Transcript

Dr. Stanley Goodspeed (The Rock)

Mason.

Dr. Stanley Goodspeed (The Rock)

The second you don't respect this, it kills you. Put it over there.

Dr. Stanley Goodspeed (The Rock)

You've been around a lot of corpses. Is that normal?

John Mason (The Rock)

The feet thing?

Dr. Stanley Goodspeed (The Rock)

Yeah, the feet thing,

John Mason (The Rock)

Yeah, that happens.

Dr. Stanley Goodspeed (The Rock)

I'm having kind of a hard time concentrating.

Dr. Stanley Goodspeed (The Rock)

Can you do something about it?

John Mason (The Rock)

Like what? Kill him again?

Dr. Stanley Goodspeed (The Rock)

Listen, I'm just a biochemist. Most of the time.

Dr. Stanley Goodspeed (The Rock)

I work in a glass jar and lead a very uneventful life. I drive a Volvo beige one. But what I'm dealing with here is one of the most deadly substances the earth has ever known. So what do you say you cut me some freaking Slack?

Steve

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

Steve

I'm Steve.

Nic

And I'm Nic.

Steve

And today we are continuing our march through Cagevember with another Nicholas Cage massive hit movie. We're gonna watch and we're gonna talk about the Rock. Oh, yeah.

Steve

Oh, I love this movie. So this was my pick for us. This is. This just combines so many things I love in movies. One Nicholas Cage.

Steve

I just. I'll watch anything. The man's in. Not even joking to Sean Connery, and Sean Connery specifically as a British special agent, because we know how well that works over the course of movies. It's set in the San Francisco Bay area, does a handful of weird geographic things.

Steve

I pointed out a few things that were wrong about the geography of sneakers. I'll be pointing out at least one thing wrong with the geography of this movie as well. And then, you know, like another movie where the supporting cast is just dynamite, just absolute dynamite from, you know, Ed Harris. I mean, Ed Harris is, you know, a pretty high bill in this, but still a supporting character in a lot of ways. John Spencer and David Morse, just so many great, you know, people in this.

Steve

So, you know, all over. And then it's a really, you know, it's. It's a really creative premise that obviously requires a little suspension of disbelief like most good movies do, but isn't quite as bonkers as some of the other things that we have and will continue to talk about during cagevember. So really for a Nicholas Cage action movie, on the believable side, I would say, yeah.

Nic

I mean, this is as documentary ish as it gets for a.

Nic

For a Nic Cage vehicle at this time.

Steve

Yeah. So this, like, my history with the movie, like I said, I love it. You know, definitely one that I would have seen when it first came out. Summer between sophomore and junior years, I think, for us.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

You know, set in the Bay Area. So much fun. Just I think I've probably watched this movie, you know, 20 or 30 times over the course of the last 30 something years. So there was definitely a time in my life where this would have been like, an every three months, throw it on and watch it kind of thing, like, in college and stuff.

Steve

Anyway, just absolutely love the Rock. Can't wait to talk about it. Nic, what's your history with the movie?

Nic

Yeah, probably saw it around the same time. I think saw it in the theaters at that time.

Nic

And this. God damn it. Did that hit just right? Like, because you're in high school, like, our world is not that big, right? So to have a movie like this, just bam.

Nic

Like, wow. And it's like, it takes place nearby in places that we've been absolutely right that we can recognize, which is really cool. I was pretty new to the Bay Area at the time. We moved here in, like, 90. Okay.

Nic

So I wasn't, like, you know, as ingrained in it. But the thing that I did know that we did go see was Alcatraz. I was like, oh, the one thing about San Francisco that's fucking cool. So, yeah, this movie was a ton of fun. And like you said in the long line, like, there's been so many great, great movies that have taken place in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Nic

Pacific Heights. I can't think of any other ones, but. But I think this is, like, you know, maybe going to be one of them. And I'm really excited to talk about this because this was very fun at the time, and I've seen it a handful of times through the years.

Steve

Well, nice.

Steve

All right, let's jump into the facts on the Rock. The Rock came out on June 7, 1996 with an R rating. It's got a running time of 136 minutes. Directed by the kind of, like, biggest action movie director of the 90s, probably Michael Bay. Written by David Weisberg, Douglas Cook, Mark Rosner, and in an uncredited Polish, Mr. Quentin Tarantino.

Steve

Starring Sean Connery, Nicholas Cage, and Ed Harris. We got some scores. We got 67% on rotten tomatoes. Not bad. Certainly is fresh.

Steve

Not super high, though, but a 7.4 and I. IMDb is actually pretty legit. That's a pretty decently high IMDb score. We got a thumbs up from Mr. Roger Ebert and a thumbs down from Mr. Gene Siskel on The Rock. All right. Awards.

Steve

It was nominated for an Academy Award. It did not win, but it was nominated for best sound. Some wins it did receive, however, were at the Blockbuster Entertainment Awards in 1997. Nicholas Cage won the favorite male lead, like favorite actor in a lead role, I think, is how they refer to the award, which was the first of two consecutive for him because he would win for Con Air the year thereafter. And Sean Connery won for favorite actor in a supporting role also at the 1997 MTV Movie Awards.

Steve

The two were awarded the award. Awarded the award of best on screen duo, which we've seen a couple of those actually in our time here. All right. On a $75 million budget, it received or earned or whatever. $335 million, 4.47 times what it cost to make.

Steve

And. Yeah, so that is a certified blockbuster, no doubt about it. Huge hit movie with a handful of awards stuff to go along with it, you know, to sort of bolster its creative credentials as well. But it was a huge hit. Everybody seemed to love it.

Nic

Yeah, I was surprised to see the Tarantino thing there.

Steve

Yeah. Yeah. So that was something that I'm wondering.

Nic

As we talk about this.

Nic

We talk about where his influence might be seen.

Steve

Yeah, it's. It's polished, so you never quite know. It wouldn't be as much of his own, you know, take on it, which is why it's uncredited. You know, he took a small amount of money probably to just give it a pass.

Steve

And. And, you know, I. I would like to think that the. The. Just thinking about Tarantino's sort of like his own style, possibly one or two of the kind of one liners that. That Connery and.

Steve

And Cage throw back at each other. That feels a bit Tarantino ish, potentially. And. Or the. The tension around the hostages was really kind of felt very potentially Tarantino.

Steve

And just some of the other way that some of the action sequences are laid out, the kind of things that I, you know, guessing here, but I could see having his influence, so.

Nic

All right, so here we go. Yeah, so we're starting off here. We start off similar to last movie, kind of, you know, with a little, like a little collage of military stuff happening.

Steve

It's a little exposition just to kind of give us the real basic plot.

Steve

We're seeing visuals of a few things. One, a military funeral. Two, one of our main characters here, General Francis X. Hummel, played by Ed Harris, is getting into his dress uniform form is Marine. He's a brigadier general in the Marine Corps.

Nic

Francis the Figurine Hummel X, I'm assuming.

Steve

For Xavier, but I don't know that for sure. But he is getting dressed into his dress uniform and. And we're seeing this very heavy rain over a military funeral. And then there's this, like, voiceover, and it's. And it's Hummel, Ted Harris's character.

Steve

And he's clearly, he's talking to the Armed Services Committee of the US Senate, like he's at a hearing or something. Right. Talking about how there have been men who were on missions for the Marine Corps, for the United States Milit, whose families, after they died in action, whose families have been lied to about what they did, denied benefits like that. There's all this, like, horrible stuff that's happened. We then get this sense.

Steve

It almost for a moment looks like, wait at Hummel. Is Hummel attending this funeral? No, he's walking through a different graveyard. It's still pouring rain, but he's got a thing of flowers. And he is at a gravestone marked Barbara Hummel.

Steve

We understand this is his wife. And he says, barb, I got to do something I couldn't have done while you were still here. Yeah, they got to listen to me now. I tried talking to him and I got to take a. Like a, you know, I got to take a next step.

Steve

Yep, that kind of thing.

Nic

I love, I love a rainy grave visit. If you've ever been to like, a funeral or something that had to take place in the rain because it was, you know, there's actual a burial happening.

Steve

Right, right.

Nic

And you look around, there's never anybody visiting graves that are already done.

Nic

Like, you do it. I don't know. Okay, my wife's birthday, but, you know, it's raining. I'll go next week. But yeah, it really adds to the effect.

Nic

It reminds me a lot of the beginning of MacGruber where he's in the rainy grave scene, which I can't wait till we get into the 2000.

Steve

I'm sure MacGruber borrowed that straight from this. Probably. Probably a deliberate reference. Yeah.

Nic

So. So Hummel, turns out he's still like a. Like a highly regarded, high ranking general in the military. And he's on his way into this, like, Naval Weapons Depot.

Steve

That's right.

Nic

And he's one of. He's like a local Hans Blix. He's like a weapons inspector. He's there to take inventory. He's got his.

Nic

He's got his clipboard and everything, and he's ready to take inventory. And then at the same time, there's this other cast of Charact, and we can see a few of them. David Morse is great.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

He's kind of like the argument of should you know his name or not?

Nic

He's like right at the line of actor. Like, should you know, he's the Jim Rice of actors. Like, should you know his name?

Steve

I feel like it's because he spent a lot of time on tv.

Nic

Right.

Steve

He did a lot of tv and there were times where he wasn't in movies very much because he was doing so much tv. Was he one of the Law and Orders or the csi?

Nic

Remember the show called Hack where he was like a cab driver that solved Desperate Housewives?

Steve

Or was that somebody else?

Nic

He's been on a ton of stuff, but, like, in this type of role, he's in it a lot where he's like the second or third bad guy.

Steve

He's like lieutenant. Right.

Nic

So they're basically, you know, surrounding this thing as Hummel's going in to, to look at this, this weapon inspection and they, you know, do a raid on this property and basically we're going to steal the missiles.

Steve

Yeah, so it's the, the. They're housing these rockets containing what they call VX gas, which is not a real thing, as it turns out, but they're housed there.

Steve

And so what they want to do is they want to. They're going to steal 16 VX gas rockets in order to do this mission they need to do. John C. Ginley plays the driver of General Hummel. Basically, he's like one of his, like, lieutenants or captains or whatever. David Morse's characters is a Major Baxter.

Steve

So he's the highest ranking below General Hummel in this group. But they're all kind of there and basically they do like this non lethal assault, right? They're using like tranquilizer darts and they're, you know, like knocking people out but not killing them. So they're trying to do it to the point where they're not going to like kill a bunch of their fellow soldiers, but they do need them out of the way. Yeah.

Steve

In order to get this stuff. As they are exiting with these rockets, the last one that's going to come out kind of opens or something. It like slides a dude.

Nic

Like, it shows them carrying the rockets, right? And they're all like.

Nic

I mean, they're heavy as they look like two people could not really lift it. And they're being assisted by this, like, track in the ceiling. And then the last one, this guy just tries to lift it up. By himself, Right?

Steve

He's like.

Nic

And then it falls. And then the little. The little glass balls which have the gas or the agent, whatever, inside of him falls to the ground. And basically, like, the gas is released. We got to seal this in.

Steve

Yeah. So like David Morris character, Major Baxter notices the ball has hit the ground and is rolling and immediately is like, everybody out. Seal the door. But the guy who dropped it is further back in the room, and he's not going to make it. So the ball rolls, hits the wall, breaks gaskets out, and they're already sealing the door because otherwise you're dead.

Steve

And here's what we. Here's what we later find out. Right. This stuff works within seconds. Yeah.

Steve

When you have what they called atropine, I think, like an antidote type thing that you have to stab a syringe into your heart. You have 20 seconds, once you come into contact with the gas, to give that to yourself. And I guess it, like, nullifies the effects for that exposure, I suppose. And you can get away. But if you don't have that and you don't do it in 20 seconds, you are dead, period.

Steve

This stuff, you cannot survive this stuff. Yeah. So really, they absolutely make the right call by saying, that dude's already gone. Seal him in there. It's gross and it's horrible.

Steve

But, like, what else? Are you going to let everybody die?

