Blank Check with Griffin & David - 2 Fast 2 Furious with Jon Gabrus

Episode Date: June 20, 2021

It’s happening - the Two Friends finally devote an entire episode to THE FAMILY. Special guest (and Fast Franchise Devotee) Jon Gabrus joins us to talk about the Singleton-directed second installment in the saga, just in time for the release of F9. No Vin? No problem! We’ve got a very hungry Tyrese! Join our Patreon at patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter and Instagram! Buy some real nerdy merch at shopblankcheckpod.myshopify.com

Blank Jack with Griffin and David Blank Jack with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Jack Pockets ain't empty, cuz. Yeah, and we ain't podcasting no more either bruh oh wow wow you didn't want to use the hoasis line i mean that's a good line i just like i like uh i i will say it's your your what we did just did for the listener who maybe hasn't

watched the movie in a while was the closing exchange. The final exchange. Yes. It's the big send off. You might as well end on a freeze frame and then like. It really feels like it's about to. The entertainer planes. It does.

It actually does. It actually does feel like it's about to freeze frame. It's disorienting that it doesn't end on a freeze frame. that it doesn't end on a freeze frame um but i feel like that's one of the the lingering sort of like uh cultural imprints of this movie in particular in the franchise is how much uh the character of roman pierce is played by tyrese is defined by his uh endless hunger he is hungry he's hungry he keeps saying that he hungry but um at the time of of this episode coming out this will be coming out just a few days before f9 is released in theaters f9 colon the fast saga uh i have at the time of this recording seen the film he's seen it folks i i haven't seen it

not to pull rank friend of the podcast uh rich Richard Ehrlich invited me to a critic screening. Richard Ehrlich? Jesus Christ, David Ehrlich. That's his name. Who's Richard Ehrlich? Some combo film critic man. Lawson and Ehrlich together as one. David Lawson and Richard Ehrlich?

Yeah, I don't know. Ehrlich took me to a screening very kindly. I've seen the film. I'm not going to spoil any of it on this episode. But just an element that jumped out to me while watching the movie, but especially while re-watching this one for today. It's fast. That's one thing. And if I had to add a second, that's the second thing.

That's one thing. And if I had to add a second, that's the second thing. But one of the beautiful things about the Fast and Furious franchise is that anything that feels like it was abandoned can at any point in time come back and be the most important thing. Right? Right. Any character. Yep. You would not believe how much screen time is spent on Roman Pierce's hunger in F9. A thing that is not really tracked for the seven movies in between,

six movies in between. I know two of those he's not in. Without spoiling, Yes. is there much else in Too Fast that you were just watching too fast that has any bearing on F9? This movie is pretty far away from f9 no

but this is why i'm starting the conversation this way in terms of like textual things roman pierce's hunger is probably the only thread in this one that really pops up in nine sure sure but i do think there are things this movie does that have really set the stage for what the series has become. Not just obviously the interaction of characters, but tone, expansion of the world, certain things that feel like... I feel like this is often regarded as the worst of the franchise. And I think its reputation has grown as the franchise has evolved more to match the tone of this movie. That and the fact that no longer does it seem ridiculous that there was a Fast and Furious movie starring Paul Walker and Tyrese.

Whereas at the time it felt like, oh, well, this is like a knockoff. They didn't get Vin. They just got Tyrese to kind of try and carry his luggage or whatever you know like i don't know it felt chintzy then and now it doesn't because you're like well roman pierce crucial character when you you know taj cole you know these are crucial characters yes parker not uh yeah please jesus christ although although i think we'll talk about at length these two characters bear almost zero resemblance to the characters who reintroduced themselves in 5 and have evolved so far past even who they were in 5 that at this point they could just be identical twins to those characters. You could just be like, oh, this is my brother with a very different personality and skill set.

Oh, this is my brother with a very different personality and skill set. Right. Yes. I think it is interesting in the context of this show that we do, a podcast called Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. And it's a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion products they want. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce baby.

And this is a mini series on the films of John Singleton. It's called pods in the cast. And a thing that is, I feel like oftentimes forgotten is that he did in fact direct the movie too fast, too furious. And I bring this up because despite this one being a huge hit, big, massive hit because i think everyone's like well vin's gone there's going to be a step down it'll still be successful

there's going to be a step down it pretty much did the same numbers as the first movie and i think even did better overseas this was the beginning of the franchise starting to like chalk up overseas numbers. It both kind of ground Singleton's career to a halt. It really kind of dinged him that it was like, oh, he's like some for hire guy now who's doing like the shitty Fast and Furious sequel. And it like kind of ground the Fast and Furious franchise to a halt where they were like,

okay, we made one without Vin. It was successful. We can't get away with that again. Make one for $20 million with no actors carried over, you know, with like teenagers in Tokyo. Like just turn this into like The Sting 2, you know?

It felt like it was kind of ending everything. Introduce our guest. Interesting to consider. Yeah. No, very interesting to consider, but everything um introduce our guest interesting to consider yeah yeah no very interesting to consider but let's bring our guest in i think he has things to say the movie is called too fast too furious an iconic title an iconic well we're gonna spend 15 minutes talking about that alone i was reluctant to introduce our guest because i'm surprised he has been able to sit patiently this entire time i was waiting for him to burst through the conversation Kool-Aid man style at any moment. You know, I'm trying to change it up a little.

I'm trying to respect the connoisseurs of context and let you do your bullshit up top. Wow. Well, our guest today, of course, is the number one fuckboy. You know him from the High and Mighty podcast, Number one fuck boy. You know him from the High and Mighty podcast, where I have gone to talk about the last three, four Fast and Furious movies.

I think we did a Hobbs and Shaw and a Fast seven and an eight. I think, yeah, I think we did seven, eight Hobbs and Shaw. I think we did. Actually, I think we did Hobbs and Shaw eight and then an episode earlier on where we just talked about family. Right, right. Yes, we did an episode that was like we just talked about family right right yes we did an episode that was like for the whole franchise right yeah but it was sort of just us crying about the idea of this franchise uh john gabrus ladies and gentlemen finally uh gets to come uh return

the favor and talk about fast furious on our show uh so thrilling i didn't even know it was a singleton series i thought it was a Singleton series. I thought it was a Fast and Furious series. I thought it was like an, ah, this is so exciting. I'm pissed that I'm here for Too Fast and Furious and not Abduction, though. Really? Hey, look, Abduction, you would not believe the fight

for people who wanted to guess on the Abduction episode. I'm just a Taylor Lautner head, man. Jacob the Werewolf, man. i've loved him since day one right and abduction was like day four but yes right day four also the final day for sadly the final day for old tay yeah on our patreon we're doing the twilight movies right now as a franchise simultaneous with doing singleton on main feed oh and and it's interesting that those two things coalesce with taylor lautner is the lynchpin right at the end of the twilight franchise taylor lautner finally gets his action movie which ends up being john singleton's last movie

and then singleton dies and taylor lautner kind of disappears from the face of the earth. It's weird. It's crazy. You would not expect these two things to overlap. And not only did they collide, but they sort of like, it was a fatal collision. It was a fatal collision. Jesus, I'm looking at the cast for Abduction, and I'm sorry, I know we're going to talk about that in a couple,

but Sigourney Weaver, Alfred Molina, Jason Isaacs, this thing is overflowing. It's crazy that it's not good. Like, it's insane that it's not good. Well, but the only problem is I don't know what it's about. At all.

At all do I. Like, I don't know even the barest concept for abduction. I just know Taylor Lautner's in it. Oh, I've seen it. I think I saw it in the theater. Okay, I think I know what it's about. Can you tell me whether I'm right or not? I'm sure.

Is it about that he was... I'm not asking you. You haven't seen it, David. I'm asking Gabrus. I was going to say, I was like, probably you can sort of scan the Wikipedia entry. Gabrus, am I correct in remembering that it is about a kid who realizes

through finding a missing child listing that he was stolen and who he has thought were his parents his whole life are in fact the people who abducted him it's a face on the milk carton situation right yes that's what it is his own childhood photo I feel like he's got like insane

training like he was like you know like one of those like right programmed at a young age kids right it's it's like a it's a partial hannah kind of thing right yes yes it's in that but then it's also a born identity like who am i really where did i come from let me find out my identity kind of yeah it feels like born junior yeah like i'm a kid instead of being like i the pilot i sold abc like eight years ago was fat born. Like that was pretty much the premise was like, what if a fat guy ended up having crazy ass, bad ass stuff?

And they were like, oh, and I was like, and I've got just the fat guy. And they're like, you know, Nick Frost. Nope. Oh, no. OK, so you don't even see me yet. OK, see you later. I got to say, abduction sounds good. Nope. Oh, no. Okay. So you don't even see me yet. Okay. See you later. Um, I,

well, I gotta say abduction sounds good. So I'm excited. I kind of liked that, that premise. That's fine. Yeah. That's kind of a fun premise.

That's one of those movies that you watch. And then eight years later, find out John Singleton directed. Yeah. You know what I mean? Where you're like, I saw that dumb shit. And it's like,

Oh, did you, that always happens with like some of your favorite directors you're like they have this one kind of movie that you saw was shitty didn't realize it was a diploma movie and now you're like and now you retroactively like wait one of my favorite directors made this shit movie well we've been talking about this i mean leading up to this point in in all of our episodes so far, but I feel like every movie up until this point in Singleton's career was at least, like, half sold on it's a John Singleton movie. Like, his name was as big as whoever the star of the film was.

Very often he was trying to mint a new star, and even, like, Boys in the Hood as a debut, none of those actors are really known. It's as much the narrative of like this kid. He's like 22. Can you believe it? And this felt like the first time where Singleton was just kind of hired to make a movie. Yeah.

And that's true for the rest of them. And this is his second franchise. He's taken on Shaft. But that was like, can you believe fucking john singleton's doing shaft as opposed to wait john singleton directed too fast too furious like it was hidden i will say putting it i haven't watched too fast in a long long time and i remember being like uh it's kind of whack i watched fast one and then too fast in prep for this uh yes same yeah i it's one of those cases and now i know we're talking about a bunch of shit at the same time here but abduction as well

i definitely want to re-watch because we talk about this a lot on action boys but fast one and fast too fast are we didn't know how good we had it with like blockbuster movies yeah and i remember being like this is whack and corny. And then watching it now being like, I just love how many insane choices that everyone in this movie is making. And now it just doesn't feel like they make movies. And I'll even go, and I didn't realize it was a Singleton movie until I sat down to watch it. Or maybe we were texting about it. You're like, yeah, it's the John Singleton one. And I was like, oh, fuck. And then watching it, I was like, and maybe I'm just, you know, as a child of the 80s and 90s, conflating John Singleton with black actors and black content.

But I thought that this one felt like a little bit like a John Singleton movie. I mean, I think somehow he throws his flair on top of like a franchise that has 50% of the franchise that was built in the first movie. And it's definitely because he puts Baby Boy in as the... Yes, yes. That definitely helps it send it in the singleton direction that he cast Tyrese, but still. But this is the wildest thing I've read. So I had always thought it was that, right? That he gets hired on to do a Fast and Furious sequel.

And he brings Tyrese with him, but it's the other way around. Right. That he gets hired on to do a Fast and Furious sequel. And he brings Tyrese with him, but it's the other way around. Right. It was what Stacey Snyder, who was the head of Universal at the time, really liked Baby Boy. He was like that was like of all the executives and studio heads in Hollywood, none of them even watched Baby Boy. And I remember that Stacey Snyder was the one who like asked for a private screening and then she called me afterwards and was like tyrese this guy's amazing and was like i want to make him a movie star so then she calls him whatever it is because baby boy comes out the same like within a month of the first fast and furious movie is a thing we realized in the box office game which is just wild to consider that it's like holy shit he's getting creamed at the box office by i think it was the second week of fast

and furious is the first week the baby boy is out i believe that's what it is oh cool and it's it's like he can just see his career leaving right like oh that's the last time they're gonna let you make a personal character driven 20 million dollar studio drama that comes out the middle of the summer because he just sees like fucking Vin Diesel doing donuts around him at the box office. Right. And it's like, that's your future. That's what you're doing from here on out. They will dig into this more. dig into this more but uh they stacy snyder called john singleton and was like vin diesel's not doing the fast and furious sequel we need the new person to be the buddy with paul walker would you recommend tyreece do you think he could do that and he was like yeah absolutely like endorse him fully and then they were like would you have any interest in directing that and then he was like

yeah sure but it was that order. That's fucking wild. I had no idea. Yeah, they called him for the endorsement of Tyrese and then said, if you want to direct it, we would have you do that. That's so fucking odd. And the text I sent you guys after watching this,

and Tej and fucking Roman, you don't know it at the time but it's like i'm gonna do this franchise they fucking dropped vin diesel it's weird wild who knows i'll do it fun okay decent uh the third movie we're not even invited to it fuck who knows what the fuck this is four they're not invited four they're not invited and it's like yeah okay i guess they've rebooted it with the original people. No place for me anymore. Yeah. And then in the fifth movie, like however many, 10 years after this movie comes out,

eight years after this movie comes out, they are all brought back into what will be the most lucrative film career of their lives. I mean, not only that, but you look at their filmographies and like they barely do anything other than these movies. Now they do one of these movies every two years and probably get like a quick five million dollars. Right. Yeah. And like then like countless God God knows what, like promotional. Right. Things. Right. Like they they launch a liquor or every slice of the fucking McDonaldcdonald's cup with your picture on it right and also just like the amount of times they they fucking get paid to open up a nightclub or whatever you know right they both have their music careers but it's like like they both we should come and they're

definitely equal yes absolutely both of them are equal in the recording artist category for sure i forgot tyrese uh tyrese was on The Masked Singer this year. I forgot about that. He was Robo Pine. He was Robo Pine, the robot porcupine. They both had pretty fertile movie careers. No clarification needed, by the way. When you said Robo Pine, I knew you meant robotic porcupine.

