The Rewatchables - 'Taken' With Bill Simmons and Shea Serrano

Episode Date: September 3, 2018

The Ringer's Bill Simmons and Shea Serrano have "a very special set of skills" that allow them to rewatch and celebrate 2008's action thriller 'Taken' starring Liam Neeson and directed by Pierre Morel. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How about this for a movie description? Brian Mills, a former government operative, is trying to reconnect with his daughter Kim. Then his worst fears become real. When sex slavers abduct Kim and her friend shortly after they arrive in Paris for vacation, but just four days until Kim will be auctioned off, Brian must call on every skill he learned in Black Ops

to rescue her. Taken, the rewatchables. Me, Shea Serrano, coming up right now. Kim. Dad, someone here. What? Oh my God, they got Amanda. Get under the bed.

The next part is very important. They're going to take you. If you're looking for a ransom, I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills. Skilled that make me a nightmare for people like you. I will find you. And I will kill you. Good luck.

Take it. Readed PG-13. All right, Shay Serrano on the line. He has new podcast audio equipment. We're very excited. He's moved into 2018. Shea, how are you? What up?

Taken, it's coming up on the 10 year anniversary. We're going to wait until the 10 year anniversary. It's sometime in December, January. We couldn't wait. It's on all the time. We text each other all the time about it. I don't know how many times I've watched it at this point. If this isn't a rewatchable, I don't know what it is.

Shea, Taken made $226 million. Yes. It launched two sequels. Yes. It launched an NBC series in 2017 that I'm not sure I knew. about until I was researching this podcast. Also correct. I don't acknowledge the TV series.

Do you acknowledge TV series? I didn't even know about it either until. I remembered it as soon as I was looking through the internet. I said, oh, shit, that's right. They did a whole TV show. Some people say it's the best Albanian sex trafficking movie ever. I don't know. It's in the top four for me.

But maybe it's the best. I'm not sure. Only a 58% on Rotten Tomatoes. You guys are morons. That's terrible. Roger Ebert. who has become a punching bag on the rewatchables. It's become clearer and clearer over the years

that I'm not sure if he had the right-tasted movies sometimes. Only two and a half stars from Roger Ebert. Come on, Roger Ebert. That's tough. I don't know what you're thinking. That's missing about six stars. Yeah. So let's start here.

My whole life, my dad has called movies like this a five o'clocker. Okay. And by five o'clocker, so my dad was superintendent in Easton, Massachusetts for decades. He worked his way up, but he worked in the Eastern school system for over like 33 years, I think. Okay. But didn't live near Easton.

Okay. So sometimes, so it was like a 45-minute drive home to wherever lived. He always lived somewhere around Boston. And sometimes if he stayed at work late, instead of like battling the rush hour traffic, he would go to the movies before he came home. But he wouldn't want to see a movie that was like too much brain power for him, basically. He just basically want to turn his brain off. Fiotos have, Shay, you get it.

You've worked in school. Shit happens every day. Sometimes you just want to turn your brain off and not think about anything for an hour and a half. And he would gravitate toward these action movies like Stephen Segal, Slice Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Nick Cage, like all the movies that you and I love. And he would call them five o'clockers

because there was always the five o'clock showing, you know, before the seven o'clock. And I would call him and he'd be like, yeah, I just got home, I saw a five o'clocker. I would say taken is the quintessential five o'clocker. I can't think of a more satisfying, more simple, easy to understand movie that has action, revolves around action, and has a very easy to understand, start to finish plot than taken. Is this the perfect five o'clocker?

This is for sure the perfect five o'clocker. Because there's absolutely like five or six things in the movie you just have to ignore totally for it to work as well as it does. Right. Yeah. I'm glad you're down to five or six. I think you can argue there's about 16 or 17. I think what's amazing about this movie,

and you don't see this all the time. It knows exactly what it is. It's Liam Mason. He's trying to get out of black ops. His daughter goes to Europe. he has a bad feeling about it. He lets it go anyway. She gets taken.

He's four days to find her. That's it. He's either going to find her or in four days. There's some nebulous timeline on this whole thing where it's like within 96 hours she's gone. You'll never see her again. I don't know how we decided on four days with sex trafficking. But apparently that's where we landed on this. But just simple.

And there's been other great five o'clockers. I think John Wick won is in a lot. elaborate five o'clocker. There's actually some moving pieces in that and you can't totally shut your brain off. You have to concentrate a little bit. But for the most part, this is what we grew up with. This is what we missed. You're in on Steven Segal, right? The old ones? The old one, yeah, up until he got crazy. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But he had that five year run there where it's like, you know, out for justice, hard to kill, under siege one and two. Are you one or two for under siege. What's your favorite?

Oh, give me one. Always one. Okay. That's how I feel. Under siege, too, is on more for some reason. You know, you go back to what we grew up with in the 80s. I did the Action Hero Championship Belt that I'd trace back all the way to like Steve McQueen and Bullitt and just going through these different eras. And the 80s were like the gloriers of action movies, right? Because we had these massive, massive stars.

We had Slice Stallone. We had Arnold Schwarzenegger. Oh, Bruce Willis, the diehard thing stuff. Bruce. Arnold then Slyer just cranking him out. And it's great. And then we get to the 90s. It starts to Peter off and then Nick Cage has a really good run.

The Nick Cage action movie run is actually like pretty great. Yeah. And movies that I think we've done one of them. We've done face off. I know we're going to do con air. We're doing con air at some point. You have to. You absolutely have to.

I'm going to quit. Yeah. So we go. So Nick Cage takes us basically into the 21st century. And then it kind of dies. Mm-hmm. And action movies hit this weird love. And when I was doing the championship belt,

I actually had a lot of trouble in the 2000s until we got to take in. I'd Nick Cage. I'd Vin Diesel because he had Fast and Furious and Knock Around Guys and he kind of had a moment there. Umma Thurman in the Kill Bill's. Denzel and Man on Fire. And then Jason Statham had a little three-year run there

that none of those movies are iconic. They're all super watchable and likable, but not like, not iconic. And then by 07, I don't know whether the genre removed that or what, but Jackie Chan and rush hour three was who I gave the bell to in 07, which was not the best rush hour. But we were just kind of out of the loop. And then Liam Neeson saved us, Shea. Yeah. He saved us, literally.

He really did. He came in when we needed him the most. And you were talking earlier about the stuff that came out of Taken. You mentioned the TV show. You mentioned the sequels. There's a whole subgenre of movies after Taken exploded at the box office where everybody's like, oh, shoot, we just have to get an old person and let them fight young people and people are going to go white. Like there's a whole series of that now. You've got the equalizer is, of course, the first one that jumps out.

Probably even John Wick maybe, if you want to classify it in there. I mean, there's a whole thing. Taken was incredible. As you were going through that, like through the golden era and all this stuff, I'm imagining in my head how. similar that is to what we saw in the NBA. Like when you look at it now, you go, oh, the 80s were so great. And then the 90s in Jordan and then early 2000s, it was like, what's going on here? Same thing was happening in the NBA.

