The Rewatchables - 'The Fugitive' With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Andy Greenwald

Episode Date: January 4, 2022

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons, Andy Greenwald, and Chris Ryan are on the run and eager to clear their good names by rediscovering the 1993 thrill ride ‘The Fugitive,’ starring Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Go to the ringer.com. And now, in 1993, an action movie was nominated for Best Picture. What was the name of the movie? You find that man! All right, listen up. We have a fugitive that's been on the run for 90 minutes. What I want out of each and every one of you is a hard target search of every gas station, residence warehouse farmhouse hen house outhouse and dog house in this area

what's that going down i didn't kill my wife harrison ford is the fugitive Bill simmons here with chris ryan and Andy greenwalt Dr. William Simmons that's actually my dad's name uh when i think of rewatchables the fugitive is probably one of the first four or five yeah came out 24 years ago I don't know if it resonates the same way with 25 and unders, but goddamn, this is everything I ever wanted from an action movie. It was so satisfying and it was so surprising. August and 93, weird, like, just out of nowhere.

There was nothing about it that was supposed to be good or successful. That's as the young Entertainment Weekly Reader that I was then. I remember being quite surprised by the box office returns and the reviews. Everybody was. I remember my dad was still a film critic and he was like, you got to see this movie The Fugitive. And I was like, wasn't that based on a TV show? Harrison Ford's getting a little old.

The director of under siege. Sophomore in high school, I had these takes. And I was just like, I guess so. And I saw it. I think I saw it twice in two weeks. My generation, the fugitive, I was too early for me, just kind of knew about it. Yeah.

Knew there was a show. But then Letterman used to have Chris Elliott doing this fugitive thing that he would do over and over again. This fake fugitive, everyone would end the same way with a one-armed man. And that's how I knew what the fugitive was. Yeah. So then they're making a movie with Harrison Ford, the fugitive. Oh, my God, that's going to be terrible. And then it was incredible.

Caught Harrison Ford had a great kind of tail end to his peak. Yeah. He was starting to lose roles, which we'll get into with the casting what ifs. But this was kind of, you can make a case, the last great Harrison Ford movie. What About Random Hearts? Oh, no, you're right. The last great Harrison Ford movie. What Lies Beneath?

Like, you go through, but this was it. This was the tail end of this Harrison Ford run that went from basically the first Star Wars all the way of the fugitive. Yeah. Arguably the best 16-year run. anyone's ever. One of the things that grabbed me the most about rewatching this that I didn't appreciate at the time is that Harrison Ford's name appears in the opening seconds of this movie in like 180.5. Yeah. The same size as the title of the movie. And it turns, the most money spent on this movie in special effects is for Harrison Ford's name in the first five seconds.

It was the chain crash and the credits. Very similar font to Silence of the Lambs. It must have been very big around mid-90s, that kind of neon block letters. I had this in covered in what's age the worst. We're going to get to it in detail. But there was something weird. about 91 and 94 was like they finally figured out they could use different fonts for credits. I feel like a guy like walked into Hollywood and was just like, I have this new computer that can do fonts for the movies and make your credits look amazing.

And they were like sold, whatever you want. But that is the, there's a vibe that is in this movie and maybe a lot of the movies you guys are talking about in this series, which is at no point in this movie does anyone involved in it or anything on the screen suggests that they knew this was going to be successful. No. It just seems like it was a day at the office for everyone. They showed up.

They shot some daly. They went and had a nice steak dinner. And then it's a hit movie. Like even the train crash, which I'm sure we're going to get to, a huge set piece. It's not that fancy. Certainly not by contemporary standards, right? So I found out they started filming it in February of 1993. Started shooting.

Yeah. That's fast. After like 20 years to August, in seven months that they have this expensive action movie is done ready to roll. Yeah. And it had been in development for a really long time. It had gone through like lots and lots of different writers. There's only two credited. David Tud.

and Jeb Stewart. But I know that this had been something that they had been sort of trying to get off the ground for a long time. The only remake of a regular TV series to be nominated for Best Picture. Wow.

Well, we're still waiting to hear about Baywatch, right? That's that's Ellen. Baywatch I'm canceling off. I don't think that's going to have. I haven't watched the Oscars since Michael Mann's Miami Vice did not get nominated for Best Picture, so I wouldn't even know if that fact is true. Are you going to begin on that when Chris and I do Miami Vice?

I, we're the only ones, we watchables. You have to understand something. The level of, fandom you guys have for that movie, that's the level of fandom I have for Chris's fandom of Miami Vice. I am here for Chris's devotion to the Go Fast Boats. It's not just that. I'm a fan of any movie where they're in Miami and they have to take a boat to Cuba and something's in slow motion during the boat ride. That's what I'm in. You've hooked me. You can smell Colin Farrell's just like autopsy sweat in that movie. He's in rehab between scenes. Tommy Lee Jones,

one best supporting actor. Yes, Tommy Jones. This launched the Tommy Lee Jones era. How old was he when he appeared in this movie. Anywhere between 25 and 80. He was the ingenue of this movie. Yeah, he was. Boy, he was ready for it. Caught Andrew Davis, read after Under Siege.

Right before Steel Big, Steel Little. Yeah, and then what happened to Andrew Davis? I guess that's an unanswerable question we'll cover later. But that is the thing that happens to directors. They get their one shot and they're like, okay, do your vanity project.

Yeah, my vanity project is a movie about Andy Garcia playing twins. And then we don't hear from him again. Andrew Davis was like a really interesting early 90s, late 80s, early 90s action director. He had done some Steven Seagal movies that were actually pretty good, Under Siege.

It is pretty good. Why did you say actually pretty good? All you do is say he did some Stephen Segal movies. The joy you get out of it. No, I'm still offended. He did some Steven Segal movies. I think that's good enough. Undersege is probably the best one.

Tommy Lee Jones, very good performance in Under Siege. Oh, that's right. Yeah. So these guys have a sort of De Niro Scorsese chemistry. That's right. Eventually, the Fugitive became one of the first great DVDs. I actually looked it up to see when it was. released March 1997 but I remember the DVDs really started to take off 96 stereo surround

and I remember I was bartending and I took like a whole week's paycheck and got this whole setup and the fugitive the train crash in my living room at at two in the morning after like nine bongheads was one of the great moments in my life the train felt like it was going through my entire apartment how big was your television back then it's too big large yeah at least like 50 inches. Yeah, but it was probably like 700 pounds. And it was like, how did you get that into your apartment? It was like it had like a 40, 40 foot back. It's so deep. Anything else we want to cover before we hit the categories? No, not necessarily. I would say it's just hard to really capture this, the shock of how well this movie did, but also how well it was received. I'm not,

I can't really remember whether 93 was a particularly good movie, but I do remember movie year you mean. Yeah, movie year, but we were having like, you know, you were always having the same conversations of like, is Hollywood dead? Do they know how to make good movies anymore? And this was a real, like, the same way, like, the Martian was a couple years ago where it's like, man, you can just make a really entertaining movie that satisfies critics and people come into the box office.