That was a waste of time and energy. Sorry, I apologize. They both had pretty fertile and diverse movie careers between Too Fast and Fast Five. Yeah. And then it's like now we're just company men for the Fast and Furious franchise. Like that's our paid vacation. These movies take a year to film, whatever. But the other wild thing is, I don't know if you know this, Gabrus.

So the basic gestation of this movie is, you know, this is like this weird programmer movie for Universal, right? Like, why not make this little thing? The genesis of Fast and Furious as a franchise in the first place is Rob Cohen had done The Skulls with Paul Walker. That was like a decent hit. With Pacey, too, right? Yeah, kind of at the tail end of the teen thriller boom of the late 90s right but paul walker's had that run up until that point of like she's all that and pleasantville and varsity blues where he's playing like the asshole the rival the pompous jerk the like the

the dummy whatever yeah it's like he he's a very pretty man. He's just this sort of shockingly, like, Greek statue kind of guy where you're like, who is this guy? And he has this, like, kind of casual, waning surfer energy, you know, even if he's kind of flat as an actor. His best stuff, I would argue, at the early point of his career

is when he played comedic. Like, he's very good in Pleasantville. Yeah, yeah. Like, he's really in on that, and he's, like, Pleasantville. Yeah. Yeah. Like he's really in on that. And he's like totally tapped in comedically when you ask him to play naturalistic at this point in his career. He is incredibly wooden. But yeah, he is undeniably just a watchable dude and just so handsome that for a studio, they're just like we gotta make this guy like you know a 20 million dollar like an under budget movie star like this could be a guy who makes three of these a year for us and is just like a decent young heartthrob so it's funny that he's a young attractive wooden heartthrob whose big break uh wooden heartthrob give me your wooden heartthrob asap he uh the fact that he kind of popped in a point break ripoff yeah which is where a wooden handsome actor also popped off

for the first time i mean i wonder i find i guess what my hypothesis i'm pitching is keanu and uh and and mr walker have a sort, I think Keanu succeeds a little more, but I think they have that similar energy of like, I don't know if this guy's doing the right thing here, but it's compelling. But I also think there's something where it's like Keanu was so in the pocket on like the Bill and Ted movies. And then when he started to go dramatic outside of like my own private Idaho at the beginning, people were like out of your depth, out of your depth, go back. And he like wedged his way through until he proved himself as an action star and all that shit that people thought he would never be able to sell himself as. Like Paul Walker's first leading role is Meet the Deedles, which is very much poor man's Bill and Ted. I've never seen the Deedles, but right. It's kind of bill and ted

fun and he's good in it yeah like it's once again he was good at playing comedic dumb when they asked him to play serious he got a little too dry right in pleasant phil he's so perfect playing essentially a half of a person he's playing like a handsome you know sitcom character who is like what's happening to me like he's good at that he's really good at that he was good and she's all that right when he's playing like the totally contemptible right like punchable fucking jerk like he's good in that zone then skulls is a hit and universal is like paul walker could probably be a leading man right like he did all these supporting antagonist parts he's done a couple two-handers now he could probably be a leading man so they go to him and they're like paul we want to build a

movie around you and i don't remember if it was they had already optioned the article or he found the article but i think it was a new york magazine article about underground street race and culture rob cohen had found the article uh and they yes and they're like so we've got this we've got you know and and they're like we'll do point break with cars like it's the easiest pitch right but here's the big thing which you've got to give paul walker credit for paul walker says to them i fundamentally don't think i can carry a movie i think i'm better as a counterpoint to someone make it a two-hander right and of course we all know who they wanted their number one choice timothy oliphant no what yes they were like these are the two guys who are about to pop make a vehicle for oliphant and walker and and oliphant had just

done gone in 60 seconds and was like no man i don't want to do another car movie no thank you and neil moritz was like what about vin diesel his name is diesel I don't want to do another car movie. No, thank you. And Neil Maritz was like, what about Vin Diesel? His name is Diesel. I don't know if he said that last part. He should have. He probably should have. Holy shit. Whoever said, how about Vin Diesel,

ended up accidentally setting a fucking series of events that would make millions upon billions of dollars for people. Billions and billions of dollars, yes. Well, it's like i think that their pitch black probably comes out during a weekend right after oliphant passes like the timeline must have been like yes it has to be that tight oh i just saw a pitch black right and this guy is fucking weird and right and those movies are both universal it's like right around the time they're in pre-production on fast and furious they must have gone like i don't know that guy is compelling and that just had a big robust

eight million dollar opening weekend yeah maybe this guy could carry like you know a b movie um fuck and not only can he he could fucking revolutionize a b movie now this is the other thing i want to say is that last year uh i i took part of um uh this is scripts gone wild uh which is a bunch of guys who do like uh readings of famous screenplays uh i think they used to do them live and now in the last year did the mostly over zoom for charity and stuff so i did their Fast and Furious reading and played Brian. And they had some very late version of the script. It seemed like a shooting script, but it was so different from what ends up in the actual first movie. In a way that makes me feel like Vin kind of rolled up his sleeves and started rewriting scenes on the fly

every day on the set of that movie. That's what he claims, right? I mean, he's like, I was the one who gave Dom his street cred. Yeah, because I'll say that draft had eight names on it, including David Ayer. It is loaded with racial slurs, which feels like a real A air pass yeah the language has

to be authentic it's like it doesn't need to be this authentic um it was like it's amazing how many racial slurs directed at every single protected group there are in that film but um but also just like there's there's a lack of certain specificity. They're sort of like they hadn't latched on to what the fundamental humanity and the ethos of their respective characters are. Letty is like garbage in that draft. The whole thing is that she sleeps with Brian and she becomes like the person they fight over. And Rodriguez was like, I'm not going to do it if i'm like the woman between them to like make the sister jealous and also piss off the guy and i think vin supported her so like that thing was like totally rewritten on set it seems like i don't think anyone would want to fuck dom's girl

yeah okay we'll make them we'll make her dom's sister nobody fucks dom's sister oh yeah yeah but that's the energy we need you to have in the movie. Right. But nobody fucks my sister. Yeah, okay, but this is an actor cast to play your sister. You're aware we're not asking your sister. We're not asking Tina Diesel to show up to set. Tina Diesel. So Vin kind of like fundamentally transforms the movie, right? And then people are like, like oh this movie's like

tracking big it might open to like 15 million dollars it opens to 40 million dollars it's one of the biggest hits of the year it becomes like culture defining and immediately like vin diesel is the guy who has the the burst that people thought paul walker was gonna have where it's just like get this guy in anything he's the huge breakout of that movie. And honestly, Michelle Rodriguez is the second breakout. And Walker, everyone is like, yeah, Walker, sure, fine. He did his job in that movie. There was no popping for him.

The next movie he does is this movie. He doesn't get anything off of this. Is that like one of Michelle Rodriguez's first big roles? It's Girl Fight 2, Fast and Furious. fast and furious oh shit yeah that's the leap it's like oh she was in a good sundance movie let's let's get her for this thing yeah the other movie he does off of this is that richard donner timeline movie yeah which was like one of those things that they barely acknowledge they made and then after that he had into the blue with jessica alba the diver movie running scared yeah running scared is good running scared's good and that's his first like good dramatic performance i would argue he's good he's like solid in that

yeah that's a totally that's a good solid thriller I haven't seen that in forever. I got it. I got to get into it. Obviously, there's eight below, which I have not seen. Griffin, it feels like you've seen that. Have you seen eight below? I think I have, but I always I maybe have. You confuse it with Snow Dogs, obviously. I confuse it with Snow Dogs, but I also feel like sometimes I'm like, I've seen that movie and then I start watching it. And I'm like, I've never seen this. I just built up a detailed enough version in my head of what I imagined it is. I have the opposite frequently, where I'm like, I've never seen this movie,

and I'm watching a weird 80s or 70s movie, and then there's female nudity, and I'm like, nope, I've seen this movie. I remember only this part from when I was 11 for some reason. I've seen this movie. I remember only this part from when I was like 11 for some reason. Like your brain is just so, my brain is so heterosexual and broken that it's like, I've never seen the howl. No, I remember the campfire sex scene.

Okay, I've seen this movie. I've seen parts of this movie many times. Yeah, yeah. I feel like I had, this was on a compilation I owned. That might we had in the neighborhood to share. I'm looking at Walker now. I'm just looking at him i get flags of our fathers right is he good in that he's so he doesn't know what to do no one's good in that movie no one is good in that movie that movie is just kind of it's just kind of boring i i gotta re-watch it though uh the lazarus project i mean it really

he's dead at a certain point i mean no r.i.p yeah he's really, he's dead at a certain point. I mean, no, R.I.P. Paul Walker. Yes, he's definitely dead at a certain point. Dr. Sims, Dr. Sims reporting for duty. I'd say from 2014 on. Oh boy, poor guy. But the real death is when your acting career dies.

Yes, absolutely. The first death. He was in that weird zone where it's like oh here's a guy who's been in some big hit movies he's like very handsome he gets to play the lead in movies some of them are hits some of them are flops but neither one feels like any reflection on him you know where it's like yeah like eight below was a hit and timeline was a flop and neither one necessarily hurt or helped his career it was just like if you need some generic guy to put at the center of your thing he can do that he was in takers which is like a movie that like nominally did well but like no one knows that he was no one really remembers that like everything

before fast five or fast and furious i guess everything before that and after too fast too furious he's like clearly just the fifth guy that was called and he shows up and he does his work and no one's no one's you know yeah you're packing the streets to cheer about it but like whatever like yeah i don't know that's the best you could say about paul walker in the 2000s the main quartet was so out until Ampersand. Like, that's the fascinating thing about this franchise is that, like, all of them were like, I mean, there's that young Hollywood Vanity Fair cover where both Jordana Brewster and Paul Walker are on it the year before this. And everyone was like, OK, Michelle Rodriguez, Vin Diesel, they're the next two

action stars. And both of them sort of like wipe out it really was like at the moment that ampersand happens a real salvation for all four of them they fast track a sequel immediately right after that first weekend and yes vin already is in his i'm the mastermind of my whole career i have the plan i know what i'm doing kind of thing. So they're like sequel. And he's like, I don't know. Rob Cohen has already been in development on Triple X, which they didn't have an actor for at that point in time over at Sony Arrival Studios. So then I think he tries to lure Vin Diesel over to that. So they know Vin Diesel's flirting with that. They come up with two treatments for the Fast and Furious sequel, one of which has Dom in

it is the continuation of the Dom and Brian movie. And they also simultaneously develop another one, knowing there's a good chance that Vin's gonna pass. And the other one they develop is just, it could be almost any crime movie, like, you know, undercover cop movie, just with cars in it. Right. It's a

premise that if Paul Walker didn't return, you could still do. It's like, do Miami Vice with some cars in it. Right. Like that's really what this premise is. And that's that is to be fair. I think the version with him in it still had a lot of elements of this. It was still like Paul Walker, still a cop.

He has to go undercover again. Dom would be in the Roman Pierce role, but it was like trying to bust a crime lord, a sleazebag like this. And Finn's objection, they offered him $25 million to do this role.

That is a lot of money. Wow. Yeah. I think he got 20 for XXX. Mm-hmm. So it was like they had to one-up. What do we all think of XXX? The first not a fan not a fan it's a bad movie i rewatched it a year ago it's a movie that makes me uncomfortable yeah it's gross it's kind of a skeevy movie obviously rob cohen turned out to

essentially be a sex criminal i mean it's like it's like a fucking uh surge commercial you know what I mean like it's like it it's like the energy I I love extreme sports but like the extreme energy shit is like like I I'm not here for that and so triple x doesn't land on me that well it's it's that it's like a very inauthentic representation of extreme sports culture combined with what feels like a too authentic representation of eastern european sex rings like that's yes yes yeah that's what bums me out about it and like and i i think vin is pretty bad in it he's just kind of like kind of on autopilot in it he's just you know xander cage does not really have uh much of a defined personality i guess no and i i fucking love uh return of zander cage where i feel like he finally figures

out who that character that movie is silly it's so good and even like state of the union is fun in that way but that becomes like the fatal folly where it's like, OK, so he does Fast and Furious. It's a huge hit. They go franchise. He goes, no, thank you. I'm making a new thing. He does Triple X. It's a huge hit.

They go franchise. He goes, no, thank you. I'm going back to Riddick. And he takes all the goodwill from both of those, puts it on Riddick, craps out. But that just shows you Vin Diesel is the master of his own. He's like, nah, this nerdy shit is more important to me. Now, there's an interview that Vin did a couple years ago where they asked him about if he regrets turning down Too Fast Too Furious decision. And he said, like, I was definitely too cocky at that point in time.

Like, I was, like, feeling too big for my britches. But I also, I probably should have taken the money and done it. Like, I probably should have done it for the fans. It probably would have been the smart thing for my britches, but I also, I probably should have taken the money and done it. Like, I probably should have done it for the fans. It probably would have been the smart thing for my career, but he was like, fundamentally, the script was stupid

and it didn't feel like a continuation of the Fast and Furious story. It felt like, here's just another movie with cops and cars, which he's right about. He is right.

Like, that is a fair assessment. And he was ahead of the curve where he was like, this is a saga. It's about the relationship of these two men. And they were probably giving him jerk-off hand signals and going, take the paycheck. Dude, $25 million, just shut the fuck up.

