Blank Check with Griffin & David - Four Brothers with Jonathan Braylock

Episode Date: June 27, 2021

What if there were four brothers? Has anyone thought of this before? Jonathan Braylock (Black Men Can’t Jump in Hollywood) joins us to talk about the niche genre of “snow crime,” the “what ifs?” of Singleton’s career in the 2000s, and the four classic archetypes of brothers.  Join our Patreon at patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter and Instagram! Buy some real nerdy merch at shopblankcheckpod.myshopify.com

I know you need to stay your ass on the porcelain. This is going to require a little finesse. Given your prior reputation as a hothead, you'll be the first one to fuck it up. Hey, hey, I wrote the fucking book on finesse, okay? You just wait for me to wipe my ass, Angel. I'm coming with you. Angel, get me a fucking podcast, Jack. I don't know.

I mean, this is what we were saying. This scene is just... Isn't there some... Like, Garrett Hedlund's in the shower for the whole scene, right? That's right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he...

Right, I mean, this is... It's just a lot of energy. I was saying... It's a lot of testosterone. Oh, my God, yes. So much testosterone. The quotes page for this movie is almost as long as the entire script. And I was saying this is a movie that doesn't necessarily have like an obvious iconic line to pull from, but also every line in the movie is demented, either as written or the way the actor chose to deliver it.

But the toilet scene feels like the thing I want to represent the most. This didn't work as well to butcher for the opening. But this is the other exchange I just want to repeat from the toilet scene feels like the thing I want to represent the most. This didn't work as well to butcher for the opening. But this is the other exchange I just want to repeat from the toilet scene. Sure. Angel comes in. I got to ask you a question. Me and Sophie did a lot of making up last night. Seems like I got a little rust on my tools down there.

Opens his bathrobe. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then Wahlberg says, whoa, whoa, whoa. Ask the cockologist in the shower he he calls garrett headland a cockologist i guess i guess i don't even is it supposed to be like a dig at him and then garrett headland pokes his head out and he's like yeah it's a rug bird or whatever he actually has a take and he's like oh thank god I thought my luck ran out. Right. It's insane. Because, right, it's like there's the ongoing thing of like, does Hedlund get laid a lot?

Like that is a point of discussion across the movie. But then they also throw a lot of homophobic jokes his way. When he dies, they get in some homophobic digs on his death. Not even death bed, his death ground. Death ground. His dying moments. Right. So it's like the cockologist thing.

Are they like saying he's the one who gets laid the most or is it a dig on him being obsessed with dicks? Or he sees a lot of penises. Right. I don't know. The other thing is just weren't they, isn't the whole point that these guys were raised by a nice lady? Yes. They do not act like they were raised by a nice lady. Well, they do.

To be fair, they do talk about that right up top because he's like, he's like, sounds like she did a terrible job. He's like, they're saints compared to what they would have been. Right. They look like congressmen. Yeah, they look like congressmen. Yeah, they look like congressmen. Like, I like that. I like that idea. Can I say, I think the most potent thing in this movie

is whenever they envision Fanula Flanagan there with them. Like, I think that is a device the movie should have repeated more. Maybe had it a couple more times. Like, use it like sort of every half hour because you do walk out of this movie or walk away from this movie or in my case roll out of bed and over to the desk from this movie uh asking a lot of questions about her right like she is such a presence that looms so large you're trying to find the connective tissue between these four guys and what that upbringing was like on a day-to-day basis and all that and you get obviously so

little of her in the beginning that every time and it's only really those two scenes right she is good though she is very good she's definitely yeah you're like well i could see how she raised these four brothers the dinner scene and the end scene and both of those times i'm like i'm starting to get it you know right right by the way uh my wife tessa humble has never watched loss humble rag and uh we're watching loss now and so it was just very cool to see uh faraday's mother she's pivotal what's her eloise faraday's name right eloivotal. What's her name? Eloise Faraday. Eloise Hawking. Right. Eloise Hawking. Right.

And then she takes Faraday's, yeah, the marionette. That's, I mean, our friend Joe Robinson, who hosts the Storm podcast, which is recapping Lost. I've wedged myself in there as the go-to Desmond guest whenever there's a Desmond-specific episode. Yeah, the Desmonds, right. Because the Desmond arc is my fucking favorite. Yeah, it's amazing. I've re-watched just the Desmond arc two times in the last year. And her entrance is incredible.

That first scene where she's, like, making small talk with him, and then she does the pin turn to, like, you're not supposed to buy the ring. Yeah. Is the moment where it feels like how fucking big is this show where you suddenly went like is this show gonna do everything yeah yeah we're messing with like space and time and fate now you're not supposed to buy the ring oh man it's creepy when she delivers that it's great she's who is she she's a great actor she is great in this movie and yeah it's a failing that she's not in it more but this of course

is a podcast about filmographies it's called blank check with griffin and david i'm griffin i'm david it's about directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks make whatever crazy passion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear, and sometimes they bounce, baby. This is a miniseries on the films of John Singleton. It's called Pods in the Cast. Our guest today, a dear friend of the show, one of the oldest friends of the show,

one of the oldest supporters of the show, been far too long since he's been on the show, from Astronomy Club, from the black man can't jump in hollywood podcast jonathan braylock thank you for having me the fourth brother of blink check it's been yeah long time fan way goes way back way back to when this podcast was just a joke. Yep. It was a bit we could not escape. Yes. But then we escaped. I remember you coming up to me at the UCB training center where we would both work out with our groups, our comedy groups and whatever.

Yeah, we'd pump iron with them. Yeah, we'd get swole with our groups our comedy groups and whatever but also with them yeah we get swole uh with our mod teams but um uh but where we used to record the show and you were like hey i like your star wars podcast and i was like what are you talking about yeah you're like no one listens to this and i was like no i do right i was like I actually like your podcast because you guys had just had Keegan-Michael Key on yeah which is like such a big episode so early on in your run I was like your podcast is like really good and you were like thanks yours too and I was like no yeah right no no I do enjoy every time a list comes out and we're both we're both of our podcasts are on it feels nice it's just like always makes me happy we also like we started at like exactly the same time yeah and the shows have

different bents but i do feel like we both have tried to toe the same line between like trying to find some actual insight and be funny at the same time yeah yeah so it's cool to you know have us be lumped in together in a good way um but no sorry what were you gonna say no just that it all culminates in the four brothers finally finally yeah i feel like we sent you a list a while ago because we had the moment of just like oh we haven't had jarrod james or john on in too long so we sent both of you guys, I feel like, the list for like seven months out in advance. Yeah, it was like Musker and Clements.

Right. You know, all of this stuff we were doing. Right. So Gerard and James both took Musker and Clements at the beginning of the year. But you very quickly put your chips down for like Four Brothers is wild. I would really like to talk about Four Brothers.

I think about that movie and then you had been pushing hard for carpenter during march madness so when he won i was like look we haven't booked any of the carpenters do you want a carpenter instead of four brothers and you were like no i want to stay on four brothers yes no this is a this is a big one this is a wild one in a weird way there's a lot here yeah i mean can you can you explain your history with it and the decision making process of staying on four brothers yeah i mean well i just i wanted to do a movie that like i felt like people don't there are movies that people talk about all the time right yes um and. And so John Carpenter has a lot of those films. And John Singleton has a lot of those films too.

But Four Brothers is one of those ones where it's just like, this is a blockbuster movie that I'm sure a lot of people haven't seen. Because it's very specific. It's like, if you didn't like Mark Wahlberg in the early aughts, or you're not really into action movies, you probably didn't catch this one you know it was also like an august blockbuster and i feel like you have more substantive movies that come out in august now i feel like they pack every single weekend but it used to be like then

the first weekend of august is the last weekend you can release a major film right and then the final couple of weekends in august you have movies that open to like 15 or 20 and are decent like third base hits maybe yes that's right like and this was that corridor of just like oh yeah like last weekend of august i'll go see a mark walberg movie right right with like three guys who hollywood is continuing to test out as movie stars exactly and i think that's what that's what did it for me. Honestly, one of the biggest reasons I wanted to do this podcast, this movie, was because of Chiwetel Ejiofor's performance.

I think this is the movie where he really stood out to me as like, I was like, oh, this dude's gonna be huge. And he was, because his presence in this movie, this character is nothing, really. this character is is nothing really this character is just i thought just like the most basic villain on paper there's nothing there

yeah it's like he wears a big jacket he's mean like he's mean he's sexist describing the character to you right well but he's mean in a specific way he's mean where he makes people do crazy shit yeah he's pasta off the floor yeah sit with the kids table like yeah well power moves honestly let's talk to you a tell for a sec because this is in the middle of chew a tell just like i guess it's just like whatever you've got he'll do it he's just suddenly like he's it you know his breakout on movie in movies is dirty pretty things right and then he's like in love actually for a second for a hot second he's the cuckold no right yeah especially right in a very age-appropriate marriage to kira knightley um kira knightley was like 14 anyway call out he's like the only black actor to have a primary role

in a woody movie, period. Is that? Yeah, I guess that's because he's obviously he's Melinda Melinda. He's in the dramatic part of Melinda Melinda, right? But he's he is the male lead of that half of the movie. And I don't I cannot think of any other black actor in his entire fucking 87 movie filmography with a role of substance. And then this year and also he's in she hate me that year but this year four brothers yeah villain serenity the villain he's incredible in serenity kinky boots yeah which didn't he like get a golden globe nomination yes yes and a bafta yeah um he was on it for a golden globe yes not. Not a BAFTA, but a Golden Globe. And like next year he's, it's Inside Man and Children of Men.

Right. The two men movies. The two. And in both of, both of which he's like, you know, he's what? The fourth or fifth or sixth. You know, like. Yeah. And just pops in and, and is great.

Yeah. You're just like, I'm more of this guy. Like, why is this guy playing the third cop? Like, why why you know like i mean yeah year after that talk to me an american gangster he's really good and talk to me so good that's him finally getting to play like a co-lead in an american movie uh because it had been like british he gets to be above the title america he's like fifth yeah even all the way to like salt right you know like he's still just kind of like playing one of the guys and i know he's like fifth yeah even all the way to like salt right you know like he's still just

kind of like playing one of the guys and i know he's like that's kind of the third lead in that he's like chasing salt who is salt of course the question on everyone's list but uh but you know like i and i think it's but you know it's partly that hollywood is racist and doesn't know you know how to how to find roles for this guy but like i think he also is just like you know i'll i'll do it i'll do whatever like i i like to be in movies right like he just he he's not a particularly egotistical actor and he is in these scenes where he doesn't in this movie he kind of takes over his seats but in a lot of these movies he doesn doesn't. He does what the movie asks. He's a character actor. Yeah.

Who's hot. But he's hot. And he also is good at being a leading man. He's not one of those guys. He can do that, too. He has the charisma and he has the gravitas and the star power to be a leading man. But he is a character actor. And the thing is, you know, this is the time in which the black actors who got to be the leads of movies were more personality actors and they're bigger stars. Like,

cause as great as Denzel is still kind of a personality actor, right? You have Will Smith. And then it was like the comedy stars. It's the Eddie Murphy, Martin Lawrence, Chris Tucker. Yeah.

It was like, those were the, those were the black actors who got to be the lead of a movie. And everybody else, you know, if you were a black character actor, you probably like three, four. You know, you get to play a cop here or there. You know, that kind of thing. Right. Yeah.

No, and I mean, I've been invoking you a lot throughout this miniseries. And Black Men Can't Jump in Hollywood in general. series and and black man can't jump in hollywood in uh general but you guys always sort of talk about uh how much more willing hollywood is to make a musician with zero acting experience a lead than to sort of like cultivate a career of an actual black actor like a trained black actor right right and it feels like that happened in four brothers right it started shifting in like the last 10 years it's a thing i kind of keep thinking about watching all these singleton movies of like it does feel like there is this wave of like and most of them by the way like have to have come out of the tony-est acting schools in the world right where you have like winston duke and lapita from yale and you have

like jonathan majors from juilliard and cory hawkins too but there's like finally this beginning of like classically trained young black leads starting to like carry movies but in this era yes it's like truettel's got the and and two of the four brothers are played by musicians and one of them this is singleton's third time being like he's a movie star he's a movie star he's a movie star and andre benjamin is someone where it felt like hollywood was demanding him to be a movie star like he had been a little reticent to start acting and everyone was like you should be a movie star right right right right this is one of those movies where, you know, you queue this movie up.

