Blank Check with Griffin & David - Die Hard with a Vengeance with Shea Serrano

Episode Date: March 31, 2024

John McTiernan back with the Die Hard franchise after the spectacular flop of Last Action Hero. Bruce Willis and Samuel L Jackson back together after Pulp Fiction. Die Hard with a Vengeance is definitely part of the “we are so back” canon. Shea Serrano (who owns every McTiernan movie on VHS) joins us to chat about this explosive action threequel that features a surprising amount of New York theater actors and a bunch of childhood games and riddles. Also, you don’t need us to tell you this but - Jeremy Irons hot. Also cool. Listen to Six Trophies with Jason Concepcion and Shea Serrano Check out Halfway Books This episode is sponsored by: FieldOfGreens.com (CODE: CHECK) 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"] Think fast. Look alive, podcast hard. I just, you were struggling to find a quote. I was scrambling on the quotes page. This is a well written movie with a lot of. That's what we used to do, we used to always just do the tag lines. I only started going to the quotes

when the tag lines started failing me. But like, this is a well written movie. Yes. With a lot of fun dialogue, but like you noted, it's a lot of back and forth ping ponging dialogue. There'll be a lot to put on you. Or what, it just would sound weird. Uh-huh.

But also, this is just one of the, to me, iconic 90s poster... Yeah. ...captions. Well, let's call it out. One of the most well-written titles ever. Die Hard with a Vengeance? I mean, come on.

Yeah, it is pretty good, and it's actually correct. It's correct. Like there's someone who wants vengeance in the movie. Yes. So it makes sense. Right and I feel like people will try this to little success. This same sort of can you make the sequel title a sentence? Live Free or Die Hard, A Good Day to Die Hard. Those for me don't work. Star Trek into Darkness. Yes. Star Trek Beyond kind of get no one's I have it's cake I want to because it's sort of like right But um right have it have it be a scent die hard with but die hard with a vengeance sounds like nothing correct Unless you know there's a movie called die hard. That's what's perfect about it Here's another thing if I said to you like what I want you to do is die hard with a vengeance

You would be like what does that mean? Yeah, but in this context you're like absolute what else how else could you describe the events of this film? Look at that. Yeah, it looks incredible. Think fast look alive die hard McLean is back McLean's back. He's in a white undershirt. Yeah, he's got his you know, his badge on a lanyard He looks great in this film You know the thing I was gonna say is that you got your sequel title, sort of, subtitle words that get reused over and over again, like legacy and retribution and whatever.

You're like, vengeance is underused, but it's because it only fits well here. Has it ever been used again? I know, I was Googling, I feel like there's like a red box movie. Oh well, the fucking BJ Novak movie is just called Vengeance. That's true. Lady Vengeance. Right. Which, another one of the great titles. Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance.

Okay. Uhhhh, that's about it. There's a cage movie called Vengeance, a love story that I have not seen. Looks like there's a, uh, kickboxer sequel. Kickboxer. Like a sequel with like Van Damme in like a small role called Kickboxer Vengeance. And then of course we forgot about Furry Vengeance. Uh, Furry Vengeance.

Academy Award winner, Brennan Fraser. Shay, you seen Furry Vengeance? I have not seen Furry Vengeance. I have seen the Kickboxer Venge furry vengeance? I have not seen furry vengeance. I have seen the kickboxer vengeance though. I was about to say that actually seems like what you want to say. How is kickboxer vengeance? David Bautista is in it. Yeah, it's not awesome.

But seeing Van Dam pop back up in the series, because you know they did it after, afterward, they did the original kickboxer which ruled. Yeah. Because you know they did it after, afterward. They did the original Kickboxer, which ruled. And they did Kickboxer 2 with Sasha. And that one starts with them killing Van Dam, but you never see him. They're just like, oh, he's dead. Here's his brother, his other brother, whatever it is. But Kickboxer Vengeance with Batiste in it.

So, you know, it's not great. So wait, in Kickboxer Vengeance, Jean, excuse me, in Kickboxer Vengeance, Jean-Claude Van Dam returns as the brother of his character from the original film who dies in the second film? Yeah, in Kickboxer Vengeance when he pops up, he's not playing his original character. His original character, Kurt Sloan, has died at the start of the second one.

So when he shows up here, he plays a different Master Duran, or Durand or something. Directed by John Stockwell. Who's that? John Stockwell is, of course, in Christine. Oh yeah. He's this sort of jockey friend of Christine. Oh yeah, right, right, right, right, right, right.

Yeah, we've talked about this. But he directed Into the Blue, he directed to Rista's beautiful blue crush he went on to be like a Somewhat interesting mid-budgety movie director now. He's more of a direct-to-video Like he made a movie about SEAL team six. He made this incredibly fascinating conversation. I agree I think this is like really fertile. You've made a lot of Gina Carano movies. Perfect. Now? No, ten years ago. I was also just like, so like Sasha Mitchell was the new kickboxer for a while, right?

And then it went to Mark Dacascos, is that his name, that guy? Rules. Yeah. Who's pretty fun. He's awesome. And Albert Pune did a couple of the kickboxer sequels. That guy, you know. Batista's got like a little kind of like

a topper of dreads in that movie, right? In Kickboxer Vengeance, he's got a little like kind of dread topper atop the skull. Am I misremembering this? I think you're remembering it correctly. Misremembering this? Well, you haven't seen this film shortly. The poster, the trailer.

What I remember is seeing the first Guardians of the Galaxy. Oh yeah, he does, very, no. It's a bad look. It's not a very good look, yeah. I remember seeing Guardians of the Galaxy, I remember you first seeing Guardians of the Galaxy and telling me, Batista rules in this thing, get ready. Right, and we've talked about this and I saw and I was Like you're fucking right this guy's got a major career ahead of him and his immediate follow-up is kickboxer vengeance with that little wig And I was like is my man about to blow this

It is it's funny to imagine obviously diehard was a bigger movie than kickboxer But like where diehard just gets for whatever reason Willis is like I don't want to do it Yeah, and it just turns into that diehard a video series But like where Die Hard just gets for whatever reason Willis is like, I don't want to do it. Yeah. And it just turns into that. Die Hard. Like a video series. Right. With some guys like Jim McLean.

Instead of Die Hard with a Vengeance, 15 years later we get Die Hard colon Vengeance. Right. Yes. Yeah. Hahaha. What's this podcast Griffin? This is Blank Check with Griffin and David.

I'm Griffin. I'm David. It's a podcast about filmography's directors who have massive success early on in their career and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want and sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce, baby. Yes. And then sometimes you rebound from a bounce with a clear, with a vengeance. Right.

Right. Very good. And this is a really interesting career movie on top of everything else for for Bruce II or for everybody Everyone involved I think this is a movie that I almost look at as a model of like How do you study the moves people make relative to where they are in their career? Strategically at this level of success in Hollywood right like? Like, what do you do when you have success? How do you build on it? How do you recover from a failure? How do you cash in on an Oscar? Like, there's a lot of that happening in this movie.

Talk about the films of John McTiernan. Yep. Today we've gotten to the titular episode. That's right. A huge, really important deal. This is Pod Hard with a Vengecast. Yes. And we are discussing Die Hard Hard with Avenge Cast. Yes. And we are discussing Die Hard with the Vengeance.

Yes. His only sequel? Yeah. Right? Like, he didn't do any other sequels in his career. No, you're right. Yeah, no, he didn't. A couple remakes. He wrote his own Thomas Crown sequel script in prison.

Yeah, did you know that, Shay? We'll introduce you in a second, I promise. John McTiernan, when he was in prison, wrote a Thomas Crown Affair sequel just by himself. I read that one time, yes. I would like to see that very much. I wish he had filmed it in prison. It's called Thomas Crown and the Missing Lioness. Yeah.

Sure, yeah, he should have done that. Should have gotten everyone together. Speaking of, do you know that there's some Netflix show that's Pierce Brosnan, it's just like the world's greatest heist I Was I was going through streaming UI the other day There's some show that's Pierce Brosnan. Look how to steal things. It's called the outlaws No, that's that's the Adam Devine movie. I'm so sorry. I googled Pierce Brosnan Netflix show and that came up That's a that's literally about bank robbers.

So I was... That's a silly comedy. It's got Adam Devine and Ellen Barkin and Nina Dobrev. It's what if... This show is called Greatest Heists with Pierce Brosnan, and I'm sorry, it's on Hulu. Apparently it was a History Channel show. Oh, but it's just him, like, being like,

I'm Pierce Brosnan. That's what I'm saying. Now I see, right, okay. Welcome to another Heist. It's like Jonathan Frakes telling you about mysteries. Yes. Right. I just like that he's leaning into the like, I guess Heist is my, like that feels very,

I don't want to just be known as James Bond. I won't host an espionage History Channel show. Right. But I like Thomas Crown. Right. I'll lean into my Heist shit. Yeah, absolutely. I mean I Don't know from the next time we're gonna ever talk about Pierce Brosnan. So let's get it in now, I guess Right. We've basically done well, we'll do mama Mia one day. Yeah, once they make the third one. We've done a crazy

Pierce run, how do you feel about Pierce Brosnan shit? Well introduce our guest our Our guest is Shea Serrano, long overdue on the show. Here he is. Host of, well, so many things. Wait, what is your, six trophies, four trophies? How many trophies? Six. Six trophies. It's an NBA podcast that I do at Jason Concepcion.

The Great Jason. Past and future guest, Jason. Primo on Amazon Freebie. Yeah. Yeah, stream Primo. And you know, text from Dwight Howard. I will always just think of text from Dwight Howard, Shay. I don't know if you even remember.

Oh, I remember writing those, yeah. That was one of the first things I did. It started as text from Greg Popovich. Right. And then it just became, I was just going to do text from various NBA people itch right and then it just became I'm just gonna do text from various NBA People but like you do a lot of white This way, I mean, what's like ten years ago? This was it This is a grant land thing that just popped up and I was like who is Shay Serrano. These are fucking funny

I was very surprised at how well those did and how much people mentioned it even still to this day, which is great It makes me feel very good. You're very good. Shea. Thank you for joining us. Do you like Pierce Brosnan? You must I'm a big I love Pierce Brosnan. He's great. Is Dante's bond Thomas Crown Affair Yes, I have Dante's I have Dante's peak volcano. Give me give me Pierce and Tommy Lee Jones Fighting volcanoes. Are you kidding me? Come on just for our listeners. We're recording this over zoom Shay is Sitting in front of an incredible VHS wall of your VHS collection and you said You had every McTiernan movie on VHS and David said well surely not every McTiernan movie And then you pull down a sealed copy of movie on VHS and David said well surely not every McTiernan movie and then you pull down a sealed copy of basic on VHS

Barely selling video players at a certain point like you know, it's it's near the end, right? I mean this you know, I love this trivia question Do you history of violence you know this right Shay the history of violence is the last major VHS film The last the last one theyHS film? The last one. They do some like, you know, limited run sort of stuff. Now they do like the spoke ones. Now as like a gimmick or whatever. Like, have you all ever, I have the movie Terrifier on VHS.

Oh sure. Yes. You know, a lot of horror stuff. How's the Devil Got a VHS Release, I know. Of course, had to. Had to. History of Violence, I haven't found that one yet. I have a thing of, I don't wanna buy the tapes off the internet, because that's not that much fun.

I like to go hunt for them and find them. And so like, I'll look for stuff for years, it feels like. And I have not found a history of violence yet. One day I will though, and it's gonna be awesome. If you're ever up here, I think it's called Magnetic Fest in Connecticut. Happens maybe once a year, which is like somewhere, I think it's near New Haven.

Alex Ross Perry is always telling me to go. Like a huge swap meet that they do for VHS. Oh, that's cool. Magnetic Fest, just a cool name. It's a great name. Thank you for joining us, Jay. Thank you for giving Pierce Brosnan his due, but of course he is not involved in this film.

He has nothing to do with it. We have Thomas Crown Affairs coming up, but then that's the end of our six months of Pierce Brosnan. We've been just checking in with Pierce a lot. Doing a lot of Pierce, yeah. And obviously he's a big McTiernan collaborator, but so is Bruce Willis. Bruce Willis. Bruce Willis.

The star of this film. Sam Jackson, I guess, does more movies with him. Comes back with basic. But Bruce Willis, one of my favorite movie stars of all time. Absolutely. Shay, what is your history with Bruce Willis and with, I guess, Die Hard and McTiernan in general?

Oh man, so I think McTiernan is one of the two or three greatest action directors we've ever had. Hard to agree. Yeah, you look at his list, Predator is in the argument for the greatest action movie that's ever been made, right? Sort of like platonic ideal shit, right. Yeah, and the one that it's fighting against is Die Hard. Yes. And it's like, what's it, directed by the same guy? What are we doing here?

This guy is incredible. I'm a big McTiernan guy. The Die Hard franchise, I think is super wonderful. It's gotten a little wacky. Yeah. I think this one here is like, this might be the second best one out of all of them. Unquestionably in my eyes.

Yes. There's no argument. So it goes Die Hard, Die Hard with a Vengeance. This might be the second best one out of all of them. Unquestionably in my opinion. Yes, there's no argument. So it goes die hard, die hard with a vengeance. And then the one that he did with Justin Long, which was super like, I thought it was great. You put that third, okay. I put that third. Justin Long has a bunch of great lines in there.

They're a funny pairing together. They had some success with Bruce and Sam Jackson. Well, let's pair them up with a kid who's the opposite of him. There's that great bit where he's like, he can't get his door open. He's like, there's something wrong with my, like Bruce just ripped his open and he got, it's great. But yeah, this was the first Die Hard movie

that I saw in the theater, which is- That makes sense. Which is like, I can't, you know, I was six or seven when the first Die Hard came out, but this one came out, I was 14 years old, you know, we gotta be in a theater for this one, let's go. It's a good movie to see when you're 14 years old. So you don't really rate Die Hard 2, it sounds like.

You're not a big Die Hard 2 guy. I wasn't a big Die Hard 2 guy. That's above the one where his son shows up. Yeah. It might be like, you know what I mean? Die Hard 2 just fucking isn't funny. It's just, that's true. The action is fun, but it is not really fun.

And of course this movie really feels like a movie where they're like, let's not do the stuff Die Hard 2 did. Like, let's refocus on stuff Die Hard 2 did. Like, let's refocus on comedy, him being tired, the villains not being evil terrorists, but being, you know, not goofy, but almost goofy bank robbers. It's like McTiernan returning, rolling up his sleeves and being like,

let me remind you the recipe. Pull the guts out of this, yeah, exactly. Shay, this will belie how out of order we've been recording, but we did Last Action Hero with Jason Manzoukas and Paul Scheer. And Paul Scheer brought up this interview he saw where Bruce Willis said, the secret to diehard is New Jersey humor. That's the key to diehard. And Scheer was kind of bringing that up like,

it's sort of like, really, is that what Die Hard's about? But then we did the first Die Hard with Kevin Smith, a man who knows from Jersey humor. True. And we watched Die Hard 2, a film completely devoid of humor. And then I watched this movie start up and like, two minutes in, I'm like, yeah, I do kind of think that's

the fucking missing element. Jersey humor. I think it is. And I think like, if you go like, what is Jersey humor? What are you trying to find here? It's that feeling of like, being a little bit outside of the thing. Right? Yeah.