And he's like, family is the core. And people are like, what are you talking about? He's like, I will join the PGA and come back and fix this. It's like, okay, man. Oh my God, he's really doing it. The insane thing of him being proven so right about this but so this movie is them just being like fuck off this guy we don't need him don't overthink it paul walker fine and then like tyreece that's a new movie star

with tyreece we can rope john singleton into doing this he's a higher class filmmaker than rob cohen and it's given like a prime summer release and is a hit and people kind of hate it and it almost ends the franchise i mean the question is if say this movie is just a direct sequel and it stars vin diesel do we have fast nine now like no or would it be more of a thing like where they're like it did well and then they do three and it does less well and it kind of peters out in a more normal way versus the weird comeback narrative the franchise kind of got to construct right correct i i think there's something about the fact that the franchise the meta narrative around the franchise right builds it up it was

so down and out all of the actors were down and out like everyone had something to prove i think i think they could have made this same movie where it is you know he gets called in to break up this ring and he goes the only person i'm working with is dominic teretto and it's vin with the dom character in this same dynamic and people would have gone to see it it would have been an even bigger hit than this was but it would have been diminishing returns creatively it would have taken the bloom off the rose versus when they come back with four and people are like fuck they're in the same movie again i've been waiting 10 years for that you know that right the nostalgia that there was nostalgia for it that no one, I think, really, well, some people, Vin Diesel among them, probably did anticipate, but a lot of people didn't, really.

And there was a Twitter thread recently from a guy who worked, I believe, as a development executive at Universal, who was talking about the weird circuitous path to Ampersand getting made because after Tokyo Drift, they were like, let's just do these direct-to-video. percent getting made because after tokyo drift they were like let's just do these direct to video like they were ready to turn fast and furious into jarhead and be like every year we'll do fast and furious 7 and it will just be in a new foreign city where there's a tax incentive and we will get like tv stars who will do anything to play the lead in a direct-to-DVD movie. Jarhead is one of those movies where you're like, Jarhead, Frank Grillo, and Bruce Willis are making movies every two months, and they are all on streaming. Like, Frank Grillo is in so many movies.

Frank Grillo is in so many movies. So many movies. And it's so weird considering that Jarhead is this very moody movie about how going to war is actually super boring and nothing happens and you go insane. And then they made a bunch of sequels that's like,

it's tough in the suck! Get those guys! And they're just like, you know, they're just war movies, I assume, right? Yeah, they just became action movies. Scott Adkins. Right, they're Scott Adkins movies. I think one of them is called Jarhead Circle of Fire or something like that. Field of Fire. Field of Fire, yeah.

Who's the other one who's in a lot of them? Oh, Gabriel Macht, I think, is in a couple of them. Oh, that guy, absolutely. Gabriel Macht is like a replacement level action star. He just kind of looks like a movie star enough if you squint this is what I'm talking about like Universal that's the same studio right it could have so easily gone that

way and they would have just been like well the relationship that Jarhead 5 has to the first Jarhead is the relationship that Fast and Furious 5 will have to the first Fast and Furious just put any two people in a city with cars it doesn't have to be about fucking anything established to the first fast and furious just put any two people in a city with cars it doesn't have to be about fucking anything established in the first movie um vin stood

his ground was like if you're not like continuing the toretto family saga i'm out and uh yes i i agree with you if if the franchise would have stopped dead i think after this one they probably if this was a hit they would have priced themselves out they would have made a third probably without both of them returning or they would have made a third after a bunch of negotiations and it would have you know i don't know i just think people and it would have been okay and like right and the other thing is that the tokyift lets Justin Lin sneak into the franchise. Exactly. And be one of its most important.

Anyway, that's Fast and Furious talk. And it's crucial. But Too Fast, Too Furious kind of has nothing to do with any of this. Yes, very true. That's what's sort of funny about it. They borrow stuff out of it for the later. But it's not like they're making it being like, we really need Tej in this because he's going to be crucial as the computer guy for five more of these movies later. No one's thinking that.

This is one of those sequels that's ostensibly more like Teen Wolf 2. This old model of making sequels were the first movies to hit. And you're like, and in the sequel, it happens to a different guy. Yeah, right. Same thing, different town right where else do they drive cars i heard miami okay let's go all right let's go right and like the genius stroke of uh tokyo drift is that they bring the whole kind of like karate kid teen sports movie right into the mix but that was basically how that was conceived um this becomes this sort of uh incorrect uh takeaway from what

worked in the first movie although they clearly wanted to have van obviously but like i guess this is a franchise about the continuing adventures of an undercover cop who is friends with criminals and infiltrates car rings. Yeah. He's a former street racer turned cop. And now in this movie, former cop turned informant or something like that. Right. That's the weird thing that he's not a cop in this one either which is so funny he's like so removed from yeah they have to reference the last

movie so frequently and too fast it's almost like you guys are leaning i understand it's a sequel but if you're like is that why you gave the guy at the end of the last movie an escape it's like okay okay yes stop referring to the last movie like it just other stuff has happened in all these characters relationships but they're talking about like the last movie end and it was like paul we got another mission for you brian or brian whatever the fuck your name whatever he's not a narc that's what they're trying to make sure that everybody knows he's not a narc anymore yeah he's no longer no longer. Because that has to be like, he can't be a rat anymore. And it's like, oh, okay.

So in this movie, he sort of gets his rep washed by Roman. He's no longer a fucking ACAB. He's no longer a pig. But it's also this weird thing where it's like, they're sort of trying to make him like a... Devin Aoki. Yeah. David, was that you?

Yes, my phone made a noise. Ignore it. No idea why. I know the noise your phone made. It was Devin Aoki. Your phone just said Devin Aoki's name. I Googled Devin Aoki because I wanted to check something and it said her name wow um the thing i was gonna say is that they're sort of trying to make like brian o'connor the

like john mclean where it's like well he's like sort of a cop but maybe he's off duty he doesn't want to be doing this but they're also making him way cooler that he actually like knew a bunch of cool guys but i i don't know they they retcon they retcon this is like a a trope of the franchise it's just retconning people's past to make it even like dominic teretto is the perfect example where it's like he also has a brother uh yeah and no they none of them look alike right now they're all three different ethnicities there is an incredible line in f9 where they go like that mixed up toretto gene pull like someone does acknowledge like so you're brazilian you're italian just don't don't even bother don't they shouldn't have even thrown

something in but whatever i guess you know it's one offhand line. Someone says it dismissively, like that mixed up Toretto gene pool, whatever's in there. In Fast 1, you get a little bit of Brian's history that he was like a streetcar guy before getting this, which makes sense because it's not a skill set a lot of cops have. And then in this one, they get even more retconning to his past where it's like he's got more crimes listed. He's more of a badass than we ever mentioned. We don't even give him any credit for his cop time. But then it's like he also used to roll with this guy who's very much like Dominic Toretto. Doesn't ever bring him up in Fast 1. I'm like, you know, I had a friend who was a non-white dude who I ended up becoming pretty tight with.

We had this exact same dynamic. Like this kind of back and forth. Yeah. That's the thing. It's like, I do think the pitch that they presented to Vin Diesel had to have been very similar to what this movie ended up being

just with the rewrites to bring in a new character and try to tailor make something a little bit to tyree's that's basically the pitch of later movies where it's like well how could they possibly get away you know they they they're you know they're on the run but it's like yeah but there's this one job that only they can do and the government just has to bring them in that's just the pitch every time mission impossible plays that game too where every movie it's like, we're officially out of the IMF. It's like, again? Don't join again.

You guys should be freelancers. Yeah, just go do something else. Work at a coffee shop, whatever. It's funny to me that it's like the thrilling thing that the first Fast and Furious leaves you with is Brian letting Dom get away. Right. Yes. And the note of ambiguity that the ending is not neat, that he gives Dom the car that Dom drives off. And Brian's just kind of standing there in the middle of the road as the cops begin to, like, surround him.

And you don't know, like, what decision this guy's made, how he's made how he's gonna explain it has he like turned his back on the law like you know it the one thing you know is that the brotherhood transcends everything else of course it does i love the end of point break but the end of point break obviously patrick swayze crime pays and and he dies and you know that's the end it It's a conclusive end. And brilliantly obviously they're like, well, we can't kill Dom. Everyone loves Dom. Dom can't go to jail. Dom's got to hit the road. He's got to drive to Cuba. If Fast One

wanted a follow point break even more, it'd be really funny. Brian's like, here Dom. Gives him the keys. Dom drives away and immediately crashes and the car blows up. Just spins out. Immediately incinerates himself. I thought you were going to say drives into the keys. Dom drives away and immediately crashes in the car, blows up. Just spins out. Immediately incinerates himself. I thought you were going to say drives into the ocean.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Drives into the 50-year star. Laughing. Lose something, brah. But, like, that ending is the juice to then have it be like, okay, Brian has now gone full-time underground street racing. But this opening of the movie is kind of a canard they're giving you the one classic fast and furious street racing set piece at the beginning and then immediately the cops find him and they're like okay stop being in a fast and furious movie come back and be a cop hey buddy no hey it does also feel like they're like yeah you're not vin diesel okay like i get that you just won a street race against

fucking devon aoki and uh what's his pants for prison break i'm rena nalaska michael right but they're like but the audience doesn't like watching you win okay but yes that moment when you know they want to team him up with the fucking dumb head with the pizza parlor soda cup yeah with the freaking cargo pants yeah and he's like you can't like put me there with a stiff shirt i need someone who knows their shit that feels like the movie saying oh my god he's gotta bring dominic teretto back and said he's like here's some guy you've never heard of before like like the movie the the script is exactly oh i got just the guy and in the one version of the script it's like

cut to teretto's garage and this version is like cut to demolition derby and a hungry person is driving it would be funny if it cut to like him call he calls dom and dom's like no i i know i'm okay i'm on the run right now i don't want to go to miami and he's like okay okay okay i'll call roman he's good he's like he's still like 80 of you it's it's fine it's fine brian's like look the fbi is willing to pay you 25 million dollars for one mission i'm in bulgaria i'm solving extreme sports crimes also the the idea that dom did get a call to do this miami mission he's like i i really can't be fucking with that i am i'm super i i'm in a lot of other shit right now and he's just

dominic toretto living in like other vin diesel movies i just can't be there right i'll be uh and then he hears uh roman goes in it's like well we just cleared roman's uh history from him doing the mission and vin's like motherfucker i should have done the fucking Miami mission. Now I'm babysitting some government officials' kids. He did become the pacifier. What, just two years later? Yes. Oh, my God. Three years later.

You're a Vin Diesel expert, Griff. Yeah, yes. Does he ever talk about that in his sort of grand narrative of stardom? Or is he more just like, yeah, that's like a a movie i did i feel like he never really talks about i mean i feel like sometimes on his social media he'll post like like throwback thursday pacifier nostalgia shit he'll be like happy birthday lauren graham it was great working with you yeah remember the duck creative sundays the pacify god creative sundays creative sundays and teredo tuesdays two of my favorite weekly occurrences the only two days i the only holidays as i an atheist celebrate teredo tuesdays and creative sundays i observe every teredo tuesday

i'm orthodox with my teroretto tuesdays i never miss wait wait on tuesdays i need someone else in my building to push the elevator button for me because i feel like you shouldn't be operating machinery of any kind on a toretto tuesday every toretto tuesday i accidentally kill somebody with a wrench um i feel like no i do feel like pacifier is the one movie i never really hear him talk about in terms of his like grand career strategy right and i guarantee he'll he'll retcon it as like you gotta make a movie for the families you know yes that's totally what it is yeah that was so the playbook at that point in time he thinks he's arnold you have to do your kindergarten cop he wants to make a disney movie like it makes sense in that way and was also we should acknowledge a big hit yep yeah yeah a big fucking hit it's a

formula that works yes this is the thing though much like too fast much like triple x these are movies that made money but earned no credibility with the public like the public was just like yeah you you got me with that one but i'm not gonna bad aftertaste right yeah right fool me once um vin has made the the short film i think it's called los bandoleros that is on the ampersand uh home video releases that he directed that is the what was Toretto doing in Cuba fills in during Too Fast Too Furious

that's awesome he's like buying white pants that fit his quads white capri pants him becoming a local legend essentially the dream for a guy like Vin Diesel is like let me make a movie about how badass i became in for the two movies i wasn't around for it's like oh okay man cool and it's

like not an action movie anymore it's just a moody short character piece uh dominican republic i'm sorry he goes to cuba in uh fate uh yes oh fate is the one where he opens with him yeah the white pants yeah yes this is dominican republic but i do believe he has white pants in this as well. But yes. So at this point in time, it's it's the Paul Walker franchise. It's can we make Tyrese a leading man? And it's an easy job for Singleton, who's now had, you know, a failed franchise starter and a return to personal movies that didn't make much of an impact at the box office. We should mention right off the bat, this

film does the thing we love the most, David. Changes the Universal logo? Yeah. Oh, God. And it's so good. I'm sorry. It's too, it's so aggressive. It's the most changed opening I've ever seen. Yes, it is the most. Longer than you,'ve ever seen it's yes it is the most longer

than you longer than we can articulate yes it's like six beats longer than you think it's gonna be because it starts out with the universal globe it's the normal logo and then once you get the camera has zoomed out enough in the universe that the globe is fully captured on screen it then becomes chrome is surrounded by rivets you hear a lot of auto mechanic sounds whirring and drills and shit i'm watching it now just for fun it becomes a hubcap it does yeah it's rims yeah and it like and it rules it rules it's so good like this sort of herky jerky you know machine way that it moves is the best it's so so good i think it's important to have this early in the movie to prepare your fucking inner ears for how this movie does stop and start and pans and shit like that you're you

have to be sort of like if you saw this shit in 4dx i could see like my mom barfing or something i want them to do a 4dx re-release of this movie um a remaster uh i do it's remastered for 40 you're a guy who's in charge of remastering it's like we go to griffin he's the best i think we should add a water squirt here more rat smell um i just i appreciate i think griff we've talked about this i don't think the fast and the furious is very well directed i don't think rob cohen is a particularly good director i'm gonna follow this up in a second go on yeah um this movie is it just feels like john singleton is like this movie should feel kind of swagged out like it should be big and loud and colorful and silly and it should be having fun and it should be loud and did i mention that the volume should be high and the sound effects should

be you know in your ears and it doesn't feel like he's phoning it in i guess is you know for whatever you want to say about this movie some some people, I guess it's still kind of the redheaded stepchild of the Fast and the Furious franchise. It shouldn't be, but I guess it kind of is. I feel like Tokyo Drift deserves the black sheep of the family. No, but I love Tokyo Drift.