And then LeBron showed up. Like, that's a while. Yeah. It comes down to talent. You know, I think some of it is Denzel could have made more action movies. And he did this. But he always gravitated toward like the action thriller kind of concept. I think the popcorn movies that you and I love are basically like,

one man who shouldn't defeat all these bad guys, but somehow pulls it off. And that was like, you had some Schwarzenegger's like that, you had some Stallones like that. Nick Cage, it's always somebody he did something, either he's got some sort of baggage, or he's trying to get away from the job that he used to had, he wants to settle down, or he was wrongly framed for a crime, or he's been blamed for something he didn't do, or they killed his wife. There's always some reason. It starts out like he didn't, he didn't want to.

to be in this situation, but now he's in it. And that just kind of went away. I don't know what happened, but you're right. Taken unleashed this whole new genre, but we also needed the talent for it. We had Keanu Reeves there forever. Yeah. But I didn't expect him to become John Wick. I got to say, I didn't see that coming.

Nobody did. Not one single person. You know what it is? There was a point we're talking about the early 2000s where action movies have always sort of evolved. Like when we were, when we go from Schwarzenegrens to Sloan to Bruce Willis,

that was when we changed into like the, you know, the reluctant hero, kind of dark, kind of whatever. So there's that change that's always happening.

And then by the late 90s, early 2000s, people were trying to make action movies that were like philosophical almost. And they were trying to do things that action movies shouldn't be doing.

With Taken, part of the reason taken to me was so exciting was because we went back to the very basic, okay, here's what happened, and here's how we win. But now we're going to add an actor in here who knows how to act, which is unbelievable. We're still going to have him do all of the same stuff that a Schwarzenegger or Stallone would do in Commando or Cobra. But now we've got a guy who, when he says things into the camera, when he gives the phone speech, you feel it.

You feel it every single time because of how good of an actor. Nobody else on the action movie list prior to this could have done that speech. could have done it and maybe that's it afterward. But beforehand, there was nobody who could do what Liam Neeson was doing with Taken. Yeah, and it's an important point you made about he hadn't done anything like this. And I think sometimes with action movies, when it's like the first time we're in the situation with the actor, that usually works to the benefit of the movie. I think a really good example is First Blood. So First Blood comes out in 82.

And at that point, Stallone is the guy from Rocky and he was in Nighthawks and that's about it. And now he's this Vietnam vet. It's actually, it feels like a drama for the first 15 minutes, right? He's this guy, he's wandering around. He's trying to find somebody else who's in the service with. And then ends up crossing pass with the sheriff who just wants to get him out of there. He thinks he's a long-haired, just get out of my town. And they end up really fucking with him.

And then he gets mad. goes into the woods to get away. But now it's like, all right, you guys want a war? I'm going to give you a war. But it's really genuine. I think if he had made that movie in 1990, I have an action movie history with Stallone at that point. But in 82, I did it.

I'm like, oh, my God, they're fucking with Slice Stallone. Why? And I think with Liam Neeson, it's the same thing. Where it's just like, he's, this was a guy who was in like Woody Allen movies. Yeah, exactly. You know? And had had this whole career as a dramatic actor and was doing, you know,

movies where they talked like Shakespeare and we just never kind of envisioned him as this guy? And that's what made it great over anything else. I really believed he was the dad whose daughter got taken, you know?

This could have been a Nick Cage movie pretty easily. You think so? And it just would have felt like, no, I'm saying in the wrong hands. Oh yeah, in the wrong hands. Yeah, this is nothing. This is a nothing movie without Liam Neeson.

When it first came out, when it first started releasing the press stuff for it, And you're like, before any video or anything, it's like, this is the, we're going with the guy from Schindler's list. Like, that's what we're doing now. And then the actual trailer came out. The trailer, if I remember correctly, the trailer was almost the whole phone speech. I don't know who you are.

I don't know what you want. If you're looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't know money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills. skills I have acquired over a very long career skills that make me a nightmare for people like you if you let my daughter go now that'll be the end of it I will not look for you

I will not pursue you but if you don't I will look for you I will find you and I will kill you and you were just like oh my god oh my god this is real this is a real thing

Well, and I also remember, and I don't know why more movies don't do this, because the movie came out during football season. And there's something about seeing a trailer like that, you know, between the second and third quarter of the Texans Pats game you're watching. And there's Lee of Nason. He's just like, I've got a very particular set of skills. You're like, what? What is this? Where can I see this? Yeah, he played, he did Woody Allen movies.

He played Oscar, Schindler, and Alfred Kinsey. He played Michael Collins. He did The Haunting. He was in love actually. He worked for Scorsese. Did a few Woody Allen movies. This was not somebody we expected to see like doing karate in Paris. And I think that was the most brilliant part of this.

We're going to get when we get to casting what ifs. We're going to get to who dropped out of the movie and allowed us to have the Liam Neeson era. Another thing about this movie? Well, two more things before you get to the categories. I love action movies where you can describe. the plot in five words or less. Right. Right.

That's, when you can do that, you know you have the perfect five o'clockers. So this one is Liam Neeson, daughter gets taken. That's it. That's all you need. I don't need to know anything else. He does the gray. All right, what's the gray? Liam Neeson, Wilderness, Wolves.

I can explain it in four words. Non-stop. Liam Neeson, Airplane. Okay, three words. I'm in. I know what that is. The commuter. Liam Neeson, train, conspiracy.

Okay. Great. So he's just, he's figured it out and he had this whole second life as this improbable action movie star. Now, we should mention Liam Neeson, big guy. One of the rare. Six, four. Kind of tall movie actor. Yeah, six four.

Strapping. Strapping. Strapping Scottish. Is he Scottish or Irish? Irish. Yeah. Strapping Irish guy. Believable.

Towering. I didn't realize it. I didn't realize that that was a big part of it until I rewatched. So I rewatch this movie yesterday. I mean, I've seen it 14. five times, but I rewatch it this time with the purpose of preparing for the podcast. And there's a quick scene where in the beginning of the movie where they've already, his friends have recruited him to go help protect the pop star.

Yeah. They're walking all together. And you see him and I don't remember the guy's name, but this, like, the comms guy. But he's walking. He's one of those guys. Yeah. He's walking with him. And that guy is a fool.

He's at his shoulders. And you realize, like, that guy couldn't have done this role that Liam Neeson is doing. That's a big, he's a big dude. It's hard to realize how big he is. Because they're usually in the movies, they always shoot everything to make everybody look about the same size. So you just didn't get that before. Yeah, there's other people that could have been in this movie. I think you would need the surprise element of I'm not used to seeing somebody in this kind of, I think Tom Cruz right now, like in his early 50s, even though he's been in a lot of action movies, it would feel like a very careful Tom Cruise career choice that he did take him. Yeah. There wouldn't be the

element of surprise. But, you know, like you think about, like somebody like Denzel. If Denzel was in Taken in 1996 or something, it really would have, or like Tom Hanks. Like, Tom Hanks has never made a movie like this. Like, oh my God, they took Tom Hacks' daughter and he knows karate. I just think it was a very unique window between the movie, how the action movie genre had kind of falling apart and then just the right actor at the right time. One more thing we should mention.