The cast, well, you know, Fanola Flanagan gets shot, obviously. The cast list starts rolling. It's a long time before there's a name you don't recognize. That is the fun. That's the crazy. It is. You're like, oh, my God. Like, everyone is in this.

I was also doing the math on this. I mean, like, Terrence Howard gets his Oscar nom this following year, right? oh my god like everyone is in this i was also doing the math on this i mean like terrence howard gets his oscar nom this following year right because this hustle and flow in this movie come out within a month of each other correct this is the year that this is the year that he's in this hustle and flow crash yes uh you know and gets a lot of those sort of critic awards where they're right they're bundling all of that together people the question was will terrence howard get two nominations or one and he only gets the one taraji was sort of like on the outside list for supporting actress then she finally gets her nomination a couple years after this walberg gets his nomination the year after this or two years after this with the

departed right and then she would tell has to wait a little bit longer but it's like there are four people who are within like five or six years of getting their first nomination in this movie right right tyrese is still waiting and then you know sophia vergara with it's just like yeah yes you're like wait oh wait sophia vergara and then it's like josh charles wait josh charles playing another corrupt cop like a year after swat yeah finola flanagan barry shabaka henley we love to see him anytime he rolls in yeah uh could have done with more of him you know adam beach has a scene in this yeah yeah like i i think people want to work with john singleton still i do think that's part of it like he because this movie you know it's a pretty straightforward well plot wise it's not totally I think people want to work with John Singleton still. I do think that's part of it. Like he,

cause this movie, you know, it's a pretty straightforward, well, plot wise, it's not totally straight, but you know, it's a,

like you said, it's an August movie. Yes. But you know, Singleton's given it that weight probably, right? Oh, Singleton's making it up.

I think so. And he's a good actor's director. Yeah. Uh, I like this movie. This movie is kind of good. I don't know. It's, it's sort of ridiculous. It's kind of so stupid but it's yeah i i don't know i like i i get a little frustrated watching it because i feel like it should be better and i can't figure out what doesn't quite work like it

is entertaining and fun but you're like this thing should rip on paper i this should be the ultimate guilty pleasure you know it's got like 50 plots that which is sort of a problem you know like for a 110 minute movie it feels like a mini series level of shit going on i don't pray what do you i assume you like four brothers i assume that is or it just Chiwetel that you wanted to swing in for? That's what's drawing you here. Yeah. I mean, the reason. First of all, the cast is definitely a part of the reason why I love this movie.

Because it's one of those movies that sticks with you because the cast is so great. And everyone is committed to what this film is. Which is just a lot of testosterone. Just like the idea of like, well, you know, but then this idea of like this, this idea of family, and even though it is for sure, like a somewhat of a toxic family, it's still a family, you know, and you like, and so there is something really endearing about it. It's like, I also grew up in Jersey and then, you know, grew up at a time where people were,

had this kind of, you know, like friendly animosity where you're just like making fun of each other. Like, that's how you know, this guy loves you, that they're, they're constantly ragging on you,

you know? And so that like that part of it, obviously there's like a coolness factor of these guys seemingly can get away with anything, which is amazing. They're constantly just holding people at gunpoint in public places all the time and never getting caught. Not one person ever accuses them to the cops, which is like, cool, I guess that's just Detroit. Like interrupts a basketball game. A high school basketball game.

Yeah, this takes a real picture of Detroit as a fully lawless society. Truly lawless. That first scene where Howard goes to talk to them in the backyard, I guess after the funeral, and he's kind of like, hey, you guys aren't going to do that four brothers thing, right? Like, he's not just like, hey, don't try to take the law into your own hands. He's like, don't do whatever weird action movie thing you're thinking about doing now. I sure wouldn't want there to be... Don't construct a series of set pieces.

Right, exactly. Armed sieges on, residential streets essentially like that that would that would really fuck up my week yeah i don't know what it is it's just like it's just a movie that i feel like works um you know it's one of those it's like you have you have premises like this all the time or just simple kind of like, oh, this person got murdered, like somewhat of a revenge tale. I'm going to find this, you know, my loved one's killer and we're going to get revenge. But rarely I feel like, do you care about the characters? And I personally, like I cared about these four brothers.

You know, I cared about the mom, even though you only saw her for a brief bit. Like the way that they craft the story is like it just it just sticks with you and it's just it's very it's very enjoyable and it has like some cool scenes like that scene the scene at the end and like on the ice like it does look cool like it you know like joe telling his chinchilla fur coat like i don't know it looks awesome snow crime is great you know yeah I love when crime is happening in snowy places I I good I always like cold crime and I always find it more visually arresting like this movie is so good even just from the very beginning

from the beginning right right just just sort of like the iced windshields. And I feel like the versamilitude of their breath being visible in every scene. Like this is a movie where you can tell the actors are actually cold in a way that gives it a good energy. Yeah. It's clearly like February in Michigan. Like it's just clearly, you know, all of Detroit. Detroit does not look lush, obviously, but like it looks very real like it looks like it's winter in detroit in mid-2000s detroit i believe it was mostly shot in toronto they did a lot of toronto they got the specific landmark sort of shit in detroit you know detroit

and toronto they're like across the pond from each other anyway it's okay you know you can i'll allow it in this case i think the the sequence the car chase in the snow is like it's it's so great it really just makes it like uh so much more exciting yeah and singleton's good at car chases and he's just done a whole movie of that i do think like the the watching the like fifth consecutive big gun violence scene made me just kind of realize like, oh, it is it is just more difficult to make gun action cinematically compelling. You know, right. The more the more of it you're going to do in a movie. Right. It's going to start to feel a little same.

It gets a little samey, right. But it's got, I mean, this movie has an undeniable energy to it. I mean, the origins of this thing are weird, and we've talked about this, but this is a movie like, you know, Singleton is almost the opposite of what we say in the introduction for this podcast, right? Where he somehow gets this like very small blank check to make his debut film exactly the way he wants. And then that, it makes such a seismic like impact that he gets to make like four John Singleton movies and define what a John Singleton movie is

at the beginning of his career. And then he goes like, okay, I've like kind of hit a wall. I don't want to be pigeonholed. let me show them i can do like studio action and he makes two movies shaft and too fast too furious that are both hits but are kind of negatively received and like leave a bad taste in people's mouth like he's this weird case of a guy where his biggest financial hits set his career back. And I found this Entertainment Weekly article that I remembered from when this movie was coming out about how like 2005 was the summer of Singleton, where it's like he's back. He's made a new action movie, but it's a little bit closer to the tone of his early films. It's in like a smaller, more more personal scale he's working with actors he likes but also that he was like the driving force behind hustle and flow he found craig brewer he wanted to get that movie made no one wanted to make it so he mortgaged his house and financed it largely himself and then went to sundance and was like the spokesperson for the movie and that movie being a hit was seen as much

as a comeback for Singleton as it was the emergence of like a new director and he got the biggest deal in the history of Sundance at that point in time that was a huge Sundance you know bidding war movie right like 16 million dollars right well this was the crazy thing, though. Everyone was like, you know, bidding around that amount. It was like 7.5. Now it's 8, 8.59. And Paramount said, we'll give you nine plus Singleton. We will give you a two picture deal to produce two more movies at budgets similar to this with your fee baked into it. So it was like $ million dollars to singleton

essentially right and it wait so our our black snake moan and what's the other one illegal tender no that's in 2011 singleton sued paramount for 20 million dollars for breach of contract oh oh wow so so even black snake moan wasn't part of that deal, maybe. I believe it wasn't. It went to Paramount, but I think it was its own thing somehow. That was like an indie movie. I don't know. Right. It was supposed to be him sort of finding new guys and making small movies of that size and whatever.

And I think also this movie was already happening. Hustle and Flow shot the same time as this movie. So Paramount releases two big singleton movies within a month of each other he's doing so much press for both of them i think he was like this is my home studio i'll be able to foster a new generation young filmmakers here and i'll be able to make my movies here uh and then he doesn't make another movie until abduction and paramount claimed that that nullified his contract because he went made another movie with another studio and that was against the first look deal.

Studios are so fucking... Singleton was like, my first look deal ran out. I took abduction because that had finally run out and you guys hadn't used me for six years. Our researchers have run down here. We gotta go through

this. All the movies he was attached to in the 2000s that never happened like there's so many because there's the biggest one is luke cage right that's the like the columbia post spider-man is like we want to do a luke cage movie with john singleton that's like john singleton's big passion project with that never happens with tyree's obviously being the he wanted to do it i feel like right after spider-man and it was like gaining some steam and then when spider-man 2 was huge they were like okay now sony really wants to do marvel movies this time period is the closest that movie comes to getting made right he want he apparently almost made a sinbad the sailor movie that that eventually got kicked to rob cohen starring keanu reeves that

never happened he was gonna do fear and respect the video game like right gangster movie with snoop dog which was also going to be a video game that also never got released right that also got pretty fucking far along he signed up for these two movies within a month of each other and i think this one went first because it was smaller it was easier to get mounted but he was like deep in development pre-production on fear and respect he was gonna do something called convoy some kind of afghan uh war movie people driving trucks through afghanistan i don't know he was gonna do without remorse which finally came out uh you know on amazon this year the you know tom clancy's without remorse yeah right uh he was gonna do a movie potentially

titled tulia texas starring hallie berry in about a small town in texas where all the black people were arrested and railroaded for drug dealing yeah i mean now this is the stuff he almost did after five brothers in that right right the a team is the stuff he almost did after Five Brothers in that period. Right, right. The A-Team is the other big one. That's the other. The A-Team was, I think, initially his, and then Joe Carnahan took it over. I forgot how far along he had gotten with the A-Team. I think he was on it for a year or two, and Ice Cube was going to play B.A. Baracus. Probably would have been better.

Probably. And it says here that it came down to casting issues, where I don't know if it was about the other three guys but i know he really wanted cube to do it but the yeah yeah it's so it's like it's the weird thing when you look at a director's career and it's especially you know with singleton he died so like you know there's like there's even more movies that won't get made like you know he would have still been work but like and you're like oh look at this gap here what's going on like you know between four brothers and abduction. And like, why does he end up making abduction? That feels like kind of a, you know, damp project for him to take.

And it's like, yeah, there's just years of things of him like bumping around. Not getting made. Yeah, not getting something going. It's so frustrating. Yeah. And if you look at, I mean, there's a Hollywood Reporter article and you can literally read the filing of the lawsuit he did against Paramount where it just feels like he was very frustrated that they courted him so aggressively. They made this movie. They overpaid for Hustle & Flow, gave him this first look deal, and then didn't make the movies that he wanted to produce and didn't give him the green lights on the movies he wanted to direct. And like he kind of just lost, you know, six years of his directing career waiting for

them stuck in that system. And then the second that deal was done and he took what probably was just one of the quickest green lights he could get available. Like, I think that was kind of why he took abduction that everyone was so eager to test if taylor lautner could be an action star that it was like this will start filming in four months if you want to make this you know and then paramount then said that that was uh betrayal of their contract which is bullshit i mean i was talking about this with someone the other day about like contractual stuff. And they said, you know, like it's good to get this stuff in paper, but ultimately the studios are going to do whatever they want to do

or not do whatever they want to do. Like as much as you can get these guarantees on things, even if you're a big name guy like John Singleton, for whatever reason, they just go cold on you. They will find any way possible to not live up to their end of a contract it's so crazy i like i was talking to a friend of mine who has a first look or one of these overall deals and they were like they were like oh yeah like i thought that the perception was, oh, this overall deal means they really want to make something for me. So every time I bring something up, they're going to try to make it work.

