic

See your mustache disappearing.

Steve

Right. So Cage is dressed up as a priest.

Nic

Yes.

Steve

And he has the coolest 1997 touchscreen little computer tablet thing that lets him like type in a code. And there's this like very bad sort of, you know, four color gif of of a woman. And it says like Sinclair is armed or whatever.

Nic

It's like, oh, and he's just banging away at the keys like Simon Phoenix, like not looking.

Nic

And he's smoking in a way that's like the dorkiest person in the world was told to show someone how cool smoking is. It's really funny. Like the stuff in this, especially in the very beginning of this film that's supposed to show how like badass and cool the Nic Cage character is, is just like, oh, Jesus Christ. Like there's still dudes like that, but they're 55.

Steve

Right.

Nic

And still doing that kind of stuff, so.

Steve

Or older.

Nic

Really good though. But very similar, stylized and very, you know, a great setting and everything. And he goes and, you know, does what he does at the terminal and then he's in the priest costume and there's a chorus that are doing Handel's Messiah.

Steve

That's right.

Nic

Right.

Steve

That's right. And so he does a little like kind of head banging, twerking, unhinged dancing. That looks bizarre from anyone.

Steve

Very bizarre from a priest.

Nic

Yeah. And at this point, just from that scene, and we're five minutes into the film, I wrote down only Cage and underlined it because to do that without it looking like he had to stand up and go, just kidding afterwards is like, only Nicolas Cage can contribute an earnestness to this fucking weird ass behavior.

Steve

Anybody else that could have done that convincingly wouldn't have worked as an action star. Right.

Steve

That's the key. Because there's other people that could have done it. Maybe not at this time in his career, but I'm thinking Will Ferrell or somebody like that, whatever. But it would have been goofier. It wouldn't have been coming from somebody who is then also this sinister criminal, terrorist assassin guy, whatever.

Steve

Right. So. And of course he walks up to, I'm sorry, I'm gonna say it, clearly underaged teenage girl and grabs her ass after whispering in her ear. And it's just like, man, this is, this is the 90s, we don't need this. Really?

Steve

Like, like I feel like this was acceptable in the 90s in a way that it wouldn't be today. Yeah, it's just, it's just not necessary.

Nic

And it would be one thing if he had just grabbed her ass, but he makes this face that makes me like not even want to grab my own wife's ass. It's just like, oh, okay. Tells me that ass grabbing is creepy and weird and no one should ever do it because holy moly.

Steve

You know what it is? It's the two handed ass grab. Yeah. If you grab your wife's ass, you're just grabbing with one hand. Yeah, one hand, one cheek, give it a good squeeze.

Nic

Right.

Steve

If you do a two hand ass grab, there is something kind of weird that's true. Gross about that.

Nic

So yeah, unless they're about to like fall off a cliff, hold them back.

Steve

That's a whole different.

Nic

And we're talking about permitted assessment, by.

Steve

The way, consensual ass grabs. Not random people, and certainly not people underage or whatever, but like, you know, married ass grabs.

Nic

Okay, so the Nic Cage character now has left this convention center that he's in, right? And he's going to meet up with his crew.

Nic

And at this time, the Travolta character, we see, he's part of the anti terror team or whatever.

Steve

Shawn Archer, he makes a comment, he's FBI, but he makes a comment about like ZPD on something and they're like, no, like they're not returning our call. He goes, oh, right. Because we're a covert anti terrorism organization that's so secret. When we snap our fingers, nothing happens.

Steve

Like he's super pissed about it. He's super aggro, stressed out, pissed off. I want to take a quick second to just talk about on the grand scheme of, hey, that guy's been in something else. His little crew of people is all stars. So first of all, there's Margaret Cho.

Steve

She's Margaret Cho. She's fantastic. It's Margaret Cho. Then there's the guy who plays Buzz, was Mike Delfino on Desperate Housewives. So one of the major characters of that show, the guy who plays Loomis, was in American Psycho, but more importantly, it was Gavin Belson on the TV show Silicon Valley, which is a fantastic show from hbo.

Steve

He's the one who gets his ear shot and then regrown, whatever, and then Tito is one of my favorite TV shows. Burn Notice was in about a full season's worth of episodes of Burn Notice as this character Vaughn, who sort of runs this Illuminati of assassins and stuff around the world.

Nic

Nice.

Steve

But, yeah, so it's just like kind of like this hit after hit of, like. That guy was in that.

Steve

That guy was in that. That guy's in that.

Nic

I just love this. In the great. I don't know her character's name.

Nic

The great CCH Pounder as the. Like, some kind of authority figure in the department. Like, she's always in that role. She's in the new gun. She's in, like, a million things.

Steve

I think she was like, yeah, like, the Wire and secret. Secret operations or black ops or something. I mean, she's some kind of, like. Yeah. Under undercover, like, unit or whatever that she runs.

Nic

Super loaded, though.

Steve

Yeah, super loaded. Crazy cast, as usual. Yeah.

Nic

Okay, so.

Nic

So Caster Troy leaves where he's going.

Steve

Wait. First we find out that at Archer's thing, they find out that a jet was just chartered at LAX and it was paid for by Pollux, right?

Nic

Oh, that's right.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Castor's brother who. And they said they don't ever. He doesn't ever travel alone.

Steve

Alex doesn't fly without big brothers. That means Castor will be there.

Steve

Let's get one of our people on the plane. Yeah.

Nic

Castor's walking up. He pulls up in the car. He gets out, and he's got this trench coat flying off of him.

Nic

It's a slow mo scene of how cool he is, right? So he gets out, and he has these dumb sunglasses on in this trench coat. He walks up to his crew. He spreads his arms like James Brown so that someone can take the coat off of him, and then they open up this little box of Buzz's private stuff, which, like, has, like, Chiclets and pills. And then these two gold pistols that have, like, dragons on them.

Steve

Super cool.

Nic

And then a money clip that's a gold dragon. And then a pair of way worse sunglasses that he then takes off his shitty sunglasses and puts on the even worse sunglasses just to show.

Steve

Hard disagree. Hard disagree.

Steve

I like the, like, sort of. He's got little, like. Like, octagon lenses with, like, a purple. They are a little small, but I actually kind of like the ones he changes into. But, yeah, that's okay.

Nic

He's. At the time, I thought that was really cool. I could have got a hold of those octo glasses, man. Those were sick. So he immediately gets on the jet and sits down, like, before they've even closed the staircase up.

Nic

And he's like, let's go, let's go. I'm bored.

Steve

Let's go. Right? And so then there is a woman on the plane, like a stewardess, basically.

Steve

And she's on the phone, and we kind of get the sense. Because the last thing we heard from Archer is, let's get one of our people on that plane. We kind of get the sense, but it's not. She's talking to somebody. She goes, hey, actually, my passengers are here.

Steve

I gotta go. Which is like. Could be just. Like. She could just be a stewardess.

Steve

But we think it's probably somebody who's working with Archer. So Castor and Pollux get on the plane. Pollux sits down. He's got, like, his briefcase or whatever, and Castor sits down. The woman brings him, like, a drink, like a cocktail or something, whatever, a glass of brandy or some shit.

Steve

And he sits down, and she says, and here's the thing. First of all, she is dressed matronly, like a turtleneck and just very beige pantsuit or something. She's not dressed sexy. She doesn't look like a sexy stewardess or anything like that. But the second he sits down and she goes, oh, here you go.

Steve

And if you'd like anything else when we get in the air, just let me know. Which to me, didn't sound like flirting. It sounded like that's what a stewardess says. But he takes it as like, oh, come sit down.

Nic

His line here is the gross of shit.

Steve

Do you want to do it or you want me to? If I were.

Nic

If I want my voice, oh, I'll do it. No, go for it.

Steve

He starts saying, if I were to send you flowers, where would I.

Steve

No, wait, let me rephrase. If I were to let you suck my tongue. You can't make me laugh. Would you be grateful?

Nic

Oh, my God, I love it.

Nic

I love it. You did a way better caged voice than me. Holy shit. But yeah, the caster. And this is one of those things.

Nic

As a dumb 17 year old that had never had any girls before, I.

Steve

Was like, oh, that's cool.

Nic

That's how cool guys get girls.

Steve

Like, oh, I'm gonna use that line. I'm gonna use that line.

Steve

I could eat a peach for hours. Oh, my God, he's so gross. But it's perfect. But it's perfectly gross.

Nic

It works so well because you have to, like.

Nic

Because they've already given this guy's kind of like rap sheet earlier. They're like, oh, he's been involved in political assassinations and terrorist detectives. So he's not just Jesse James. He's like a world class criminal, like Bond villain level of criminal.

Steve

And he's not like a freedom fighter or a revolutionary.

Steve

He's for hire. He is. Somebody pays him to kill people or blow shit up and he does. That's it. Right?

Steve

And so, yeah, so there's that. And then, so we get to. Now we know that Archer's on the way. The plane starts to move, I think first. And then the cops like roll up and they are, they are, they're running.

Steve

You know, they got the. He's in the Humvee with Tito and he's, you know, they got all the cops and the sirens on. And for whatever reason, Archer and Tito are coming from where the plane's headed. All the other cops and helicopter and stuff are following them. Right, whatever.

Steve

So Troy starts freaking out. Castor Troy starts freaking out and he's like telling the. He's telling the pilot, fly, bitch. Like, you know, he's like trying to like get him to go. And this whole sequence, like this very much reminded me of Demolition man, where the opening of this movie, not maybe not the opening opening, we had the whole like Mikey had to get killed or whatever.

Steve

But like when we get to this point, it's like we are 6ish minutes into the movie and this feels like a climax.

Nic

Oh, yeah, right.

Steve

This feels like the climax of an action movie. So they are chasing the plane. They're, you know, whatever.

Steve

He's trying to play chicken. Archer is with the plane up front. He notices through the windshield that because Winters, the woman who's the stewardess, she at some point goes, you know, FBI, freeze. And pulls her gun on Castor. But like, Pollux throws his briefcase at her.

Steve

And, like, wrestles or the gun away from her so that they've got her, and he, you know, Castor pulls her up to the front of the plane and puts a gun to her head. Archer sees her, and I got to be honest with you, first of all, you can't really play chicken with a plane. That wouldn't have worked out very well for the guys in the Humvee. But, like, did he think that Castor would let her go if he, like, turned away? Because the way that he goes, oh, they got Winters.

Steve

And he, like, yeah, like, yeah, that's what happened. But, like, that's not. That really shouldn't change anything about you're doing. Right, right. Like, you.

Nic

You. You just have to. I mean, just deal with it. This is part of the job. Like, it sucks, but that's kind of what the thing.

Nic

What the job is for. And, yeah, he has her, like, in the open door of the side of the plane, and. And, you know, he has this look on his face. Like, it's this release, this, like, orgasmic release as he, like, shoots her, throws her off the plane. And then he gives this kind of, like, Tim Robinson looking shrug.

Nic

That absolutely killed me.

Steve

Oh, my God. One of yours, Sean? Yeah.

Nic

Oh, my God.

Steve

So then Tito and Archer, they stop their Humvee while the plane keeps going. And then Tito gets out and runs over to Winters to check on her, and Archer is getting into a helicopter like, he doesn't give a fuck. Like, it's like, I don't care if that's my person. Like, screw it, I'm gone. And everybody else is like, damn it, Sean.

Steve

You know, like, they're basically. He is the classic, you know, the cop that plays by his own rules. He's. He's Mel Gibson and Lethal Weapon. He's, you know, whatever.