Nic

And also signing up for a mission like this where we're going to steal a bunch of chemical weapons to create, you know, something we'll get to later in the plot. You got to know there's that risk, dog. So as much as it sucks, like, yeah, yeah, you're in there, buddy.

Steve

I also wonder, was this a Naval Weapons depot somewhere, like, near Annapolis? Like, did they have to travel far with these rockets? Or was this, like, conquered?

Nic

Yeah, right.

Steve

Like, near us.

Steve

Where? It's actually near in the San Francisco Bay area and being stored there. I don't know.

Nic

Yeah, they didn't get into a whole bunch of that.

Steve

It just says Naval Weapons Depot.

Steve

It doesn't say, like, where they are.

Nic

Yeah, yeah.

Steve

So that happens. Hummel's got his rockets. He's got 15.

Steve

He wanted 16. Obviously, the last one didn't make it out. So he's got 15 rockets armed. VX gas that he wanted, and his people have taken those. We cut now to Washington, D.C. we know for sure we're in D.C. to an FBI special laboratory.

Steve

And we're introduced to Stanley Goodspeed, who is Nicholas cage. He is Dr. Stanley Goodspeed. He's a chemical weapons specialist at the FBI. And he and his buddy, who's a. Who's an agent trainee or something like that.

Steve

Specialist trainee. Are playing this little game. They're trying to, like, shoot Nerf darts, basically. Like, I don't know, whatever. It's a fun little office.

Steve

They're screwing around.

Nic

You do to keep yourself entertained, really.

Steve

They have a boring job.

Nic

Good camaraderie, camaraderie.

Steve

The idea is they have a boring job.

Nic

Yep.

Steve

Except for today, because they are told that a package marked for Bosnian aid. Yep. Triggered some stuff where they're kind of like, look, it triggered this thing. It might be, like, laundry detergent.

Steve

It might be sarin gas. Yeah. We can't take the chance. So it's now in a, you know, gas chamber. Basically, a locked sort of, like, extraction diffusing chamber.

Steve

So Goodspeed and his little buddy go in there. They're gonna take a look at it. They're wearing the Hazmat suits, real crazy suits. And they start opening stuff up and they're cataloging it, being very careful. Until the trainee dude pulls up a baby doll, basically.

Steve

And is like, hi, Stanley, like, moving his little arm back and forth. And he's like, what are you doing? And sure enough, the little doll's eyes open and out of its mouth comes pouring what we assume is some poison. Horrible gas.

Nic

Creepy effect.

Nic

Very, very cool to have it come out of the doll's mouth like that. The rest of the stuff in the care package is kind of funny. It's like. It's like an advanced version of Buzz's private stuff from Home Alone. Like, there were, like, Playboys and all this shit in there.

Nic

Yeah. So this idiot. Again, we've had back to back idiots releasing poison gas, like, by their own, you know. So we know that there's dumb idiots on both sides.

Steve

That's absolutely true.

Nic

Right.

Steve

Yeah. It was prison guards in Con Air. Yeah.

Nic

So, yeah, there was a really good scene.

Nic

So basically the issue is that. That the gas is. Those suits are not going to hold forever against the gas. And they do what they can to ventilate it and stuff, but the gas is out. The suits are starting to corrode or.

Steve

Whatever for the gas.

Nic

And there's a bomb in there as well. So in addition to the gas. Because with the bomb, like, aerosolize. Well, I think it spread even further.

Steve

And destroy the chamber they're in. So then it would fill room. So basically they're able to send almost all the scientists out. A couple there to stay, to stay with them, to Try to turn the sprinklers on and do whatever and then seal the door. So it seems to me like that room would get completely destroyed.

Steve

The five people inside would be killed. But it potentially would have been. Would stop there. Potentially wouldn't destroy the whole building they're in or whatever. Right.

Steve

Is what it seems like. But they're still trying to diffuse it. And this is when they first mentioned the atropine. Here's the needles. Grab it, stab it in your heart, then you can do whatever.

Nic

And I think this might be the Quentin Tarantino contribution potentially.

Steve

Right? That's right. The stabbing in the heart. That's a good point.

Steve

And so, so, but, but basically good speeds. Like I don't get that. Get that out of my. Or get that thing out of my face. He doesn't swear the.

Steve

In the entire movie I mentioned that. Or not. But he doesn't, you know, get that thing out of my face. And so he's like trying to diffuse the bomb. And it's the classic Hollywood movie thing.

Steve

It gets down to like two seconds or whatever. And he snips one more wire and without even like, he doesn't like snip it and look to see what happens, he snips and goes clear. Like, okay, maybe yelling clear is what you had to do. Maybe it's a voice activated.

Nic

Yeah, yeah.

Steve

But I love the trainee, like looks at them through the glass and goes, get me the fuck out of this gas chamber. He's so pissed and he's pissed.

Nic

But he did that to them, you know, he's the problem there.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

So, okay, this is funny and this goes back a little bit, but so now he's like Nic Cage.

Nic

Stanley has taken the rest of the day off work.

Steve

Wouldn't you.

Nic

Big day of work. I'm gonna come home and he's sitting on his couch and he's playing guitar and listening to music and drinking wine. Earlier, when they were hanging in the office, he had accepted delivery of a record.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

And they were. Why would you spend $600 on an LP? He spent $600 on some, you know, early release version. The first Beatles album.

Steve

But it doesn't look like it's in great condition.

Nic

Yeah, I don't. So. But I have to read this because when I was looking into trivia, this, this really fucking killed me. Nicholas Cage had grown frustrated with compact discs in his own life and decided to incorporate a love of old fashioned LPs into his character, Stanley Goodspeed.

Steve

Wow.

Nic

And I do have to say he was, well, I guess this was being filmed at the same time as Con Air, basically.

Steve

Or. No, no, no, this was earlier.

Nic

Face Off.

Steve

Face off and Con Air were filmed at the same time, but. Yeah, but this was earlier.

Nic

John Cusack of Con Air would be dying that. They're like, you made a music enthusiast character, right? And he just talks about the Beatles, Led Zeppelin and Elton John.

Nic

He's like, dude, I made a whole movie where I was like, a guy who was really into Toots and the Maytols. Like, you can't. You can't give some deeper cuts than that. What the fuck?

Steve

I will now sell 10 copies of the three EPS by the beta Band.

Steve

Like, that's not something Stanley Goodspeed would understand, you know? Like, come on.

Nic

So I do love what a basic Stanley Goodspeed is, you know, I'm sorry.

Steve

Any Beatle maniac, I'm sorry, in the 90s was pretty basic. Like, that was like the one band that was like, if you were younger, because he's the character.

Steve

Character is the right age to have grown up with the Beatles, essentially, right? Maybe a little younger than that. But, like, basically. And. But if you were like our age in the 90s, you were into the Beatles.

Steve

It was that band that, like, people tried to be like, I'm cool because I like the Beatles. And they're like. They're everything good about pop music, man. It's like this whole thing. And look, the music's fine, but Beetle Maniacs, weird after about 1967.

Nic

So I. I don't know. So I didn't. I don't know your history with this, but my mom and dad, my. My mom, like, didn't and doesn't listen to music. It's very weird.

Nic

My dad literally never, ever listened to the Beatles. So, like, I never got into it at all. And I'm super unfamiliar with them overall. Like, I know a lot of it, but I have never, like, sat down and put an album on. So, like, I have listened to, like, like, an amount of Beatles that people would want to beat the shit out of me for, like, not listening to them.

Steve

I would simply say, don't start from the beginning. If you're gonna go listen to the Beatles, don't start with the earliest stuff I heard.

Nic

Ringo solo stuff is the best to start with. And then you go backwards from there. Is that right?

Steve

Don't do that. Start with Revolver. You listen to Revolver, you listen to sergeant Pepper's the White Album and Let It Be and that's all you need and maybe Abbey Road. But, like, the stuff earlier than Like Revolver, Sergeant Peppers, that era. Like, don't that's I want to hold your hand and like that.

Steve

But like, it got interesting after that. So the flip side of that, just real quick, we're on this super tangent with the Beatles, but that's okay. My parents were huge Beetle fans. My dad was more into Elton John, Billy Joel, Deep Purple, Three Dog Night, that kind of stuff. Like, that was kind of his jam, I think, more than a Boston, you know, that kind of stuff.

Steve

But my mom, huge Beatles fan. Oh, yeah. She was born in 53. So, like, when the Beatles hit, she was a little girl, was just right for her. She had several sisters, but one real close to her in age that they hung out all the time and they had two other girlfriends.

Steve

The four of them were like this little inseparable group in Oakland when they were growing up. And they would play pretend that they were dating the Beatles, but they got to pick based on age. My mom was the youngest, so she always got Ringo. Nice. I always love that.

Steve

My aunt Kathy got to date George because she got third pick. The two older friends got John and Paul. So. So. But yeah, so no.

Steve

So I grew up with a lot of Beatles around the house. And we actually have. I mean, my parents probably still have LPs, old vinyl LPs of all their albums. Probably original printings or early issues because they were there when I was a kid.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

So it's not part of the current kind of. You know, there's this renaissance.

Nic

Didn't have the vinyl section.

Steve

No, exactly. There's.

Steve

There's no. There was no renaissance of vinyl like there is today. I mean, nowadays I have vinyls of like, you know, Illmatic and Jay Z's Black Album and stuff on vinyl. But, like, I didn't get those when they came out of the last few years.

Nic

Right.

Steve

But yeah. So anyway, moving forward.

Nic

So it was an important Beatles dancing. So. So his girlfriend comes home.

Steve

Right.

Nic

So. So Vanessa Marcel Stanley, she looks great in this, by the way. Not. Not a great actress, but she's good.

Nic

Good in the movie. And yeah. So she comes home and she's like, I had an interesting day. He's like, oh, yeah, right. No woman's ever had an interesting day.

Nic

Let me tell you about my day. So then he tells her, you know, whatever about his day. And he's like, oh, by the way. Oh, yeah, I'm sorry, sweetheart, what was interest little day that you just had?

Steve

Well, no, but before he gets to that point, he says, like, so some people tried to destroy my entire Life.

Steve

And I just have to say, anybody who would consider bringing a child into this world should be considered an act of cruelty. And she goes, so, what was your interesting day, dear? And she's like, I'm pregnant. And she had one of the. I love 90s pregnancy tests are hilarious.

Steve

The little vial of blue liquid, you know, whatever. She's like, it's blue. I've shown to the doctor, and it's for sure, like, they confirmed I'm pregnant. And she goes, goes, you didn't mean what you just said, did you? And he goes, I meant it.

Steve

At the time. He's like, stanley, that was like, two.

Nic

He's too much of a scientist. Yeah. So he got her pregnant, you know.

Nic

Stanley Goodspeed. More like Stanley. Good seed. Hey, does that be working?

Steve

Working it.

Nic

Yeah. So. And then the other thing is that. Is that his girlfriend proposes to him.

Steve

That's right.

Steve

Because she's Catholic.

Nic

Yeah. She can't.

Steve

She can't be pregnant.

Nic

It's crazy.

Nic

Like, I can't have a baby, you know, I can't be pregnant at the wedding. We got to get on this here. Yeah. So things are looking great for him. Nothing will ever be disturbed.

Steve

Right.

Nic

Meanwhile, we've got Ed Harris, we've got Hummel and his crew going out to Alcatraz.

Steve

Joining the tour.

Nic

Joining the tour. So I do want to say this.

Nic

I think if this movie came out maybe five years later, maybe like seven or eight years later, that tour guide should 100% be Patton Oswald. And it would have been like a really, really funny. The actor that does the tour guide is pretty good, but I feel like that's, like, what he was made for at that time, you know, his early acting career.

Steve

Ranger Bob is my second favorite Alcatraz tour guide character in any 90s movie.

Steve

Thank you for asking what the first one was.

Nic

Just like, nodding my head like, Robert.

Steve

Yeah. And so I married an axe murderer. Phil Hartman does an Alcatraz tour guide and is so funny in that movie.