I like Tokyo Drift too, but I think it's the least cast, whatever. We don't have to get into that. It's a debate. But I just feel like he did not, whatever he he rolled up his sleeves and made an effort and had fun and delivered a very entertaining movie that is not like is not a yawn i guess that's that's my praise for it right like it's not yeah even despite everything we're saying it's not just kind of like all right and then they blah blah you, like it's trying to make every scene very entertaining.

It's truly better than I remember. Like I remember leaving the theater going, Oh man. But I remember leaving the theater for fast one going, that shit was sick. I remember leaving the theater for fast two going, Oh, sequels have,

uh, casually let me down over and over again. But then rewatching this, I'm like like we should talk you talked about the opening of the universal the next three things are like cars pulling up and it's like yo drag race and then paul walker going fuck all right i'll i'll race there and it's like four minutes a badass driving sequence to get him to the race which is another badass driving yes and so the movie has

like nine minutes of unbroken action out of the gate and i'm like okay yeah no this is movies doing exactly what i wanted to do right now i put it on last night at 10 30 and did not feel a lick of tired or wanting to look at my phone i was blasting through this movie i loved it i think it opens so strong i i i like this movie it has grown on me over time although i think it has some fundamental issues namely that the script just sucks it's got a really boring script john singleton to go back to what david said john singleton's the only person not phoning in this movie everyone else is trying hard but not landing yeah but he's directing this shit absolutely that's the biggest thing and i feel like that's why the universal logo is such a mission statement

for this movie right because like he said that he saw fast and furious when it came out in theaters the same weekend that baby boy is bombing right and was like fuck i should have done this like he had this moment where he's like, I knew about this fucking like street racing culture in Southern California. I could have made this movie. I should have thought to pitch this. This is a good idea for a commercial studio film.

So then when they offered to him, he's like, yeah, I know that world. But then they give him this script that sort of becomes like Miami Vice. It really does feel like, like oh it's just two guys trying to stay cool go undercover in a city to bust up some coke lord right like look we're gonna talk about kohlhauser we're gonna get to him in a minute we're gonna get there wait go ahead before we go any further into the movie the most confusing thing about this movie is that it starts

with han's funeral a character we have not met. And to keep the timeline even wonkier, they're at Han's funeral at the beginning of this movie. And Han is there. That's all I can think about. That's the weird thing. He's there at his own funeral. He's there, yeah.

No, sorry. Griff, what were you going to say? Don't say anything, Griffin. Sorry, sorry. No, no, I was just going to say, you know, he's talked about, I found this interview that he gave where he talked about, like, his influences on this movie. Yeah, here it is.

This is from blackfilm.com in 2003 when this movie is about to come out. And when this movie was released and the reception was negative, just from the public but i think critics were kind of like why did john singleton make this i think critics were were generally mad as and it didn't help that it was called too fast too furious i feel like there was a weird target on this movie's back because it had this ludicrous name which it also was like called the fast and the furious 2 for a while like they re-released the first movie on DVD when this was about to come out on some special edition with a sneak peek. And I distinctly remember it still being called The Fast and the Furious 2 on that sneak peek a couple months earlier. When they announced like it's called Too Fast, Too Furious, I feel like everyone in the world laughed.

It became the new Breaking 2 Electric boogaloo or whatever it just became the new jokey sequel title where it's like they've gone too far they're trying to like make sequels sound cool and it sounds lame or whatever which also then becomes another hallmark of the fast and furious franchise is every title has to have some new titling structure some new convention It's playing by its own rules. Well, that's the thing. The meta narrative is important in these movies, connecting all them, because nothing else does. Like Vin is in and out. Paul Walker in and out.

People are very out. And shit like that, you're just like, oh. And so there's nothing like all right this one let's name it you know furious meets fast it's like perfect like printing like we got a poster let's go well but that's the thing so like i think people were like singleton you fucked this up like you fucked up this franchise that like the first fast and furious movie as you said david i fully agree rob cohen is in addition to by all accounts being a pretty monstrous human being a shitty director right like he is a good director he's a hack he's a hack uh and uh the first fast and furious movie you you re-watch it and it is astonishing the gulf between how poorly

directed all the dialogue sequences are which are really just carried by the like undeniable movie star energy of the actors and how exciting the race sequences are that were clearly directed by a second unit that rob cohen had no hand over because they do not feel like they're part of the same movie they have like a completely different visual language the race and sequences are well constructed and visually inventive and like he like the dialogue sequences are like ineptly covered and like riddled with mistakes um singleton right off the bat he's making a movie where all of it is directed by one person where the dialogue scenes are as kinetic as the race sequences and the race sequences are now even more kinetic than the

racing was in the first movie so that shit heightens well from right from one to two they do a great job of making the rate i think that one has better set pieces like more exciting set pieces but two ramps up what the driving looks like in a fucking cool way i mean it's the bummer of this movie is that the first 10 minutes you're like i just want to watch this just show me this fucking escalation which singleton's whole defense when people would criticize him for it was like i wasn't trying to do the same racing sequences as the first movie i was looking at anime like i was looking at speed racer this interview with black film it's like f0 the beginning of this movie reminds me the super

nintendo game f0 so much an f0 movie okay so gabriel this black film interview they say some of the action car scenes were similar to those scenes we see in video games where any games and influence in shooting those scenes he said yeah funny you were able to pick that up when i was formulating the way i want to shoot the film i watched a lot of anime i watched the road warrior over and over again, which I feel is the best car movie ever made. I play a couple of video games where it allowed me to free my mind and think about shooting something different from the traditional way.

I also played with hot wheels on my desk and thought about how a camera can shoot this from different angles. So he's just going like full cartoon gonzo. Like let's get as creative and have as much fun with this as possible, which watching it today, you're like this stuff rips. And at the time, I think people are like, where is the versamilitude of the first movie, which the versamilitude of the first movie you kind of have to put in quotes, you know, but like I think that movie was grittier and more street level. And when this movie has like a, a literal neon light consultant who is there on set every day to navigate how to shoot that much neon, that guy's only worked on too fast, too furious and Batman forever.

His only two jobs. Oh yeah. Yeah. He was just, no, he was in all the Schumacher movie. He was Joel Schumacher's guy, but that's what

it feels like it does kind of feel like he's doing a schumacher to the first fast and furious as batman burton batmans you know yes yes yes i mean i i think right i think the burton batmans are are better made and have more attention than the first fast and furious but that is a good analogy and yes that's that's that's perfect um we should mention while we're on the opening of the film also because gabrus you talked about uh what a payday this has been for uh ludacris and tyrese across the rest of their career yeah uh tyrese was obviously a studio choice stacy snyder wanted him uh ludacris was cast because uh syncton was a big fan of him and his music videos and thought he had an undeniable energy.

And so they gave him the prime role of Michael Ealy's character. He was only supposed to be the driver in this one sequence. Slapjack or whatever they call him. Yep. They named him in the movie. Yeah. He was supposed to play fucking Slapjack. And Ja Rule was supposed to play the role that then became Tej.

That was supposed to be the extension of Ja Rule's character. Because that's kind of what he is in the first one. Right. Like, here's the ringleader. Here's the P.T. Barnum of this shit. Right? It's the Vin Diesel story, but with an idiot at the center of it. Like, you know what I mean?

It's like he's at the peak of his fame, Ja Rule. And they're like, come on, come be in Too Fast to Perish. And he's like, no, no, no. Like, I'm too famous. He got paid $15,000 for the first movie. They offered him $500,000 for Too Fast. And we're like, you get to be like the big supporting character in this. You'll be on the poster.

Yeah, no, no, thank you. character in this and he was like poster yeah no no thank you uh the beginning of this movie where tej is talking to uh the guy from prison break the handsome uh i'm reno i'm reno lasco yes who's got it he's like orange julius so he's talking to orange julius and their wardrobe is so insane the background is so crazy i put this on last night tiffany my wife comes out of the bedroom to say good night i'm in the living room and she goes what movie are you watching and i'm like it's too fast too furious sequel c paul walker she's like yeah no no i reckon that are they at is it like is it halloween or something and i'm like no that's how Ludacris' character is introduced in this movie. With like an afro pic, an open, big out fro.

Like the biggest afro. Like an undercover brother sized afro. Yeah, like played for sighs and laughs. Yes. And then like a deep cut fucking like, hey, you work in cars, so you'll have coveralls on. But they'll be stylish and open. And then Orange Julius, Slapjack and uh whatever david's phone was calling her before devin aoki devin aoki when all three of them you're like holy shit it's like gi joe like each one of them matches their car in a way and you're like

oh this movie i'm i'm like tiffany's like is it halloween i go no but it might as well be. It's Toretto Tuesday. It's Creative Sunday. We're recording on Toretto Tuesday. We are recording. We should mention Happy Toretto Tuesday. Happy Toretto Tuesday. It's Hot Wheels. It is, right? It's like you get your Hot Wheels out and there's an orange one. You're like, I bet a guy in orange

would drive this car. The orange racer. Yeah, exactly. But it also feels like this section of the movie this opening set piece looks like a bowl of fruit loops held up under a black light like it is yeah it's crazy yeah every car is eight colors and none of them overlap between the cars right right and they were all like custom made he was like very particular about what models they got what people wouldn't drive you know disregarded a lot of potential money for sponsorship deals because he was like no one's driving a fucking ford focus in this movie get out of here and then

they hired like top of the line people and not just put decals on but like custom paint each one for each character and whatever you have these insane neon lights underneath each car which i love great choice they're racing they sort of have like tron like light streams it's like fucking uh building your own pc the way these guys build their cars it's like oh cool the tower glows yeah but like you got singleton doing like crazy canted camera angles and like big like cartoony push-ins and using a lot of cgi speaking of the car i love the speaker little sequence where it's like they're having like a sound off and then the one guy's

speaker like has another speaker inside of it yeah it opens it like unfurls and there's two more speakers that come out dude that shit is so early 2000s late 90s like that was my high school years everyone in my high school had half their trunk given up to a giant speaker that was just like a thing on long island it's like your car would just be like and you'd be driving like everyone drove like their dad's 89 buick century but they would put like a 200 speaker in the trunk that would like rattle the fucking locks of your door. Like there's a cool breaks because the base is so loud. The car is not structurally like it doesn't have enough structural integrity to handle that decibel.

But that, that I love the, the street car culture and, uh, the idea of that and then watching it get absolutely bastardized and movie-ized is so fucking fun to me where a guy's got two chicks who are just into the car. I just love this world where it's like,

if this is true about car racing, then what else is true in this world? It's like they are professional athletes. People treat them like they're fucking millionaire Hollywood. When he goes, anyone can race, and you go, I could pick anybody? And then they're like, oh, fuck, it's Brian. It's like, you didn't think he would pick a guy who could beat you? A guy who's good at driving a car? Like, I don't even understand the rules.

Yeah. And why do all three of you still do the race? And more importantly, why do you still jump the bridge after you've lost? That is a good point. I would not jump the bridge. Why would you risk trying to just come in third? Well, you jump a bridge because that shit's cool as hell. Have you always wanted to do that?

No. I mean, Tej, he's's like told you there was a surprise and you're like fuck yeah tej that is not something you should do to your friends without warning them but that is a wild choice it's the thing about it though it's like when he says i told you to be a surprise i'm like i know that this is gonna end fine if everyone died does tej go home and go like well that's how it goes when you race, you know, at night. It was surprising. I was right.

They were expecting to live. Or is he guilty? He's like, you know what? I should have maybe not sprung the bridge on. Maybe I could have alerted. Even if you're fine, if you're Brian, aren't you like, bro, what the fuck was that bridge thing? And he's like, oh, I thought that would be so sick. He's like, no, don't call me in to race people

if you're going to fucking make it dangerous. Don't invite me here and then also... That's like, hey, Haas, you want to come to a party at my house? Then when you show up, I cut to five rugby guys, and I'm like, hey, this is the guy who called you guys pussies. Like, what? You invited me to your party, and now you're putting my life in danger

it's also so fascinating because like i i i know it's a leap but in my mind until i re-watch this movie i always make the distance shorter but like in this movie he is literally oh well the literal leap but what i was gonna say is in this Tej is literally a dude who sort of organizes these races and owns like an auto shop. And his level of expertise is like he can put a crazy speaker, as you said, in your trunk. He's not even the car tech guy. There's another character who will get conflated to be just Tej eventually. Because in my mind, I go like, he starts out as the car tech guy, and then he becomes like the world's greatest tech guy, period. But no, it's like he's-

He actually, it's called out as he's the second best hacker in the world behind Ramsey's. Right? It's like, where'd you learn that? Owning a mechanic shop in downtown LA? In Miami. In this movie, he's a guy who employs a decent tech guy. Yeah, right. And then he becomes the second best hacker in the world.