Steve

He's going, cash. Like, he's all that shit, right? And so he's now in the helicopter, and he's, like, flying after the train, which. The plane, which still has not gotten off the ground. And he.

Steve

Castro, goes up to the pilot and is like, what the fuck are you doing? Like, get off the ground. You know? And that's when Archer kind of, like, does a really cool thing. He kind of, like, lands the little, like, landing skids of the helicopter onto the flaps of the plane so it can't rise up and get any lift.

Steve

I was like, that's kind of a neat, you know, plan. So now the gun fighting has to happen between the plane and the helicopter, which is great. And Caster has shot the Pilot.

Nic

Right. He got so frustrated because the engine was out.

Nic

So the pilot says, we lost an engine, we have to stop. And then Caster just blasts him away.

Steve

Does not have time.

Nic

No use for you anymore. And then he tries to, like, just drive the plane like it's a car.

Steve

Like it's a car. Yeah. Into what the first looks like a hangar is kind of what it looks like. Later learn. It's more like a maintenance testing thing, I guess, whatever it is.

Steve

But he does that. And this was like the first. I have two times in my notebook for this movie that I wrote down in all capitals, John Woo in the house. And this was one of them. Because when Castor Troy comes flying out that plane door, jumping with guns akimbo.

Steve

Right. Like, firing with both at the same time. The dual wielding pistols is such a John Wu thing. I don't think he like invented it or anything, but it's such a classically John Wu trait. You have the dual wielding pistols and.

Steve

And this was, you know, a great gunfight. There's, there's.

Nic

There's a lot of. So much going on here.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

There's one guy who gets shot with a shotgun and you can see the rope that's like yanking him back to like make him fly back. But you need that over the. The top thing. Archer going after Troy does the thing where he grabs onto a chain that's connected to the floor and disconnects it from the floor by shooting it and just gets a free ride up to the ceiling and then slides down a plane wing. Like it's a slide.

Steve

It's just.

Nic

It's so good.

Steve

And like, I've never tried because I'm a normal person shooting a chain link to try to break it. But I can't imagine that's easy. You must have to hit that just right.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

You know, but it seems to happen in movies a lot. It does, but it did seem to work. Again, this is like, you know, John Woo is just. Is all about over the top action and kind of acrobatic action.

Steve

That's one of the big things of it is it's all very acrobatic. There's jumping and sliding and tunneling or tumbling and all this different stuff. And it's really great. Yeah, it's just. It's crazy.

Nic

This whole scene is really incredible. And there's agents getting killed and, you know, they end up in a standoff. Basically. Castor and Sean are guns pointing at each other's faces and they're in a standoff and they have that classic conversation of you only got one bullet left. Oh, you must know your guns.

Nic

You only got one bullet left too.

Steve

That's right.

Nic

I always love that you can hear what gun each bullet's coming from.

Steve

Yeah, it's interesting too. I can't remember, I didn't write down any exact examples here, but I have this general idea.

Steve

From the scene where Sean Archer and Castor Troi as characters are written very differently from each other in this movie, most of Travolta as Sean Archer, his lines are boring, he says boring things. He doesn't have good lines. He's constantly just kind of frustrated with what's going on around him. Whereas Cage as Caster Troi has a bunch of this really great sort of phenomenon.

Nic

Phoenix.

Steve

Yeah, exactly. Very fun bad guy language and sayings and different little things that he does and little one liners and whatnot. And then what you'll notice as we go through the movie. And again, I don't write down examples, but when we get in the movie, everybody gets written like Castor Troi is because later on when what I refer to as Troiter and Archroi, you know, they basically, Travolta playing Troy dressed up as Archer sounds like Troy because Troy doesn't know how to mask how he sounds. But Cage as Troy, faced up like Archer, has to try to sound like Troy to continue living in his world.

Steve

So they both end. So the screenwriting comes together and the dialogue ends up sounding similar to each other. But it's like at this stage you can really tell the difference between how Archer and Troy are written as characters. I thought is like incredibly. Just very descriptive, you know, very.

Steve

Just impressive by the screenwriters. So. Something I wanted to throw out there?

Nic

Yeah, no, no, that's. That's definitely good to point out because they do.

Nic

Yeah. You see the evolution for sure.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

So they're in a standoff with each other, guns at each other's head, and Archer's basically like, look, the difference between you and me is I don't care if I live.

Steve

Which is a wild thing to say, is a man with a daughter.

Steve

Daughter and a wife.

Nic

You should care a little bit, right?

Steve

Like at least a little.

Nic

Jesus Christ. And then, and then Troy at some points, like goes to shoot him and he has no bullets.

Steve

Yeah, he was.

Nic

So now he's screwed and he's begging for his life and he's just kind of like singing and everything. Now I'm ready for the big ride.

Steve

Big ride, baby and he tries to pull a knife out of like, out of the back pocket or his leg or something, whatever. And he goes to stab Archer, but Archer kicks the knife hand away.

Nic

Yes.

Steve

And then Troy ends up, like, getting pushed in front of this, like, jet engine on, like, a testing platform. Yeah. And then accidentally, as he goes by to try to brace himself, pushes the button that, like, turns on the afterburner or something.

Nic

Yeah, I think it was Archer that.

Steve

Actually was it Archer that did it.

Nic

He knew the button to push.

Steve

Oh, okay, I see. It looked more accidental initially, but there's a lot of cuts back and forth. But, like, so that happened.

Steve

And that blows TROY Rather back 50ft, like, a long ways through the air against a metal grate and ostensibly killing him, or at least knocking him into a coma, I guess, is what really happened. But. Yeah.

Nic

And it's a notable stunt double that does not look like Nicholas Cage.

Steve

The stunt doubles in this movie are not good.

Nic

It shows too much of.

Steve

There are several scenes later, especially where the stunt doubles look real bad in the speedboat chase and a few other places. Yes.

Nic

Even when it's, like, a haircut.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Like, this whole movie is about how easy it is to change the appearance of somebody.

Steve

Fucking prove it. John Woo. Goddamn.

Nic

The stunt double's like, well, couldn't you have hired the Evans Institute or whatever.

Steve

The fuck that was? Did you need, like, a Latino actor to be the stunt double? Could you have not found two white guys? It's crazy.

Nic

Okay, so this was a great scene here. So now Castor Troi has been his.

Steve

Dad as far as we know at this point. Right.

Nic

Archer comes home, and we get a little glimpse into his home life.

Nic

And this is a scene that, in 1997, the reveal, so shocking. And we're like, oh, my God. And they're talking about, well, his daughter is getting in trouble at school. People are giving her a hard time. And she turns around to reveal that she has a pretty, like, unoffensive nose ring and a little more mascara than normal.

Steve

Well, she did. She did take that mascara and turned into, like, almost, like, little sunburst. It's like a rounder eye.

Nic

Did a little mouth something.

Steve

But it's not that bad.

Steve

And, yeah, the nose ring is like a single loop. It looks very like Joan Osborne. It's like nothing.

Nic

You know, it's really funny.

Steve

And, like, I'll just put it out there, like, at the time, Dominique Swain, top of my list.

Steve

Like, absolutely gorgeous actress. And I think, like, literally, I looked it up. She was, like, born in 80, so she's like, exactly our age. Everything. And, like, you know, absolutely stunning actress and very much worked for.

Steve

For, you know, high school me as far as, like, oh, yeah, we should protect this one. Look at her. Like, you got. You got to make sure you save her, Sean. Like, you know, but, yeah, but she.

Steve

We're giving this. And, yeah, she has her hair up a little bit. She doesn't look that crazy. Like, there's no. They didn't color her hair.

Steve

They didn't give her, like, tons of piercings, no tattoos. Yeah, it's not that bad. It's all very temporary. But he reacts like, oh, God, look at that. I mean, he reacts like, it is such the end of the world that she has a nose ring.

Steve

Now. I will say my wife had got her first nose ring. It was either very late night, probably the late 90s before she and I met, and her dad used to refer to how she has shit in her face. You got all that shit in your face, like, one nose ring. You know what I mean?

Steve

So it was a thing back then that people overreacted. Sure, it's a facial piercing.

Nic

I mean, accurate. Accurate reflection of the culture at the time. But now it looks very much like, oh, she only has one nose ring.

Nic

What's wrong with her?

Steve

And so then Archer is telling his wife Eve, played by Joan Allen, about how it's over. Caster's dead. Like, we're done. You know, I'm going to put in for a desk job.

Steve

And she's super excited, whatever. But he does the thing. And he does it all throughout the movie. He even did at the beginning. I didn't mention it.

Steve

But, like, at the beginning with Mike Michael on the carousel, he, like, puts his. I'm gonna try to calm down. He puts his disgusting ass hand right on people's faces and, like, swipes down like he's wiping his butt. But it's their face. It's the grossest thing that's supposed to be, like, a symbol of endearment and love that I've ever seen in any movie.

Steve

It grosses me out every time he touches anybody's face. It's like, get your hands off of people's faces.

Nic

Post Covid. It does not work whatsoever. But even at that time was a little, like, if you had any kind of.

Nic

Of, like, aversion to germs, then you would not like that.

Steve

I remember seeing it in the movie theater at 17 years old and thinking, that's weird. Why would you touch somebody's face like that? And then only as time went on did I go, that Is fucking disgusting. Get your hands off her face.

Steve

Like so. Yeah, gross.

Nic

But they needed a face thing. You know, they needed something important. The face to go through or whatever.

Nic

They should touch cheeks to each other or something.

Steve

But also a symbol or a sign that is like not a common showing of love. So that later when he does it, it's like a sign that it's actually him kind of thing. Like, I get why it exists. It's still gross as hell.

Steve

Yeah, this is disgusting.

Nic

So. So Archer's back at the. He's at the. The office, right?

Nic

And they, hey, congratulations, Agent Archer, we got him. And they give him some champagne. He's kind of like, what's this for?

Steve

What about all?

Nic

And he's listing the people that he died.

Steve

He mentions Winter, so we assume it's like all the agents who died in the pursuit of Troy. It's actually. Yeah, the bottle, the champagne. So the CIA. Here's the thing.

Steve

The bottle is from the CIA. And he makes a crack about I didn't know they catered. Which is like one of the only half decent lines he has at this. At this point as the character. But the note on it says just for Sean.

Steve

Okay. That's what it says on. On the note on the Dom Perignon. It's a bottle of Dom. And it says just for Sean.

Steve

Right? Like. Like it's just for you.

Nic

Weird.

Steve

The thing is, is that that's why he then says, what about for Peabody and Smith or whatever the names he lists off.

Steve

What about for the. But we don't see that note until after he gives that speech. And it's like it would have made so much more sense that he's saying that if he'd looked at and go, just for Sean. Well, what about for so and so? And what about.

Steve

It's like, dude, how is that missed? Like, but it's the. You do glimpse the note near the end. It says, just for Sean.

Nic

But he's also not talking to the people that delivered the Just for Sean champagne.

Steve

They're not there. Yeah, he's just bitching at his own people. They've just closed a case that is like, obviously many more than six years long. Because six years ago, Troy tried to kill him.

Nic

Right?

Steve

So he's been on Troy's back longer than that. On his trail. This man killed his son. And it is now done. He has won.

Steve

And he's not even allowing himself a moment. Here's the thing, as. As a manager, because that's what I do for a living. The fact that he won't even let his team celebrate that win, even if he didn't feel like celebratory. Total bullshit.

Steve

Like, absolute crap. That's a crap boss, basically. But that's what he does. He reacts that way. And so then he goes into his office and he's, like, looking through dossiers of, like, other people Castor had killed.