Steve

So we left to get to that movie at some point. But, yeah, so Ranger Bob is number two. So he gets to the point where they're on Broadway, everybody. This. This where the worst of the worst was housed.

Steve

Ladies and gentlemen, I invite you to become, you know, residents or prisoners whatever, of Alcatraz. So everybody steps into the. The cells, and, you know, he goes and closes them, and it's, like, still telling the story while people are kind of, like, listening from in the cell. I don't remember this ever being part of the Alcatraz tour. I don't remember going into the cells and having them closed on me.

Nic

I feel like you have to pay. Like, you have to pay extra VIP level to the thing where they shut it down and let you, like, stay the night in there or whatever kind of shit, because. Yeah, I don't think so. Like, I went there. You just are.

Nic

You have a headset, right, that's giving you the tour in whatever language, and you're with a bunch of people who are not there with you.

Steve

Right?

Nic

Because everyone's in their headset.

Steve

Yeah, yeah. And I remember going into the cell and being able to look around at least one of them.

Steve

But, yeah, I was only there with the Cub Scouts. Like, it wasn't something special when I. When I first went. So. But anyway, so they get in, and this is when Hummel and David Morrison, a couple of people walk up.

Steve

And I love Hummel. Goes like. Like, tour's over, Bob.

Nic

And he's good. Like, as much as, you know, Hummel has stolen chemical weapons and stuff, he's still pretty, like, courteous in the way that he's trying to achieve his goals. Like, he's not. He's not like Osiris, the virus.

Steve

No, he's not a psycho in his actual actions.

Steve

Now, what he is threatening to do is psycho, absolutely. But his actions are bearing out to be like the calculated moves of a desperate man who believes this is what he needs, this is the only way he can get what he needs to get kind of thing, right? Which is, like. Not to say it's excusable, but sort of is a little more.

Nic

You understand the thought process from his point of view.

Steve

And he makes a big speech to the people about, you know, you are all now being held against your will. For that, I apologize. It will not be a. You will not be here a minute longer than you have to for us to do what we have to do kind of thing, right? So he's trying to be, like, cool or whatever.

Steve

But this, of course, triggers, you know, everything in the Pentagon goes haywire. It's like, this has happened. I don't know how they find out. Oh, no, that's right. He calls in or something, right?

Nic

That's right.

Steve

So Hummel calls in and is basically like, you know, I now have 81 hostages. I have 15 rockets, you know, with VX gas pointed at the San Francisco Bay Area or whatever. Like, you know, you have 40 hours. I think he says noon the day after tomorrow to, like.

Steve

To, like, you know, do this, whatever, and send $100 million from this specific account, like the whole deal. Right, right. All this stuff. He knows everything. He knows where the slush fund money is.

Steve

He knows. And even in the generals in the meeting, like, Jesus Christ, that's classified.

Nic

He's dropping information, like, you know, from this company, and they're looking around, he's like, like, that's the company you used to stash money for, like covert ops and stuff. And he basically wants, like, for these 87 guys, I think, that are like Special Forces guys that had to be, you know, unknown to the government were they to ever get caught or killed. He wants them to have some kind of, like, recognition and.

Nic

And recompense for his. For their families.

Steve

A million dollars each to their families. And then he said, there's like 17 million left over that he'll hold on to, which we've heard.

Nic

For each of the guys.

Steve

Yeah. That his crew there, he told them, you'll each be paid a million dollars, sent to a non extradition treaty country, but you could never come home, basically, is what he says. And they all agree to it.

Nic

Yeah. So he's, you know, in his mind, he's doing the right thing.

Nic

Like, we got to take care of the families of these guys.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

We should never interrogate as to why they're being sent, where they're being sent for any reason. But I think we should make sure they're taken care of.

Steve

He's got a couple funny interactions with the crew around the table.

Steve

There's like a. The Chief of Staff of the White House is there, makes a comment like, we never went into South China. He's like, identify yourself. Who are you, punk? Like, you know, this whole thing, it's.

Nic

One of my favorite things in movies where they'll bring up like some kind of military action. Then a person will be like, this never happened. It's. It's really good. So, yeah, there's a lot of that.

Nic

And, you know, what is this? Chief of Staff, college boy? No.

Steve

Yeah, right.

Nic

The only college I care about is West Point.

Steve

So there's this. All this conversation, and like, basically Hummel, you know, ends the call like, hey, you know what you need to do? I know you can do it. Don't fuck around. Like, bye, bye.

Steve

Right. And so they start asking around the table, like, okay, what do we. What can we do? What are we dealing with? And somebody asks, you know, like, what's the, you know, what is the, like, casualty aspect?

Steve

Like, one of these rockets, like, if one of these rockets. Rockets explode, like, what can we expect? And the guy goes, 60 or 70. And the chief of staff goes like, that's not that bad. He was thousand sixty or seventy thousand.

Nic

Like I said, that's not that bad.

Steve

Yeah, yeah, but it's San Francisco. There's all liberal.

Nic

They're not real people. Yeah, we don't care about them.

Steve

So basically they decide, you know, there's. There. He says the thing about like, you know, your countermeasure doesn't work. I know your countermeasure doesn't work. Hamill does.

Steve

And he says, yeah, the generals are talking. Talking. Yeah, he's right. Normal napalm, like VX was designed specifically to be napalm resistant, not completely burn up harmlessly. If you try to napalm it, it'll just still be like, it'll be, it'll be fine.

Steve

Basically. I don't know how the rockets would survive the napalm, but I guess they don't want to turn Alcatraz into like a permanent gas thing. The wind blows across the San Francisco and kills a bunch of people anyway. Right. But there's this other thing, thermite plasma I think is the term they use.

Steve

And it's like, well, that would work. It was designed specifically to be the countermeasure to this countermeasure. So like it would work, but it's not ready and we can't load it on planes like right away and do this. Like we're not ready to do that. And they were like, well, you figure that out.

Steve

What's another plan? And this is when John Spencer's character, FBI Director Womack, pipes up and goes, and I'm going to try my best. But like there's a man, there's a man in the prison. Like Womack's voice is so ridiculous. It's so ridiculous.

Steve

I love John Spencer. Like huge West Wing fan. Absolutely loved, loved Leo on West Wing. Loved John Spencer. But like his voice in this movie, him and the other like FBI guy they end up meeting in San Francisco, have the two most gravel ridden throats and they're talking to each other.

Steve

The most gravelly ridden. What are you talking about? Womack? You know, it's just ridiculous.

Nic

That's how you convey seriousness, I think is you gotta be extra gravelly.

Steve

Seriously.

Nic

Oh, so. And then they had also asked who's your best, like chemical weapons guy.

Steve

Right, Exactly.

Nic

And.

Nic

And Nic Cage is finally, he's celebrating his engagement. He's finally humping.

Steve

Right. And on a rooftop in D.C. where.

Nic

Plenty of people can see while Rocket man is playing.

Steve

Oh, I didn't notice that. Is It.

Nic

Listening to Rocket Man. Yeah. So then he basically gets the call while they're in the middle of the act.

Nic

I'm gonna go back. And he's like, this isn't happening.

Steve

This isn't happening.

Nic

Like, throws a little fit. I really like that.

Nic

Because Stanley comes. Goodspeed is such an even tempered, boring dude. And then once in a while, loses his mind.

Steve

Once in a while is Nicholas Cage.

Nic

Once in a while, he becomes Nicholas Cage.

Steve

So he has to go to San Francisco. And, you know, basically what we find out is there is a guy who escaped from Alcatraz and was, you know, later recaptured. And. But he's this, like, guy that doesn't exist. Like, the federal government doesn't acknowledge openly that he exists.

Steve

And. And the British government, because he's a British national, the British government also doesn't recognize that he exists or whatever. So he's this ghost of a person. But it's Sean Connery's character, John Mason, who is. Yes.

Steve

Secret Air Service, basically British Special Forces. And he stole a bunch of secrets, basically. He stole a bunch of J. Edgar Hoover's files. Yeah, essentially. And hid them.

Steve

Has microfilm of them and hid that microfilm. And they basically decided, we're going to hold you until trial without trial until you give up the microfilm. And he just never did. And he's been in there for 30 something years or whatever. Right.

Steve

33 years. And so. But that's the. But he escaped Malcatraz. So he.

Steve

Could they think, at least inform the team that needs to go on. They're gonna have a SEAL team go in and try to do an incursion. Mason could let them know, here's how you get through right here. I'm drawing.

Nic

He can tell you, yeah, here's how I got out.

Steve

So you can get in that way. That's their plan. Good speed. Has to go to San Francisco. And initially he thinks it's a training exercise.

Steve

So he invites his girlfriend or, you know, whatever. Fiance. I guess now, technically, like, you know, you come, you go to the hotel.

Nic

Or room disappointed that their night got rent. So I'll make it up for you.

Nic

We're gonna, you know.

Steve

Which is like, you know, makes sense.

Steve

But he thinks it's a training exercise, so no big deal. Just, just come on. It's cool.

Nic

Yep. And.

Nic

And they have to. And Goodspeed ends up with the other FBI authority guys. And they are talking to Mason because they have to convince Sean Connery to help.

Steve

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He doesn't have any reason to.

Nic

It's also It's. Yeah, it's like, what do. What do you have over him? So they. They work out this, like.

Nic

Pardon. And all this stuff that they. And they're kind of trying to be like tough guy. Like William Forsythe, who's a great character actor. Yeah, yeah.

Nic

So he's really kind of pushing around and Mason's just like, I'm not talking to this fucking guy anymore.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And. And they bring Stanley Goodspeed in, who's technically an agent, but it does not really have this kind of experience.

Steve

Yeah, he is, you know, he is a FBI agent, but they keep referring to him as specialist.

Steve

Almost to the point that I feel like that's like a category of FBI agent maybe, where you're like not a field agent. You're like. You're like laboratory research. You're doing some other stuff.

Nic

Right.

Steve

This is what it seems like. You're not out in the field. So. So that's what they keep referring to him because even then, Mason, you know, so are you a field agent? And he's like, yeah, of course.

Steve

He's like, okay. You know, but one of the things that William Forsythe's character, like, threw a quarter at Mason before he leaves the room.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And it, like, hits the ground and in a way that Michael Bay makes very clear. We're going to see that again.

Steve

Yeah. It's not Chekhov's quarter that's coming back into play right away.

Nic

That's right.

Steve

This is, you know, so. So they send Goodspeed in and he's trying to kind of look tough.

Steve

It's kind of a fun vibe he's.

Nic

Got going where he's like, he does a good job.

Steve

And then he, like, asks for a coffee talk. I love it. Connery goes, coffee?

Steve

Oh, no, thanks. I'm good. Offer me coffee, you know. Oh, yeah, can we get. Can we get some coffee in here, please?

Steve

Come on. Come on, guys. Like, you know, he's like trying to like, play like he's in charge or whatever, but he basically gets Mason to agree. He's like, you know, okay, but I need a suite of the Fairmont and a haircut and, you know, and feel of a suit, like this whole deal. So they agree to all that.

Steve

But as Goodspeed leaves to go back into the room behind the two way mirror to talk to Forsyth and Spencer, they don't see that Connery has slammed the metal cherries onto the quarter, gives it a little pinched piece, and he uses that to. I don't even know if this would work, but I think this is the way some glass cutters work. But you cut a perfect circle around on the glass and make sure it connects. And that makes it very weak in the middle like this. He's able just to elbow it to go through.

Steve

And he sees. Sees John Spencer's character goes, whoa, Mack, I should have known. Yeah. Like, yeah, but he's pissed. But it's still like, the deal's still on, right?

Steve

It doesn't like. It doesn't, like, ruin the deal. That's okay. They go to the Fairmont. They go to a suite at the Fairmont.

Nic

Great hotel room.

Steve

We have gorgeous penthouse suite. Amazing, beautiful hotel.

Nic

Yeah. And he's getting an outdoor haircut, right?

Nic

From a dog. Like, gay stereotype.