They realize, like, oh, no, it feels like the overall deal is just to make sure that I'm not making stuff for my competitors. Right. It's a golden handcuffs kind of thing. That's really all it is. And it's just like, it's so crazy that that's how people work but it for sure is in hollywood oh yeah that that part of hollywood is like it's and and it's it's it's the reason like people are like well why is so much trash made it's like it's stuff like this that happens like you know i mean you have like great people who can't get

stuff made even though they've proven that they can do it and like to that you know like when you read about like okay well what's the genesis of four brothers it's a lorenzo de bonaventura the guy who produced this wanted to make a movie about brothers like what the fuck does that mean what he's actually sitting in his office looking out the window and sees like two brothers and he's like oh what if there were four brothers though like i just don't even but even like the the foster brothers element wasn't part of his original pitch like he goes out to a bunch of writers and like someone bring me a brother's thing and they went like what if they're foster brothers and he went huh interesting and it's like how is that not the starting point the starting point was just a thing about brothers. Bro, give me a break. It was that general, though.

Like, Lorenzo DiBaventura, he was the head of Warner Brothers in a really strong run. Like, Matrix was one of his many sort of movies that made him look like a visionary, right? Like, if you have a movie like Matrix come out under your stewardship, you get to cash out on that for decades.

He did The Matrix, and he bought the Harry Potter rights. you like matrix come out under your stewardship you get to cash out on that for decades he did the matrix and he bought the harry potter rights he was the one who swept in fast and got those so those those are his big wins right he goes independent uh after this or you know rather he becomes an independent producer rather than being a studio head and he was one of the guys i would say at the beginning of the 2000s who was like, we should make dork stuff high budget and classy. Like he was sort of, you know, doom. But he got the Transformers rights early. He got the G.I. Joe rights early.

Like, you know, he was pushing all these things, buying all these properties and being like, you could make this as a serious movie and then trying to make sort of like mid-budget programmers with movie stars like this kind of was into like respect for junkie stuff you know right um but but yes he just says i don't know we should do something about brothers these two writers come to him who i think were the same guys who were had been developing gi joe for him uh-huh i don't know the writers david elliott and paul love it let's see i mean they they have a credit on rise of cobra and that's right i'm surprised they weren't brothers you know i think that would help the writing process you You would think. I am starting to get at a point in my career where I'm having my agents come to me with this kind of stuff. Like this very loose, like, hey, this production company or this famous person or this studio wants to make something based off of this very loose ip can what do you have a pitch and it's like what like it's like here's an article about this

you know person here's a yeah it's just like oh they want to make something about like the idea of up somebody coming up in hip-hop do you have an idea and it's like you have no show like what or like like blank wants to do a comedy now blank right learned french is there anything you can write where they can speak french right and i own half of whatever you pitch by the way so it's like do all the work do all the work take it to them yeah yeah yeah i'm just like oh this is what it is it's your bit david but this movie really is lorenzo de boventure one of the most powerful men in hollywood at this point in time leaning back in his chair like holding out the like director's like panavision fingers right and staring off into the middle distance and going

what if there were four brothers like that yeah that's yeah although no to be fair he said what if there were brothers and these two fuckheads walked in and said what about four and he gave them that's the you know that's the number he was like i'll pay you a million dollars yeah you can't leave this room you can't take this to anyone else yeah you know we have a saying in our family, use sports, don't let sports use you. Hi, it's Jeff Merrick from 32 Thoughts to Podcast. Are you a sports parent, rep sports, travel sports, whatever you call it? If you're like me, you know that one of the great joys of having your kid or kids play sports is travel.

You know, our families use sports to see different parts of the world, meet new people, and stay in a number of different places. Recently, we've started using Airbnb. The kids love it because it feels like a sleepover at a new friend's house, while my wife and I enjoy more space, a proper bed, and mostly a washing machine. That really comes in handy for baseball trips. Trust me. In fact, it was on a baseball trip last summer when my wife sent me a text after the first night saying, do you think we could do this? Look, if you've ever stayed at an Airbnb, you've probably wondered the same thing. Could our

place be an Airbnb? And now that our kids have also discovered the joys of skiing, in addition to travel hockey and travel baseball, we're on the move even more. Well, our house just sits there. Why not make a little extra money to cover some costs, right? We have friends who travel south every winter and they Airbnb their place. Why not? Look, if you want to make a little extra cash, and who doesn't need that these days? Maybe your home could be the way to make it happen find out how at airbnb.com i think walberg is the first person

aboard and he brings singleton aboard like that's their yeah their pals there's a piece i feel like i talked about in our shaft episode uh the shane salerno wrote for deadline when singleton died about his experience working with singleton on shaft um and in it he mentions that they were flying somewhere for the movie and uh walberg was also in first class and the three of them and a fourth person i'm now forgetting all just uh talked about movies for the entire flight, just sort of dorked out about movies. And Wahlberg was talking about how much he wanted to do something with Singleton. us on the podcast pulled up a lot about a lot of really uh incredible uh excerpts of interviews with walberg around this time where walberg was kind of like i made all these movies that i think are dumb i worked with all these big directors that people told me would be good for my career

and they were stupid and i was right and walbert he's talking about inarguably the good movies that he has been in well look here's the thing it's half itguably the good movies that he has been in well look here's the thing it's half it's half the good movies that he's been in and half i was realizing this the only walberg movies we've covered on this show are all of walberg's flops where he was miscast by an auteur right where it's like that's the happening truth about charlie planet of the apes where you could just tell the directors were like, look, you got to work with this person. To the point where when he's making this movie and Scorsese is trying to get him in The Departed and he's doing interviews for this movie. I guess when this movie is coming out, he's like, I don't know if I'm going to do it.

I don't know. I'm edgy about it. Right. Because he's like, they're telling me I can't turn down scorsese i can do whatever the fuck i want don't tell me i can't turn down scorsese every time i work with a good director it's bad um but i remember when what was it called broken city uh broken city is the um is that what it's called one of the hughes brothers the hughes brothers yeah it's called broken city yeah corrupt mayor movie with him and Russell Crowe.

I remember his press tour for that movie, which just like bombed and didn't really exist, was him going like, no, this is the kind of movie I actually like. I don't like all those other movies I'm in that you guys go see. This is the kind of movie my dad would have actually respected. This is what I wish I could be doing all the time. And Four Brothers feels like the beginning of him being like this is when entourage is starting up he's had some big hits but he's had some big flops on his resume he's getting more active as a producer and he's just like i don't know i kind of want to make like cops and criminals be movies like i want to make

like inner city tough guy movies right this is kind of a good run for him you know he's just done yeah yeah italian job and i heard huckabees i heard huckabees is like obviously his best performance ever i mean i guess you could argue for departed but like he's so like vulnerable and funny and like open in that movie it's an incredible performance it's and his his response to it seems to be like yeah the movie was weird i didn't like it i don't fucking get it i mean i want to i want to read this uh exact quote here uh he said uh this is in august 2005 to promote this movie he said imagine all my friends watching i love huckabees they're like it's pretty cool when you punch that guy in the face but the rest of it who gives a fuck how am i going to explain an existential comedy to my buddy who just got out of jail

he wants to see tits and ass and some heads being busted and then rolling stone says does that mean more movies like four brothers and fewer movies like huckabees and he says not necessarily but that doesn't mean a fucking favor for every motherfucker in the business i don't give a fuck if you've got oscars if you ain't fucking giving one to me i don't give a fuck i feel like walberg has kind of uh mellowed a little bit right yeah this energy now right right it's reading this was a flashback to like oh right like in, Mark Wahlberg was still seen as the guy who might punch strangers. Agro. Very, very.

Yeah. He's still like he had this movie at TIFF last year called Joe Bell. That's like a true story movie, you know, like where he's like making an effort. I don't think the movie is totally successful. He does occasionally still do it once in a while. That's not really much anymore no now he really like it's peterberg for the lighter side he does like sean anders right and that's kind of it he's kind of just doing that over and over again uh isn't there another guy oh oh fuqua fuqua his

new movie is a fuqua yeah that feels like another guy who's a good match for him. I guess he's in the Uncharted movie, right? Right. This was the run where he was kind of really finding his zone. I mean, obviously, like, Departed after this, Huckabees the year before this. He has this run of, like, good mid-budget, like, thrillers and crime movies where he's really getting strong. Yeah, right. you're talking... Well, yeah, I mean, yeah, geez. I mean, like the big hit, he's great in that.

Three Kings, he's great in that. The Yards, he's fantastic in. He's like... He does have a good... I mean, he's... Right, but then he has The Perfect Storm. Well, that's a hit. But then Planet of the Apes,

Rockstar Truth About Charlie, that's the sort of bumpy, you're not quite an A-lister yet, buddy, sort of period for him, right? I think the thing for him was he was an ultimate example of one of those guys where it's like, you got to cast him properly, right? When he's bad, he's like calamitous, but used correctly, he's really powerful. And then, right, the year after this, he has Invincible, which is kind of like a surprise hit.

He gets his Oscar nomination for The Departed. Invincible rules. I love that movie yes i would love more movies like that and and do you like invincible anyone bray are you an invincible fan is that the football it's the inspirational yeah he becomes an eagle he's like cut off off the streets yeah yeah right right yeah yeah it was good i don't directed by erickson core whoever that yeah you watch it on a plane yeah yeah you know i don't know but then he's in this like the shooter we own the night happening is obviously a step back for him max pain doesn't exist shooter is weird shooter stinks we own the night is incredible yeah uh max pain is awful right he is really miscast in max pain that is i never saw max pain oh i mean that's a bad movie on every level and the lovely bones oh that's what i was gonna say so then 2009

is lovely bones that feels like the last time for a while he is that fundamentally miscast right and then he enters this zone where he finally becomes the a-list guy where he's like in the pocket guys right fighter other guys fighter contraband ted broken city is the only one of that run that doesn't that isn't a hit like even contraband comes out in January and makes like $90 million. Pain and Gain, two guns, Lone Survivor's huge. And then he takes over Transformers. And you're like, fuck. Now he's like, got a franchise. His crime movies do well.

He like hosts the Kids' Choice Awards. He does comedy and action and sci-fi and whatever. And you're like, I guess he's got it figured out. And then he sort of starts to like, oh, he does the gambler. Buddy, once again, you're misreading yourself. All the money in the world is a huge misread. The Entourage movie flops. Ted 2 flops.

Daddy's Home's a huge hit. But then like Deepwater Horizon, Patriot's Day both underperform. Transformers Last Night kind of kills the franchise. All the money in the world, as as you said like huge misidentification and then now he's in this odd zone where it's like mile 22 doesn't exist instant family quietly rules spencer confidential apparently was watched by eight billion people on netflix i watch it's bad it's like the bad version of four brothers sp Spencer Confidential. This was a Wahlberg detective movie with Winston Duke that Netflix claimed was like the biggest thing in the world that no one has ever talked about. It sucks.

It stinks. I did not see this movie. Yeah. It's based on the TV show. It sucks. It's really Four Brothers-y, though. It's set in Bostonoston instead of detroit which only makes it more insufferable post malone is post malone is in it that is true um and you know

it's him like busting heads and getting you know into like digging into organized crime and like you know it only spencer and it's it's it's it's the bad version of this movie right okay it just feels like every time he gets some juice in his career he wants to go back and make a movie like this and in 2010 they announced that they were developing a sequel which i have to imagine was just because walberg was hot and he wanted to do it like i can't imagine paramount was like we need to get this off the ground it was more like if he wants to do it like i can't imagine paramount was like we need to get this off the ground it was more like if he wants to do that we want to be in business with him and then as you pointed out even this year tyrese has been claiming it's still gonna happen on

instagram i i want to address this because tyrese apparently posted i'm gonna i'm gonna uh read his caption on instagram paramount has officially greenlit a sequel to Four Brothers. No lies here. LOL. It's all over the net. The script is almost done to the sequel. I mean, it's magic. Gonna be cool as hell getting back with the crew. Hashtag Detroit. Give me four favorite quotes from the movie. Go. And then he links to the Hollywood

Reporter article from 2010. Okay. Okay. I love you, Tyrese. You're great. You're the oh my god clearly he's like oh the script's so good i mean it says so here in this hollywood reporter article the director is dead and one of the four brothers is dead in in universe in the movie in the movie like what what is this sequel gonna be is it five brothers and you have to add two brothers? Like, I like to use this.