Steve

It gets to Michael. It's the title of the dossier entry is Carousel Sniper Victim. That's how they describe him. And the description in it mentions that Castor didn't mean to kill Michael. He was trying to kill Sean.

Steve

It, like, says it in the, like, FBI dossier entry. That's not what he's giving, like, some kind of, like, you know, what is. The mental thought process of the killer at the time is, like, not going to be part of this guy.

Nic

Oh, my God.

Steve

I thought that was funny.

Nic

That's very funny.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Okay. So, yeah, he puts away the bottle of Just for Sean Don. That he's not going to drink.

Nic

And so now he's getting spoken to by this other individual, CCH Powder, and who I think could get a job at any police department just strictly based on her film resume. Like, that's enough relevant experience.

Steve

And. Or with the Avengers.

Nic

Yeah.

Nic

Yeah, for sure. So we have some information, like, with Castor stuff, we have some information that there's a bomb.

Steve

Not just some information, buddy.

Nic

Schematics.

Steve

We've got a zip disk, which was a big deal in the 90s.

Steve

A zip disk. You have a whole hundred megabytes on that thing. But, yeah, but it's schematics for the bomb that we saw him setting up up, you know, just a few minutes earlier in the movie. And it talks about, like, you know, they're saying things about it that aren't showing up on the screen at all. They're just talking random words.

Steve

But, like, porcelain casing and, you know, biochemical payload or like, whatever. Basically, it's a big problem, right? And they say it's enough to level a square mile, which is an enormous amount of, you know, damage. And then based on the prevailing winds, you know, could kill maybe millions more, depending on, you know, where the fallout goes. So, obviously a huge problem, and they don't know where it is, and they don't know when it's going to go off.

Steve

They don't know anything about any of that.

Nic

And Pollux Troi won't talk. He keeps saying, I'm not going to talk until I see my brother.

Steve

My brother. Right, because he doesn't know that Castor he was pulled out of that fight way early on and arrested.

Steve

So he has no idea that Castor didn't make it out of that hangar. I mean, he probably assumes he was captured, right, that he's been in custody, but he doesn't think he's dead.

Nic

The Pollux Troi character is just so, like perfectly pathetic and sleazy and I don't know, he plays that so well. That actor is really, really good.

Steve

And there's a great too.

Steve

There's a. There's an element of like, when he does need to be a badass, he kind of is like he might need his brother to tie his shoes on his little Converse that he's got his little Chuck Taylor's. But when Winters pulled a gun on the plane, he immediately threw that briefcase at her gun hand and like took her down. And like he, you know, was not useless. You know what I mean?

Steve

He really was involved in that way.

Nic

He's still like a top guy in one of the biggest criminal organization. Exactly right. Country.

Steve

I think I feel like this was this, this organization was run by the Troy boys.

Steve

I mean, this is their show, you know, so. And obviously Caster is the sort of brawn, right? But Pollux is the brains. He's the one. He's the one who designed the bomb and like, you know, maybe even built it potentially.

Nic

Right.

Steve

He does make a comment about Dietrich using shitty parts or something. So maybe Dietrich built it off of Pollux's design, something like that. But yeah. Anyway, we'll get to Dietrich in a minute.

Steve

But this is when CCH Pounder and Tito tell Sean, well, there is a way. What if you could walk into Pollux's cell as Castor Troi and talk to him and get him to tell you what he wants, what he knows. And so they go to the. I can't remember the name of whatever, but it's this institute, whatever, the Wright Institute, maybe something that. I can't remember what it's called, but they go there.

Steve

It's somewhere in Orange County. I think it said Huntington beach on it. So it's not far from la, but it's this guy who's invented this scientist, has invented this technology for like all kinds of stuff. So there. So Loomis, the guy who plays Gavin Bellson, he got shot in the ear during the airplane hangar battle.

Steve

And they are like reconstructing an ear out of like. It looks like a 3D printer.

Nic

I love that laser ear construction thing. It looks very cool.

Steve

It works basically like a 3D printer does now, except you can't make it out of flesh.

Steve

And it wouldn't work that way and didn't back then, either. But it really does look like that, which is kind of cool. So they're, like, reattaching the ear to this guy while they're talking to Sean about what their plan would be.

Nic

Right. And they did say that this, you know, part of the purpose of this facility is they're able to change the appearance and identities of different government witnesses and things like that.

Nic

So that was something that, you know, the first couple times I saw this, you miss, and I'm just kind of like, oh, what?

Steve

Like, why would this even exist?

Nic

At least try to explain it a little bit. But, yeah, so they see that. They show him that Castor Troi is here.

Nic

He's in a coma.

Steve

You're keeping him alive. He's in a coma. He's a vegetable turnip. That's right.

Nic

And then puts a cigarette out on.

Steve

Him, which is like, you know, this is mean. You don't need to do that.

Nic

I will say. I mean, at a certain point, I think legally, Castor Troi is within his rights to try to escape from this situation because he's being subjected to, like, medical experimentation against his will and everything.

Steve

Very mingle up.

Nic

So they suggest this to Sean. They're just like, yeah, so we're basically. We're just gonna put his face on your face, and then you just. Just do that.

Nic

Yeah. So pack your stuff up and let's go in the surgery room. He's like, what the fuck? Why would I do this? And they're just kind of like, no, dude, all we do is we put your face.

Nic

They're so casual about how, no, this is all we do.

Steve

The doctor literally says, for you, it would be just a temporary trade. Really. Just a temporary trade. All we do is.

Steve

And then he talks about reattaching tear ducts and blood vessels and stuff, and it's like, none of that actually happens. When they get to the surgery, it's just like. Like, paper mache. Yeah, they're just laying shit on shit, you know, it's really bad.

Nic

But he refuses.

Nic

So Archer refuses, and he's like, no, there's other ways I can get to this guy. So I'm going to bring in his crew. I'm going to bring in his associates, one of whom is just peak Gina Gershon. I mean, she did it for me at this time, and she's still beautiful. But, yeah, she was fantastic in this.

Nic

So, yeah, he's kind of interrogating people and trying to get some info. He brings in Dietrich.

Steve

Yes. Nick Cassavetes. He's a big, tall, bald guy.

Steve

And. And he says, you know, basically, kind of like, you know, I might know some things, but, you know, you don't got anything on me kind of stuff. And, you know, and he makes a threat about. So Sasha, Gina. Gina Gershon's character is Dietrich's sister.

Nic

Right.

Steve

And so. And she has a son. And so Archer basically threatened, you know, to talk to Dietrich. He's, like, threatening, well, I got your sister out there.

Steve

I could bring her back in here and, like, you know, we could, like, get that kid taken away from her. He kind of, like, threatens. At which point Dietrich looks up and goes. Goes, hey, Sean, how's your dead kid? Which is brutal.

Steve

Absolutely brutal.

Nic

Gnarly. Just gnarly.

Steve

Just so casual. But he basically, like, goes to.

Steve

I mean, Sean's gonna kill him. It looks like. He tackles him, gun to his face, like, whatever. And that's when Dietrich admits to the one piece of information he does know. It's.

Steve

I heard something about the 18th.

Nic

Right.

Steve

But I don't know. Right. And.

Steve

And when Caster first started the timer on the bomb, it was 11 hours worth of. Or 11 days worth of hours. It was like 200, 164, whatever that comes to. And so, yeah, so we know that, like, that was the seventh or whatever. And so on the 18th, I think it's September.

Steve

I think at some point, we see that's when the bomb's gonna go off. And so we don't know exactly how much time has passed since that, but it's like the whole hangar fight and Caster getting killed or whatever. Supposedly that was the same day that he started the timer. It was only a few hours later. So, you know that we've got probably at least nine days of that left or something like that.

Steve

Like, there's probably quite a bit of. Of that time left, but that's all.

Nic

We talked in an earlier episode about why the filmmaker doesn't want to give you an exact amount of time, because otherwise, you'll be doing too much math in your head to figure stuff.

Steve

Which I do already.

Nic

Yeah, yeah, totally.

Nic

Yeah. So this is imminent, and it sounds like it's real. So Archer's like, all right, let's do it. I'll do this.

Steve

But he tries to just get even.

Steve

We get a little moment with his boss, Victor Lazaro, head of the FBI, supposedly director of the FBI, I guess. But he's. You know, I don't know. I couldn't tell if they were talking about him being like a director for, like, LA branch, you know, kind of like west coast or he's supposed to be like the guy like, you know, like the Cash Patel or whatever.

Nic

Right?

Steve

This time.

Nic

Right?

Steve

I don't know for sure.

Nic

But competent, hardworking person in America, I mean, they really.

Steve

Lazaro seems like a dipshit too, so it works out.

Steve

But, you know, he says, like, we're not going to evacuate the city on your hunch, you know, and he's like, it's not. And then Archer goes, I know Castor too well for this to be a hunch. It's like, no, motherfucker, that is still a hunch. Like, that's what a hunch is.

Nic

It's a really hard hunch.

Steve

It's so strong. So, yeah, so he agrees. He agrees to do these face swap. You know, it's insane. But he can't tell anybody.

Steve

He can't tell his wife. He can't tell Lazaro. He can't tell his team. Basically, CCH Pounder's character and Tito, they're the only ones who know that this is happening. That he's going under this.

Steve

And the doctor.

Nic

And the doctor. And he goes home to his wife for the last time and has to tell her kind of like, well, I have one more assignment. Because he comes home and she's just like, oh, Shawn, like, this is the best. He's finally out of our lives.

Nic

And he's hugging her. He's just kind of like, yeah, about that.

Steve

And she, like, what is she wearing? Is this an episode of the Waltons? This is the most again, matronly sort of sleep shirt thing.

Steve

It looks like 1940s. It's very strange. It's very out of place face. It feels like what she's wearing, it.

Nic

Fits with, like, the boringness of like, well, that's his character.

Nic

And how that relationship might make her feel, I don't know.

Steve

It's not very deliberate, let's put it that way. Yeah.

Nic

So Archer, you know, says, it's just going to be a few days I'm going to be gone.

Steve

Right.

Nic

Gives her no details and stuff and then disappears. And then he's now at the surgery facility.

Steve

Surgery time. They line up him and cast her next to each other on these, you know, surgical beds or whatever, and they start going at it. And I cannot believe that they freehand the cutting of the face off.

Steve

It's just. With a little pen.

Nic

So many things about it. So, yeah, just Just freehanding the face. Cut.

Nic

And then the little plastic thing just comes over and just yoinks the face off in like one second. And it's showing, Tito. Like they're watching this happen and it looks like 15 minutes have elapsed, like during the full facial switch. And then once the face is laid back on, the doctor comes in with their hands and they're like massaging it and like moving the eyelids and shit's like, bro, don't be so like, what are you doing here? I know they have to show was effective, but it was really funny.

Nic

It was really fun.

Steve

There was this point where I thought to myself, could you imagine how bad this movie would have been if the roles were reversed? If Travolta was the bad guy and Cage was the boring homebody. And then they had to reverse those roles. Like, it just wouldn't have worked.

Steve

Worked. It wouldn't have worked at all.

Nic

They picked the perfect roles here. And the post surgical scene here is where I feel like, this is why you get Nic Cage. Nic Cage is the only guy that can do this scene of the kind of looking in the mirror, kind of amazed that it worked.

Nic

Horrified that he's seeing this face that's tortured him for his entire life. Horrified still that I am this fucking guy now and this guy that was dead before is now alive again. And I'm walking around at him and he starts smashing the mirror.

Steve

He's, fuck you, fuck you.

Nic

Just going crazy.

Nic

I mean, I like that reaction. I thought that was cool.