I kind of get off my back, you know, leave me alone. Like a little bit of that toot, right, Ben? Like, would you agree with that? Yeah. People from Jersey have a chip on their shoulder. He's got the chip on the shoulder, but also the feeling. Driving with a lot of aggression,

not to speak ill. Should I be here? Do people want me here? Well, we're a little bit of a punchline to the rest of the country. Especially to the Northeast. Absolutely. You've got to put your Dukes up defensively.

The Jersey humor comes from a place of I'll make the joke before you do, probably. Yes. Self-deprecating. Right. It feels like that's a big McLean thing. And we did Die Hard 2 on our Patreon. And JJ, our researcher, dug up that Bruce on set was was just like I don't want to do a funny thing anymore Yeah, I gotta be serious. I'm serious now What were you gonna say? It's a dire movie

No, I was gonna say that that feels exactly right. I had not seen that interview or heard that interview But immediately as soon as you say that I started thinking about like at the beginning of the movie when they're like immediately as soon as you say that I started thinking about like at the beginning of the movie when they're like 14 dumb trucks got stolen from Staten Island 14 Jesus like somebody starting a construction company and then you get there's like a bunch of zippy one liners that know is John John's landlady cleaning his apartment like there should be like like a rim shot after a bunch of them or like an audience laughing. Absolutely.

Right. Laugh track in there but it's not, and then it's just the funniest, best, most comfortable, comforting thing when they're doing it. You're like, yeah, give me a bunch of these. Give me as many of these as I can get. Die Hard 2 has a bunch of guys. It's got your Dennis Frans and your Fred Thompson.

Incredible cast on paper. And then this, I feel like it's getting, just the recalibration, like no, no, no, it's gonna be like, yeah, these, like, cops and detectives and city guys with mustaches, character actors who are all just kind of like, damn, what's McClane doing? You know, like, that's what you need.

You don't really need a lot of aggression. No, well, the fascinating thing is, like, first Die Hard... I mean, Larry Brigham and these guys. It's a good cast. But first Die Hard, it's like 60% McClain playing off of himself, right? Like it's the miracle of that movie and why it immediately makes him a movie star is like, this guy sells funny banter to himself in a room alone. Like externalizing internal monologue in a way that is believable and funny and entertaining

But then we do love his interplay with Gruber over the walkie talkies and with Powell and all these people but part of it is that it's a long-distance Banter then to you're just like this guy's now pretty confident. He doesn't want to make any jokes He's just trying to solve the the fucking problem not as interesting You're right. She that this movie identifies, put him up against one guy. Find a good kind of screwball banter. And then the next two try to replicate that. With Justin Long, who I agree is a much better fit

than Jai Courtney. But the movies do have a problem from this point on of you're not gonna fucking replicate the power of 95 Willis and Jackson going at it and not just 95 Willis and Jackson going at it, but like these two guys coming right off of pulp fiction Where Bruce's like had a run of flops pulp fiction is kind of a swing back in his career Here's him trying to regain, like, grab back the crown of the action movie, like, 90s arena.

And then this is Sam Jack being like, okay, I'm ready, here's my fucking audition to be a major movie star. Kind of, I mean. Right, this is the movie he knows that is like, if I pull this off, I'm above the title for the rest of my career. I think you're right, but like,

Pulp Fiction is that, but I guess he's not thinking of it when he's making Pulp Fiction. Where's this? It's like, right, here you are in Die Hard 3. We'll get into the whole casting story. You're on screen with Bruce 90% of the time. That's the story that like, at Cannes, Bruce Willis said to Sam Jackson, like,

this is gonna make you famous. Die Hard with a Vengeance is gonna make you a star. We can talk about that. So Shay, you're absolutely right. Shay, you saw this in theaters age 14. I assume you were quite satisfied with the experience. I was so happy. This is everything that I was looking for in a movie

when I was 14. And also everything I'm looking for in a movie when I was 14. And also everything I'm looking for in a movie, now I rewatched it last night to get ready. I had rewatched it a couple of months ago as well. Like it's a movie that never gets tired, that never gets old. A thing will happen when you watch a movie one time

and you're like, oh, that's pretty good. And then you watch it a second time and it starts to lose its luster Right and the jokes become predictable or like, you know, they're coming so they're less funny and and the set pieces become less interesting But in this one it starts and as soon as it starts you get the explosion like okay, we're off What happens in my head is now I'm excited I know everything that's gonna happen, but I'm excited to get to the point I can't wait till we get to the part when he says this. I can't wait till he shows up with the sign,

and then the kids are talking with Sam, and he's like, they're like, you gotta come see this, it's a white guy, and he's like, I've seen one before, or whatever. I can't wait until we, you're excited to get to those moments. It's a wonderful work of art is what this movie is and yeah and the theater that first time fucking forget about it man forget about it

where did you see it do you remember I remember exactly where I saw it there's a there's there's a theater in San Antonio it's on the it's off of a street called Marbach it's a West Lakes movie theater is what it was called it's still there now I think it has since transitioned to be like a dollar movie theater where they show, you know, the movies that have been out for a while and now they're gonna be there. Yeah.

But that was like the theater that we would go to. It was a small, they maybe had eight screens in there and you would go and I went with my dad and my mom and my sisters. We like all went as a family to go watch this movie because he was a diehard guy too. Like we had a history with the character. I can't wait to see this again.

I had not seen, I saw this before I saw Pulp Fiction. So I didn't know anything about Samuel L. Jackson. He had appeared in other stuff, but when you're 14, you're not like, oh, that's the seventh lead from a fresher, minister society or juice or whatever. Like, you don't, I wasn't watching movies like that as a kid.

So I got to see this guy for the first time and he's the funniest person in the movie, somehow funnier than Bruce Willis. Yeah. It was like a dynamite had gone off in my hands is what it felt like. It's funny how Sam Jackson, I guess it's not funny, but it's sort of like a Jeremy Piven thing,

where like he looks older in Jurassic Park and Die Hard with a Vengeance, where he's got like the receding hair and the glasses. And he's like, you know, he's like a little cranky. And then like a few years later, it's like, he's fully shaved, he's a hot action guy now. Like, he's so old, he like always reads like a experienced person. An adult man, yes.

But like in Jurassic Park, which is probably the first thing I would have seen him in, right? Yes. What I'm looking at is, like, yeah, he comes off as like kind of like a 48 year old guy who's like, ah, jeez, my knees, this park hurts. Right, and then like Shaft is four years after this, five, five years after this. Shaft is five years after this. Five. Five years after this.

Shaft is five years after this, yes. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I wish... A, I wish I had been exactly 14 when this movie came out. I do feel like that's the perfect age to see this in theaters. Oh, man. Also, could you imagine seeing this fucking thing in New York City? Oh, God. I wish I'd seen New York City.

I was nine years older. I was six, yeah, I didn't see this. I was too young to see this in theaters. So my story is, Nick Wyman is in this film. He plays Matthias Targer, he plays the number two, the very large German man who... Is he also Carl? Who's Carl?

I'm saying this Gruber also has a Carl in his squad. Both Grubers have Carls. Yes he does, but no no, Targo, Targo is his name. But he's the guy who thinks they are doing, you know, blowing up gold for like economic reasons and then gets shot in the sort of surprise twist. His Grubers always make you think they got some political stance.

And the Gruber's like, no actually I'm gonna use the gold for buying stuff. I like being rich. But so Nick is this like incredibly tall guy, that's why he's in the movie. He is the father of my friend Maddie, who I grew up with. I lived in an apartment 11G, they lived in apartment 12G.

I lived in 11G as well, in a different building, so that doesn't impress me. I've been there. So we shared a babysitter when we were very little. And they moved to the suburbs when I was a kid. But Nick is mostly a theater actor. He was the president of Acre Or Zecrity. He's sort of a beloved Broadway guy.

He was in Phantom for years. He's a great singer. He was in Les Mis. But because he's also this kind like, kind of absolute unit, he shows up especially in the 90s in movies sometimes, it's like, you know, the enforcers, like big guys. So, Nick, we should, I should interview him. We should have him on. We should figure something out.

Some private parts? He's in a zillion things. He's in a lot of stuff. And he's a, you know, a great story guy. He's done it all, right? I remember, I was at Maddie's birthday, or something, some kind of party, Nick had just come back from making this movie. And his brother was a big, like, he was there too,

and he was like a big movie nerd, and Nick brought him, I believe, a gold bar. Or a brick, like a prop from the set. As a gift. And I didn't... I knew what Die Hard was, maybe, but I'd never seen it. But I knew this was a big deal. You know it as shorthand for the biggest kind of movie, the most Hollywood type of movie someone could be in.

And also, just like one of those grown-up movies where it's just guns. Just like guys shooting guns. And things explode. And I was like, man, this rocks. At a certain point in time, for a character actor in the 90s to say, like, he's playing a bad guy in the next Die Hard movie is equivalent to being like, he's playing a bad guy in the next Marvel movie. Yeah, it's kind of cool. You're like, it immediately evokes something. Even though his role in this movie is just to be like McClay, you know, not McClean was you know

Groover just kill them like stop Fun job like yeah Anyway, so that I don't know when I saw I saw it on TV, right? Like all these movies I was it I was a kid you you long this on letterbox. You gave it four stars four and a half four and a half You called it a municipal masterpiece, which is you fucking nailed it on that one That's perfect, but then in the comments a lot of people were saying like yes, I'm excited to hear you guys Fucking defend this movie not defend but like saying that when it came out it got kind of mixed reviews I think it people said better than the second one But like it was not treated as triumphantly as the first one

But I think it was also at this point major critical fatigue towards absolutely yes This is like I mean this is the kind of shit that last action hero is trying to Call out sure right But someone in the comments was like I hope you guys can get into like when did the reputation of this movie change from being? That's a fun blockbuster to that's almost the platonic ideal of a blockbuster, right? And I think the answer is this is a movie that like gained two stars in the public perception from TNT Yeah, 100% this is yes Like this is a movie I watch pieces of on TNT so many times before I finally watched the full thing

It felt like TNT for five years was TNT with a vengeance That was 50% of their programming and this is a movie to what you're saying Shay like this movie sets up everything in the first Ten minutes. I cannot believe how fast this fucking movie Operates we're like... It's awesome. Two minutes in, you're in the back of the van with McClain. Five, six minutes in, Sam Jack is introduced. We've heard Gruber on the phone.

Under 10 minutes, they've teamed up and they're off to the races. This is the kind of movie where if you're watching something else and this comes on, you can't turn it off. There's no boring part. And as you said, Shay, you're sitting there going like, oh, fuck, and the car chase is coming up in 10 minutes. I gotta cancel my plans.

So this is a movie you just watch 10 times on television. Did you know that Die Hard, I live for you, Die Hard was called Die Hard 4.0 in Britain? I do know that. Because Britain don't understand, I guess, New Hampshire state. That was the development title. Yeah great development title Because I think I think you're right Griff. I think this is but I also do think this is a movie where it's like people like

Shay yes and other teenagers and young adults young people saw it and we're like, no, that was great Yeah, and the critics are kind of like oh another diehard with big explosions. Like you don't fool me. Yeah, but then like Justice people just got a little older. They're like no no no no diehards on the mountain. Like that's a big one Yeah, I heard with a vengeance. I think four and five also make this one look better. Like it's so much. That's true This the fact that the two kind of perfect diehard movies are both made by McTiernan Yeah, and that you have three other attempts to mix success of trying to replicate the formula. I don't know why I can't speak today.

Really underlines like there was something this guy got. And it also has a lot to do with Bruce commitment levels. It helps that this is once again Bruce in a moment where he sort of got something to prove. Bruce? Bruce. It's right off of got something to prove. Bruce? Bruce! It's right off of, um, Pulp Fiction. But you have to remember, this movie starts filming, like,

a couple months after Pulp Fiction premieres at Cannes. Right. Right. Sure. Like, this film is coming out in the months following Pulp Fiction's Oscar season. Yes. They're running, they're rolling into this film right as Pulp Fiction is getting off the ground. They're rolling into making it, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So no one knows Pulp Fiction's gonna be as big of a hit. They know it's a good movie. Right. They know it's like boosted Sam Jack and they know it's regained some legitimacy for Bruce. Right, but he does have North and Color of night in 94 both of which are I mean north? It's a small role, but yeah both come out of Hudson Hawk like yeah, it's a bad run and Even when pulp fiction is big it's like okay now you have to go back and like I mean

This is the magic of this movie is Sam Jack's like I'm getting my shot at movie immortality And Bruce is like I need to remind people I'm a movie star. And then as they're working on it, Pulp Fiction's exploding. And so this turns into a victory lap for both of them. But with the energy of, I want to like hold on to what I have. Right, right. What a great noise. It's going on video.

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and use promo code check. That's promo code check at field of greens comm sure field of greens comm If you scoop it they will drink is that is that something I should have done if you scoop it they will yeah You should have done that instead of clearing your throat various times and then mimicking pouring water Oh, maybe that's a spoiler for what's coming in next ad read, but just quickly if you don't mind let me just do something. Well let me give you a little context. In February 1993 Hollywood pictures, the great Hollywood pictures, paid half a million dollars for a movie called a movie script called Smoke and Mirrors,

which was about a sort of Houdini-esque guy who goes to Morocco to expose a religious shaman who is provoking attacks on French colonials. I see, they want McTiernan to make this. It's about the guy who Houdini took his name from? Sounds really silly. I agree. Then McTiernan doesn't want to do that,

but he gets attached to a movie called Bitter Root, a Gene Hackman, Brad Pitt Western, about an 1870s, like, tribal war. Pitt drops out and is replaced with Keanu. And so McTiernan's like, forget it. He also develops an adaptation of Master and Commander around this time. Sort of interesting.

And he also thinks about making Captain Blood, a remake of the Errol Flynn movie, with maybe Arnie or Alec Baldwin. And that sets him up with Jonathan Hensley, who writes this movie, sort of. Who wrote, no, who really wrote this script, but as a spec. Yes, he's the sole writer. Yes, right, right.

Called Simon Says. Okay, so that's what McTiernan's up to. Die Hard, what's up with Die Hard? Die Hard did well. Yeah. Die Hard 2 did even better. So let's make Die Hard 3. What do you do, Griff? Well, they were supposed to. so let's make diehard three. What do you do Griff? Well?

