Mason.
The second you don't respect this, it kills you. Put it over there.
You've been around a lot of corpses. Is that normal?
The feet thing? Yeah, the feet thing, yeah, that happens.
I'm having kind of a hard time concentrating. Can you do something about it?
Like what? Kill him again? Listen, I'm just
a biochemist. Most of the time. 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?
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 Nick Brianna.
Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of two Dads, one Movie.
I'm Steve. And I'm Nick. 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. 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.
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.
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.
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. I mean, this is as documentary ish as it gets for a.
For a Nick Cage vehicle at this time. 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. Yeah. 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. Anyway, just absolutely love the Rock. Can't wait to talk about it. Nick,
what's your history with the movie? Yeah, probably saw it around the same time.
I think saw it in the theaters at that time. 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. 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. 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. 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. Well,
nice. 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.
Starring Sean Connery, Nicholas Cage, and Ed Harris. We got some scores. We got 67%
on rotten tomatoes. Not bad. Certainly is fresh. 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. 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. 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.
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. Yeah, I was surprised to see
the Tarantino thing there. Yeah. Yeah. So that was something that I'm wondering.
As we talk about this. We talk about where his influence might be seen.
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. 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.
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. 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.
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. It's a little exposition just to kind of give us the real basic
plot. 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. Francis the Figurine Hummel
X, I'm assuming. 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.
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.
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.
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. Yep, that kind of thing.
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. Right,
right. And you look around, there's never anybody visiting graves that are already done.
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.
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. I'm sure MacGruber
borrowed that straight from this. Probably. Probably a deliberate reference. Yeah.
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. That's right. 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. 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. Yes. He's kind of like the argument
of should you know his name or not? 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? I feel like it's because he spent a lot of time on tv.
Right. 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? Remember the show called Hack where he was like
a cab driver that solved Desperate Housewives? Or was that somebody else?
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.
He's like lieutenant. Right. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Like, it shows them carrying the rockets,
right? And they're all like. 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? He's like. 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. 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. And here's what we. Here's what we later find out. Right. This stuff works
within seconds. Yeah. 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. 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.
But, like, what else? Are you going to let everybody die? 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. 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? Yeah, right. Like, near us. Where? It's actually near in the San
Francisco Bay area and being stored there. I don't know. Yeah, they didn't get into
a whole bunch of that. It just says Naval Weapons Depot. It doesn't say,
like, where they are. Yeah, yeah. So that happens. Hummel's got his
rockets. He's got 15. 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. 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. 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. They're screwing around.
You do to keep yourself entertained, really. They have a boring job. Good camaraderie,
camaraderie. The idea is they have a boring job. Yep. 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. 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. 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. 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.
Creepy effect. 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. 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. That's absolutely true. Right. Yeah. It was prison guards in Con
Air. Yeah. So, yeah, there was a really good scene. 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. Whatever for the
gas. 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.
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. 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. 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. And I think this might be the Quentin
Tarantino contribution potentially. Right? That's right. The stabbing in the heart. That's a good point.
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.
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. 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. Yeah, yeah. 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. But he did that to them,
you know, he's the problem there. Yeah. So, okay, this is funny
and this goes back a little bit, but so now he's like Nick
Cage. Stanley has taken the rest of the day off work. Wouldn't you. 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.
Yes. 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.
But it doesn't look like it's in great condition. 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. Wow. And I do have to say
he was, well, I guess this was being filmed at the same time as
Con Air, basically. Or. No, no, no,
this was earlier. Face Off. Face off and Con Air were filmed at the same
time, but. Yeah, but this was earlier. 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.
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? I will now sell 10 copies of the three
EPS by the beta Band. Like, that's not something Stanley Goodspeed would understand, you know?
Like, come on. So I do love what a basic Stanley Goodspeed is, you know,
I'm sorry. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Ringo solo stuff is the best to
start with. And then you go backwards from there. Is that right? 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Yeah. So it's not
part of the current kind of. You know, there's this renaissance. Didn't have the vinyl
section. No, exactly. There's. 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. Right. But yeah. So anyway,
moving forward. So it was an important Beatles dancing.
So. So his girlfriend comes home. Right. So. So Vanessa Marcel
Stanley, she looks great in this, by the way. Not.
Not a great actress, but she's good. 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.
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? Well, no, but before he
gets to that point, he says, like, so some people tried to destroy
my entire Life. 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. 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. At the time. He's like, stanley, that was like, two. He's too much of
a scientist. Yeah. So he got her pregnant, you know. Stanley Goodspeed.