But I think even then, we were probably already having conversations that seem very quaint now in retrospect about, like, blockbusterization of movies and movies getting too big and ambitious and expensive and long, and this movie isn't short. But when watching it, I was kind of struck by, it's basically a B movie. And it just gets to it.

I mean, his wife has killed. in the opening credits. And then he's running. Within 120 seconds. Yeah. We don't know anything really about their life. We don't know about the drug trials. If this movie was made today, it would be, well, it wouldn't be a movie.

It would be a TV show and it would run again, except it would be a prestige one and run like 10 seasons. Yeah. This, think about how this, think about how the fugitive ends. He gets in the car and they drive away. Yeah. And there is no, well, what's his life like now? Is he going to be a doctor again?

Big font graphic. Giant fonts. You have just watched Harrison Ford in the fugitive. But in, in many ways. ways the error to this movie, I feel like is stuff like taken, right? Because it's just like, let's get down to it and give people what they want. This just was a little bit more elevated than that, maybe. I actually think it could probably, it could move a little faster.

Even though it moves unbelievably well. Yes. But in 2017, there's a whole chunk basically from when he jumps off the waterfall down all the way through when he gets an apartment and then he's in the hot thing. It's a half hour that could kind of... Well, the amount of screenwriters involved kind of shows because there's like a definitely like a, there's a chase movie in this where they're just strictly chasing him,

he's jumping off increasingly crazy stuff. Then there is the procedural part where he's like showing up at hospitals. He's solving the case. And then there's the third part where it's like the detective show where he's actually solving his own wife's murder. So you can feel some of the stitches. I'm going to suggest to Andrew Davis that the scene that could have gotten trimmed

was the series of scenes where he's walked, where Harrison Ford is walking through rooms of prosthetic limbs, touching each one like sting and that movie's, video with the candles. Just let his fingers go through the hooks. Like that's enough. We get it. We get it.

Yeah, this is, this movie's a big winner for all the prosthetic limb actors. A lot, yeah. Big casting call. I mean, they had like a hundred of them. Remember that guy,

the guy wearing like, not the Kooji sweater, but the Kooji polo would they follow into it? And he's like, you got a problem. What's going on? It's like a fight. That's at the prosthetic limb lab.

That guy's been dining out on that one line for 24 years. He probably has a steak named after him in Chicago. I have a steak named after him in Chicago. to be Chicago. That's not hard. Most rewatchable scene. The aborted bus escape train crash. Is about as fun of a five minutes of an action movie as you're going to get. What the hell is that?

Tommy Lee Jones, taking over the investigation? Well, looks like you came a long way for nothing. With all due respect, Sheriff Rollins, I'd like to recommend checkpoints on a 15-mile radius at I-57, I-24. And over here on Route 13. Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. The prisoners are all dead. And the only thing checkpoints are going to do is get a lot of good people frantic around here and flood my office with calls. Well, shit, Sheriff.

I'd hate to see that happen. So I guess I'll take over your investigation. Tommy Lee Jones's entrance. Though, no, he's in charge. The look on his face, the sarcasm. It's about as good of an entrance as we've had. Dare I say, compared Hopkins Hannibal Lecter level, just completely owns the movie from the moment he shows up all the way through his little speech. Every doghouse farm.

He's got the hands. Four feet, four yard, four yards, four miles. Is this an appropriate time to talk about the amount of Velcro on his body in this movie? Like, Tommy Lee Jones's character basically is Batman. Like, he has so many layers of Velcro and hidden guns and things that say U.S. Marshall on it. I don't know why they didn't license that jacket. And even the U.S. Marshals were this much fun.

Well, apparently they're not. They made a sequel and it didn't do very well. Did we ever figure out why that movie didn't do well? U.S. Marshals? The sequel. It's an, well, first. I've given it like five chances over the years for getting that it wasn't good. Yeah.

Each time gone, oh, no. Because when they announced it, everyone was like, oh, okay. Well, it's an Alzheimer's, shall I say, distracted Robert Downey Jr. performance. Distracted. I like it. He is very good in it because he's Robert Downey Jr. But it is like maybe had his mind on some other stuff at the time. Yeah, that movie, if you did that over again, maybe as the director, I don't know.

That movie should have worked. Wesley Snipes is like. It's also just doesn't have the same like, human factor of like this normal guy who gets dragged into it. It's more like an ex-Navy seal who's on the run and Robert Downey Jr. is like a double agent and Tommy Lee Jones. Let's also remember that one of the best things about Marshall Samuel Girard is that we know nothing about him.

Yes. Except what he says he doesn't bargain and blah, blah, blah. There is no backstory. We have no idea about who he goes home to or where he goes or anything. It's a really important point because a lot of times these filmmakers make the mistake of the two scenes where he calls his wife. Yeah. There's no origin story here.

holding a baby and she's upset that he's going to be home late. Like, that's my biggest issue with my favorite bad cable movie 8mm. I don't need any of the Catherine Cainter scenes. Family, like me to get him to California. I don't need to know about the cages baby. Just find the killers. U.S. Marshall's question, did they bring back all our favorites?

Cosmo, Noah. Yeah. I want to do any U.S. Marshall's spoilers, but there's some tragedy in that movie. Most rewatchable scene, the aborted bus escape train crash. Timing Lee Jones taken over the investigation. The damn waterfall jump. The guy did a Peter Pan. And the ending.

I think those are the big four. Am I missing anything? I'm going damn. What's that going down? The damn, I remember when I saw it, feeling like this, the way they played it was so realistic with the way he runs up to the edge.

And you can just tell he's in this like, you know, no win situation where he's just like, I just can't go back to jail. And otherwise I might get shot. But he definitely really. thinks about what's going to happen if I jump off this thing. Some good Harrison Ford. Yeah, it's really, really, really good work by him.

I agree. That's his best, that's probably the best part of his performance, because they keep throwing in all these, and because it's a good movie, you don't notice them, but there are all these little moments where he saves people to remind us that he's a good guy, that he's the hero. In that scene, when he picks up the gun and he's uncomfortable with it and he puts the gun down and the humanity on his face. There's also, that also has maybe the best line in the movie in that scene, which is, I don't care.