There's movies a building yeah second movies Airport their first thought you gotta put them on a boat stupid I mean I gotta go on a fucking boat. They literally were like we have to do a cruise liner movie Yeah, they write a script they find a script sorry called troubleshooter right that is you know Basically kind of like the Poseidon adventure with action, and they try to redo it, and then people are just like, this is just under siege, which just came out.

Everyone is doing Die Hard with a blank, because you question why did it take five years between Die Hard 2 and Die Hard with a Vengeance when Die Hard 2 was a bigger hit than the first Die Hard, like there was momentum there. But there's so many pseudo Die Hards in theaters. Correct. Yes.

And there's this like, you know, deeply unverified INDB trivia list of like 30 screenplays that got sold between 1990 and 1995 that were all pitched as versions of Die Hard on a blank that studios were buying for like half a million dollars, a million dollars, and it's like Die Hard on a sandstorm, Die Hard on a Blink that studios were buying for like half a million dollars, a million dollars, and it's like Die Hard on a Sandstorm, Die Hard in a Tank, like whatever it is. And all of them, a lot of it was like every studio wanted their version of that, so they

would buy it, just take it off the map, right, and try to attach their own star to it. But also Fox would buy a lot of these scripts because they basically were like, well, maybe we can turn this into a proper diehard. So they keep trying things. There was a sort of diehard, I mean, like certain ideas for Die Hard 3 end up in speed. There's the erroneous myth that the original diehard on a cruise ship script turned into cruise, speed to cruise control, which is not true. According to McTiernan, it is true.

Really? Yes, according to McTiernan, elements of Troubleshooter end up in speed two cruise control. Okay. He says the studio used some of that material, mainly like it ending with the boat crashing. Right. Although, let me.

Yon DeBont takes full credit for that, but I know McTiernan, Yon DeBont, right. Have you seen Speed... Of course you've seen Speed 2 Cruise Control, Shay. I assume you do not like Speed 2 Cruise Control. I don't like it, but I own it. Of course you don't. It is one of those things that's such...

And just like probably John McClane on a cruise ship would have been as well. Yeah. It's just such a misread of what's exciting. They don't move fast. So the idea that it was about a boat that was moving too fast, fundamentally you just cannot make a cruise ship look like it's moving fast.

May I play devil's advocate for a moment? Please, yes. Speed to cruise control is a horrendous idea, because you got speed in the title, the first movie is all about this thing can't stop moving, here's a thing that moves slowly and can't turn, right? Yes, yeah. I understand the line of thinking that gets you to die hard on a cruise ship, because A, part of it was it was supposed to be like Holly and John go on vacation.

Ah, finally a vacation. We won't get bothered by anybody. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think you would have gotten into like, how is this happening yet again territories that would have gotten old, but you understand them trying to recreate the contained environment of the first movie.

Because even when Die Hard 2 is airport, airplane, it's not the same where it's like a cruise ship he can go around multiple levels. It's like a building, he can't escape. But they're boring. I'm not saying it's a great idea, but I get it. But like cruise ships are kind of boring. You just don't need it to move fast, I'm saying. In a Die Hard movie, in the same way, and it has the same potential of like ensemble cast, who are the other people on The ship whatever it would just be a warmed-over version of the first movie or the second movie Yeah, so okay Bruce Willis wants to make a diehard three, but he does want to be paid 20 million dollars for it He settles for 15. I think that's his right

right Joel silver has been booted off the project because Willis and Silver have split over Hudson Hawk doing poorly. So Andrew Vanya comes aboard as the producer. Robert Gordon also got bounced off her. Yes. Vanya of course eventually takes over the Terminator franchise. Which is why I'm now piecing together full circle unifying our two feeds that that's why McTiernan was the first choice for Terminator 3 right? Yeah, they want Shane Black to write Die Hard 3 yes He passes

They bring aboard John Milius and Barry Beckerman That doesn't work. They threw everyone at this fight. They throw the Die Hard 2 guys at it, that doesn't work. Um, they're also trying to get McTiernan back at the same time. He's trying to do, you know, Captain Blood with Hensley. And, uh, they are not interested until Hensley basically shows him this other script that was like, you know, this could be Die Hard. Like, here's a script I have that would make a good diehard.

Which he had written as a spec script, and then there was a point in time where Joel Silver was considering trying to buy it and retrofit it into Lethal Weapon 3 or 4. Right. Like, it was, that was the other thing. I mean, it's the same with all these diehard on a blank spec script.

Guys at this point in time were like writing spec scripts that they hoped studios would buy, either because they were too similar to movies they were making and thus just sit on them to prevent anyone else from making them, or to rewrite them into sequels to their own films. Um, the script's called Simon Says. Uh, it was actually also toyed with as a lethal weapon sequel. That's what I just said! Very funny. That's what I just said! I was reading this.

Everyone heard me say it. You sound like a fool, Nick. And what's the clever thing they do just to fit it right into, you know, Die Hard? What, make it Hans Gruber's brother? Exactly. Just make the villain Hans Gruber's brother and and he's mad at him That's it. Hensley has said that the first hour of the movie is basically his script as written word for word his original spec script minus just Retooling the characters a little bit right Zeus apparently was originally written as like maybe an Asian grocer Brandon Lee Supposedly was gonna be that that was the other thing. Yes. Well, yes was originally bought by Fox It was supposed to be a Brandon Lee vehicle then they change it to Hensley changes it to a woman named Linda then they change it back

and to change it back and to make sure his original idea was like you know like a really buttoned-up guy yeah which I guess Jackson is sort of doing well he's not really it's the magic of the Jackson casting is he is more buttoned up than McClain but also he wants to be buttoned up and he's got this explosive anger in him he's got the anger he can't. He's got the anger. He can't hold it back. But the idea, I mean, like the introduction to this character of just being like,

here's how to behave, right? Him educating. Did you notice this is the Hodge brothers? Who, no. Oh, yeah, Aldous Hodge, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. And Edwin Hodge, his brother. Yeah, did you clock that, Shay, that it's Aldous Hodge is the little one, right?

Aldous Hodge is the older one. Is? Aldous Hodge is the older one. Is he the older one? On the rewatch, yeah. Aldous Hodge is one of our finest watchmakers. This is a thing I'm obsessed with. I'm looking at them. Aldous Hodge builds his own watches. That's dope.

Yeah, it rules. He owns like fucking super rare expensive watchmaking equipment. And he's like the the youth ambassador for like the New York Horror Cultural Society. That's cool. Yeah I like when I think when that thing happens when you watch a movie and you see like a person like you sort of all at once realize all of the things that this guy has been in. Yes. After you've seen them a bunch of times as an adult.

Like this happened when I watched Invisible Man and he's in that. And he's like great in it, right? He has a great fight scene and whatever. But then you're like, oh, wait a second, what? Like, I feel like I know this guy, but I don't know why I know this guy. And then you realize-

You're describing, yeah. Oh shit, that's Voodoo, that's Voodoo from Friday Night Lights. Like, you know what I mean? Like you put all the pieces together and then on the re-watch, is that him? Oh my god, that's him. It's like the Unbreakable Handshake where suddenly you see the flashbacks to everything that guy's done.

Oh my god. I think if we jump, I'm going to jump back a couple of minutes. When we were talking about the like critical reevaluation of Die Hard with a Vengeance. I think it comes in two stages. It comes around 2002, 2003, when by this point, action movies had completely trended away from what they were doing in the 80s and 90s and had become like, we wanna be darker and more serious.

And they started doing that. And for the first time you started to miss the like mid-90s action movie like you you feel it a little bit so you maybe see it then you're like this is actually really fucking good is is what's happening at one point but then also the you sort of hinted at it earlier but the people who were now the people who were saying what's good and what's bad were the people who were now the people who were saying what's good and what's bad were the people who were teenagers when this came out. And it's the same thing that we saw happen when the Jackass movie came out recently.

And the New York Times was like, Oh, actually, this is very sophisticated and nuanced and great and wonderful. It's because the person who wrote that was fucking 13 years old when the original one was out. And that person was saying the exact same thing about how awesome Jackass was then but now they got a chance to say it to everybody. I love shit like that too. When like Jackass Forever is a New York Times critics pick but it also says probably by default the weakest entry in the series and then you're like we didn't give the past ones. I know it's not the same critic but New York Times was not fucking signing off on the earlier Jackass movies.

No, they weren't. Look, times change. Diehards become canonical, you know, great American movies, and that's good. Yes. I now, I see, I am actually now surprised to hear that it did not do well with critics. It's like mixed. It makes sense to me. I saw a lot of it is obviously much better than the second one. It is not as good as the first one.

It's a lot of bombast. A lot of sort of backhanded it's fun kind of reviews. I mean the second one actually kind of got good reviews. Which is weird. Including for my mom. You know what? What? Critics are stupid. Critics are dumb. I'm gonna resign. That's the takeaway there. Alright so Hensley writes this script a famous Including from my mom. You know what? You know what? What? Critics are stupid. Critics are dumb. I'm gonna resign. That's the takeaway there. All right, so Hensley writes this script. A famous thing he relates, I believe, in the commentary

is that the FBI reads his script and is like, how do you know the Federal Reserve is like, you know, so close to a subway spur? Like, how do you know all this stuff? And he's like, they did a tour, they showed me. I read two articles. And the FBI's like, well, you really shouldn't know that and like this is a little This is a little scary that there's like an aqueduct than you know that like anyway

Which is a smart fucking idea like yeah, make the fucking Federal Reserve heist movie Very good idea. I think the better I you know the more big picture version You know the thing that's so good is just like, it feels like a dry-hard movie and that they are still trapped in a location. It's just New York City. So it's expansive and it's different, but at the same time, it does obey die-hard logic.

Of like, we gotta do everything in here. Yes. The energy of him bouncing off of people like New York provides a ton of characters for McLean to bounce off of yeah, and as yeah Zeus you can understand Hensley being like wouldn't it be funny if It one guy's like kind of unbuttoned and the other guys buttoned up right even when you reach all this is a die-hard movie Well, we'll dig into this, but like, this was intended for Laurence Fishburne once it was retooled as a diehard film.

And you imagine Fishburne doing a performance probably much closer to Boys in the Hood. They want him to be playing his Boys in the Hood character. Right. Yes, yeah. A guy who would probably explode far less often than Jackson's Zeus does. What's interesting about Jackson is that he's trying hard to not explode, right?

That he's trying to be like, McClane is like, stupid. McClane is like impulsive. I'm thoughtful. But he gets irritated so quickly that he gets into the same level of intensity. You can tell watching this movie that that his character was the Like the really smart kid in school Yeah Who was mad that everybody was not as smart as him and he put and he plays it so perfectly number one It would have been awesome to see fucking furious styles

It would be great. It would have been it would have been great, but nobody could do bad Nobody can do what Sam Jackson does here where it's just always Simmering even when he's calm, it's there. When he walks up to Bruce the first time and he's like, hey, how's it going? Are you having a good day? His eyes are like, I wanna fucking strangle you right now. Why do I have to save your life right now

is what he's doing. He's so good in this. He's so good in this. I mean, I don't know if there's more context to get to, but then we can get into the whole Fishburne of it. Because the whole do-si-do around Fishburne and Jackson is fascinating. Yeah, and it is a lot of, like, after-the-fact anecdotes,

often not being related by them, but being related by people like Tarantino, who are like, yeah, you know, like, it was gonna be Fishburne and then it was Jackson, or you know, whatever. But like, yes, we can talk about it. Look, in terms of the writing, I should tell you, yeah, you know, like, it was gonna be Fishburne and then it was Jackson, or you know, whatever. But like, yes, we can talk about it. Look, in terms of the writing, I should tell you, though, they do start without a finished script. McTiernan and Willis are kind of mad at each other

because of it. Have we skipped over how they get McTiernan back? Maybe, what do you mean? Which part? I mean, I thought the point was that they, that he was working with Hemsley. But what, is there something I forgot here? Well, just how McTiernan coming back to do the third movie

in and of itself isn't a given. It's not a given, but it's basically just like he reads that script and likes it. Sure. And that sort of brings him aboard. Look, it's unspoken that, yeah, McTiernan needed a win. He's not acknowledging that, but obviously he did. All his other projects had fallen apart,

and his Captain Blood or whatever, you know. So, I mean, I'm also sure that... some money was paid. Like, you know, everyone made a nice salary. But they do start shooting without a script. Willis and McTiernan are biting each other's heads off, apparently. Jonathan Hensley has been brought in to write Jumanji, so he now can't work on this.

They bring in D'Souza, but he doesn't do much. They bring in William Wisher, a Terminator 2 guy, and he is basically like, my job was literally just keeping ahead of continuity. I was like rewriting dialogue and doing fun stuff, but because they were shooting, I just had to be like two weeks ahead of everybody fixing the script. And it sounds fairly stressful. And interesting. The thing that frustrates McTyran into this day is he doesn't like

that the ending is just like a helicopter crashes. Yeah. He thinks like they never figured out like a really good finale for Irons' death. Did any of you watch, either of you watch the... I have seen it in the past, the alternate ending. I haven't, I didn't watch it this time. Oh, fair, fair.

Well, we'll get to that. We can talk about it. But so... Because the ending is a little, it's fine. Yes. But it's kinda like ending is a little, it's fine. Yes. But it's kinda like, just you see a helicopter crash. You don't even really see Irons like, Yeah.

Go, ah, or anything like that. And that's, to McTiernan, that's like, we just didn't have a script. Like, and if we had had a finished script, we might have had a better ending. So the way Tarantino relays the story of the casting of Zeus. Here we go.

Yes. Is they decide, okay, we're going to make the Zeus character a black man around the same age as John McClane. And at that point, they're like, who's the guy who would be right for this? Laurence Fishburne. Fishburne was kind of on an upswing. This is post-Boys in the Hood. But they're also like, you need a guy who can hold his own against Bruce, but he can't like, overshadow Bruce.

So they're like, well, Morgan Freeman's too old, Denzel's too big, Fishburne's probably at the exact right point. Tarantino had originally wanted Fishburne to play Jules. Uh-huh, right, yes, that's the, in Pulp Fiction, Fishburne was the first choice. Right. Off of like King of New York or whatever.

Right. Like, yeah. Loved it. And Fishburne's reps were like, you cannot play a supporting part again. Yeah. You need to be above the title guy. You're at a fulcrum point in your career. Yeah. If you don't level up to being the guy on the poster, you're gonna be stuck playing number two, number three, number four for the rest of your career.

Right. So they told him to turn down Pulp Fiction, which then goes to Samuel L. Jackson. Right. So now they're tooling Die Hard 3 for Laurence Fishburne. Yes. And Laurence Fishburne's reps... They also briefly considered Angela Bassett when it was a lady character, which is cool to think about.

Cool! Cool! But then it goes back to Fishburne coming off of an Oscar nomination himself obviously. So his reps are like we fucking nailed it. Look at this. We played it out perfectly. He got an Oscar nom for best lead actor. Yeah. A lead nom and now the Die Hard movie they need to cast him because they've tailored this part for him. So they start playing hardball on salary. Yes. And they're like, he's not doing it for less than a million. And they're dragging their heels on it. Production.

