Kill James Bond! - S4E9: Inside Man

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hello and welcome to another episode of Kill James Bond. I am November Kelly. I'm joined as always by my friends Abigail Thorne and Devon. Inside man? Yes, sometimes. That was the first thing I was gonna say. I was also workshopping a homophobic inside man title joke, yes. Inside man. Inside man is what Nurse Peggy says to me every time she sees me. Hello and welcome to Kill James fucking Bond.

Starting point is 00:00:41 Nurse Peggy, I sure hope she does. Hey, Nurse Peggy, if you're listening to the pod, fuck off. It's robbery season, and as such, I thought it would be fun if we did a movie after Dog Day Afternoon that is very much in dialogue with Dog Day Afternoon. Kind of a spiritual sequel in some ways. It's in dialogue with Dog Day Afternoon in that Dog Day Afternoon is literally mentioned in the dialogue of this movie.

Starting point is 00:01:08 One of them says the phrase, I saw Dog Day Afternoon. Yeah, it's in conversation with Dog Day Afternoon in exactly that way, in that, like, everybody looks down the camera every five minutes and goes, damn, this is a lot like Dog Day Afternoon. It's a parasocial relationship with Dog Day Afternoon. That's right. But we saw Inside Man, and this is a Spike Lee joint, hello Mr. Lee, first time on the podcast, love your work. Brother of Christopher. It's an interesting family relationship, it's kind of like the Bosley adoption in Charlie's

Starting point is 00:01:43 Angels 3. This is the only Spike Lee film I've ever seen. Really? So can you tell me a little bit about what is a Spike Lee joint? Okay, so Spike Lee made Do the Right Thing, which you may have heard of as this kind of snapshot of New York American racial discord and disharmony, right? Also maybe most famous for the biopic he did of Malcolm X, also with Denzel Washington. And a bunch of other stuff that isn't as good, like Crooklyn or Girl 6, but like, he is... he mostly tends to make films that are sort of like, less commercial than this.

Starting point is 00:02:28 Inside Man is a real kind of exception in his filmography, in that it's one for the studio. Right? And this is his highest grossing film, by far. It doesn't typically make it like a straight action movie, um, and instead of being one that is sort of like, uh, about social issues, it's about particularly like African American life, this is just, uh, I say just, it's a heist film that Spike Lee manages to get some Spike Lee stuff in. Um, Okay. Yeah, there are some wonderful shots in this. Yeah, absolutely.

Starting point is 00:03:07 Very excited about it. We start with a very Spike Lee thing, and because, like, he has a lot of patterns that show up in all of his films, there's one particular shot in this that I'm gonna talk about, but one of the things that he likes to do is have an actor look straight down the camera and do a dolly zoom. And as they explain what their deal is. And so we start with Clive Owen, guy I love to see. NICCOYLE Love to see Clive Owen. ALICE Fuck, hell yeah.

Starting point is 00:03:32 ALICE And Clive Owen being a Sigma. NICCOYLE Mark Strong. ALICE Yeah, Mark Strong. NICCOYLE The one who never was. Clive Owen, you may know him as Mark Strong. From Shoot A Moth, yeah. ALICE Doing a not very good American accent, but he's trying. The problem with Clive Owen doing accent work is that he has such a distinctive voice that it always sounds like Clive Owen. Mmhm. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:03:53 And he says, y'know, my name is fucking Dalton Tronvo, or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. I'm Clive Owen, I love to heist. I'm dedicated to the art of heisting, I'm a heisting samurai. And I'm gonna do the perfect heist, I'm dedicated to the art of heisting, I'm a heisting samurai, and I'm gonna do the perfect heist because I can. Because I'm sick, nasty like that. RILEY I've figured out how to do the perfect heist, and I'm doing it, and these are my reasons. Number one, money, obviously.

Starting point is 00:04:14 Number two, I'm having a good time. I'm enjoying myself, okay? What's wrong with that? RILEY First rule of heisting is have fun and enjoy yourself. Just relax and be yourself out there. ALICE Exactly. And as we're pulling the camera out on the dolly we see that because he's

Starting point is 00:04:25 been in total darkness, that behind him is this wall of cinder blocks that he's very close to. He's in a very small space. And he's like, I'm in an enclosed environment right now. But it's not prison. And you'll just have to wait and see. NICOLAS It's a tiny cell, but it's not prison. I mean, I'm a man, and I'm inside. Somewhere. But I'm not inside prison. I'm not where this man is inside. But what am I inside?

Starting point is 00:04:52 Let's find out. Yes. I'm not inside the clink. But I'm inside somewhere now. Okay. This is the thing, we... I wonder. Right?

Starting point is 00:05:02 It's an easy movie to crispened potato snacks in a lot of ways. Thankfully I don't detest myself on that. It does also tell you halfway through what's gonna happen at the end, which is quite cool. But so, we start with having done that little monologue, we then get the opening titles, which are fantastic. Like, cool. Yeah, I really like these. I wanna compare these to Heat, right? Because Heat is also the crew assembles to go and do a heist. But where in Heat it's like, here is Neil Corley, he's moving different,

Starting point is 00:05:35 he's sort of set apart from the city because he's the only one who looks like Robert DeNiro. Here all of the shots of these sort of like crew of sort of anonymous guys in painter suits getting into a van are very very distant, they're sort of like top down, they blend into the city, it's like a work van they're getting into, and it's interspersed with these like close up, like sort of bottom up shots of banks and financial institutions, and Wall Street. We are 2006, this is before the financial crash. Yes! Just before.

Starting point is 00:06:13 Which is an interesting time to be doing like, mmm, America, money kind of movies. Yeah! And maybe it's just that the symbolism hits different now? I think it's both, I think we can give Spike Lee credit for being a kind of like, lifetime hater of Wall Street. And there is, as well, there's still a kind of social dimension to all of this. Like, the shots of the gigantic American flag on the New York Stock Exchange, there's a shot of a bronze plaque of a merchant sailing ship on one of the banks. And I think it's a really interesting choice in a heist film

Starting point is 00:06:46 to make the bank look threatening, and the robbers not. Yes. Well, it sort of makes a side with them. Yes. Because they're the little guy. Mm. Which is nice. This huge edifice. And it's all like, none of it's like sort of modern, like, sort of glass and steel, it's all like marble, sort of like, giant carvings and edifices and stuff. The kind of monumentality of that. The soundtrack to that is interesting as well, because it's this banger song, which is from a film called Dilsay, which is about

Starting point is 00:07:19 a suicide bomber falling in love with a government bureaucrat. It kind of, it strips, it got some criticism for stripping the nationalism out of that song, right? But it's interesting because there's no kind of Indian or South Asian references other than this. It feels kind of out of place. SONIA Yeah, it does. ALICE Yeah. ALICE And there's something about this that, much like Dog Day Afternoon, it's making claim to a kind of New Yorkness, and it's defining that New Yorkness with, like, being cosmopolitan first. Right?

Starting point is 00:07:49 I think that's part of this. Yeah, there's a line later on where there's an unknown language being spoken, and Desmond Washington says, well this is New York, somebody on the street knows what language this is, probably the hot dog guy, let's go find out. Absolutely. Yeah. Also, all the robbers are wearing masks, so we can't see their faces at this point, which is gonna be important. The only one who we do recognize as he enters the bank is Clive Owen.

Starting point is 00:08:10 ALICE They belong to this kind of, like, international cosmopolitan proletarian New York that is, like, infiltrating the, y'know, big scary monumental Wall Street New York. Other thing as well, on the side of the van, and this is a movie that was not really designed for like, pausable, high definition streaming, but on the side of the van, if you pause, the logo says, it's like, you know, painting firm, whatever, and the slogan is, we never leave until the job is done. Which I really like, because unlike the Ocean's films, you can work out the whole thing from those, from what it's given you so far, if you want to.

Starting point is 00:08:50 And when you go back and look, you don't feel like it's cheated you. Yeah, it's nice. Yes. That's definitely something that sets it apart from Ocean's 12, for instance. So the team walk into the bank, and because they're dressed as painters, nobody really kind of pays them any mind. They're just this sort of anonymous proletarian. It's interesting, the life of the bank as well, this is something that's kind of privy

Starting point is 00:09:11 from dog day afternoon as well, of you see the kind of working environment, you see all the people there, and it's very ethnically diverse. You've got like, there's like a father and and son, the son's like playing on his fucking PSP, who are black, who's like a Hispanic guy. There's like, the most Italian- There's a Sikh fellow working there. Yeah, the most Italian-American woman you have ever seen in your life yelling into a Bluetooth headset, and I'm just like, oh my fucking god.

Starting point is 00:09:42 Hell yeah. Hell yeah. And- By the way, I'm using some infrared torches to god. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. And... By the way, they're using some infrared torches to discreetly knock out the CCTV, just because it goes zip and turns the cameras off. At which point the rest of the crew pull out the guns and they pop some smoke and they're like, everybody down or we'll shoot you in the fucking head! They're very aggressive with this.

Starting point is 00:09:59 Very very aggressive. I was saying, this is sort of a yin to the yang of a heist we've seen so far, where the yin, and I don't know if there's any sort of implications between yin and yang that I'm missing it, but this is the sort of the half of the heist where you're like, oh, hey, we're here for the bank's money, not yours, all right, you've got a cool story to tell, we'll be gone in five minutes, don't worry, we don't want to hurt anyone. Whereas this is like, I am here to kill, I'm here to kill, I'm barely being held back by how many big wads of cash I'm putting in my fucking bag, and the second

Starting point is 00:10:29 my hands are free from wads, I'm gonna start killing. Yeah. Claveau and throws a rabbi to the floor. He does, again, diversity. One of the lines, by the way, here is, you have four seconds and anyone still standing gets shot. Which is, again, you compare that to, you know, we're after. Which is distinct, like, again, you compare that to, you know, we're after the bank's money, not your money, right? It's

Starting point is 00:10:49 like, we're still a- ALICE And it comes in hard. ALICE Yes. ZAC Yeah, yeah, they do. They do go hard. Overwhelming force. A passing cop sees the smoke coming out of the bank doors, Clive Owen puts a gun in his face and says, I've got hostages, anyone who comes near the bank, we'll fuck you up. ALICE He doesn't just say that, right? Because there's a few things I want to get into here.

Starting point is 00:11:06 First of all, most unrealistic part of the movie, the NYPD just walking around doing any cop stuff. But the cop sees the bank full of smoke, opens the door, as you say, Clive Owen puts the gun in his face. And then he does some more accent work, and what he says is... I have got hostages. You fucking cops come near this door, I start killing people. I'm not fucking kidding, man.

Starting point is 00:11:30 We have big blends! Because we've heard him talk, and like, everybody gets shot thing, and he wasn't doing this accent. And the really funny thing is, he's doing this kind of Balkan accent. Mm-hmm. Niko Bellic from GTA IV. Yeah, sort of pan-Slavic kind of attempt at something here. Let's go balling! Yeah, let's just sketch out the next half an hour of this episode. This guy functionally opens the door wearing a red flag double eagle bandana and says like, do a lip for granite

Starting point is 00:12:07 jacquer bunkers service dog person and every NYPD officer is tied up for the next hour. What the fuck could this guy be? The fuck is an Russian? The call comes down to our detective, it's Denzel Washington, and his partner, Guy I love to see, Chua Talagian for, love that guy, great British actor. He went to my school. Did he? Yeah, genuinely.