Yeah, that. I didn't kill my life. Adled by Tommy Lee. Is that true? Yeah. It almost doesn't matter how many screenwriters worked on this because you got, it's so well constructed that they made a movie where they came face to face early so that they could come face late.

Because the movie's totally different if they don't actually have that moment early on, right? It's just if they're chasing each other from a distance. And then the epilogue to the damn scene is Tommy Lee Jones just being like, I want like nightlights, I want scuba divers. I want you to turn this dam off. I'm like, turn the dam off. Isn't that going to affect the water supply? Can we talk about the budget of the U.S.

Marshall's office? Yeah. Like this guy, I mean, obviously they want to get him, but he doesn't seem like that much of a risk. What are you going with? I think that I'm with Chris. I like that scene. What do you got? I love the bus escape, the train crash.

I love bus escapes in general that these three prisoners somehow had this whole plan and they're just kind of silent eye contact. Also, followed by the bus flipping a million times and nobody dying. What's the Simps thing where they're like talking about when the cop who always talks about he's almost so close to retirement? Oh, on McBain. Yeah. I love how the guys in the front of the bus, the guards are like, man, I'm. I can't wait to get some chow and get these prisoners out of this bus. We're so close to the other jail.

We'll be getting there any moment. Also, shouts to the one guard who gets stabbed in the aorta with a sharpened toothbrush and survives the night. Yeah. Yeah. He's fine. Good for him. Just put a band-aid on that thing.

He'll be good. Best casting, what ifs. I didn't know any of this. And I was flabbergasted by one of them. Alec Baldwin was the first choice to play Richard Kimball. Well, that's Hunt for Red October era. Quite a time for Baldwin. Harrison Ford had previous.

previously played a role that was first offered Alec Baldwin in Patriot games the year before. Yes, which leads me to believe. Alec Baldwin had more juice in 1992 and 1993 than Harrison Ford did, which rocked my world. Yeah, Hunter October was huge. And I think Baldwin wanted to have a lot of control over his career. I don't remember whether Patriot games was a matter of him not wanting to continue the Jack Ryan character or just wanting too much money or whatever it was. I think it was too much money. But I think he also was saying anyway, probably after he didn't get the money he wanted, that he didn't want to be a,

franchise pawn. He's a great actor. He wanted to do prelude to a kiss. Yeah, to be fair, Patriot Games is much different than Humpf October. Huffer October is just like this nerd who winds up accidentally getting involved. Patriot Games is like Harrison Ford saves the world a couple of times. But isn't that because Harrison Ford came onto the movie and they were like, well, this guy isn't. I think that's probably more true to what Tom Clancy wrote. I've been talking about Tom Clancy a lot this week. Yeah. I love Tom Clancy. Yeah. By the way, we are incorrect in saying this was the end of Harrison Ford's heyday because Air Force One is still four years away. But that's after Sabrina.

And then six days and seven nights was the real. That was the end of it. The real flaming job. I can't totally blame him for that. Six days and seven nights? That got overshadowed by the whole N.H. Controversy. Oh, yeah.

I forgot about that. She was dating. Who was she dating? Ellen, right? Ellen. Yeah. But then whether she was doing it for publicity. And then all of a sudden, Harrison Ford, it's like, hey, man, we made an action movie here.

Can people talk about the movie? But yeah, but you don't have the same juice that you once did if you're getting overshadowed by an Anne-Hat. sex controversy. You know what I mean? You got to look in the mirror on that one. Michael Douglas, Kevin Costner,

and Andy Garcia also considered for Kimball. Andrew Davis considered Andy Garcia. Let's just put it that way. He loved Garcia. He brought his career down eventually with his love for Andy Garcia. The only one of this group that I really would have bought is Kimball was Costner. There has to be something a little bit wholesome about it. Oh, yeah.

Douglas is like, man, maybe you did kill your wife. Baldwin too. I feel like you're a little bit like this guy had a comment. Sure, one arm man. Whatever you say, the guy. John Voight and Gene Hackman were both offered the role of Sam Gerard

Can I take a minute here? I feel like we've done a few rewatchables Yeah And John Voight comes up way more than I thought he was You think he's just leaking this stuff? I think Voight gets attached to a lot of stuff And they're like almost cast as blank Right so we'll cross them off for the rewatchables

Well just I'm just saying Would you are you guys ever like When Voight walks on with the exception of heat Which in which case he's indetible as John Voight when he does that. Are you ever like, yeah, Voits on screen? Yeah, the Republican National Convention.

Varsity Blues? All right. Oh, Zach Mack's nodding happily. Don't think we're not doing varsity blues soon, Zach Mack. Walter Hill wanted to direct this movie and have Nick Nolte star in it. Nolte. Walthy thought he was too old. Nick Nolty.

Well, but Nick Nolty, how much older... It was just a bad call by Nick Nulte. Although I would have loved to see Walter Hill direct us. You know, those guests in 48 hours together. He did Long Riders. I don't know if Nick Nolty could have pulled it off. Walter Hild did trespass. I think it worked out

how this played out. It's actually, it really is, because you think about Ford. Ford's one of the few actors who you can watch without him doing anything and he's actually better the less he has to say and do often.

And when he gets to, when there's that scene when Julian Moore says, what did you do there? And he's basically talking like a doctor again for a moment. It almost pulls you out of the movie

because he's basically a blunt object of the whole thing. All right. What's age the best? The train scene, the damn scene, Tommy Lee Jones. I only three choices.

Do you mean his performance or has he, Has he personally aged well? He hasn't aged much. From this movie. Yeah. From this movie, 24 years later, rewatching it. I'm going to go TLJ.

I think TLJ too. Like Hopkins and silence. And Matthew Lillard and Scream. Yeah. There is a timeless performance category that we keep coming back to in these rewatchables pods. And Tommy Lee Jones, if you put him in a cop show as Sam Gerard. If you were like, let's just do Sam Gerard U.S.

Marshall as a television show, I'd probably watch that every week. he probably should do that right now. Retired Sam Gerard coming back for one more case before he retires. I agree with you guys. Although I think that the other two set pieces are pretty interesting to consider in the light of the way action set pieces are built now. Because the train thing was, as you said, stunning then. Now it looks almost quaint because it's physical.

There's no CGI that we can tell. And, you know, it's that moment when he hesitates and the train's coming and you're like, why is this one wires? Contemporary brain, you're like, why are you hesitating to look at the train? You know, if you were doing this on CGI, we would see the train at the same time and it would be constructed differently. The damn scene is timeless, though, because it's character-based guys. Is there anyone else who could have played Samuel Gerard? For some reason, this is like the perfect quintessential, most awesome possible time in Lee Jones role.