But his reps are like, they can't go to fucking anyone else. This is Hollywood in the 90s. There are five bankable black actors. It's true. In their eyes. They don't maybe see the Samuel L. Jackson ascendancy. They don't maybe see the Samuel L. Jackson ascendancy coming. They don't.

So the story is that Vanya is at Con and he goes to the premiere of Pulp Fiction and he sees Sam Jackson, he sees the way the crowd responds and he's like, well, fucking this guy. Yeah. This guy we can get for a fraction of what. And he's good. And he's about to explode. Right. Like you go...

You imagine seeing that movie at Cannes and being like, I can see the future. A year from now, his name on the poster is gonna mean a lot. Right. And we could get him for a fucking bargain. So then they like snipe it out from under... Uh... Um...

Uh... Lawrence Fishburne's nose. Right. Lawrence Fishburne sues them. There's several years of litigation. Fishburne did nose. Lawrence Fishburne sues them. There's several years of litigation. Fishburne did get some penalty payment. Yeah, because I guess there are some promises made. Reneged on a verbal agreement.

But the thing Tarantino gives himself credit for is that he says basically, Matrix, he never would have played Morpheus if he had played Zeus. Right. It sort of spurs him to maybe take the next weird, interesting offer. And to be the number two in that movie. Right. Which is fine.

Like, it all worked out fine. But I just always contend that the greatest performances, especially kind of like movie star lightning in a bottle performances, come from people who have something to prove. And you think that's like Samuel Jackson is sort of like, I need to prove my blockbuster bona fides. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, makes sense.

Right? Because it's like, I mean, we live in the reality where he pulled it off. They also managed to get an Oscar winner to play the villain. Yes. Like they have a lot of luck. That's really cool, yeah. Yeah, with the cat, like Jeremy Irons is like

four or five years removed from his Oscar. So this is, I'm talking about this being an interesting career movie. You look at what is the transformative power of doing some dance with Oscar. Sure. You're like Jeremy Irons wins best lead actor in 1990. That means in 1995 he probably can get paid

a couple million dollars to play the villain in the top tier action film. Yeah, right? That's like the clear bump of that. Jeremy Irons you can go off you can do whatever dramas you want, but Fox will always call you to be like, do you want to play some Eastern European guy? Right. Well, here's a quick paycheck. Right. Right. Then Graham Green is the kind of bump of like You you were never gonna win the Oscar Sure, he's nominated for dance with wolves obviously but five years later Fox can be like if we pay a little extra that gives the movie a little class right right this guy will just be like A steady hand giving that little more than it needs

Yeah And it's probably the highest-paying role he's ever gotten in his career relative to what he does in the film but it's just like super solid and then Sam Jack is the like you've just exploded off an Oscar nomination we're test-running you to be a movie star. Should also point out apart from Nick Wyman, they also cast Sam Phillips, musician, to play the female henchman who never speaks. Never speaks. She is best known for doing the Gilmore Girls music.

Have you ever seen Gilmore Girls? Like la la la la. That's her. She's a musician. It'd be funny if she, that's what she did. If she talked in this film. They shot the film in New York. I would say, you can tell.

Returned and insisted, we're not fucking around, we're not like doing Toronto or whatever. They do two and a half months in New York. They shoot the subway sequence mostly, obviously, on sets, like that's a set they built. It's not the typical like, oh's, like, put some signs up. They're like, no, we need to explode a subway car. So, like, we're gonna build a whole giant set.

And they... take credit for moving sequel titles away from numbers. I can't remember what is first. Batman Forever is the year after, the same year? Same year? This is when that is a trend, right? Where they're like, no, no, no, we're not Die Hard 3. We're Die Hard with a Vengeance.

Right. I'm trying to think. There are like the next Karate Kid, but that's a little obvious. I'm trying to think of the others at the time. But like, that's a 90s trend. Yes. Is that numbers are gauche. Star Trek generations, right? Not in the Star Trek setting.

What about Batman Returns? Yeah, that's true. That was early. That's true, that's true. So that already sets some sort of a template. Obviously simple. When does Rocky V come out? That's earlier. That's a 90 That's what I was gonna say I feel like the bombing of rocky 5 must have something to do with this where it's like it's starting to look cheap and it's

Just like it's like there's five of these you read like fucking mad magazine parodies and watch SNL sketches from that time And all of them do the same joke which is like rocky 1 million, right? They all do the joke of we're never gonna stop making these the Roman numerals just gonna get more right wieldy. Yes Should Roman numerals come back Roman numerals? They are out. They need to come back Could you imagine if Marvel announced tomorrow Captain America Roman numeral for IV America IV? We're dropping our four previous like is that a thing where like some You know worldwide calculation was made with like Asian audiences don't know Roman numerals artwork. We're getting them out. I'll tell you what's surprising

What's surprising is that John wick didn't bring the Roman numeral back. Yes that feels like a call. That's a good, right? Yeah, maybe they should do John wick V. Yeah next one John Vic John Wick V for the next one. John Wick? Did you see that they're just like, we're gonna reshoot some of Ballerina and Chad Stahelski's gonna come just kinda like, really like help with the oomph of it. Yeah.

Like the most naked Len Weisman is fired. It's so rude. It's very rude. I mean, it's fine, but these things happen, I guess. Okay, this movie. Let's dig into the movie itself. Yeah. As I said, just fucking burst out of the gate.

This is like... Kaboom. Everything first set up within 10 minutes in a way that is thrilling. And not only that, but funny. It is a thing I feel very strongly about that a lot of sequels I've said this before in the podcast but a lot of sequels have this very lazy kind of like look we made the first movie People loved it. They loved this character. They loved this casting. They loved this performance you bring them back on screen

Everyone's just gonna be thrilled true sequels often kind of take for granted that you need to reintroduce the character. Not just for people who didn't see the first movie, but that like even if we come in and we're excited to see John McClane, you need to remind us what we like about the guy. Roll a bit of carpet out for his intro. You're right. Yeah. And not only that, but like show us, hey, we haven't lost track of who this guy is. Yeah.

Especially when there's something like Die Hard 2 where you're like the guy's not funny anymore The introduction for him in this so fucking perfect now. The first thing we see is New York exploding, right? Like it's like beep beep hot dog. We're like, okay, I get New York kaboom. Oh my god a city block is exploded What's the opening song? It's a It's not summer in the City. What is it? It opens with a similar kind of... Whatever. Yes. You see shots of New York. You see like sort of dog day afternoon shots of New York.

And then Explosion. But then, okay, but then John McClane. Give me the Give me the intro. Well, just here he is looking like shit. But looking like shit in the hottest way possible. It is Summer in the city Thank you. I just had to check the soundtrack

Yeah, the perfect kind of Bruce Willis like no man has ever looked better and worse at the same time What do you think of his look in this movie shit like the just the just the tiredness Just like the dirt and bags under his eyes the hungover like the authentic the authentic hungover look. The perfect receding hairline. Yeah, that's exactly what it is. It's weird to think like, if you see Bruce Willis walk in a red carpet and he's all done up, normally like that's where they're supposed to look the best,

but he always has looked the best, just a little bit beat up. Like if he just finished rolling down a hill in a fight and then stood up you're like that's the hottest guy I've ever seen and that's what they that's what they present to you on the platter here here you go here you go eat it up people 100% Shea Kevin Smith told us that when he was working on cop-out Bruce Willis broke down the angles of his face and what looked best on each side where he he was like blood, sweat, dirt. Right.

That he just fucking knows it. And it's like, to start the movie off with, he's hungover. Yes. It's such a simple choice. This kind of is the Bridge of Spies of the 90s. Except in Bridge of Spies he has the Colbin. This he just keeps reminding us every 15 minutes, he's like, I am hungover.

I'm hungover. This isn't a joke Right Well, and this is like have you been drinking not since this morning pretty great line. Here's what's smart about it, too First movie it's a total accident. This guy is there. Yeah, right Yeah, you're like who what a bizarre series of circumstances that lead to this guy being isolated in this building Everything's resting on his shoulders right second movie you get to the problem of why does this keep happening to this guy? So they just have to acknowledge it was like oh my god. I can't believe this is happening Yeah, well right which you're like you can't do that a third time. You can't do the cruise ship

It's gonna fucking piss everybody off you can go hey this bad guy asked for you by name, you need to be here. Is all you need. And what you need on top of that is the circumstantial, I really don't want to be here and I was so convinced I wasn't going to need to be here that I was drinking all last night. It's a sneaky trick that they do in this movie, two-part thing, where number one, they let you, they let the audience feel like you're a little bit smart because he shows up and he's all beat up and whatever. And you don't watch him get that way.

You just drop in and he's that way already. And you can put him in the back of this truck. You put the pieces together in your head already of what his day before looked like. And you're like, cool, I get it. And that automatically you're invested in who this guy is. I feel great about it. But also to your point you're like, cool, I get it. And that automatically you're invested in who this guy is. I feel great about it.

But also to your point you're making here now is they invert. Like all of the stuff we loved about the original Die Hard, they just inverted. Sometimes overtly, sometimes subtly, but like they'll be like, oh, he ends the other movie with a gun taped to his back. Let's do that at the beginning. Cool. Yeah. The other movie he a gun taped to his back. Let's do that at the beginning. Cool. The other movie, he's trapped in a small confined space. Let's put him in the expanse of the entire city.

Cool. Got it. The other one, the bad guy gets dropped from up high. Like they do that, but now we're gonna be, now Bruce is underneath him and the bad guy is up here. And they just, it's a bunch of little stuff like that in there that like scratches that nostalgic itch in your brain that you wanna scratch without ever... But without being cheaper and repetitive, yeah.

It's just smart and slick. Agreed, I mean, this is like an incredibly smart screenplay. I would say the first hour of this movie, in my opinion, is an 11 out of 10. Oh, so good. It is like transcendent shit. I think I agree with this take, which is, yes, maybe the back half of it is a little...

I still find it incredibly fun, but it does. And hearing Hensley say the first hour is basically exactly what was in my original draft. The second half, I do feel what you're saying of them trying to stay ahead of continuity. It remains fun the entire time the first hour I'm rewatching this last night And I'm like why why isn't this movie ever best right sure this is better than diehard like is this it like I?

Do think the second you know the the back the last act of the movie where you're not in New York as well kind of hurts That hurt you really miss New York like now. We're just on a boat, okay. The New York's key. Yeah. The first 10 minutes we have like, we have the police briefing. Yes. We have the introduction of all the elements, right? Kevin Chamberlain playing the part I wish I could play. The bomb disposal guy.

But the guy who's a little too, he's such a- He's got an incredible Wikipedia photo. This guy's the fucking best. Look at him, look at this guy. Yeah. Look at this guy. I saw him, he's like an incredible Wikipedia photo. This guy's the fucking best. Look at him. Look at this guy Look at this guy. I saw him. He's like a phenomenal Broadway big Broadway guy This is the thing. This is a New York movie same with Nick Wyman. They're casting a lot of these theater guys, right? Like, you know The other guy's sussical. He was a caster. I saw him play fucking Horton. He was Horton sussical. He was here in

Horton he was whore sussical. He was hearing People are like booing sussical and even still they're like you gotta admit this guy's in the pocket. He's a three-time Tony nominee I watched this guy in real time sing dance here whose lay eggs But okay. So Kevin Chamberlain is like the bomb nerd. This is the thing. Right. You're like all the characterizations in this are so good. And it speaks to the McTiernan thing in the same way. Like this is the fucking Juilliard guy where it's like, no, every character should be interesting. Hire an interesting actor and give them a real thing to play. Kevin Chamberlain's game of he loves bombs so much.

Right. He's excited to tell you about this awful destructive bomb. Correct. And will demonstrate it for you in an annoying way. And he's almost a little self-conscious that he knows he shouldn't be smiling, that he shouldn't be this excited about something that has the power to kill people. But just immediately you're like, makes this exposition interesting. I'm paying attention to this guy explaining to me the rules I'm gonna need to understand for the rest of the movie.

Because I need to understand the relationship between these liquids and the color and all this shit. Right, it's basically, right, put these two together and they explode. But he is great. I really think Larry Brigham is great. He's just got a great mustache. Obviously, Graham Greene is just like a real sort of reliable blocker granite

to have in a scene. I love that none of these guys are in on it. Like, I feel like a cheaper movie then has the twist of like, turns out like Graham Greene is in Gruber's payroll. First time I watched it, I absolutely thought that's where they were going with Graham Greene. Just because he's like around and it's a big actor. Yeah, but it's like, no, no, no, these guys are, like what I call the municipal masterpiece is,

you know, they all feel it's the 90s thing of just like, we're just city workers. Like, you know, New York City cops, they ain't so smart. Like, you know, New York City cops, they ain't so smart. Like, you know, like, I have many problems, like, with the NYPD today, but the 90s conception pop culture of the NYPD is these, like, blue collar Dennis Franz-y guys. I mean, he's not in this one, but like...

But also this feeling of, like... Yeah, let's get the kids out of this school before this jerk blows it up. God, I need more coffee. One of the overarching conflicts of this film is how annoyed New Yorkers are that there's a diehard happening around them. Rather than the people in Nakatomi Plaza who are just like, oh my God, how do we fucking make it out of here alive?

New Yorkers are like, I got somewhere to be. As a pre-911 movie. Stop dieharding around here. Right, this movie may be underestimated. If a big building exploded in New York, people would not really be going around with their day, and then a subway exploded. It's like people would definitely,

the city would be shut down. People would be sent home. But as a comedic conceit, it's great. I know, it is. It just sort of dates the movie where it is. Obviously, this movie came out right after the Oklahoma City bombing by mistake, and there was a lot of fear of like Oh is this too close to whatever reality? Yeah, I also think I mean watching this movie knowing that McTierney insists on actually shooting everything in

New York City I kept thinking to myself God this sequence must have been so annoying for everyone who worked or lived on this block Right like this is a movie where you're like, them blocking off like 15 streets to do whatever section of the car chase must have been so annoying to all the locals. But that's the energy the movie is trying to invoke. Yes, it is, which is great.

Which is good. So you got... Gruber's called it in, explosions happened, Chamberlain's figured out the bomb, they're all talking through like, is he crazy? Is he a terrorist? What's this guy's gambit? We don't know, he's asked for McLean, they brief McLean, he's hung over. You don't quite understand what's happening, he's undressing.

You very quickly set up that he's fucked up his marriage again. Yes, I think they do the right level of that. I kind of like, you just get the sense that they are in trouble and that's it. But we're not gonna see Holly. Didn't wanna come back. In a lot of cases, I'd be like, that's a problem for you.