Also, I feel like his character in the later movies is very restrained. He becomes the straight man of the group. He's the sober, serious one. He's the saucer under the teacup. He's the kind of like all right guys you know like that's kind of his vibe which is they got a tank right while we're on the topic roman isn't a fast talker in this movie no not at all no and like roman is kind of like a a crazy wild card badass right like you're like chill out man you're being too aggressive he's he's like the

loose cannon in this right yes but after five and he's the scared one every time right which is just such a funny as a matter of fact some would argue in this movie the thing that is the craziest is how sociopathically him and brian treat each other when they're on the same side during missions in this movie they're like like wolverine and cyclops right yeah uneasy allies right right right and he's just like fucking wild energy sometimes he could be a little charming but he's like fucking guy might pounce on someone at any moment and then to get the call two movies later i remember when ampersand was coming out and he had done annapolis tyree with justin lynn and i remember

him doing press for something else and being like yeah i don't know i was expecting to get the call like i was the second lead of the second movie everyone else is back for this fourth movie it's justin lynn director i worked with i'm waiting hopefully if they make a fifth one they call me can you imagine when they're like he's been been in Transformers. He was a major guy. He was big. He was in things, yeah. Big point. What's the movie Ampersand?

It's the fourth Fast and Furious, which is called Fast Ampersand Furious. Okay. Well, that's not a... Is that a thing? All right. It's what I call... I'm not as into these movies as you are, Grant.

Bahaz, we appreciate... That's perfect for the audience, though me david and griffin did not need that clare okay yeah you say empress and to me and david we know exactly what movie you're talking about but we do appreciate that uh yeah no turns out perspective yes even he could be the connoisseur of context uh ben the first movie is just titled the fast and the furious right sure sure then this one as you know is called too fast too furious too fast Ben, the first movie is just titled The Fast and the Furious, right? Sure, sure. Then this one, as you know, is called Too Fast, Too Furious.

Too Fast, yep. Right. Then the third film is called Fast and the Furious, Nova at the Beginning, colon, Tokyo Drift, right? Yeah, okay. So people were like, what are they going to call the fourth one? The fourth one they call Fast and Furious. It is almost the same title as the first

movie the only difference is they took out the definite articles and put an ampersand instead of spelling and so i always call the movie ampersand okay and then five is called like fast five right more or less right then six is fast ampersand furious six yes and then furious seven spelled Fast Ampersand Furious 6. Yes. And then... Furious 7 spelled... No, Furious 7 numeral. Because Fast 5 is spelled out. F-I-V-E. Furious 7 is Furious numeral 7.

Then The Fate of the Furious is 8. And then F9. F9. I love it. Yeah. I fucking love it. The best. Named after my favorite key on the keyboard.

Ugh. It fucking love it. The best. Named after my favorite key on the keyboard. Oh, it's so satisfying. They should do a tie-in with the F9 key on your keyboard so that you can, if you ever want to watch F9, you just hit F9 on your keyboard. It should just be if you hit F9, your computer says family. Family. It's what's important. But yes. Okay. family that's what's important but yes okay so this awesome race happens and then uh uh brian has stopped by the cops right and we realize because the first movie you you're like maybe 30 minutes in before the the turn happens that you realize he's an undercover cop yeah there's a

lot of lead up yeah right you start with him at the cafe hitting on mia then meeting dom getting in the fight then he goes to a race he like shows up you know he doesn't win but he makes an impression all that shit then finally you see him going to the uh to the cops and in the first movie that wasn't part of the advertising campaign it's genuinely like a first act twist that this guy's undercover uh so this one you're watching you don't really understand is he a cop has he totally given up to just be a racer uh especially because the ending of the first movie is ambiguous uh but then james remar stops him with a gun like a grappling hook gun that has an electro hook he shoots a an electric trident out of a harpoon gun out of a helicopter

right i mean this is another thing where like in 2003 people are like jumped the shark fucked it up ruined everything that was good about the first movie this is a cartoon now and when you watch this in 2021 you're like yes of course the types of weapons they have in the fast and furious franchise yeah i know this movie is calm by the way. They should bring James Remar back. They should bring him back for F9. This is what I want to say, though. Do you not watch this movie the whole time expecting James Remar to turn and turn out to be working for the bad guys?

Yeah, because he, I mean, James Remar is a classic scumbag. Like, he plays many a villain over the years. So, yes, it would be obvious. Instead, it's just like he's annoying. Right. I guess. He's sort of the one who's like, well, I don't know. That's a bad idea.

Like, I mean, that's really all he's got. Well, because there's Wilkins, who I love. Well, Wilkins, who's played by tom barry he's the guy from the first one who's in the first one sorry bilkins not wilkins bilkins sorry sorry he's great i love that actor i as far as i know barry is his name yeah as far as i know he's still alive correct yeah he's 70 years old but you know come on bring him back to this is my feeling watching this movie i know they brought in... Bring everyone back.

I know Eva Mendes is, like, retired, and she's, like, the white whale. She's, like, the one where if you got her... I'm not taking that as an excuse. They got her at the end of Five. I'm not going to be happy until she comes back. But, like, get Tom Barry back. Get Devin Aoki. She's, like, apparently sort of semi-retired as well.

You know, bring in... Get fucking Slapjack back. Slapjack. Orange Julius. Like, come on. Varone literally says at the end of this movie, like, I'll see you again. It's like he's got to wander in in Fast 10 and be like, oh, did I miss it? Like when they finally save the president from the aliens or whatever.

And he walks out and goes oh god damn i missed the whole thing didn't i let's let's talk about kohlhauser this is a very curious casting decision okay so i just on the subject kohlhauser i just want to say bring him back this is the least reputable source in the world okay okay but i was looking at the fast and furious wiki like the the internal wiki for the universe fast and furious right dot fandom.com yes and i was sort of trying to take account of like which main fast and furious villains are still canonically alive and which ones are dead okay um uh not that that really matters right so i was like the other thing i was thinking is what they should bring back is the um uh like johnny

tran's gang right johnny tran who's like the main villain of the first movie played by a bond villain rick yoon rick yoon yeah yep, he's good. Right, I was like, that feels like that's one of those original Sin foundational rivalries in Dom's past that you could bring back from the dead, right? Right. This Wikipedia entry says, the original ending of Furious 7

before it was rewritten due to Paul Walker's death featured a post-credits scene where a team consisting of johnny tran carter varone that's cole hasher's character arturo braga who is the john ortiz character from ampersand who comes has of course come back right comes in six. ZZ, who is like the henchman, hitman character in Fast Five, working for the main mob boss villain. Yeah. And Deckard Shaw are brought together to form a super team to go after Dom and Brian.

Right. So it's like a thunderbolt. It's like a Justice League dark or whatever, right? Like the villains have united. arc or whatever right like the villains have united but and so you're saying this was cut to accommodate instead the whole look that is all it says on the fast and furious wikia with no citation so that very well might be fan fiction right but but i read that and i go well they should do that like they should and like make it clear that there's a league of supervillains and that fucking cole hauser is working with john ortiz and everybody here's

the only reason you don't do that the villains in fast and furious are not really the thing right until later when they build up the shaws and honestly that kind of you know that had its pluses and minuses them doing that right, right? Like, before then, yeah, the villains are pretty, like, you're saying all these names, so I'm like, right, Rick Yoon. You know, it's like, they're pretty disposable. Family is the most important thing, yada, yada, yada. That is why, David, I would not necessarily be that excited

if they announced they were bringing back one of those guys. If they announced that all six guys have formed a Voltron. Yeah, if they've got, like, a suicide squad of furious bad guys that's really right like i just think it's funny if all these guys show up and they're like you thought we were expendable speaking of griffin speaking of uh we were talking about this off mic uh you know um actors who you're like what are they up to and it turns out they're on some tv show what tv show is cole hauser on right now what oh jesus he's on a hit show hit network most watched shows on television not network cable he's on a cable show that's one of the most watched shows on television he's not on one of the walking dead shows no he's not i know what i know the answer

to this i just don't know the name of the show because there's like eight shows that fit in that world. Fuck. Is it like a USA Network thing? Yes, it's one of the shows that you don't know what channel it's on. It's on the Paramount Network. Is he on Yellowstone? He's on Yellowstone. That's the name of it.

Kaz and Wes Bentley and Kelly Riley and Danny Houston and Gil Birmingham. They're just all plugging away. I saw him on the Long Island Railroad once when I was coming home from my internship or my PA job with my wife. He was with his parents, and we were sitting in the the same section the same train car and i said hey man i love you as an actor i don't i'm and i'm a i'm young i don't understand the level how you're supposed to talk to people like that yet i haven't had it i haven't had enough of the reverse engagements that i realize how awful i'm being of a person at this point you had not yet gotten to the point where you tell people to fuck off on the LIRR.

Exactly. So, and I'm like, I think you're such a great, he's like, yeah, I'm like, Good Will Hunting. And I'm like panicking trying to think of another movie. You can't even say like School Ties? No, I don't remember School Ties. I forget. I say another. I finally come to one.

I'm like, oh oh i can't place the other movies right days of views that's what it is he's got he's the paddle guy days so i say days of views he's like oh that's really and his and i've been in this exact situation where he's like okay and like turns back and his parents are like talk to the boy you You know what I mean? Like his parents give him the look like, Cole, like, come on, this is part of the, you know? And so I've seen it with my mom where we were in Vegas and my mom is going, no, you should take a picture with him. And I'm like, the guy's not even asking for a picture. And I'm like, he's just a fan of Guy Code.

Let him walk away. And my mom's like, no, no, no. I'll take a picture of you guys. What's your name? What's your name? John, give him your email. I'm like, wait, mom. Mom, stop, dude.

So it was fun to do that once, see it happen to Cole. I was looking here. I found the production notes from when this movie was coming out that they would send to press to consult. And there's the whole sort of write-up about the cast right where they give a couple graphs to each cast member and most of the people in this movie are like fresh stars or this is their breakout thing right yeah or you you know them but you don't know them as actors right so it's like three paragraphs where they're trying to like make it sound like they've done shit before we're're like, this is Eva Mendez's big year where she sort of

breaks out where she has like this and out of time and stuck on you and is like suddenly in a lot of movies. Training Day, she has the one scene like two years before that. And that's what sort of puts her on the map. But so they're like sort of saying like Eva Mendez is like one of the hottest new actresses. She has five movies coming out like everyone. They're sort of saying that about like Tyrese has been on MTV a lot. He's just now one of the most exciting new leading men. And then you go to Cole Hauser and it's like Cole Hauser has recently signed on to do Mel Gibson's paparazzi. He was recently seen Anton Fuqua's Tears of the Sun, right? He's he's playing the boyfriend of Robin Wright Penn and White Oleander. So you're like, okay, that's sort of where his career was at, all these movies that

don't really connect, right? Okay. And then you look at the graph and then it says his additional film credits include Pitch Black, Stephen Freer's The High Low Country, Gus Van Sant's Good Will Hunting, John Singleton's Higher Learning, Adam Goldberg's Indie Scotch and Milk, Robert Mandel's School Ties, and Richard Linklater's Cold Hit Days hit days of confused and you're like wow he was he was a thing like he did have a good fucking resume at that point but he never had him i feel like he didn't get enough meat in any of those no i mean wonderful career i would kill to have that career but always the smaller but always like number eight on the call sheet. Always playing like supporting asshole.

Like that was his zone. That was his zone. You know, he had actually gotten an Indie Spirit supporting actor nomination for Tigerland, which he's excellent in. The movie that was,

you know, most best known as Colin Farrell's breakout movie. And, but it's for a drill sergeant performance. Sure. You know, and he's, he nails it. You know, but it's for a drill sergeant performance sure you know and he's he he nails it you know like it's a supporting asshole performance and he nails it and it just was clear that's probably his you know that's his own forever that's what he's gonna do forever like he got that show cave ill with anthony anderson that was like a new orleans cop show post katrina that was like so hyped and got canceled you know went nowhere like that that was like a New Orleans cop show post-Katrina that was like so hyped and got canceled, you know, went nowhere.

Like that's like a swing that missed. Paparazzi was like his one movie where he got to be the lead and that movie doesn't exist. He is not, in my opinion, particularly good casting. He's in Jarhead 2, Field of Fire. Of course he is. Of course he is. Not Jarhead 3, to be clear. No.

He only did 2. He only did 2. You were going to say, David, he's not particularly good casting? I don't think, he's not the person I would pick to play an Argentinian drug lord in Miami. That's all. Okay? Sure. I don't mean to be mean to Cole Hauser.

I don't know why. I know he was in a movie that John Singleton directed. I assume that. John Singleton had just cast him to play a Nazi skinhead. But yeah. I mean, he's just. Do you guys like Cole Hauser in this movie? I think he's fun.

I think they probably should have rewritten the character to not be Argentinian. Yeah. Like, you know, he's got okay scumbag energy but i don't really buy him as the big man that like my custom is trying to get yeah exactly like you know he seems like the guy who will then get you the next guy you know what i mean if you're trying to flip yes up the. He seems aggressively domestic. Yes. Very not international.

For a guy who to be chased by customs, the most suburban American-looking fucking guy in the movie. The customs is after this Miami-based whatever he is. I think he is successful in projecting a very Miami grodyness, but it is. He's good at the dirtbag. Yes. Right. Yeah.