Or is it titled Four Brothers Negative One? Yeah, right. Four Brothers Minus One. Maybe that's how you do it. It's four brothers and then it's just that Tyrese now sees his dead brother. It's just like Umbrella Academy where he's just following him around. Look, I'd like that uh yeah but i do think i mean this movie was just like bovincher had a good relationship with

walberg walberg wanted to do a movie with singleton they come up with this very simple premise it does kind of feel like i remember seeing the poster for this movie and going like oh that seems freaking poster cool it's a cool. But it was more just like all I need to know. You're telling me these four guys are brothers and they got guns and they're going to take justice in their own hands. Like, I don't need to know anything else. I was going to say, like, it's so it's I always find it weird when I watch certain movies that have these kind of simple premises. But they're premises that I like. You know, I gravitate towards these types of movies,

and yet the movie just somehow screws it up. It's not good. It's less the... Because I don't need a movie to be innovative all the time. I just want it to be interesting, exciting. I want the action to be good. I want the acting to be fun, you know? And I want it to just

make enough sense so i'm not constantly questioning the logic of the of the film and yet it feels like hollywood has such a hard time making these types of of movies and this that's why it's like movies like this they stick out to me because i'm like oh four yeah i remember four brothers like that movie like it did everything you wanted to do it's successful in it it's fun you know you don't necessarily you're not like going home rethinking your life but you're like

hey I had a good time I like I paid money to go see this thing and it was worth the price of admission Singleton's quote was this is one of those Saturday night special movies you have a good time and enjoy it for what it is. Like, you have to admire that he knew that's exactly what he was trying to deliver.

Right. This is now the third episode in which this is going to be brought up. But Bray, have you seen, for those who wish me dead, the Angelina Jolie fire movie? Okay. I literally, I'm not going to lie, I literally put it on and then was like falling asleep.

Like I did not pay attention to that movie whatsoever. It just- It didn't capture you. It did not. Not at all. Yeah. You're saying that that's a Saturday night special. Yeah. Not at all.

Yeah. You're saying that that's a Saturday night special. Yeah. I love that movie for knowing exactly what it is with very capable actors and like over delivering a little bit. And I said this on a Patreon episode, but I want to say this again on main feed. Any critic who gave that movie a bad review should be arrested. That should be illegal. Like, I think that is too hard to take griffin i'm gonna

i'm gonna i like that movie but uh i okay go on keep going because here's my thing you don't have to say it's great you can't criticize it but the thing that drives me crazy is the amount of reviews i read for that movie where people are like i don't know it's just like one of these things and i'm like right then you don't get to complain about every $250 million movie ending with a portal in the sky. Like, it's the same people who go like, why won't they give us movies that don't have the portal in the sky? And then someone makes a movie like that, that's a Saturday night special, that isn't Oscar bait, right? And it feels like anything in between those two poles, they like, a lot of people don't know how to process anymore. they like a lot of people don't know how to process anymore yes it's it's weird and let's say four brothers came out now it would probably get a similar reaction yeah not the four brothers

is the you know reinvention of cinema or anything but yeah people would be like yeah i don't know it's kind of what's the deal they're just brothers i didn't get you know it didn't really grab me and it's like you know what we need more movies that don't really grab us, okay? They're just pretty good. I'm confused by why this thing exists. It doesn't seem to set up any spinoffs. What? Yeah, no, it's like you want more sort of like good junk food movies like this.

And movies that are like made for adults are not sophisticated, but are like intelligently crafted adult popcorn, which I feel like watching Singleton's Hollywood sort of blockbuster run these couple of weeks has really made me long for. Yes. I just want to throw out a wild stat here from IMDb Trivia, so who knows how well this is sourced. Betty White was apparently considered for the role of Evelyn Mercer. stat here uh uh from imdb trivia so who knows how well this is sourced uh betty white was

apparently considered for the role of evelyn mercer can you imagine how distortive it would be to watch this movie today yeah well i guess you know this is pre betty white as living meme right like it would be right before then it would have worked at the time she would have been like i griffin i i'm not sure that it would have worked at the time it might have uh because she had been in bringing down the house isn't she kind of doing the betty white thing and bringing down the house yes she is but you're right you know i feel like she probably would have been doing the betty white thing Like, I don't know. Right. Right.

It might have undercut the because they did try to the movies tries to, like, make you feel like, no, no, no. This is a real mother who, like, cares about these these men and these men respect her. Sure. She's really good. But it does suggest that they really were like, we are looking for a nice little old lady with white hair. Like, who you got like if betty white was their first choice yeah the the bobby list was ethan hawk matt damon and affleck before they go to walberg walberg brings on singleton and then i imagine singleton i don't

imagine i read interviews to back this up singleton immediately went i'm obviously bringing tyrese on again why break the streak and then andre was his big like project where he really wanted him to do this and i think everyone was like andre benjamin feels like a guy who should be like a movie star but was very reticent to take his steps into it uh because he wanted to manage his career properly. And the bizarre thing that JJ pulled up here is that Andre... I'm just going to read this verbatim. Andre initially turned it down because he, quote, just wasn't sure he could play a guy with three brothers.

And then Andre Benjamin's... further quote is, I'm an only child in real life i love being by myself that's where i feel most comfortable i didn't think i'd make a plausible sibling they're two in their heads about the brothers all these guys so first of all that's hilarious but also it worked out because he was the brother who was kind of the most estranged. Yeah. And it like actually felt, it felt right. Like he was like, he was like,

he's in it, but you always feel like he never felt like he really belonged in this crew when he has to like put it on, you know? And you're like, Oh yeah, he's playing this role. Great.

He seems a little bit out of remove. He seems like he's the one who's a little more elitist and judgmental. The whole movie, most of its tension comes from trying to figure out whether he's with them or against them. And like that's not the way probably anyone else was envisioning using Andre 3000 as an actor at this point. Like if you think about Heya being two years earlier than this and Be Cool being exactly the part. He's probably being offered 8000 times a week. It's smart for Singleton to use him this way and then uh yeah and then the the headland part was just like

okay here's a role for one of the white guys we're testing out whether or not he could be a movie star and renner and cooper were apparently both in the running for it. But Hedlund's much younger. Hedlund's 20. Yeah, because he had, as I love to think about, he was the runner-up for Ryan in the OC, for the lead role in the OC. And again, my new favorite podcast is the OC Recap Podcast, the Rachel Bilson hosts.

And the casting agent came on, and this is crazy, and said that Chris Pine was the other runner-up and was rejected because he had acne he had like bad skin which is crazy to think about like he was like i feel horrible saying this but that was the network's objection to him he had shitty skin anyway garrett headland so yeah he's a baby and when like tron legacy is five years later like he's not really a thing post this movie for a while he's not really happening like no I mean he does Friday Night Lights the year before this right and this is those two movies this and that are like the this do you know this guy came close

to getting that big show this stupid thing I, you talk about the weird ways that the industry thinks, Braylock. It is often better for your career to not be hired for something that goes on to be a hit than to be in something that does okay. Because they're like, well, if they thought about him for this thing. Right. And they have a hit show. The only time I have ever had, like, I felt genuine momentum in my career is when i didn't get hired to do the michael bay ninja turtles movie and that was like the only time where i started getting jobs by reputation because they were like well i don't know they thought about you and i was like yeah my screen test was a disaster like but it didn't matter the fact that

they had considered putting me in something like that it meant you were the fact that they had considered putting in something like that it meant you were on the list of young actors right that they you know whatever the pool that they dipped into it's very much a monkey see monkey do industry and yeah and the friday night lights movie is a lot of those like kind of young guys and then this movie it's like oh wow you're putting him like above the title with like one proven movie star and two like very famous musicians who are also becoming movie stars right i guess he's a dude and then it feels like for like seven years he was one of those guys who was constantly on those short lists about testing for the young blonde handsome guy in any tentpole movie like it just felt like he was always in the mix,

and then Tron was the one he got, and then that didn't really connect. And then kind of right after Tron, he starts having a really interesting career as more of a character actor, where he starts doing, like, Llewyn Davis and shit. He's really good in Llewyn Davis. I enjoy him in Billy Wynnein i feel like we shouted him out in

that maybe the best performance in that movie yeah yeah without a doubt i like him more when he's doing that when he's off to the side a little bit i think he's good in triple frontier he's good mudbound he's good in mudbound but like he's pretty bad in pan which is like he where he plays captain hook where he's being asked to be the sort of charismatic movie star. He's fine in Tron Legacy. I mean, that's a horrible role to get because obviously you're just being surrounded

by noise and visuals. I really, I like him, and yet I'm looking at his career, and it's not like there's any slam dunks here. No. What's my favorite Garrett Hedlund performance? Is it still his silent performance in Inside Llewyn Davis? Is that it?

It's pretty undeniable. But also, he's great in Billy Lynn, which it's like... He is really good in that. You kind of have to give him props for that, because as someone who hosts the podcast Blank Check and has watched Billy Lynn in four different formats he is the one performance that plays equally well in all of them yeah he's he's he's genuinely good in that movie look this movie is weird okay there are four brothers yes okay mark walberg is is alpha brother and like... Mercers. Yes, in classic Mark Wahlberg style,

he's, I guess, he's just a dirtbag. Like, that's who he is, right? He doesn't even like... He's got a hot head. He's a real hot head. He's got a hot head. Yeah, there's no actual description of the crime that he gets into.

Right, of what he is. He's just... It's like, does he sell drugs? You know, like... Cold open of the movie is Fanula Flanagan getting shot, right? Then you go to the credits. A good sequence. Great sequence.

Chilly, like you said, Griffin, it's all snowy and kind of dark, and it's good. It's a good sequence. And it's also showing that she lays down the law, but she actually really cares about this kid, doesn't want him to get in trouble. She actually really cares about this kid. Doesn't want him to get in trouble. Then you go to this cred sequence, the start of Singleton's use of like deep 70s, kind of dark ages of Motown on the soundtrack,

which I think gives this movie- The soundtrack to this movie. Really great energy. Really good. With these guys in the like bitter cold driving back home to this funeral, right? And then you get to them in the backyard post-funeral and then this scene with Josh Charles and Terrence Howard, where Terrence Howard, like, sets up the four characters, right?

Explains to his partner who they are. I rewound this scene three times for the reason you guys just said, where I kept on being like, I feel like I missed a line. He, like, starts setting them up and finishes setting them up and never actually setting them up and finishes setting them up and never actually sets them up like it's just it's so it's we all know there are four brothers there's the hot head there's the army guy there's the successful family man and the rocker yeah and the little runt rocker he's the youngest four types of brother don't let him fool you he's still a

mercer i think that's the line that's a specific don't let him fool you he's still a mercer and then they're like they're like oh and this guy must be bad no actually he's okay right he's chill he's chill chill nice guy it's it's an odd dynamic but i do like this energy of like four guys who are very different who do feel a genuine sense of brotherhood and i agree with you raylock it is the thing this movie probably does most successfully is just the the sibling energy between them yeah because you the it's like tyrese mark walberg headland you they they they have that together, right? Like they're all – and then Andre feels like he's kind of somewhat outside of it but trying to join in at times.

And then other times just being like, you guys are idiots. I'm staying over here. So that feels – it feels right. But they're like, oh, they care about each other. You kind of don't care about what their lives were, like how long it's been. They're like, oh, there's just a general feeling that they've been away for some time,

even though the one kid seems like he's very young. So I'm like, how long has he been away? A year? He couldn't possibly have been away that long. But it's like they both have the feeling like they haven't been here in 10 years and also they've been they they were here like yesterday because they because they haven't skipped a beat like everything that they do in this movie there's it's just with the utmost

confidence and like the only thing that's changed is that victor sweet has now like i guess taken over he's the head gang member of detroit he's taken over a restaurant and he's bossing everyone around you were saying that this movie is sort of like overly stuffed with plot there is like a chunk in the middle where i would say i would i started getting confused about what i should be caring about what I shouldn't like in a movie like this you go like which threads do I actually need to pay attention to versus what is just superfluous kind of like exposition yeah it's a revenge movie where they get their revenge pretty early on but there's still like a good chunk of them hunting down the killers and killing the killers and then there's but then we got an hour and 20 minutes left. There's the mystery.