These movies are about his marriage to Holly in a lot of ways. It being set within one day gives them the out. It's plausible that like, right, she's just at home. I know he says that they've been on the outs for a while, but it's like, this is a day when he's just at a low point. I think it's fine. I do think the later movies just kind of being like yeah, by the way, they got divorced I hate that it hurts that those movies more right here. It's it's fine that like yeah

he why is he on a bender you kind of have the The subconscious unconscious thing of like wow, he's not back around so he's got to pick up the phone and call her But yeah by minute nine. He is kicked out onto the street wearing the sandwich board. Yes, yes. And Sam Jack runs into it. You get a perfect just like one minute introduction of Sam Jack teaching the Hodge Twins. I'm trying to remember what does the sandwich board say in the cable version. I believe it says I hate everybody.

I hate everybody or I hate, yes, I hate everybody. Yes. Yes. They shot it with nothing on there. Sure. Because they didn't want actual. Actual trouble. They're on Lennox Avenue. New Yorkers to fuck with him.

Yes. So it was a blank sandwich board that then both the TV version and the theatrical version were CGI'd in later. Yeah. But it's just such a perfect like, Sam Jack's a little too smart. Zeus is a little too smart to get angry about this guy

Because he's just like this is circumstantially so weird What's happening? Why would this be happening? He's too smart to just be like hey Fuck you think what you're saying on this sandwich board like you you dig it no He's just like what is what is the matter with you? What is this? Right? Yeah. No, I think if you're looking at the first 10 minutes

of an action movie, this is what it should look like. This is what it should feel like, because they give you just enough information so that you're caught up, but not so much information that you're asking questions. You know what I mean? Like when they started going over the bomb stuff is a perfect example.

I don't know, I couldn't tell you one single word that he said, but I know if you mix that clear with that red, it's fucking over. And then they pay that off later on when he's sitting in front of the thing and it all starts going together and you're like, oh fuck, it's over. And then he realizes it's syrup.

Like they just, it was just so well done. First 10 minutes here, as good as it's ever been. A lot of movies like this too that are just like, let's get all of this out in the first 10 minutes. It feels kind of breathless and frantic. And it's like, just let us dump all this on you so then we can have fun. This manages to also be fun at the same time.

It's 10 minutes that sets up everything, but introduces the characters to you in a way that is charming. It has jokes. By minute 10, you're fully locked in, you're like, great, so now these two guys just have to run across the city and stay one step ahead of this guy who's calling in with weird puzzles and games and requests and dares. And 40 minutes of the movie, we, the audience, figure out what John will figure out 20 minutes later, which is like, it's all a distraction. They're robbing the city. You don't see Jeremy Irons until minute 50.

Yeah. And then when you do see him, he's looking good. He looks pretty fucking good. I just, I do want to shout out that Bruce, you know, when he's wearing the sandwich board and Samuel Jackson is like, just be crazy, act crazy. Basically just does his 12 Monkeys performance, which will come out this year. Which is great, like where he's just like, oh man.

Like, you know, he just starts to do that character. Yeah, they get in a cab, they drive downtown. Is this when they drive through the park or is that later? That's later. That's later. That's later. No, because first they go to the 72nd Street subway station, the payphone. Yes. You have that great sequence with, you know, watching this movie as a New Yorker. I know people love it when we talk about how much we love New York on this podcast. But you

watch a real, like, shot New York movie like this and part of it is the nostalgia being like, oh, right, that's what that street used to look like all these stores have closed down those restaurants are gone right that one corner 72nd with the payphone is still Grey's Papaya and the Sleepy's above it it's true it looks exactly the same today I believe the Sleepy's is opposite or is it above it yeah it's above it yeah it's above it there and there are still a lot of also like just sketchy looking businesses in all the surrounding buildings It is a funny part of town. Yes, and a couple shitty Irish bars still there for whatever malice

Yeah, like it's like the opposite of a business improvement district is in charge of like they just like the business on improvement district reign supreme there But they give him the call that he used to go to that pay phone. Yeah, right They get there the woman's on the phone, they try bluffing to him. He mentions the woman, they know that Gruber has eyes on them now. Although of course they don't know who's Gruber yet.

Then he throws out the wives riddle. Which is what? What's the wives riddle? I met a man who had seven wives and each of them had seven, whatever it was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. My number is 555. Right, okay, okay. The rest of my phone number is...

You talk about like, yeah, it's what you said, Shay. Like letting the audience feel a little smart. It is really fun to build an action movie around like schoolyard games. It's so great. That's such a clever idea. Each wife had seven sacks, each sack has seven cats, each one right, it's that thing. Obviously the gallons of water is the most famous puzzle

in this, but yes, the combo of them being kind of low-fi, under pressure, and McClane's attitude like, ah, god damn it, I'm hungover, and Zeus being like, I'm good at this. I know this, being like I Can do this is my strength not like Nerdy about it, but just kind of like nah, I actually like if you just show up for a second Yeah, but but it's like they're all just kind of challenging and clever enough that the audience leans in like it's not an exposition Dump that makes people bored you start to go like wait, can I solve this before the characters do? Can I throw out an atomic take?

An atomic take? Yeah, I'm gonna throw out an atomic take. I'm interested in hearing this. A lot of talk about how, like, Matt Reeves did, you know, used Seven... Yeah, to be in his Batman movie. Okay, sure. Right. This is the movie he actually should have studied more story-wise. Ooh, I like that.

You think there should be more of a ticking clock element... Well, but also the whole Riddler thing. No, I know, but like, the Riddles in the Batman are the more the seven type where they like... It's very... Yes, and I'm challenging you. Yes. Right, exactly. Like, maybe just a little more like energy and frantic.

And the Riddles are kind of dumb. Like, you want want this kind of thing of like the guy is playing with him for sport You want the ticking clock you want real time? He's moving from location to location trying to solve the thing even with the sort of like Catwoman dynamic as like his new partner He just met you know like that movie with the exact same vibe and look But studying this script more than the seven script I always go back to this because there's so much I love about the Batman But my biggest problem with it is I'm like he's such a bad detective Yeah, it takes him so long to solve anything and in this movie

It's so satisfying to every time a new puzzles place before them you watch Sam Jack and Willis Solve it in real time in three minutes or less. You actually watch, like, it's so much fun to have the action movie slow down to have these two guys argue over the water drugs. The best one. Yeah. And it's all the right amount of difficulty.

You know what I like about the water drugs? I always forget what the solution is going to be in and every time you're like, right, it's so simple. Right. If you just think about it for a second. But that's, I think Hensley said that that was like a real question he had on a pop quiz at school that stuck with him for how frustrating it was. It's definitely that vibe, yes.

Right. It's a stupid thing on a test where you like stare at it for 20 minutes. It's like the train's leaving at different times. Yeah. I mean, you were a teacher, Shay, but you were like, you were an English teacher, right? You weren't making your kids measure.

Science, I was a science teacher. You were a science teacher! Were you doing shit like this? No, the closest I ever got to doing anything like this was I gave a multiple choice test. There's 25 questions and every answer was the letter B for every single one. And you could see some of the kids figured it out.

Some of them got halfway and panicked. Like there's no way that this is really happening. I would panic. You know what I mean? The risk of wait, could that be it? Like it really is gonna be all Bs? Like. That's the one test I would have done well on.

You're gonna figure you got a gimmick. I'm good at cracking gimmicks. I'm not good at knowing science. The answers. Yes. But yeah, watching them do the puzzles in here, what's really satisfying about when you're rewatching it is just how fully formed everybody feels. Yes.

Like this, like the Sam Jackson one is the most easiest example to point out here, because he just proves the entire movie that he's like a smart dude. And that's exactly how they introduce you to him by him teaching a lesson. And then you see him, as you mentioned, when he walks up to Bruce Willis, and he doesn't react the way that the other people

are going to react, because he's just one level smarter than everybody else, two levels smarter than everyone. When all the guys start walking toward him and you're like, oh fuck, it's gonna get bad real quick here. And then he immediately comes up with the idea of to act crazy. When that part happens, as a viewer, you're like, all right, I feel kind of safe with this guy

because he's gonna have the idea that I can't think of that quickly. And then we just watch him pay it off over and over and over again. And it's just so good. It's so good. Are the Hodge brothers supposed to be his nephews? Is that the idea?

Yes, there's a third actor in there who is not a Hodge as well. There's like three kids. Yeah, Dexter, I think is right. But I feel like that scene sets it up so much that he's sort of like Imparting on these kids in a way that sort of furious dolls ask like you need to understand It doesn't matter how smart you are you need to be aware of how you're gonna be perceived in society as a black man

Right. Yeah, there's this thing of like I'm good at all of this But also there are certain things systemically against me that I cannot control and certain things systemically against me that I cannot control. And McClane on his face is like the kind of guy he should hate. Of course. As the embodiment of like... And also he like blusters into everything. He's literally wearing a badge around his neck.

Right. Like, and he's like, I'll figure it out later. You know, like... Think for one iota about how anyone else is perceiving him. Sure. True. And I think part of the allure of Sam Jackson, in this role in particular, is it would have been so easy for them to serve up a character that's like,

like kind of wormy and squeamish and like scared all the time. Yes. But they establish immediately, when he's talking to the kids and they're telling him about Troy, who's like got them stealing and selling whatever, blah, blah, blah. And he tells them not to do it, and then they're like, do you want us to take it back to him?

And he's like, no, I'll take it back to him. And you're like, oh, okay, he's not afraid. It's such a clever trick to play. Yes. He could also, of course, be a Chris Tucker-esque motor mouth sidekick, which has been done a million times in these action movies or buddy movies or whatever. Or stoic version of it.

Yeah. The real, like, kind of stiff shirt guy, yeah. But it's a great pairing. It fits the... His look is incredible. Yes, like, it fits the kind of general vibe of, like... I mean, like, Falling Down is a very serious movie coming out a year before that.

But like, the same kind of like, the city's just kind of hot. Yeah. And everyone's in their shirt sleeves and sweating, and they've got their horn-room glasses. I don't got time for this. And no one's got time for anything. Like, there's a few other movies around this era that have the same vibe.

They're kind of like, the city's just cooking. It's just baking. And John McClane is in the middle of that. And yes, there also happens to be like a German pseudo-terrorist with bombs. Right. But you could see just a movie about the two of these guys figuring something out.

Which for 50 minutes, it is just that, basically. I mean, I think like minute 45 is maybe when they brief him and go we think we figured out who the guy is and Lay it out First 45 minutes just them let's say that takes us up to what I think is one of my favorite car chases in any movie Yeah, it is you talk about McTiernan being like goat action director. This thing is fucking astonishing And I don't know why it kind of isn't talked about in conversation with like the bullet car chase and the French connection car chase The length of Manhattan that it spans yes, and how largely correct it is geographically Yeah, yeah, it is it is fucking good. This movie is just by and large Correct on all New York City details, which is great, but it just got the fun game of them disagreeing. What is the best route to take?

How do you beat the traffic take 9th Avenue, which is correct? By the way, they've given you an almost impossible amount of distance and an impossible amount of time Yeah, and now it's this debate of like how do you cross it like a math problem? Whoever the stunt driver is on this, the performance of the car is so funny. Like whenever it cuts to a wide shot, you can feel the energy of McLean frantically steering. Like, it's not like impressive stunt driving and that the moves are slick. What's impressive is that it feels wildly out of control. It's it's later. It's not part of this car chase that McLean sees the dump truck and asks him like do we have airbags?

Yeah, and some of the next is like well you do I don't know what Just the car driving off is great. That's the other thing so much of this car chase Car driving off the is great. That's the other thing so much of this car chase He'll do the wide shots in all the city streets, and you're just like this chase spans 45 blocks or whatever So it's impressive to see they're not faking it. He really went to all these locations It must have taken like they must have been shooting this car chase across the entire production. I probably but No, the other thing I was gonna say is they keep cutting to the sort of like McLean POV shot of Sam Jack in the passenger seat with the window behind him where you can tell like this is real

The city streets are actually moving past him in real time. Yes, and Sam Jack is reacting in real time He's just sitting shotgun in a car with a stunt driver That is actually going through these things and it's like that's all your fucking production value right there Sam Jack is reacting in real time. He's just sitting shotgun in a car with a stunt driver that is actually going through these things. And it's like, that's all your fucking production value right there, is seeing the real locations and Sam Jack reacting. It's so good.

Yeah, it makes a real difference. Cause you could tell, that's a real car driving down a real street and there's real danger involved here. And it just feels, it feels alive is what it feels like. It feels alive and frenetic and chaotic and like this is a person who doesn't, this is not like like Ryan Gosling in Drive where it's like that's what he does. He's a driver. This is just a guy who's got to do this thing. No, he's bad at this. We got to get through. Yeah, we got to get through it. We got to hope we're still alive at the end of this.

It's so much fun. He's incredibly bad. He's confident at this. We gotta get through it. Yeah, we gotta get through it. We gotta hope we're still alive at the end of this. It's so much fun. He's incredibly bad. He's confident. He is. He's got that going for him. That drives Zeus crazy. Why is this guy fucking like, this is like the embodiment of white privilege to him.

This guy just rolls into situations, does whatever the fuck he wants. He's not charmed by it, right? And then you have your good characterization of, I'd argue, the first moment that McClain kind of wins Zeus over. When they're on the phone, there's some crack he makes to Gruber that makes Zeus laugh. There's a clean cutaway to Zeus laughing where it's like, okay, this guy's got some bits.

I'm a little amused by him, but I don't really respect him. Because it's pretty much then that it's like, okay, now go to the subway, right? But I was going to say, in the car chase, he gets over the radio and calls in the fire truck, right? Yeah, yeah. And Sam Jack, Zeus is like a guy who not only prides himself in his intelligence, but is so specifically the kind of guy

who's like, I understand New York better than you do. And for McClain to throw at him like, no, all emergency calls get dispatched to that hospital on this street, so if we cut across there, we'll get right behind the fire truck. You see the moment where Zeus almost falls in love with McLean.

Yeah. You're really, you're really, you're really, that's your right. I mean, you're picking up the right part. This guy gets the city. He knows shit. I mean, it're picking up the great parts. This guy gets the city. He knows shit. I mean, it's a full masterpiece. And then he's with him, yeah.

So then they go down to the subway station. And so it's Zeus on the platform getting fucked with by a cop. Yes. Where's McClane? Which is really a great scene. Incredible scene. Incredibles, The Incredibles lifts it directly.

Yeah, The Incredibles. Is it the first one that lifts it or the second? The first Incredibles, when they try to go into Incredibles is it the first one that lifts it the first Incredibles when they Try to go into the burning building Yeah And they break through the wall and they accidentally end up in the jewelry store and the cops come in and it's frozen Right like he's doing the same bit except instead of a payphone. It's with the water machine Yeah, and he right so he can ice them water

But it's almost like shot-for-shot word-for-word Yeah, and it doesn't feel like Brad Bird did that because he's like, oh, this is a clever reference He did it because Sam Jack plays that scene so well, right? They were like, why not let him do that again. Yeah Where is where John's in the train? Yeah, he's on the train, right? He finds the fake sort of emergency call box that has the bomb in it and he's trying to figure out how to defuse right? Good right. He just kicks the window out and throws the bomb out. Yes, at the last second. And then you have the three train just like swinging through the station and like knocking all the pillars down. Very cool.