More like Stanley. Good seed. Hey, does that be working? Working it.
Yeah. So. And then the other thing is that. Is that his girlfriend proposes
to him. That's right. Because she's Catholic. Yeah. She can't. She can't be pregnant.
It's crazy. 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. Right. Meanwhile,
we've got Ed Harris, we've got Hummel and his crew going out to Alcatraz.
Joining the tour. Joining the tour. So I do want to say this. 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.
Ranger Bob is my second favorite Alcatraz tour guide
character in any 90s movie.
Thank you for asking what the first one was. Just like,
nodding my head like, Robert. Yeah. And so I married an axe murderer.
Phil Hartman does an Alcatraz tour guide and is so funny in
that movie. 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.
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. 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. 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. Right? Because everyone's in their headset. Yeah, yeah.
And I remember going into the cell and being able to look around at least
one of them. 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. And I love Hummel. Goes like. Like, tour's over, Bob.
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. No, he's not a psycho in his actual actions.
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. You understand
the thought process from his point of view. 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. 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? That's right. 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. 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. He knows. And even
in the generals in the meeting, like, Jesus Christ, that's classified.
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. And recompense for his. For their families.
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. For each of the guys.
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. Yeah. So he's, you know,
in his mind, he's doing the right thing. Like, we got to take care of
the families of these guys. Yeah. 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. He's got a couple funny interactions with the crew around
the table. 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. 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. And, you know, what is this? Chief of
Staff, college boy? No. Yeah, right. The only college I care about is West Point.
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. 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? 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. Like I said, that's not
that bad. Yeah, yeah, but it's San Francisco. There's all liberal. They're not real people.
Yeah, we don't care about them. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. The most gravelly ridden. What are
you talking about? Womack? You know, it's just ridiculous. That's how you convey seriousness,
I think is you gotta be extra gravelly. Seriously.
Oh, so. And then they had also asked who's
your best, like chemical weapons guy. Right, Exactly. And. And Nick Cage is finally,
he's celebrating his engagement. He's finally humping. Right. And on a rooftop in
D.C. where. Plenty of people can see while Rocket man is playing. Oh, I didn't
notice that. Is It. Listening to Rocket Man. Yeah. So then he basically
gets the call while they're in the middle of the act. I'm gonna go back.
And he's like, this isn't happening. This isn't happening. Like,
throws a little fit. I really like that. Because Stanley comes.
Goodspeed is such an even tempered, boring dude.
And then once in a while, loses his mind. Once in a while is
Nicholas Cage. Once in a while, he becomes Nicholas Cage.
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.
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. 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. 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. 33 years.
And so. But that's the. But he escaped Malcatraz. So he. 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. He can tell you, yeah,
here's how I got out. 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. So he invites his girlfriend or, you know, whatever. Fiance. I guess now,
technically, like, you know, you come, you go to the hotel. Or room disappointed that
their night got rent. So I'll make it up for you. We're gonna, you know.
Which is like, you know, makes sense. But he thinks
it's a training exercise, so no big deal. Just, just come on. It's cool.
Yep. And. 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.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. He doesn't have any reason to. It's also It's. Yeah, it's like,
what do. What do you have over him? So they. They work out this,
like. 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. So he's really kind of pushing around and Mason's just like,
I'm not talking to this fucking guy anymore. Yeah. And. And they bring Stanley Goodspeed
in, who's technically an agent, but it does not really have this kind of experience.
Yeah, he is, you know, he is a FBI agent,
but they keep referring to him as specialist. 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. Right. 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. 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. Yeah. And it, like, hits the ground and in
a way that Michael Bay makes very clear. We're going to see that again.
Yeah. It's not Chekhov's quarter that's coming back into play right away. That's right.
This is, you know, so. So they send Goodspeed in and he's
trying to kind of look tough. It's kind of a fun vibe he's. Got going
where he's like, he does a good job. And then he, like, asks for a
coffee talk. I love it. Connery goes, coffee? Oh, no, thanks. I'm good.
Offer me coffee, you know. Oh, yeah, can we get. Can we get
some coffee in here, please? 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. 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. 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? 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. Great hotel room. We have gorgeous penthouse suite. Amazing, beautiful hotel.
Yeah. And he's getting an outdoor haircut, right?
From a dog. Like, gay stereotype.
The worst. The worst. Like San Francisco. I never liked that guy as an actor.