It's perfect, perfect timing for the-out-year-old. It's like guys in the seven, like I could see like William Holden would have been a good Sam-Darard, like people from the 70s, but of this generation of this time period, I can't think of any. Because it could have gone badly. It could have been John Cusack as Samuel Girard or somebody like that where the whole movie gets the real. The only person that would have pulled it off in that moment, like in 93, as you mentioned, is Hackman. Because Hackman would have, it would have been a different vibe, but Hackman has that, look, I'm just doing what I got to do. I don't know about Hackman, like, chasing him through a sewer toward a dam. It would have been less fit.

Well, he's a big guy. I mean, I would have bought it. But at that point, he was. He was older. Do we know how old Gene Hackman is? We killed them off at Grantland. He's in his 80s now. Yeah.

but but but he just has that whole like that authority but that you kind of like him despite his he's on he's ostensibly the bad guy for the first part of the movie the thing that's hard to tell about this role is that the fact that Tommy Lee Jones ad-lived or improvised a lot of his dialogue you kind of can't do a one-for-one because it's like well I don't know what this so tell me about this I didn't even realize this he just did a lot of apparently did a lot of sort of tweaking the dialogue so all that stuff was like it's hinky what do you mean you know don't you can't say it's hinky all that like go get me a chocolate donut with those sprinkles on top.

That stuff is all him. How about when he tells the woman into whose house he's just broken into and then he's shot her lover in the face point blank? And then she's quite reasonably crying and he tells her to shut up. Yeah. Every great line in this movie is Tommy Lee Jones. It's his Mona Lisa. Yeah.

What's age the worst? You mentioned the train scenes and the damn scene. They just didn't have the right CGI back then. Apparently they used Harrison Ford on a wire. on like one of those green screens. But then for the actual crash, they had one chance to film it. It cost a million bucks or something.

And they planned it out and the train actually came a little too fast. They thought it should be 35 miles an hour, but the train was 42 miles an hour. And they had Harrison Ford dummies on the train for when it actually hit for the dummy to go. And they made six dummies

and all of them are gone. They made six dummies for like 75 grand. Yeah. and the guy who made the dummies was excited because he was going to sell them, but somehow all of them were destroyed? Oh, no. Can we just go out, make some more Harrison Ford dummies?

I got rolling from my office. Are we sure there wasn't one in Cowboys and Aliens? Like they didn't. Regarding Henry. I feel like we've seen one or two of those dummies give performances. Wait, what are the nominations? All right. This is age the worst?

Age the worst, I would say the CGI and the train scene. Yeah, I have kind of a controversial one for this one. But let me hear the other nominations. Harrison Ford's beard? I love it. Okay. But I just love that they did it because you know. It's incredible facial hair acting.

And you know it's coming off. Also, he seems to have a lot of time in that hospital room. He gives himself a good shave. Also, a delicious looking egg sandwich out of that. Yeah. I think about that a lot. He was real. That hotel room.

He was real hospital. It feels like a hotel room. Hospital room. But yeah, he really scoops those eggs on there. Yeah. The other one that's aged the worst is the DNA evidence or lack there of in the whole concept of Dr. Kimball getting convicted in the first place. Just in 2017, you're just watching it going.

Yeah. But wait a second. Did the blood match the blood on the... It's also even when the DA is like... And you will also hear a voice from the grave that definitively implicates Richard Kimball. I'm like, there's a lot of like context missing here. Yeah, she's got like a crushed vocal cords, whatever. Yeah.

She's mumbling. It's the best. It's age the worst, but in some ways I appreciate the fact that like many movies from this era, if cell phones existed, you don't have the movie. Yeah, right. If, you know, the whole thing is based on. on him forging access to a hospital with a razor blade while he's eating, what is he eating? He's like MacGyver.

Yeah. Yeah, but it's just, he just has an idea and he can just waltz anywhere. I mean, this movie you can't either, you can't make the movie today or if you make it, it becomes so heavy and burdened with all the, the tweaks to avoid detection and cameras and stuff, it just becomes its own separate thing. It's a good point because like, Enemy of the State comes out in 97 and already the world's completely different. Yeah.

Although the technology and enemy of the state is pretty advanced. They still haven't got, they don't have the technology and enemy of the state. They remember the technology into that 17 that they had 20 years ago. Can I suggest one of the... Like Will Smith, they spot them from a satellite. One other thing that's aged badly is that if you watch, and I hope that everyone has, if you watch this movie again,

you watch the first 15 minutes, there is a sequence, an uninterrupted six, seven minute sequence when every character on the screen is wearing a tweed blazer, men and women. This is a major, major issue I have of this movie. These high lapels, they're all wearing them. Not tweet blazers, cardigans.

It's weed. It's a amount of outfit changes and finding clothes that fit him. him in every apartment that he breaks into every like you know it's like cool jumpsuit richard kipple like where'd you get that yeah i was going to mention that in the nitpick part yeah we could do that i love whenever somebody needs clothes and it's just like tim robins and the warden tim robins like seven inches called in irman chrook suit that just happens to fit me for my the thing that i think age is the worst is actually not the bus train crash but the actual bus accident

i was watching this movie and i was like just recently and it really does feel a little bit like Toon's is the driving cat when you watch it this time, which is tough because I feel like they do a great job with it. But there is a couple of shots where I'm like, is that a matchbox bus rolling down like a sand mound with some good sound effects? It's 200 times. And like five of the people on the bus are fine. No. Not again. No.

So yeah. A lot of actor, a lot of character actors in this movie like the guy that the security guard, the prison guard on the bus who's kind of a coward and then changes his story. and Tommy Lee Jones. Yeah, that guy, the two cops, Chicago cops. Those guys just dined out for a decade as Chicago law enforcement dudes. I don't know their names, but they always played those guys. The guy with white hair shows up in Dark Night, the Dark Night as a cop, right? That guy's never not played a guy.

He very well may be up to his off. Oh, the guy gets Kimball in the beginning? Yeah. And when E.R. showed up, then those guys had a whole second life. Yeah, that's right. Random ER or whatever's. Half-ass Internet Research Corner, some good ones. We talked about the five years.

script writing process with nine screenwriters writing over 25 different drafts and then Tommy Lee Jones ad-lib the office lines anyway. Harrison Ford damaged ligaments in his legaments during the filming of the scenes in the woods refused to take surgery. Can we just do it? Until the end of the filming because he wanted his character to have a limp. Harrison Ford. I have a-

That's why the, okay. Are we sure that Harrison Ford is not unbreakable? Like, do, are we sure that, so let's see, multiple plane crashes, correct? Multiple self-inflicted plane crashes. Any minute. Broke his leg on the set of Star Wars. Is that true? Tore ligaments on the set of the fugitive.