Steve

The worst. The worst. Like San Francisco.

Nic

I never liked that guy as an actor.

Steve

Boston show forever. Boston Common. Yeah.

Nic

That guy is so much.

Nic

I've never understood what's good about him and that era. The look of, like, the sideburns, the kind of. Who's that fucking guy in the Orioles, Brady?

Steve

Oh, I don't know.

Nic

Damn it.

Nic

The Orioles had this player who, like, had these sideburns. He hit 50 home runs and won, like, one steroided out season, then never hit more than, like, 22 the rest of his career. Brady Anderson. Anyway, yeah, this character, I was just like, oh, here we go. This is gonna suck.

Nic

And it like, I don't know. There's just no jokes. Like, if you write jokes into it, that's one thing. But if you just have it be like, oh, this is a funny kind of guy.

Steve

This is the thing.

Steve

Like, so this character.

Nic

There are ways to do it, right?

Steve

This character exists for no good reason. We need John to get. We need John Mason to get a haircut.

Nic

Right?

Steve

Because you don't want Sean. I mean, I think Sean Connery with long hair looks dope. I think he could have done that the whole time. It would have gotten in the way.

Steve

They wouldn't have let him go into an operation with, like, a long head of hair kind of thing. Whatever. So we need to get him a haircut.

Nic

Plus, he did Medicine Man. He had long hair there.

Steve

That's right. But this character, this barber, character, stylist, you know, the whole deal, it's like. It's just there to be like, look, it's San Francisco. San Francisco has a lot of gay people. Isn't that so funny?

Steve

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. And then, you know, he can, like, ask. All I care about is, do you like your haircut? When he's in the elevator and it's Just like, totally unnecessary. The character does not need to be there.

Steve

There is no reason that the character has to exist in any way, shape or form other than to be seen cutting his hair on the. Then be gone. Yeah, like, it doesn't need to exist.

Nic

It's kind of like lowest common denominator, though, you see in these, like, big budget movies. I mean, even something like the.

Nic

In the last movie we talked about Conair with like the donut dropping as the cops drive away. It's kind of like that joke has been done a trillion times before. So, yeah, I was just like, oh, God, here we go. I wrote down my note. Is gay hairdresser Bl.

Steve

Bl. Yeah, exactly. So he does cut his hair. And then this is what we. Oh, one thing we kind of skipped over is while Mason was getting a shower, he got that you.

Steve

There's that clothesline in hotel showers that you can like, pull across your towels on or do whatever. He, like, pulls that out clearly, like, is able to remove it actually from the wall. And he's got this long string now he's able to kind of hide for a while. And you can see him playing with it underneath the barber's, like, apron that's on him. And the idea is he's like wrapping it around his hand and then kind of coiling it.

Steve

And I think he, like, ties a little, like, noose kind of thing at the end of it. And so then he basically, he and Womack are on the balcony and Womack's trying to convince him again, you're going to help us with this, John, you know, like, whatever. And. And he's like, you know, will you shake on it? And so sure enough, they try to go.

Steve

He goes to shake on it and that's when he's like, able to put this, like, rope slightly around Womack's wrist and throw him over the balcony.

Nic

Crazy move.

Steve

Like, so nuts.

Nic

I mean, that, like, as a really coolation in this movie was really like, yeah, whoa, dude.

Steve

And of course, the only one out on the balcony with them at the time is good speed.

Steve

And he was given a gun. They did actually give him a gun because he said he lost. Left his in his dresser drawer at home or something. He thought he was coming to a training exercise, like, whatever. And there's a great line where Connery is like, you know, like, I'm gonna drop your boss over and good speed just goes, please don't.

Steve

With the gun pointing at him. Please don't.

Nic

Yeah, he doesn't know what to do in that Situation.

Steve

So. So Connery very smartly, I love.

Steve

He like wraps the rope, end of the rope he has around a chair and then lets it go. So it's like a. Enough of a thing where it's not like Womack will fall to his death immediately. You could still save him.

Nic

But that will yet decide to not chase me.

Steve

Exactly. That's really smart. He makes them choose to go save their boss instead of chase him down. And he starts running through the hotel, gets into an elevator. Da, da.

Nic

Running through the kitchen. Get like through the good fellas entrance. You know.

Steve

Exactly.

Nic

Of the hotel.

Nic

That's a good chase. Yeah. And. And Mason ends up stealing from the valet. He grabs keys for a Humvee.

Steve

Humvee? Yeah, yeah.

Nic

A sick looking like black truck style one. And then good speed is right behind him and he grabs this Y Ferrari and we get a really great chase through the city.

Steve

One of the best chases in 90s movies.

Steve

Like really fantastic.

Nic

And there's. There's a bunch of cop cars getting wrecked and, and it's really good. There's one scene where Mason is driving the Humvee and in the foreground you see a quote, old woman, end quote, crossing the street. It is the fakest old woman I've ever seen.

Nic

That is like a 22 year old stunt person. It is. It is absolute horseshit. Dude.

Steve

It looks less convincing than Robert De Niro dressed up as the housekeeper in Cape Fe.

Nic

They tried to get De Niro to play this old woman but he didn't want to work for the extras for a day. Fear.

Steve

Yeah, they couldn't. They couldn't. Mrs. Doubtfire, the stunt person.

Steve

Enough. It wasn't quite right. But anyway, lots of swerving, lots of, you know, driving through things until they actually derail a cable car.

Nic

Yes.

Steve

And it's actually.

Steve

That's now flying down the road and going crazy. And I love the cable car driver. Like everybody get off. Save yourselves. Like he's just telling everybody to jump off the.

Nic

He's good. And a connection earlier in the movie when Hummel gets in his like military uniform to go visit his wife's grave.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

He has like a hilarious amount of metals and shit on him.

Steve

Crazy.

Nic

And then this cable car driver is like one upping him. Like these would be the employees of the month at Chachki's. Dude. They're just covered in flair. It's unbelievable.

Steve

Oh my God. But it kind of also looks like a brownie vest like with like patches like whatever. It's got the same vibe. Also this made Me think of speaking of other movies we've covered on the podcast. Podcast that immediately thought of at the end of this, the Secret of My Success.

Steve

When Michael J. Fox is in the phone booth talking to his mom back home.

Nic

Yes.

Steve

Oh, they just totaled a Ferrari.

Nic

He does some. There's a scene of the Ferrari just knocking down all these consecutive parking meters, which is really sad.

Steve

Very cool. The coins flying everywhere. Yeah, yeah, that's all, that's all like, you know, credit cards and, and you know, tap to pay now.

Steve

Like there wouldn't be coins in any of those anymore. So.

Nic

Yeah, no, Mafia guys can't rob them.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Open with hands, hammers and then, you know, there's some good explosions and stuff.

Nic

But the cable car coming off the tracks was pretty cool.

Steve

And it actually, the Ferrari kind of crashes and cages in there and the cable cars coming at him and he has to like dive out of the Ferrari as it gets blown away.

Nic

Right.

Steve

And he steals, to use your term, the official vehicle of crime, a dirt bike from some kid and continues the chase again for the Humvee on a dirt bike.

Nic

The kid who commented before, before Cage stole his crime mobile, he was, was like, well, you just up your Ferrari, you should have no motorcycle just for saying that.

Steve

It's okay. It's not mine.

Nic

Yeah, the dirt. The dirt bike coming into the pursuit was very good. And I don't know if. Did Cage figure this out or he just followed.

Steve

No.

Steve

What happened? So he's on the dirt bike and he gets on the phone. Okay. Right. Which is a terrible idea.

Steve

But he gets on this little flip phone he's got. He's calling his buddy back at the D.C. office, the one that was in the gas chamber with him. And he's like, hey, I need you to look up. And this is a part that I kind of want to get into a little bit because. Because I think they keep talking about, they keep using the word term Wolfsburg to refer to a prison.

Steve

Right. Isn't that what they keep saying? Wolfsburg? Something like that. That's not the name of any prison.

Steve

United States. That is a city in Germany, but I don't even think we have an airfield there. Like, it's not Ramstein or anything like that. So I don't know what that. But.

Steve

So I think it's a made up place. But they talk. But he says, look for the name John Mason like transferred from like, whatever, whatever. He's like. And then he says, look for anybody transferred from San Quentin to Wolfsburg Prison in this year or whatever.

Steve

Right. And he's able to find info real quick. I had a similar issue with the conflating of prison systems in the last movie we watched, Con Air. Yeah, same thing here. San Quentin is a California state penitentiary, is not a federal prison.

Steve

There is no way a man like Mason, who is a British national who stole things from the FBI would be sitting in a California prison under any circumstances. When Alcatraz was. Was under use as a prison, it was part of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. It was a federal prison. So.

Steve

So that doesn't make any sense. Another. That's a little nitpick. They just picked the biggest named prison in the beginning. Totally.

Steve

Basically.

Nic

And didn't they say anyway that he's kind of being held without trial. He has not been convicted of anything. So he. He would be in like a Guantanamo type disappear guys type fucking prison, which.

Steve

Must be this other. This wolf is the idea that's not real because that's a secret, like, whatever. And he was on Alcatraz just because that's where they put the worst people when it was running for 30 years or whatever. So what happens is he's his buddy is able to look this up and find and unnamed transfer. So there's no first or last name, but it does mention like some details about him.

Steve

Yeah, and it's like next of kin. And it's like this name. I don't remember the daughter's name of Claire Forani's character, but whatever. Like Jade or something like that. Yeah.

Steve

And an address in San Francisco. So then he goes to that address, luckily just in time to see Jade and her super hot front, I would say, unreasonably attractive roommate. I don't know who Stacy is. She's gorgeous.

Nic

I mean, and Jade is super beautiful too.

Nic

Like this movie really, really, like treats the old Maril and, And.

Steve

And Claire Forani and then this other woman, Stacy, who it's like, you know, is. Is. Yeah, it's like super. And has this classic mid-90s look with like the kangle hat and the crop sweater and the jean jacket or leather jacket over the jeans, like the whole deal.

Steve

It's like, yeah, that's exactly the kind of girl I was into when I was 17. Like. Exactly.

Nic

Absolutely, Absolutely. Yeah.

Nic

And they end up at the palace of Fine Arts. Palace of Fine Arts. And he's able to like, get a hold of his daughter for a minute to give her the like, oh, I'm sorry that I. Whatever the.

Steve

Yeah, exactly.

Nic

And she, you know, makes sense. She doesn't really care that much. About chatting with him.

Steve

She's like appropriately huge. She's appropriately skeptical.

Steve

All she has ever heard from her mom, who sounds like she. Her mom's passed away, so she doesn't, you know, whatever. But when she was alive, the only thing she ever heard about her dad was that it was like a one night stand after a Zeppelin concert.

Nic

Zeppelin concert, yeah. And then he was Stanley Goodspeed's second favorite band.

Steve

Exactly. And then Mason was arrested the next morning because he had broken out of prison. And it was like they literally pulled him out of bed. Yeah. With the, you know, mom and newly conceived little Jade.

Steve

Right. Is left there. And so that she has like nothing about this person. She's maybe seen a picture, I think she said. Right.

Steve

And that's it. And so she's pre properly skeptical. And Goodspeed does one of the coolest things he can do because he rats him out. Obviously he's like, hey, I got him. He's down at House of Fine Arts.

Steve

So cops start flying in, FBI starts flying in.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And as the sirens are approaching, Jade is like, is this about you? Like you're. You broke out of prison again?

Steve

What the heck? And Connory doesn't know. Your Mason doesn't know what to say. At which point Goodspeed gets up and goes like. Like that's right, ma'.

Steve

Am. You know, your, your father is working with the FBI, helping us out with a little problem that we have. Gee, John, I think we should get going. You know. And he's like being very like friendly about it.

Steve

And it was like, yeah, dude, you didn't have to be cool like that.

Nic

That was very cool job. And I mean it helps build that relationship because it's important that these two guys like grow to trust and respect each other and everything.