This is weirdly one of the greatest father-daughter movies of all time. Is it? You had sons. I have sons. This movie came out in 2008. I saw in the movie theater immediately. My daughter was like three and a half. And by the time, and then it had the big cable run, obviously.

And when my daughter was eight, I actually watched it with her. And she shouldn't have watched it. But it was kind of one of those things where you're like, this is what happens if you don't listen to dad. Right. You're going to be kidnapped by Bulgarian sex traffickers. You should listen to me all the time. And I do feel like we watched it, I think, twice.

And I do feel like, you know, made an impact. If dad, dads are right. Listen to dad. You shouldn't have gone to the YouTube concert in Europe. What were you thinking? If you'd listen to dad, you wouldn't be kidnapped by Bulgarian sex traffickers. So very important lessons. If your daughter got kidnapped, Albanian, by the way.

We got to give respect to the Albanian. Albanian. I said Bulgarians. Sorry, Albanians. Albanian. I meant I meant Albanian. If she got taken, could you get her back? Let's say it's not in Albania, though. She got taken to Reseda or something like that.

Could you find her and get her back? So this is the plot of a very bad but very enjoyable action movie with Hallie Berry. Kidnap, which I think I told you to watch. Where she's basically at the park with her kid and somebody takes the kid, but she sees the car leaving and she basically... acts like any parent would in that situation. If you're parent, you become the greatest driver ever. You're risking your life.

You have strength that you didn't know you had. And I think that's a more realistic look for me than taking out 35 Albanians. I don't think I could do it. Kidnap is a- You in the other hand, I don't know, you know, you have this old secret side to you. I think you might be able to do it. Kidnap is another one of the stemmed off of taken movies. So it's funny that you mentioned it.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, if one of my kids got kidnapped. it wouldn't be me who went and got them. I'm going to make some phone calls to some like Southside Mexicans that I know. Some family members are from that area. And we're going to find who we need to find. Well, you also have the F-O-H Army. I feel like the F-O-H Army.

Oh, yeah. I forgot about those guys. Yeah. We've got 200,000 men and women out there. Hit the Twitter bat signal. It's like the, what was it John Wick? What was the group that Lawrence Fishburn was? Oh, all of the homeless assassins?

The under, no, the under, yeah, the hundred. underground. They were like pretending to be homeless. They weren't really homeless though, right? They were just underground assassins. I don't know if they were pretending or not pretending, but that's a dedication right there. I don't know why you would do that. What's the point of doing that of being homeless, a homeless assassin for 25 years? John Wick wanted to. A lot of questions I answered. One of the things that's, I was watching John Wick too last night, coincidentally. You and I basically have the same exact TV experience every night at about 1 o'clock. John Wick, the lady kills herself in the bathtub.

John Wick gives her a bullet anyway, just out of, you know, for his stat. He's pads of stats, right? She's technically in a coma, but not dead, but John Wick needs the body count on his stats. So he shoots her anyway. She's going to die. Then he goes out and runs into common, and they kind of size each other up. And common's like, you working?

And John Wick could easily just say, no, I'm at the party. He's like just hanging out. Yeah. he's like, good night. And Jowick's like, Jowick again has outs. He's like, yeah, it actually was. And they stare at each other. And then they shoot each other.

These guys are trained assassins and they shoot each other right in the chest where they're both proviscer. So they can then chase each other for the next 15 minutes. But yeah, every action movie has some holes. Takens big holes we're going to get to in a second. Anything else before we get to the categories? I don't think so. I do remember when you were talking a minute ago about describing a movie and five words, an action movie.

I still remember talking to Chris Ryan. This was after the equalizer had come out, but I'd not seen it yet. And he asked, have I seen an equalizer? I said, no, I haven't seen it yet. He said, you got to see it. I said, what's it about? And he gave me the five word. It was a little longer, but he basically said, Denzel kills a bunch of dudes in a Home Depot.

And I was like, okay. I'm ready. That should have been out of the poster. All right, we're going to take a break coming up. The categories taken. Here we go. Hey, let's talk about Lisa. Did you find yourself distracted, forgetting things, making mistakes at work?

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All right, it's time for the categories. Sometimes we have trouble figuring out the right number of rewatchable scenes for this opening category. It could be three. It could be 11. There's always a disparity in the choices. This is kind of, there's no need. There's five incredible rewatchable scenes. You might have, you might throw in a sixth one, but Kimmy gets taken.

Brian talks to the kidnappers on the phone. Brian takes out the apartment of bad guys, pretending he's some FBI, whatever the hell he's pretending to be John Claude. Yeah, he's pretending that the payment was too low. Brian shows up to Jean Claude's house for dinner and then the entire ending, which I don't even know how you split that one up what for you is the most rewatchable scene and taken i've the most rewatchable scene has to be uh kimmy winchner kim when she's about to get taken all the way up until when leiam nison has to say you're going they're going to take you he closes his eyes and he really

really sells that part i i feel it every i've seen that same scene a hundred times i've watched it on YouTube at 2.30 in the afternoon for no reason at all. And every single time the floor drops out from underneath me. It's incredible. Where are you? I'm in the bathroom. Go to the next bedroom.

Get under the bed. Tell me when you're there. They're going to take you. Kim, stay focused, baby. This is key. You will have five, maybe ten seconds. Very important seconds. Leave the phone on the floor. Concentrate. Shout out everything you see about them. Hair color. My color, tall.

Word scars. Anything you see, you understand? Yeah. It's great. It's a classic. My wife loves movies where she has to put herself in the situation of the characters with like traumatic, stressful, whatever. This is a great, there's two, what would you do's?

You're in Liam Neeson shoes. What would you do if you're on the phone with your kid and your kids about to get taken? How would you handle this moment? And then the other part is, what would you do if you were the kid and you're under the bed? Like, would you try to get out? Would you throw a chair through the window and just jump out of the building? What would you do? How would you do?

How would you handle it? I actually would not get under the bed. And I don't know whether this is a movie trope or whatever, but it just seems like going under the bed has a success rate of zero. It's never worked, ever. Any horror movie action movie, guess what? They're going to go to a bedroom. They're going to look under the bed.

It's never worked ever. So I probably wouldn't have done that. What would you do? What would your move be? my move would be there's got to be a back door when they're getting dropped off it's Amanda and Kim they're meeting with Peter or you know they're getting out of the taxi he's like oh we're Peter what a scumbag he turned out to be yeah Peter the airport guy we don't like that guy yeah so they're doing that part and she he asks her oh by the way what apartment is it and

she tells him it's the whole fifth floor yeah that means they've got some money there's got to be more than one way in and the house was like a U-shaped You were looking like across an alley back into the room when you get back into the front room where she was in the bathroom. Like you're there's got to be a door on the backside of there. Just go out. Just leave. Just go down the stairs. Yeah.