Boston show forever. Boston Common. Yeah. That guy is so much.
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? Oh, I don't know.
Damn it. 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.
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. This is the thing. Like, so this character.
There are ways to do it, right? This character exists for no good
reason. We need John to get. We need John Mason to get a haircut.
Right? 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. 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. Plus, he did Medicine Man. He had long hair there. 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? 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.
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. It's kind of like lowest common denominator,
though, you see in these, like, big budget movies. I mean,
even something like the. 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.
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. 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. 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. 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. Crazy move.
Like, so nuts. I mean, that, like,
as a really coolation in this movie was really like, yeah, whoa,
dude. And of course, the only one out on the balcony with them at the
time is good speed. 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.
With the gun pointing at him. Please don't.
Yeah, he doesn't know what to do in that Situation. So. So Connery
very smartly, I love. 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. But that will yet decide to not chase me. 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. Running through
the kitchen. Get like through the good fellas entrance. You know. Exactly. Of the hotel.
That's a good chase. Yeah. And. And Mason ends
up stealing from the valet. He grabs keys for a Humvee.
Humvee? Yeah, yeah. 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. One of the best chases in 90s
movies. Like really fantastic. 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. That is like
a 22 year old stunt person. It is. It is absolute horseshit.
Dude. It looks less convincing than Robert De Niro dressed
up as the housekeeper in Cape Fe.
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. Yeah, they couldn't. They couldn't.
Mrs. Doubtfire, the stunt person. 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.
Yes. And it's actually. 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. 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. Yeah. He has like a hilarious amount of metals
and shit on him. Crazy. 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. 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. When Michael J. Fox is in the phone booth talking to his mom back
home. Yes. Oh, they just totaled a Ferrari.
He does some. There's a scene of the Ferrari just knocking down
all these consecutive parking meters, which is really sad. 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. Like there wouldn't be coins in any of those anymore.
So. Yeah, no, Mafia guys can't rob them. Yeah. Open with hands, hammers and
then, you know, there's some good explosions and stuff. But the
cable car coming off the tracks was pretty cool. 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. Right. 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. 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.
It's okay. It's not mine. 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.
No. What happened? So he's on the dirt bike and he gets on the phone.
Okay. Right. Which is a terrible idea. 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. Right. Isn't that what they keep saying?
Wolfsburg? Something like that. That's not the name of any prison. 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. 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. 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.
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. So that doesn't
make any sense. Another. That's a little nitpick. They just picked the biggest named prison
in the beginning. Totally. Basically. 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. 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. 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. 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. I mean, and Jade is super beautiful too. Like this movie really,
really, like treats the old Maril and, And. 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. It's like, yeah, that's exactly the kind of
girl I was into when I was 17. Like. Exactly. Absolutely,
Absolutely. Yeah. 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. Yeah, exactly. And she, you know, makes sense.
She doesn't really care that much. About chatting with him. She's like appropriately huge.
She's appropriately skeptical. 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. Zeppelin concert,
yeah. And then he was Stanley Goodspeed's second favorite band.
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. 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. 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.
So cops start flying in, FBI starts flying in. Yeah. And as the sirens are
approaching, Jade is like, is this about you? Like you're. You broke out of prison
again? 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'. 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. And it was like, yeah,
dude, you didn't have to be cool like that. 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. 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. I don't know
if Clair Forani's been working lately or if she's like alive. I don't know,
whatever. I don't know that name. So I don't know cuz I didn't recognize that
actress. Black Mall Rats. 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. 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. 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.
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.
What's her name who got married to Pete Sampras?
Veronica Vaughn from Billy Madison. Oh, I don't
remember her name, but yeah, she was also in Mortal Kombat. She was in a
bunch of stuff. During a chunk and then she went and like, oh, I'm going
to go have my life now. And I'm not concerned with money because this guy's.
That's possible. Happened. Yeah. So I don't
know. We'll. We'll follow up with Claire. Hey, Claire, if you're listening, give the show
a call, by the way. 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. Well, that's on her. 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. And he's looking
at him and he's just kind of like, I can't read. It's all in my
head. 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. And he
says, like, well, I'll remember when we get there. Yeah, because he also thought he
was going, I think. Yes. And maybe he was going until
he pulled his little getaway stuff. That's true too. I don't know. You're not doing
a whole lot for your credibility there, John. Yeah, you're not adding to your trustworthiness,
Mr. Mason. So he's got to go. And then Stanley
has to go as well because he's the chemical weapons. Because he does the opposite.