It is interesting for how much Cole Hauser's thing was being kind of an aggro asshole. Right. And getting nominated for playing a drill sergeant that he feels pretty low energy in this movie. And that feels like a choice that he's doing to underplay shit which is maybe not the right choice for this movie he's playing it too cool for sure yeah him him and brian which is saying a lot for this movie yeah yes yes obviously he has the big torture scene like that's his kind of really nasty scene where he puts the rat on my mark boone jr

in the bucket oh shit yeah but that's kind of more and he like yells and he says like the movie's one fuck there right like so you know he's like a little more dialed up there but the rat is kind of i don't know david death by rat no the rat is kind of the scariest thing in that scene like kohlhauser is like like, maybe number two. He doesn't get any other moments where he's, like, a badass. No, no, and it's like, that's... Cuts the cigar, you know, that's about it. This whole thing about the fucking cutter. He loves that cigar cutter.

But that's the moment where it's like, okay, that dynamic's interesting, where you're sort of playing the, like, low-level, Fast and Furious version of a bond villain right where it's like here's my horrible contraption that's going to torture you and he can stand there quietly and calmly and monologue about like the pain they're about to experience that works when he's just standing outside of his villa and he's monologuing with that same quiet energy you want someone to be like fucking slicing up the ham a little bit more.

I will say, in quarantine, I tried to watch all the Vin Diesel movies I'd never seen before. And one of Vin Diesel's least existent movies is A Man Apart with F. Gary Gray, which was a movie I think he shot after Fast and Furious, but before it came out. And then they delayed it to try to make it a bigger hit off of the fact that he had popped. And it's, like, a nothing fucking undercover cop movie.

But Timothy Oliphant, oddly, plays the Cole Hauser-esque character in that movie's L.A. to Vin Diesel's Vin Diesel. L.A. to Vin Diesel's Vin Diesel. And I just watching this think about how much fun Oliphant is having in that role in that movie. And it's like there's no scenario in which Timothy Oliphant having passed on playing Dominic Toretto is going to agree to play the villain in the sequel. Right. But you want someone with a little bit of that humor i think yeah he doesn't have any sense of humor that's a good right that's a good call yeah putting him in good company with the rest of the movie but like maybe you need one person who has a sense of humor to be in the movie right well that's a fit so obviously paul walker is no cut up you know i'm never gonna turn to paul walker for laughs as much as we said like he is funny yeah it's situationally like it's something like pleasant phil like he could do that but so roman obviously should be the comic relief and there are moments

yes like it you know the ejector seat like there's stuff but he is also kind of like trying to do of indeed like he's trying to also be a badass. This is the problem. Roman sort of has to be both parts of the buddy dynamic. Like Tyrese is so much more dynamic in this movie than Walker is that he simultaneously has to be the funny guy and the scary guy. Well, somebody has to be somebody. Because if you're looking across at your scene partner, Paul Walker,

and he's like, I don't know, man. You're like, OK, all right. Yeah, I guess I'll carry this one for us. And this this movie doesn't have the Fast and Furious, you know, tension of he's undercover. Will he get found out? Any of that stuff? Yeah, sure. They're undercover with Cole Hauser.

But like, there's not any tension to that no that there's that there's not really any tension to are they going to get the bad guys no what that you know like when it's like oh these you know his two heavies were told to kill you i'm not afraid of those two heavy guys like you know like they're not the henchmen enrique and roberto like you know they're not going to kill paul walker no as a matter of fact you can tell eva mendez at that point like hey you could have texted this to me because you're gonna get us killed by standing here right now oh and veron's outside you and he doesn't see you climbing on the roof of the boat i love i love eva mendez as an actress she's got and she shares a birthday with my daughter oh no she shared a birth she shared a due date with my

daughter that's what it is. But she's got nothing to do in this. Like, you know, she's pretty short changed by this. I mean, she's another Paul Walker, which it's like you don't want another person on the inside. She's like the fourth undercover person in the last two movies. Yeah. Why isn't she just doing all of it? It's true.

It's a fair. Yeah, absolutely. Because his whole thing is like this guy is like a fucking dork. has two movies yeah why isn't she just doing all of it it's true it's a fair yeah absolutely because his whole thing is like this guy is like a fucking dork he's gonna stick out like a sore thumb in these circles i run and let me get my guy and then once he brings his guy in there like by the way that girl that you were flirting with at the race earlier she's on the inside as well she she's clearly pulling it off he didn't sniff her out. Right. That's all true. She's deep embedded. She's like running missions for the guy, basically.

Maybe she doesn't have her driver's license. That would be funny if that's what it was revealed to be. A woman who's undercover and being accused constantly of fucking the crime boss. Like, we know you're in love with him. It's like, what? That's like Fast One fucking, what's his name? Blinkin' is screaming at fucking. I know you're fucking Toretto.

I know it, Brian. You sucking off Dominic Toretto at the garage late at night after a couple of Coronas. It's like, what? Why is this your jump to for Eva Mendes? She's been under for a year. Get her out. We can't. Well, then it's your fault.

Like, if she's doing the the you guys are the bad fucking she must have fallen for him this guy's irresistible him i think she can resist cole hauser she can't resist brian though baby she loves his bracelet at the bar when she starts she's touching him up i'm like what is she doing she's fake dating a fucking super villain you're right though david that it's like the first movie has like three kind of like successfully bottled tension dynamics in right there's a lot of good right intertwined personal and plot tensions brewster and and Walker undeniably have chemistry in a way that Mendes and Walker do not.

So you're, and their courtship is so much more like fleshed out. The movie starts with him being there at the fucking shop getting a tuna melt

for the eighth consecutive day because he's got a crush on this lady. Like it feels like a real thing. So when he's flirting with Eva Mendes in this, it's just kind of like,

okay, so she's the new, the new lady,, you know? You're kind of aware in the same way that when Roman enters, you're like, so he's the new Dom? You're like, I've seen him have more interesting chemistry with two other people in these roles, and also with the added tension of he's trying to maintain a cover for these people. His feelings and respect for them are real, but they run contrary to his job obligations. And this movie, he's on the level with everybody, and they just kind of don't like him. Yeah, he's kind of like a shitty employee. They're like a necessary evil. Like, ugh, I guess we'll work with brian the fucking car guy again right like everyone

just kind of is like i don't know if i really trust this guy but he's not lying to them they're just like i don't know he just seems kind of dodgy dude you breaking down eva mendez and brian's relationship in this movie makes me side with roman when he's like bro what the fuck you're trying to fuck this chick like immediately it'd be like yeah wait now that i think about it weren't you in love with another woman from x amount of days ago like right a great romance with mia a couple years ago and now you're like just see a smoke show at the fucking finish line and you're like i want to met oh she's an undercover cop living a fucking dangerous cover well i'm gonna still try to hook up with her of course why why it's one of those things though where it's just like vin and lynn are undeniably just

kind of geniuses for having the vision of like how much of ampersand is about brian and mia being together again like after he left her and you're like, fuck, I didn't realize that like Brian O'Connor and Mia Toretto have the charge of Indiana Jones and Marion Ravenwood in this franchise. That it feels like, you know, she's, this is fucking like Alison duty, you know,

like Eva Mendes. You're just kind of like, whatever. That was the one true love of the character was mia right you're great you know we all like you but right you're you're not going to stick around it's all the all the reason to bring her back give her something to do and absolutely 14 absolutely i want to see her playing off a fucking roman like i just think there's stuff to be mined from her and roman together since they have a history um but

Roman's intro in this is cool like he much like the movie is never cooler than its opening race sequence Roman is never more compelling as a character in this movie than his introduction where you're just like fuck this is a different type of character he's at a fucking like motor rally right demolition derby he's got an ankle bracelet so he lives in a fucking rv in like the back he hates brian he's like fucking clocking him the second he gets the chance he thinks brian betrayed him yeah i didn't remember that they have a history before the fast and the Furious movies until this rewatch of this where I was like, oh, that's him and Roman's relationship, which now makes it make way more sense in the later movies because they are tighter than him and Toretto in a weird like than Brian and Toretto is. out of the picture the toretto and tyrese a toretto and roman don't like connect over like they're still it's still the same dynamic they have we're like shut up you crazy it's like

wait we we've we've been doing this for way too long to be ball busting uh roman anymore he's the other thing is and f9 just doubles down on this but But at this point, Roman is like a the third lead of the franchise. Right. Yeah. Which is wild. The billing on F9, I believe, is Diesel, Rodriguez, Gibson. Right. So essentially, like Diesel is Clooney and Rodriguez is Pitt and Gibson has become Damon.

Right. In this Ocean's Eleven. And and they do fit those character types. Like that's essentially how they function within the team as well but then he doesn't really have any relationship to letty and dom who are the mother and the father of the team so his his role now is essentially a everyone telling him to shut up right but be more than anything that he's the third wheel to tej and ramsey right yeah because tej is kind of his straight man even though in this movie he and tej don't really have any dynamic

right it's a wonder that they sort this all out over the course i mean you get over 20 hours of of final uh edited footage to piece together a story you should have enough time to reconnect some characters but it really is a testament that when you unpack how they all know each other you're like why does this matter why would anyone why would roman still be in the crew yes why would anyone once you have like 10 billion dollars ever do another mission well especially when they're just like you're looking at the best team in the world and you have like 10 billion dollars ever do another mission well especially when they're just like you're looking at the best team in the world and you're like roman's kind of defining characteristic is that he is overwhelmed by what's happening roman what is roman's technical what is

he bringing to the team like when they bring him back in fast five what is it that he's he's a fast talker that's they essentially say he's a smooth operator. We're going to need guys who can blow doors down. If you're doing... Right. Dungeons and Dragons, he's a bard. He's the charmer. He is the face of their A-team.

Yeah. But he doesn't even play that role. He gets two times to do that in six movies. He does the thing that he's reintroduced. We're going to need a guy. It's like we need a guy who can get anywhere. And it's like, okay, that's one part. We need to, and a fast talker.

And then we cut to Roman and you're like, oh shit, we're going to get some fast talking. And the one time he does it in like six or seven, he fucking blows it. He's always bad at that. He always is immediately like throwing phones at people yeah because they have to make him bad at it narratively yes because tyrese is not charming enough in real life to convey i'm the charming guy in this movie well and what he's most charismatic at doing is

playing kind of a goofball yeah he's good at being kind of scared and in over his head in these movies i want to make it clear i love roman i like what he's become in the franchise i i like the performance that tyrese gives now it's just so fucking bizarre trying to like correlate that to who this guy is in this movie right right i don't even think he's bad in this movie i think he's doing no i think he's good in it uh you know he's doing kind of he's doing a good leading man shit yeah with a pretty thin character and a pretty thin script and this movie kind of as we're all basically acknowledging it like kicks off really well and you know the last act is kind of like okay let's let's wrap it up like there's no tension they just got to get the bad guys i think he's good but i do too he's not and he's good enough that you're like yeah

make this guy the second adult human in a transformers movie right you're not like get this guy to the top of the a-list you know you know it's not that that level of a busting whereas i've been diesel in a fast and furious one you are like that you you're like okay what can we do with this guy put this guy in a sydney lument movie asap oh god uh but but you look at tyrese's movie career after this and he does like flight of the phoenix four brothers annapolis those are all movies where he's like number two right waist deep also georgiana brewster's in annapolis i've never seen it you guys mentioned it i looked it up and it's lynn oh fuck that's so funny i've never i've never seen it either i've never seen it either

all right well i'm watching one of those like post spider-man james franco movies that was like completely anonymous along with uh Flyboys right and was there another one I feel like he just like did a bunch of shit right after Spider-Man that was like you know whatever that was the big one I think of yeah Franco's one of those guys that's like oh yeah I like him in movies and then you're like look at his mdb it's like I haven't seen 80 percent of these like how many fucking the guy yeah the guy works the other one is Tristan and Isolde. That's the other one. He did three big movies that nobody watched in a row. If I can add on to what you said, Gabrus, A, you go, I haven't seen 90% of these,

and B, you go, actually, I hated that movie. Yeah, right. You realize that you dislike the films and his performances in most of his work. There are just the rare exceptions where he like shines like insane yeah like pineapple express you're like oh okay yeah this guy's fucking mega talent right where he's not sleepwalking right right yeah it's uh he's not uh focusing more energy on being a creep offset um but yes uh tyrese and then he like even after

he's in that zone where it's like he does the three Transformers movies. He does Death Race. You know, like all these things where they're like, yeah, Tyrese could be like the number two guy. He can be like the sidekick or the rival. And now he's comic relief. Yeah, it's crazy that they haven't put like a big comic actor in the movies yet. And I mean, I know that's because every six months one of them is saying something insane on a podcast and unable to work but like put fucking kevin hart in this

movie like why like well i mean gabrus you forgot of course kevin hart's breakout role in hobs and shaw as a flight attendant who is very impressed with the rock oh right oh i wish i wish they went back to that well in the credits and stuff just more of it there's nothing good there's nothing i really like in hobson shaw but there's nothing worse than those celebrity cameos where right as you say griffin it's not just that they're there but they're like man you're the coolest Dwayne Johnson. Like, you know, like they're there to be like, love you. Both Kevin Hart and Ryan Reynolds each get two scenes where they're just like, you're like the most oppressive guy in the world, right? You're like, you rule. Wow, you're huge.

Like, I want to be you. Do you have like a, I don't know, tequila I could buy or anything? Is there like a big comic actor that would be big enough but not too big that could be added to fast look here's here's the honest answer here's the honest answer the person who feels like he would be a perfect fit for this franchise is little rel yes oh perfect call he you know what you know what he but here's the thing it can't happen because tyree should probably be like excuse me that i am i am the comic relief of the fast thing. It can't happen because Tyrese would probably be like, excuse me. I am the comic relief of the Fast and Furious.