Steve

Also real quick, just clar for Lonnie had. And if we talked about this in Point Break, we were talking about how Lori Petty had a few things and kind of disappeared.

Steve

I don't know if Clair Forani's been working lately or if she's like alive. I don't know, whatever.

Nic

I don't know that name. So I don't know cuz I didn't recognize that actress.

Steve

Black Mall Rats.

Steve

Oh man. Cla Forani had a run in like the kind of. Of. Yeah. Basically through the mid-90s of just being in a lot of stuff.

Steve

Okay. And obviously she's gorgeous and so it's like, you know, she could do. But yeah, I think Meo Black was like her big like star turn opposite Brad Pit. But. But yeah, she's been in a bunch of stuff that was back then, and then it kind of.

Steve

She kind of disappeared. I don't know where Claire Forani went, but we will see her again because we th percent will be doing mall rats on this show. Because that's one of my.

Nic

I think you have a point as an actress where, like, you're. You've hit your ceiling as far as being cast and you're so beautiful that there's some multimillionaire Formula one driver that's just like, I gotta take you off the market.

Nic

What's her name who got married to Pete Sampras? Veronica Vaughn from Billy Madison.

Steve

Oh, I don't remember her name, but yeah, she was also in Mortal Kombat. She was in a bunch of stuff.

Nic

During a chunk and then she went and like, oh, I'm going to go have my life now.

Nic

And I'm not concerned with money because this guy's.

Steve

That's possible. Happened.

Nic

Yeah. So I don't know.

Nic

We'll. We'll follow up with Claire. Hey, Claire, if you're listening, give the show a call, by the way.

Steve

Yeah, I. I think, unfortunately, the more likely outcome is that she stopped getting work because she had the audacity to age past, like 35 years old and suddenly nobody hired her because that's what Hollywood does to women.

Nic

Well, that's on her.

Nic

I mean, that is disgusting of her to do that. So. So we've got Mason back in custody and we're bringing him. And the. The plan is still to have him look at all these blueprints, tell us how to get through.

Nic

And he's looking at him and he's just kind of like, I can't read.

Steve

It's all in my head.

Nic

The map is inside my brain. It was pitch black down there, you know, so, like, he's unable to give them what they need with the blueprints.

Steve

And he says, like, well, I'll remember when we get there.

Nic

Yeah, because he also thought he was going, I think.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

And maybe he was going until he pulled his little getaway stuff.

Steve

That's true too.

Nic

I don't know.

Nic

You're not doing a whole lot for your credibility there, John.

Steve

Yeah, you're not adding to your trustworthiness, Mr. Mason.

Nic

So he's got to go. And then Stanley has to go as well because he's the chemical weapons.

Steve

Because he does the opposite.

Steve

He goes, says, oh, hey, let me know when I can show your guys how to defuse these bombs. Like, you won't have to because you're going in to do it. He's like, haha, no, yeah. Oh, I am okay. Also, great line from Connery in there.

Steve

Like Womack shows back up and he's got the arm and the sling, right? And he goes, how's your bowling arm? Yeah.

Steve

So yeah, so they basically get a SEAL team together and they're going to go in. It's this SEAL team led by Kyle Reese from Terminator. The actor's name off the top of my head, but yeah, the guy who.

Nic

Michael Bain.

Steve

That's right.

Steve

Yes, yes. And he gives a great little shit you not speech topside, which I always loved. And they have the coolest little mini sub thing.

Nic

I love all their stuff that they have. But he says before they go in, he says of Hummel, we're going in, we're going in.

Nic

Versus the greatest battalion commander in the Vietnam War. Is that like saying that Dan Marino is the greatest QB in Super bowl history? Yeah, like, wouldn't it be a Vietnamese guy? Like, no offense, but like, you know.

Steve

To be honest with you, Nic, I'm not that familiar with the Vietnam War.

Steve

Who won?

Nic

I'm not. I think it's still happening. Probably is for some of us.

Steve

We should.

Steve

We should ask Jacob from that other movie we watched.

Nic

Yeah, that's right. But yeah, the submarine things, I love those little. I don't even know what they're called, the things that you hang on to and it zooms through the water called sea bobs.

Steve

Those ones I have actually heard of.

Steve

The other ones are even cooler. They're like.

Nic

It was like a snowmobile sitting on it looked like.

Steve

Yes, it looked like a snowmobile, but with like, you know, rudders or something instead of like skis. Yes.

Steve

But it looked amazing and I want to ride one.

Nic

Can you rent a C Bob?

Steve

You know what, though? So the reason I know that they're called C Bobby. Yeah.

Steve

It's because my wife and I religiously watch the series of Bravo shows called Below Deck. There's Blow Deck, Mediterranean Below Deck, Down Under. Like all these. It's about the crew of a. Of private charter yachts.

Nic

Okay.

Steve

And so they always have like, you know, like, what are like sea doos and like, like, like skimmers and like different, like toys they can play with. And a lot of them will have the seaboard things and people will. Yeah, you can. They don't go that deep, but you can definitely take them underwater with like a snorkel on or something and then like, you know, come back up at the top.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

So I Don't know. I mean, you can certainly buy. Buy them. I don't know about renting them, but if you, you know, rent a $50,000 a week yacht, then they'll.

Nic

It's probably part of it.

Steve

They're on there.

Nic

Not. Not the same place that's charging me like, 11 bucks to rent a snorkel for an hour.

Steve

No, it's not there.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Okay, well, it's on my list now. A C, Bob. Now I know what it's called. I'm halfway there.

Steve

I also think that's really smart in this point where they're sort of referring to. So all of the SEAL team guys have got, like, cameras on them, little mini cams. And, you know, they all. They've got their headsets and everything. And I think it's really smart that they refer to them by the code name the Eagles because they fumble this shit so goddamn bad.

Steve

That's my NFL joke. I've been. I've been storing that one away for a while, actually.

Nic

Stanley Goodspeed, they said, hey, come up with an indie rock band name. And he said, oh, the Eagles.

Nic

Jesus Christ, that's really funny.

Steve

So.

Nic

So they're immediately in. In Freddy Krueger's boiler room to, like, first get in there.

Steve

So crazy.

Nic

And there's this crazy thing, like, it's from, like, one of the Tomb Raider video games, I think, right? This, like, mini golf obstacle, Flames and Gears that Mason has said, oh, well.

Steve

I memorized the timing.

Nic

I hope it hasn't changed. And again, it's one of those things that.

Nic

Why would this be operating? And I did read in the trivia for the movie, Michael Bay was just like, yeah, we needed something cool. Yeah, I know. It wouldn't be operating.

Steve

There's got to be something where they are in a place and there's a door that opens to the other side, and he's the only one that can get through.

Steve

You got to have that because you have to have this moment. Moment where he either does or doesn't come back. Right. I mean, because there's got to be this moment where we find out. Is Mason just going to ditch them now?

Nic

Yeah, exactly.

Steve

Or is he coming back and so he comes back and we get welcome to the movie title every time we see that. I'm gonna call it that.

Nic

I think every movie. Yeah, we need to.

Nic

We should have a compilation of all those scenes.

Steve

Welcome to Pacific Heights. I'll have to go back and see if anybody says that, but yeah, welcome to the Rock. Really good.

Nic

Yeah.

Nic

And there's still so much to go through to get there. So they are now underground, and I think they have to get up. And earlier it had shown the TAKEOVER team kind of preparing themselves, and the John McGinley character was explaining that he has this motion sensor. And I guess normally there's like a laser beam motion sensor thing, but if you have a mirror, you can reflect the beam back and it won't go off.

Steve

It'll keep the circuit.

Nic

But he had some second level of notification involved in this, so you could think that you disabled it, but it would still notify that.

Steve

Yeah, because normally you would put that mirror there and like, have to hold in place to keep the thing going, and then you would move the other piece out of the way or something like that. And the whole point is that in this scenario that John C. McGinley's character has come up with moving that other piece that has its own little. They called it like a tremble.

Nic

Yeah, it was like a spring.

Steve

Little spring that if it wiggles back and forth at all, it signals then that there's an issue because that would never happen unless something actually deliberately moved it.

Nic

Right, right.

Steve

I suppose if there was a rat that bumped into it. But then they'd go check it out and it would be fine, whatever. But.

Steve

Yeah, so. So they're in this. Are coming up into the shower room, and they do trip this tremble sensor thing. So now the. The bad guys have been alerted.

Steve

You know, the. It's like Marines versus SEALs. Basically, the Marines have all been alerted to this. They are hustling down. They take up these positions up high, looking down into the shower room.

Steve

Room. And you know what we. What ensues is the battle of wounded drain. And these guys come up through the thing and it's this whole thing where Hummel is yelling down at Michael being. And like, tell your men to put their weapons on the deck.

Steve

I can't give that order. Do it right now. You know, I can't give that order. They're going back and forth. And then it's like this kind of standoff thing.

Steve

In movies, this kind of thing almost always happens. Like, nobody actually shoots. Like, somebody bumps a piece of concrete.

Nic

Right.

Steve

And the rotten.

Steve

It like falls and makes a big noise.

Nic

Yeah. Which then is just chaos.

Steve

And it does look like, I think one of the SEAL team members down below is the first to turn around and start firing at what he heard. And then that just everything's bedlam at that point.

Steve

Guns everywhere and unhummel, you know, not that it matters. Dude, you put everybody in this position. So you're still to blame. But he is screaming, cease fire. Cease fire.

Steve

Trying to.

Nic

He doesn't want to do it, but he has to, like, maintain a credible threat. But he can't tell his guys that, so they're going to start firing. Question.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Do you think Hummel thinks that the families of those guys should get the million bucks as well? The guys that he.

Steve

No, because they.

Nic

Because they're recognized as, like, actual things.

Steve

They're going in on an official mission.

Steve

They will get recompensed. Their families will, you know, they will get military burials. They're not getting a million bucks, but they're not getting a million dollars. But they are going to get the normal, you know, regular frame. They won't be, quote, forgotten.

Steve

Right, right. They'll get. They'll get their just whatever, like, honors.

Nic

So this has been. This has been absolutely brutal.

Nic

Right? And every one of the invading SEAL team has been killed. There was one guy who was kind of hanging back with Speed Mason. Mason, it was kind of like a younger dude who was, like, helping them out and stuff.

Steve

Well, he was told to stay next to me, stay with him.

Steve

You got to keep an eye on him. He doesn't go. You know, you said, like, if you pee, he help, or you take a piss, he helps or whatever. Right. That kind of thing.

Nic

And he was like, the one, kind of baby face of the seals. Like, we were meant to be more sympathetic towards him. And he ends up getting capped as well. Like, trying to go up and see what's going on.

Steve

Well, I think.

Steve

Well, he wanted to go up and I mean, he basically was at a point where he's like, if I don't go up there and shoot a little and die, then what am I? I have to live with the fact that I abandoned my squad for the rest of my life, and I'm not doing that. And. And I don't think he thought through enough that, like, well, maybe the three of them could solve the problem together better. Like, he could have been a useful asset to Speed and Mason.

Nic

The mentality of those guys, and probably like, very appropriately, is like, we are different than you. Like, we are the seals for a reason. You're just some fucking guy. So, no, I'm not going to stay back and hang with Fair.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

But, yeah. So now. Now Goodspeed and Mason are left. They don't really have that much of a relationship with each other still. I mean, they're a little bit.

Nic

But they don't trust each other. They're left in these Tunnels. And I think that Hummel's crew thinks that we're clear, basically.

Steve

Initially, yeah. They see all the dead bodies, they start cleaning stuff up, whatever, and they're dealing with that and they're trying to.

Nic

Drop some bombs and stuff down under there.

Steve

Not yet. A little bit later, that comes in a bit before that. We flash back to the FBI control center because Paxton, the William Forsyth character, and Womack, the, the FBI director, John Spencer, they're now talking because Paxton is like, you gotta tell me what's going on. This is crazy.