Once again, 10 out of 11. At this point, this movie is immaculate. Agree. Super exciting. And I guess that's basically when Gruber is showing up, right? Like, after all of this? That's when I think he gets briefed. You see him, like, on the phone. He gets briefed, like, this is... Right. This is a terrorist. This is when they show him the file.

Right. And then they're like, but the thing is, this guy is actually, uh, Simon Gruber. That silent cutaway to the brief shot of the Gruber fall. Oh, that part is great. Like, you feel it again. You feel it. You feel it. Because they cut the music and it's just like... Yes. And it's like, you get the sort of POV of like...

As much as McClane must have felt a sense of accomplishment in that moment that he beat the movie Die Hard, you're like, it is traumatic to watch a man slowly fall to his death in that way. And the way they recut the same footage has that feeling of like, oh, that's the face he saw in that haunting moment. Mm-hmm. That's another one little trick that McTiernan does, maybe better than anybody,

is he allows our hero, our main guy who is unfazed by everything, to have these, like, just a, you get a glimpse of this interiority that they have. He does it in Predator at the very end of the movie after Dutch kills the alien and he's in the helicopter and maybe a lot of other directors would have just ended it with a helicopter flying away. But in this one it takes off and then we just sit with Dutch would have just ended it with a helicopter flying away. But in this one, it takes off and then we just sit with Dutch while he just like stares forward,

like and he's processing everything. And he's like, oh, this is gonna sit with this guy for a long time. And when he does it here and you see Bruce Willis' face after they come out of the flashback and he's reliving that one moment, and it's like, oh, like he,

for as much as he, like, cracks wise or whatever, that's like his whole thing, but you watch him there and you're like, oh, this maybe did something to him a little bit. It might have done a little bit of damage when this happened, and it's so good. Yes, yes. It's the thing that, like,

he's rolling up his sleeves and showing everyone. You guys missed this in part two This guy's really sad. Yeah, like I think in part two. It's just like oh god. How could this happen to me again? It's like well. No, let's acknowledge that would make him crazy. It's the X Factor of Bruce He is our saddest action star. He is sad even when he's quippy He is our saddest action star. He is sad. Even when he's quippy, even when he's... There's the melancholy quality that, like, the best directors have always pulled out of him

to the surface. And, like, at this point, we understand enough about his character to know, like, he's not really famous anymore. Like, in Die Hard 2, part of the joke is sort of, it's like, oh, he's that guy from that thing that happened. Yes. And now it's more like a thing that had come up,

like, ah, fucking Gruber. Right. Like, you know, as Irons later says, you know, he's an Irish flatfoot who dropped his brother out a window. Casting Irons is brilliant, obviously, just to cast another British theater actor. Yes. Yes, who has a higher star like meter than Rickman did in 88. But also because Die Hard as a franchise has a higher star meter than Rickman did in 88. But also because Die Hard as a franchise

has a higher star meter at this point. Yeah, but it's just like where you're like, yeah, of course they're brothers. Yes. Well, yeah, that makes perfect sense to me. No further questions. Also have him doing an accent. Yes, it is a less silky accent than Rickman's.

Rickman's is very good. Irons is a little more off the shelf, you know, whatever. Irons is doing something I can't really place. It is fun though. It's very fun. I could not find, I could not get this substantiated anywhere, but I saw a bunch of sites kind of offhandedly mention

that David Thulis almost played this part. Which makes a ton of sense if you're like, who do you cast to play Alan Rickman's brother? A hundred, yes, and he'd just been in Naked. So he's like a hot actor, but you're like, the studio was never gonna hire, at this point you're hiring someone who's won an Oscar. Like for this type of movie. Some like kind of...

They wanted that prestige. Rando website certainly do say, I'm not finding like a really good source on it, but yeah, do say he was a choice. Die Hard with a Vengeance. So, okay, so yeah, okay, the next thing is after the subway is him saying like, there is a bomb in a school. Yes.

21st president. And I'll tell you where if, you know, you do my next challenge, which is, is that him trying to direct them to Yankee Stadium and that's when they go off the trail or is there one other thing? I can't even remember. I think. I think that's it.

I think he's like go to Yankee Stadium where they're gonna be murdered. Yes. And that's what McLean is like, I am going to like go check out What was going on in Wall Street essentially like why were we in Wall Street? Yeah, and goes to the Federal Reserve at this point You've also because post the subway and the bomb you have the scene where McLean has to say to Zeus like I need you

Right, right Kind of rom-com narrative of this movie of him being like I care about you I admit yeah that I need you in my life But the movie needs McLean to be by himself so that he can have a like deadly McLean sequence But I do think it's good. Yeah, it is federal like him killing the guys in the elevator. Yes. It's like a nice Lowdown version of yes action heroism Yeah, it's also it takes an hour before he does that. Yes, and it's him being smart

and just getting the drop on some guys and shooting them. It's not him doing like crazy moves, if that makes sense. Yes. Right? But it is, I would say it's... It plays really well. It's the first time in this movie you feel them going like, okay, and what boxes do we need to check?

I think they check them elegantly. What are you saying wow to? No, I'm saying wow to what box can we check? Right? It's like we do need, it's a diehard movie, people have spent their $10, we need a sequence where McClane does the thing, where he comes out with a gun

and shoots a bunch of Nordic looking guys. Yes. Yeah, it's always nice to see him, a fundamental trait of him, of his character, is that he's good at his job, as much as he might not like it, he's good at it. So when you watch him put the pieces together, especially on the rewatch and you hear like, you hear the guy call the elevator a lift,

or you hear them like, they're using the wrong words. Right? And I love that he doesn't even have to say that. You just hear it and you're like, McLean knows. No, he's just piecing it together and then he sees the badge number and you realize they set this up fucking an hour ago with the lottery thing.

It's really interesting to rewatch this movie and we're going through all the pieces right now, especially pulling it out piece by piece and you realize if you're putting together like whatever, what are the best car chases that happen in a movie or in New York or whatever, like Die Hard with a Vengeance gets mentioned. Or if you're like,

what's the most fun elevator fight sequence, like Die Hard with a Vengeance gets mentioned. Like there's just so many cool things they do. Even bad guys, like you have to come in and you have to be the new Hans Gruber, which is the most consequential bad guy in action movie history. He changed every single thing.

And if you get an actor who is 5% less good than Jeremy Irons or 5% less confident than Jeremy Irons. You could go very wrong. Yeah, yeah. It goes very wrong. They come in, they try to do what Rickman did with Hans Gruber. They try to be sassy. They try to be this. It's not that. It's a whole different thing, but it's, it feels still related to the original without being the original. And you're like, this makes, this is, these are brothers for real.

They grew up in the same house. They sort of have the same sense of humor, but it's relayed differently. There's a little more bite here and a little more sassier. Every person in this is like, it's class all across the board. He is sassy. He is sassy. And he's got really, really good fashion. Like the classes and the cutoffs. Hot girlfriend, cool crew.

I think he is right. You're with him? Yeah. Victimless crime the Federal Reserve who cares No, but I love that like the the larger kind of conceit of this movie is like Oh the classic action movie this time it's personal revenge Right for the sins of the previous film of course and you're like, no all of that's a red herring once again some guy just wants some shit and he's like setting up a fake action movie right to distract

the entire city of New York yeah I mean it's why the Irish Flatfoot line is good because that's where McLean is like so you don't care about me at all right and he's like no no no I do want to kill you like suck it's rude of you to kill my brother yeah but like no obviously plan A, gold bars. Plan B, you die. It's when you get back to the New Jersey fucking sense of humor thing, and the problem with Die Hard 2,

as much as I love William Sadler and his crew is excellent, you're like, it kinda needs to be like snobby Euro trash fighting John McClane. Yeah, it is, yeah. It needs to be these guys who are just like, I hate this American shit. It is annoying that in Two and Four,

it's mostly Americans that are the villains. Five, I guess it's Russians. Yes. Yeah. The elevator scene is when I made the Batman connection in my head, because I was like, this movie is actually successfully showing how and why John McClane is a good detective. And the Grubers are sort of Joker-esque. Ridley.

Or Ridley-y as well, as you pointed out. This is a fucking Riddle thriller, my friend. This one's Ridley. This one's Ridley. But I'm just saying they both kind of laugh in the face of crime. It's kind of what the Joker does. They do.

The things that make us cry make them chuckle. What is the fake conversation McClane has in the elevator? Bruce plays that so well. You guys play the lottery? Oh God. You know, I got my numbers, my lucky numbers. You know, I would play them every time. This is what I'm saying though about this being a movie

where Bruce has something to prove, where he's just like, guys, I want to remind America why you all loved me in the first place. I'm gonna play the hits. I'm I want to remind America why you all love me in the first place. I'm going to play the hits. I'm going to do all the shit that made you love me in the first place. Yes. That kind of thing. Like, oh, my wife keeps nagging me lottery tickets.

And you believe, like, he's selling it so well. You believe it would disarm these guys. Especially because he's Bruce, he's John McClane. He does seem like the kind of guy who plays the lotto. The more you're saying this thing about having something to prove, the more I'm starting to buy into this idea. Yeah.

I'm replaying all of the things in my head now. Even with McTiernan, who was coming off of Last Action Hero. McTiernan has a lot to prove. Which, if you watch it now, this movie fucking rules. It came out 10 to 12 years too early. Yeah, so you're pro Last Action Hero. We're on the same pitch. I'm pro last action hero.

You watch it now and it's like, I get it. I understand all of this. It was a little too soon for them. Yeah. But he was in such fine form here. Everybody in this movie is in such fine form, him especially, that he does the exact same trick that he does in Die Hard with the like,

it's this complicated thing. Actually, no, we're just stealing some money. The exact same trick that he does in Die Hard with the like, it's this complicated thing. Actually, no, we're just stealing some money. The exact same thing with the brother of the guy who does it. And you're sitting there like, I fucking fell for it again. I fell for it again. And it works. It's confidence. It's like why they call them con men, you know?

Like it's the feeling of, it doesn't feel like a lazy cynical move. It's McTarran being like, I think I can fucking pull this off again Yeah, and I'm that I need to prove to everyone that I can pull it off again like Bruce and McTiernan Are trying to reclaim what they had they had let slip away a little give me the crown back I want the crown back right and Jackson's like let me meet you on your level Cuz I'm not gonna try and steal the movie from you the crown back. Right, and Jackson's like, let me meet you on your level. I'm not gonna try and steal the movie from you, but. No, he knows exactly what he's doing.

You might be making me a crown during this movie. But it's like, the five, six years leading up to this, he's really proven himself as an actor. I mean, Sam Jack's story is fascinating. We've talked about it before. But then his like, jungle fever and Pulp Fiction, he's winning awards, he's this kind of like, great supporting actor.

But this is his like bid for movie stardom in eternity, which he like, he nails. Like if you're- Nails it. If he did Pulp Fiction and he never did anything that consequential ever again, he would be important in film history. 100%.

He'd still be huge. He would be- Like if his career ends on 94 for whatever reason It would still kind of be a big deal Yeah This is the movie that guarantees like you will never be paid less than two million dollars to do anything ever Even if it's fucking shown up for 30 minutes in Argyle Not his finest work and when I say 30 minutes, I don't mean 30 minutes of screen time

I mean 30 minutes from him getting picked up in his hotel minutes of screen time. I mean 30 minutes from him getting picked up in his hotel to returning back to bed. That was two million dollars for 30 minutes with travel and lunch included. So from the Federal Reserve, John realizes what they're actually doing is robbing this place, right? And they've taken dump trucks of gold, driven it through a water, an unfinished water pipe that goes upstate. Yep, the aqueduct. That is how they are getting off the city without anyone seeing them.

I'm gonna say this, a good plan. It's a solid plan. I think they maybe should have just taken one dump truck I think they maybe should have just taken one dump truck. Because it's $140 billion. Like are you not happy with just maybe like $10 billion? Like that's a lot of money. I mean this is, a tale as old as time. I know obviously.

I know their cover story is they have to blow up all the gold or whatever. But like, you know, when you realize they just want to take the gold. Right. But I guess they have to create the illusion that there's no gold left period. It's a lot of trucks. And so they drive, I just like that John drives up there, tells Zeus like, this is what's going on. You go to Yankee stadium.

I'm going to go up this water pipe and meets a trivia loving truck dump truck Who can fill in some gaps from about like New York City water supply presidents, right? I was talking to a friend points out the Chester Arthur was the custom collector in New York City. Yes I was talking to a friend who's writing a project Historical project and with Chester Arthur is a character. Sure. And was saying like, it's this weird blank slate where for most people their only association with Chester Arthur is him being the answer in Die Hard with a Vengeance. He's an underrated president. Incredible fucking mutton chops.

That's what I remember from my history class. People thought he was going to be corrupt because he was part of a New York City political machine. Garfield dies, Arthur is elevated to the presidency, and he sort of stamps, you know, he's anti-corruption to everyone's surprise. There's a statue of him at Madison Square Park, where I used to work near there. Guy looks rad as hell. He looks pretty cool.

Yeah. Back when our presidents were like, really, like these like really large men with beards, like in the late 1800s, all presidents had to have like a big waistcoat and like mutton chops and like just like a belly. Grover Cleveland. Yeah, yeah. No, of course. Taft the belly of them all. Stuck in a bathtub. It never happened. I'm pretty sure it happened. I was there. The term I thought of while watching this movie is like, this is a real steakhouse movie. This is a steakhouse movie?

Yeah. Okay. You mean that it's like meat and potatoes and cream spinach? This movie's not trying to get Michelin stars. Yeah, sure. Nick Turen's like, I know what this is. This is a classy environment, but we're not fancy in some sort of pretentious way. Right, you're ordering the mutton chop at Keen's or whatever.

It's good, it's expensive. And the sides are rich. It's tasty, yeah, yeah. There's a good ambiance in here, you know? Like that sort of feeling. In the same way where it's like, the screenwriting of this film is so smart in a just sort of like,

an effectiveness with just enough humor and character, the fucking trivia-loving guy, the movie of this, the version of this movie that doesn't do the work, has McClain bump into a truck driver who then happens to know the answer, Chester Arthur. Rather than this movie giving you two scenes of this guy endlessly spouting off trivia facts. Talking about other stuff, right?

Right. Before McClain's like, we gotta figure out who the president is. Yeah, yeah. Right, where you're like in three scenes it feels like we've had an arc with this guy. Yeah. He meets this guy, they have a little funny banter, then they're stuck in the car together, then the guy won't stop explaining New York City shit. He's kind of like you in that he loves explaining how New York City works. That's why I like him. And then of course when like he says, trust Arthur, you're like, yeah, I know enough about this guy to know that he would know the answer.