Starting point is 00:12:35 Sick fucking posh boy. Yeah, I fucking love this guy. Compare this to any other heist cops as well, what they're doing is they're sitting around talking absolute shit. Denzel is on the phone to his also cop girlfriend. The most beautiful woman in the entire world. Beautiful cop girlfriend, you say. Interesting.

Starting point is 00:12:59 Having a quasi-sexual, inappropriate phone call with her at work where they're making plans for the evening. And then their boss comes in and is like, hey, are you guys cops or what? Because they are robbing the fucking thing. That's not like... They're robbing the bank right now. Yeah, that's not like a coked up Pacino being like, these guys are good, you know? They're sort of like... Also, to HLG4's response to that is like, oh man, you rumbled us! ALICE Yeah, fuck!

Starting point is 00:13:27 Denzel as well, and this is great, because, so he's kind of, he's on, like, suspension or whatever because he's like... LIAM Because of something. ALICE He's suspected to have stolen some money from a check cashing bust, and we don't know whether or not he did it, we don't know whether or not he's corrupt or not. And the manner here is interesting as well. Reminds me of another Denzel Washington role, where he plays EZ Rollins in Devil in a Blue Dress. It's like a very particular kind of African-American masculinity of a generation, where it's like charming, avuncular, he has the fucking same little hat as well, he has a pencil mustache.

Starting point is 00:14:12 Yes, I was gonna talk about the hat. Yeah. The suits as well are another real choice here. It's like, very, very debonair, and there is some, there's some menace in there later, but for now it's like, okay, sure. This is, like, predominantly this is a charming man. Yeah. And this is his chance to sort of, you know, not be on probation anymore, it's like, well, the guy who normally does bank robberies is on holiday or something, so, you know,

Starting point is 00:14:39 get down there and earn your way back into everybody's good books. And he's like, oh, okay, cool. Oh, shit. My notes say, cops roll up American style, which is to say, theatrically. I love this bit. I love the shot. My favorite shot of the movie, 11 minutes 27 in, is like a perfect piece of cinematographic comedy because we get three shots in sequence, right?

Starting point is 00:15:01 We get, like, normal NYPD car pulls up, uh, like, big SWAT team truck pulls up, and then one of the little, like, three-wheeled parking trucks, the tiny ones, like, pulls up as well, just as the punchline. RILEY All hands on deck, baby! They got everyone. ALICE Fucking mobile command posts, the sirens, barricades, loads of armed cops. RILEY It's like Wall Street too, so it's really tight streets, really tall buildings. The news vans are here, it's all kicking off.

Starting point is 00:15:31 It's like- Nothing like, not to bring Dog Day Afternoon back up, which we will be doing frequently, but like, Dog Day Afternoon's bank is one floor, like, quite small, squat kind of building in the semi-suburbs, whereas this is like very much middle of the city. Yeah. I think we find out later on that this is the founding bank of this bank chain. SONIA The kind of bank that is now the lobby of a luxury hotel. ALICE Yeah, and I'm also kind of wondering how much NYPD

Starting point is 00:15:54 cooperation they got for this, because it's very, like, it's well drawn in terms of, like, grounded New Yorkness. It's giving a lot of, like, guyness, a lot of masculinity, a lot of kind of working class affect, all of the SWAT guys are walking around chewing gum in, like, unbuttoned vests and stuff, and I think it's like, there's a particular, uh, lens, so to speak, that Spike Lee has on New York, particularly Manhattan as well, that really gets cops, and not in a way that's complimentary as we'll get to. Yes. But so... Meanwhile, in a very, very nice, incredibly lush wood paneled office, Christopher Plummer

Starting point is 00:16:40 appears. I want this kind of office. Fuck yeah. Christopher Plummer. The guy I love to see. Christopher Plummer appears. I want this kind of office. Fuck yeah. It's really cool. Christopher Plummer. The guy I love to see. Christopher Plummer. Christopher Plummer, doing a kind of Ted Turner moustache.

Starting point is 00:16:48 Big old moustache is this movie. He's the like, chairman of the board of directors of the bank that is being robbed. He gets the word, and this particular branch seems to unnerve him. He's like, dear god. He's like, oh shit, that's the one we forgot to put any security in. Oh no. Fuck. We're doing, I was doing this a bit extended, like, all of the money is just on tables out

Starting point is 00:17:14 there, we had the bank vault coming in like a couple of days' time, we were so excited to get that put in. Fucked. We're fucked. We cut together, the cops sort of staging everything outside, and the robbers working inside, and it's all very, like I say, like New York, you could, you know, it's the greatest city in the world, you could see anything, from a person celebrating a bank robbery that's just occurred to a plane slamming into one of our trade centers.

Starting point is 00:17:43 Um. Mmhmm. Only twice. And so, the robbers herd everyone into the basement, which has the vault in it, and they take all of their cell phones, these are flip phones, because it's 2006, and one guy, of course, tries to be a hero. Mmhmm. The most British looking fuckers of all time.

Starting point is 00:18:04 Yeah. It's like Peter Hamm fuckers of all time. Yeah. Mm. It's like Peter Hammond or something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, uh, I forgot my mobile telephone at home today, or something else, Britishly. He's not even British, I don't know why we got answers. Just looks angry. He just has British really on him, unfortunately.

Starting point is 00:18:20 The thing I really like is that Clive Owen, like Owen looks at him, takes himself into a side office with frosted glass and has it out with himself, this kind of like, what am I going to fucking do about this guy, comes out, then drags him in the office and kicks the shit out of him. Yeah. Yeah. He just is like, did you fucking really leave your phone at home, mate? Or are you about to die? So he just grabs a bunch of the other bank workers'

Starting point is 00:18:45 phones and starts going through it, looking for this guy's name. S like, it's like a funny song as well. It's called Dicko. It is called Dicko. And so he kicks the shit out of this guy, and then we have an interesting line here as well, because as he comes back out he says, Anyone else here smarter than me? have an interesting line here as well because as he comes back out he says, which is good in itself but I think also gets to the sort of like fantasy of like the heist right, this

Starting point is 00:19:12 is a kind of intellectual combat right? Like I'm smarter than all of these people. The chess of the bank. Yes. Oh yeah, he believes that he's figured this heist out. The heist is already done and completed, he's just going through the steps of it right now. Yeah, these oceans zing-ing-ing-ing it. And we find out why they have to go in quite as hard as they did, is that they need a lot of people to do a lot of odd shit quickly. Yes, it's true.

Starting point is 00:19:36 And you need to maintain the control for that period. What he needs them all to do is change into fucking painter outfits. I don't know why he keeps that in suspense, because he makes them all strip first, like, down to their underwear, and I'm like, I'm having a bad time at the bank robbery. First of all, first of all, they separate them all by gender. Like, you know, women against this wall, men against this wall, which I don't know what you do if you're neither in that situation. Um, but then... 2006. I think they just split it out by who works for the bank and who doesn't.

Starting point is 00:20:08 No, then they also segregate them by gender. I think they get one of the female robbers to come and take the old lady's clothes off when she's not cooperating. Which I guess is the sensitivity robber, right? Sensitivity, I... I don't love being sort of like, in bank robbery and then they announce that it's penis inspection day at the bank robbery and the doors are sealed. There's a bunch of Guardian columnists and the leader of Scottish Labour who resent being

Starting point is 00:20:39 tied up with trans hostages and like, we should never have to be tied up with a transgender hostage. ALICE It's actually a disciplinary thing if you're a robber and you like, walk out of a room where there's a trans hostage, because, you know, you think that that's... anyway. LIAM I left my penis at home, I swear, I swear to god. ZOE Somebody's beating the shit out of you, what? ALICE But also, when the old woman is like, I don't wanna take my clothes off, Clive Oen's way of reassuring her is to say, lady, believe me, this is the only situation I'd ask you

Starting point is 00:21:11 to do this, which is like, the reassuring misogyny. Or the reassuring ageism. ZOE Yeah. Don't rob me and insult me! ALICE Yeah. Which is fair. But so, as you say, the deal is they're gonna disguise the hostages as the robbers, like in The Dark Knight, except The Dark Knight was after this, so this invented

Starting point is 00:21:32 it. Yeah. Yeah. And this is better. Yeah. Outside, Frasier Denzel and his partner arrive on scene. Willem Dafoe is... Yeah! Is the police captain. Yeah. He's in charge of the SWAT guys. Uh, the DESU. Now that's a guy I love to fuck.

Starting point is 00:21:50 I will say, problem with Willem Dafoe at this age? I don't believe it. He looks like someone's deep faked Willem Dafoe's head onto some guy. It doesn't make any sense to me. He's like in good shape, and I'm like, what are you doing? Yeah, he's like, kind of ripped, you know, he's like a young man, full head of hair. I'm like, what is happening here? The hair is a great part of ripped, you know, he's like a young man, full head of hair. I'm like, what is happening here? The hair is a great part of that as well, because it's kind of like slick black and

Starting point is 00:22:08 glossy and I'm like, what? It's in Willem... You're supposed to be old. Where's this coming from? He really aged well, but yeah. I like this tension here because there's initially some tension where Willem de Vaux is like, oh I don't talk to you, I only talk to Detective What's-his-face and Denzel's like, Detective What's-his-face is on holiday, I'm in charge, okay.

Starting point is 00:22:24 He says, I'm the big dick today. And then Denzel and like, Chua-gel talk and Denzel's worried that the kind of the shooty-shooty bang-bang cops are just gonna be like, they don't like us being here because they see it as a tactical situation, which I thought was an interesting, like, bit of inter-cop beef. ALICE Yeah. It really gets, like, I think cop language as well, and the kind of, uh, the way that Denzel Washington's character ends this conversation is because, um, Defoe has just been like, you know, I'm in charge here, you need anything, you speak to me.

Starting point is 00:22:56 Uh, and this kind of, like, foe friendly, like, you know, office politeness, and Denzel ends this with, no, if you need anything, you can speak to me. And it's just like, really petty, but also kind of fun. Also, this gambit about disguising the hostages as the robbers, at this point we do something interesting, because we flash forward to after the heist. Mm-hmm. Yeah, they got office-style interviews. We see that this gambit completely worked, because Denzel and Chuegel are interviewing all of

Starting point is 00:23:25 the hostages, been like, did you rob the bank? And they're all like, nooooo. RILEY Yeah, they're all just asking normal questions, being like, hey, how you doing, having a good time. So, you know, big step up for you robbing the bank, huh? I didn't rob the bank, mate. SID They're doing so many bits. RILEY Well, one of you did! SID I think my favorite, like, character establishing bit is when they're interviewing the old woman and they are both charming her by being like, ah, we know you robbed the

Starting point is 00:23:52 bank, you know? It's just like, really fun. And we also, I mean, to skip forward slightly, we see later on that as they're storing the hostages in rooms around the bank, they also like, they're blindfolded, they make them stand up, they shuffle them around, and occasionally robbers are like cycling in and out of the hostages in rooms around the bank. They also like, they're blindfolded, they make them stand up, they shuffle them around, and occasionally robbers are like cycling in and out of the hostages. Yeah, this is so good. So they have like, you know, everyone's got an alibi,

Starting point is 00:24:12 is the idea, and it's just really, really fun. Like, we see that it's completely worked, and we introduce a fun game here, which is that like, occasionally when we cut to the hostages throughout the film, we see their faces, and we get to know all of them, like, briefly in a short way. But also, we don't know who the robbers are know all of them briefly in a short way, but also we

Starting point is 00:24:25 don't know who the robbers are until the very end, apart from Kleido, which I really like. Really good. There's at least one guy who's in one of the rooms of hostages who takes his mask off and is like, fuck this, I'm not gonna do this, they can't force us to do it like this. I have the drop. If he gets dragged- oh, hit me. Yeah, no, me after getting my fifth booster. Fuck this shit.