It gets his ass kicked in almost every movie he's in. Yeah. And he's still ticking. It's just still. Marijuana, man. He was in out of early. That's because he's a carpenter first, an actor second. You know, he's used to workplace hazards.

Quick break to talk about hotel tonight. I tend to leave things to the last minute. And you know what? If you do that for the holidays, you're screwed. You can't leave things to the last minute. You know what else you can't leave to the last minute? Booking a hotel.

Until now. Being last minute actually works in your favor if you have the Hotel Tonight app, which is one of my favorite apps in 2017. I've used it multiple times. Wait for those rates to come down. Hotel Tonight has deals with so many good hotels. And what happens sometimes with hotels, they can't book all their rooms.

and as a week to go with when that date's coming, they start dropping those rates. And you know who's right there? Hotel Tonight. You can actually book a room with Hotel Tonight up to seven days in advance. And in certain major cities, you can book up to 100 days in advance. You'll bag a sweet deal at a killer hotel. Trust me, Team Simmons has done this multiple times now,

mostly for soccer tournaments in the greater California area. But whether you need a room for today, for Halloween, or beyond. You definitely want to download the Hotel Tonight app. Back to the rewatchables. The wrecked train and bus remain a tourist attraction. Can you guess where? Keorio. Dillsboro, North Carolina.

We should ask Tate. The home of Tate Frasier. I don't know. We should find out. Tate's home the next time. He should Instagram story, Dillsboro, North Carolina. Two great things from Dillsboro. He crashed bus and Tate Frasier.

Incredible. Tate's going to be, I know Dillsboro. We played them in high school. We got a fight with. them. Those guys are part of the Adidas scandal. Dillsboro A.U.

The crash cost $1 million to film. Do you think the damn scene costs more or less? I hope it costs less. It costs twice as much, $2 million. Why?

Apparently to shut down the dam and do whatever the hell they needed to do. Wow. The scene where Kimball is running through the St. Patrick's Day parade. I love that scene.

Was not scripted. Tommy Lee Jones made that up to? Tommy Lee Jones. He's like, The script. He's a personal anecdote. Andrew Davis was a Chicago dude. Yeah.

Really wanted to film with the parade. Sent Ford and Tommy Lee Jones just kind of chasing. Jones chasing Ford and he had a steady cam and just followed them through the parade. Ad lib. They had no permits, nothing. Wow. And Andrew Davis. And people in the parade, their reactions to Harrison Ford were genuinely them being like,

why is Indiana Jones walking next to me? Yeah. It was pretty cool. But in the movie, it feels like they're like, hey, that's Dr. Richard Kimmel. Yes. Yeah. The character of Dr. Nichols, who we're going to get to. Yes, we have, how could we have not have spoken about Charlie Nichols?

You know, sometimes you got to put the wine on ice. Recast for Jerome Crabb. Let's go with that. I've been wondering how. I've had a better pronunciation. I mean, no. I like, Jerome Crabb sounds like a guy who plays small board for the Blazers. He's from Charlotte.

It's Alan Crabbs brother. Jerome. There's like Jerome and Crabe and like Yergen Prock now. We're just in a lot of movies from that era. and I never knew which actor they were. They were just in the background. The original actor... They were like those on submarines.

For sure. The original actor who landed the role, Richard Jordan, fell ill with a brain tumor during the filming. And he had been in a hunt for October. He died three weeks after the film was released. He's the Secretary of Defense. Harrison Ford had to refilm his first scene

with Jerome Crabb of the Portland Troutwezzers. And his beard, he had to grow his beard out for it, and his beard looked slightly different in that scene than it does in the other... It's amazing. They were able to forward. such a believable friendship between an American doctor and a Dutch doctor,

who for some reason went to school together in America. We talked about Tommy Lee Jones improvising his dialogue, including think me up a cup of coffee and a chocolate donut with some of those little sprinkles on top. Newman? Yes. What are you doing? I'm thinking. Well, think me up a cup of coffee and a chocolate donut with some of those little sprinkles on top.

Well, you're going, you're thinking. That's a Tommy Lee Jones special. Classic. Cosmo Renfro. You know what that was? Joey pants. Pants, yeah. Supposed to die in the end of the film.

Joey Pants successfully lobbied for his character to be spared in case there was a sequel. Joey Pants always wins. And was in the sequel. Did he lobby Tommy Lee Jones because he was in charge of the production? Can you rewrite these last few pages? Now, it also said on the Internet, again, this is why it's half-fess Internet research, that Cila Ward lobbied for her character to be in a coma and not die. And they're like, no way, Celia.

Kind of takes away the charm of the fugitive part of it. Takes its way the first-degree murder. Did Andreas Katsulas lobby to have two arms instead of one arm? He's like, I just think that this character of Edward Sykes would be more full. I'm thinking about my motivation. I always thought Cela Ward did not have the career she should have had. I completely agree. I thought she was one of the best-looking actresses of that whole era.

She was amazing. And was a good actress. Really good. And I don't understand what happened. I feel like there's an alternate. scenario where she has like two Academy Award nominations. I mean, I feel like there's a side conversation to be had about how Sela Ward and Julianne Moore are in this movie.

And Sela Ward plays a corpse. And Julianne Moore plays someone who pushes a gurney once. And Jane Lee's. And gets really mad, by the way, at Harrison Ford, for no good reason. He saves someone's life. That's another piece of internet research we have here is that the Julianne Moore part was supposed to be a love interest, but they changed it because it was like this wouldn't really scan right if this guy's on this vengeance mission to find.

out what happened to his wife. And then he's like getting some in the hospital. That has always seemed like that. And then the Jane Lynch character, the researcher, is also supposed to be possibly a love interest. that was also played around with, but like, one, I'm not happening. That was for the best. For me, that was the biggest.

Oh, hey, look. Yeah, Jane Lynch. So either in the Blu-Rae or the 20th anniversary, one of those, they have deleted scenes. And I think the Julianne Moore deleted scenes around that. I've never seen. Because that made sense. This is Julian Moore coming off of hand that rocks the cradle.

Like, she is the next big thing. And she just shows up for. phenomenal five minutes. Shortcuts with her pants off for 10 minutes. Yep. That's all takes. That's right. She died on him in the rocks of cradle with the garden house fell on her.