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. Like Womack shows back up and he's got
the arm and the sling, right? And he goes, how's your bowling arm? Yeah.
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.
Michael Bain. That's right. 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. 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. 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. To be honest with you, Nick,
I'm not that familiar with the Vietnam War. Who won? I'm not. I think it's
still happening. Probably is for some of us. We should.
We should ask Jacob from that other movie we watched. 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. Those ones I have actually heard of. The other ones are even cooler.
They're like. It was like a snowmobile sitting on it looked like. Yes, it looked
like a snowmobile, but with like, you know, rudders or something instead of like
skis. Yes. But it looked amazing and I want to ride one. Can you rent
a C Bob? You know what, though? So the reason I know that they're called
C Bobby. Yeah. 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. Okay. 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. Yeah.
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. It's probably part of it. They're on there. Not. Not the same place
that's charging me like, 11 bucks to rent a snorkel for an hour. No,
it's not there. Yeah. Okay, well, it's on my list now. A C, Bob.
Now I know what it's called. I'm halfway there. 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. That's my NFL joke. I've been. I've been storing that
one away for a while, actually. Stanley Goodspeed, they said, hey, come up with an
indie rock band name. And he said, oh, the Eagles. Jesus Christ,
that's really funny. So. So they're
immediately in. In Freddy Krueger's boiler room to,
like, first get in there. So crazy. 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.
I memorized the timing. I hope it hasn't changed. And again, it's one of
those things that. 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. 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. 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? Yeah, exactly. 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. I think every movie.
Yeah, we need to. We should have a compilation of all those scenes. Welcome to
Pacific Heights. I'll have to go back and see if anybody says that,
but yeah, welcome to the Rock. Really good.
Yeah. 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. It'll keep the circuit. 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. 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. Yeah, it was like a spring. 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. Right, right. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. In movies,
this kind of thing almost always happens. Like, nobody actually shoots.
Like, somebody bumps a piece of concrete. Right. And the rotten. It like
falls and makes a big noise. Yeah. Which then is just chaos. 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. 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. Trying to. 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. Yeah. Do you
think Hummel thinks that the families of those guys should get the million bucks as
well? The guys that he. No, because they. Because they're recognized as, like,
actual things. They're going in on an official mission. 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. Right, right. They'll get. They'll get
their just whatever, like, honors. So this has been.
This has been absolutely brutal. 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. Well, he was told to stay next to me, stay with him.
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. 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. Well, I think. 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.
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. Yeah. 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. 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. 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. Drop some bombs and stuff down under there. 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. 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. 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. It's like the Cobra Commander's voice.
GI Joe, the movie. 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. 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. 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. Okay.
And that's when they start dropping some bombs there.
Mason, I think says something and there's like fire coming through the tunnels and
stuff. Yeah, because they drop a fireball. Very. 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. I don't
see a lot of man buns. No, not back then. No, not that's more of
an early 2000s thing, I feel. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Other than, like, a sumo wrestler,
which is a different bun style. Right. Maybe Alexi Lawless in the. In the 94
World Cup. I'm not sure. So now I think
they kind of understand Mason and good speed. 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. 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. Carla was the prom queen.
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. 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. 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.
Mason is convinced to stick around because it's nasty stuff, right? And they're
being discovered and. Or they're. They encounter some of the. Some of the Marines.
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.
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. Well, it would have won the Oscar for
best sound if it did have that. Yeah, exactly.
But. Yeah, so. So they get to the morgue. 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. 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. 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. Okay. Back away, back away, back. And he's,
like, trying to, like, both. Don't move. Let go. 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. 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. Splash within 500ft. 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. The way
the VX gas is inside those missiles is really cool.
Yes. 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. Absolutely. I don't know how we get here, but we're on
this, like, underground, so. Thunder Mountain Railroad. What the
fuck is this? So somehow they. They get attacked by more.
They basically, more folks. 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. And. And he does. And he finally gets it.
And as they are escaping. Yeah, I can't remember exactly how that happens, but.
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?
Very, very strange. 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. Right. Like, this would be
such a fun. 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. 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. The Chappelle
Kit from Con Air. 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. 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. 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. 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. Yeah, I don't know who's. 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. Whole sequence could have been cut for some
other way to take out a couple more guys. 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. Yeah. Throwing the grenade back always seems to work, and it did for
good speed. 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.