Starting point is 00:24:44 Look, they wanna shoot me for taking off my mask. They can go ahead That's that by the way is James Ransom who's in generation kill I'm just like this guy's a plant on the service guys. He's doing like dinner theater It's like really kind of a bit too much He's like grabbing onto people's legs as they drag him out of the room to like kick the shit out of him. Yeah. He's doing a bit too much. That's the other smart thing that they do early on in the thing when they beat up that fucking like British guy, is that they establish that they take you into a separate room to beat

Starting point is 00:25:16 you up. So they still manage to do all of the like swap outs by just dragging themselves off to different rooms and then just like getting up and being normal about it. It's cool. It's like playing fucking mafia or secret Hitler. Like we know that there's dragging themselves off to different rooms and then just getting up and being normal about it. This is so much work. It's cool, it's like playing fucking Mafia or Secret Hitler. We know that there's Clivo and- Yeah, they're rotating names. Yeah, they rotate names. We know that there's Clivo and four other robbers, but we don't know who they are.

Starting point is 00:25:33 The code names, the code names are all variations on Steve as well, which is fun. So there's Steven, Steve, Stevie, and Steve-o. Which is, it's not a style which is like, you know, Mr. White, Mr. Black, Mr. Green, Mr. Blue, but it's not a stylish, like, you know, Mr. White, Mr. Black, Mr. Green, Mr. Blue, but like, it's fun. So one of the hostages, this old guy, has asthma or heart problems or something, and the first thing they do is they go, we don't need that shit, kick him out. And so they just-

Starting point is 00:25:59 Yeah, they're like, fuck this. Too much smoke, get him out of the fucking bank. They release him, they let him out to the cops, and okay, like, tips the hand about the outfit change and everything, and the cops are kind of briefly baffled by this. But they just give them that hostage for free, and there's been no negotiating yet, no contact. Frazier is like, I don't even want to call them, I want to let them stew a little bit before I do, you know, figure them out, see what they're thinking, rather than rush into things, just cool everything down so Willem Dafoe doesn't go in and kill everyone.

Starting point is 00:26:36 And instead you just get this one hostage released. And at this point we have to meet one of my favorite characters in the movie, which is Jodie Foster. Jodie Foster. Jodie Foster. Who is so cunty. Looking great. She's so- This is the most femme Jodie Foster performance I've ever seen actually.

Starting point is 00:26:51 I love her just being an evil ice queen. She's so good in this. But she is meeting a guy who, we may as well spoil the punchline to this joke at the very end. She's meeting Osama bin Laden's nephew, who is trying to buy a house in the US with her help, and she's some kind of like, fixer for the ultra wealthy? We don't quite know what her job is, but like, if you're super rich and you need somebody doing something on the quiet, like in a favor, you call Jodie Foster. Yeah, she's a fixer. She is a corporate fixer for the most evil fuckers in the world, is

Starting point is 00:27:23 the deal, yeah. And she's working out of this beautiful office loft thing, it's incredible. And of course Christopher Plummer calls her office, personally as well, which is a big deal. And is like, hey, do you wanna have a conversation from Succession, against a backdrop from an episode of Succession, and she's like, yeah, sure, uh, you know, pick me up outside my building. And she- which is what happens, they walk and talk and he's like, somebody's robbing my bank, I have a safety deposit box in that branch, and there is something in there that

Starting point is 00:28:00 I do not want them to get, if you can ensure its safety I will pay you infinity billion dollars." RILEY Yes. ALICE To which, she kind of does the De Niro and Ronin thing, right, of being like, well I don't need to know what it is, but is it heavy, is it explosive, you know, what is it, and he's like... RILEY Just give me a size. ALICE Yeah.

Starting point is 00:28:21 I'm not fucking telling you. That's my thing to know, and yours to not find out. ZOE Yeah. He says it's not dangerous, it doesn't pose a risk to anyone, it's not radioactive or anything, but it does pose a serious reputational risk to him. So I just would prefer it if nobody got their hands on it, including the police, who will of course, when this thing is all over, presumably do an inventory, and I don't want them to know what's in there." And she's like, okay, cool. Exactly. Yeah. So that's your B plot.

Starting point is 00:28:49 Yeah. Cool. Cool stakes. Mm, it's fun. Meanwhile inside the bank, we see that the robbers are ignoring the vault, and they have instead gone into a storage room, and they're starting to do some construction. They're taking the shelves off the walls and digging into the floor and shit, and we're like, oh what the fuck are they doing here? Looks like they're constructing some kind of small cell. Weird. Right, are they gonna put a man inside that? Yeah, I'm curious.

Starting point is 00:29:15 Yeah, no, they're just completely ignoring the vault, they're just not picking any money up at all, which they already do. And at this point, 9-11. Oh shit, damn. Did that happen? Yeah, it did. And it shapes this movie because the Sikh hostage gets pushed out the door with a big draw from a desk around his neck and a note written on it.

Starting point is 00:29:37 And the SWAT guys panic. And they see him when they take the mask off, and they go, oh shit, a fucking Arab. And they think that he's carrying a bomb, and they yell at him. RILEY That's very specific about this as well, it's not Kallistov, they literally go, oh shit, he's an Arab. ALICE I mean, no one's ever accused Spike Lee of

Starting point is 00:29:53 being subtle. It is also, it's a post-911 pull from Dog Day Afternoon, where the cops, like, arrest the black security guards, hostage, of, the cops are still racist. Yeah. Yeah. This is not an Arab guy, this is the Sikh guy, he's called like, Vikram or something. And the movie. Yeah, and he gets handcuffed and bundled away, his turban gets torn off in the midst of this.

Starting point is 00:30:18 Willem Dafoe gaslights him later on as well. Yes, I really like this. He does, yeah. They sit him down to interview him, it's the two detectives and Willem Dafoe, and when he says, this guy called me an Arab, Dafoe says, I don't think you heard that. You know, there was a lot of confusion, everyone was very stressed, and this is like, that's so real, right, as that kind of cop gaslighting. And you get this really shameless manipulation from everyone else around that table of...

Starting point is 00:30:53 RILEY Yeah. All of them, like all of the protagonists here, Denzel and Chouatel as well, are just both like, no no no, you just give us the information and then maybe we'll see if we can find your fucking turban that you're religiously required to wear at all times. ALICE The way that they try and frame this, first of all it's like, there's a bunch of hostages still in the bank, don't you feel morally responsible? For, you know, to talk to... The other one is, and this is true, I'll let you fuzz line, I could apologize on behalf

Starting point is 00:31:21 of the NYPD, but that wasn't us, we're detectives. Right? So, trying to like, draw that line of separation to be like, okay, we just like, yeah, we work for the same people and are the same, but we're not the same though, because I'm different because I was standing watching it happen. Absolutely fucking NHS ass answer here. It's like the meme of the girl on one side and like everything is labeled like smooth jazz and then there's a guy on the other side and everything is labeled like really intensely like separated

Starting point is 00:31:53 out micro genres or something like that. It's like that. Yeah, cut that. Cut that. That wasn't funny. But anyway, the notes that was round Vikram's neck says they want buses, they want jets waiting at JFK, the deadline is 9pm tonight, or they're gonna execute hostages and blow up the bank, don't do it. ALICE There is one other thing that I want to talk about. They put that draw in the middle of the command post thing while they're thinking. So we also have to deal with the post-911 dynamics of racism in the

Starting point is 00:32:28 US, which is, there's one other line that Denzel's character has, right? Because Vikram the Sea Custardge is like, you know, it's bullshit, this happens to me all the time, I can't go to an airport without getting randomly selected for screening and stuff. And, you know, everyone thinks I'm an Arab, everyone thinks I'm a Muslim, everyone thinks go to an airport without getting randomly selected for screening and stuff. Yeah, yeah. And everyone thinks I'm an Arab, everyone thinks I'm a Muslim, everyone thinks I'm a terrorist, and Denzel cuts him off by saying, I bet you can get a cab though. Which is...

Starting point is 00:32:56 That's the fucking JonTron thing! That's the JonTron thing where he was like, oh you can get a Big Mac not wearing a hijab, you're free. Like, shut the fuck up dude. Wait, the Big Big Mac not wearing a hijab, you're free. Like, shut the fuck up dude. STORM Wait, the Big Mac isn't wearing a hijab? STORM I think you have to not wear the hijab to get the Big Mac. That's my understanding. ALICE McDonald's uh, McBaraka is uh, you know.

Starting point is 00:33:15 But so, yeah, no, it's, it's, it's, it's- STORM Well that's why we're boycotting him, I think. I'm not familiar. ALICE It's interesting, as like, opposing these two competing racisms of not being able to get a cab, and a lot of New York City cab drivers stereotypically South Asian, versus being like, you know, cavity searched every time you go in the airport. It's sort of breathtaking, in the sense that it's affronting, right? And I don't really know what to make of it, even still. Maybe it's, you know, not something I can make sense of

Starting point is 00:33:53 as a white person, but it's... It does the John-tron thing. It does the John-tron thing. It's these guys, like, what happens to my civil rights? And Denzel Washington says, titanic. I don't know, I don't know what a John-tron is. Yeah, good for you. Is that the guy from Tron? I don't...

Starting point is 00:34:06 No. No. John Tron? John Tron from the movie Tron? Jonathan Tron? I think he was played by Kurt Russell in the remake. That was pretty good. So they put the thing in the command post, and at this point Christopher Plummer shows

Starting point is 00:34:19 up, and he's really playing up like a dumb rich guy. He's very pretration, he's like, oh, this is my bank officer, can I help? And one of them says, oh, you know, they want like a 747, there's no way they're going to get that. As Denzel's trying to like shut him out of the thing and usher him away and he's like, oh, I mean, I could get them a plane if you wanted. He says, would you like me to arrange a jet for you? And then they all just look at him and he's like, oh, okay, I'll fuck off now. He's like, oh, I might have misled you.

Starting point is 00:34:45 Meanwhile, he's in there like looking at everything they've got up on the big board and everything. And Jodie Foster's gone to see the mayor. She's going to see Eric Adams. He calls her a cunt. Yeah, she calls, he calls her a magnificent cunt and she says, thank you, which is, you know, girl bossing. This was the way in which you were expected to girl boss in 2006. She's like, can you just get me down to the crime scene and tell them to extend me every courtesy please? And the mayor's like, ahhh, fuck you, okay?

Starting point is 00:35:13 New York's built on special gems. It is, it is. So what they're gonna do is, because they need food. All the hostages have been in there for hours. They send out, I think they send out another one with a request for food. They're just giving hostages away at this point. And they still haven't talked to the negotiator yet. My understanding is that they don't actually even send out a request for food, that this

Starting point is 00:35:37 is something that the hostage negotiators do on their own. No, no, they send somebody out with a note. Yeah, saying like, 50 hungry people need food or whatever. So the cops are like, alright, what we do is we get them pizza, specifically, because we can bug the pizza boxes. It's not like an individual meal, you have to gather around a pizza box so we're gonna hear some conversation. Right?