She was. Still not positive how she died. I know it's a lot of glass coming at you, but I feel like the glass isn't going to break until after it hits something. Doesn't she fall through, though? Isn't the impact of the fall? It falls down on her. That's right.

Yeah, glass. I mean, like, never been a glass in the 90s. It was very powerful and die hard, but, you know. Great point. So two Cosmos in 1993. Cosmo Renfro and Cosmo Kramer. My God, you're right. It's a Cosmo Renaissance.

What happened? Were there a lot of Cosmos born that year? I don't know. Okay. Are there a lot of 24-year-old Cosmos out there whose parents were like, boy, that's a great name. One of the weirdest quitses. All right. The Dion Waiter is a word, best heat check performance by a role player.

Okay. I am disqualifying Tommy Lee Jones. Okay, yeah. Not fair. Oh, Chris didn't like it. No, I like it. Are there nominations? We have to vote here?

The guy I played the one arm in. Katsulas is really. The bald black convict on the train. Oh, yeah. That guy was ready to be in this movie. Ready to commit crimes. That's the sequel they should have made. Like, what happened between those three days?

He should have been the Wesley Snipes. The biggest mistake with U.S. Marshals was that the second person they changed should have actually been the most dangerous criminal in America. Yeah. Like they're saving lives to get rid of him. Joey Pants and Dr. Charles Nichols are. are my four candidates for this. I'm going to get other...

I have a write-in candidate. I want to accept writing candidates. My writing candidate for this award is all the reporters at the press conference with Tommy Lee Jones, including Selena's ex-husband from Veep. And...

A good call. Two people who are clearly Chicago reporters in real life. But I have no idea who they are, so I'm just going to say it's Mike Barnacle and Liz Smith, though I like who they are. But they were clearly like, let me ask you something, Marshall.

What do we know about this Richard Kimball? It's like right out of the 1930s the way that they're talking. And they're like obviously columnists. You know, like they're like, my readers want to know. Where is this Dr. Richard Kimball? What about this one on men?

Small Andreas Catullis, side note. I didn't know this. He's passed away now. Yes. Apparently, I would have guessed. Apparently a lovely guy. And he was on the show Babylon 5,

the sci-fi show. And apparently he passed away because the creator of Babylon 5 went on record to say this, that he was a wonderful guy, but he, quote, loved smoking with a passion that cannot be described. And so I hate to connect the dots for you that we could describe what happened to him, unfortunately.

Well, passion that can not be described. How can anyone love smoking that much? I never loved anything that much. They smoked like three cigarettes at a time. Exactly. What would that look like? Everybody loved smoking that lunch. Yeah, seriously.

At that time period, everybody was like, you know what's great cigarettes? I'm going to say Bob Black Convict was the Dian Waders winner. He's in three scenes and he goes like seven for eight with ten rebounds. I'm going to make a small argument for Portland Trailblazer small forward, Jerome Krabb because that guy, he flies in from Amsterdam or whatever. He's given the script and I just feel like he must have thrown his head back and laughed because he is dining out on those scenes.

You watch it now and obviously we've seen the movie and we've seen a thousand movies since then. But when the character is brought back into our attention, for no good reason, we don't remember him from the first part of the movie. And then we see him again sort of giving a tip to the port, like the valet at his tennis club. Yeah. And he's like, oh, good bye, Dusty. Have a good day, Dusty. Thank you. Okay.

Well, this guy is the villain. Like, it's so clear that he's the villain. So when he gets to that scene at the end, he's giving the speech and he's like, okay, Richard, let's talk. Like, he's having a great. You will never find him. He's having a great, great time. Yeah. He's not plausible in any way in this role or that they were friends.

Never a good idea. And plus like Harrison Ford's calling him Charlie and Chuck at various times the movie. He's like so not a Charlie or Chuck. He's a Dutch man. Yeah. Who is living in America as Charlie. He's a Dutchman. No. Yeah, that was a bad guy.

You know that Jerome Crabb, one of just the first thing from his, from his filmography that jumps out. He apparently played someone named Klaus Herzog in an episode of Miami Vice called Heroes of the Revolution. I think we got to go back and check that out. Wow. Was that after he got drafted in the lottery? I do want to say that his last major credit from 2016 is a film called gangster kittens. So I feel like maybe the... Some voiceover work?

Or is that actually a live action film? He was in Transporter 3. Oh, good for him. If we're going Apex Mountain, we might as well start with him. I think this was his apex. This is Apex Mountain for Crabb. Absolutely, because I don't know any other movie that he was in. That and also the second round of the Western Conference playoffs.

19. 9-3s. When he hooked up with Arvita Sabonis. For the incredible high, low post. Who would have been better as Dr. Charles Nichols? Wow. Feels like this would have been like a good Jason Robards role. Some sort of old school.

Yeah, a little bit. Or like, what about Hackman? Like, what if you were just getting it? Hackman would have been. But with Hackman, we would have known. Immediately. Yeah. Maybe John Void even maybe too famous.

Maybe that's why he wasn't good. This is what Big Voigt wants you to think. Yeah, boy. He attaches himself to all these rules and then you just can't stop thinking about Voigt. So you're like, what if Voigt plays? this guy. What's his quote in heat? There's a couple of, there's the one where he's like,

he calls up William Fichter to just be like, nobody knew the bonds of yours, to be that as in May. No reason we can't all get well off this. Wouldn't be weird if he did Heat rewatchables again, even if we already did it? We'll only talk about voice. What actors from Heat would have been a better Charles Nichols? Henry Rollins.

Henry Rollins. I was going to say, I was going to say Ted, what's his name? Ted Levine. Ted Levine would be good. Oh, Ted Levine is Dr. Charles Nichols. I mean, done, ding, ding. There it is. There it is.

You'll never catch him. Harrison Ford, obviously not. Cela Ward. No, sisters. No, what about the once and again hive? Can't they get a little love here? Oh, yeah. That was her high profile.

Yeah, that was her breakout. Yeah, I love Cela Ward. Tommy Lee Jones, I think unquestionably, yes. Yeah, the only thing I would throw up against it is no country. Yeah. Which, you could if you could, if you. you squint is related, right? I mean, I think that was one of the reasons why that was so perfect for him.

Are you in when we do No Country? I'm in, yeah. Definitely. What a movie. Great movie. So you don't think this is, there's no argument for this being Apex Mountain for Harrison Ford. No. I think the First Raiders is.