Right. 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. So you
might get an arm blowed off, but then maybe your two Dads One Movie honored
honorary award winner. Because we love that. We absolutely love, love the
limbless here at 2Dads one movie, okay? 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. Yeah. 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. 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? I think they made reference to, like, some of them later on
were frustrated because they were like. 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. Right? But very. So I think
that's. That's, like, what's driving that. That's a good point. 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? Yeah, Yeah. I take pleasure in gutting you, boy. That's what it is.
Take pleasure in gutting you, boy. But they do. So they do end up capturing
Mason in Goodspeed. And then they put him in cells, right? 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. Right? And. And this, I think, is maybe one of the best Nick Cage
lines in the movie here. It's a good one. So they're kind of talking back
and forth and everything. And as we can see, Mason is trying to, like.
Well, he's stripped a bunch of the bed sheet, like, into things and braid.
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. 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?
I did read. You probably read the same thing.
The Zeus's butthole line was ad libbed. Nice. And Michael
Bay did not want to keep it in the movie but Nicholas Cage insisted did
that it stay nice. And again Cage vindicated by history here.
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. Dude, that's what you do. 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.
Jesus Christ. That's right. Oh my God. So I
enjoyed that as a classic jailbreak style here.
So yeah, he, he saves. He saves.
He saves. 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.
Right. And we're running out of time. We're down to like a couple minutes,
I think. 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. 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. Yes. 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. Right. 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. You know, they're kind of like. And one of them keeps
saying like just letting the general know the time. Three minutes General. And he's the
guy who's from. The guy from Shawshank. One of one of the CO prisoners.
Also who somehow looks like. In my opinion, he's like Teemu. Michael J.
Fox. Like there's something very off about him, but like slightly Michael J. Fox ish.
He's Michael TJ Max. There you go. Exactly. 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. Yeah. But, yeah, so they end up. They end
up launching the missile. Well, there's a. Time's up. That's right. So.
But. But before that, the guy said they're trying to basically convince Hummel to do
it. It almost feels like. Right. 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. You should hate. You should have that rivalry with them.
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. 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. 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. 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%. 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. 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. This is my. Like, I'm a Bay Area native and I know
my geography and you guys that up. That's super weird too, because why wouldn't
you reference the way more famous park?
Right. Like, because the Oakland had moved to LA and they moved back. They weren't
relevant yet in the. In Oakland since they moved back. No, they weren't doing
that. Three years. The Niners were in like the midst of a legendary stretch.
Like 20 years of success, two years. 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. 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. Right. 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. 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.
They said it detonated underwater. Okay. So it's not going to just. It's not
going to aerosolize, which was the issue. Right. 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. Bad sushi, really bad sushi. 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. And Hummel's guys
are kind of losing cuz they're like pissed. 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. Recently passed away too.
Yes, he did, yeah, within the last. Couple of years or so.
But yeah, they're fucking pissed at him. 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. 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. That's right.
Because they could shoot different all, you know, from there, like any different. San Francisco,
Oakland, San Jose. 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. 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. Hey, we just freed up
close to $100 million. We think we give each of your families
a million bucks. No, that, that account doesn't exist. Nick, I know what you're talking
about. So, so the, the other
soldiers are kind of going to have a mutiny against Hummel. Like they're fucking
done with this. 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. 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. 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? 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.
And so now he was, he was. 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. 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. 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. Right, right. 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. 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. You can't root
for him either. 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. 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. To walk that line between, like, I like
this guy, but I don't want to root for him. Right, right. Feeling very Wesley
Snipes and Demolition Man. Right. Very, very Simon Phoenix, where it's like, God, he's a
fun. And now that one's a little different because he was wholly bad, but a
lot of fun to watch. 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? Yeah, exactly. So. 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. 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 Nick Cage the opportunity to be like, do you like Elton John?
It's like, what do you mean? I don't like soft ass shit. Do you like
the Elton John song Rocket Man? I don't like, so. Oh,
well, it's because it's you. 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. You know. But it flies and knocks him
out the window and he dies and he. 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. I feel like that should be the beginning of
this episode. One of the worst lines in the movie. 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. Like it did something. But I don't know
if that was ad libbed. I don't see that that was or not. I feel
like. No, because. Because it ties back further into the character. You know, the whole
muse. I'm a music the best you could do. So bad, you know?
No, I don't know for sure yet. But likely. Do you like the Ramones?