Under the bed. The only time under the bed has ever worked is like three years ago we were playing hide and seek at my house with my three kids. Yeah. And my bed that I have in my bedroom is from IKEA. It's like a little cheapy bed. But it's super low to the ground. And I didn't think there's any way anybody could get under there. So I'm walking around looking for.

the kids and my smallest one. He like, on some scary movie shit, I'm walking, looking like behind a dress or whatever. And he fucking grabs me by the ankle. And I lost my mind. He was like, Daddy! And grab me and I almost shit myself. That's the only time hiding under the bed has ever worked, ever. Don't get under the bed.

Yeah, that's the only time I've ever heard a story of successful hiding under the bed story. So yeah, don't get under the bed. I'm with you on the year going to take you. I still, it's funny. all five of these rewatchable scenes are really like A plus. I love all of them. And that's the reason taken is a great movie because it has these five scenes. We didn't even mention like the scene when he gets from the call girl,

he gets the address somehow and then goes to like that crazy brothel and just cleans house. That doesn't even crack the top five. I've seen this movie so many times that my most rewatchable scene has actually flipped. Okay. It is no longer Kimmy gets taken. It is Brian shows up to Jean-Claude's house for dinner. It's not only my favorite scene in this movie, but is one of the greatest cable scenes of all time.

I didn't really fully appreciate it for about until like the 40th viewing. But he shows up. The wife has no idea. Jean-Claude and Liam Neeson both know that the other guy is like there's going to something's going down. And the wife's like, hey, Brian, would you like some chicken? and then it starts getting, she has no idea, poor thing. Oh, Brian, hey, how are the kids?

It just has no clue. And she's serving potatoes. And then they're sizing each other up and it's getting testier and testier. And then the gun thing happens. And John Claude, we're going to get to Jean-Claude's deficiencies, but he forgets that the weight of a gun,

there's no bullets in it. He's sitting behind a desk all that. You forget these things. and Liam Neeson just shoots his wife in the arm. It's jarring. It's like, oh, my God, you shot this nice lady who made your chicken. Oh, she's exceedingly pleasant. Why would you do this?

And Jean-Claude's horrified. And Liam Neeson, without missing beat, goes, relax, it's a flesh wound. He shot her from three feet away right in the arm, but somehow, and she had clothes up, but somehow knew that the bullet perfectly passed through her body, didn't hit any bones, just went right through. Relax, it's a flesh wound. I love it so much. It's my favorite scene.

I love the whole thing. I love the comeuppance on John Claude. Does he kill Jean-Claude's wife? No, he doesn't. He says he will. He doesn't. He says something like the last thing you'll see before I turn your kids into orphans is me putting a bullet in between her eyes.

Like some crazy shit like that. He's all the way off the rails at that point. Yeah. When they meet up earlier and John Cod is telling him like, you can't go burning the city down. and sit down or whatever. And then Liam Neeson says he'll tear down the Eiffel Tower if he has to. Yeah.

Like, that's just some shit you say when you're trying to get your kid back, whatever I get it. But he shows up to the house and he shoots your wife in the arm in front of you. And you're like, okay, this guy's for real at that point. A thing that I really like about this scene is whenever you're watching a movie, any sort of movie, an action movie, a prison movie, a heist movie. You always want to be surprised by something or see something that you've not seen before. Like they do a little trick. Remembering Beverly Hills cop when they break in the house and he uses the gum wrapper to like disarm the sensor on the window?

Like you want to see stuff like that that you've never seen before and you're like, oh, that's cool. That's how they do that. And with Taken, the line about him not knowing what the weight of a gun feels like anymore is incredible. When he says that, you're like, oh, I've never heard that before. And that's such a good point. Like that's a thing that somebody who has been in this job for years and years and years knows and can forget. So you're surprised by that.

And then the gunshot is 100% unexpected. You just are in total shock. It's unbelievable. It's a jaw dropper. Oh my God. She just made you chicken. She's the nicest woman in the world. And then you shot her.

You shot her. You shot another human being who was just minding her own business and being friendly to you. He wanted his daughter back. Do you think, do you think, Man of Genobley forgot the weight of a gun? That's why he retired? You just kind of lost the feel for it. That's definitely why. Yeah, that's how I feel too.

All right, so we split on that. Let's go with what's age the best. One of the things that's age the best is just, I just like watching movies that know exactly what they are. So we talked about that. Another thing that's age the best is just Liam Neeson, the history we had with them. I just like Liam Neeson.

You know, you have those actors that you just feel like they're exactly like the person they play in the movies. Right. Meanwhile, there's no evidence that they are and odds are maybe they're the complete opposite. But Liam Neeson, I really feel like, is the guy from Taken? Like, he'd come over, he'd be kind of sad.

Maybe have, like, one drink too many at the family barbecue and you're worried about him. I really do feel like he's, he might be like that. Two more what's age the best. This monologue is outstanding. I'm just going to read it. Okay, the whole thing. Read it to me like I'm Marco and your...

Yeah, you do Marco. You can do the Marco. Don't forget the long pause before your two lines. I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you're looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills.

Skills I have acquired of a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you. I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you. I will find you. And I will kill you.

good luck. Boom, we nailed that, Bill. We nailed that, Ben. Rigger Theater. What a speech. Now, they stepped on it, as you mentioned, they stepped on it in the trailer and it didn't matter. It's still incredibly powerful the first time he saw it.

All right. The last thing that's aged the best for me, we touched on it a little bit earlier. Jean-Claude, his old friend, who he knew, he's had a history with, who is now behind a desk. We don't really know anything about Jean-Claude other than that he's spent a little too much time now behind.

He used to be out there. He used to be black ops maybe. He used to be getting his hands dirty, doing stuff. But now he's behind a desk. And this theme gets beaten through the whole movie. And the biggest lesson of this movie is you get soft behind a desk. That's my takeaway. Well, one is like, don't let your daughter go to Europe unless you're there with her.

And then the second lesson is don't get, don't stay behind a desk. You're going to get soft. You're going to forget the weight of a gun. you're going to lose your touch on things and your wife's going to get shot in the arm. But over every scene, John Codson, he's like, I'm not that kind of person anymore. I sit behind the desk.

Or Liam Neeson calling him out for sitting behind a desk. That's their entire relationship. Fantastic. So don't sit behind a desk is the lesson, right, Che? You never sit behind the desk. Yeah, I know you have to work at a desk, but make sure you're out and about. Don't get soft.