Right. And then it's like, okay, well, something's up with Andre's character in terms of public corruption and state senators and payoffs and all that. Something's up with these. There's a corrupt cop. There's a whole Terrence Howard subplot to deal with. And then also there's like, okay. And also, okay, there's Victor Sweet sweet let's introduce you to victor sweet and let's get this going because this is going to be our major thing now like which maybe takes like an hour yeah then he shows up and it's like okay i do think i mean we were

talking about like you know headlands a guy who just kind of gets lost in movies over a certain budget size, right? Like, I think this is a thing we often talk about when we break down careers is like, some actors do not have the versatility to be able to find their way to do their thing in any type of project, not just genre, but like, structure and budget and size and all this sort of shit. And, you know, you forefronted this, Brayaylock with how much like Chiwetel's performance is, is the thing that really sticks with you in this movie. It is kind of a good point where like up until this point,

he was this very respected British actor who had gotten roles in movies that allowed him to like sort of act in a traditional sense, right? Like play a human being handle real like intimate human drama and shit like that and sometimes actors like this when you start going like hey can we make you the and and give you like five scenes where you just kind of have to pop as the villain you can tell they don't really give a shit about it or they can't figure out a way to do it you know they can't figure out a way to adapt their process to something where it's not really there on the page and this is that year

where you go like oh chuitel can kind of do anything like he can kind of just look at the script and figure out how to elevate whatever you're giving him he knows when to go big when the choice is to not take it seriously at all. He knows when to like really drill down. He could be funny. He could be scary. He could be romantic. Like, and I also feel like he can fully own being the lead and he can also be very generous about knowing like,

I know exactly what my part is. I know exactly how much I can do before it starts to disrupt the thing. Exactly right. Because that's the thing is, you know, I, I do, I do think a lot of actors get the chance at being just this villain and they're like, all right, here's my chance to like ham it up and like kind of, you know, chew the scenery, do, do everything I can. But as the, like the audience, you kind of feel that a lot of times, like you feel them

doing it and then you're like i don't know if i buy it you have to buy the fact that this person feels as dangerous as they as they are presenting a lot of people forget to actually uh bring tension to the plate overqualified actors playing underwritten villain roles they're like oh i get to just like have fun it's like no but your your role in the movie is to create tension somehow right um and so i just feel like he does because again when we he also brings a presence to a character that like when we first see him it should be like who is this person why do i what what are we doing like shouldn't i find out who this guy is at the

end of the movie isn't this a mystery you know but it's like no no he's he's the person looming in the background and we're like okay we're gonna eventually have to deal with him they're setting it up like mark walberg is gonna have to face this guy at the end but right you kind of yeah he has to set that up in essentially like two big scenes right leading up to the finale like you need to introduce a guy this late give him two scenes and make it still feel like he's in your mind you're aware that that's the big bad they're ultimately trucking towards right can i offer though one thing of criticism please yeah only one okay one the shooters feel to me like they aren't they're kind of like dealt with really quickly and i know obviously it's like we want to get to the big bad guy but i do feel like like that's a

big part of their revenge but i feel like it's almost like all right now that we got that out of the way we got to figure out the guy who's behind them. Like, I don't know. I guess I'm just putting myself in the shoes of like, logically, wouldn't you want to go after the shooters? Not necessarily take down the infrastructure of crime. Well, yeah. Guys, we got to take down the infrastructure of crime. It's a weird structural thing with this movie where it's like, this is a personal revenge thing, right? Then it's, wait a second, is our brother responsible for this? And then once they untangle that, they go like, oh, he isn't, but he is caught up in this thing. We need to save him. And I would argue the stretch of the movie loses a little momentum is in the middle between the two.

When they've gotten their revenge and they haven't cleared Andre Benjamin yet. And they're sort of like, how much do we need to care about the rest of this movie? Yeah. I mean, for me, it was like, first of all, the hunt for those two shooters was awesome because that's the snow chase car scene. And their cars are slipping around and crashing into each other and then going again. And it's like, that was cool. And then they, but I guess I don't, I actually couldn't track when they found out that they were contracted killers. If it was after, before they killed them or after they killed them.

Might be after. Yes. They definitely, they definitely wiped those guys off the mat without asking a lot of questions yeah it was like boom boom get get their wallets you know communicating plot information is this movie's weakness where sometimes you go like has that been confirmed or am i just inferring this right right it's like oh i know their contract i the audience member know their contract killers does mark the audience member, know their contract killers. Does Mark Wahlberg know those guys? I don't know about those guys.

Yeah, yeah, because he certainly killed them like he knew that he was like, you know. I will say, though, once you know and once it feels like everybody now knows that it's contract killers, I would say you don't care about – like those are the people. They got paid to shoot them. You want them dead but you also the real revenge is the person who ordered the hit right you know that's the that's the real yeah i think i i feel like i don't i don't know i've never uh had lost a loved one to murder and got on a revenge tour but if i did yeah i mean i would want to hunt down the person who who hired the i i only have one brother i would want to hunt down the person who who hired

i i only have one brother i could never put myself in the shoes of these characters i i mean thank god i wasn't asked to play the role it would have been very hard to relate yeah yeah four brothers i can understand three but i should mention that after andre benjamin turned down the role because uh he didn't think he could convincingly play someone with siblings uh he then uh was on his uh itunes and uh he got a computer generated recommendation for an album by the folk revivalist the brothers four and that he took as an omen he called singleton he said never mind i'm doing the movie. So this is Andre Benjamin's career decision-making process.

I will rule out a role because I think imagining having multiple brothers is outside of my wheelhouse, but if an iTunes algorithm gives me the name of that movie in an opposite order, I'll take it as a sign

that I have to do it. He's... I think... What do you guys think of Andre? I think he's pretty good in this movie. I think he's pretty fucking good in this movie. Against type. Yeah. Obviously, it's not like the richest role in the world, but he's good.

I think he's a pretty talented actor. He's obviously an incredibly talented musician. He's never cashed it in or whatever like he's never had he never figured it out i feel like like i enjoy him in basically any movie i've seen him in how much has he been how much okay so i feel like this and be cool are the ones that i remember him from are you ready for the run so be cool four brothers same year right uh before that he does uh he did two uh he did an anime dub and he has a small part in hollywood homicide right the same year as this he also does revolver a guy richie movie that doesn't exist yes the guy richie it's it exists it's a famed bomb it's way

it's it's the one that's all like kabbalah influenced it's crazy yes uh then this is the thing that i would argue kind of derails him the following year is ida wild yeah ida wild yeah which i think everyone was like well clearly this should be outcasts purple rain their videos are so good they're so compelling everyone thinks this guy's gonna be a movie star this is gonna be their last album and that movie is just like a total non-starter. But more than anything, he is really fucking boring in that movie. I remember being like, well, come on. Like, I know it hasn't gotten good reviews, but Andre is so good. And then you see it in Big Boy Pops, and he is just like so low energy in that film.

I wish that movie was good. Yeah. I do too. I started watching scenes on youtube the other night because i was like is there any chance it's good and i didn't get it at the time and it's just kind of inert yeah and then after that like forgetting some voice roles like apparently he's in fracture i'm not seeing uh he's in battle in seattle the famously unreleased semi-pro and then right he's in semi-pro that was like one

where now he's like above the title he's the third lead he's good in that he's funny in that and then he doesn't do another movie until the jimmy hendrix movie five years later which was so hyped because he kind of you know kind of looks like jimmy hendrix a little bit and i guess just you know it's like oh he's a musician this will be great you know though j of looks like Jimi Hendrix a little bit. And I guess just, you know, it's like, oh, he's a musician. This will be great. You know, the Jimi Hendrix, there's never been a good movie about him. And he's been attached for like a decade to make some kind of Hendrix movie. He gets a Spirit nomination, but it feels like that movie didn't really get a lot of attention.

And then he doesn't make it. Me neither. And then he doesn't make another movie for five years until High Life. when he shows up in high life he's great in high life but you're like why isn't he doing something like this every year i feel like he's just chilling i guess he yeah i don't know maybe he maybe it's not for him i don't know yeah i mean i respect that like he hasn't like where is he in music wise i know he'll he'll pop in on other people's albums and stuff. He does a track on Frank Ocean's Blonde. Right.

Yeah. And he's great on that. He has a track on Channel Orange, too. I don't really get it. I guess he was in the season two of American Crime. Oh, right. I guess he was. You're right.

He did his Cartoon Network show. He did two seasons of that class of 3000 uh-huh which he i think was very hands-on with but yeah i mean he hasn't done like a solo album right no okay he did an ep in 2018 that was self-released. Yeah, I don't know. And that is the only solo thing he's done since Outkast put up? Someone who is so transformatively important as a musician when basically all the 90s and 2000s. And then just kind of, I don't know. I guess he just kind of picks his spots now.

He's only 46 years old. Have you all seen Dispatches from Elsewhere, this Jason Segel show? No, is he on that? Yeah, he's one of the four leads. Wow. That sounded so weird, and I kept meaning to check it out, and I never did because there's too much TV.

Segel, Andre Benjamin, Richard E. Grant, Sally Field. Yeah. meaning to check it out and i never did because there's too much tv seagull andre benjamin richard e grant sally field yeah it's just so it just feels like i remember i saw the trailer for this show and i was like wow this show feels like a big swing it's it's got it's got some names in it and then i heard literally no one talk about it and i was like well i guess it must not be good i don't i don't think it got bad reviews like, yeah, yeah, it was sort of interesting. And like, then that's that. It's on AMC and it just floats away. That's one of those things where I'm like, is there just way too much TV?

If that had come out six years ago, would people be really into it? Does no one just have the time to check that out? Genuinely, Griffin, I think you nailed it. No one had the time. And, you know it obviously it debuted like days before the pandemic right like and and it's yeah i guess i was just like sorry jason i know you've basically been in like you know soft retirement in your back but we don't have time to like check out whatever this is from you yeah also i don't know if it's on streaming

oh i guess i guess it is now it's probably on fucking amc plus or whatever this is the other right that's the thing amc has their own thing that's another thing that fucks them is just like you have to subscribe to the amc specific streaming service yeah come on you guys realize you are saying we don't have time and it's a fucking pandemic i know all have been home well no but here's the thing here's the thing about television during the pandemic television during the pandemic one it had to be on a streaming you had to be bingeable right everyone you know you can't watch it on your phone yeah okay uh sorry quibi uh and you have to and it also had to be somewhat of a escapist kind of programming, right?

Maybe like this may destroy maybe being like the only show. There were a couple things like that, right? That broke through because they were so good that people were like, okay, all right, we're going to pay attention to this. But yeah, mostly escapism. But yeah, and I think this was just a little too weird, not, not bingeable. And it also got caught up.

Cause I feel like there was a lot of like high premise stuff, like upload and, you know, you know, there's like Avenue five. And I don't know, there was like a lot of like, like,

Oh, this is kind of a weird, quirky premise. And I don't know. I just,'t know i i just this one didn't this one didn't break through yeah it's weird because amc does have a good track record but yeah here's the thing i'll say about maybe it's great though maybe maybe it's good that's why i'm like incredible right maybe this is my favorite show i don't know um i i will say this about andre and i've been trying to find, like, a smarter way to say this.

I'm just going to say the dumb thing. He does have such a natural musicality to the way he speaks. Like, he is just so engrossing. He has bizarre speaking rhythms, you know, in a way that doesn't feel too affected. Like, he's able to play the low-key guy in the group but always be captivating i mean he's playing the calm one in this movie uh but he doesn't make the guy like a shrinking violet which i i think is you know like no small feat yeah i mean he he he services the movie very well i would say he he does kind of get stuck with the role that's probably the least memorable

because it's an action type movie and we don't really get to see him do much. And he's gone for a big chunk of it. The whole sort of middle act of the movie is based around the fact where it's like, where is he? What's he up to? and taraji is his wife in this like yeah her character is almost non-existent like yeah yeah that it's almost a favor that role this is singleton i mean a double dipping with taraji and uh terence howard from uh hustle and and Terrence Howard from Hustle & Flow at the same time. But also I feel like he was single-handedly committed to making Taraji Pants in a movie star.