He's so good in Raiders. Raiders is such a good movie. He was so the Atypical action there on that. I just wanted to make sure we're, I'm not sure whether it's. First Raiders coming in the middle of all the Star Wars trilogy. I don't know how that, how is that not the apex? It's like saying one of the most iconic roles. Was Michael Jordan during when he won six titles?

Did the apex come in there? No, it's saying that he then in between doing those six titles, he went and won the batting crown like in baseball. I mean, he went and he did another thing. I think I might be a little bit biased towards Sonsolo, but the one-arm man, definitely. What did you say? Katsulas? Andreas Katsulas?

Yeah. A lovely guy. He loved smoking. His apex was either this or when he smoked nine packs in one day in 1994. And this isn't Joe Paneliano's. Apex? No. But it did get me thinking, what was Joe Panoliano's?

This is a... It's got to be Sopranos, right? 350. By's your hello. Watching your back. That's going to require a little more initiative on your part. Oh, look at her face. As Ralphie, but I mean, he was Guido the killer Pimp.

I feel like might have been his apex, but now that movie doesn't mean anything to anyone under 30. Big fan of him in the Matrix. The hard part about pants is volume shooter, right? A lot of credits. So even in 93, 94, when he's doing Fugitive, you've also got robot in the family. You got Teresa's tattoo. You got babies day out.

But then he comes back with bad boys. I don't have those things. He's great a bad boys. He will make five things a year and one is great. How would you power rank your favorite Joey Pants movies? Because for me, it's like Eddie and the Cruisers. Okay, I'm looking through this right now. I'm going way back.

Running scared, he's unbelievable. Pretty high on him in the Matrix. Good in the Matrix. Cypher? Risky business has like, which was a very much bunch of movie. And he's fantastic in that. Isn't he a memento? Because by the time he got to the Sopranos, it was like, oh, Joey Pants.

I agree. I agree. I think you could make a case that it was the fugitive because this was, if not the apex of his career, but this was the moment when people were saying, oh, I recognize. recognize that guy, but also say, oh, I'm so excited he's there. You know, I think it sort of started a turn when he kept doing this thing that he does in this movie that became what he was known for. So this was the apex of him being.

Likeable and welcome. He stopped being that guy and he started being. His own guy, a little bit. I think this is when it turned a little bit in his career. Obviously. It's just the longest anyone's ever talked about Joe Panelliano's apex or now. I'm almost positive Joe Panellano. Panliano pod where he just talks about his own apex about it's the pants pod.

He's recording it right now. What about Tony's Pranano? sister with the dildo from behind on him. The vibrator, remember that? She said the vibrator on him. Remember that scene? That set the internet on fire. The internet was very different.

Whoa! Joey Pants! The internet was like, hold on, let me log into my blog. My Tumblr. Live journal's down. What am I going to do? Unintentional comedy award. Harrison Ford's beard makes me laugh.

It just does. I'm sorry. You guys cannot be with it. What about the scene when he is just, vigorously dying his hair using an African-American man's like dark and lovely product and the face on the box.

Yeah. stays with me. Yeah. stays with me. Pre-cg.I for the one-armed man is kind of funny. You can kind of see him like Yeah. He's like pinned in there. His arm is seven times bigger than the other arm.

He has five Newports clenched in the hand behind his bat. He always has an overcoat on. Yeah. Other than that I didn't really find much unintentional comedy. So I think that it's a really good performance, but unintentionally Katzulis when he gets first interrogated by Tommy Lee and he's just like, of course it's my fault. I've only

get one of him. He's like, sure, sure. What are you doing in my house? A break in, got to be a break in. He does seem to be appearing in like a 1970s film where he probably should be, you know that Nick Crowell character, have you ever seen him do it? Where he does a guy called 70's eating guy, where he sits and he's just like being, he's in a movie,

he's like, come sit down, sit down, get some fries, honey, give me a steak, I want it thin and gray. And he's sort of talking like doing this long monologue. That was clearly the inspiration for Edward Sykes in this. he walks like an innocent guy when he walks down towards his house. My other unintentional comedy moment, is this a nitpick or unintentional comedy? I'm not sure.

But it's the fact that clearly in the Chicago Sun Times on television all day long, on local media, is the only thing they're talking about. Famous rich doctor is missing. None of the cops seem to have a picture of him. No. None of the cops seem to have committed his face to memory. He's walking around hospitals. So every single, he goes into only the most public of institutions,

places where you have to sign in like prisons. And every cop is like, God, that guy looks familiar. Well, it's also that at no point did the police or U.S. Marshals really consider the fact that he may have shaved his beard. Yeah. Like that's the one thing that has alluded to them. And how'd you know? Because all of the pictures. You have a beard, you're going to keep the beard.

But you can escape criminal. But you can grow a beard like that. Yeah. In the first hospital, after he changes and gets the egg sandwich and the guy's like, hey, you've seen this guy. He's, I see him every day in the mirror. Yeah. It's like, okay, dumbest cop ever. That's a little bit of a key check where he's just like, only every day when I see him in the mirror.

One thing that's played in my mind in the 24 years since is how I would react if I was looking down at a newspaper and then I looked up and saw that person across from me on public transportation, as happens in the third act. That's a great question. How would you do it? Depends. I guess it would depend on the crime. Right. So murdering wife, you'd be on his side. Well, I would have thought maybe he didn't do it.

You think by that point. If it was a serial killer, I'd be like, I'm calling the cop. Right. Would you? But would you, in that moment, would you quietly get up and move to the other car and then point back towards Dr. Richard Kimball and say, so I think that's the murderer down there. I think that we are not in the right place in our lives to answer this question because in Los Angeles, there's just not enough person-to-person interaction on the street. Like in New York and Chicago, it's different. You're walking around. You're on subways. Here it's just like, you're in your car. Maybe you look over and there's like, that's a fugitive, isn't it? So here. I'll go back to listen to them. Especially in the car.

The Pants Pants Pod. So what you're saying is here. Joey Pants Pod. It's almost if you have to crash into each other to feel alive. Basically, yeah. Someone should make a movie about that. Picking Nitz. That was fun.

Picking Nits. Come on, Dr. Kimball. You're a smart guy. He went to med school. You can't get a lawyer when you're clearly the only suspect when your wife's been brutally murdered and you were found there and they definitely. You get hit over the head? No lawyer.

Do you don't want your attorney there? They definitely yada yada, the 18 to 27 months. that this went through the justice system. Oh, it flew through. There's like book them. Like, that's what you guys got? First degree murder he's getting for this? He's death penalty, yeah. First degree murder he's going to get.