Steve

Well, and I love the way that little moment ends where he's yelling, you know, fuck you, fuck you, whatever. And you don't necessarily recognize it right away because it's yelling. But that's still John Travolta's voice.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Because then he goes, wait, why do I still sound like me? And that's when they go into the like, oh, well, we're going to change your voice. We've implanted a little thing in your voice box. And then there's just like, they're tweaking stuff and asking him to say, like, I could eat a peach row or it's like a deal.

Steve

And they make it sound like, you know, Nic Cage. So now Nic Cage sounds like Nic Cage. But he says, the doctor says, like, you got real careful with this thing. Direct punch to the, to the throat. Even a violent sneeze could, like, mess, bro, your technology is not ready for prime time.

Steve

If a violent sneeze is going to, like dislodge this thing and blow his Cover and make it clear that he's not, you know, who he's pretending to be. It's insane. Absolutely insane.

Nic

Hey, how did you blow this case and. And get Los Angeles blow into smithereens?

Nic

Oh, my nose was slightly tickled by a feather.

Steve

Yeah. I walked past some black pepper being tossed into the air and suddenly ridiculous. And so now we're getting to the point where they're going to send him off to. I think they call it Erewhon Arrow.

Steve

Isn't that a grocery chain in L. A with the really expensive apples?

Nic

I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure. Want text somewhere. But yeah.

Nic

And again and again. I know we had a guest on a previous episode who said something about liking new prisons. I just want to say I don't enjoy new prison. No, this is cool. This is another cool interpretation of a futuristic prison, which is something I've never seen before, which are these really cool metal boots that everyone has to wear.

Nic

And the whole floor is magnetized, so they can control it from a central command station. So if you're causing trouble, they can lock your boots. You can't go anywhere. You can't get the boots.

Steve

And it says the boots always tell them where you are.

Steve

So it's also GPS kind of thing. And it's like the whole deal. It's really smart, you know, definitely, in that sense that works. This is clearly, like, meant to be kind of a max security type thing. This is not like a general prison.

Steve

This is like a big baddies. You know, this is basically. You have Flight Con Air to get here, basically. Right.

Nic

And cage in a cage.

Steve

More cage in a row. So four cage movies in a row where he spends at least some time in prison.

Nic

Prison.

Steve

Very interesting. But yeah, so there's the magnet boot situation.

Steve

And so he gets into the sort of general population after they introduce something. And of course, just like nobody knows that he's actually Sean Archer because of the black ops or whatever. Clearly, obviously, everybody involved in this thinks that he is just Castor Troi and whatever. Like, he's in jail. Like, nobody's gonna, like, let him out until it's time for the CCH Pounder and Ortito to come get him.

Steve

Right? So. But he is walking through the main sort of like, lunchroom looking to go get. I wrote down the npr, the multipurpose. That's kind of what it looks like.

Steve

But, like, so big fight in the NPR coming up.

Nic

He's got a giant cookie. He's got a.

Steve

He's got the tray, and he's got. I swear to God, I saw a cheese zombie.

Steve

I'm not sure, but no. So he goes over to. He's heading over to Pollux, and he gets stopped by somebody. And, you know, there's this moment where he kind of catches himself, goes, oh, yeah, I bust it. Sean Archer busted you for.

Steve

Because, you know, he's still. You know, he's got to follow that. But then he gets attacked by this, like, big, burly guy named Dubov, and there's this great fight.

Nic

And initially, Vodka from the Wire season, too.

Steve

That's right.

Steve

And there's this great fight between the two of them. You know, so at this point, this is Archroy. This is Sean Archer with the face of Caster Troi. So he is a little rusty, I guess. I mean, he was just in.

Steve

You know, he was recovering from surgery, like, two days ago or something, where there's no scarring, by the way, really wonderful procedure that there's literally no scar where you've had your entire face cut off.

Nic

Incredible.

Steve

Really incredible stuff. It is an Orange county plastic surgeon, so I guess he's got a lot of practice, but basically, like, he gets in this fight, but he looks a little slow, and Pollux is kind of looking at him a little funky, but he gets into it, and he ends up getting the point where he almost kills the guy with a lunch tray. And that's when they finally, like.

Steve

Or. No, he goes. And he doesn't put it. He puts it down. He's going to, like, kill him.

Steve

Puts down. And the guard. And the main guard, by the way, played Mimi's boyfriend on the Drew Carey Show. I'll just throw that out there.

Nic

Yeah, I've seen him in a few stuff.

Nic

He's good.

Steve

Yeah. And he, you know, zaps him in the back. So now their boots are both locked, but they both get zapped. Now they're on the ground with their boots locked down, and he says, you don't.

Steve

Or I stop the fights here. You don't stop. Yeah. It's like he wanted him to keep going, but. Yeah.

Steve

So after that fight, we cut, I believe, at that point, back to the Institute or whatever. Yes, right. Because the EKG for Caster Troy is now popping like mad. And it's alive. He's alive.

Steve

He's not in his comb anymore.

Nic

And there's nobody working there.

Steve

Nope, there's nobody there.

Nic

It's just. Hey, we're closing it down for the night.

Nic

You have all the IV you need until I'm back tomorrow. And I'm gonna go Home and watch some. Mad about you.

Steve

No, Nurse. Yeah, well, I mean, mad about you.

Steve

That's. You know, that and the critic were a great one. Two points before bed, so. No, but he's. I love when Nicolas Cage gets up and he gets on the phone.

Steve

First of all, he's like, choking sounding because, you know, things are dripping into his mouth hole. He's got no lips.

Nic

And so his voice mercifully not showing us a lot a. Because it would look like shit. Like, there's probably not a way to make that effect look good.

Steve

Right.

Nic

But they. They. I think they play it well.

Steve

They do.

Steve

It's mostly the back of his head or in shadow or whatever, but he sounds goopy and he's. He's kind of choking his words out. And he goes, it's all right. It's okay. We're gonna make it.

Steve

We're gonna work. We're gonna make it work. You know, kind of thing. We'll take care of it. Like.

Steve

So he's basically called his two buddies who are the ones that we saw at the beginning of the movie. Movie with Pollux. Oh, Walsh.

Nic

Dr. Walsh. Oh, that was the Walsh Institute.

Steve

That's the place. Yeah. So. But he. We do see Castro.

Steve

So basically, his goons kidnap Dr. Walsh and bring him to the institute. And don't tell him clearly what's going on, because it's like he gets her. He's like, what's this all about? And there's Troy with no face on. Yeah.

Steve

You know, and. And we do get a couple of sheen. There's a couple of very quick cuts, kind of that show the side of his face. And then I think we see him in the reflection in Dr. Walsh's eyeglasses. And it really does look like it's Nicolas Cage with ketchup all over his face.

Steve

It doesn't look great, but I appreciate the really fast cuts because it makes you go, what did I see? What did I see? And so that's really great.

Nic

Yeah, that's important. And they get Dr. Walsh there, and he's like, what do you want?

Nic

And that's where Troy leans in. He's like, take one goddamn guess.

Steve

Also, he should not be smoking with that much open wound. He should not be smoking.

Nic

They don't smoke for, like, two weeks after you get a wisdom tooth pulled, you know, like.

Nic

Yeah, you probably shouldn't get your full face off. But he doesn't seem like he's really planning for the long term in general. Yeah. So now we're kind of back. So this is happening.

Nic

And we're back at the prison, right?

Steve

Yeah.

Steve

All right.

Nic

Hi, this is Steve here. We decided it would be easier if we just switched voices throughout this, so it wasn't so confusing. Nic and I. No.

Steve

All right, so Archroid, that's why I use those names in my notes. Archroi is Sean Archer with Castor Troy's face. And then Troiter is Castor Troy with Sean Archer's face. That's how I kept them separate.

Nic

Okay, cool.

Steve

I don't know if that helps or not, but that's what I will say.

Nic

Hey, send us an email if you think this helps this show at 2dads1movie.com.

Steve

We're have to make this like a two part episode, it feels like at this point, but like. Yeah. So basically, finally, Castor is chatting with Pollux in the joint and Pollux makes a comment.

Steve

You know, it's like he's the Caster. Says to him, Archroy says to him, like, oh, your bomb is so good, it should be in the Louvre. And Pollock's like, yeah, it should be. I guess the LA Convention center will have to do instead. So now he knows.

Steve

He knows when it's going to go off on the 18th, which is still a few days away. And he knows where it is. It's at the LA Convention Center. So he goes and basically goes back to his cell. I don't know if he's just waiting it out because they were going to come get him in two days no matter what.

Steve

Was like the point, right? So I think at this point he's just waiting it out. But then he's brought and told, like, hey, you've got a visitor. So he's thinking, so cool. It's Tito.

Steve

He's coming to pick me up, right? He goes to this room all alone. They lock his boots down and sure enough, it is him. It's Sean Archer, right? It's John Travolta.

Steve

So it is Troi as Archer showing up to tell him, hey, there was. He's got this newspaper with him and it's like inferno. Deadly inferno at Walsh Institute. And so then we see in flashbacks that he killed and burned alive Tito and CCH Pounder's character and the Doctor. So everybody who knows that the Caster Troi in prison is actually Sean Archer and that the Sean Archer walking around is actually Caster Troi, they're all dead.

Steve

And the facility one would use to restore what was originally taken is also gone too. So there's that. Luckily his face still exists. It is a stauncaster's. Head.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

So he freaks out, and he leans into Archroy and he says, says, I've got a government job to abuse and a lonely wife to fuck. At which point he just starts choking him, saying, die. I mean, this is like a Twilight Zone level of hell that he's been doing. Now he's in this prison, which is hell on its own, as his worst enemy.

Nic

And the worst face he could ever have, looked back at him through a mirror. And now someone's out there as him. Like, unbelievable.

Steve

Now I was thinking, though, if he had just, like, punched him in the throat a few times and busted that little voice box that was super weak, like. Yeah, exactly.

Steve

He would sound like Castor Troy again. But, oh, well, then he could bust his own and sound like Sean Archer. Right. You know, but anyway, so we get. We cut from here.

Steve

We go back to home. The Archer home, right? So Joan Allen is there, and, you know, she. Again, she's very pretty, but they have her. Yeah, they have her dress.

Steve

So boring.

Nic

Yeah, they really do.

Steve

But basically, like, you know, Archer's back. He's back from his, you know, the mission that she couldn't know anything about. And she's pissed about it, but he's, like, flirting with her pretty hard because it's Caster and he wants to get in them pants and whatever.

Steve

So it's a little, like, different vibe, you know, for them. And it just kind of starts hinting at, like, the way that relationship is going. In the meantime, back at prison, Castor Archroy sees Pollux being let out. And he goes by bro.

Nic

Oh, God.

Steve

Right.

Nic

The way he does that little pinky wave. Yeah.

Steve

Because obviously Archer, having told Pollux, you know, again, Troiter having told Pollux whatever he would need to hear to understand who. That he's really Caster.

Steve

Yeah. Is let him out. And it's kind of like, hey, we get to take advantage of, like, a government, you know, job. Like, I'm in the FBI. This is.

Steve

We could make this work for us kind of thing. But he has to release him so that he'll cut a deal and he'll interrogate Alex.

Nic

Right.

Steve

He can't just let him out for no good reason.

Nic

And there's also a scene that's kind of like in Con Air where you have this tension where the Buscemi mass murderer characters talking to the little girl, and you're just like, oh, my God, come on, come on, come on.