Starting point is 00:36:00 And they say this all around the drawer that's just been sitting in the middle of the command post the whole time. Yeah, it's very clever actually. Yeah, it's cool. And so they do this, and they hear what they think, what Willem Dafoe thinks is Russian. And he like deploys- That's against the Willem Dafoe racism hour, which begins now and does not end. He says some slurs in this. The, the thing I like about this, right, is that it's kind of, it's willingness to show cops saying racial slurs. There's a thing I remember seeing in a documentary, um, uh, like, about the, like, black film

Starting point is 00:36:36 experienced America. I can't remember who says it, but about seeing the French Connection, right, which has Gene Hackman as very racist NYPD detective. There was a controversy because they cut the full-on racial slur, they cut six seconds of him saying the word out of the movie for modern releases, which they shouldn't have done. RILEY Maybe for the best, but they should have left it there.

Starting point is 00:37:02 ALICE But there's this description of seeing the French connection in a movie theatre in Harlem and the entire theatre just taking a really sharp breath in when he says the word because it's the first time that a movie shows a cop being anywhere near as racist as they are in real life, right? There's a kind of verisimilitude to it, of just like, oh, you know, these cops, they're having to confront the bank robbery and stuff, but they are also the kind of people who casually drop this stuff into conversation.

Starting point is 00:37:30 Yeah. And misogyny too. Yes. And we're ticking it off, because we flash forward to one of these interviews with the hostages again, and one of them says, oh, the robber that I saw had very large breasts, and then we see them interviewing the Italian American woman, who do, who do. Um.

Starting point is 00:37:49 Yeah, she's got some bazongas. It's actually a key plot point. All the cops won't stop fucking looking at her tits. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Trujillo and Dozer are just staring at her tits. We're watching it, we're at this point in the movie, we're like, this had better be important for the plot, otherwise I'm furious. I have some real criticisms of Spike Lee in terms of misogyny, and this is gonna be one

Starting point is 00:38:05 of them, right? Because the tit stuff, first of all, right, so there's one of the hostage shakers and one of the hostages, who are women, who notably have big tits, and they're all in these jumpsuits, which of course have conveniently popped open. And so the Italian woman that we saw on the phone earlier with her tits out is, y'know, getting interviewed and she's like, y'know, what did I violate section 34DD, which is fucking a bullshit line. And then we cut back to the female hostage taker working on, y'know, the sort of supply room in a very tight top with her tits down. The

Starting point is 00:38:46 movie's like, having it take and eating it so much. Yeah, it is. It's kind of saying, oh, misogyny's like, kind of funny, and it's like, it's not funny, man. There's also like, cause part of the comedy is they're interviewing her and the two cops are like, trying not to look at her tits, right? And the one moment of LGBT representation in this movie is her going, I was talking on the phone to my girlfriend, by the way, and she was allegedly making this face, this expression of disappointment, but also, like, vicarious arousal. TITLE-ATED DISAPPOINTMENT.

Starting point is 00:39:26 Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it's like, it's interesting as well, if you're gonna make a movie in 2006 about New York City, you know, greatest city in the world, people here from every, you know, corner of the earth, you know, every kind of community is here. No queers though, apart from one lesbian, right, like, where are New York City's beloved queens? They named a borough after them. Absolutely. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:39:52 The lesbian who's defining feature is that she is attractive to men. Yes. Yes. Great, thanks, that's us! They put us in the movie, fantastic. Super duper. Yeah, racism's bad, but in a lot of ways misogyny kinda makes sense, you know? It's like, I don't think that's true, Spike.

Starting point is 00:40:07 I don't know. So, as they hear from the bug, that they're speaking, what Defoe imagines is Russian, and he has this reflexive prejudice against Russians where he's like, my guys are gonna have to shoot it out with... and he calls them savages, right? Yeah, he calls them fucking savages. Yeah. Like, you know, it's gonna go off, like, you know, the, uh, you know, Moscow uproach, and that.

Starting point is 00:40:32 They get an NYPD translator down and he's like, that's not Russian, I have no fucking idea what it is. Exactly. And so, what they do is they appeal to the street for knowledge, right, which is, I really like this as, you know, as much as I criticize it for the other stuff, an for knowledge, right, which is, I really like this as, you know, as much as I criticize it for the other stuff, an example of, like, New York, world sitting, right? Yeah.

Starting point is 00:40:52 Danzell Washington will look down the- We've got Stilton New York City, who's kinda like a character in the movie. Yes, yes it is, it is! And anyway, Danzell Washington looks down the lens and says, folk epistemology will save the day. It's interesting as well, that in Dog Day Afternoon, it's the robbers who get to appeal to the street, but here it's the day. ALICE It's interesting as well that in Dog Day Afternoon it's the robbers who get to appeal to the street, but here it's the cops. And so they broadcast what they're hearing on a loudspeaker, and they get the cops on the barricades at the cordon to be like, you

Starting point is 00:41:17 know, does anyone recognize what this is? And one guy, of course, goes, oh yeah. Yeah, they're speaking Albanian. Albanian. Albanian. From Albania. Uh, Albanian. You know? From Albania. Another thing I like that I think is... 100% Albanian. ...is very realistic as well, is he like, helps the cops by telling them this, they get him into the command post, and then they'll... he doesn't speak any Albanian, his ex wife speaks Albanian, he just recognizes it. Yeah. He's like, my ex wife and her parents speak Albanian, that's a hundred fucking percent

Starting point is 00:41:52 Albanian I know. And then because the cops just don't let go of anyone, like habitually, they're just like, okay cool, just stay there for a bit. And he's like, not again. And I love this idea, this just like beautiful backstory there, of like, this is a thing that just happens, is you try and help the cops and you just get jammed up for hours for no reason. It's perfect.

Starting point is 00:42:14 This movie kind of doesn't have a terribly bright view of Albanians, because one of the cops tries to call the Albanian consulate to get a translator, and then she says, I can't get through to them, they want to charge us? And I'm like, hell yeah, go off Albanian consulate. Yeah. I didn't get it. I was bringing up, they were speaking Albanian the whole time. I don't know what the fuck was going on. I rung these guys up. I just kept talking about Dua Lipa. It was weird. The builder has to call his ex-wife. They're like, look, the eagle's got two heads. How fucking sick is that? I'm like, no, no,

Starting point is 00:42:43 that's better than ours. We've only got one out here. ALICE And so they call him this guy's ex-wife, which I guess vindicates them for keeping him around. RILEY 10 out of 10 smoke show. ALICE Yes. The most beautiful woman in the world. RILEY Dua Lipa. ALICE Dua Lipa. RILEY My friend who's just in Albania tells me that every woman in Albania looks like this, which is crazy to me. We gotta do a live show in Tirana. Um...

Starting point is 00:43:11 Yeah, fuck it, why not. We'll go to Tirana before the North, I think. The Albanian Authenticity Tour. But, so... I just got my Albanias and my Armenias mixed up and I was thinking, yeah, let's go to Yerevan, and I was like, wait, no, they probably don't like that, no, that's the other one. Because New York, she's like, in exchange for fixing my basket full of parking tickets that I brought with me, I will translate for you.

Starting point is 00:43:36 She smokes inside the command center too, and they try and stop her, she's just like, just keeps going. And she says, that's not like somebody talking that's unexpected representation for albanian dictator enver hoxha it's the bunker's guy that's hoxha baby i'd know him anywhere she specifically says i recognize it from communist propaganda i have i have the drop if you want a summary of kill j Bond. Communism is great, capitalism is evil, Lenin, Marx, blah blah blah. Yeah, yeah that's actually way better a tagline than the one that we've got. Yeah, and so they realized that somebody's just been sitting with a tape playing them the thing. My favorite thing about this, right, is, so inexplicably Denzel's like, the last time I had my Johnson pulled

Starting point is 00:44:28 that good it cost me five bucks, leading the foes to ask five bucks and he says, Tijuana, don't ask. My brother in Christ, you brought up the five dollar Tijuana blowjob. Yeah. Yeah. You worked that into the conversation. You like... I also like that Willem Dafoe says, like, five? Entirely deadpan, it's like, six or six, for real? By the way, in The Bank at this moment, it's like a quiet moment, and so they've separated

Starting point is 00:44:56 the kid, who is playing on his PSP, and... Yeah, he's playing some sort of GTA, VSP game, something like that. So he's playing an extremely violent GTA sort of analog that they made specifically for this movie. And here's the thing that I'm gonna say, right? Spike Lee was born in 1957. So that's what I'm gonna say about that. Because this kid is not a realistic 2006 kid. Yeah, he says, was Boston, for real, for real, no cap, Fortnite.

Starting point is 00:45:34 Yeah. There's an interesting thing here, right, because, as he references... What, the skippity? ...the Skippity set as well. There's a specific thing here of Spike Lee making a criticism of video games, mass media, and like hip hop specifically, as glamorizing violence. But, there's, and I don't think it's a very coherent criticism either, but I think there's also a thing here about positionality that we can get into, because Dalton Trumbo, whatever

Starting point is 00:46:04 the fuck his name is, pulls a pallet of cash out of one of the vault shelves just to sit down on, which is a cool move, and sits down and talks to the kid. And the kid's like, well you're trying to get paid too, right? And people have been calling Spike Lee a sellout for as long as he's been making movies, pretty much. I think there is a sort of defense of himself in this, as well, of, well, I'm also trying to get paid, but I'm doing it in a way that's, like, smarter and, like, there's a plan at work here that you can't see, you know? Like, okay, it might look like some of the same stuff, but, you know, what's the line? Anyone else here smarter than me?

Starting point is 00:46:47 You know? So, he's like, it also reminds me of a bit in The Equalizer, also with Denzel Washington, where Antoine Fuqua does a very similar kind of, y'know, pull your pants up, stay in school moment with a kid. And it's just like, man, I dunno, it seems real bad to me, but... RILEY The Fuqua? The prison schools guy? ALICE Yeah, I just want Fuqua the prison schools

Starting point is 00:47:13 guy. Yeah. RILEY I don't know what's going on. ALICE Why does the movie resemble a prison? ALICE Yeah. RILEY I wonder where that guy is, is he inside? ALICE Yeah. So, uh, meanwhile, uh...

Starting point is 00:47:21 RILEY They crack into the safety deposit box? ALICE They do! RILEY Yeah. I wonder where that guy is. He's the inside man. So meanwhile... They break into the safety deposit box. They do. They open Arthur... Christopher Plummer's character's name, Arthur Case, they break into a safety deposit box and it's got a file in it. His Arthur Case file. And it's got, would you believe it's got a big honking swastika on there?

Starting point is 00:47:43 Yeah, a fucking huge ass swastika. And there's some bags in there too, we don't know what they are, but there's some bags and a Cartier case. Weird, weird to keep your Nazi diamonds in... Cartier? I got an anonymous Tumblr ask from somebody who said the V. How do you pronounce that name then? I don't care, is the thing.

Starting point is 00:48:01 And neither do they. Yeah, 5.0. Like, uh, Bacchus and Non asked me how to pronounce Cartier. Um, but so yeah, also weird to keep your like Nazi stuff in, in like a, you know, New York bank rather than a Swiss one. They're the really the experts on that. But whatever. I would, I would have destroyed that if I had Nazi stuff to be honest. I would just shred the Nazi thing. Uh, the, the mayor shows up. I think he, I think he feels bad about it, but we'll get to that. I felt bad about something. I'd destroy up. I think he feels bad about it. But we'll get to that. If I felt bad about something, I'd destroy it.

Starting point is 00:48:26 I mean, I think, yeah, I'll get to what you shouldn't do if you feel bad about it, but like, never happened. The mayor shows up with Jodie Foster. At this point I realised that Denzel is wearing the same tan suit and tie combination that people got very mad at Barack Obama for wearing, which is really funny as a coincidence. ALICE Oh yeah. It is, yeah.