Steve

You know, kind of whatever. He's like, like, I got to know what's going on. And there is a thing that John Spencer specifically says that tickles me every time because he's telling him, he's like, this guy stole, you know, from J. Edgar Hoover. He stole all this stuff. He knows all our secrets from the last half century.

Steve

And the way he says that is like so graveled. I wrote down these are two raspy voiced burr throats, like yelling at each other like they have stuff stuck in their throats. But half century, the way he says that is hilarious to me.

Nic

It's like the Cobra Commander's voice. GI Joe, the movie.

Steve

Exactly. But it's like so explaining basically the situation. Like, who is Mason? Like what is the whole thing? Because what they want to say, what they were originally trying to do is we need to call it off.

Steve

Like everything's done. Like it's, it's this old man and this specialist and Womack's the one telling him like, no, no, no, you don't understand. Like Mason can do anything, basically. Like he, he can, he could still solve this. It's not done yet.

Steve

You know what he's. Womack trying to convince them, but very quickly, that is when the Hummel's crew finds the guy who came up, like I said, the lad, the baby face guy, he like fell back down that manhole dead, you know, in front of them. And they took his radio and his gun. So they discover a soldier with no radio and gun. They realize we still have got a rat problem.

Steve

Okay. And that's when they start dropping some bombs there.

Nic

Mason, I think says something and there's like fire coming through the tunnels and stuff.

Steve

Yeah, because they drop a fireball.

Nic

Very.

Steve

Also, I think one of the earliest appearances of a man bun in popular cinema on one of the. One of the guys in Hummel's crew as he's laying a bomb.

Steve

I don't see a lot of man buns.

Nic

No, not back then.

Steve

No, not that's more of an early 2000s thing, I feel.

Nic

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Other than, like, a sumo wrestler, which is a different bun style.

Steve

Right. Maybe Alexi Lawless in the. In the 94 World Cup.

Nic

I'm not sure. So now I think they kind of understand Mason and good speed.

Nic

Like, what do we have to do? Good speed. I got to get the rockets, you know? Can you get those rockets? And he says.

Nic

He says, well, I'll. I'll do my best. And he's like, losers whine about their best. Winners go home. And the prom queen.

Steve

Carla was the prom queen.

Steve

But. Yeah, but. But Mason is kind of convinced to stay because, like, he didn't know anything about the chemical weapons stuff. Right. Goodspeed tells him, like, hey, like, I'm a chemical weapons specialist.

Steve

There's this nasty up there, like. And they're aiming at a San Francisco. Like, everybody in the city is gonna die. Like, basically, this is gonna kill over a million people. So your.

Steve

Your daughter's out there, my girlfriend, my fiance, and our unborn baby is out there. Like, please help me fix this. Yeah. And that's basically what Mason. How.

Steve

Mason is convinced to stick around because it's nasty stuff, right?

Nic

And they're being discovered and. Or they're. They encounter some of the. Some of the Marines.

Nic

And Mason pulls out a knife, like a Bowie knife, and throws it. And there's a cool effect where it's kind of the cameras, like, the knife cam as the knife is being thrown, and it goes right into this guy's neck. And then Mason says, it was never his day.

Steve

Is it my imagination, or was there that, like, noise, like, from Looney Tunes when the knife hits, or did I just imagine that? Because I think I remember that happening.

Nic

Well, it would have won the Oscar for best sound if it did have that.

Steve

Yeah, exactly. But. Yeah, so. So they get to the morgue.

Steve

That's where they met these two guys. They got to fight them. And that's where it sounds like 12 of the 15 rockets are still being stored in, like, the cadaver drawers or something. So good speed is to able to get 12 of the guidance chips. This is the whole way they're disabling it is.

Steve

He has to un. He has to take the. The actual gas canisters are, like, inside the. Rocky has to take those out. He has to unscrew the top of that and pull the very loose.

Steve

He calls it a very elegant string of pearls configuration. You know, he's got to pull this out. And again, we know if any one of those Little glass balls hits the ground and breaks like they are dead, period, within 20 seconds. So this is super serious. And at one point, he's, like, trying to explain all this to Mason and having him hold something, and he's like, don't move.

Steve

Okay. Back away, back away, back. And he's, like, trying to, like, both. Don't move. Let go.

Steve

Take this. Go away. Like, he's like, really? Whatever, but he is able to. Then when he pulls that out, then he's able to pull this little, like, you know, he called it a guidance chip, but it's basically like a super mini motherboard that's, like, tacked into, you know, some kind of port in there.

Steve

And he takes it away. And then I guess the idea here is now the rockets just won't fire. Or he says that they'll. They'll splash down.

Nic

Splash within 500ft.

Steve

They'll just go kind of, you know, whatever can be initially launched, it'll then stop working. Just crash in the bay, supposedly. So that's the idea.

Nic

The way the VX gas is inside those missiles is really cool.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

I mean, that is great, like, production design. Because the glass balls clinking against each other adds a lot of tension. Like, that was a great decision.

Steve

Absolutely.

Nic

I don't know how we get here, but we're on this, like, underground, so.

Nic

Thunder Mountain Railroad. What the fuck is this?

Steve

So somehow they. They get attacked by more. They basically, more folks.

Steve

The morgue team doesn't radio in, so Hummel sends more people down to the morgue. And they're getting the 12th one out of this thing, right, the 12th guidance ship. And they know they got to find three more rockets. But, like, basically, it's like, last second, Mason's yelling at good speed, hurry, hurry, hurry. Like, whatever.

Steve

And. And he does. And he finally gets it. And as they are escaping. Yeah, I can't remember exactly how that happens, but.

Steve

But they, like, fall through the floor, jump down a. Something where they end up. Yeah, on a minecart. Like, where is. Why is this little minecart under there?

Steve

Very, very strange.

Nic

It's like, if they made this movie with the intention that this would be a dope video game after the fact, then the minecart stuff makes perfect sense. Because, like, watching this is like, okay, you have a number of rockets to disable. You have all these different settings to go to.

Steve

Right.

Nic

Like, this would be such a fun.

Steve

I don't know if they ever did that. They should have done, like a. Like a golden style, you know, first person shooter based on The Rock would have been dope. So basically, now there's a bunch of guys who are following, including John C. McGinley.

Steve

Right. Or, like, following them down in there. And at one point, somebody gave Mason, like, a packet of stuff that he asked for. And it included, like, kerosene and waterproof matches or something like that. I didn't really explain it.

Nic

The Chappelle Kit from Con Air.

Steve

Exactly. And so he's got this. So he's like, underneath where John C. McGinley is starting to shoot towards Goodspeed, but he's, like, in this really thick metal. Metal hanging bin of some kind.

Steve

So it's enough. I don't know if it's, like, fully bulletproof, but it's enough that it's, like, not. It's not getting through to him. But Mason's underneath this, like, trellis that John C. Ignite is standing on. And he gets kerosene and then lit on fire and, you know, falls off the thing and hangs on and then gets it.

Steve

Actually, the whole sequence is fun, but it also does kind of go too long. Like this, this whole action sequence with the swinging things.

Nic

And this is a part, I mean, and it's like, it's entertaining and there's action. But if we're talking about trimming the movie, it's like.

Steve

Yeah, I don't know who's.

Nic

Who's ever, like, doing word association with Alcatraz. And they're like underground minecart system. Like, we don't need to see that. More of the stuff we know the.

Steve

Whole sequence could have been cut for some other way to take out a couple more guys.

Steve

Because that's really what the end result ends up being is just that, like, three more of Hummel's men are dead. Right, Right. That's really the important part of this. And there is, although there is one of my favorite action movie type moments, which is I'm going to throw a grenade at this point, guy. I'm going to throw it right back at you.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Throwing the grenade back always seems to work, and it did for good speed.

Nic

So how about this? Pull the pin out, 1, 2, 3, then throw it. Like, you have to know about how long it takes before it blows up.

Nic

Right.

Steve

I. I could see, you know, not wanting to hold on to the hand Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch any longer than I absolutely have to.

Nic

So you might get an arm blowed off, but then maybe your two Dads One Movie honored honorary award winner. Because we love that.

Steve

We absolutely love, love the limbless here at 2Dads one movie, okay?

Steve

So they get away from those guys and they do. Goodspeed finds another rocket and he's, like, disassembling it. It's not even in any particular place. It's like in a courtyard or something.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Kind of strange. Almost outdoors. And then there's, like, two of Hummel's Marines, Spider man, rappelling through the air down towards him instead of just shooting him, which, like, maybe they didn't, because when they first saw him, the. The. He'd already disassembled the gas canister.

Steve

So they didn't want to risk that falling. But that seems like a really intelligent move. And I don't know that I would trust these guys to be that smart about it. But, like, why didn't they just shoot him?

Nic

I think they made reference to, like, some of them later on were frustrated because they were like.

Nic

Hummel, like, basically said, no, Cat, he's. He said, take these people alive. He doesn't want killing. Like, he. In his mind, he's still like, my operation is perfectly clean except for that accident where we killed 20 Navy SEALs.

Steve

Right?

Nic

But very. So I think that's. That's, like, what's driving that.

Steve

That's a good point.

Steve

So Hummel. Because somebody else does say later, you know, it's a good thing Hummel wants you alive because I'd like to gut you like a fish or whatever. Gut you like a fish, boy?

Nic

Yeah, Yeah. I take pleasure in gutting you, boy.

Steve

That's what it is. Take pleasure in gutting you, boy.

Nic

But they do. So they do end up capturing Mason in Goodspeed. And then they put him in cells, right?

Steve

But not in Broadway, apparently, where all the civilians are. They are definitely separate and alone. And like in this other part of the prison, two themselves near each other, but not right next to each other, it sounds like, or it looks like. So.

Nic

Right?

Nic

And. And this, I think, is maybe one of the best Nic Cage lines in the movie here.

Steve

It's a good one.

Nic

So they're kind of talking back and forth and everything. And as we can see, Mason is trying to, like.

Steve

Well, he's stripped a bunch of the bed sheet, like, into things and braid.

Nic

Fashioning some kind of rope, right? And. And at the same time, Good Speed is yelling to him, and, you know, how are we going to get out of here? And whatever, you know, he's like, I understand how you got through the tunnels and how you did this.

Nic

Like, but how in the name is it the how in the name. How in the name of Zeus's Butthole. Did you get out of your cell?

Nic

I did read. You probably read the same thing. The Zeus's butthole line was ad libbed.

Steve

Nice.

Nic

And Michael Bay did not want to keep it in the movie but Nicholas Cage insisted did that it stay nice.

Nic

And again Cage vindicated by history here.

Steve

Coming right off that Oscar, that Oscar award win. That's how, that's, that's there. Gave him the juice to do it around.

Nic

Dude, that's what you do.

Nic

Yeah, so. So he's talking shit at the same time. So Mason loops this rope around and they end up escaping from jail the exact same way that the Brady Bunch escaped from jail when they're trapped in the ghost town.

Steve

Jesus Christ. That's right.

Steve

Oh my God.

Nic

So I enjoyed that as a classic jailbreak style here. So yeah, he, he saves. He saves. He saves.

Nic

Good speed now. So the time is running out. Like they've given an ultimatum. Hummel and crew have given an ultimatum as to when they need the money delivered, when they need their transport delivered.

Steve

Right.

Nic

And we're running out of time. We're down to like a couple minutes, I think.

Steve

Yeah, it's, it's. And so now they're in this little control center and so I guess kind of could manage mention there are like two. I think he refers to them as captains.

Steve

That's their rank. So just one step below major. If I know my Marine rankings, I'm not sure I do. But they are two people that came on kind of later on like after the VX gas theft.

Nic

Yes.

Steve

And it's. And Hummel says, I've never worked with you before. But you know, so far you and your team seem great. So.

Nic

Right.

Steve

You know, thank you for joining the team, blah, whatever. But he doesn't know them as well. They've never worked with him before. Unlike David Morse's character, John C. McGinley's character, they'd worked with Hummel before. And so these guys are definitely a little antsier.

Steve

You know, they're kind of like. And one of them keeps saying like just letting the general know the time. Three minutes General.