Nic

When the fake Travolta is home with his daughter and goes to Reach, and you're just like, Jesus Christ. And he just goes and like, you know, grabs cigarettes. I will say I think he's. He's a all time piece of shit. He's not as big of a pedophile as he could be, which is the lowest compliment you could ever pay an individual.

Nic

But he kind of gives some halfway decent fatherly advice to her in the. In the couple, you know, days that he's around.

Steve

There's. There is definitely, like. Yeah, there's stuff near the end that is actually decent advice, I guess, in a lot of ways, considering that she's dating Danny Masterson.

Steve

So that's just a terrible idea.

Nic

It's weird that he plays himself in this.

Steve

I know, right? I literally wrote the exact same note. Dude, Danny Masterson plays himself.

Steve

Anyway, we're not even there yet, but. Yeah, but basically he's, you know, he. Papa's got a brand new bag. You know, he's like, whatever. And the daughter Jamie is, you know, although thank God for him that she had her name written on a pillow in his room.

Steve

Because she. He calls her Janie.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And she goes, jamie. And he looks over and sees Jamie and like, like, you know, applique felt letters on some.

Steve

On some pillow and goes, jamie, you must have misheard me, Jamie, like, you know. But yeah, like, so. So this is basically all this stuff where. Yeah, like, like the new Archer is taking over the old Archer's life and existing within it.

Nic

They do say, we're sorry to hear about Tito.

Nic

And his reaction at the office is, shit happens.

Steve

Shit happens. Yeah.

Nic

That's his best friend.

Steve

Good lord.

Steve

I know, right? So then he has to convince Pollock, hey, man, you got to give up the bomb. And Pollock's like, yeah, but if it doesn't go off, we don't get our $10 million. He goes, yeah, yeah, but look at the big picture. The government job.

Steve

I get to be the hero that disarms the bomb. Like, just tell them where it is, and then I'll go disarm it. It'll all work out fine. I will say, when they get to the disarming part, they get to that scene, the bomb squad's like, sir, like, we don't have any way to do this. It's like, you got to leave.

Steve

Like, we just got. We're all screwed. He's like, no, no, no, just get out of here. I'll do it. Go, go.

Steve

You know? Yeah. And he goes. And he is way too casual because he types in his little code and it doesn't work initially. And There were very confident left.

Steve

When he actually puts in the code, the timer says two seconds. The news report later says one second. It was wrong. It's two seconds. But he has no sweat on his brow and is totally cool.

Steve

I mean, like, two seconds away from dying, dude.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Like, that's wild to me that he was so casual. But, yep, sure enough, he is a hero. He's a hero.

Nic

He's.

Steve

Yeah, he gets, you know, lot and he makes. And they're watching in the prison. They're watching the news report.

Nic

They're showing that on the.

Nic

I will say, I mean, the prison looks like a terrible place to be. They got a nice TV wall, though.

Steve

Big TV wall. Yeah.

Nic

And which I'm sure the prison is doing to torture it.

Nic

Because in the world of this movie, like, 30% of the guys there were all arrested by Shawn Archer.

Steve

Yeah, it seems like exactly. This is very much Arkham Asylum and Archer is Batman. Yeah, but. Yeah, so he's a hero.

Steve

But now he goes home. And when we see the home, the dining table at the Archer home, it is laden with so much food, it is ridiculous. This is a dinner for two.

Nic

Oh, yeah.

Steve

There are two whole cooked lobsters.

Steve

There is an entire, like, you know, bowl of spaghetti for like four with sauce on it. You've got rolls and salad. There's skewers of vegetables, like grilled vegetable skewers and a dozen artichokes in a bowl. What is this? Like, this is a ridiculous amount of food for like 10 people.

Nic

It's like what Kim Jong Il would put out when people visit in North Korea.

Steve

It really is. It really is a despot type type, you know, tablescape. It's interesting. Yeah.

Steve

But just a ridiculous amount. And so he, you know, basically comes home and wines and dines his own wife and they make love. Which we, of course know is, you know, technically now he's cheated on or she's cheated on her husband.

Nic

Right. And no mention throughout the thing they were talking about.

Nic

Oh, you're each, you know, you're about the same height, about the same bone structure, and, you know, we can do body hair stuff. Nothing about dick size.

Steve

Not a word they even specifically mentioned. It's a very good point. But they specifically mentioned for to move Archer into Troy's visage, that they had to get rid of the abdominoplasty.

Nic

Right.

Steve

Where they get rid of some love handles. But it's not like Castor would have had the doctor inject fat into his torso. Right. So, like, she should have been able to Tell that their body was dead different.

Nic

But he does comment later that he says, like, I don't know what I like what I hate more, this face or this body.

Steve

Well, that's true.

Nic

So I think he had the full thing because he wanted to be exact.

Steve

That's a good point. That's probably what happened.

Steve

Yeah. But I did write down could she tell a difference, you know, downstairs? Apparently not. So.

Nic

Well, that's that.

Nic

Maybe they're just not doing it often enough. She kind of can forget her diary.

Steve

Did say it had been two months.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

So that was whenever she wrote that diary entry, which I don't know even know if we know that.

Steve

So.

Nic

So back in jail now.

Steve

So.

Nic

So Cage has seen this on the tv. He's got to get out of there to save his family.

Steve

Right.

Nic

And. Or just to whatever. He's got to get the hell out of there. And they.

Nic

He's like trying to find out how do you get these boots off.

Steve

Right.

Nic

The only time you take the boots off is when they're like frying your brain in the shock therapy.

Steve

Yeah, the clinic. Yeah.

Nic

So he basically has to facilitate that for himself.

Steve

Yeah, exactly. So he, he says, he walks out. They're in exercise, so they're just walking in a circle in the npr again, like just in walking in circles. He breaks out of line, goes up to a guard who's just starting to light a cigarette.

Steve

And the guard goes, get back in line, Troy. And he goes, I'm out of cigarettes. I said, I'm out of cigarettes. And he starts a fight with this guard and you know everybody. And he starts beating the guard's ass.

Steve

The guards start beating his ass, whatever. They start dragging him away, but he gets the cigarette and he makes a big show to all the inmates. Ah, anybody got a light? Anybody got a light? Like, that's freaking awesome.

Steve

So. So he goes to take it to the clink and Dubov is already in there. I ostensibly, I guess from their fight.

Nic

Before strike or whatever.

Steve

Right.

Steve

So he is in there getting nuked and like puking up into his own mouth and really disgusting stuff. And so then he get, you know, Dubov gets thrown onto the floor after his session is done and they bring Troy in and put him down. And apparently they decided to take off his boots before actually locking him into the chair. He gets the guy to help light a cigarette for him. And so he smokes a cigarette, but he uses that to like, you know, he stabs the like, doctor.

Steve

It's like a scientist helper guy. It's Not a guard, right. Trying to put him into this, like, lock him into this chair. And he gets, you know, to the. To kind of hits him with a cigarette to like, oh, no.

Steve

And then like starts fighting, whatever. But he says to Dubov, because he. Actually the only thing I should mention, like when he talked to Pollux, he said, I don't even know why that Neanderthal attacked me the other day. And he goes, oh, you had a sex sandwich with his wife and his sister on the day he got in here.

Nic

It's one of those Pollock's lines that always stuck with me.

Nic

So the way he said sex sandwich, like I didn't eat a sandwich for three years after that.

Steve

Also, was he in between the two women? Like, it almost seems like that wouldn't be the most effective way to actually have sex with two women. Yeah, but I don't know. I definitely don't know about that.

Steve

And so, so he says, dubov, I didn't bang your wife and I didn't bang your daughter. But I know we got to get out of here, we got it together kind of thing, whatever. And so Dubov decides, yeah, okay, sure. Because he realized, you know, he's not wearing his boots either. So.

Steve

So we might as well like, let's do it. And so he gets up. No damage from the shock for therapy.

Nic

No, he's all. He's so nimble.

Steve

Ready to go.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And so they basically start fighting the guards, they get some guns, they're shooting whatever, you know, Troy's injured. This is again, this is Archroi, this is Archer as Troy. So he's not killing guards.

Steve

Right. He's like shooting him in the leg.

Nic

Really good at the non fatal shots.

Steve

Exactly, all that stuff. And he stops Dubov from killing a couple guys at one point and tells him to get out of there.

Nic

He starts, does kill a lot of.

Steve

Guys, a lot of. But to be fair, it's self defense. I mean, you are trying to break out of prison, but it is self defense. They would kill you.

Steve

Right. If they are given the chance. But Troy starts messing with this computer thing, right? And it's talking about like overloading stuff and it's just the TVs. Is that all that.

Nic

Okay, so I'm not a computer programmer.

Steve

All right.

Nic

When you build a program, do you have a system overload option built in as part of it where you just like select it from a box and then it makes everything shoot sparks out of it?

Steve

No, I will say bad programming can lead to you being able to do that things you Know what I mean? Like, oh, you've turned everything.

Steve

So I used to work. This is gonna be a weird aside, but I used to work at a company called nest. They make thermostats and cameras and shit like that, right? And my boss at the time told me if anybody ever broke into the central control systems at nest and they would have an opportunity to turn something like 200,000 thermostats around the country up, all at the exact same time, which could just completely destroy the power grid, right? So luckily.

Nic

Don't get any ideas, listener.

Steve

This was a very well protected computer system, don't get me wrong. And it actually really was. Wouldn't have been that easy to do that even if you got in. But it was like.

Steve

But it made me think. It's kind of like, wow, that. That's an important. You know, you think I'm making, like, devices for people's houses. Like, this isn't life or death, you know, work.

Steve

But then it's like, oh, no, no, no. If this, like landed in the wrong hands and they had like a real malicious actor, this could be like real bad, you know, kind of thing. So that kind of thing could happen. But why is it just overloading the televisions? And why is that something he wants?

Nic

Yeah, I don't get it. And Archer doesn't seem to be a computer guy. Like, he's a field guy. And if anything, he's like an out of touch, I don't understand technology dad type. Like, help me program my TiVo type.

Steve

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Nic

You know, no VCR plus.

Nic

So. So they end up escaping. One scene that I thought was really funny during the escape is there's just like a big, like Carlos Rossi sized jug of sulfuric acid with no top on it that he just. Just flings up towards these guys and shoots it while it's in the air. And it starts.

Nic

It's like, why?

Steve

Why is that there?

Nic

But, hey, John Woo is allowed to do whatever he wants.

Steve

Yeah. Yep.

Steve

And then, so then he gets outside and realizes, oh, shit, I'm on an oil rig. That's what the prison. The prison's built on an old oil rig. Now when I was watching this time and I first saw, they go, wait, that's right. How the hell does he get out of here?

Steve

Because, like, they're in the middle of the ocean and, like, they're really not. Because you turn around, you come. Couple of the shots, you see he's maybe a mile off land, like, which is a long ways to swim in the ocean. Get me Wrong. But it's not insane.

Steve

Like, it's not unbelievable that he could.

Nic

Make it, but if there's boats and helicopters looking for.

Steve

This is the thing is like the. The. The helicopter shooting at him.

Steve

1. This is funny. He's running past a bunch of barrels as the, like, helicopter rifle. Like, it's a big, like, mounted machine gun thing, Gatling gun shooting after him. And it hits one of the barrels that just shoots straight up.

Steve

Like it's in some kind of like a shooting gallery at an amusement park. You know, it's like, really bizarre looking, but he ends up jumping off the oil rig into the ocean, which, like, I. You know, if you're real good at that stuff. And I don't know if FBI folks get trained to, like, do SEAL incursions or something, but, like, that's hard to do, to jump and not break a leg, kill yourself, whatever, right? But apparently he does.