And it's satisfying that that's who McLean got it from. Yeah, in anybody else's hands, that character is like, ridiculous. Why would this guy possibly know this? But again, they pull the trick. They do the trick. As you said, they do the work. They sat in a room over like how can how can this make sense?

And they figured out oh, we just have him say 400 other trivia things and you realize this is the most annoying guy In the movie, but it makes sense that he would have this one answer a Jeopardy watching, you know truck drive I was in the movie for two minutes less You'd be like you didn't earn this if the guy was in the movie for two minutes less, you'd be like, you didn't earn this. If the guy was in the movie for five minutes more, you'd be like, let's get back to Zeus. It's the exact right amount to let this guy fucking succeed. Joe Zaloum. Incredible.

That's the actor's name. Incredible. Joe Zaloum. He's from New York, just like my mother. Love it. I do love it. Do y'all watch the show Billions? I've seen Billions.

Is he on Billions? I don't think he's on Billions, no. But they do a thing in Billions where everybody kind of talks the same, right? They're like every character, it doesn't matter. They will all at some point be like, this is like Rolling Stone in 87 when da ba da ba da ba da. This is like Journey in 92, this is Tyson in 85

when they all had that, they have this like pop culture slant that they all talk with. And they do a version of that in this movie where they give everybody who shows up gets like at least one wisecracking line. Even this guy gets one where they're like, are you a truck driver?

No, I'm a beauty supplier, whatever. Of course I'm a truck driver. Like it's just, it's got so good. I'm gonna watch it again after we finish this. That's the thing. This movie is actually funny. You said, Shay, that a lot of the McLean jokes sound like they should have a rim shot at the end of them. But none of them are Groners. No, not a single one. They're all actually funny.

Right down the middle of the plate. Perfect. Just classic all-American, here are fucking steak cut fries. Yeah. Here are some meaty jokes for you. Boom. I don't love a steak cut fry though. I like a shoestring fly fry. It's the analogy I set up.

I agree, I understand, I'm just saying. Okay, so now- Chester Arthur School, they've been scouting out all the schools because the threat is that one of the schools, there's a bomb in one of them, it. Now, Chester Arthur, Chester Arthur School, they've been scouting out all the schools because the threat is that one of the schools, there's a bomb in one of them, it's gonna get blown up, they're evacuating the city. I mean, that's the beautiful moment

when McClain puts it all together, where, what is it, when he steals the kid's bicycle, he sees the kid robbing the store, Zeus tries to like. And the kid's like, I could steal City Hall, which is, to Shay's's point another really witty line Yeah, and yes where right McLean is like oh this is a good detective moment though. It is I mean, he's obviously also it's rooted in his experience of someone pulling this shit once before yeah But another situation which he did a good job

winning die hard But so yes now they know it's all distraction Yes, but there is a legitimate threat in their minds that some school is gonna get blown up to keep the eye I don't know that's fake. So cops are staking all this out. The school stuff is really well done because It's obviously shot in a real school. It like look it has the look of a New York City public school the way The cops and principals are all kind of like tense, but not panicking. This is Grant Green's real section

where he gets to kind of carry the movie and him interfacing with the kids is really good. There's the moment where I'm like, I think most directors wouldn't include this, this is such a McTiernan touch, but when the truck driver says Chester Arthur, they call in, it's Chester A. Arthur. And Zeus just says it.

Right, it's, yeah. Chester Arthur Elementary, yeah., it's Chester A Arthur. And Zustra says it. Right, it's, yeah. Chester A Arthur Elementary. Right. And then you have the scene where like they go up to the teacher, where every school is on lockdown, the kids are in the assembly hall, she's leading them in song, and someone comes up to her and whispers in her ear like, this is the school. This is the one where the bomb is.

And you see her pivot, and he lets the scene play out for like a minute of her running the drill 100% of this woman having to make the real-time calculation of Like okay, I can't panic these kids, but I gotta get them ready They it all feels real Yorkie of this where you're like I like watching a good teacher I like watching and everybody's good at their fucking job Everybody's good at their fucking job. Everybody's good at their job. Everybody's good at their job. It's so enjoyable. Exactly.

Real hero moment for Kevin Chamberlain and all of this. Staying behind to try to defuse the bomb. So good. So good. The comic button at the end of it is great, but like, you still are like, that guy You know was was ready to go And you hook it back into the Hodges too like it's like this is the school they're at yes They were fucking sneaking out of the assembly hall because they weren't listening to what Zeus told him to do Which almost got them killed except never because it was pancakes era. It was it was right

It was never actually gonna hurt them. All that is great. Great. The stuff with McClain zeroing in on Simon in the boat is more in the fine territory, in my opinion. I don't know how you feel Shay Shay, about the whole boat, third act climax. Big explosions, jumping around, swinging around on wires and all that stuff. It's totally fine.

Yeah. It's good, but it's not the first hour of the movie. It's not transcendent. You could feel it a little bit. But there's never a moment when I'm like, I need to turn this off. I'm not bored. I think that the sort of interplay of like Nick Wyman's character realizing it's no good, looks like he's about to turn everyone on him

and then he gets shot, like that's cool. Like, you know, I like the gangster in fighting. You're like, right, this is what I imagine Die Hard 3 would be. The rest of it, you're like, this is what Die Hard with a vengeance is. The explosion is so big that does kind of rock you are like they just like put like 800 million tons of TNT on a boat, right? It used to be how they did it. That's how they would do it back then.

Which it's like Die Hard 2 if nothing else has an awesome explosion. So, like clearly they were like, we have to beat that. Yeah. McTieran said that he, in making this film realized, it looks like we're probably getting an R rating. These previous two films have been R rated. Right. It's violent, there's enough cursing. I might as well throw a sex scene in.

The sex scene is somewhat ridiculous It's so obligatory, but it truly by his account was just like if they're gonna give us an R anyway Why not have them fuck at the last second before they get busted? It is just weird that Ken they're just like let's do this. I guess they're just really excited. Yeah She really feels like a like a member of Cobra. Like she's a Joe villain. It's because she doesn't talk. Yeah, that's why. But she's cool.

Yeah. But I do have less to say about this stuff and stuff like McLean realizes, you know, the aspirin was bought, you know, in Canada or whatever. Like shit like that feels like sort of screenwriting trickery that is less impressive that's an on the day Can the art department make a sticker to put on the bottom of the aspirin bottle Let's make sure to seed that he asked Hans Gruber for aspirin which he had No, I the movie kind of does know how to end which we'll talk about what the original ending was The last great scene in this movie to me is is

McClane and Zeus tied to the bomb trying to free themselves, which is like that's the last time the movie is operating with like Unbelievable power and the cleverness of McClane using like a little bit of explosives to free. Yes, it's very yeah, that's really fun But also they're interplayed. They're sort of explosives to free Zeus. That's really fun. But also they're interplayed. They're begrudging respect for each other. I think that's when you get into McLean talking about not calling Holly back and setting that up for later and Zeus being ready to die there as a sacrifice. It's a double B with what they just did with Chamberlain,

but it still fucking works. Because it's Sam Jackson. And anybody else doing that role, you might've rolled your eyes a bit when he's like, is this another black thing? When he's done this like nine times or whatever in the movie, but he does it. And you're like, this is the best thing I've ever seen.

This is great. Watching Bruce Willis back to back with Sam Jackson. During this scene specifically, I just get the sense, I got the question in my head of like, how much fun was it for Bruce Willis to walk on set every day and be like, I'm doing a movie with Sam Jackson who can keep up with me. Sam Jackson, probably a better overall actor

than Bruce Willis. Jeremy Irons probably a better overall actor than Bruce Willis. But I'm still the star of this movie and they're bouncing off of me. And like we just did Pulp Fiction. The bad guy is coming off a Lion King. I'm in an action movie. I'm in a action movie against Scar. He's collecting. Scar? Oh come on. Iron's must be taking everyone out to dinner on set being like Lion King, baby. I'm so rich now. I wonder if that truly was the studio pitch where they're looking and they're like, okay, we could get David Dulles for this or hear me out.

What if we hire Scar? The hottest villain in Hollywood. Yeah, sure, he's class of unbeknownst, but he's also Scar. And they knew exactly what they were doing because they only give you His voice they use for an hour That's a good fucking you need someone whose voice is gonna is gonna be enough for the first chunk of the movie But you're right. I feel like you know, I've read Bruce interviews Okay, when he's sort of worked on his better movies, his more serious films.

Even just like the Bruce Willis roast from a couple years back, where Edward Norton talked for a while and gave a speech that was funny but also kind of endearing, where he talked about Bruce Willis coming backstage to see him after some play and being like, you have the kind of career I always imagined I was gonna have before I became a movie star. That Bruce always felt a little trapped by like, he fell into a thing, which was very lucrative for him. I think he enjoyed being incredibly famous and whatever,

but that like, it did sort of lock him into a star persona for the rest of his life. Sam Jack is a guy who's like, yes, I think you're right, Shai. He has always seemed to recognize and love when he works with actors who are better than him. He doesn't have an ego in that sense. No, he's not. But also Sam Jack is the type of guy who is a really fine actor and also a full tilt movie star who can just do the fucking energy

and the banter with him. I mean they do not have a scene together in Pulp Fiction. No and they obviously go on to do Unbreakable together. And Glass. And Glass but even those movies they don't actually share a ton of screen time. Unbreakable a fair amount. It's more. But they're both playing kind of against hype. Yes, true. Like this electric like fair amount. It's more. But they're both playing kind of against hype. Yes, true.

Like this electric like banter is only really here. But it's clear they like each other and I think a big part of beyond just like Andrew Vanya being at the con screening and watching the reaction to Sam Jack. Yeah. I think a lot of the legend is just like those two guys being at Cannes together.

Yeah, well maybe they had fun. They weren't filming the movie together but like you just imagine those two guys on a can together. Yeah. Well, maybe they had fun They weren't filming the movie together But like you just imagine those two guys on the closet together being like let's fucking put this in front of cameras The end of the movie McLean shoots a cable and it takes down a helicopter He sees a sticker on the bottom of an aspirin bottle that says north of the border And come across. Yes. Yes, so they realize And so he realizes he must be going to a motel. Who knows? Near Canada, they go there.

It's just an underwhelming ending in relation to everything that's already happened. Yes. Now what is the alternate ending? The alternate ending is very bizarre. Yes. And I feel like Hensley and McTiernan talk about it as like, and Willisis like we had a really interesting

Ending and the studio chickened out and they didn't like it because it wasn't diehard enough for them And they wanted a big action explosion I'm reading about the ending and I'm like this sounds great, and then I watched it and I was like I completely Understand why this was unusable right? It's not just that it's like have you seen it Unconventional shave you seen the alternative ending it's on that up. I'm excited to hear about this special edition DVD or whatever It's not around extras. Yeah, but it's one year later And it feels like the ending of like the Maltese Falcon or something and it's presuming that The helicopter thing didn't happen that iron successfully robbed the money

Yes, I think everything up to the aspirin bottle happens Assuming that the helicopter thing didn't happen, that Iron successfully robbed the money. Yes. I think everything up to the Asprin bottle happens, but McClain doesn't. Because him saying, like, Zeus, hold on, is an ADR line, I believe. Sure. The Asprin bottle plays into the alternate ending, I know. Correct. So, yeah, so that's part of it. But, like, McClain has been fired, right?

Yes. Like, he is divorced. Yes. It's a year later, he's at the end of his rope. Right, well it's like, you're at like, Gruber's like Canadian layer. It feels like he's like in like Don Corleone's like back office, right?

The sort of like wood paneled, like sort of Gordon Willis-y looking. It's like very noir-ish. And he's got all these beautiful assistants and he's sitting behind his mahogany desk and then he thinks like a butler's handing him some food and he looks up and it's McClain. And McClain's wearing kind of like a Philip Marlowe jacket with the collar up. And he's in a very different register. It does feel like the end of a Bogart movie where he's like, I figured it all out after the fact.

Using the fucking ass from bottling. Right. He kind of gives him like a moral dressing down. Yes. And talks about like how much he hates the guy. And just like he's kind of, he's not doing McClain quippy, blue collar shit. He's doing like, you fucking idiot. You like stubborn, arrogant piece of shit. In a way that they said when they tested it for audiences, they were like, it makes McClane

kind of seem like a bully. He's doing it in this very stoic, sort of steely way. And then he just shoots Gruber in cold blood and says Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker, and walks out. But no, there's also, there's a whole thing where he's like, let's play McLean says. Oh, yes, yes, I'm sorry. And he makes Gruber shoot a rocket into himself. This is the bullying part of it though.

He starts like doing like these taunting games to like show that he's actually of greater intellect than Gruber. It feels out of character. It's not just that it's like a muted, quiet ending, but you're like... It's like cruel. You're removing the ticking clock. Yeah. Because it's a year later. So it's like McClane's now just had time to stew. And McTiernan's

read on the ending was, I liked the idea of like showing him a year later and it's like, you know what? These three movies in a row have actually broken McClane. Something has snapped within him. He's a little bit off kilter now. But he's doing it in a row have actually broken McLean. Something has snapped within him. He's a little bit off kilter now. But he's doing it in a way that's not fun. When you watch it, you're, it's a- I don't like it. I don't like it. It's bad. I don't like it.

I'm out. The ending still is a little underwhelming, but it's better than that. The ending of this movie is fine. It's just, yeah, exactly. But like, it's what the ending, some version of the ending should be this. I basically buy him saying Yippee-ki-yay again. A thing I hate when they do it in the fourth movie.

Eventually, it's fine. I don't love it. It's just like, the first time he says it. I know he has to say it. The first time he says it, it is so context dependent. It really is. He's referencing Roy Rogers. Right.

So he has been teed up to make the joke. at least he's saying it to a gruber, right? Like it's like that's why it's the only other time I basically allow it Cuz I'm it's like he's calling back his own like hey closing the loop Let's play the box office game Griffin. Do you have any final thoughts? Yes, Shay, any final thoughts? Ben, if you want to weigh in on D-H-W-A-V. Yeah. Good time. I think we hit everything for me anyway. Ben, what do you got?

Fun, liked it. Yeah, now we've hit everything. Have you seen before? I assume. Yeah. Liked? You know what I'll say? Major smile.

Ben is smiling right now Big smile from Ben this movie came out May 19th 1995 Griffin opening number one 22 mil makes a hundred domestic 366 worldwide That's the interesting asterisks is it was the highest grossing film of 1995 worldwide It was the certainly highest grossing film domestic right? of 1995 worldwide. It was the 10th highest grossing film domestic. It was one of the first times that there was that divide. That thing of like, oh, he really plays overseas.