Because you're on a rocket to rock Russia. Like you try all these different versions
of it. Do you like the Clash? 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. But Nick 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. But yeah. So he goes.
And then. Oh. So with that, the string of beads. So Nick
Cage has put it like in this great. Like this somewhere. So scared, so scary.
It's in a drain. Hey, it's not like drains drained to general populations
of water or anything. But there's one ball that was loose that he just like
has. He threw his pocket. He throws it in his like front pocket for some
reason. I mean, I guess you can't. What else are you going to do with
it? I guess you can't throw it. Just hockey.
I would try to hit the water. Throw it into the ocean. Yeah,
but he's like. 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. Yes. 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. 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. And Goodspeed
has the needle, the atropine, and so he's got the atropine and he comes in,
is able to give himself. Yep. The shot of the heart. Now, this is.
The tension at this point is so. 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. 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. It's like, oh, that's right. I forgot that they said that. Like, he's got
flares. They're like, hey, I know we've made a lot of shit happen since then.
So here's just a gentle reminder. 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. 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. So that's good, right? Right. But it hits close to where Nick 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. That was the whole idea.
Wouldn't be like an explosion that was done after it happened. Like, you couldn't go
anywhere near it. No. And it should have lit him on fire. 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. He lands in the water, and this is when Mason
comes back. That's right. Fishes him out of the water there. And, you know,
great to see. Great to see Mason there. Yes. 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. 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? He's like. Like,
I don't know, sir. Vaporized. He's not here.
Like, he got blown up in the blast. 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.
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. And you're
still being a. About it. Yeah. And I love that it's Forsythe who goes vaporized.
Yeah. And walks off. Because he knows, like, this guy hooked it up. He,
like, saved the day. Like, it was good to see that because of how him
and Mason were earlier. Yes. 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. You can't do that kind of. And he's waving. Waving his arm around,
you know, like it's a gun, and he's trying to rob a bank. 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.
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. And he goes, is this what I think it
is? And, like, Mason's gone. So we. We. You know, everybody shows
up. 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. 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. 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. 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. He still says, like, do you want to
see who killed JFK or whatever? 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. Like,
that dog would just get tangled up in the microfilm. Yes. That he's looking at.
So, yeah. That is a funny way to end the movie. 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. 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. 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. 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. Oh, we could never afford to
shooting. But it's like. 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. I'm pretty sure it's the exact same church. Not 100 sure. Anything.
But. Yeah. So that is the rock. Great way to end God. That's a good
movie. That is a fun one. Very,
very fun. Very fun. Yeah. All right. So this was my
pick, I guess maybe I'LL take first stab at it. Yeah, go ahead, fire away.
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.
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.
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. I'm a five out of five
on the rock. I love. All right. I'm a huge fan. So yeah, this was
a ton of fun. And you know, if you haven't seen this one in,
you know, the last five years or more, like, go watch it. You for sure
want to see. It's worth your two and a quarter hours, trust me. Yeah,
yeah. So I enjoy this one as well and have for a
long time. 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. Minecart that
was probably eight to 10 minutes. You could cut. 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. 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. Interesting. And I feel like.
I don't know if it works either way. Either way. 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. This isn't Commando.
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. 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. Absolutely. You know, it was like, oh, I still got
it. I used to kill people in movies. I don't know if you're aware of
who James Bond is, but I kind of used to do that. Yes.
Really fun movie. Really crazy. Cage. Some good, like, the Best of Nick 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. 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. 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. Absolutely. Also, another piece of trivia. The actual VX gas liquid that
was inside the balls was LA Looks Hair gel. Oh, I heard it was Prel.
Shampoo. Yeah, I made that up. I don't know if it was or not.
So did you actually. Was it actually shampoo? That's right. I was trying to be
all its own. And you know what? I will say Steve and I are both
bald guys. We're pre. We're like, predisposed to hating on hair products. Right.
But we both. We. You know, we're right. We're vindicated by this movie.
I shampoo and condition my beard almost every day, so just. I just
let mine go. I don't really care. All right, so,
Nick, we got to keep the cagevember train rolling forward. What are we going to
watch next week? 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. Right. 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.
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. Okay. So I hope
that it holds up, but I'm sure it is, it's very well regarded. 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. Very cool.
I don't think I've actually ever seen it all the way through. 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. But yeah, for sure. Excited to see.
It's Coen Brothers, right? Yeah. So early Cohen. 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? 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. 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.
I'm Steve and I'm Nick. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll catch you
next week. Thanks,