Oh, what do you think is age the best, by the way, out of all those? Unless you have any others you want to. add. No, I think it's got to be one of those things, unless we're adding into just that as a premise for a movie or that style of a movie. I think that's probably aged the best because of all of stuff that's come out of it. But just individual moments, it's got to be the speech. It just, it never gets old. There's so many different inflection points that he has. Like when he says, he says, I will find you in a very specific way. Like, I will find, like, his voice comes up.

up a little bit and you know it you know it when you're watching it and it's like who else could do this i think that the speech has to be the number one thing because if you're talking about taken like that's one of the first things you ever will bring up or like that's the one scene if we're going to classify every movie by one scene with taken it's the phone call scene it's the monologue it's great it's got to be that one i'm going to make a counter to your point which i respected your points, I respect your opinion, as you know. Aging the best means that something has gotten better over the course of time. So maybe it starts out as an 82 and it gets to a 91 or it goes from 89 to 100.

That speech was 100 out of a 100 right away. I don't know if there was any way for... That's a fair argument. I don't know if there was anywhere else to go. You know? It was already the best and I don't know if it could have aged best. I don't know. Can you be better than the best? Okay. If that's the point we're going to make, then I think the answer has to be Liam

Neeson because he just became a whole different kind of actor with that point. This was one of those roles. It happens every so often. This was one of those roles where everything he did before taken got retrofit. Yeah. All of a sudden, he was Brian Mills in every movie before that. He's Brian Mills and love actually. Shindler's list. Yeah. Schindler's list. You feel like he's going to take out some people. Yeah, you're right. Liam Nissen's entire IMDB is age the best. All right.

What's age the worst? Oh, there are a bunch that we can go through here. Okay, I think it depends on how serious we want to get. Let's get serious. This is the rewatchables. We beat everything into the ground here. We're going to get very serious. The thing that's age the worst is the every foreigner is going to kidnap and kill your daughter and sell them into sex slavery.

That's age the worst. definitely when you're watching it you're like wait a second every single person that's not Liam Neeson in this movie that's not a white man from america is horrible and they're going to die and they're going to kill you i think that's probably what's aged the worst really it's a really really strong case here's some other nominees two teenage girls in 2008 lied to their parents because they wanted to follow you too around europe yeah not sure that was the right band. That was definitely like, that was definitely written.

It was written by Luke Bassan and somebody else who clearly didn't have a feel for what little kids like. You two. I'm going to say around 95, 96, it became impossible for people 18 and under to really love them like that. Maybe he could even go to the Beautiful Day album in 2001. But by 2008, these guys are in their late 50s. And I just don't see them capturing the hearts of young Kim.

me to the point that she'd lie to her parents and follow them around Europe everywhere with their friend Amanda. I'm not seeing it, She, well, she only lied to her dad. She only lied to Brian. Oh, dude, one of my favorite things in the movie is Brian realizes that she's leaving and that she's going on this tour and he confronts Lenny about it, Lenore. And he says, he says, she lied to me. And her response to you lied to me is, she says, because she can't be honest with you. And they're like, what the hell are you talking? Like, that's what a lie is, Lenny.

What are you saying here? You're not saying anything at all. Terrible mom. We'll get to her later. Bad mom. Down on her performance. I mentioned this exact point to Laramie. We were watching the movie.

We're talking about it. And I knew this category was going to come up or I knew this conversation about you two would eventually come up. And I was telling her, yeah, I think that this is like a bad pick for them. They should have picked a different band. And her position was that every young white woman loves U2 regardless of age.

It's like when they sold the iPhone and it came with a U2 album on it. That's just how it. People got mad. Yeah. What else is age the worst? I actually love it, but it's also just a really bad scene. Brian having drinks with his buddies.

Uh-huh. Just the scene to establish that Brian's a good guy, he's got these buddies, but it's these four buddies that would never hang out together and the whole thing's really weird. I don't know what they talk about. None of them follow sports. There's not sports on.

It's just very strange. The every, all right, I mean, this is a nitpick too, but so all of these girls that get kidnapped by the Albanian sex trafficking ring are zonked out on heroin. And either they overdose and die or they overdose and almost die, but they're just like, they're zombies. They're just like heroin zombies. his daughter, the only one out of all of them, who's not a heroin zombie, who's kind of at the end when they're showing her off, when they're auctioning for her, she's kind of out of it a little bit,

but not totally by the time she gets on the yacht, like she's got enough strength and wherewithal to know she's in danger and then hug her dad. Why not her? Why isn't she a zonked out heroin zombie in this she? Well, she's not because they were using the heroin on the women who are working, being forced to work in the brothel. They were handcuffed to the bed. Guys are just walking through there.

But she wasn't that. Remember, she was a virgin, so they were treating her special. That's why she sold for half a million dollars. That's why she was part of that auction. So I think that they were just being a little more delicate with her. The other girls that were in the auction were just completely zonked out, though. Were they? I remember there was one girl before her that was in there.

I guess she did look a little weird. but it just, I don't know. It doesn't work if she's addicted to heroin. You can't come back to America addicted to heroin and then go to a singing lesson with the pop star. Like, that's not as fun. So we got to get rid of that. I need more information on exactly what happened to her over those 72 hours because she rebounded really nicely. Within two weeks, she's cheery's effort.

No emotional distress, retroactive scars, none of that stuff, just ready to hang out with the pop star on their about music. She was ready to go. Another age the worst. Taken 3. Let's have the Okay.

Let's concede that Taken 3 was horrific. But I do want to quickly have the Taken 2 conversation. I am a defender of Taken 2. I enjoyed Taken 2. I liked it.

I don't think it's a John Wick 2 situation where John Wick 2 is actually somehow better than John Wick 1 or we could at least have the debate. Taken 2 is not better. I still think it's good. I still like it.

I'm still in. You hate Taken 2. I wouldn't say I hate Taken 2. I'll watch it if it's on. But I think part of the reason taken, the first Taken was so exciting. We already talked about how it was very unexpected. I think you don't realize until you've watched it several times is there's no main bad guy. There's no person that he's angling toward.

He's just tearing down everything. The whole Albanian sex trafficking ring is coming down and all of its adjacent. and parts. That's fun to watch. A guy just be completely hopeless. That's part of the reason it feels so exciting and so terrifying because you don't know what you're doing or who you're looking for or where the girl is. When you get to Tegan 2, you've got the main bad guy. You've got Marco's buddy. That's who they're going to fight against. It's just not as exciting to me to watch that sort of situation. I like Liam Neeson figuring it out. I don't like him being pitted in a spot where we know exactly what he has to do.

I like to figure it out with him because that's what you're doing in the first take and you're like, oh, how is he going to figure out this? How is he going to figure out that? Oh, okay, good idea. What's next? Like you're watching it happen as it's happening. When we get taken two, now you're seeing both sides of it. It's just not as fun.

For me, what's aged the worst is the YouTube part? But casting what ifs presented by ZipRecruiter. Don't forget to go to ziprecruiter. I only have one. Do you know who was first cast as Brian who dropped out of the movie? because he didn't realize it was going to be so physically demanding, paving the way for Liam Neeson to be Brian. I feel like it's going to be a really good answer.

Jeff Bridges. Jeff Bridges? Hell or high water? Jeff Bridges? Jeff Bridges. Yeah. That's a good call. That's a good casting choice, I think.