Starting point is 00:48:48 Yeah. Very funny to do that in 2006 as well. Like, really pre-dated, even. Oh, there's a funny exchange here where Dozer Washington is like, hello Mr. Mayor and Jodie Foster, who the fuck are you and what are you doing here? She says, there's stuff going on here that's above your pay grade, and he says, would you like to raise my pay grade, please? Yeah.

Starting point is 00:49:02 Yeah, that's good. ALICE I TROY Yeah, yeah, that's good. LIAM It's interesting as well, the kind of, there's no Feds in this movie, it's just Jodie Foster and the Mail. RILEY Yeah, there's no FBI guys. You would expect them. ALICE And so instead, they're the ones giving him the kind of like, forces of nature, Mr. Beale speech, where they're like, listen, we know you're in trouble because of all of that missing money, we know you want to make Detective First Grade, so why don't we smooth things over for you if you do whatever Jodie Foster

Starting point is 00:49:29 wants, which is let her in the bank to talk to, um, Dalton Trumbo. Um. But in order to do that, Denzel first has to call Clive Owen for the first time. And he says, oh, they speak to each other for the first time, and he says, good prank with the Albanian thing, he calls himself his sister president of Albania, and Clem says, speaking. And he says, that's a good joke, but you're gonna get raped in prison. Yes, no, he absolutely deploys the prison joke.

Starting point is 00:49:55 Well the thing is, the prison rape joke follows something else, because he's like, first of all, I forget in what context the number of $140,000 shows up. But, or $28,000 too, on a hand jobs. But they talk numbers for a bit, and then... ALICE Take ages. ALICE Claive Owen's like, I'm just gonna walk out the front door, y'know, and listen, I'm gonna be... I'm not gonna go to prison. I'm going gonna walk out the front door, you know, and listen, I'm gonna be... I'm not gonna go to prison. I'm going to be...

Starting point is 00:50:29 This time next week I'll be sucking down pina coladas in a hot tub with six girls named Amber and Tiffany. Two things. Why does he say it like that? And... Yeah, what's going on? Sucking down pina coladas. Second of all...

Starting point is 00:50:41 I'm gonna be six girls... I'm gonna be sucking up a joke. ...six girls named Amber and Tiffany. These are my friends. Amber, Amber, Amber, Tiffany, Tiffany and Tiffany. What the fuck? Great! That's so difficult to arrange! Alright, Amber's on one side, Tiffany's on the other. I wanna see birth certificates, you know, not accepting changed names. ALICE Also, listeners, uh, listeners, I am in fact going on holiday tomorrow for the first time in three years, so this time next week I will,

Starting point is 00:51:14 in fact, be sucking down pina coladas in a hot tub with six girls named Aberrant Tiffany. SID I'm hoping you get 28,000 Tijuana handjobs my love. ALICE What is the 140140,000 handjob? That's how much money he is being accused of swindling out of the check thing. What does the $140,000 handjob, what is that? Oh, wow. Well, first of all, they use their fucking mouth.

Starting point is 00:51:39 It's not a handjob, definitionally. Well, it's an advanced handjob, alright. You've got the hand involved. It's not a handjob, definitionally. Well, it's an advanced handjob, alright? It's an advanced technique? Umm, okay. I feel like that's a like, hand-assisted blowjob. We're getting all crack here. We are, yes. Get a fucking grapefruit involved as well.

Starting point is 00:51:56 Colliderling calls him Serpico. Yeah, which is fun. And also, he says it's not like the city of New York has 747s just sitting around, it's gonna take time. Which yeah, they probably don't after 9-11. And Kylo says, well, why don't we do some riddles bullshit then and if I'll give you

Starting point is 00:52:16 more time if you can solve my silly gay German riddle. Yeah. Smart smart. What weighs more? A ton of thing that doesn't exist or a ton of thing that also doesn't exist, right? Like, how much paper is cut down to make US dollars Grand Central Station? It's bullshit. Diehard 3! Yeah, how many trains go through Grand Central Station? And the answer is, no trees are cut

Starting point is 00:52:37 down because US currency isn't printed on cotton, and number two, no trains go through Grand Central Station because that's not the name of the station. Yeah. One, and number two, no trains go through Grand Central Station because that's not the name of the station. ALICE I love that we get the cops getting into an actual argument about whether or not Metro North starts in Grand Central, or like, goes through it. RILEY Yeah, this is good too, because they've like, nominally solved the problem as well, like they've had the call with the guy, but they're still just arguing about it afterwards, which I did think that was quite fun.

Starting point is 00:53:03 ALICE We also get another interview, this time with one of the Hispanic guys, whose name is Paul. They call him Pablo, he insists on Paul. And then he says, can I get a... yeah, he's got some minor criminal beefs before this, and he says, my throat's parched. And for some reason they both just go in on the phrase, but my throat's parched, like the group chat? NICOLAS Yeah, dude just said, my throat's parched in the group chat, they changed the title, it's fucking- It's brutal.

Starting point is 00:53:28 His throat is parched. Yeah, sorry, this dude's- this guy's throat's parched. This guy's parched. This guy's throat parched? Bro, I'm trying to ask this guy some questions and his throat's parched. Do you wanna go get this guy some water maybe? Fuckin'. And neither of them moved to get any water at all.

Starting point is 00:53:43 Denzel's girlfriend calls him, not sure why she needed to be the C plot, but whatever. The other other thing is he's broke, because he's not made Detective First Grade, and I don't believe any NYPD officer is broke, sorry. But like, he wants- Yeah, just go get some overtime on the fucking subway. She wants him to propose, and he doesn't know if he wants to or can afford to. At this point Jodie Foster goes inside the bank and talks to Clive Owen, and she says, hello, this probably isn't gonna end well

Starting point is 00:54:11 for you but I tell you what, if you surrender now, and also by the way let me have the safety deposit box, I'll get you a minimum prison deal, no problems, I'll pull some strings, and then when you get out you'll get two million dollars wherever you want it. And Clive Owen's like, damn, thanks so much, that sounds great. But by the way, I know you work for Christopher Plummer. And Christopher Plummer got rich by selling out Jews to the fucking Nazis during the war. Fuck you. Yeah, not an ancestor of him.

Starting point is 00:54:38 Him, specifically. He's an inverse Oskar Schindler. So, thing I like about this- Oskar Swindler? Oskar Schindler. So, thing I like about this- Oskar Swindler! Oskar Swindler! Oh! So, thing I like about this and thing I don't like about this, right, thing I like about this is, I like that we get another unlikable powerful group to outsmart that isn't just

Starting point is 00:54:58 the cops. Yeah, nice. Thing that I don't like about this- The Nazis? I don't like making him a Nazi collaborator instead of just a Nazi, right? As much as people criticized it, sometimes for good reasons, sometimes for bad, hard to look good when you're beefing with the Auschwitz Museum on Twitter, like, the TV series Hunters, in its first season, did, I think, quite effectively, do the, not just Operation Paperclip, a bunch of Nazis

Starting point is 00:55:26 are just in the US, just chilling. You know? Or like... ALICE They're just fine. ALICE I don't know, the really effective use of horror in Marathon Man, of Laurence Olivier playing this Nazi war criminal who's just on the street in New York, and this kind of like, mortal terror as a Jewish woman like recognizes him, right? There's so much you could do with that, particularly with Christopher Plummer, the guy from The

Starting point is 00:55:50 Sound of Music, to be like, this guy playing a Nazi, it's like, it's leaving money on the table here by not doing this. I know, I do like the message, and I think it's a particularly pertinent message now, that all those who collaborate with fascism will be found out and punished. Yeah. For sure. And you will deserve it. They do say that as well, because she's like, kind of, rhetorically just like, oh, so what, like, murder wore out, and he's like, yeah.

Starting point is 00:56:18 Yes. Exactly. Yes. Yeah, definitely. So he says, you're not blackmailing me, I'm blackmailing you right now, and when I'm done I will walk right out of this building on my own fucking sweet time. But for now I'm staying inside, man. So she leaves, she talks to Denzel after the thing, and you know, he- Obviously she can't tell anything to him, so she's just like, yeah I had a little chat

Starting point is 00:56:43 with him, it was nice, alright bye. And he's like, hold the fuck on. What happened? She doesn't say it. ALICE Yeah, and crucially, crucially he's like, I'm not doing like a corrupt deal with you, I, you know, I wanna earn my promotion the honest way, I didn't do anything wrong in the like, check cashing thing. And she's like, no, but like, whatever, I don't care if you gotta help me out with this,

Starting point is 00:57:06 or you know, we'll destroy you. So at this point, he's on the cusp of figuring it out, because the thing that finally gets him is, they've given a deadline, and then they keep giving more time. Clive Owen keeps being like, oh go on then, you know, and he finally realizes he's being die-hard-threed. And he's having his time wasted. What causes him to realize this is Willem Dafoe being extremely Islamophobic? Yeah.

Starting point is 00:57:33 Because he says nobody ever gets a plane, do you, like, what about those... he uses an extremely Islamophobic slur, which, I dunno, you don't hear quite so much these days? 2006, it was, like like a lot more salient. Yeah, he refers to the Munich Olympics and is like, well, those at the Munich Olympics. Yeah, like those guys. But yeah, Denzel realizes, oh shit, like, he's stalling us. He's trying to fuck our pussies. He's got us in a position where we think we're stalling him from killing hostages, but he's

Starting point is 00:58:04 actually stalling us because he has no intention. He's inside manipulating us. Yes. He's inside my head, man! Realizing that they've read the Cops playbook. So, he's like, I gotta go into the bank and meet this guy in person, check on the hostages. And so, having kind of figured this out, he does that, and again, Denzel Washington has a great time playing a character who is wily, Gladiator

Starting point is 00:58:32 2 also a great example, so he goes in there, and by the way, when he meets him face to face for the first time, this is where you get the, we once saw the movie, Dog Day Afternoon, that this is where you get the, we once saw the movie Dog Day Afternoon, that this is a little like- RILEY He's like, you've seen Dog Day Afternoon, you know you're not getting a play. Right? Like, he pulls out the whole bullshit.

Starting point is 00:58:52 He's like, you are bullshitting me. What the fuck is going on. And on the way out of here, he fucking goes for it. He tries to get Clive Owen's mask off. Like, he puts his hand out to get the handshake, grabs it, just fucking pulls it in, tries to get the mask off. Mmhmm. It's ridiculous, the first genuinely disruptive, unexpected thing that's happened to the plan.

Starting point is 00:59:14 And ultimately, one of the other hostage takers gets him at gunpoint. The guns are like, really, really cheap, like airsoft guns, which is cool. And he's like... also, Clive Owen calls him Kojak at this moment, which is... having also called him Serpico, which is just naming cops. I don't know what that refers to? Teli Savalas played this detective Kojak on TV for a number of years. He's literally just naming cops at this point, it's like seeing a doctor and being like, alright, house. RILEY Yeah. But instead, like, a different one of

Starting point is 00:59:49 the robbers comes up and goes like, alright, fuck you man. And they get him out of there, and he goes, you are bluffing me, and Clive Owen says, answer me this copper, would a man who's bluffing you let you walk away? I reckon not. Off you go. And then he closes the door. To be clear, at this point, Clive Owen is tilted. He is tilted. And so he's human. Yeah. They have this little argument in the lobby immediately afterwards. They're like, you just pulled your fucking mask off. You know? Um, so what they do is they kill a hostage. You know, first of all, Denzel sets himself up for the dip shoot of the year award, which is consistently won by cops actually

Starting point is 01:00:25 Because he goes back to the mobile command section He's like I gave him every excuse to kill me and he didn't do it. Why because he's not a killer He's definitely not gonna kill anybody I stake my career on it at which point Clive Owen calls and is like yo get this on TV and executes a hostage Yes, oh shit. Oh, no Yeah, they do that like shoot him, you see the blood come out and bam. And then... You get, you know, you take it.