Nic

And he's the guy who's from. The guy from Shawshank.

Nic

One of one of the CO prisoners.

Steve

Also who somehow looks like. In my opinion, he's like Teemu. Michael J. Fox.

Steve

Like there's something very off about him, but like slightly Michael J. Fox ish.

Nic

He's Michael TJ Max.

Steve

There you go. Exactly.

Steve

But yeah, so he. And Hummel's kind of getting pissed at him. He's like, I'm well aware of the time. Like, you know.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

But, yeah, so they end up.

Nic

They end up launching the missile.

Steve

Well, there's a.

Nic

Time's up.

Steve

That's right.

Nic

So.

Steve

But. But before that, the guy said they're trying to basically convince Hummel to do it. It almost feels like. Right.

Steve

And he says something to Hummel. He goes, come on, General, let's be all we can be. And it's like, okay, but that's the Army. Like, you're a Marine.

Nic

You should hate.

Nic

You should have that rivalry with them.

Steve

Yeah, like. Like, you know, it should either be like, you know, come on, let's be the few in the proud General, like. Or something like that. But I just wouldn't have.

Steve

I just seemed odd that it was an army slogan spoken by a Marine. But yes, they do launch a rocket. And, and basically the, the, the other general that they've been dealing with at the Pentagon calls and is like, frank, we need more time. He's like, bullshit. You got three minutes.

Steve

Like, whatever. And they do actually launch one of the two remaining rockets. And this is kind of actually a good thing. Not initially, but eventually for good speed. And Mason is one less rocket to find.

Steve

But basically they're shooting it and they're talking about the heading. And they mentioned that it's going to Oakland to a football game. Now, at the time, the Oakland Raiders played at the Oakland Coliseum. But the view that we get of the rocket flying over like a hillside over a stadium, that is Candlestick Park. 1,000%.

Steve

Absolutely not the Coliseum, because the Coliseum is. Got no hills around it. It's like water, freeway. And then then massive parking lot and two facilities. The open Coliseum, which is open air, and the open arena, which is right next to it.

Steve

None of that is visible. This is clearly Candlestick park where the 49ers played until, you know, maybe 15 years ago when they moved to Santa Clara. But, like, this was another. This was what I was talking about. Like, like the sneakers going the wrong direction across the bridge.

Steve

This is my. Like, I'm a Bay Area native and I know my geography and you guys that up.

Nic

That's super weird too, because why wouldn't you reference the way more famous park?

Steve

Right.

Nic

Like, because the Oakland had moved to LA and they moved back.

Nic

They weren't relevant yet in the. In Oakland since they moved back. No, they weren't doing that.

Steve

Three years.

Nic

The Niners were in like the midst of a legendary stretch.

Nic

Like 20 years of success, two years.

Steve

Off a Super bowl or something like that. At that point, like yeah, very interesting choice. But they do show us candlestick. The crowd's obviously wearing a lot of red.

Steve

It's like clearly a Niner home game kind of idea. But it's only momentarily, but. But it's like the fact that it's floating over the hills because that's part of that, you know. There's like a small mountain range goes up and down the peninsula.

Nic

Right.

Steve

And that's what they're flying over. So just the thing that sticks with me as a Bay Area native, that is not the Coliseum, period.

Nic

And the missile ends up kind of turning course the last minute and goes harmlessly. I'm out to sea into the ocean, I guess. The gas would not, you know, it would.

Steve

They said it detonated underwater.

Nic

Okay. So it's not going to just. It's not going to aerosolize, which was the issue. Right.

Steve

That was the big thing, the wind and everything and making that super dangerous. So it's going to kill a ton of fish. Right, right. That are in the. That's going to make some really up fishing for a while.

Nic

Bad sushi, really bad sushi.

Steve

Don't eat the crab from 1997 or whatever. But. Yeah, but generally you know that much better than, than detonating in the air over the barrier and everything else.

Nic

And Hummel's guys are kind of losing cuz they're like pissed.

Nic

One of the, one of the other guys, we haven't mentioned him by name yet, but Tony Todd Candyman, Candy man, great actor and he's really good in this.

Steve

Recently passed away too.

Nic

Yes, he did, yeah, within the last.

Steve

Couple of years or so.

Nic

But yeah, they're fucking pissed at him.

Nic

And they know that there's one left and they're kind of like, dude, we can't even, you know, this isn't the guy that we want. And the planes meanwhile with like the thermite plasma launched are on the way. And the, the plan is like, yeah, we have 81 civilian hostages. We have all these like special forces guys potentially. But that's, that's a calculation we have to, to make.

Steve

They also still believe there are 15 or 14 fully armed rockets ready to go all over the Bay Area. So we could be talking about several million casualties.

Nic

That's right. Because they could shoot different all, you know, from there, like any different.

Steve

San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose.

Steve

I mean just those three cities alone. I mean I was the 90s, so maybe fewer, but like today that's like two and a half million people just in those three cities. So it's like you know, that's not a. Those are densely populated areas. You could do a ton of damage with this stuff.

Steve

So they're, they're operating from that amount of information and frankly making the right call. All right, absolutely. The right choice to like nuke the island, get rid of that stuff and, and say sorry to all those civilians that, and their families that you had to kill. But it's like that's just what has to happen.

Nic

Hey, we just freed up close to $100 million.

Nic

We think we give each of your families a million bucks.

Steve

No, that, that account doesn't exist. Nic, I know what you're talking about.

Nic

So, so the, the other soldiers are kind of going to have a mutiny against Hummel. Like they're fucking done with this.

Nic

We want to launch this thing, we're fucking done. And they end up in this kind of standoff which is extremely convenient for Goodspeed and Mason, who are nearby. Yeah, everyone who's a threat to them basically shoots and kills each other.

Steve

Pretty close to, pretty close. I think only the General, the Major and then one guy, Sergeant Crisp, I think they were the younger guy who's with the other two captains.

Steve

They die. But the two kind of main antagonists within Hummel's group, they've survived, they survived the standoff. And so basically at some point they're able to pull, Mason's able to pull Hummel out of that fracas and basically Goodspeed and Humm. I remember which one interrogates. It's like where's the last rocket?

Steve

Tell me where the last rocket is. Let me. And he says lower lighthouse, you know, Go, go get it, you know. And then Hummel dies. So at least in his last breath he's able to give Goodspeed the information needs to try and solve this problem for all.

Steve

And so now he was, he was.

Nic

Kind of a reluctant potential mass murderer. Yeah, he didn't want to do like much as like he made all the choices leading to it it. But there was something in his conscious that pulled him towards this and stuff that pulled him away from like killing people.

Steve

There's, there's a, there's an idea I'm kind of, I kind of find interesting in like human psychology of like it's unintended but wholly predictable consequences.

Steve

So it's like, yeah, it's not what you wanted to have happen, but every choice you made up to this point led to where this almost becomes inevitable. Yeah, right. And so it's like outside of this herculean effort by these two random ass dudes that are on the island trying to stop. Stop you without them. The rest of this mutinous crew now has access to over a dozen of these rockets and can fire them whenever they want.

Nic

Right, right.

Steve

And that's because of the choices Hummel made along the way. So whether or not, you know, this is the whole saying. Right. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Steve

Like, no matter what you wanted to have happen, you made choices that, like, did this. And so the fact that he is able to kind of, you know, make one last effort to, like, fix his own bullshit is. Is a good thing. And Hummel is not an easy character to, like, hate. Yeah, I don't think he's also.

Steve

You can't root for him either.

Nic

Supposed to. Yeah, he's kind of. I mean, you're supposed to feel conflicted. And it's good that he has these evil sidekicks which make it.

Steve

Absolutely. Yeah. You got to have guys in the crew that are much worse than him to make it work. I do like that David Morse sides with him rather than against him in the standoff. Like, I. I feel like that was good for his character, but I think Ed Harris is one of these actors, and I feel like Billy Bob Thornton and Tommy Lee Jones also fit this character category of really being able to.

Steve

To walk that line between, like, I like this guy, but I don't want to root for him.

Nic

Right, right.

Steve

Feeling very Wesley Snipes and Demolition Man. Right. Very, very Simon Phoenix, where it's like, God, he's a fun.

Steve

And now that one's a little different because he was wholly bad, but a lot of fun to watch.

Nic

He was, like, charismatic. This is different because he's not charismatic, but he's somewhere you can understand the reasoning that led to his decision, you know?

Steve

Yeah, exactly. So.

Steve

So. So with his dying breath, he at least helps out. Goodspeed's able to head down to the lower lighthouse and start to diffuse. Start to get the chip out, whatever, but he doesn't. He kind of is able to pull the gas out of the rocket, at which point Tony Todd's character shows up and is like, I'm gonna get you.

Steve

Like, whatever. And. And he just. They're kind of like, pacing around the lighthouse where the rocket is. And Todd ends up standing in front of the rocket, which gives Nic Cage the opportunity to be like, do you like Elton John?

Steve

It's like, what do you mean?

Nic

I don't like soft ass shit.

Steve

Do you like the Elton John song Rocket Man? I don't like, so. Oh, well, it's because it's you.

Steve

You're the rocket man. And he like hits launch. Some launch button will fire whatever, his little fuego button and it just shoots out. Now, of course, because the gas is. He's got the gas beads with him, so that's not gonna.

Steve

You know. But it flies and knocks him out the window and he dies and he.

Nic

Gets impaled on like a piece of a chain link fence as well. Like a real brutal, brutal death. But that Rocketman line is really so legendary.

Nic

I feel like that should be the beginning of this episode.

Steve

One of the worst lines in the movie.

Nic

It's so dumb. But what I have talked about it more than I've talked about actual good lines. Like it had an effect.

Nic

Like it did something. But I don't know if that was ad libbed. I don't see that that was or not.

Steve

I feel like. No, because.

Steve

Because it ties back further into the character. You know, the whole muse.

Nic

I'm a music the best you could do.

Steve

So bad, you know? No, I don't know for sure yet.

Steve

But likely.

Nic

Do you like the Ramones? Because you're on a rocket to rock Russia. Like you try all these different versions of it.

Steve

Do you like the Clash?

Steve

It's time to rock the Cosmo. Like whatever. But no, I think. I think listener. And maybe you, listener, you would have heard this at the beginning of the episode.

Steve

But Nic and I haven't decided yet. I think it'll be the whole. Cut me some freaking slack. Like that whole part will probably be the opening. Because that's really good.

Steve

But yeah. So he goes. And then. Oh.

Nic

So with that, the string of beads.

Nic

So Nic Cage has put it like in this great. Like this somewhere.

Steve

So scared, so scary.

Nic

It's in a drain. Hey, it's not like drains drained to general populations of water or anything.

Nic

But there's one ball that was loose that he just like has.

Steve

He threw his pocket.

Nic

He throws it in his like front pocket for some reason.

Steve

I mean, I guess you can't. What else are you going to do with it?

Nic

I guess you can't throw it.

Steve

Just hockey. I would try to hit the water.

Nic

Throw it into the ocean. Yeah, but he's like.

Nic

He's not like a cool guy. He's like a nerd FBI guy. So he wasn't like on the team or whatever. So. So the last dude has come across good speed.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

And Mason is somewhere. We don't know where Mason is at right now. I think he said he was done with it. They had a conversation.

Nic

He Was done, right? So Mason's gone, and now Goodspeed is fighting one on one with this dude who would destroy him in a second, right? And he's able to shove the ball into this guy's mouth, right. And then push him off of him. So he starts immediately dying this horrible death.

Nic

And Goodspeed has the needle, the atropine, and so he's got the atropine and he comes in, is able to give himself.

Steve

Yep. The shot of the heart. Now, this is. The tension at this point is so.

Steve

So we know all the rockets have been disabled. All the bad guys are dead. Okay? But the FBI and the military don't know that. So their F18 fighter jets are, with the thermite plasma, are still flying straight at Alcatraz, ready to nuke the entire island and destroy.