Normally when you do the casting, what ifs, it's always like, oh, do you know who else was going to play Terminator? Danny DeVito. But this is good. Jeff Bridges feels, Jeff Bridges could have pulled this off. Jeff Bridge's same kind of mindset as what led to William Neeson hiring, which was not unexpected.

Yeah. We have a whole history of them as a real actor and now he's in this situation. I don't know if it would have worked as well. I think you would have had to learn the karate the same way Liam Neeson did. But yeah, interesting one. All right, the Deanne Waiters Award

for the biggest heat check. Here's some of the nominees. you might have more. The good luck guy, Marco. Marco. Love Marco. Jean-Claude. Jean-Claude's wife.

The sex slavery club manager? This was just business. It was not personal. That guy. Or the chic. The random stereotypical fat sheet, fat sex hungry chic at the end of Taken. Those are the five nominees, unless you have anyone else you want to throw in there. I want to throw in.

I feel like all of the other guys at the table with Marco were really going for it. Yeah. When he says, which one of you use Marco? And that one guy's like, we're all Marco. Okay. Which one to use from Tripoli? We're all from Tripoli. Like, okay, these guys are, we're in.

Marco had good friends. Marco had really good friends. They were standing by him. You've noticed, because this happened in Training Day as well. And Training Day was even more intense. but when you're at the house with the bad guys, there's always cards. Always.

There's nothing else to do other than play cards and be bad guys and guns and just, and then our hero is in the situation where they're going to have to take out all these guys who are also playing cards. But yeah, it seems like a staple. What else would bad guys do, though? Why don't we ever have things where they're just all hanging out playing video games? That's never really happened, right? It's happened in a couple of movies,

but it's always bad guys in the background. not bad guys who are part of the scene. It's just less intimidating if Liam Neeson walks in there and it's like three guys sending tweets. It's just not as cool. What if they're playing like board games? Like they're playing Scrabble or. Oh, yeah.

Or Monopoly. Hold out. Hold on the middle of this Monopoly game. I just bought St. Charles Place. Yeah, that would be a bad move. Yeah, I'd like to see Monopoly get worked in a one action movie. The Joey Pants Award named after our friend, Joe Panoliano, who's not our friend, but we like to think he is.

For me, it's Jean-Claude. I don't even know what this guy's name is, but he's one of those guys. And now he's Jean-Claude. I don't even, I see him in any other movie that's like, oh, that's Jean-Claude. He's got SoftBianne desk. Is there any other that guy in this movie for you? No, he's the only one. Because he's the only one who makes multiple appearances.

Yeah. He gets to be that guy. And he does a bunch of silly stuff or says silly things. the butt of a bunch of jokes. He just became that role. I have no idea who he is. I had no idea what his name is. Half-ass internet research mentioned the Jeff Bridges thing.

Liam Neeson expected this movie to go straight to video. He just wanted to do it because he tried to do an action movie but did not have high hopes for it. He spent four months in Paris and learned karate while he was there. He really took it seriously. Went a little Tom Cruise on us, really wanted to. Live the role. Fam Kee Jansen, who played his incompetent wife in this movie,

it inspired her to take action in the fight against corruption. She now serves as the Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. So taken, doing some good, doing some good other than just. She really took that kidnapping hard. That really affected her. Really? She was so like, you watch the movie now and everything she did and said was wrong. she's like oh why are you making such a big deal of this brian don't worry about this she just got

in paris leave her alone give her some space and then he shows up oh imagine you're that parent imagine that's you we were i was playing with the boys one day this is when the twins were maybe three or four years old and i was doing the thing that dads do when you throw him up in the air yeah and learmy was like don't do that in the house don't throw him in the air and i was like it's fine he's fine he's a boy this is what dad's do with their kids and i threw a one of them up. I can't remember if it was Braxton and Caleb, but I threw it,

let's say it was Caleb. I threw him up. I caught him. And as I was bringing them back down, like swinging them up and down, the other one comes running through, Braxton comes running through. And it was like perfect timing.

And I bonged their heads together. Just hard as it could get. You heard it like, just thunk. And they immediately burst in tears, screaming their heads off. And I knew right then I was in so much trouble. It was so bad.

Did she make you feel bad about it? for like an hour a day, how long did you have to suffer? She didn't even have to. She has never brought it up again. But now when she's like, don't do that. I'm just like, okay, you know something. You know something?

I don't know. I'll do what you say. My worst thing that I did as a parent was when I was a year and a half, when Zoe was a year and a half and she could walk around. There's this real danger zone from like month 17 to month 19 when you have a kid that really they should run PSAs about. Your kid all the sudden... becomes a lot faster and more resourceful than you realize and can like open doors and get out of

your house and figure out a way to get over the fence to go in the swimming pool and basically every terrible nightmare you have as a parent. There's this three month window where it hasn't totally dawned on you yet that your kid can do these things and you have to find out the hard way and you have to keep your fingers crossed that nothing awful happens. So I was watching it was Kevin Durant the year he was in college, and I was obsessed with Kevin Durant. And I was in my house and watching Kevin Durant play AC or AC law, AC Law the Force team. Who did he play for, Texas A&M? A&M, yeah.

I was watching that game. And my daughter was kind of wandering around. I was like half watching her and, you know, and the game was getting really good. And like, like, two minutes passed. And I was like, I don't hear my. I don't hear my daughter. Where is she? And I look over and now I'm walking around like, Zoe, Zoe,

and I go into the living room and the front door is open. And it's night and it's nighttime. Oh, no. So my heart sinks. I run out and we lived on this street that was like one of those streets where it was hard for two cars to go and it was really hard to drive fast on the street, which is thank God. And there's this car stopped in the middle of the street with the headlights on.

No. And now I'm like, oh my God. And I see this guy walking toward me in the sidewalk holding my daughter's hand. No. And he's like, is this your daughter? And I'm like, yeah. And he was like, she was on the street. I almost hit her.

And I'm like, I can speak. Yeah, but Kevin Durant is giving it to AC. I was like, Kevin Durant has 44 points. I don't know whether she was like on the street like being able, like actually he would have hit her. or she was just near the street or I don't even remember at this point. But he's basically admonishing me for being a bad dad, which I was. And I'm having a stroke because I'm still living in the 15 seconds where the front door was open and there's a stop car in the street.

So anyway, that was my worst moment. And I told my wife, which I shouldn't have. I should have never told her. She should have buried it for the rest of my life. And I mean, she let it go after about a day, but it was definitely a rough day. Yeah. So this is what happens. You and your sports.

And so it just leaves the house. That story got worse than I thought it was going to get. Yeah. I thought you were going to say something about her just running fast. I like when kids are in that age bracket and they're running fat. They figure out how to run, but they still don't know how to stop. So they're just crashing into shit all day long. Yeah.

They're like cars without brakes. Yeah. Like in Fierier, 7, Vin Diesel and Paul Walker in that car jumping across buildings because there's no brakes in it. That's a kid. at 15 months old. Every parent I know has one scary story from that year and a half range. It is the most dangerous age.