Starting point is 01:00:50 Yeah, no, we get this shot. It's the shot. So like, it's been in, I think, every Spike Lee movie since his second. So good every time. The double dolly. It's got more dolly shots in this movie than fucking Barbie, but this is the special one. It's like, you put the actor on a dolly, you put the camera on a dolly, you move them both together.

Starting point is 01:01:11 And he's tried using this for a bunch of different things. The way it looks is like, instead of walking they're just being moved with the camera, because they are. Yeah. Denzel Washington uses all of his action points to move close to the bank and just like glides. He's so angry. He doesn't even move his legs. He just like, oh, it's really fun.

Starting point is 01:01:30 It's a great shot. It's, it's, it's really good because it's really fast. So it's shaky and uneven. It's not like he's angry either. Like he's just, he's just seeing a hostage die. Like he's just thinking about everything that implies about him and his like career from this point onwards. He's not moving at all. He's not reacting, he just slides towards the bang.

Starting point is 01:01:48 It's perfect. ALICE I think, because Spike Lee's done this for a bunch of different things, to try and achieve a bunch of different effects, I think the most successful is in Malcolm X, where Malcolm is kind of born towards the Audemars Ballroom, where he's gonna get shot instead of walking, and it like very funereal, but here it's like so much faster and like unsteady, and I really really like it. Nathanael Really nice as an actor too, you don't even have to fucking walk.

Starting point is 01:02:14 It's great. Justin Yeah, just, just, just sit and like, yeah. Nathanael You don't have to have all that, oh do I look like a dipshit when I walk, am I walking in an unnatural way, am I walking in the character's way? Doesn't even fucking matter, I'm not a dolly. Great. Easy peasy. Would the character glide like this?

Starting point is 01:02:27 He would, yeah. He would, yeah. Yeah, he's a fanboy. It's fine. At which point the police captain turns up and he said, you're a dipshit. You're off the case. Guess who's in charge, bitch boy.

Starting point is 01:02:37 Yeah, Willem Dafoe, the Green Goblin himself, is in charge now. They're walking around, and Willem is basically just like, with all of his boys loading up the guns, being like, yeah, shame, shame it didn't work out. Because the thing is, we skipped over a bit, because after getting transported to the doors, Denzel's like, hey, shoot me. Shoot me right now. He like pounds on the door, he's like, what the fuck are you people doing? It's really like Harry Dubois, like the suicide cop kind of method of being like, hey, shoot

Starting point is 01:03:05 me in the fucking head right now. Suicide by cop. Yeah, I've gone into the hostage situation, I've put a gun against my own head, I'm like, you want this, don't you? You wished that I'd fucking kill myself, don't you? You want me to? And the line, the kind of grudging respect line that I really like is Claiborne's like, you're too damn smart to be a cop.

Starting point is 01:03:23 Which, you know, that's, that's always the dream, isn't it? WILL It's not hard, to be fair. It's a low bar to clear. ALICE Will and the Phone the Swat guys are thinking about how they're gonna do it, and they have these, this series of like, very vivid... WILL They're like, yeah, salivating fantasies. LIAM Yeah, yeah, we see this kind of, this fantasy sequence of them storming the bank and shooting all the bad guys and being like, yeah!

Starting point is 01:03:45 ALICE I love shooting this as a fantasy. It's so good. ALICE Also, we see them shoot the girl with her tits out as well, and it's like, oh okay, so these guys are both dumb and violent and horny as well. It's still having your cake and eating it, sure, but like... GEOFF Yeah, it is. It's the movie being like, wouldn't this be cool?

Starting point is 01:04:04 But it's bad. Yeah. But it's cool. Oh, but it is cool. And they're like, well okay, so we can't do that because we're gonna kill a bunch of hostages, because we can't tell them apart, so what if, and it's kind of contrived, but whatever, what if we just use rubber bullets and just shoot everybody in the head with a rubber bullet, which I assume is great for you.

Starting point is 01:04:21 Mmhm. And... Once again, the point of the rubber bullet is to bounce it off the floor towards the protesters. If you just shoot them directly in the head, that's just shooting them with a bullet. It's not meaningfully different. Get them in the eye! They will all be blinded!

Starting point is 01:04:36 The NYPD having to pay for a bunch of people's eyes they were upshirking, yeah. They had to pay a lot out after 2020. It's not less lethal if you just shoot them in the head with it. Denzel kind of like gets shuffled out of the command post and he goes to talk to the... I'm just imagining a cop currently sighting up some protesters listening to our podcast going, oh, oh, thanks. Oh shit. Oh shit.

Starting point is 01:04:57 Thanks guys. We're calling you out by name. Yeah. Damien. I don't know. Stop. Yeah. Officer. So he goes and talks. He goes, he goes and talks

Starting point is 01:05:05 to, um, I had a cop tell me once that they- No fucking cops called Damien. Sorry. Like Frank Goley. Don't fucking shoot them in the head. Right? I had a cop tell me once they're really like listening to Britnology, like on the job. And I was like, if I heard, if I heard Britnology coming out of a cop car, like I would like faint instantly and perhaps never regain consciousness. Um, so- I commit a crime, I would like, faint instantly and perhaps never regain consciousness. I'd commit a crime, I'm like, ah, but you have a parasocial relationship with me. You wouldn't arrest someone you've got a parasocial relationship with.

Starting point is 01:05:35 You can't arrest me, you're in love with me. Getting pulled over by the cops, but I've got a little like, friend of Kil James Bond's sticker or like, license plate frame or something and they're like ah you know you have a good time. Um so- Well you can arrest me but just don't take your Patreon subscription away I need that shit. Like in Copland. Um so- If you're a cop listening to this you've got to know that I hate you. Yeah you've got to resign I'm sorry I'm sorry you have to- I'm not sorry actually you do have to- It's not subtle right? Like I don't hide it. Anyway, keep going.

Starting point is 01:06:08 Security guards for paintings are different. You guys are fine. Keep it up. Guard that fucking painting. He goes to talk to the first cop on scene, the guy who got the we have big plan Albanianism. And that cop is like, also I'm racist, right? Because- Big time. Yeah, because he tells him, it's not the first time I had a gun stuck in my face, the first time I had a gun stuck in my face was, I was breaking up a fight between a couple of racial slur kids, and a 12 year old, and then we get a- because Danzell kind of says, he's coming down the colour commentary and kind of like frowns at him, which is the most, you know, confrontational he gets about any

Starting point is 01:06:50 of this. That is really interesting that he doesn't say, stop being racist. In front of, in front of like me, a black guy, please stop, do not use the n-word which you were about to use. He's just like, hey, he like turns it into a joke and is kind of nice about it. He doesn't say, don't ever fucking say that I'll report you, you shouldn't ever say that ever. ALICE Yeah, it's staking out the position of the kind of complicity that Spike Lee's... suggests that you have to have to be a black cop, right? And so, the guy goes, annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn I would suggest that this movie has a degree of sympathy for cops as well. I think it does still treat cops as working class, I think particularly the show, the

Starting point is 01:07:49 more like... Yes, which is interesting. And alive. Arriving with all of their shit and like, it's a, yeah. The cops' final line in this scene is, I'm just trying to keep them away from us, right? Which is obviously racialized, but he is talking to Denzel Washington's character, so it's like, also class. It's like, the existence of a criminal underclass, right, is how he sees his role, is like, you know.

Starting point is 01:08:16 RILEY I will say, he does better than Sergeant Al Powell from fucking Die Hard 1, though, because he goes like, yeah, this kid pointed a gun at me, and guess what, I didn't shoot him. I got shot. Yeah. Pretty good. It's better police work. That's what you should do in that situation, I'm afraid.

Starting point is 01:08:31 At this point he says, well, I'll tell you what, I'll watch what I say in future cause you never know who might have planned a listening device inside your mobile command center back at the start of the movie, and Den's like, oh shit! They did that thing you just said! Oh no! ALICE Yeah. And so he tries to stop them, but they're going in anyway. I think a lot about... WILL He's like, don't go inside, man! WILL He's heard everything we've said don't go in.

Starting point is 01:08:57 ALICE I think it's interesting. I think a lot about, Morgan Freeman's character in Seven has a line when the SWAT guys are like kicking in the door of, you know, what they imagine to be Kevin Spacey's apartment, where he just says quite derisively and casually, like, they love this. And they... Yeah. They love it. These are the guys who love this doing the thing that they love, right? They sort of like, breach into the bank, we see the robbers know in advance, and they

Starting point is 01:09:22 sort of like, insert themselves amongst the hostages, they throw some more smoke grenades to try and cause some more chaos. And then they herd all the hostages out and make them run, they say everybody run. Out of the bank. And they do, and they hide amongst the hostages. Everybody gets shot in the fucking head with rubber bullets. Everyone gets shot in the fucking head with a rubber bullet. They walk around and immediately get fucking toothed.

Starting point is 01:09:42 2020, like... My favorite detail about this, which is sort of semi intentional, is that Defoe says ceasefire and twelve more people get shot in the head with a rubber bullet after that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. You cannot fuckin' stop these guys when they get started, huh? Yeah. Interesting.

Starting point is 01:10:00 Everybody gets thrown on the ground and searched. It's dramatic irony, because we know who the hostage takers are, but the cops don't? We don't, we haven't seen their faces actually. We have a solid shot at a couple of them. We know the girl, and that's about it actually. Other than that, we don't know. But so, obviously, everybody's getting handled extremely roughly, we see the security guard be like, I work at the bank, nobody's listening to me. Another great example of cop gaslighting, of saying, listen a bunch to someone who you

Starting point is 01:10:37 aren't listening to. ZOE Yeah. Again, NHS. ALICE Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. ZOE I've noticed that actor on the Inside Man IMDb is just credited as as Bear as a mononym. It's pretty funny. Hell yeah. Hell yeah.

Starting point is 01:10:50 Shout out to Bear. Shout out to you Bear if you wanna listen. Everybody gets searched, everybody gets herded onto buses, and they search the bank. They search the bank, and this is the funniest fucking line of the whole movie is from Chua Tal who goes, hey, they forgot to rob the joint! Because they go down to the fucking vault and it's just like nothing is missing at all. ALICE Oh, fuck. I forgot to do the robbery! WILL Me leaving the bank like, aw, fuck! All the

Starting point is 01:11:16 money! TAN I just got so caught up in it, I was having so much fun. WILL I was just having a good time, yeah. TAN I'm not in bank robbery for the money, I just, I do it because I love it. ALICE They find all the guns, which are which are like fakes, they're replicas. I like that that is something that I noticed in the start, it's like, oh it's kind of shitty prop work.

Starting point is 01:11:35 It's like, no it's meant to be. They also find a sheet and a squib, the execution was fake. Which is like, damn, you only had one go at that, I could think it worked. ALICE Yeah. SEAN Yeah. ALICE But it means that Denzel Washington's character was right all along, but they can't even really make a charge stick because no one's stolen anything, as far as they know.