Steve

What I think is hilarious is that the helicopter didn't decide to hover for, I don't know, three minutes. He would have had to come up for air at some point.

Nic

They were just like, well, he's dead.

Steve

Dead. Let's go.

Steve

Let's leave. Let's make sure we don't look. Let's make sure we leave. Totally insane. Because they do say that he's dead.

Steve

Like, that's. This is the official thing. And so we cut to. We cut back then to the FBI office and Buzz and I think it's like, Buzz and Margaret Cho's character are like, oh, my God, boss, Archer, he's dead. Castor's dead.

Steve

Like, he tried escaping from Erewhon. He's dead. And immediately Archer's like, where's his body? Yeah, I want to see the body. Well, they haven't recovered it yet.

Steve

What do you mean they haven't recovered it yet? Like, he's, like, freaking out because he knows, like, I'm not going to take any chances that this guy's not actually dead.

Nic

I don't think you should generally take the word that somebody's dead where it's.

Steve

Like, why did the helicopter pilots. You know what I mean?

Steve

Like, like the evil terrorist is a far more conscientious law enforcement officer than any of the fucking law enforcement officers.

Nic

Seriously. Like, well, it was lunchtime, so we had to go back.

Steve

Oh, my God.

Nic

So.

Nic

So now, now that he's out, he swam to shore. And we don't need to show any of that because it's boring how the most crazy thing in the whole movie would have happened. So we don't need to show it. And he's now visiting his buddy Dietrich, the bald guy who lives in this sick loft.

Steve

Amazing.

Nic

It reminds me of the art museum from Batman, the first Tim Burton Batman, where they're having dinner and the Joker comes in.

Steve

Or many of the scenes, frankly, in the Crow. It had that vibe very much as well. Really good stuff.

Nic

Very cool place.

Nic

And he's presented again with his box of Buzz's secret stuff. So he's able to. He's able to get to his drugs.

Steve

Again, Including a box of Chiclets. A pack of Chiclets.

Nic

The worst type of guy I know, right?

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

So, yeah, he's talking about all this stuff that he knows about Sean Archer. He's telling Dietrich, I need your help to kill Sean Archer. He's like, how do you know all this stuff about it?

Steve

Because he says the code to his alarm or whatever at his house. He knows the code because it's his dead son's birthday. That's right.

Nic

And he's like, how do you know about him? And he goes, I sleep with his wife.

Nic

And then it's one of those good. Where the guys aren't sure if they're supposed to laugh or not. And then they all start laughing. Scene. Oh, my God.

Steve

And that's. And that's when they asked. So Dietrich asked him, like, all right, boss, so once we. Once we. Or one of the guys, once we kidnap Archer, like, what do you.

Steve

What do you want to do? He goes, I want to cut. I want to do a little surgery. I want to take his face off. And of course, I should mention at this point, he's done drugs.

Steve

Right. And this is Archer doing drugs. Exactly.

Nic

Who's not accustomed to drugs?

Steve

Castor's body would have handled these drugs, whatever it was.

Steve

Dietrich pours, breaks a couple of pills, capsules open into some. Probably vodka or something. And so Castor would have been fine, but this is Archer, and he's never done these drugs. I don't even know what the heck it's supposed to be. But it's not treating him well.

Steve

But he's slurring and speaking very slow, but they all think it's hilarious. And he goes. And Dietrich's like, you want to take his face off? Yeah, I want to take his face off.

Nic

And he makes this sort of hand motion of pulling the face off, which is really funny.

Steve

And then my favorite line from Dietrich is then when Archer, as Troy, goes and lays down, down on the bed, and Dietrich looks at me, goes, all right, no more drugs for that man.

Nic

Before he goes to lay down on the bed, he gets up, he goes, I gotta go use the little boys wee wee room.

Steve

It's the most ridiculous way to say, like, it's disgusting to call it the little boys room. I hate that shit. I hate it when it happens in movies.

Steve

But to call it the little boy's wee wee room, like, bro, you're never gonna beat the allegations at this point.

Nic

No, no. Yeah, there's. There's too many dual meanings there.

Steve

Yeah, exactly.

Nic

Looking in the mirror, saying, I'm not dead, I'm me. You know, really funny. Yeah. So we've got now Archer Troi is. Archer is home, and Jamie is coming back with her date, Danny Masterson herself, who is trying to sexually assault her.

Nic

And he. Luckily, Sean is there and comes out.

Steve

And beats his ass, kicks in the window, pulls him out through it, beats him up, like, the whole deal. Here's the thing, though. If you're Carl in this scenario, why would you bring the girl back to the driveway of her home before trying to sexually assault her?

Steve

Like, that seems like a, you know, really bad call if you're gonna be that guy. But he does, and he gets his ass whooped for it. And, you know, Troiter just does say a comment about, like, you know, like, if you dress up, like, what does he say?

Nic

If you dress like Halloween, Googles will try to get into your pants.

Steve

That's right.

Steve

And she says, hey, thanks. The guy tries to rape me and you're blaming me, right? And it's funny. He has a moment. He goes, oh, you know what?

Steve

That's actually a reasonable point. All right, Next time. And he pulls out a butterfly knife and he goes, next time he tries to do that, you let him pull his pants down. You stab this into his thigh, turn it 90 degrees so the wound won't close. He'll leave you alone forever.

Steve

Yeah. And it's like, like, damn. That's like. I mean, look, I'm not. I don't feel like teaching my daughter that way when it comes to this stuff, but I like it.

Nic

You know, what she needed. I don't think it seemed like Sean Archer as himself was kind of singularly focused on his job and on getting revenge and stuff. Not being a parent, not the best. Like, he was not the dad that she would feel comfortable talking to about stuff or whatever.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

So, yeah, fuck.

Steve

Danny Masterson literally wrote right here, Danny Masterson is just playing himself. They both have the exact same note.

Nic

Danny Masterson has himself a two stars next to it. So now we have Sasha.

Nic

The Gina Gershon character is with Archer as Troy, and she has a son who is another little pumpkin pie haircut kid named Adam, who kind of looks like Mark Davis, the owner of the Raiders.

Steve

Maybe too long hair in the back and not enough freckles, but man, it is close. That hairline up front along the forehead.

Nic

And I feel like the face. Yeah, I gotta get another look at him.

Nic

But I feel like he felt very Mark Davish to me.

Steve

Absolutely. So.

Nic

So, yeah, she tells him, basically, he's putting his clothes on and she's like. He's like, oh, these are nice looking clothes.

Nic

She's like, well, they're yours. He's like, yeah, no, I just like them. And then he looks at the boy and he goes, that's a nice looking kid. And then she goes, he's yours too.

Steve

Dun, dun, dun.

Steve

It's clear that she had never told this to the real Caster. Yeah, like Caster definitely doesn't know that Adam's is his kid. If he knows who Adam is at all. Near the beginning of the movie, when Gina Gershon's character Sasha was first interrogated by the real Archer, she said something about. And we don't know if it's real or not, if it's active, but she says that she hadn't seen Castor in years.

Steve

Yeah. So it's entirely possible that Castor wouldn't even be aware of such a child.

Nic

But the last time she saw him was when that kid was conceived.

Steve

Potentially. Right, Exactly.

Steve

So there's all that. But of course, Adam is introduced. Sasha's like, oh, Adam, this is your dad. Say hello, whatever. And he goes to hug him and starts calling him Michael, Michael, Michael, Michael.

Steve

And he's like, freaking out and freaking the kid out.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Meanwhile, across the way on the rooftop, for some reason, Pollux Troy decided to stake out Dietrich's loft and was looking through, you know, like binoculars or some shit, whatever, and calls Castor, you know, troiter, and says, like, you know, decided to drop in on our old friends. And it looks like he's really enjoying being, you know, that's my best Pollux impression.

Nic

That's a good Pollux impression.

Steve

But so basically, like, that's, you know, so now Archer calls in the actual, like, FBI, you know, whatever, SWAT team, lapd, some shit, whatever, to like, attack, you know, the loft, Dietrich's loft. And so they start. They shoot a tear grass tear gas grenade through the window. And it's interesting because you can tell that Archroy hears the the kind of noise from across the way and get down, you know, very, very kind of cop mentality, I think. Or at least, you know, anti terrorism kind of guy would know that shit, you know.

Steve

And so they're doing it and I love that they put the headphones on the kid to sort of like give him, you know, block some of what's about to happen from him having to recognize it. And the, the song in his headphones is Somewhere over the Rainbow, I feel is like so perfect. Part of this action scene. A little bit later we only hear that like it's in his headphones. And the carnage going on with that song playing is.

Nic

It's really cool. Beautiful, beautiful. When the cops first blast in, there's kind of the slow motion scene of everyone reacting to it.

Steve

Right.

Nic

So there's guys kind of diving for whatever.

Nic

Dietrich gets up so fucking casually and business like just. I know exactly what I'm supposed to do. And he just pops up and like coolly walks back for his big guns, which I really like.

Steve

Absolutely. He's been through this before, one way or another.

Nic

Yeah. So Adam's just absorbing his childhood trauma while listening to Somewhere over the Rainbow. Hopefully he'll never have an association with that song for the rest of the season.

Steve

Hopefully nothing else in that kid's life will actually be weird or bad. I'm sure he'll be fine.

Steve

He's definitely not going to end up with a group of people who will treat him like another kid. That's not going to happen to him.

Nic

Normal justice for Adam. So now Archer or Troy is Archer. Now Travolta is pursuing.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And they're in this. Of course they were going to end up somewhere like this in this cool room that's like a circle of mirrors, like freestanding mirrors that are double sided and all in a circle kind of in like a clock formation.

Steve

Why? What is this room?

Steve

Is it like the lobby of his building? Like, I don't even know what the this is. Is it his closet? Is this Dietrich's closet? Is that what it's like where he gets ready in the morning?

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

With like a dozen, a dozen mirrors, like facing inside so he can look at himself from all angles. It's bizarre.

Nic

But of course it just in case room.

Steve

There you go.

Steve

Exactly. I do love. Before we get to that point, there's a point where all the fighting is happening and Dietrich's got like this like grenade launcher, shotgun or something big that he's firing. And he goes, damn, my place is getting up. Like he's so upset about, like, his, like, Ming Vas and like, exploding and stuff.

Nic

It's kind of funny. It's like, no. As soon as this raid happened, this is no longer your place. When are you ever going to come back to live here? Exactly.

Nic

You're just done.

Steve

You're done.

Nic

So it up.

Steve

Yeah, exactly. So, yeah.

Steve

So we get the mirrors because we have to have this moment right. Where the two guys are on either side of a mirror, pointing their guns, ostensibly at each other, but now they're looking at, well, themselves, but also then the visage of their enemy in the mirror. It's a cool moment.

Nic

It's definitely a cool moment. I liked it.

Steve

Well worth having a bizarre room full of mirrors to do this.

Nic

Totally. Totally. And they both end up shooting at the same time and doing a matrix dodge of the bullet at the same time.

Steve

Neither of them leaned into the path of the bullet, which was good luck, I guess.

Nic

So Archer S. Troy gets away. Cage gets away. And he ends up being pursued then by Pollux up on the roof.

Steve

That's right.

Nic

And Dietrich has been killed.

Nic

He was shot in the neck. Gave a very creepy mouth kiss to his sister.

Steve

That was bizarre.

Nic

And.

Steve

And just said, get the kid out of here.

Steve

Like, kind of thing. Gross. Terrible.

Nic

So Pollux is chasing the fake caster up on the roof and he ends up getting put through.

Steve

Yeah, he ends up, like, crashing through glass.