From when she didn't get the role she should have gotten after Baby Boy, he just kind of stuck with her. And it was in the notes that JJ put together, but an interview where he said he saw Terrence Howard in The Best Man. He thought this guy was a star. He tried to get him for a part in, um,

shaft. And he took a TV movie that I forgot existed. He played Muhammad Ali on an ABC TV movie that bombed. And then Howard's career was kind of just like floating for a couple of years, like playing the bad guy in Big Mama's house. So then when he found Craig Brewer and the Hustle & Flow script, he was like, Terrence Howard should do this. And then he went to Terrence Howard and he was like, you should have fucking listened to me five years ago. I was ready to like make you one of my stock company guys.

And he said that like he asked Howard to do this as a favor because he knew that he was going to pop when Hustle and Flow came out. He wanted to be a guy who could benefit from that pop. But like those were two people where he was just like, they should be stars. I'm going to keep on trying to put him in shit until Hollywood takes notice. Yes. I mean, her role, she is so overqualified for this role at this point. It's nothing. I kept on waiting for there to be any scene where she does anything.

Right. But then Sophia got like at any scene where she does anything. Anything. Right, but then it's like. At least Sophia got like, at least she got, she had consistency. Like she was like the hot, crazy. She has like comedy. She's got like a character game. I don't know. There's like shit to play.

A little crazy, her part of the movie. You are kind of like, we could have cut this. But yes, she has things to do. What are the two names they give her one of them is loco oh no live in la vida loca right that's the other no yeah she keeps he keeps saying that i don't know i forgot what else no no he calls her loco oh no and leave live in la vida loca yeah he's such a piece of shit yeah he really is he's such a fucking piece of shit like i love him but he's such a motherfucker

and this is this is like that classic like i you i don't i don't know if you can make characters like this that you love it we're watching lost and it's the same thing with like sawyer you're just like sawyer is a horrible racist like he's a terrible person and then like and like it's like on this lovable character and you're just like you can't make characters like this anymore but also like look the next year is the departed where he finds like his perfect role right oh my god and perfect right and they're just like what if you suddenly took the burden of being a leading man off of mark walberg and just said shoot as many spitballs as you want right and it's just the most thrilling thing to watch in the world because when you watch

him in this movie you're like is this guy like an issue you know like i should be having fun watching him like dick around with his brothers but sometimes he goes too far and the part of you're like go further i don't have to be rooting for you it's fine is the rule of mark walberg that he doesn't have to play someone from boston but he has to play someone from a city where they play hockey and he can wear a hockey shirt like he wears a red wings jersey in this and you're like yeah he like is he doing a detroit accent no he's just doing mark walberg but he's just kind of like, yeah, Detroit. It's like snowy or Boston.

I get it. Detroit is Boston. It's the same. Yeah. I mean, what's the difference? This is the other role with Mark Wahlberg. Mark Wahlberg's best when he's got a chip on his shoulder and he's playing low status. Right.

In a movie where like no one's take him seriously. They doubt him and he's got to prove that he's like with it and he gets it and whatever. That's what like all his comedy roles have started using him so well to do and what russell got early on uh you know and then with things like the gambler or um all the money in the world misidentify or you can have him be the guy punching down as long as he's not the lead of your movie you know but it feels like this is his mode that he wants to be in and when you put him at the center of the movie you sometimes go like you're a take it down a notch this is this is my favorite line from him and it's it's horrible but

it it's like they're at the bar and he's like pour me and my brothers another round and some nice warm milk for my sister and he's like man i'll drink my brothers another round and some nice warm milk for my sister. And he's like, man, I'll drink you under the table. Because we're not talking about sperm, Jack. Yeah. It's just like nonstop. I'm just like, why does anyone put up with him? He's so annoying. It's also like, why is he the de facto leader of the group?

Like, I get he's the lead character because he's the one played by Mark Wahlberg. But Griffin, this is a great question. Tyrese Gibson is in the military. He is clearly better at all of these things. And he's bigger. Is there any reason why this guy is the largest role of the four brothers other than that he's the one played by the most famous actor? And the answer I kept on coming back to is no. I think he's just like he's the craziest.

I mean, to is no. I think he's just like, he's the craziest. I mean, he is crazy. He certainly will interrupt a high school basketball game with a loaded gun or whatever. With a loaded gun. I got the rock now. Oh my God. Oh my God. When he goes, I got the rock now,

he does a couple of dribbles and you realize that he is at least a foot shorter than everyone around him like truly every single person around him he he drops he drops a few and and words i would say at least one maybe a couple yeah yeah yeah i mean obviously the idea being he's you know and from this family i grew up with black brothers yeah right right but but still where you're like wow like unblinking walberg you just i mean he's he sells that this guy definitely would act this way i buy it totally totally yeah let's say three years later his agents would not have let him do this

like to be like but it's it's realistic they'd be Mark, you cannot say that word on camera under any circumstances. I don't care what you're playing. You seem too happy saying it. You're having too much fun. The IMDb trivia fact I want to throw out here. Almost all of Mark Wahlberg's lines were improvised. Garrett Hedlund had difficulty improvising his lines. So director John Singleton and Mark Wahlberg helped him through it.

difficulty improvising his lines so director john singleton and mark walberg helped him through it what that sounds like to me is mark walberg kept on insulting garrett headland a 20 year old actor in a lead role for the first time on camera and singleton had to be like come on say something back you're gonna say come on yeah right stand up to him you're a foot taller than him right but it does feel like those scenes are him being like hey fuckhead stop drinking so much cum and the headlands like come on guys i like girls like his his comebacks are very they make sense when you realize they were not in the script and headland was thrown off it's just it's i mean headland works in this movie in that he feels like the youngest brother who is just kind of along for the ride he's like the lookout 100 but uh he's not bringing a lot to the table

in terms of crime fighting no his character is the most underwritten but he looks really fucking cool in this movie yeah yeah ben please speak speak to. Yeah, when I saw this movie in theaters, I then was, I remember asking my girlfriend at the time to try and cut my hair like his hair. He's got that thing. I don't think I've ever seen anywhere other than on this head where he's got like the long stringy sideburns. Do you know what I'm saying?

That's what I loved about it. Yeah. It does work. It's weird. It's weird that it works because I'm like, not a bad looking dude. No.

It works for him. He sells it. Yeah, it didn't look good on me. I was going to say, it's not fair to say his character was underwritten because we have a scene where the mom looks at him and says, I know you went through some really bad things before you got here.

Yes. And he is shaking in fear. So we know. We know. He went through some really bad things. We know he went through some really bad things. And then look, Hedlund plays all of those moments really well. Very real.

I believe it. Even just his sort of like bottled crying at the funeral. Like every time they cut to Hedlund and give him a shot where he has to express a lot with zero dialogue, that guy knows how to fill up with emotion. Like he's there. And he must be like, look, this is my, you know, these guys are all, I got to make an effort with every bit of material right like you know he's clearly trying but i i die on page 75 i gotta do as much as i can yeah

i gotta say i was kind of surprised he died kind of that kind of shocked me i figured the brothers were gonna make it yeah yeah man it's it's dude it the death rocks you One of the brothers dies, man. It's, you know? Sometimes the brothers die. And that's why you gotta kill Chiwetel Ejiofor. You got to kill Victor Sweet. Gotta get him. Gotta get him. And they gotta set him up. Talking about cold crime, snow crime, and all of that,

you know, it's like Fargo obviously does this really well, but when you get to this final Andre versus Truettel standoff, I just love that visual when you have the ground and the sky are the exact same color of white. You know, when it's just ice and snow and a totally white sky and it's just like characters existing in like a void. It's unnerving. Very. I read the warmest it ever was when they were filming this movie was 24 degrees. And it was often below zero. Wow.

Jesus. Wow. Crazy that that's like a major American city. It sounds cold. Yeah. And I live in New York. New York is cold. It's not like New York is hot in the winter.

Toronto and Detroit. Toronto and Detroit. Toronto and Detroit. Like the most major city in one country and one of the most major cities in another country both presented as inhospitable in this film. Oh, man. Oh, there's one other part where Victor Sweet is like...

I guess they're at... I don't know if it's a dinner table or the poker table and he looks at it this other guy he's like oh you got married and he was like yeah maybe i'll have to take her for a ride and like there's a look that he gives that is maybe the most disturbing look i've ever seen on screen where just the lust and like villainy in his eyes is just like truly i like had to look away it was so so crazy he's like the fucking mad king from game of thrones yeah he's playing like a pretty small time detroit crime guy and he's acting like he's like i am god and if i look at you you turn to stone like that's how much energy he's putting at the end that fucking fur coat and that like he's got like what looks

like a 25 000 ski cap right like he's wearing like a white ski cap that looks like it's made out of chinchilla or something um an interesting thing about shuua tells he has those interesting scars on his forehead right right those are his those he got right as a kid or whatever right and you know they don't cover them up in movies i feel like certain films they accentuate it more but i do think it's interesting that like in his roles where he is playing like you know his sort of like sophisticated man fighting against injustice right even from like the obvious like 12 years a slave scale to like his dumb paycheck version of that is 2012 where he's like begging the president to acknowledge that the world's about to end i feel like those scars lent him like a sense of vulnerability and depth of just like oh this is a

man who has like suffered you know there's like such a well of vulnerability and depth of just like oh this is a man who is like suffered you know there's like such a well of feeling in him and then when you put him in villain roles like this it makes him more menacing as well like it can both be a vulnerability and an additional element of intimidation for him he's also

just got such a fucking interesting face he's got a great face he's super handsome but super you know interesting to look at his voice is just phenomenal like he just has the most like rich voice yeah uh and like i said before like i just appreciate that he'll do a lot of stuff you know like as much as maybe hollywood has shortchanged him. I do... For crying out... Remember when he was in the Maleficent sequel? Remember when he was the sort of villain in The Old Guard?

Yeah, he's great in The Old Guard. He'll pop in. He's great. He's great in The Old Guard. Yeah. And even the Fuqua-Wallberg trailer that just came out this week. Have you guys watched that? I haven't.

Infinite is this movie we're talking about uh which was going to come out in theaters now it's going to debut on paramount plus here's my pitch for watching that trailer uh chewy is going forth right right totally shaved head big beard big performance choices that sounds good as a villain just intimidate mark walberg like more of this it just feels like him trying to outdo this character that is one of the movies essentially because walbert got so in the peterberg zone that it is surprising he's making this kind of high concept sci-fi movie with antoine fuqua you know like that seems like a swerve but then it's too bad it's like going apparently maybe it's horrible i don't know but like it sucks that it's going to paramount like because he'll probably be like yeah fuck that i should

just do peterberg movies right like that's the lesson i learned i read a piece this week somewhere hollywood reporter something about how uh angry walberg was about that and as well and how this is one of many cases where they literally were not notified they found out when the story broke i don't i understand that hollywood is run by morons and i understand that their reaction to the pandemic was especially moronic and they were like scrambling and yada yada yada and they're all owned by these companies that are like why don't we have netflix you know they're just yelling that all the time but it's so weird that that's what they've done. You would think the one thing they remember how to do

is massage the egos of super famous people you want to work with again. It's just come on. You call Wahlberg and you'd be like, it's going to be the biggest thing for Paramount+. It's great for us if you can do this. You know what I mean? Sell him on it, right?

We're going to change the logo. It's going to be you on top of the mountain. It'll be Wahlberg plus. Yeah. But no, but like I feel like this week that we're recording this was the debut of, you know, obviously this is a thing we love talking about in this show. What I think inarguably is the greatest logo of any movie studio ever, which of course is a Warner brothers discovery. Yes.

And now to be fair, that is not the logo that would play before a movie. That is the corporate logo. Thank God. It's still, it sucks farts. It sucks farts through a straw. And as I looked this up,

Oh, just Google Warner brothers discovery straw. I'm about to look this up. Oh, Bray, get ready. Just Google Warner Brothers Discovery logo. I mean, it looks like something that maybe you cooked up in, I don't know. How generous should I be, Griffin? One minute? Wait, this isn't the actual image? No, here's what it looks like. Wait, this is the real image?