I'm telling you, they should run PSAs. But anyway, the good news is I would never let my daughter go to Paris for a YouTube concert. So more half-ass internet research. The map that Brian is holding when he finds out about the girls' plans at the airports at the beginning of the movie is an old Europe map as the now-dissolvaki and Yugoslavia can clearly be seen. now Czechoslovakia has been separated in two independent countries. Okay. I don't know what any of this. Yeah, okay.

Liam Neeson has said that several American parents thanked him after the movie for warning them of the dangers, saying they would no longer allow their children to go on a trip to France. Neeson says he always takes time to explain that the dangers were highly exaggerated for the film and tells parents they should encourage their children to get out of the USA more often. I don't even know how to read it. react to this one. That's a, that's a tricky one. When we went, Laramie and I went on our 10 year anniversary, we went to Paris and to Italy. Yeah. And I was very much on my high alert. Don't you talk to anybody that's trying to get you in a cab. I was like, I was feeling it. As dumb as it was,

I was really expecting both of us to get kidnapped and get addicted to heroin. Yeah, people act like Europe is dangerous. Meanwhile, has anyone seen America lately? I would say everywhere is dangerous. Maggie Grace, who played Liam Neeson's daughter in this movie, this is the definition of half-ass internet research. I have no idea if this is true. Was reportedly trained by world-renowned running coach, Alberto Salazar, in order to learn the finer points of running like a younger girl.

I was wondering. Okay, I wasn't wondering about that specific thing, but she very clearly runs like a toddler in the movie. Yeah. She's 17 years old, but she behaves like she's nine years old for some reason. I guess the maker seem more innocent. But I feel like that's got to be true because she runs weird. That was my reaction as well.

I think the actress was older than she was playing in the movie. And it was like she overcompensated by trying to run like she thought somebody who was younger. But she ends up running like she's in the fourth grade. It's a flaw. Yeah. Yeah. It was tough. How many people does Brian kill in this movie? He kills 31 people.

35. Oh, I was close. Yeah, close. All right, Apex Mountain. Liam Mason. Liam Neeson, 100%, yes. 100%. I know Shen knows this won the Oscar.

I know he's had a great career. I'm sorry. Taken as your Apex Mountain, Liam Mason. You did the impossible. You became an action movie and action movie star in your mid-50s. Congratulations. Maggie Grace,

who was also on Lost at the same time as Taken, I'm going to say it never got better for her after this. This is it. Yeah. Taken and lost same time. Yeah. We were, Laramie and I were watching a movie recently.

And that was the thing Laramie said when she came on the screen. She's like, is that the daughter from Taken, which means that's the role she's going to be forever. Yeah. Albanian sex traffickers. I think this is the best of us ever, Apex Mountain for them.

It's great. I wouldn't expect that this entry on there, but you are true. Yeah. Let me ask you a question because you just, you mentioned Liam again, and it just came into my head. We're talking about dangerous things. Who had the worst luck in this movie out of the two people? The guy who chose on the one night Brian Mills was protecting Shira, the pop star.

Yeah. This is the night I'm going to try to murder her. That's true. Yeah. Needle of a haste. Yeah. Or is it the sheik who was just, you know, doing his normal, buying some sex slaves, and he happened to buy. that daughter.

I would say the chic. You think so? Yeah, maybe. Any other day he just gets his $500,000 sex slave and he's fine. He's just moving on to the next one. But no, wrong day for him. Wrong day, sir. Who would have been best in this movie?

Danny Treau, Steve Buscemi, or Michael K. Williams? Who would you have picked to be in this movie somehow? Give me Steve. I think Steve could have been the, guy in charge of the in charge of the auction. See, this is

this is why we get along. That was not only my answer, but the exact role I had envisioned no way. As the manager of this, the manager of the sex trafficking auction. I think he would have been brilliant. You've been great.

Which leads me to the next, the next category, Mark Ruffalo, they knew for the overacting. I'm going with the manager of the sex trafficking club. Really strange performance. Not really sure what to make him. Yeah. He got shot like three times.

He's laying on the ground. And he's trying to appeal to this guy who just shot him. He's like, oh, think of it responsibly or something like that. Like logically, whatever. And then, yeah, the whole it wasn't business. It was or it was only business line. Yeah. That's not a thing you're going to say in that moment.

You're certainly not going to deliver it that way. But he was trying to win himself an award in that moment. I was watching a live. When was the last time you watched Alive? The Eric plane crash movie? Yeah. Shoot when it came out in 1990 something. Yeah.

They got to eat each other to survive. I remember that. That's why I didn't watch it again. I watched the last hour of it with my son last night and he was transfixed. Was he? Just transfixed. You might have to watch it with the boys. It's good.

There's an overacting. We'll never do rewatchables for a live. But there's an overacting guy in that. that that was like the quintessential. I almost wanted to name the category after him. All right, picking Nets. That fifth floor apartment in Paris was just like phenomenal. Who gets an, who get, what 17-year-old girls get to stay in an apartment like that?

How much did it cost? It was like the nicest apartment I've ever seen. I don't understand. It was Amanda's cousin's apartment and they were just out of town. They were in Spain. Come on. You're out of town. You have an apartment like that.

and who's like, hey, some 17-year-old girls want to stay in our $11 million apartment. I'm pretty sure I would turn that one down. Would the kidnappers have really left the cell phone behind, the destroyed cell phone? Would they just left that one there? I don't know. But they also locked the door, so they confused me in their performance there. Who knows what they were trying to do? Some flaws in the Albanian strategy there.

Can you really recognize a specific. Albanian's voice, just by having them repeat the words, good luck. Yeah, that was, he took a flyer on that one. I feel like any person you ask to say that word is going to sound a little bit like that. Yeah, if it's an Albanian bad guy who obviously has smoked just a shitload of European cigarettes, I would say the good luck variation is not going to be a variation. They're all going to sound exactly like. So incredible that he recognizes Marco.

Why wouldn't they just kill Liam Neeson in the second? sex club, Shea. That part of that. Why handcuff them to the ceiling? Yeah. Well, they handcuffed them at first because they had to ask them a couple questions, which bad guys always do. You didn't figure out what's going on.

There's our whole gig up. Right. Why are you here? When they found out it was just a dad, then he's like, okay, that's all you are. All right. Kill him. I don't know why they just didn't shoot him. He tells him to kill him quietly to not disturb the party.

And then there's a whole shootout scene after that, and nobody cares. They should have just put a couple in them. Did John Claude's wife survive? And what is she doing now? She definitely survived and she hopefully got divorced from John Claude. Well, he's dead. I feel like that's the thing that you can. Oh, yeah, that's right.

Well, who knows what she's doing then? That poor thing. I hope she regained the use in her left arm. It was a flesh limb. One of my favorite John Claude bits is when he comes home right before then and he's carrying a baguette. but it's not in a bag and it's not wrapped in paper.

It's just a baguette. He just picked it up and walked out or walked with it. It was like somebody said, hey, what do French guys do? And somebody else made a joke about baguettes and they were like, fuck it. Give him a bagget. No bag or anything.