Starting point is 01:11:58 SEAN Yeah, nothing is missing. They've just got a bunch of guys upstairs. ALICE They did beat the shit out of that one British guy. SEAN Yeah, you got like assault, I guess, but like... ALICE Yeah. That's true. ZOE They tied some people up, kidnapping, maybe? ALICE And the thing I like is we jump ahead a bit, and we see his captain, his boss, who, you know, is like, are you guys cops in the beginning, says, nobody's breathing down my neck to come up with answers, I'm not gonna breathe down yours, just bury

Starting point is 01:12:25 it. Yeah, he's like, look, nothing got stolen, you got no victims, you got no robbery, you got no suspects, fuck it, bury it. Cause all the hostages established an alibi for all the other hostages, because every single one of them has at some point seen one of the robbers' faces tied up with them, and it's just like, well no, every time we think we've identified one of the robbers, somebody else is like, no, they were with me. It's so fucking good, actually.

Starting point is 01:12:48 I mean, if not for the Nazi thing, this movie does essentially posit that you can just kind of fake rob a bank for free. The Nazi thing does kind of prove important, though. No one's found the Nazi thing yet, which means that as far as Jodie Foster's concerned, he's kept up his end of the deal. So, as that quid pro quo, they find the missing money, and he deliberately does not ask where, as well. LZ Yeah. There's one detail that Denzel has observed, though, he's like, at some point Clive Owen had a very distinctive pistol, a.357, since we never found that. Where is

Starting point is 01:13:24 the pistol? It's more than that. He's also just like, well, someone did something. Something happened tonight. Like there has to be something that went on, right? It can't just be that they all went in there and did a social experiment and then all left. Like something was wrong. So just some kind of improv scene happened. Yeah. Yeah. And everyone's just like, nah, whatever. If you can't find it, you can't find it. But he starts going through the records and he sees that there's one safe deposit box that is not on any records. Doesn't exist. Box 392. It's not on the records anywhere. It's just like, ah, interesting.

Starting point is 01:13:59 So he goes to a judge and gets a warrant. And it's like, hey, can I have permission to misgender the contents of this box? And the judge says, yes, I see nothing wrong with that, that's fine actually, and I'm gonna disclose it in the press too, great. ALICE He's wearing an even funnier suit, he's wearing a white seersucker suit with a bow tie. LIAM Mmhm. JUSTIN Yeah, that's fuckin' rules. ALICE And a fedora as well, it's like, really really

Starting point is 01:14:18 good. And he runs into Jodie Foster outside, and she's like... LIAM Again, detectives don't dress like this anymore, they wear a cap, it's so fucked. ALICE It's true, bullshit. But so, Jodie Foster's like, listen, detectives don't dress like this anymore. They wear a cap. It's so fucked. But so Jodie Foster's like, listen, you kept up your end of the deal, what's going on with the thing? You know, you're gonna get your promotion, I'm sure, you know, found the money, that's a happy coincidence.

Starting point is 01:14:39 So nobody better find out about this, otherwise you're gonna be in serious trouble. Remember how we were talking about the listing devices from the pizza boxes earlier? Nobody better find out about this, otherwise you're going to be in serious trouble. Remember how we were talking about the listening devices from the pizza boxes earlier? He has just taken one of those and he plays her back the recording of her being like, would you like to do a corrupt deal to conceal your misconduct and him going, I have done no misconduct. What are you talking about? It seems. Hello, Mr. Mayor. You're also in this conversation. And then the mayor is like, yes, do this thing. Dunsel Washington. He's like, also a bunch of the dialogue that he plays back to her was like cut from the earlier scene. So he's just got audio of her saying

Starting point is 01:15:12 shit she never said. But whatever, whatever. Yeah. He's like, no, I am blackmailing you. In fact, Una reverse card. And she's like, fuck. And so she also comes up with an interesting excuse here. She's like, yeah, okay. Christopher so she also comes up with an interesting excuse here. She's like, yeah, OK, Christopher Plummer got rich collaborating with the Nazis, selling out Jews during World War II. He did some evil shit and got wealthy that way. But half the Fortune 500 did that too. They've all done evil shit.

Starting point is 01:15:37 You don't get to be that rich without doing evil shit. So how about you let it go? And Donald Washington is like, how about I pay you five dollars, and then we see what you do with that. Go fuck yourself. ALICE AND GILES LAUGH. ALICE AND GILES LAUGH. ALICE AND GILES LAUGH.

Starting point is 01:15:51 ALICE AND GILES LAUGH. That's a better line than what he actually says. That's actually way better. It is. So she goes to see Christopher Plummer at his extremely creepy and exclusive men's club, where he's getting a haircut. Mmhmm. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:16:04 And she's like, well, I guess, you know, you're probably not gonna hear much more about the Nazi stuff. Talk to Denzel Washington, he was fine, you know. So... Well, specifically she says, so, Clive Owen stole that envelope. Yeah, he's got the big swastika that says, I love being a Nazi informant. Signed Christopher Plummer. Christopher Plummer, Christopher Plummer.

Starting point is 01:16:25 Very helpful with the Nazis to give those out, to be honest. But she's like, he's not just going to stick that under his mattress. He stole that to blackmail you so that you don't come after him, which means he must have stolen something else from inside that box. And she's like, there's only one thing it could be. Fucking diamonds. The box was full of diamonds. And he's stolen those and he's got the Nazi envelope as collateral in case you ever try and come after him. And Christopher Plummer says, also, I did other crimes. And one of them was a big ring. The Nazi stuff?

Starting point is 01:17:01 Yeah, that's bad. Just the start, it turns out. But there's a big Cartier diamond ring, which belonged to like a friend of mine, who I sold to the Nazis. And I feel bad about it. And I've been donating to charity ever since. But oh, boohoo, here's a big check. And she's like, I will take this check because I'm also evil.

Starting point is 01:17:18 Yeah. Just be like, yeah. It's the same thing. It's like, you know, the Nazis paid me off for my silence about them, like killing my friends. So now I'm going to pay you off for silence about me having not said anything. And she's just felt like, and it's just like, you know, this, this character has absolutely no reason to go against that. She's like, yeah, sure. Cool.

Starting point is 01:17:36 The thing about Blood Money is it spends just as good. Yeah, honestly, if you steal all this money from the Nazis, and then it's like 1992, like no one's thinking about the Nazis at that point. They're doing it again now, but like... The exchange rate from money to blood money is one to one. Yeah, it's actually fucking four in some cases. She's like, I gotta go back to my Bin Laden, like, condo purchase thing, where listing

Starting point is 01:18:01 your name as a reference. Which like, pissed him off the way out. He's like, buddy, everything I do is evil, don't fucking worry. And like, now you're on the hook to me for like, whatever. But it's all part of the ecosystem, right? Like, it's the layer cake. Everyone's a Nazi, we're all blackmailing each other, New York City, the aristocrats. Let's go.

Starting point is 01:18:23 It's not a bad sort of sentiment for, you know, capitalism to be like, yeah, all of these guys are doing terrible things and blackmailing each other constantly. But so- ZACH Yeah, look, if you have more money, like, if you have all the money, it was taken from someone. Like, there's a steady amount of money, and if you've got more, someone else has less, and that's how that works. ALICE So we now know the thing, right, he's inside,

Starting point is 01:18:46 he's inside the fuck, he's wedged into a bit of the, like, storage room that the cops didn't find, they dug him a hole in the floor to shit into, he must smell awful. RILEY I like that, as soon as he crawls out of the cell, he's been in there a week, hiding in the storage room, and then my notes say I bet he stinks, and then they cut to his confederates in the car, and one of them says he's gonna stink. ALICE One of the confederates, by the way, is the orthodox guy who he calls rabbi, who he threw to the floor in the beginning, and who the cops when they were interviewing him, apropos of nothing, Denzel was like, hey, do you know

Starting point is 01:19:22 anything about diamonds? Antisemitic. Because he's like, yeah, I'm trying to get married to my wife or whatever, get married to my fiance, and the guy's like, yeah, you know- I'm trying to get married to my wife. Yeah. My cousin knows a guy I can introduce to, and I'm like, okay, man. But so, that guy is also the inside man from Inside Man.

Starting point is 01:19:43 He's also in on it, right? That's why they're stealing the diamonds, because they're stealing the diamonds back, is kind of suggested. I think it was slightly risky for these four to all wait outside the bank together, because if I was Denzel- In one car, yeah. Yeah, if I was Denzel and the cops had been like, okay, we're gonna let all these hostages go, follow them. See which ones talk to each other, see which ones suddenly buy Lamborghinis. Let's figure it out that way." ALICE You've solved inside, man. So, the cops show up at the bank to search for their safety deposit box, and, um, like, Clive Owen bumps

Starting point is 01:20:17 him on the way out. Like, he does not notice. DARREN Yeah, yeah. He goes, damn, that guy stinks. ALICE He's got bumped into by a guy who stinks really bad. New York City, baby. He's got stinky guys in the back. Greatest city in the world. So... Look, in a Swiss bank you can stink really bad, alright, they're not gonna say anything.

Starting point is 01:20:35 They told him on the radio that the cops were coming in, so he's left the, like, the ring in there. Yeah. And they're like, why did you do that? And the answer is, he kind of trusts the cops so much that he made the whole thing kind of futile, basically. Yeah, it was a white hat bank robbery to draw attention to the Nazi past of some guy. Sick.

Starting point is 01:20:59 Yeah. Also, if Denzel takes down Christopher Plummer now, then there's nothing stopping anyone from coming after Claude Verne. So he's just lost his leverage. And he gets a little, like another little monologue, which is, I think you can also take as, as, as like directorial, but where he goes, I'm no martyr. I did it for the money. Okay. But it's not worth much if you can't face yourself in the mirror. Which sure. Now at this point, we then get like 10, But it's not worth much if you can't face yourself in the mirror.

Starting point is 01:21:25 Which, sure. Now, at this point we then get like ten, the movie's over but we get ten minutes of Denzel Washington just being cool. There's more movies, yeah. Well this is the thing, right, what he does is he takes being a detective, having like a detective shield, as a license to be annoying and weird and provocative and do bits to people. It's kind of like Dungeons and Dragons protagonist energy. It's like, I'm gonna get in a conversation... We're gonna do bits at you until we wear you down.

Starting point is 01:21:53 Yeah, exactly. So he goes to see Christopher Plummer, who's kind of glad handing them, he's like, you know, I always think of you guys as New York's finest. And he goes, interesting, that's crazy. By the way, why are you a Nazi though? Yeah, they get him on a couple of things, because they're like, you know, is this your bank? And he goes, oh I'm chairman of the board of directors, but in reality obviously he founded and built that first bank. And like, he does a number of just sort of avoidance rhetorical strategies, to be be like I'm not that connected to the bank and eventually Denzel just gets the ring out and is like I'm gonna find out

Starting point is 01:22:30 what this is pal and he goes oh I'll try. He finishes this with that thing you said about us being New York's finest we really appreciate that. We really appreciate that. Fucking excellent. But like the whole deal with Christopher Plummer at this point is that he's feeling remorseful. We see a lot of like, you know, philanthropic stuff on his wall with like, Stars of David

Starting point is 01:22:50 and like, Minoras, it's like, he's just trying to give back. But he says, I've tried to spend my whole life serving humanity as a banker, which is a really good bit. Like, there's a photo of him with Margaret Thatcher as well, and it's just like, okay, yeah, I was trying to give good back into the world. Yeah. It's the funniest thing in the world, it's like a rich guy being like, hey, I'm giving you so much money.