Yeah, yes. It looks like a Gateway 2000 screensaver option where you can pick any text you want and it makes it into like... It looks like clip art. Yes. And also the fact that it says, the stuff that dreams are made of. Is that a tagline that you just...

But David, this is why I bring this up. Because the whole press release with that... The stuff that dreams are made of. Yeah, don't end with a fucking proposition. The whole press release that came with this logo is them being like, we are reestablishing Warner Brothers Discovery as the number one place for artists to tell stories. We love artists. We are about artists now. Like the whole thing is them trying to damage control for how much AT&T pissed everyone off with the HBO Max deal where they're like, we're not using the word content stories. We love stories and artists dream stories, artists dreams.

You're the clouds. It's a line from the Maltese Falcon. And what summons the history of noir more than that beautiful logo that looks like a bunch of golden letters hanging in a blue sky? Warner Brothers should stop dicking around and just replace the shield with Bogey's face. Because for years, they had the Casablanca song underneath the logo. Now it's the logo with a different bogey tagline. Just make it his smiling face. Make it like the Animaniacs popping out of the water tower. The WB shield that flips open, and you have Zemeckis with a reanimated bogey.

Say, hey, come on. It's a Warner Brothers picture. I love bogey. Four Brothers. What have we not talked about with Four Brothers do want to shout out josh charles who is in this like i said in the swat the year before maybe two years before he plays the exact same character like weak chinned corrupt cop uh what what happened there like i guess the good wife he just sort of saved himself but like

like post sports night is he just he's just kind of like what you know what what do people want to do with me and this is all they can think of i think look josh charles also like quit good wife at like arguably a peak of the show because he was like i don't know i was just kind of tired of doing it it's true he's a guy who does not really buy into like career strategizing and just it's like i don't know i feel like doing this like you have to imagine his reps were like josh you cannot play another correct cop in an august blockbuster you were going to be typecast forever and he's like no i'm gonna do it again john singleton will be fun the the and then specifically his character detective baller who kills terrence howard in cold blood uh in a pretty

good little showdown scene but then gets totally totally fooled by this like insane plot that tyrese comes up with where it's like yes i'm gonna pretend that i'm recording him on a wire and the cops will be summoned and he'll think they're there to kill him and thus fire on them. Like, there's just a lot of assumptions being made. A lot. It is a huge swing. Really? Let me tell you, because there are so many ways for that to go wrong.

It goes exactly how they want it to go. It goes exactly how they want it to go. Perfectly. Couldn't go better like he could have just came out held a gun and then the guy would have been like what are you doing uh we thought you were the suspect and he would have been like oh i am and i got the drop on him and then that would have been done like you know like if he had a if he had just an inkling of communication skills he could have got out of it. He was like, I'm going to go out in a blaze of glory. I mean, wild, but.

The cops are literally like, we're here to help you. Like, put the gun down. We're here to help you. And he's like, I'm not going to jail. Fuck you. I definitely want to shoot you. It also feels like the cops are like hey we haven't been watching this movie can someone give us a quick fill us in plot points we don't care about

tyrese having a hard time tracking the major events that have passed in the last couple hours i mean i guess the idea is that he thought he was going to die no matter what, because they think that he killed Terrence Howard, who is also a cop. You know, cops come after cop killers pretty hard and who knows what they would do. So but I mean, yeah, it's a little bit of a stretch, but, you know, you you buy it at that point in the movie. You buy it. I prefer the Andre plan. You buy it. At that point in the movie, you buy it. I prefer the Andre plan.

I like the idea of just like, you know, like, no, I'm a pro-union guy. I take care of my workers. Honestly, the Andre plan was the only plan they needed. I mean, I don't even know why they needed to call the, like, because did he call the cops? Like, they called the cops. Right. It's true. Wait, like, right?

Sophia was a part of the plan, right? Like, she's the one who cops. Right. It's true. Wait, right? Sophia was a part of the plan, right? Yes. She's the one who told. Yes. So it's one of those things where. She goes to the cops and says, this guy, they're going to kill a cop here. And so the cops are going there to ostensibly rescue Josh Charles. It's not like she went to the cops and said, you got to get Josh Charles. And they do such

a great job just yeah it's look it's it's it was one of those things where you kind of like why wasn't it just the wire like why did you have to do this switcheroo it could have it could have just been that and everyone would have been okay with it but it was like no no that's what people expect let's have them be even smarter they'll they'll they'll say it's a wire but it wasn't even a wire you know because they weren't able to do that and you're like oh okay that's where the movie frustrates me a little bit and just because like singleton directs this well. You have such a capable cast. It's such an engagingly simple premise. It's such a pleasantly unpretentious movie that knows exactly what it's doing.

And I just kind of wish there was like 10% less incomprehensible overthought plot mechanics and 10% more just kind of like character investment. mechanics and 10% more just kind of like character investment. Like I literally just feel like I want 10 minutes distributed across the movie of, of them being brothers beyond what there is in the film. Right, right. That's fair. And instead there's like insane shootout scenes.

And then Terrence Howard shows up and is like, yeah, this is no problem. I can cover this. You know, like it's fine. No one's going to ask you any questions about this. It's no big deal.

Yeah, they probably could have had one less, you know, interrogation. Four brothers interrogation of somebody. They had, like, maybe, like, four. There are scenes that are raw, though. Like, that scene where Wahlberg interrogates the guy and then doesn't shoot him and the guy says thank god and walberg's like thank victor sweet and shoots him where it's like that's nasty but i kind of like yeah right brutal it is like i you know this is not a right totally easy to root for hero right no and and there's the the soara washing machine sex scene, which is once again just like specific choices are being made here. This movie has.

I mean, that was, you know, that was that was that was for the teenage boys. Sure. They put that in there for the for the teenage boys could you just imagine like going on to like a time traveler going back to the set of four brothers in 2004 and go like which person in this cast do you think is going to become like a mogul in 15 years right sofía facara is always on those lists of the highest earning stars in hollywood where you're like she makes 50 million dollars a year selling like coconut water or whatever yeah she just has a right she is america's most beloved like uh shopping uh figure right yeah like she does like kmart she does pepsi she does head and shoulders she's got like all the you know products

she's married to joe manganello that's wild i don't think i knew that oh yeah no she's married to joe manganello she was married to someone else they got divorced joe manganello i believe literally was like she's getting divorced got in a plane flew to a set where she was filming and he's like i've been crushing you for a long time i'm not missing my window i believe that's the story that's incredible yeah and also respect respect yeah uh glad glad for a very hot couple obviously yeah uh yes nick lobe she was engaged to nick lobe it was called off and then ginello you know nightcrawler teleported to her or whatever he bamfed yeah he bamfed yeah i mean i'm i'm seeing here you know these numbers are always like sketchy but i'm seeing

here that her net worth is 180 million dollars that's a lot she was making 500 000 per episode for the last couple of seasons of modern family uh she makes 10 million dollars for america's got talent i wasn't even aware that's a thing she does now like she just does everything um yeah she's she's kicking ass i mean finola flanagan to be clear is worth 250 million dollars so she does have absolutely right but that's because uh finola fl Flanagan invested in the vaccine. Fanola Flanagan owns Pfizer. Yeah. I don't know. I wanted to talk about, in Four Brothers, the use of gasoline, which it's pretty willy-nilly.

Early, early. He's like, yeah, let's do the gasoline thing. What gasoline thing? We pour gasoline all over him. They can think we'll set him on fire. That's what I'm talking about. How many plays they have? Like, oh, let's do that play.

And it's like that routine. That never works out for us. It's like, you do this often? This reflects so poorly on the mom. This is what I'm saying. Yes. Kill the Flanagan. It's like, you should have maybe stamped out the gasoline antics.

You know what I mean? The Barry Shabaka Henley scene is bananas. Here's the thing. They're villains with the heart of gold they do have hearts of gold sure and and they look like congressmen compared to what they could have been and they're like congressmen compared to what they could have been victor sweet i guess you're right you would have just had four victor sweets on your hand is that the idea i don't know yeah and i guess she's probably thinking like look andre benjamin that guy worked out yeah gara headland he's a sweetie tyrese is in the army walberg's the one where i fucked up walberg is really he's the real chaos agent yeah he's the one with the gasoline right he's not even like a successful criminal he and let's also say i mean

let's acknowledge she like fostered a lot of kids successfully right who then went off to other families for the four that she actually kept because they were no nobody they were the complete fuck-ups yeah that's how you would do a sequel you would add in some brothers who are i guess straight-laced brothers that's a good one right you. You add on Vincent Cassell and Eddie Izzard. Yeah, you add Catherine Zeta-Jones. Or you could do Four Sisters. You could do kind of a side sequel. Wait a second, David.

Hold on a second. What, Ben? What, Ben? Four Sisters? I know. I'm pitching it. I know you're gonna laugh me out of your office please please please let me just get through this pitch okay sisters the guy's like david i don't know and i'm like four sisters and he's like what are you talking about

four sisters i have to take this to the boss i just imagine though that these fucking like executives junior executives at these studios are like going through filing cabinets looking at every title they own and going like is there a gender flipped version of that is there a version where I can literally just change two words in the title and now you know it's about women I mean what men want exactly that's what I'm saying I'm just surprised almost they haven't been like it's four sisters. I mean, what men want. Exactly. That's what I'm saying. I'm just surprised. Almost. They haven't been like, it's four sisters.

I don't know who gives a shit. I think this movie is fun. Yeah, it's fun. The, at the end, we've talked around it, but they pay Vincent sweets.

Uh, sorry, Victor sweets, uh, cronies to, to dump him in ice because he sucks and nobody likes him. He sucks and he's been disrespecting.

He made some of them eat off the floor. He put them in the dog car. He's threatening to have sex with their wives. He's a responsible union member. And that pasta looked good. And right, there's a union bond too. But here's the thing. Who's going to do it, right?

And that's what they say. Who's going to step up to the plate and then who shows up but the lone man walking out of the fucking beyond yeah mark walberg yeah so ridiculous how did he get there what did he he was waiting in the horizon man he knew he knew the exact place he had to be yeah you know, so that the snowfall would cover him. And then he timed it perfectly where he was like, okay, I think now is the time. I feel like right now is the time where Chiwetel, Victor Sweet is wondering, who's going to kill me? And he walks perfectly out. And then he's like

there he is Wahlberg's just standing out there in the cold Chiwetel takes two steps to the left he has to take two steps to the right

so he's still obscured like he has to keep on adjusting vantage points Chiwetel kills that scene he really does so good I like the way

you do business oh who's gonna oh who you gonna do it? Yeah. All that stuff. All his sort of vamping. Do they chop him in the ice?

They do. They sure do. Look, next week, we will talk about abduction, which neither of us have seen, David, but by all accounts is... That's a tough one. Right.

By all accounts, that's the one where he kind of... His voice as a director becomes anonymous, right? Right. It's just not a winner on any front. Right. By all accounts, that's the one where he kind of his voice as a director becomes anonymous. Right. Right. But it's just not a winner on any front. Right. No one really sticks up for abduction. But but his three big, you know, kind of Hollywood action movies that he made, Too Fast, Shafts and Four Brothers, I do think are interesting. I know so much of our podcast has become like the fucking both of us being eli wallach going back in my day they used to do things this way in the industry right but i i think watching these three movies underlines a key difference in how the industry works now where it's like if you are a director who makes your small personal dramas your indie films whatever

and you get the call to step up and get to make a bigger kind of movie star driven blockbuster, the machinery is so big now, the stakes are so high, the budgets are so high that it is very hard to work as much personality and individualism as I think Singleton does in these three movies for their failings. They feel of a piece with his earlier films. You see the things that he's bringing to them, not just that he was like a very skilled craftsman. These films are very well shot and constructed.