This movie is big here. It's humongous everywhere. Is Toy Story the biggest domestic hit that year? Yes, okay. So it's number one, Griff. Number two is a great film we will one day cover that I'm sure Shay loves. It's a thriller, it's a war sort of a war thrill Cold War. Let's sort of post Cold War though

Crimson Tide? Yes Crimson Tide I just didn't want to say submarine movie But that could sense you not saying submarine movie It's a military film That's another talk about another fucking steakhouse movie It really is like Bruckheimer McTiernan these guys were like kings of the steakhouse where they were like we're gonna give you the finest Cut of meat without being all fancy You can drink a beer if you want this isn't a wine only joy Shay I assume you like

Crimson Tide and indeed I do, my friend. Yes. Do you got that one on VHS? Of course I do. What are we doing? What are we talking about here? I want to find a way to stump you. Do you?

Look, y'all were talking about Under Siege just right here. There it is. A really good... Universal Soldier. This is just the use. I got all the Universal Soldiers. It's just the use right there. You got Under Siege 2?

Yeah, I got Under Siege 2. Are you kidding me? Yeah. Come on. Ben loves Under Siege 2. Ben for years, for decades had not seen Under Siege 1, but listed Under Siege 2 as one of his favorite movies. Oh, what fun it must have been to then go back and watch Under Siege 1. Which is good, Ben. It was great. It actually blew my mind.

It could be even better. Yes, quite a lot better, actually. Number three in the box office is new this week, Griff. Clear counter-programming. It is a romantic comedy. 1995. Yes. And it's opening pretty poorly, I would say, at five mil. Interesting.

It's a big star. It's one big star? It's two stars. I would say the female lead is Interesting. It's a big star. It's a one big star? It's two stars. I would say the female lead is sort of on the downswing. It's not I Love Trouble, is it? No. No, I know what it is.

You know what it is? What is it? I know what it is, because I have it. While You Were Sleeping. It's not While You Were Sleeping. That is a great film. Damn it. That's a female star on the upswing.

Female star's on the upswing. Okay, the female star is dwindling in this case That's Female Star on the upswing. Female Star is on the upswing. Okay, the Female Star is dwindling in this case? This person's on the downswing. Is it Sharon, it's not Sharon Stone? Don't think about the Female Star, you're gonna get... I'm gonna get caught up? I think so, because she really is by the 90s kind of less of a big deal.

So it was an 80s person. Yes, yes. But it's the 80s person. Yes, yes. But it's the male star. It's his movie. It's his movie. Yeah. It's not Deborah Winger. It is Deborah Winger.

Well, look at that. Well, look at that. I think it's Forget Paris, written, directed by Billy Crystal. Oh, Billy Crystal. It's Billy Crystal's Forget Paris with Deborah Winger. That's her last movie for a while. NBA Referee, Rom-Com.

Yeah. I wish I loved it. I wish I loved it. And I don't got enough time, because I'm an NBA Referee. Yeah. I have never seen Forget Paris. I haven't either.

I've been watching, I recently watched every Billy Crystal opening monologue. Mm-hmm. From the Oscars, right. And I think, the thing, I was saying this to you, because you also watched all of them. Sure, yeah. He straight up repeats jokes every time.

It becomes like the canon of like, right, now I'm gonna do this one again. But also he's doing it in a non-YouTube era where people are like, I don't remember what he said a year ago. Sure. So just, he did this movie direct itself. Three times.

Three times. I think he, for both Forget Paris and Mr. Saturday Night, did the bit of announcing his movie as one of the best picture nominees, and then going, I just wanted to see what it felt like. Forget Paris sort of maybe did financially better than Mr. Saturday Night, but got like very tepid reviews. Yeah. Have you seen Forget Paris? It does have the NBA referee. Saturday Night, but got very tepid reviews. Kind of love it, yeah. Yeah.

Have you seen Forget Paris? It does have the NBA referee. Yeah, I have seen Forget Paris. Do you have that on VHS? I don't think I have that one, no. I know it has a million NBA stars in it as themselves. That was the whole reason I watched it, because in the trailer, they show a clip

of Reggie Miller shooting the three, Billy Crystal does the hands up, and then Reggie Miller high fives him on the way back down court with his hands up. And I thought that, well, I got to see, I got to go watch this Reggie Miller and Billy Crystal movie. How dare Billy Crystal high five Reggie Miller. That's what I have to say about that. Number four at the box office is a film that Shay guessed about five minutes ago. Five minutes ago, he guessed it.

It's not while you were sleeping. It is while you were sleeping. Less than five minutes ago. Now minutes ago he guessed it. It's not While You Were Sleeping. It is While You Were Sleeping. Less than five minutes ago. Now that's a movie. That's a movie. That's a picture. I love While You Were Sleeping, great film. Who directed that?

Good Sandy, some good Sandy. Turtle Top! That's a Turtle Top. It's a fucking ham sandwich with mustard. Turkey sandwich is his thing. I think it's a turkey sandwich with mustard. Great movie, lot of train stuff in that one too, obviously, the Chicago version. Should we loop around and do a full Turtletop series?

I have long said it's time to do him. All right, number five at the box office is another somewhat underwhelming romantic comedy. Underwhelming. It's directed by and starring the collab, we just covered another of their collabs, the director and the star. the collab, we just covered another of their collabs. The director and the star. Interesting, we just covered another of their collabs?

Main feed or Patreon? Main feed, but someone was choosing. Oh, interesting. Okay, so is it French Kiss? It's Larry Kasdan's French Kiss, starring Kevin Kline and Meg Ryan. Meg Ryan, I know people who swear by this movie. This is also one of those movies

that weirdly is like unwatchable now. Oh, is it hard? It's hard to find. Have you seen French Kiss Ben as a crime fan? You know how he did an Italian accent? Do you want him to do a French one? Oh, wee wee. Also kind of an underwhelmer at the box office, Oh, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, Character comedic actors like falling in love speaking of a thing that I brought up sure

I showed my little cousins Pierre lescargot Sure the classic Keenan Thompson all that sketch where he teaches you French in a bathtub yes Hey, they thought that was the funniest shit they had ever seen in their life because it's funny It was like I I had reinvented comedy for that Keenan kind of did reinvent com correct and B He was like, wait, Keenan's existed for this long? I know. It must be mind blowing to be like, yo, Keenan was literally famous when we were children.

Right. I was like, Keenan was my guy when I was your age, and he wasn't much older than me. Yeah. And he was like, they kind of, he looks sort of the same. Hey, well, he does. Yeah. Um, number six is A Little Princess.

Great film. A Hustle Carons. A film we will cover. Number seven is Friday. A great film. A great film. We'll probably cover one day. F. Gary Gray's Friday.

If F. Gary Gray can start making good movies again. Number eight is the Hugh Grant movie, The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain. Yeah. One of the longest titles the movie ever had. Yeah. One of the great titles along with Die Hard with Avenger. This is a great title weekend at the box office. Number nine, a little movie called Bad Boys

that I'm sure Shay does not have on VHS. Yeah, Shay, you don't have that, right? I got both of them right there. Of course you do. And number ten is My family which is that's the movie with almost moving with yeah, it's Smith's and Almost and is it I forget who the the female lead is I'm or Alice is in it like big is that the one we're gonna American drama the Spirit Award nomination

Yeah, she is in it. I'm not sure if she got... I feel like that's the movie where she sort of started getting taken seriously as an actress for the first time. Have you seen My Family, Shay? Yes, yes. Every Mexican has to watch My Family. Yes.

I feel like that's the thing. I feel like there were so few Hollywood efforts at big sort of Mexican American epics, and that's one of the most famous ones. That's not Louis Mondocchi, is it? It's Gregory Napa. Okay, who then does Selena? Yes.

So that's the other part of it. I think she gets Selena off of that. Right, she gets Selena off of that. Is that movie good? My Family? Yeah. I've never seen it, is Shane? Selena's great. Selena's really good.

Yeah, I think of my family as, no offense to it, as a little boring. Well, offense taken. I feel like that's kind of its reputation, is that it's just maybe a little boring. Shane, here's a question for you. You said bad boys, you got both of them on the shelf. Yeah.

Does it irk you when there's like a third bad boy and now coming soon a fourth bad boys in a post VHS era that you cannot put alongside? Do you ever consider making modern dupes of sequels or films in the style of the 80s, 90s movies? No, I'm a romantic. I like what was when it was. It's got to be mass produced. Yeah, I don't need to redo the new stuff. There is a woman on Instagram, I wish I could remember her name instantly, but she makes like VHS covers and tapes.

I follow her. They're awesome. Those ones are really good. If she would make one, I'd buy one. But I need for the movies to produce them that way. Our friends, Jordan Fish and Ray Tintore, great friends of the show, made a video for us last year that was a parody of the Nicole Kidman AMC ad with Ben, Stolen the Virtues of Watching VHSs on Your Porch.

And Jordan went through the trouble of making VHS dupes of a couple modern Ben favorites that never got on VHS. So I think he now has a bespoke VHS copy of Assassin's Creed. And there's one other one that he faked, I want to say. Yeah, I'm trying to think. But rather than just like composite it onto the screen and post, he was like, I will transfer Assassin's Creed to VHS. Wreck-It Ralph.

Wreck-It Ralph, he put on VHS. That's wonderful. That's a good friend. Just imagine that giant Wreck-It Ralph clam shell. That big plastic clam shell. Big plastic one. Oh. That would be fun. Disney should just do a few of those.

They should. Just turn out a few. Come on. Yeah, please. With vinyl being so popular, even cassette tapes, if you like. Yeah, but no offense to VHS, but vinyl sounds good. VHS, it's more like you're trying to summon a visual vibe. I know there's some people who really actually are.

You're saying this to Shay Saran. I wouldn't mind you who you're talking to. I think this is also about the aesthetic. Look, right behind me, I have this nine-inch... You got this set up. ...Xenith TV VCR combo. And when you put it in, like if you put in Twister, it has the Adobe Digital Surround whaaaaaaam.

Remember that big advertisement they used to do? And it's so funny to hear it come out of this little tiny TV and see it on a weird screen. It does not look great. If I need to watch a thing to research it, I'm not going to watch it on VHS. You just want the vibes. The porch vibes. Just vibes is all that it is. Shae, you ever take it outside?

You ever take it outside Shae, is Ben's question. Take it outside? No, I'm an inside VHS watcher. We have at our house a projector screen that we watch movies outside, which is really nice. But I've never watched a VHS tape outside. Ben, don't be disappointed. You have to consider. Shea's from Texas. That's a hot porch.

That's true. Yeah, it's hot to watch. Ben would watch movies outside, but that's up in the Northeast. That tape is going to burn to the touch if you take it out on a porch. Shea, are those figures on top of your TV setup? I see the silhouettes. Oh, yeah. This is a... So, this one is...

That's a Freddy Krueger standing on top of a Nightmare on Elm Street VHS. This is the clown from Spawn standing on top of a Spawn VHS. Violator, baby! Violator, some good John Leguizamo right there. It's the best part of that movie. Are you serious? Come on. You, unfortunately unfortunately might have just added an hour onto this episode. My bad. We have to go.

These are long standing conversational threads. We can't do another Violator run on this show right now. Violator's been coming up a lot on this show. Violator and Clown and the 97 Spawn movie have been discussed a lot. All I'll say is if we ever end up doing a full spawn episode We have to circle back to you for your thoughts. Yes. Yes. Yes, you have to at least contribute some thoughts Look at that shit. Oh I mean this ain't a game. This is a movie that needs to be watched on VHS. Yeah visual effects That's a movie that loses a star if you watch it on blu-ray

You want to take some definition out of it. Shay, thank you so much for coming on. This was so much fun. I've been listening to y'all for years. I couldn't believe I got the message to come be on the show and then to talk about one of my favorite movies ever. Thank y'all so much for having me. You are a sweetie, Shay. We couldn't believe you were listening. We were very excited when we found out you were... Yeah, and then it just like once we decided we were doing McTiernan, we were like, this feels like a good match.

Yeah. Thank y'all so much for real. Have you on sooner? Have you on again sooner? Anything you want to plug? No, I don't want to plug anything. Just everybody keep listening to this show so I can keep listening to it as well. Y'all keep making it. It's wonderful. It's wonderful what y'all are doing. I enjoy it. I agree.

It's very kind of you. It's very nice of you, Sean. Thank you. When we were pitching six trophies and they were like, how do you want to start the show? And I was like, oh, you ever listen to Blank Check? They talk for like a 45 minute introduction and they're like, whoa, we don't want to do that.

Nope, nope. What podcast company would be interested in that? Absolutely horrifying to them. Our podcast is like Mel Gibson's wife getting pinned to the tree in signs. Where they're like, this shouldn't work, how is this still alive? And they're like, I don't know, but if we back the truck up it will fall apart. You're telling me they start talking about other shit for 45 minutes? I don't know, just let them keep doing it. Let them keep doing it. Yeah, it works. You're the only two who can do it.

Nobody else can do it. All right, wrap it up, Griff. You're the best, Shay. You're the best, Shay. Thank you for being here. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Thank you to Marie Barty, co-producer on the show.

Thank you to Joe Bone and Pat Rounds for our artwork. Lane Montgomery and the Great American Null for our theme song. JJ Birch for our research. Thank you to Alex Barron, AJ McKeon for editing. AJ McKeon also for being our production coordinator. You can go to blankcheckpod.com for links to some real nerdy shit including our Patreon, blank check special features. We're finishing up The Terminators. Have we gotten to the next series yet? Looks like we are indeed finishing up The Terminators.

Terminator Genesis, I think it might be the next one. Okay, so we- Or maybe that just happened. Yeah, we're finishing up The Terminators, and our next- Dark Fate is next. Well, we're really finishing up The Terminators. Not a bad movie. No, you will hear us in real time on our Dark Fate commentary decide what's going to be

next and all I'll say is it's a real Ben pick. That's a tease for you there. Tune in next week for... Thomas Crown Affair. Thomas Crown is next? Because of the weird fucking 13th Warrior order? Am I... Are we wrong about this? Thomas Crown is next. Thomas Crown is next because of the weird fucking 13th warrior order am I we've wronged about this Thomas crown is next Thomas crown is next tune in next week for the Thomas crown affair with Amanda Dobbins another long overdue guess I it's always

right he made 13th worry before this was so confusing about it yes after okay yeah next week is Thomas crown for the man to Dobbins yes right and similarly we recorded the 13th Warrior episode months before. True. Correct. The Thomas Crane episode, but they'll come out in the reverse order. None of this is interesting or valuable to anyone. And we have to be done. We have to be done.

So, say goodbye. I've decided I'm getting Raising Canes. Holy shit. I've decided that's my lunch. I had it last night. You were underwhelmed. I texted your view. I said my fingers were a little soggy.

Right. This is not how this episode should end. Well, then how should it end? Okay. I got a hot pitch Go ahead die hard on a podcast. I Don't know