Just go hold this. Hold this two foot long piece of bread. That's a good nitpick. The other nitpick I have is somebody's in France just buying shit in the flight, but they can somehow have the transmitter where they're on the phone sending people, the bad guys to a location that they're not at,

it would take me like 100 years to figure out how to do that. People just instinctively know like, all right, I'm going to go to Radio Shack. I'm going to get this transmitter slash disguiser. I'll have this cell phone. I'll be over here and I'll send the signal there. I don't know how you do that on the fly. It would seem like that would take months of planning,

but I don't know anything. Best quote that is not anything from the speech, because I think the speech is the best quote in this movie. But I have three. It's a flesh wound. Now's not the time for dick measuring Stuart. Classic. A good one.

Classic, Liam. And then that is what happens when you sit behind a desk. You forget things. Like the weight in the hand of a gun that's loaded and one that's not. Great. Really good. It's got to be that one. The Stewart, the stepdad.

Not a big winner in this movie. No. No, very bad. Kind of help us. Doesn't really care about going to Paris to look for Kimmy. gets kind of cut down by the dick measuring line. Reunites with the fam and the airport at the end and just does the token like,

hey, Brian, thank you. It's like, what the fuck do you do, buddy? Why are you here? He just got the jet is all that he did. And then the mom, an appalling performance by her. One of the worst mom performances we've ever seen. Bad judgment. Very bad movie.

They didn't really care. I don't know how she doesn't go to Paris. What is she accomplishing in America? just completely leaves it into Liam Neeson's hands and then married the wrong guy. And finally in taking to, she figured it out. Two unanswerable questions. Okay. I'm going to say this delicately.

Kimmy didn't listen to her dad and completely betrayed him and his confidence. Did she learn her lesson? Did she trust her dad after this? Oh, she definitely trusted the dad. We saw it in the later taking movies when he would talk. She was like, oh, okay. So she's in a. 100% now.

So this ended in a good place for Leon Neeson. 35 people had to die. His daughter almost became a heroin prostitute. But in the long run, kind of a win for him. His daughter's all in on everything he says and does now. It's kind of like it was a hard road there for the 96 hours, but it got to the right place for Leon Neeson, I feel like. Was it worth it?

His daughter's in now. I don't know. Was it worth it? Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn't some degree. and then do these sex slavery clubs really exist? Definitely. You think that there's an actual auction?

Like with buttons and like curtains and clubs and champagne, red buttons? Like is this a real place? Does this exist? I think all everything up to the buttons. Everything up to the buttons. The red buttons, the power buttons? Is there rankings? Is there like a draft guide?

Is it like a Chad Ford? draft express type thing where you have your top 12 sex slavery auction prospects. Like, I just, it's this whole world we know nothing about. And taken just makes it seem like this is how it goes. And I'm like, I have no idea.

How does this go? You're not allowed to ask, is there a sex slave auction draft guide? I don't think you're allowed to ask that question at all. I mean, you're making jokes, but that's part of the reason taken work so well. And that's,

we saw the same thing happen with John Wick, where they just dropped you into this world, and they give you little hints of other parts of it, so you know or you assume that these things exist, but they don't ever go into explaining anything, and it just works out perfect. Like after John Wick, I was fairly certain there's an Assassian network out there somewhere.

It didn't work with that movie Wanted. Remember they tried to do the exact same thing with Wanted? There's a high-level assassins out there, but they tried to explain too much stuff, and you've got the loom and all this other bullshit going on. With John Wick, they don't do that. We're taking. They don't do that.

They're just like, here's a peek. Good luck. I'm going to say that this auction world does not exist. And in the way it's portrayed in this movie, I think it's absolutely ridiculous. I think what really happens is there's probably pictures of the girls and these scumbag guys just fly through the pictures. And then I'll go here, give me whatever.

I mean, it's grizzly to think about. I just don't think it's this elaborate auction that's like doubles as a cocktail party. You know, there's like, oh, let's go downstairs. They're having the sex slavery auction now. It's just completely absurd. It's always downstairs. They do the same thing in the Falling Kingdom, the new Jurassic World movie. It was like a dinosaur auction, big party upstairs.

All the heavy hitters go downstairs and we'll auction off stuff. Yeah, they never go upstairs to the penthouse where the auction's happening. All right. Last but not least, this is the most boring category of the podcast. Who won the movie? There's only one winner. He not only wins the movie, he wins action movies and he revives something that is now kind of quietly moving into a new frontier, Shea.

I feel like with the Netflix, Amazon Apple World, these movies like, did you watch Braven? I told you to watch Braven. Yeah, with Jason in it. Momo. Solid, right? Solid five o'clocker. Fun to watch.

I feel like the five o'clocker is back. Five o'clockers, rom-coms, horror movies, all these things that they were making a lot of, that then just didn't do as well in the theaters because people would just wait until they could rent them or they showed up on cable or whatever. Now all these streaming services are just going to make them and own them themselves

and we're going to have a resurgence. And there's going to be a lot more takens. That's way more of an insightful thing than I was expecting to happen on this Taken podcast. because that's exactly true. We're watching exactly that happen. Like with Netflix, they just had those two big rom-coms that came out,

set it up into all the boys I've loved. And they're so great to watch because they're not making those big picture-type movies anymore. You get a crazy rich Asians, maybe it's going to start happening again. But for the most part, what if we get a string of Taken style movies on Netflix? That's fantastic.

I'm hoping and waiting for it. I mean, my dog, I know Netflix had some algorithm that they studied, and they clearly realized that the rom-com world for girls age, like 12 to 18, was underserved. And they were like, let's start making these. Let's go. And that was like that, for all the boys I've loved before was an algorithm movie.

Because that movie does not get released in the theater seven years ago. They're just not making it. It wouldn't have made enough money. But now it's like, when I see what Netflix is doing, especially with the, you know, like that, the way they use social to promote movies like that, Netflix has this feed that my daughter follows, that it has like 900,000 followers. And it's just kind of screen grab slash clips from these movies that my daughter likes, but kind of geared toward her.

Like, they're clearly geared toward 13-year-old girls, and she loves it. And they just, like, they'll cut out the two guys and for all the boys, for all the boys that love. To all the boys I love, yeah. Yeah, to all the boys love for it. The two guys, they'll be like, what happened when Noah said this to whatever? Like little hard emojis on it. And I'm like, this is their fucking smart. They know what they're doing.

Netflix, I studied all the data. So hopefully they will study the data on these action movies. Like, I'm sure Kidnap with Hallie Berry, I'm sure has been watched a million times. I would hope so. On the streaming stuff and they're probably looking around going, we should make more kidnap movies. Where do you stand on Ransom with Mel Gibson? I'm out on all Mel Gibson things. Okay, fair.

Fair. It had the great commercial with a, Give me back, my son. But ransom kidnap, untapped. I'm sure the Netflix algorithm will back me up on it. All right, Chase Serrano. This was great. Good luck.

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