Steve

Destroy all the gas when they. They were told. And we. I do love that they give us a William Forsyth. William Forsyth's voiceover hearkening back to when he originally said, when you've neutralized the threat, use these flares or whatever.

Steve

It's like, oh, that's right. I forgot that they said that. Like, he's got flares.

Nic

They're like, hey, I know we've made a lot of shit happen since then. So here's just a gentle reminder.

Steve

That was almost two hours ago. Yeah. So he gets out into the open and he's got the flares going and he's waving him or whatever. And there's. Luckily there's spotters, like on the.

Steve

You know, one of the piers in San Francisco facing Alcatraz, I guess. And they see the green smoke and it's like, aboard, aboard. They try to call off the fighter jets, but one guy had a little bit of a itchy trigger finger and he lets it go and it's like, here's the interesting thing. So it doesn't hit the. The building that they know all the hostages are in.

Steve

So that's good, right? Right. But it hits close to where Nic Cage is because he's literally blown back into the water by the blast. I thought this was supposed to be this, like, super napalm that would, like, burn everything for, like, minutes, if not hours. Right.

Steve

That was the whole idea.

Nic

Wouldn't be like an explosion that was done after it happened. Like, you couldn't go anywhere near it.

Steve

No. And it should have lit him on fire.

Steve

Like, even if he just had enough of being close enough to be pushed away by the blast into the water, he wasn't anywhere near that. He must have flown 30ft. He should be covered in, like, unputoutable flame or something. It's bizarre. But none of that happens.

Steve

He lands in the water, and this is when Mason comes back.

Nic

That's right. Fishes him out of the water there. And, you know, great to see. Great to see Mason there.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

So, yeah, he. He pulls him. He pulls good speed out, right? And as the authorities are starting to come to the island, Mason's just basically, like, peace.

Steve

Yeah, I'm out of here. So he's on, you know, good speeds on, like, the phone or the walkie or whatever with, like, I think with Womack. And he's like, what happened to Mason? Or where's Mason? Him?

Steve

He's like. Like, I don't know, sir. Vaporized. He's not here. Like, he got blown up in the blast.

Steve

Just come get me or something like that, right? They're like, yeah. So then when they get there, Forsyth and Spencer are both like, where? So he talks to Forsyth first, and he's like, so what happened to Mason? He's like, vaporizer, just vaporized into the air.

Steve

Vaporized, huh? And then Womack comes up. Where's Mason's body? I want to see that son of a. Which is like, dude, this guy just saved everything.

Steve

And you're still being a.

Nic

About it. Yeah.

Steve

And I love that it's Forsythe who goes vaporized.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And walks off. Because he knows, like, this guy hooked it up.

Nic

He, like, saved the day. Like, it was good to see that because of how him and Mason were earlier.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

One thing about. About Womack, which is funny how he has his arm and his sling, and when earlier he was, like, showing Mason what he done, he's like, look at. It's like, you don't. You don't lift your arm and wave it in someone's face. That's why it's in a sling.

Nic

You can't do that kind of.

Steve

And he's waving.

Nic

Waving his arm around, you know, like it's a gun, and he's trying to rob a bank.

Steve

But before. Before Mason ran off, he tells Goodspeed, he says, you know, if you're thinking of somewhere to go on a honeymoon, I'd consider Kansas.

Steve

And he, like, gives him this address, right? And he's like, you know, it says something like, St. Michael's Church, whatever. Kansas. Front pew, right leg, hollow, right. And.

Steve

And he goes, is this what I think it is? And, like, Mason's gone. So we. We. You know, everybody shows up.

Steve

He tells them they're vaporized, whatever. And we cut to this little tiny Church in the middle of nowhere. And Vanessa Marcil, her character, is in the car waiting for, you know, like. Like, obviously very wedding ring on her finger. Like, the whole deal.

Steve

Yeah. And he comes. Goodsby comes running out of the church while this priest is yelling, vandal. Vandal. Like, which is like, there's nobody around.

Steve

Like, who. Who are you? You're not, like, getting a cop on the corner to, like, run out the guy shoplifting out of your corner store. Dude, this is like, right. You're in the middle of nowhere.

Steve

Nowhere. And so they go in and they drive off. And it says, just married in the back of their car. And he's got the little microfilm. It's the microfilm.

Steve

He still says, like, do you want to see who killed JFK or whatever?

Nic

It's like, with a dog on his lap holding maybe the most priceless piece. Have you ever tried to even read a magazine with a dog or cat around? They'll stand on it. They'll rip it up.

Nic

Like, that dog would just get tangled up in the microfilm.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

That he's looking at. So, yeah. That is a funny way to end the movie.

Steve

Well, the very. Though I have to call this out. They're supposed to be in Kansas. The very last shot is them driving down a highway. And I pause.

Steve

I watch every one of these on my iPad so I can take notes easily. It's a sitting on my lap. And I paused it and I turned it to my wife, Heather, and I said, what's wrong with this? This is supposed to be Kansas. She looks and goes, there are hills.

Steve

There are two big hills on either side of the shot. There is not a hill in Kansas. Not one. She spent her childhood driving to Oklahoma to visit family through Kansas. There is not a hill in the state.

Steve

Not a single anthill, let alone these clearly Southern California hills. You know what I mean? Like, that look like everything else in California. I just love stuff like that where it's like, well, you know, we couldn't actually go to Kansas to film this because that would have cost.

Nic

Oh, we could never afford to shooting.

Nic

But it's like.

Steve

And the. And the little church. Look. I think it was the exact same church that Slash played his guitar in front of in the November Wayne video.

Steve

I'm pretty sure it's the exact same church. Not 100 sure. Anything. But. Yeah.

Steve

So that is the rock.

Nic

Great way to end God. That's a good movie.

Steve

That is a fun one.

Nic

Very, very fun.

Nic

Very fun.

Steve

Yeah. All right. So this was my pick, I guess maybe I'LL take first stab at it.

Nic

Yeah, go ahead, fire away.

Steve

I love this movie. Like I love this movie. It's so much fun. I love Sean Connery, I love Nicholas Cage, I love John Spencer and I love William Forsythe and I love Ed Harris. Like on and on and on.

Steve

There's so many great actors in this movie. It's Bay Area. I love all this stuff. Even if they did conflate the Coliseum and Candlestick Park. I'll live with it.

Steve

It's fantastic. You know, it's not a perfect movie, I'll say, but it's really close. In my opinion, when it comes to like big budget action popcorn flicks, this kind of hits every note that you expect from movies like that. Yeah. And so, yeah, at a risk of being a grade inflator, I'm going to give this five out of five.

Steve

I'm a five out of five on the rock. I love.

Nic

All right.

Steve

I'm a huge fan. So yeah, this was a ton of fun.

Steve

And you know, if you haven't seen this one in, you know, the last five years or more, like, go watch it.

Nic

You for sure want to see.

Steve

It's worth your two and a quarter hours, trust me.

Nic

Yeah, yeah. So I enjoy this one as well and have for a long time.

Nic

A couple things about this movie is that it's a little long, but it is, it's really crammed with action. So you'd be cutting a major action scene. You'd be cutting, cutting maybe some of the San Francisco car chase, which was awesome. Or the Minecart, you could cut the.

Steve

Minecart that was probably eight to 10 minutes.

Steve

You could cut.

Nic

And, and one thing that I was a little bit like disappointed, but I understand why is that I love like Alcatraz, like the inside of Alcatraz and all this. You don't get a whole ton of that because it's not really built around escaping the prison. It's just that this island has some shit happening at it. But there was a lot of very cool stuff.

Nic

The way the VX gas looked was cool. Although after reading something today, I wish that it never happened because I found out that one of the, the British agents who had like falsified a claim of there being WMDs in Iraq had used a description based on this movie of what they said the Iraq had. Holy cow. So, you know, fun movie but you know, maybe a million people that wouldn't be be dead otherwise. So another bit of trivia, a little more light hearted that I learned that was funny is that Schwarzenegger was offered the role of both Mason and Goodspeed.

Steve

Interesting.

Nic

And I feel like. I don't know if it works either way.

Steve

Either way.

Nic

Because the part of the thing that makes this movie work is it's more of a Die Hard where you have a guy who can get his ass kicked, as opposed to a guy who's just going to steamroll through everything that he.

Steve

This isn't Commando.

Nic

Yeah. So you kind of need more of like a guy that's vulnerable like that. You know, Sean Connery gets a couple really brutal kills in this movie. And.

Nic

And it's kind of cool to see. I mean, thinking about the time in his career, this was almost like Liam Neeson doing the Taken movies at the age that he started.

Steve

Absolutely.

Nic

You know, it was like, oh, I still got it. I used to kill people in movies.

Nic

I don't know if you're aware of who James Bond is, but I kind of used to do that.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

Really fun movie. Really crazy. Cage.

Nic

Some good, like, the Best of Nic Cage and some good Bay Area stuff. Yeah, it's hard to nitpick, this one. I will just say I think it's, like, really on par with. With Con Air for me. Although they're different.

Nic

Different types of film. And I'm going to go ahead and give this one a four out of five. I really enjoyed it. It doesn't quite hit that level to me, but I would watch this again for sure. This is a great.

Steve

I feel like any movie set in the Bay Area, with the possible exception of Pacific Heights, gets like a half a point bump for me, just for being Bay Area. Like, that's a super thing for me.

Nic

Absolutely.

Steve

Also, another piece of trivia. The actual VX gas liquid that was inside the balls was LA Looks Hair gel.

Nic

Oh, I heard it was Prel. Shampoo.

Steve

Yeah, I made that up. I don't know if it was or not. So did you actually.

Nic

Was it actually shampoo? That's right.

Steve

I was trying to be all its own.

Nic

And you know what? I will say Steve and I are both bald guys.

Nic

We're pre. We're like, predisposed to hating on hair products.

Steve

Right.

Nic

But we both.

Steve

We.

Nic

You know, we're right. We're vindicated by this movie.

Steve

I shampoo and condition my beard almost every day, so just.

Nic

I just let mine go. I don't really care.

Steve

All right, so, Nic, we got to keep the cagevember train rolling forward. What are we going to watch next week?

Nic

Well, so far we've had a couple, like, really fun over the top action movies that kind of featured Cage in a cage, you know, in, in different ways.

Steve

Right.

Nic

And I know that there's more of that and I think that maybe just to show a different side of what the man is capable of in his body of work, I thought I'd switch it up.

Nic

We'll do a little bit of a sorbet for the next episode. We're going to get away from like the hardcore explosion action, but still to a movie that I think is, is very good. I've only seen I think once.

Steve

Okay.

Nic

So I hope that it holds up, but I'm sure it is, it's very well regarded.

Nic

We're gonna go to 1987 and we are gonna raise some eras. Arizona with Nicholas Cage. We're gonna go watch Raising Arizona which I'm very excited about.

Steve

Very cool. I don't think I've actually ever seen it all the way through.

Steve

I've seen a lot of like clips and scenes and pieces and whatever and I know the warthog from hell line and like all the kind of like stuff but I don't know that I've ever actually sat down and watched it. Maybe once. Maybe I did see it once. I'll know when I watch it next week. I'll see if it's actually like oh, I remember this or I don't.

Steve

But yeah, for sure. Excited to see. It's Coen Brothers, right? Yeah.

Nic

So early Cohen.

Steve

Very cool. Love the Cohen's. I think they should only make movies together. Not sure why they stopped, but yeah, definitely down for that. Raising Arizona does bring a little different flavor for Cage, remember?

Steve

But I think it's perfect. And it's, and it's, you know, we don't want to focus entirely on one piece of Nicholas Cage's career. Even just in the 80s and 90s the dude had range and this is great to show us a lot of that. 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.

Steve

It really helps new folks find the show. 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@theshowodadsonemovie.com that's the number two and the number one. You can also follow us on Instagram @2dadsonmovie. Once again, this has been the Rock. Another episode of 2 Dads 1 Movie.

Nic

I'm Steve and I'm Nic.

Steve

Thank you so much for listening, and we'll catch you next week.

Nic

Thanks, everyone.