Steve

Well, it's like we call it a skylight or whatever. But then also down several levels through the building. It felt like landing back in that mirror room, I think. Right where Treuture is, where Travolta is standing. And so now Pollux is dead and he is heartbroken.

Steve

He is as heartbroken as Archer was when Michael was killed.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

I mean, it is. It is one for one in his mind, right. Pollux is basically the only person on the planet Caster Troy gave even a slightest.

Steve

About everyone else in the world is there to either be a victim for him or give him something. That's it. Pollux is the one person, the only.

Nic

Person he was ever like, remotely considerate towards anything.

Steve

Yeah, exactly.

Steve

So that is dead now, which is kind of scary when you've got the one kind of thing you could have kind of held over a madman's head is like, well, you wouldn't want anything to happen to this guy, would you?

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Now that guy's gone. Now there's like, nothing you want to talk about having nothing to live for. Yeah, there you go.

Steve

That's pretty scary.

Nic

And one of the other agents so we see how upset he is. That's dead there. And one of the agents looks at him. He's like, hey, why are you so upset?

Nic

It's just. And then he blasts him, like, right through the. Right through the. The forehead.

Steve

And this is the guy that took the shot in the ear.

Steve

So Castor got him twice, man.

Nic

Oh, God. So things are accelerating now. So he's. He's back at the office.

Nic

The fake archer's back at the office, and he's getting chewed out by his boss.

Steve

He's like, Lazaro. Yeah.

Nic

What the. You know, you.

Steve

You blew up a bloodbath. But he's like. But he's, like, wincing, right? He's, like, wincing every couple's sentences. And he's kind of almost clutching.

Steve

And we talked. We saw little signs of this guy having maybe a little bit of cardiac, you know, less than healthiness earlier. And so sure enough, like, I don't even know if this would work, but he, like, like, grabs him, throws him to the ground, and, like, elbow. Like a big, hard elbow into the chest.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And then covers his mouth, I think, to stifle a scream. But, like, would that actually be a problem for a person with a heart issue? I mean, it can't be good to get touched on the heart. But, like, it didn't seem like it would necessarily, like, kill him in a perfectly simulated heart attack. Sure.

Steve

That's the other thing, too, is that this guy's autopsy clearly indicates heart attack, because nobody ever suspects X. Archer. Troy. Whatever. Haven't done anything. And he was the only one there when it occurred.

Steve

But, you know, but, I mean, I guess the guy is a local and he's a national hero. He's beyond reproach.

Nic

Exactly. Everyone's gonna believe what he says.

Steve

Exactly.

Nic

But it did seem like one of those things like we talk about when you're a kid. Oh, there's a way to punch a guy. His pants. Like that kind of thing.

Steve

Like.

Steve

Like the nose bone break. Exactly.

Nic

Okay, so now.

Steve

Now Arch. Roy.

Steve

So now. Now, now Archer looking like Troy has broken into his own home. Use the. The code.

Nic

Crawling with cops.

Nic

And he was able to get in there.

Steve

He was able to get in through a window or something. I'm not exactly sure how, but he's. He's gotten in. And you can hear someone in the shower, or you can hear the shower running.

Steve

And then. And then Eve comes out. She's got a robe on. She comes out and she freaks out because it's Caster Troy. Like, she knows what the guy looks like.

Steve

And she's freaking out, but he's trying to explain to her, Obviously, it's. You know, he's like, don't look at my face. Don't listen to my voice. Yeah, but, like, this is me kind of thing. And she, of course, does not believe him, but he lays out the whole thing.

Steve

And then at the end he says, I know you don't believe a word I'm saying, but I. Sean, your husband has O negative blood or O positive. One of the two. Oh, negative blood. Castor Troy has ab. Just please look into it, you know, kind of thing.

Steve

And so, sure enough, the. The whole, like, I mean, later on, she does take a blood sample from the sleeping troicher in order to test it.

Nic

Yeah. And he doesn't react very much to getting poked by something that looked, like, a little painful. But, you know, she's a professional.

Nic

She's good at that.

Steve

I've used like. Like for blood testing for, like. Like blood glucose, like little, like. Like those kinds of little punch things, you know, whatever.

Steve

And they don't hurt. But you would notice. Yeah, you would notice. Like, I've done it in my fingertips or whatever it. You can tell.

Steve

And it would have left a little, like, blood. You know what I mean? Like, you would have wanted to, like, put a little band aid on that part, you know?

Nic

But this is not our main beef with that, John, was realism in this film.

Steve

And I would say real quick, too, that, you know, Archroy does do the hand face crap on Eve as well, and I think that's really what sells it for.

Steve

Because nobody but her husband would touch someone in such a disgusting way as a. As a gesture of affection.

Nic

Exactly. And. And they're back at the.

Nic

They're back at the lab. So she's discovering on the computer that the blood types are, in fact, different than they should be. And then he's just, like, there.

Steve

Yeah, he's like. He'd already broken in, waiting for her to come or whatever.

Nic

He's Richard Kimble in all over the place. Right? Just breaking into facilities. Classic. So, yeah, he does the gross hand.

Nic

He wipes his hand out.

Steve

So disgusting. I can't get over it. It's. Honestly, I swear to God, when we get to the end of this, y' all will have got to know.

Steve

I would have been a half point higher on this movie if it weren't for the. Damn, I hate it. Anyway, so.

Nic

So she's treating him in the hospital at the same time. Archer is suspicious, like, dude, something's going on here.

Nic

I got to go find Eve at the hospital.

Steve

And he shows up with. With Castor Troy's goons. Yeah.

Nic

So now he's fully.

Nic

He's just ditched his FBI guys. He's got his bad guy goons.

Steve

Well, he killed all his FBI guys, but.

Nic

So he rips open the curtain and there's Eve like treating some guy who has like a towel covering his face. And he just comes up and pulls it off.

Nic

And it's this disgusting facial injury that doesn't get immediately covered back up.

Steve

It's really bad. It was.

Nic

And this is a facial injury movie, so we're not like, you know, this is not unfamiliar territory.

Steve

We built up a stomach for bad facial injuries, and yet this one was still pretty brutal.

Nic

So they decide that the time to get him, the time that Archer is going to be the most vulnerable, is at Victor's funeral, which he has to show up to for appearances.

Steve

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nic

And Victor's funeral is. It's set up. It's at some beachside bird church.

Nic

I don't understand this place.

Steve

Yeah, it's a church on the beach. I mean, it clearly is. Literally like you step out the front door and you're on the beach.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

So somewhere like Malibu maybe, something like that. But here's the thing I love. It's a Latin mass.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

The priest is speaking in Latin that is usually reserved for kind of the more traditional Roman Catholic parishes around the country.

Steve

Like, you don't hear Latin mass very often in most Catholic churches. And I don't think you would hear it in any Protestant church. Like this 100% would be. And again, last name Lazaro, Italian Catholic. Yeah, okay, fine.

Steve

But like a Latin Mass in a.

Nic

Beach church where there's like a pina colada machine next door and.

Steve

And like six pews and not enough room. They gotta bring in folding chairs just to barely fill the room. It's a tiny ass little chapel.

Steve

You know, it's very weird, but yeah, there are doves everywhere. Should have been seagulls.

Nic

Okay, there's seagulls and then there's doves, but there's such a bird. It's like the 12 days of Christmas Christmas level bird variety.

Steve

This was my second John Woo in the house.

Steve

Note is, when I see the doves.

Nic

Go, here he is.

Nic

And so basically, Eve and Jamie are being held hostage. So the. The funeral.

Steve

Is Jamie there yet?

Nic

Like, because they're on their way with her, I think.

Steve

Oh, that's right. Eve and Troy are together. Troy, as Archer are Together at the funeral. Jamie was away or a friend's house or something, whatever. But she ends up getting picked up by one the of.

Steve

Of Castor's goons, whatever, and brought there. But in the meantime, it's. I gotta make sure I get this. Right now, it's Nicolas Cage showing up after the funeral is, like, done kind of in the chapel. And he is sort of like, praying or something.

Steve

I don't know, whatever he's doing. And that's when Archer comes in. And then one of his goons has Eve. And so it's like now we're in this position where. And then it's like there's just.

Steve

Yeah, it's everybody's guns to different people. Then Sasha shows up and adds to the situation and she's. And it's just like, now there's at least, least six or seven people in the room. Everybody but Eve has a gun.

Nic

There's a lot of angles that the guns are all pointed and stuff.

Steve

Classic Mexican standoff. Very, very, very standard thing for the 90s. I feel like we saw in Reservoir Dogs and a bunch of other movies.

Nic

And Sasha doesn't know who's who, so she thinks that Archer is Troy right now, who she's been talking to Nic Cage. So when Travolta's like, sasha, what the.

Nic

The fuck are you doing here? I always loved how he said that.

Steve

And it's one of the moments where Travolta really put in the effort to kind of deliver a line the way Cage would have delivered it. And I think that's great. I think that's kudos to Travolta.

Steve

He did get some good kudos for this movie. And this ability to play these characters differently from each other for both men was very impressive.

Nic

Yeah. So they decide, okay, we're doing this here. And Jamie ends up stabbing.

Steve

Well, yeah, he ends up in the.

Nic

Leg, doing the exact thing that he showed her to do.

Steve

He captures her or whatever and is like, you know, aiming. And actually Jamie shoots her dad right in the arm because he looks like Castor Troi. So that's who she thinks she should shoot.

Steve

Because they're fighting and he's saying, like, don't lose. And now he sounds like Travolta again. Right. He got his throat thing busted. So they.

Steve

So they both sound like John Travolta here. And so Jamie is very confused. She ends up shooting her dad, like, in the shoulder, I think, or arm or whatever. You know, kind of grazed him. And Archer says, you know, whatever traveled like no daughter of mine would have shot so wide.

Steve

And he goes and he like holds her, you know, hostage. But then, yeah, she gets in and that's when she gets him with the butterfly knife and twists it and everything, really gives it to him good. And so he runs off. She's, you know, safe. Ish.

Steve

Whatever gets with her mom. And she says something like, could somebody please tell me what planet I'm on? Like she is freaking out. Which, I mean, you'd have to.

Nic

Yeah.

Nic

Insanity.

Steve

And then here comes the boats, here comes the scene. And.

Nic

And luckily they're both able to run to a dock and get two equivalent and conveniently colored boats and fully gassed.

Steve

Up lines already taken off.

Steve

So really should be going. But now, of course, Archer, Archer, Troy, whatever, has to shoot his person to get them off the boat. Whereas Troy, Archer, out of whatever, like Cage doesn't have to kill anybody. Yeah. To get his boat.

Nic

Exactly. He can get it, the good guy.

Steve

But they're both going off and then the coaster they're racing and they're trying to like shoot each other other in their town, whatever. And then a Coast Guard boat is like blocking the way and they got rifles primed. Like, if you don't stop, we'll have to open fire.

Steve

Yeah. And there's a lot of shooting and whatever. And then somehow the boat that Nicholas Cage is driving.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Goes through the Coast Guard.

Steve

Right.

Nic

And jumps it like it's a ramp.

Steve

But through it and then like. And it explodes. And there's not a scratch on his boat.

Nic

And his boat is fine, perfectly fine. Still going. The same boats are like notoriously very fragile.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

And can get the propellers bent and like very easily.

Steve

You could do $10,000 damage to a tiny boat by bumping a sea otter. Like it's not hard, you know what I mean? Like, it's ridiculous. Like, but this one is apparently made of adamantium. And so.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

So, so now we're both on the same boat because Nic Cage has now jumped onto the boat, right?