Starting point is 01:23:12 It's like, yeah, you've got all the money, man, like that's why you're giving it away. He says as well, he says to Jodie Foster, as I sold my soul and I've spent the last, you know, 60 years trying to buy it back, and it's like, oh, interesting. Cool. Yeah, didn't work. No. Turns out that doesn't... Could be so. So he goes to bother the mayor about this, and, like, on the way out, it implies that

Starting point is 01:23:34 he's gonna tip off the war crimes issues office in the State Department. Oh, no, he asks them to do it. He tells her to. He says to Jodie Foster and the mayor, you gotta put away Christopher Plummer, and they're like, Christopher Plummer's an extremely wealthy, influential man, obviously I'm not gonna do that, and he's like, ah, but remember, I have the recording of you doing crimes, when you told me to do crimes earlier on, so I'm blackmailing you, in fact, once again! So then put him away and then we'll call it even, and she's like, okay.

Starting point is 01:23:58 Everyone's blackmailing each other, New York City continues going for another day. And then we get an atrocious romance ending as he goes back to his girlfriend. Mmm. Yeah. She's waiting, sexy. My understanding is that she's been lounging on a bed, sort of flicking her feet around for the entire movie. That's just femship.

Starting point is 01:24:16 For like a week. That's femship. For like a week, though. Like, it was more than a day he was out there doing all of the heist stuff. One of the things she says sexily is the handcuffs are getting cold, which is like, they're supposed to! What do you-? LIAM They're cold. ALICE Yeah.

Starting point is 01:24:30 Anyway, he's taking off his gun and his badge and he finds one of the diamonds in his pocket from where he got bumped into by Clive Owen, so always remember to tip your hostage negotiator at the end of every heist. Absolutely. I like that it's ambiguous as to whether he's gonna keep it, he's like... Yeah. Yeah. We never actually find out whether or not he was corrupt in the first place, either.

Starting point is 01:24:57 Yeah, that is interesting. We know that he said that he wasn't when he was recording it, but we don't actually know, and I do kind of like that. It calls back to a funny moment earlier on as well where Denzel's talking to Clavo and in the bank and he says, oh I'm thinking about marrying my girlfriend, but I can't afford it. And Clavo's like, do you love her? If you love her then money doesn't matter, it's not everything. So I was like, thank you bank robber! ALICE I really respect that.

Starting point is 01:25:22 NICOLAS Just be like, oh man, I mean, do you love her? NICOLAS Money isn't everything I mean, do you love her? So cute. MONEY ISN'T EVERYTHING I SAY IS A ROBBER VANG. And that's the plot, that's Inside Man, and all it took was kicking the shit out of one British man. He's not even British! He just looks British, he just has a British face on him, it's not his fault.

Starting point is 01:25:40 Angloid physiognomy. Kicked the shit out of one Angloid, yeah. So... 21st century. Angloid man. And this is how New York City functions, I guess. And the plan works more or less perfectly, you can be smart enough to pull all of this stuff off and fool everybody.

Starting point is 01:26:01 Clive Owen just really again has the voice to deliver that as well. And yeah. That's the movie. I had some reservations obviously, I mean we'll get to that when we get to the M in the scum spectrum, but like, other than that, really nice. I had a good time with this movie, it's a different kind of a heist to any we've seen before on this series, on this season. Like, looking forward to getting in them all. I'm very interested to see how it stacks up against Dog Day Afternoon, which was nearly the best film we've ever seen.

Starting point is 01:26:32 It was fucking close. I had a great time watching this. I'm excited that we've finally gotten to Spike Lee movies. I think this is, uh, like, I dunno, it's not my favorite of his, but, y'know, we'll get into it. Because we don't just have to judge this subjectively, we have a science-based system. It's called the SCUMM system, it stands for Smaam Cultural Insensitivity, Unprovoked Violence, and Misogyny. So on a scale of 0-7, how smaamy is Inside Man?

Starting point is 01:26:59 I think the answer is a bit. S- Yeah. A- It's pretty smaamy. S- It's quite pleased with itself. A- It's doing the kind of... at some point we'll get to Layer Cake, because that's gonna be a real important movie, canonically, for us, but it does have a lot of similar things of like, oh, if you knew that you'd be as smart as me, and stuff. From Clydon.

Starting point is 01:27:17 It also has a lot of like, I've seen other movies. Serpico, Kojak, Dog Day Afternoon. Yeah, yeah. Sex and the City 2. I think it kind of earns it in the sense that it's not doing the Ocean's Eleven thing of just like, we're gonna be really smug about it but you can't figure it out. Like, if you wanted to, you could have figured out most of the plot twists here, just from what it gives you, and it's... Yeah, from right away.

Starting point is 01:27:43 I'm gonna leave when we're good and done, even on the fucking, like, van, it's like we only leave when the job is done, things like that. I'm gonna walk out of here, scot-free, in a week, exactly. The video game scene, I wanna give it a point for that. Oh yeah. I do wanna give it some points for the video game scene. That's fucking crazy! How do we feel about a four?

Starting point is 01:28:03 I could see a four. Because I was gonna go in at a five and take one off for the fact that you can kind of like, piece things together and doesn't really like, celebrate itself, you know, being smart and what even the oceans do. So yeah, four. Cultural insensitivity's an interesting one, because the movie definitely depicts a lot of racism. It does.

Starting point is 01:28:23 Yes. There's a lot of racism in the cops in New York City, but how much of that are we asked to think is good? ALICE Basically none. GARETH Not much, right? ALICE I think we are asked to sympathize with the cops to an extent, right? I think we are asked to believe that their job is real, and that they are workers. They are just also a kind of privileged class of very racist workers.

Starting point is 01:28:47 I think, I dunno, I come back to the conversation with Vikram, right, as... Yeah, exactly. It's kind of staking out this position of, well, everybody's experiencing, everybody who isn't white is experiencing some kind of racism in America, and that's not really an intersectional thing, quite the opposite. These are things that are often contradictory and in opposition, and everybody's just kind of got to get along as best they can. It's like a character in the movie.

Starting point is 01:29:18 Which I think is kind of a cop out. ALICE Yeah. That is upsetting. ALICE I think it's also weirdly selective. This is one of the ones where I kind of want to put the LGBT stuff under cultural insensitivity. To be like, New York City is a sort of like, visibly diverse city in every way except gender and sexuality. It's like 2006, man.

Starting point is 01:29:45 Less diverse than Dog Day Afternoon, in that sense. Yes, actually, we've kind of gone backwards, that's a good point. Dog Day Afternoon, a movie with, like, at least a gay guy in it, and a trans woman. Which, yeah, no, it's kind of regressive in that step, so I want to give it a couple of points for that. On the other hand, I think it is honestly, like, in favor of, like, it's a kind of a bit of a love letter to New York City's, like, ethnic diversity. In, y'know, the Albanian consulate guy wanted money thing is kind of a shitty joke, but at the same time it's done with that kind of a shitty joke, but at the same

Starting point is 01:30:25 time it's done with that kind of bonhomie behind it, I think. So I dunno, like a two maybe? Three? Three? I could see a three. No, trans people in New York? Three. Unprovoked violence.

Starting point is 01:30:39 Well the whole thing has been like, feigning violence, and like, the violence of the cops is idiotic. Mmhm. Yeah, we're not asked to sympathize the violence of the cops is idiotic. RILEY Yeah, we're not asked to sympathize with any of the unprovoked violence, there isn't any, really, on the behalf of, like, the quote unquote protagonist who I think is Clive Owen. ALICE You see him take himself into the office and be like, is it morally justified for me to beat the shit out of a guy just for looking British? And he decides that it is!

Starting point is 01:31:03 RILEY And he does come out on the right side. Yeah yeah yeah. We do see that some of the hostages are very shaken up and traumatized by having all this happen to them. The old lady is. They definitely are getting yelled at and dragged to other rooms to confuse and disorient them. Insofar as we side with Clive Owen at the end, we are asked to believe that his, like, you know, holding people at gunpoint and forcing them to strip and all that stuff is kinda justified. They are more traumatized by the cops than the hostage takers, but that's still

Starting point is 01:31:30 the hostage taker's fault. STORM Yes, that is true. WILL The hostage takers point a fake gun at them and go everyone get into painter outfits and crouch on the floor, whereas the real cops just shoot them in the head with rubber bullets and tackle them and things like that. But again, all of this is only, like, the situation that they're in is caused by the robbers. Yeah, I dunno. The cops are a known factor, I think.

Starting point is 01:31:52 I think a couple of points here, at least. Three? Two. Two. Two, yeah. I think two at max, yeah. I think it's generous, but okay. And finally, misogyny.

Starting point is 01:32:01 Misogyny, I mean, I think we've gotta go, not very high on this one, but it feels juvenile, if you know what I mean. That's a good word. Misogyny. Like, there are multiple scenes where, like, Chiwetel is just staring at this, like, Italian American lesbian's breasts, you know, and it's like, I wanna give him some fucking points for that, because it's not that important a plot point to have in the movie. Could you have written your female characters have perhaps some other distinguishing features?

Starting point is 01:32:26 ALICE That one cut, where they go from interviewing the hostage to the hostage taker with her tits out, is like, that's worth at least a half point for me on its own. LORRAINE That made me feel bad for the actor. ALICE Yeah. LORRAINE We really did. RILEY Yeah. The match cut between two different actors' boobs.

Starting point is 01:32:46 Yeah. And I'm like, what are you doing? Also, the like, believe me lady, this is the only time I'd ever ask you to like, do something like this, where it's like, you know, we're sort of reinforcing like, kind of like sexual undesirability. I feel like I want to give some points and take some back. There are some interesting female characters in this. I like Jodie Foster's character,

Starting point is 01:33:06 I think that's cool. One of the cops is a lady and she's shown to be very competent, and no one really questions her ability to be there. So, a four? I could see a four, yeah. Yeah, I appreciate Jodie Foster's character, because she absolutely could have been a man. There's nothing about that character that is specific to femininity. They absolutely could have made it a man, but they didn't, which is nice. But again, that's like, that's assumed baseline minimum. So you don't get any

Starting point is 01:33:31 points for that. Well, that gives us a total score of 13, which is significantly worse than Dog Day Afternoon 7, but it's still pretty good. It's actually exactly the same as the Ocean's 11 remake. I think, I think that kind of tracks, to be honest. Yeah, I can see that. And the same as Die Hard, weirdly. Huh. Well, those are three entertaining films. I'll say that. So once again, the scum system never fails. Yeah, it's like a Daniel Craig Bond level, which I feel is about right.

Starting point is 01:34:00 The tracks, yeah. This is the most objective fuckin' system we've ever... It's so good. I'm so glad we devised it scientifically. But that's inside man. And yeah, any sort of like, addenda there? Don't check. I don't think so.

Starting point is 01:34:16 No. No. Perfect. As stated, if not for the Nazi thing, you can rob a bank for free, as long as you do some weird like, prison experiment shit. So long as you put it weird like prison experiment shit. So long as you put it all back, that reminds me of a Christopher Brookmeyer novel, I think it's called A Big Boy Did It and Ran Away, which does it like have like bank robbery

Starting point is 01:34:32 as art piece, as like some street theatre, so it's very fun. Anyway, that's Inside Man, thank you so much for listening, we have a Patreon, if you subscribe to it the next bonus episode is going to be... This what, right, okay let me double check this. If you get into the Patreon, you can wall yourself up inside it, listen to the podcast through the cell and then walk out. Those are the people who have the Well There's Your Problem playlist and stop subscribing to the Patreon.

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Kill James Bond! - S4E9: Inside Man

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