You can't take that from me now. That's the... And also, I think Vin wouldn't want someone who's actually good at comedy to be the comedy relief in the movie because then that person might excel at what they do. And Vin is, I think, broken in a competitive way where it would kill him if someone was like... I think he likes that Tyrese only lands 60% of his jokes. He doesn't want him to be too good in his movie.

Yes. It's going to make a billion dollars anyway. So I'd rather not be outshined at any moment by Tyrese. So I'd rather not be outshined at any moment by Tyrese. I'll asterisk this by saying I think F9 is maybe the most comedically successful Roman movie. Oh, shit. And I do feel like on average, like the joke writing is a little better on F9 than it usually is. Like it feels like there's actual joke construction as opposed to like, what's the kind of one liner a character would say in an action movie. Um,

but I, I do think you're right about that. Like, I don't think he wants someone coming in who's going to improvise and start scoring like three pointers in every scene. Yes. And just like steal the movie being hilarious. Yeah.

He can't have Bob. They, Babu Frick was in talks for F9. Babu Frick was in talks, yes. Yeah, and Vin was like, I can't have Babu Frick in here. That guy's a fucking legend. But I do want to note, did not know this,

Tyrese Gibson is in Morbius. He signed a three-picture deal to play Simon Stroud, the FBI agent in Morbius. He signed a three-picture deal to play Simon Stroud, the FBI agent hunting Morbius. And apparently he has a high-tech weapons-grade arm. So that's cool. He's like the guy chasing Morbius, right? He is the...

Yeah, he's the guy who's got to get Morbius. But his character is someone in the comics? I want to say his character becomes somebody. Yeah, he... Yes. No, I don't... He does? Simon Stroud? I think he's just the guy who haunts Morbius. I don't think he's very cool. No, he's in the

Morbius, but yeah, but obviously they're turning him into... Like, they're making everybody a character. It's like, uh, Agent Carter! Like, you know, it's like, who's appeared in something? It's like, add them to this fucking uh billion dollar multimedia series i went to simon stroud's uh marvel wiki page and the subheadings are hunt for the man wolf hunt for morbius teaming up with morbius so oh no oh no oh no switch sides yeah but morbius feels like him being like i don't know i should be in other movies right like hey shouldn't i like i'm a valuable famous person shouldn't i do some of

this stuff right well all that i'm saying about tyrese like he doesn't blow me away in these movies but he's better than 75 of like blockbuster stars it's like absolutely put him in fucking anything you know like i don't think he could do this shit like burnthal's doing in a movie or something like that but he could do anything less serious than that tyrese could just fucking put any blockbuster john we both just watched the angelina jolie firewatch movie which i refuse to say the name of because i always forget to those who want me dead or whatever. I hate phrase titles. I never remember them.

Too long. Too long. But Bernthal, as he does in fucking Wind River, as he does in all Taylor Sheridan movies, I guess, just killing his supporting role. Just doing a great, just doing exactly what's expected of him. I fucking love the Angelina Jolie movie. And I loved Wind River, too. fucking love the angelina jolie movie and i loved wind river too two straight up just like 90s movies where even like wind river even has the sort of like white guy who's more native american than other people like yeah that was my issue with wind river yes wind river had some issues

those who wish me dead i had a pretty good time with i didn't really have a lot of complaints. I didn't have any complaints. Straight up 90s movie, like great ensemble, insane job, and then an insane storyline that has nothing to do with the job thrown on top of it. Just a movie about a smokejumper is cool enough, ask Howie Long. But then it's like now, also murderers. And villains just being pure villains. That's what's so 90s about it i feel like too there's no like gray area where they're like well they're trying to do something for society no they're just he literally starts a forest fire like you you know they're bad because they have

guns yeah they're guys with with machine guns who will shoot the the good guys that's their that's their only character. Okay, so to bring things full circle, though, you were talking, Gabriel, about how watching this movie, being like, man, we didn't know how fucking good we had it. Like the early 2000s vestiges of the 90s big dumb action movie, right? And even though this isn't a perfect movie, watching it today, it gives you that nostalgic jolt.

Like it is wild now knowing what the fast and furious franchise has become that like the big fucking money trailer shot stunt at the end of this movie is they have to land a car on a boat yeah and that's nothing to what the crew will get up to but it's fucking the beginning of it the boat right it's fun yeah it's fun but like this movie cost 76 million dollars right which is like a huge punch up from the first movie costing like 25 or something um and like this used to be an oversized big stupid action movie yes yes that was a 76 million dollar movie Yes, yes. still works for me but like now that's the only sphere in which this type of movie can exist is that budget level it has to be that huge and global then you get to a point where it's like well then how do you make a 20 million dollar taylor sheridan firefighter movie yeah you know

it like feels like anomalous because you're like well the gulf is too wide there that movie should cost 76 million. You know? Right. Like, people don't know what to do with that movie being that size and being that sort of, like, modest in its ambition. Yeah. And then don't even start talking about comedies. Oh, well, yeah. Then you're like, bring back the middle class of American society and films. Yes.

Please. Yeah. It's just, i don't know it's just like like 2003 is a is a big ass summer you know like you have the matrix reloaded coming out you have finding nemo you have one of the lord of the rings you're just spoiling the box office game right now come on come on but yes yes 2003 big summer yeah it just and this was like one of the big sequels but still it's like 76 million dollars yeah yeah and as you say the climax is you know they jump a car on a boat and there's an ejector seat and there's no star lord no no one opens a portal in the sky and there's not even the right the fast the later fast and furious stuff where it's like oh my god they have a tank and a submarine and we have to jump you know eight

people from a skyscraper to another skyscraper what you know like they don't they're not pulling any you know nonsense like that uh no no i i do think like singleton maintains a lot of energy in this movie. It is kind of like just pleasant to watch a bright summer Miami movie. Like especially the first movie is so much like dingy, dark LA back streets, right? There's something cool just about the change of color palette. The time we're recording this,

the Eternals trailer just came out this week. Now when the internet's talking about the muddiness and the murkiness of marvel movies and how washed out everything is the lack of colors and this movie like even when you get out of that opening race sequence it's still like man like the sky is so blue in this movie like the trees are so green tez's mechanic shop is like walking into like discovery zone everything is like bright blocked colors. It fucking rule. Everything looks great in this movie.

And it's got like camera movements and wide shots. It's not like all done in like claustrophobic coverage. Yeah. Like even the dialogue scenes like have a sense of like scale and scope and energy to them. I mean, you'll have things like you know the singleton touches but there's the sequence i guess when they're trying out the new cars i think it is i don't remember if it's that or when it's if it's when cole hauser has them like do the trial run for them but that sequence where they like run through the middle of like the town and there's the dude

crossing the street yeah you know what i'm talking about yeah and you're like watching the people on the porch watching the cars go by and you're sort of like regrounding the community in which they're intercepting like that stuff is fun the movie just kind of like becomes a bummer when it has to get back to the plot because it's such a fucking generic like procedural cop episode it's just paint by numbers that's the thing you could juice it up a little bit more and it would be better and instead it's like does james remar want to pull the plug no yeah okay and on with the next scene you know like there's just nothing there like they get in each other's face a little bit like remar is mad that tyrese shoots at them in that but like but then it's like papered over

immediately then it's like well whatever the stakes ostensibly are you know will tyree and uh paul walker mend their relationship right which i feel like they do and they don't too quickly like after the first fight then it sort of becomes like every other scene they're getting along well or they're a little testy. It doesn't feel like there's an arc of him gradually winning his trust again. And you definitely should have more bromance. I can't believe. Absolutely.

There's not a moment where. It should have more. There's not a moment where one of them or the other does something like. I mean, I guess we do have Roman showing up and saving Paul Walker in that fist fight. Roman showing up and saving Paul Walker out of this fight. But there definitely could have been a couple of moments where you think he's going to turn on Roman or rat Roman at like some kind of like, give us some sort of fucking relationship drama. Let's see him.

Like we had that with Toretto and Brian. I'm like, you're obviously trying to make it again. It's like add a little drums. Yeah. I do find it interesting. I remember when this movie came out, so much of the dialogue was about like,

this is the most homoerotic like guy's movie since Top Gun. And Singleton interviews talked about what an influence Top Gun was for him on this. And people were like- And Tyrese is so jacked and there's so much his body is amazing when he when he fucking breaks that window i was like who like he just randomly takes his shirt off wraps around his hand and blasts that that i like i like that because then and then paul walker's like hey you could just open the door paul walker style yeah this is how i

open car doors i i watch these movies over and over again and i don't know how he does it but no one has ever worn a blank t-shirt as well as paul walker does yes like anytime paul walker puts on a t-shirt with nothing on i'm like fuck why does that look so good where where's the hell out of it you know it's the same way that he drives these little like toyotas and these little bits of fish these tiny little cars and he does make them kind of cool like the little roadster things he got you know like they're they're cool like he does not give a good acting performance in this movie but he undeniably works as a movie star like he's just a compelling guy to watch yeah you don't he makes honestly he doesn't need to act in these no and he like and he doesn't and but the movie is still right and he's still

value-added yes he's he's got a certain integrity but it is like the balance of the thing you know where it's like uh you you feel it after walker dies in real life that like there's a piece that they cannot recapture of the yin and yang of brian and dom you know and like i do think f9 is helped by adding mia back into the equation but there's something just about those two guys together that was just like magical uh and brian on his own or brian running lead with a guy who's like kind of beholden to him. I mean, that's another thing is that the first movie is so much Brian trying to impress Dom. It really feels like he has a friend crush on this guy, you know? And this one, it's like Brian trying to keep Roman in line, but also hoping Roman forgives him.

I do think the big scene where Roman sort of says like, hey, I watched that first movie. I heard you let the other guy get away. I think that scene's played pretty well, but it also is a scene that kind of breaks the reality of the movie because it's like, you heard about that? What do you mean? In what, the papers? Like, yeah, what the hell? You were in jail and then you were working at a demolition derby and someone told you, hey, you know that guy who was your friend who was a cop who didn't rat you out, but you always thought he did rat you out and you've held it against him just because you feel like he picked a side. Even though you now conclusively know that it wasn't his fault, he let another guy go. Like, who would relay that to him? These are all fair questions.

Look, the world of Too Fast, Too Furious is complicated. I was going to say, though, that I feel like there was so much dialogue about this movie being homoerotic and sort of the tension between the two of them and the weird, like, energy of Roman seeming jealous of when brian is spending time with eva mendez and now watching the movie today it just doesn't even register i think like i this movie is very chill on that front right and i feel like the pacifist movies have become about men look each other in the eyes and being like i love you i would die for you yeah and also being gigantic and shirtless right you know just these crazy like statues come to life yeah now this just this movie just feels very grounded and tactile which is a ludicrous thing to say about it yes and it's probably just an example of how every single movie now is just like freaking chocolate frosted bombs that we just like you know like you know

it's like forced into our mouths as we watch them and we're like i love this i feel insane and then we leave the movie theater we're like ah you know that's just what blockbusters are now because too fast too furious feels pretty chill yeah and pretty human and realistic yeah pretty grounded absurd that's an absurd stylishly directed right um yes uh which at the time everyone uh uh you know dinged it for uh being over directed uh i just mentioned this movie's written by michael brant and derrick has uh uh gary scott thompson who is like the architect of the fast and furious franchise gets a story credit on it but they have sole screenplay credit they're the guys who among other things later go on to create the entire dick wolf chicago franchise they're they're

the chicago guys right they get money from every chicago all of them yes yeah they also did uh the 310 they did 310 they did uh wanted but like they also made they made a movie called overdrive that looks like such a shitty fast and furious ripoff with scott eastwood who later goes on to be replacement paul walker in a failed attempt at one movie yeah um but but yes this feels like the plot line from a dick wolf show stretched out over directed by like a guy who really wants to prove that he can make like a blockbuster film and two movie stars who want to prove themselves and it ends up sort of being a dead end for everybody it's but it's charming in that try hardness now but at the time it probably you know the vibe was a little more like oh god everyone's

trying too hard like yeah and you're not gonna convince me guys they're trying too hard now matches with the later fast and furious movies not because they're trying too hard but because they become so huge that they're operating at the same level of kind of uh fever pitch yes weird movie uh paul walker wears a west coast choppers uh shirt in this and you're like, oh my God, the early 2000s, the fucking West Coast Choppers reality show is so fucking big. And he's dressed like everyone in my, every white kid in my high school dressed like,

with like the long shorts, the, like air walks. He is Amber Crombie. Like he, like defined, defined right like more than almost anyone else paul walker um uh let's play the box office game griffin unless there's anything else we were saying this over text i do think we should say it on mic a little bit slight sidebar because she was a big part of the marketing campaign of this movie she's all over the poster she's not in it a lot but she is just so striking and she also is charming in this i think she's charming in this i know obviously she was a model you know and that was how she that you know she'd been a model for years she's a very striking model so it's not like she's being cast for to do meaty stuff and like

the way she's used in this and in deb's and in sin city which was like that sort of brief devon aoki boom in the mid-2000s yeah right sin city she's like silent badass and this and deb she's like fun she's funny she's good i i enjoy her good and i i i looked her up it looks like she just retired yeah uh to like she had like a bunch of kids and she's like i'm a mom now her dad is hiroki aoki is the is the founder of benihana rocky aoki who was an olympic level that's i mean that's his nickname that he goes by now right yeah olympic level wrestler yep yep Who then founded Benihana. Her and her brother, DJ Devin Aoki, are the heirs to the Benihana fortune.