He's good with actors, but you have like his interests on display there. You know, you have his personality. You get his sense of humor. As Bilge pointed out, how much his movies are about like male rage, right? Like men dealing with anger they don't know how to place. And, you know, if you get hired from doing Boys in the Hood to getting to make a $200 million superhero movie, you get kind of sucked up in the machinery we've seen i mean very few people come out with movies at that size that still feel individualistic rather than movies like that where you go oh they're like two or three scenes where i see their thing but a lot of it was directed in previs by a board you know uh or it was taken away from them in the edit and it's not really what they wanted to make and this is sort of like you know this career term for him is representative of a point where you could go big and still kind of retain control of your filmography. It still felt like your work, you know, and it's like. You were watching a lot of shitty superhero movies in the early days of the pandemic, David, like texting me about it and being like, it's weird that this movie feels quaint now. Like and you said that to me about the first X-Men or whatever.

Right. Green Lantern. I was like, you've gone too far. You can't say the Green Lantern feels quaint. But it is true. There is something I miss about standalone superhero movies now where you just imagine John Singleton in 2004 2005 2006 at this time i mean i really think probably him signing the paramount deal is what killed uh luke cage is is now sony has luke cage and he's committed to a different studio but you imagine him doing a luke cage movie with sony in 2004 2005 that probably would have cost like 40 or 50 million dollars

and you're like that could have really been an interesting movie it would have been pretty good probably it would have been flawed but it would have been and it would have been beginning middle and end as you're saying it would not have been you know setting up a bunch of you know it would have been like yeah here's this guy you don't know anything about him you're gonna meet him you're gonna meet all his friends. You're going to meet the villain. He's going to fight the villain. He's going to win.

And everyone, then someone's going to kiss. And it's just like, they just don't, you know. It wouldn't have been two Netflix seasons where four hours of story are stretched out to literally 20 hours.

It wouldn't be what will happen if Feige reboots Luke Cage in some way and it becomes way too high stakes you know especially because luke cage's whole thing was like this is the street level guy this is the guy who doesn't get involved in the big cosmic marvel shit who's looking out for people on the corner and shit i i wish that movie existed but i also wish that movies like that period still could exist. We'll play the box office game.

Bray, is there anything left you want to say about those four brothers? All four of those crazy brothers. Or anyone, you can pick one. No, I mean, it's just, yeah, it's just, it's a fun movie for what it is. And like I said, like, if you don't, if you don't like action movies you probably won't like this one and you have to you know sit of course with any movie that's made honestly more

than five years ago it's like you have to sit through some stuff that you're like oh okay but like it's still you know it's it's i don't know there's something about that that definitely works and i i i enjoyed re-watching it i definitely i enjoyed it when it came out i watched it a few times i think it was just like oh this is a cool action movie that you know just kind of does its thing yeah yeah i agree you know yeah to me it was like it proved john singleton can do like it was like he doesn't need to just write something personal about race you know what i mean like he can't need to just write something personal about race. You know what I mean?

Like he can do just like this kind of movie and he would have been great at it. Like it would have been interesting to to see him have more flexibility. He could have done 10 more of these. Yeah. Yeah. He literally could have done 10 more of these. Now I'm trying to find it. But there was some interview with him where he just said, like love westerns that's what i grew up watching this was like me making a western

right you know yeah sense i will say though this and this box office was august 12 2005 this box office is pretty cursed and it is pretty indicative of how creatively bankrupt hollywood was then you know and like obviously hollywood is creatively bankrupt in a different way now where it's just tied to ip that it's just trying to like you know gin up and keep alive and tie into other stuff you know like this is not a great box office now i like some of the movies in this but i'm not saying like they're all bad movies but it is kind of like you can sort of you know that mid to anyway look number one is four brothers okay 21 million dollars it was we have no problem with that yeah number it was it was a solid hit yeah to give you the right the rundown it made 74 domestic about 90 worldwide you know not a not a

an overseas player i will say in the the shane salerno eulogy i've talked about that you can read on deadline he points out that singleton was very proud like it was a real running point of pride for him that almost every one of his movies opened at number one that's them that's makes sense you know and when he enters hollywood there's really so few black directors there's a little more by this time but not many and i'm sure yeah that really mattered to him like yeah i can open a movie like i can make you a movie that'll that'll perform and you know make your money back yeah and i bet it would have done better overseas if they pushed him more because they i this is still at a time where they like black directors black actors they were like they just didn't even try

right don't bother right yeah wild like it came out in Britain but I yeah I can't have to imagine it did not come out in a lot of places all right number two yeah wait a second David let's explore that for a moment all right all right well

no I was just it was just a weird thing to just yeah rattle off how did you know that it came out in britain i grew up in britain what oh no okay okay i want to say number two at the box office for all my saying that this is a curse box office is a horror movie that i think is pretty good it's new this week uh i feel like it was you know pretty much ignored at the time is it the skeleton key it's the skeleton this is a movie that i also really like with an overqualified cast yeah it is an overqualified because it's got gina rollins and right peter sarsgaard and john hurt like it's uh it's not a masterpiece but it's but it's good good

not cheap you know like it doesn't do dumb jumps like it's a fun creepy horror movie it's got sort of an angle it's got a pretty good you know twist at the end it's it's solid it's just a side kate hudson she's fine she's fine in softly who did Backbeat and also a couple of the worst movies ever made. Did K-Pax. Wings of the Dove, yeah. Inkheart. Yeah, but, you know, so Skeleton Key. All right, so those two, it's like, okay,

Hollywood's got some stuff on offer for you if you want to come to the multiplex this weekend. Number three, down from one last week, it's a reboot, or sorry, it's a cinematic version of a television show. The extent to which you would not do this movie now, it's powerful. Dukes of Hazzard. It's the Dukes of Hazzard.

Yeah. Johnny Knoxville, Sean William Scott, Jessica Simpson. Jessica Simpson in her Daisy Dukes. Burt Reynolds as Boss Hogg. Yes, and what's his name? Simpsons in her Daisy Dukes. Burt Reynolds is Boss Hogg. Uh, yes. And, um, uh,

Willie Nelson, Willie Nelson is Uncle Jesse. And, uh, I just can't remember. Does the Confederate flag get the with or the and above the title? I think it got both. Cause it's in a lot of that.

Truly. I never, I never saw that movie, but truly this is how dumb teenage boys are. The only reason I was going to see that was because Jessica Simpson wasn't Daisy Dukes. It was being sold pretty much on that. It was despised when it came out. It made some money, right?

I don't know. I remember there being actual vitriol from all quarters. Yes. Critics hated it, and audiences were like, well, it isn't for the critics, and they went to see it, and they were like, wait, I hate it too.

I'm also upset. Number four is a comedy, a huge hit comedy this summer, a better movie than The Dukes of Hazzard. Wedding Crashers?ers yeah not a movie that aged amazingly i don't like that movie i i do not think that movie has aged well i did like it when i saw it i definitely liked it when i saw uh hide your bridesmaids guys the wedding crashers are coming yeah not since belushi and akroyd now that now i will say as much as that

movie has not aged well, feels like a movie that someone is going to try and remake. Someone is going to be like Wedding Crashers. People know what that is. We got to figure out a new angle on this. Woke Wedding Crashers. We'll figure it out. Yeah, here's the angle. They're women. I guarantee you they're already developing it.

Griffin, stop it. Four Sisters is my thing, okay? Wait a minute, Griffin. Griffin, I'll do you one better. Not only are they women, they're lesbians. Oh, they're gay. Oh, no. Oh, my God.

They're crashing gay weddings? Oh, my God. I don't know. Topical. Topical. Is this Hollywood with the butterfly meme? Is this woke? Is this inclusion but what if it's the women who hate other women

yeah and only use them for sex is that number five number five to round out and I forgot that August was a real dumping ground for like shitty comedies a comedy sequel a comedy sequel from a lesser a lesser comedy star i will say a lesser comedy star is it deuce bigelow european gigolo oh my god it's all

i had to give you yeah what a pull yeah yeah i knew this week knew this week not opening pin not opening well number five what were you gonna guess bray no i was uh this is not a lesser comedy star but i was thinking like i was like did big mama's house 2 come out this year sure sure right right i was just thinking that right what's a comedy that had enough of a following to support a sequel but not enough of a following to release any time other than the end of august that was the math for me that's that's that was great no that was perfect uh that's is that the movie where uh ebert and rob schneider kind of gotten like a fight about it like as ebert said it was a piece of shit and schneider was like deuce bigelow european gigolo yeah yeah ebert was throwing

hands for a couple of years there in the 2000 because he had his vincent gallo dust up too he did he did he got salty at the end there we love it yeah uh all right so the uh some other movies he got the charlie and the chocolate factory remake uh you have sky high griffin's favorite my beloved yes a movie that should have been a franchise, but also retains a purity because Disney didn't run it to the ground. Right. You've got Must Love Dogs. You must.

One must. It's not the John Dahl war movie, The Great Raid. Exactly. You know, it's just not... The Dukes of Hazzard, Wedding Crashers, Deuce Bigelow trio. It just reminds me of that kind of nasty, sweaty, mid-2000s Hollywood approach to comedy, especially. Like, you know, they had a hand in its defeat, I guess is the point I'm trying to make. You know what I mean?

Yes. Yeah, I think so. Well, also, I think the next weekend, 40-Year-Old Virgin comes out. Am I right about that? Well, let's find out. I think it's literally the next weekend. Yes, Griffin. How?

Thank you. How do you know that? You stick faster. I am dead inside other than the box office data that rattles around my brain. But that changes everything everything that's the answer right there right but still had to play that still had a it was like a it was like a trojan horse because it was still coming in like hey comedies are for teenage boys who want to see tits and you know unrated out of control dvd release like selling the sex front and center and then when

people responded so well to like the emotionality of that movie then that is just like great now you find new cheap stars you let them improvise as low premise concept as possible and that's the next 10 years of comedy yeah the the sort of like uh boys will be boys kind of grody cynicism goes away and is replaced by like, but sometimes boys are kind of nice, right? I have to let you know that Tessa has been texting me being like, how are you guys

still talking about this movie? Blank check, baby. That's what's blank check. We are done. That's blank check for you. That's blank check, baby. Next week, also, Red Eye. I just want to point out Red Eye.

Red Eye, good movie. Ooh, Red Eye. That's one that's probably only aged better, too. That's one of those, truly, they don't make it like this anymore. They don't even... Yeah, they don't even try to make movies like that. No. No, that is absolutely a movie that would go to netflix now

i mean to be fair so do big budget movies yeah to be fair right so does so does every so does everything yeah fucking netflix okay uh we're done we're done four brothers uh pray like you're nobody take four sisters that's mine that's David's and I have a wedding wedding crasher S's I don't know how you make that title clear um lady wedding crashers miss miss wedding crashers

um you should try I think you should move on no I'm gonna I'm gonna make this work uh Braylock sorry it had been so long we will have you on again sooner. It's always a pleasure and a privilege. Yeah. Not like three years again.

Yeah. What was it? I don't know. But everyone should listen to Black Man Can't Jump in Hollywood. You guys have done episodes on most of these singleton movies as well, right? A good handful of them. Yeah. To be fair, that's another, to be fair,

that's another reason why I didn't pick. Yes, sure. But yes, we've done, yeah, like Higher Learning and Poetic Justice and obviously Boys in the Hood. Yeah, and everyone should watch Astronomy Club, speaking of things that are on Netflix. Netflix, yeah.

No, we love Netflix. We love, oh, we love them. We love Netflix. We love, oh, we love them. We love them. And thank you all for listening to this show. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Thank you to Marie Barty for our social media, Alex Barron, AJ McKeon for editing help. Thank you to Lane Montgomery and The Great American Novel for our theme song.

Research on this episode done by JJ Bursch and Nick Loriano. Go to blankies.right.com for some real nerdy shit. And go to patreon.com slash blank check for blank check special features. Where our Taylor Lautner summer is about to crest as we finish the twilight franchise over on that feed with those commentaries and we uh we tackle abduction next week on this feed one of the more depressing final films we've ever had to cover on this show. I mean, look, maybe it'll surprise me, but I don't think so. I would love to love it. Right, exactly.

And I fear. So that's all the stuff. I don't think I forgot things that I'm supposed to say at the end, which I have been recently doing. And as always, Garrett Hedlund is a cockologist. Thank you.