Steve

Yes, exactly. Onto, onto. So they're on one boat together.

Steve

And he's got like a chain, like the anchor chain maybe that he's holding onto. And he does the classic, the great, the, the no ski skiing, hanging off the side.

Nic

And I read actually for this stunt, Nic Cage actually insisted that somebody else do it.

Steve

Oh, good, good, good idea. Good idea, Nic.

Nic

Oh my God, what a crazy ass stunt. This was a really fun. Yeah, yeah. And just hanging on there for a while and they're. And they're fighting and they finally end up Crashing at the end, they're kind of like heading towards shore.

Nic

They hit like another ramp or something.

Steve

They end up like going. Yeah, it's like. Well, no, they hit like, you know those big, big. The things that like help you dry dock a boat.

Steve

You can put it in and out. They bump the boat into one of those. They fly off of it. So high in the air. Yeah, exactly.

Nic

So incredibly high.

Steve

And that's where the stunt doubles not looking like them is the worst because they're facing the camera and it's in slow motion and there's just no avoiding it.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

These are two very different men who don't look anything like Travolta Cage. But that's okay.

Steve

You knew you had to have stunt doubles for this kind of thing, right? And so. Yeah, so then nothing. I think that was the state I wrote down nothing quite like watching skiing and patent leather loafers. But you know, so now they're, they're on the shore, I guess.

Steve

And there's a harpoon gun.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Conveniently nearby.

Nic

So nice of the world to just place that there.

Steve

Exactly.

Nic

And, and he uses it in two different ways.

Steve

Yes. Which is him, right? Yeah.

Nic

It reminds me a little of the Mitch Hedberg escalator joke.

Nic

You know, it's like a harpoon gun can never break. It can only become a bayonet. Like you could still stab someone with.

Steve

We apologize for the convenience, but it.

Nic

Was a very one sided ass whooping for a while.

Nic

And then Nic Cage, as whatever, just watched the movie. So he ends up putting the harpoon through him and then. That's got to be it.

Steve

Well, but it's, it's, it's. So he stabs him first and then it's like he goes to shoot.

Steve

Cage goes to shoot Travolta with the harpoon gun and Travolta is able to grab like the stem of the harpoon itself and the rope to kind of keep it from going. And he has a sharp whatever piece of metal or something and he starts cutting his face.

Nic

Yes.

Steve

Because he's basically like, you're always going to look like me, you know, whatever. But he doesn't like slash across the middle of the face or the nose.

Nic

He goes around, he cuts along the exact incision that it came.

Steve

He gives the guide for the doctors to eventually use to replace the face. It's really perfectly around the outside.

Nic

Hey, if he hadn't pre cut that face, we wouldn't have had time to save it and get it on you. I'm glad he did that.

Nic

So yeah.

Steve

If he wanted to ruin it, he should have done less than round the outside. Round the outside. Anyway, so.

Nic

Yeah.

Nic

So Troi is finally dead.

Steve

Finally actually dead, it seems. Yes.

Nic

And the other FBI arrives and they know who's. Who's Archer?

Nic

They know what Archer is.

Steve

Yeah. Because Eve called Margaret Cho's character. I can't remember her name now, but she called her and was like, you're not gonna believe this, but you have to, like, understand what I'm saying. And I think, you know, between the fact that it's Eve saying it, they all know Eve, she's not gonna, like, say, this is not true.

Steve

And she talks about the blood type and all the different stuff, so they're convincing. So it's Buzz, the Mike Delfino character, and then Margaret Shore, the last two of the crew that aren't dead. Yeah. And so they're there, but they're referring to. They look at Nicolas Cage and stuff, say, boss Sean.

Steve

You know, they referred him. So they know what's going on. So, like, that part's fine. We get to. They talk about bringing in the best doctors to do the.

Steve

Whatever kind of thing. We're going to get you your face back, all that stuff. And, you know, we. I think at that point we cut to. We see him briefly on the operating table next to, you know, the bodies are next to each other again, we don't see the whole thing again.

Steve

The next thing.

Nic

And he tells the doctor, too, before the surgery earlier, when he got changed into Nic Cage, he said, well, I have a scar here, which is the scar from when he got shot. The bullet went through and killed his son.

Steve

That's right.

Nic

I want this scar back.

Nic

So now he says, after all this, he's like, hey, you know what? I feel like there's resolution in my life. I don't want that scar back. Fuck my scar.

Steve

Yeah, I don't need it.

Steve

I have a replacement kid instead.

Nic

I don't need to remember what's his name so bad.

Steve

So we cut back to the Archer home, and Eve is, whatever, sitting at the table or something, and she sees John Travolta's silhouette walking past the. Which looked to me like one of those things was, like, in that house, wouldn't that be like walking past the front, like, window through the grass? Like, it didn't even look like the pathway to the house.

Steve

But whatever, he's walking by. She opens the door and he's there, and it's him. And of course, no scarring on the face, no stitches, no nothing. He Looks perfect. And Jamie, the daughter, turns around and runs towards him and she has no nose ring and her hair looks normal and she doesn't have extra mascara.

Nic

She's all like, to normal.

Steve

She's preppy. And so the very important that, you know, she get back to being preppy. But then there's one more surprise for the family. Isn't there one more fucking thing we got to do to make this movie bonkers at the very end, which is he basically asks their permission if we could adopt this little boy.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And it's Adam, because Sasha's dead, Dietrich's dead, Caster's dead. Like every other person in this boy's life is dead. So, you know, the Archers obviously are, you know, know, perfectly reasonable in most ways. Foster parents, adoptive parents.

Steve

Like, I wouldn't think it's an issue.

Nic

Sure.

Steve

Except that they lost a boy who looks almost exactly like this when he was five years old and have kept his room intact because he even said when they had a fight the last time we talked, when he was trying to convince him that he was even though he looked like Cage, that he was Travolta, he told Eve, the last time we talked, we had a fight. I slept in the bed in Mikey's old room, so that room's intact. And so then he says to Jamie, why don't you show Adam his new room?

Steve

It just gives me the fucking chills.

Nic

And the heebie jeebies.

Steve

It's so gross.

Nic

Yeah. I mean, there needs to be some evaluation of this poor kid and to see if the family is capable of actually treating him like his own person instead of just freaking out calling him Michael the second they have a couple glasses of wine.

Steve

Yeah, we are maybe two weeks. Okay. No, a little longer than that. There's been maybe a month since the initial. Like, we got Caster Troy.

Steve

Yeah, right. The idea that he was even. That this was even going to be ending is less than a month ago. Okay. And now it's, hey, would you mind if we replaced your dead son slash brother?

Steve

Is that okay with you guys? It's just bizarre. It's absolutely bizarre.

Nic

It's weird to couple with. I don't want the scar.

Nic

I feel like it should have been one or the other.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

You know what I'm saying? Like, you don't want to. I want to forget this kid forever and replace him.

Nic

Hey, instead of the scar, can I get a tattoo of Adam's name? Can I get a tattoo of Mark Davis?

Steve

Michael or Adam? Which one?

Nic

No, Adam, the new kid.

Nic

Forget Michael, I don't even want to know what that is.

Steve

Oh, my God. But that's how the movie ends. That's how the movie ends, with this child trafficking, I guess. I don't know what the hell to.

Nic

Think of it, but if the good guys are doing it.

Steve

Right, right, right.

Nic

Oh, my God.

Steve

Face off, dude. Wow.

Nic

Hey, Steve. Well, that was. Hey, by the way, great fucking Cage Vember.

Steve

I mean, fantastic. Lots of fun.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

So how do we rate on our final film of cagevember?

Steve

I'll do, I'll do it. This was my pick, so I'll do it first. Look, I, I, I love this movie, don't get me wrong, but I did go into it thinking, oh, man, this is going to be like a five out of five for me.

Steve

This is going to be great. And it didn't quite hit that point for me. Like, I think, you know, maybe it's in the rewatching of a lot of movies we've done for the podcast. It's like, maybe it's, like, twisted a little bit my expectations. Maybe just my memory of this was better than, than I, than it ended up being.

Steve

There are just so many little plot holes. And I don't mean, like, obviously there's suspension of disbelief for the entire premise, but there's other little stuff where it's like, whatever. And then the weirdness. Some of the stuff with the characters that are clearly minors, the stuff with Adam and replacing the boy and all this weirdness, I don't love. However, this is still a fantastic movie.

Steve

It's still a fantastic John Woo movie, and it's still Nicolas Cage being unhinged and wonderful. So I am a four out of five on Face Off. I feel comfortable there. So basically, I like it about as equal to Con Air, but not as much as the Rock, which I feel comfortable, comfortable with my sort of comparing of Nicolas Cage action movies.

Nic

So, yeah, that's, I mean, I'm right in the same zone there.

Nic

I think this movie is super fun. It is kind of long for an action movie, and maybe you could trim some stuff. But I enjoy most of the stuff. I like the performances. I like the concept of it.

Nic

Nic Cage like the way that Jackie Chan enhances movies by doing his own stunts. Nic Cage's face just does so much work to move this for me. And I was going to give it a four, but I'm going to give it an extra half just for the Cage bump.

Steve

Right.

Nic

If you put anyone in, even somebody good in that role, you put Bruce Willis in there, you Put whatever.

Nic

I think this movie doesn't really work or it would be too serious for how ridiculous the other is, you know. So I'm going to give this one a four and a half out of five. And no, I'm not going to check this against previous scores because I know my rating system is consistent. Makes sense. All right, so my God, four and a half out of five.

Nic

And that's it for Cagevember.

Steve

Yeah. Eight and a half out of ten from the two Dads on Face Off. And that is the end of Cagevember. But don't worry listener.

Steve

We have another fun month long run we're gonna do for you. We are going to open up the little windows of the dadvent calendar and all December long we're doing Christmas movies. And Nic, you get to pick the first one. How are we kicking off the dadvent calendar?

Nic

Okay, well, I think we're gonna go with something that's a little more lightly crafted Christmas to kick off the dadvent calendar.

Nic

But definitely something that we would all consider a Christmas movie. One of the classics. One of the most fun movies to watch this time of year. I think we're going back to 1983.

Steve

Okay.

Nic

And we're going to experience the great Eddie Murphy, the great Dan Aykroyd, some of our other faves. We got Jamie Lee Curtis. We got Denholm. Elliot.

Steve

Elliot again.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

DH baby.

Steve

We hardly.

Nic

We missed you, buddy. And we are gonna watch the film Trading Places.

Steve

I love this movie. Oh my God. Front to back, beginning to end. This movie is too much fun. It absolutely is a Christmas movie.

Steve

I agree with you there any move. And actually I've had an argument with a friend that you know as well, our friend Bart, about whether Trading Places is a Christmas movie. My contention has always been that the, the when Lewis goes back to the law firm and has to disguise himself as Santa and it's the only way way he can be in there to do what he tries to do to get Billy, you know, to try to frame Billy. We'll get into all this next week. But like he.

Steve

It has to be a party where he can dress up as Santa and not be out of place. That alone means it's a Christmas movie. The movie hat the plot doesn't work without Christmas.

Nic

Absolutely.

Steve

There you go.

Nic

Absolutely love it. So I can't wait to talk about this one next week.

Steve

All right, that about wraps it up. So 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 you. It really helps new folks find the show.

Steve

If you want to drop us a line, share your thoughts on an episode, tell us what we got wrong, or suggest a movie we should do next, you can do so attheshowdadson movie.com. that's the number two and the number one. You can also follow us on Instagram @2dads1movie. Once again, this has been Face off, another episode of 2 Dads 1 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.