Of course, people who are wildly successful in life are also heirs to insane fortunes. She doesn't need to do anything. But then she also got a modeling fortune and a movie fortune. And then also married a billionaire. I think this guy she married with kids is also insanely wealthy and successful uh and they asked her to do the sin city sequel she said no jamie chung plays her part in the sequel she hadn't done anything in like years it felt like then they announced that she was going to be on season three of arrow and then like katana playing

katana and then a week later they were like, never mind, she's not doing it. And they cast the woman from The Wolverine. Ryla Fukushima, right. Yeah, The Wolverine. I like her. She's great in The Wolverine. And that was the end. The last movie Devanayoki was in was 2009.

It's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are undead. Oh boy. Yeah, I'm not even sure if we can count that one. Let's see. The last non-vod movie she was in was war yeah the uh jet lee jason statham uh martial arts movie she was in doa right yep dead or alive i have not seen it i i have to admit she's her husband or her partner whatever bailey is the ba Bailey of Barnum and Bailey. Like that's where.

Yeah. See, it's like whatever, man. She travels in rarefied air. Yeah. Yes. Oh, she's special. I wanted to know about her. Apparently she didn't have a driver's license.

Yes. So she took lessons to be in this movie. This is like basically the first time she's ever driven a car is in Too Fast, Too Furious. That's how fancy she is. All right, so just parallel park. You did a great job in the parallel park. Okay, now we're going to drive towards this drawbridge here. And if you will punch it,

they're going to raise the bridge up. If you'll hit the Nas button now. Okay, now let's see how you use nas on the highway uh i if i have one strike against singleton in this movie it's he loves the sped up nas footage like he took that from one and was like i could bet you i could do some wild fucking hyperdrive shit thing where like the view outside their windows becomes like all smudged yeah it looks like they did a whip it basically yeah i feel like do you think it's possible like the hunt the producers are like look you can do whatever you want but you better have three

separate naz sequences like you know we naz tested off the charts for us where you better load this movie was like a big breakout in the first. They were selling the Nas energy drinks and shit. Nitrogen, the element, is a big fucking behind-the-scenes sponsor of three. Yes. They were worried about rehashing their image. Everyone thinks they're just inert gas, and it's like, no, we gotta show them that you can go N-O-2 and go, or N-2-O, N-2-O and go fucking ham.

Can I read one thing quickly before we do the box office game, David? Yep. Our friend, past and future guest, Bill Gobiri, wrote a very good piece for Vulture when Singleton died in 2019, and it was his piece, Making the Case for Poetic Justice and Too Fast, Too Furious,

which he argued were the two sort of undersung movies in Singleton's filmography. Right, this sort of like, look beyond Boys of the Hood, this guy actually made a lot of good movies. Right. And this is, I think, a good point.

I'm just not even going to try to put it in my own words. I'm just going to say exactly what Bilge said because he crystallized something that I never would have come to on my own. But I think he is very right about. He's talking about how Too Fast, Too Furious is the movie that even Fast and Furious fans don't really like, right? And he says, but I've always had a soft spot for it in part because beneath all of its pop gloss, Too Fast, Too Furious reveals something essential about Singleton's artistry.

For all its sun-drenched, candy-colored aesthetic, the film's world is steeped in mistrust. Every character has an axe to grind. Singleton takes the aggressive one-note conflicts of the action genre and builds whole networks of resentment out of them. This lends the picture a weird authenticity despite the general dopiness of the plot. None of the actors feel like they're posturing. You really are waiting for every scene to break out in violence this is a testament both to singleton's vision and to his incredible facility with actors he gets them all to commit i i think that is true and well said hell yeah love that uh well if bill if bilga happens to

be listening i'm also a diehard black hat fan, and you made me rewatch it just talking about it. Hell yeah. So I just, to communicate via blank check to Bilga, thank you for turning me on to the man and getting to read his writing, but also fellow Black Hatter over here. A tip of the Black Hat to Bilga. Well, and this movie made, in its opening weekend, Griffin, I'm trying to do the math, about six black hats yeah yeah yeah did 50 million dollars huge huge huge opening weekend like this was uh movies did not

open that big very often at this point in time no i remember it being kind of a mind-blowing number this is june 6 2003 uh and it's knocking off one of the biggest hits of the year, Griffin. Finding Nemo? Yeah. Right, I guessed it already. You've got this ice cold. Yeah, you know this. A, this is one of those periods

that burned into my brain. But the other thing is, I just remember vividly that everyone was like, well, The Matrix is the biggest movie of the year. It's impossible. Matrix is the most anticipated thing. The Matrix sequel is going to be

like the fucking Phantom Menace. And then Nemo ended up being the highest grossing film. And obviously, well, number three, Griffin, is a comedy. Finding Nemo

has made $140 million in two weeks. That's huge. Funny Nemo was the highest grossing Pixar movie until... Animated film. Animated film, period. It was the highest grossing Pixar movie until... Animated film. Animated film, period.

It was the highest grossing animated film. Until Incredibles 2? I can't remember if Toy Story 3... It might be Incredibles. You were right. Yeah. Anyway. But I remember it knocked off The Lion King.

It was the biggest animated film ever. Number three, it's a comedy. Oh, Shrek 2 toppled. I'm stupid. I'm a fucking idiot. Oh, yeah. Shrek 2. Yeah.

Number three is a comedy. Yep. Movie star comedy. Huge hit. Number 3 is a huge hit. Colossal. Oh, is it Bruce Almighty? Yeah. Talking about how big the box office was, David? Yes.

Matrix has its big opening in May. Finding Nemo opens to 70. Bruce Almighty opens to 70.uce almighty opens to 70 fast and furious opens to 50 like by the first week of june you've had like five movies open over 50 million dollars jesus this is this is just a classic box office game where it's just hit hit this was like the last great american blockbuster summer number Because number three is a movie that is not the kind of hit that these others were, but was sort of a little bit of a sleeper. A fun action caper movie, big ensemble. It's a director who eventually is going to make a Fast and Furious.

It's the Italian job. Yeah, it sleeps its way to $100 million. Exactly. it's the italian job yeah it sleeps its way to 100 million dollars exactly with walberg and norton and charlie's and uh most deaf well jason statham right that's how good the summer of 2003 was that that italian job was just simmering people like i remember that came out and people were like why did they remake the italian job with like americans like this stinks and then the people saw it with it it's kind of fun yeah if it wasn't called the italian job it was just called like italy heist you'd be like this movie was fucking cool like yeah but because you have to compare it to like michael caine's performance

you're like oh i don't know yeah but i like the italian job remake for sure fun it's a fun man 2003 was my right before my senior that summer was the summer before my senior year of college, too. So I was like really coming into myself and loving movies. And I'm remembering this. I was a little beach lifeguard bartender a couple nights a week. But this was a great. I saw a lot of these movies in the theater. And three was a killer summer.

Yeah, that was a let's keep going. Sorry, David. Oh, no. Number five is Griffin already already mentioned it's the movie everyone thought would be yeah it's the matrix reloaded it which was a huge hit massive so it was like a big r-rated hit yeah um god i have not watched reloaded or revolutions i've only seen them once both i was in the theater oh john oh david is trying to end this episode and you've just baited him so fucking hard well this is that i i baited him on purpose because i'm kind of want to be talked into watching them well um this is the year i would say right with a with a matrix

four coming this is the year to dip back into them. You know, just text me while you're watching them, and I can help. I will. Or just come over. Just come over. I'll do both. And I'll give you some rants.

All right, cool. Griff, I just want to shout out, number six is Daddy Daycare, a film I think you've seen many times, correct? It was my sister's favorite movie for many years. I probably conservatively have seen it 25 times. I argue that movie is funny, but I don't know if it's just Stockholm Syndrome. She's still campaigning for Nancy Meyers to remake it, right?

Absolutely. You got number seven is X-Men 2, another 2003 huge blockbuster. Right, another movie that opened for like $70 million. The best X-Men movie. Unquestionably still talk about movie opening one of the best openings to a movie ever

that Nightcrawler White House sequence great opening talk about big hits directed by sex criminals number 8 you've got wrong number 8 yes yeah wrong turn Eliza Dushku remember that one they took a wrong turn it turn remember that one

they took a wrong turn it's kind of like cannibals it's like a hillbilly you know like sort of hills have eyes is that the one that J.J. Abrams wrote or is Joyride the one that he wrote Joyride is the one that's a good movie with Paul Walker

there's a wrong turn coming out this year too what are they is it eight how many are there now i think it's a remake it seems like i never saw the original it is yeah that's crazy huh huh wow weird okay yeah like a another appalachian horror movie huh okay uh number nine is the in-laws which one is that griff oh that's the fucking remake of the great movie with uh michael douglas yes so the original is albert brooks right jesus yeah the original is fucking peter falk and alan arkin and is like quietly one of the best american comedies ever made and then they did a big budget remake with michael douglas and uh albert brooks but also

candace bergen and ryan reynolds buckets bergen yeah yeah ryan reynolds is one of the yeah there you go huge huge bum uh and number 10 is one of the sleeper huge sleeper hits of the year bend it like beckham oh yeah it's like one of those crazy hung around at the box office for like months charming people type you know you know like you know open to nothing and just kind of slowly built 2003 look i was 17 years old it was a great time yeah it was probably the best we ever had i yeah i don't know i do think of that as like was that the last time i was happy whale rider is opening this week i saw that and i remember seeing that in theaters yeah good movie yeah no there's a lot of shit going on in 2003 and uh you forget that like i just read that

book uh greatest movie year ever about 1999 where like yeah and like i'm like and you're just like holy shit like you forget with time and then when someone reminds you like my favorite thing is like you know what movie won the oscar that year and you're like oh what were the and when someone lists the other nominees you're like right oh my god those all came out the same year they're all distinct memories i love right i love shit like this where you're like oh my god oh three was when i saw all these movies that was a crazy something like that's the thing with 2003 is that like it's not that it's like like 1999 in terms of like general quality of movies but it feels like a humongous year for movie culture there were so many big hits but also like

it was a year where there were so many indie breakouts, too. You had so many things like Whale Rider and Beckham coming out of nowhere and making $20 million and lingering for a while. The 2000s are just a good time. 2003, some other movies. Master and Commander. Kill Bill. Hulk by Ang Lee.

By my favorite. Lost in Translation. Shit. City of God. will hulk by angley by my loss in translation shit you know city of god right you know there's right return of the king is the highest grossing film of the year and wins best picture and does the ultimate victory lap yeah it was just a school of rock hey school of rock 2003 28 days later something's gotta give remember when there used to be like 30 million dollar star driven comedies for families that were also funny that were like actually funny yeah now they're all date nights game nights and tags three movies i would kill to be in but those are like what i think of when

i think of modern comedies now and And I'm just like, ugh. Everything's either a knight or a tag. Tag. Tag is based on a true story. All right. We're done. We're done. We're done.

Will we do... I guess we'll do Justin Lin someday. I don't know. I'm trying to think of like, will we ever do a... Well, we could do f gary gray griffin we've had him on we could the uh the march madness yeah yeah it's not you know yeah yeah that's a good one i mean lynn it's like look i obviously would love to do episodes in all the lynn fast and furious movies but thinking about this podcast his filmography would be more

interesting if he had made more non fast and furious movies right why would we do justin lynn rather than just do all the fast and furious movies on patreon is kind of the argument yeah that makes more sense than a justin lynn series right what's his early what was his big like better luck tomorrow which rolls right then he does annapolis then he does tokyo drift and then he's pretty much been on the Fast and Furious train other than Star Trek Beyond. Tokyo and Star Trek. And he does the finishing the game, which is kind of an interesting movie, which is his comedy about trying to finish a game of death after Bruce Lee dies. Oh, I never saw that.

Oh, yeah, right. Yeah. Never saw that either. Gabrus, thank you so much for being here on the show uh always one of our favorite guests but nice to finally be able to cross the streams and have you talk fast and furious on this show right please i was i would have been ecstatic to be here for abduction even more pumped to be here for too fast too well and let's also say like this episode is now sort of a promise of the high and mighty F9 episode.

Hell yeah. Subscribe to Action Boys on Patreon. Yes, please. Yeah, if you have Patreon money, get on blank checks. But if you have like two Patreon money and you're like, I already listened to one podcast where dudes talk about movies for way too long. Yell about them. I got another one. And it's even more narrow in that it's just classic action movies

from the 70s, 80s, and 90s. I don't know who it's for, but it definitely has some overlap with people who this podcast is for. Absolutely. This is the one podcast I feel comfortable promoting Action Boys on where I'm like,

you might actually like super extended movie conversations where we break it down scene by scene and take longer than the runtime of every movie. extra boys on where i'm like you might actually like super extended movie conversations where we break it down scene by scene and take longer than the runtime of every movie not a not a positive but maybe for you catnip for our listeners um and and to our listeners i say thank you for listening please remember to rate review and subscribe thank you to Marie Barty for our social media. Thank you to Alex Barron and AJ McKeon for editing assistance. I also want to thank Lane Montgomery for our theme song.

I want to thank JJ Birch for research. And Nick Lariano. Yes. I want to tell people to go to blankies.red.com for some real nerdy shit go to patreon.com slash blank check for blank check special features where we talk about franchising or doing commentaries on the twilight movies and thus unifying the two taylor lautner threads on our two streams you You will summon him. He will appear. Yeah, that'll be the way it'll work out

by the time you reach that, what they call the Lautner nexus. You'll just have summoned him at that point. It's thrilling. We're not quite there yet. No, got time. No, we have four brothers to get to first. That's right.

And then we'll get abducted. But yes, tune in for that next week, Four Brothers, and, as always, I mean, it's not appropriate for this movie, but I'm going to say it. You can have any drink you want in this podcast as long as it's Corona.

Very good. No one drinks any Coronas in this movie. I know there are none. I know this is the one with zero Coronas but I still think it's the right thing to say