All they have is this phone call where she's gone, Uh, rich. And the insurance thing. Right, he's very rich. He's going to get paid out from her insurance. Tommy Lee Jones is the first person to suggest that maybe as a rich doctor who lives in the fanciest duplex in Chicago. Maybe he doesn't need the money.

Right. insurance money. Small nitpick about that opening cop scene when he's being interrogated. And by the way, I'm very into the rapid fire interrogation with the two cops just constantly asking him questions about financial situations. And all the other cops are gathered outside listening. I'm still thrown by the one guy who shows up who I basically took to be an intern. Like the youngest looking guy is the one who goes, book him. Was it his turn? Was it, was it, was it, was it, was it, was it, was it, was it, was it, was it, was it, was it, was a, check by him watching the interrogation? Take my large adult son to work day.

Yeah. gets to say it. One more break to talk about texture. How do we keep the Bill Simmons podcast fresh, you ask? Well, I read a ton of stuff every day, including a bunch of magazines on the texture app. Texture gives me access to hundreds of magazines like the Atlantic, New York Magazine, the New Yorker and Sports Illustrated, all in one place on my tablet or phone, daily recommendations, exclusive interactive features, videos, and more of the texture app.

Makes it easy to find and enjoy the articles I want to read. It's even searchable. You can mark what you like, check out back issues or review bonus content. I read just about everything on my iPad, especially like the bigger font. Texture has been a godsend. I'm old. What do you want for me? Normally texture is $9.99 a month for access for over 200 magazines, but you could sign up right now for free.

Why subscribe to a couple of magazines when you could subscribe to all of them? To start your texture free trial, go to texture.com slash rewatch. If you choose to continue podcast listeners, we'll get texture for just. $9.99 a month. That's over 30% off their listed price. Also, some great gift options available for the holiday season. Again, go to texture.com slash rewatch to start your free trial today. That is texture.com slash rewatch back to the rewatchables. We talked about would anyone actually survive that bus crash, the match box flipping over 200 times. Harrison Ford shaves that beard off. I've grown beards.

where for like a month, and it fucking hurts to shave them off. And there's no way when you shave them off that you don't impale some part of your face. He's looking great. He's using, like, some old guy's razor and scissors. That guy hasn't, that guy hadn't shaved since the Carter administration. And he's got, like, a lovely, like, ice cold steel razor there. Here's my counter for that. Previous to that scene, we have seen Dr. Richard Kimball sew up his own body without so much as a flinch.

Usually, we've now seen that scene a lot since then. Like, people are always sowing themselves up. And they always flinch at the first one. Yeah. Not Dr. Richard Kimball. Jack and the Lost Pilot, which I watched recently. Exactly. That could be a rewatchable, by the way.

Lost Pilot? The Lost Pilot is probably one of the seven best movies of 2004. The best movie J.J. Abrams has made. It's too-hour Lost Pilot. It's incredible. I watched it with my kids. They were really into it. Would you really call Dr. Nichols Chuck or Charlie?

We talked about that. got a little slow from the apartment through the hospital we talked about that and then the big nitpick for me why would dr nichols help kimball why the moment he's like oh richard here's some money oh here's some money he's like these are dutch croners these are no use to me i'm always got to do it's but oh it's escaped there he is like why is why did he help him can i pick a bigger knit yeah why did they have to kill him and his wife. Like, I don't... It doesn't make any sense.

I mean, look, Devlin McGregor seems like a company on the up and up. Like, you know what I mean? Those guys seem like real straight shooters at that company. But they just had... This is very much also a time. Like, there's a lot of stuff like... It's almost bigger than a nitpick. Yeah.

Like in the firm, at least the mafia is involved, but there's like a similar kind of like, so he figured out like some tax thing that you didn't understand. You have to kill everybody. Mitchell McDeer knows, basically. Yeah. It's the same thing in the fugitive where it's like, they just, I think they needed to up the stakes, obviously. You got to have him running from something.

But they spend a lot of the last third of this movie on provasic. Or probatic or whatever it is. Yeah. And it sort of takes you out of it a little bit. Early 90s was the golden age for fake drug names because we were just started getting advertising on television. Yeah. We were paying more attention to them.

Provasic. And it's great how like the... Can I play a bit the other way? Sure. Not enough time on Provasic? No, I think it was really showed where we were going with the pharmacy industry. I think you're pretty. It's pressing.

It's a pressing. It's a pressing. And this film was trying to tell us, watch out for these people. They may not be trusted for me. They may not be trusted. They might kill your wife and frame you for it. They really might do it. I still don't totally know why they had to kill his wife.

There's also like the really funny scene. There's a flashback of Kimball doing surgery. And all those doctors are like, hey, did you hear about this new drug provasic? Yeah. Pretty soon it's going to put us all out of business. Cleaning out those arteries. I was just like, what is this scene? This Ryan loves dialogue that has to move the,

plot a lug. I got context questions. I don't know if this is a nitpick, but I've got two of these for you guys. Yeah. This is 93. Silence of the Lambs is 89 or 91. It's 91. It's 91. 91. Okay. So we are two years removed from the scene that I think we still refer to in the context of Silence of the Lambs,

which is the misdirect that they went to the other house. Yes. The fugitive, that happens like five times. Right, where they go and they get the different guys from the bus. They get the different suspect, or they come to the house to arrest the son in the house. and I was riveted. Now I feel like... But I feel like now we are...

We're used to that redirect. We can't get away with it anymore. But it was still in the prime of that redirect. What do you guys think? So maybe that should have been an apex mount. Apex mound for the redirect. It would have been an age of twist because like in...

Now we do, it's just like there's a huge twist. Especially if this had been a like a Netflix show. We, the... I think Chuck Nichols would have either been his friend throughout the whole thing and was helping him every step of the way. Or Richard Kimball would have actually murdered his. wife. Yeah, right now, watching it now, Nichols' existence in the movie makes no sense. It's immediately obvious. Okay, one other thing, context or nitpick for you guys, when watching this movie

the first time, were we irrationally excited about things like them using a helicopter to look for him or the scene where they're like, play back the audio tape, isolate just the sound in the background. Can you do that? And the guy's like, button, button. That's an L train. He's like, I can do it. I mean, with a real to real tape going? I mean, I think at the time, that felt probably a little bit exciting. Felt cutting edge. Yeah. Does not anymore.

Not after enemy of the state. That's right. Enemy of the state ruined all of these movies. I don't know why he didn't turn him in right away. The friend. I don't really understand why Pravossack brought this much danger and murder to our lives. They spent an inordinate amount of time talking about the Devlin McGregor fishing trip. Yes.

Yeah. And I don't know why if either was the one-hour man in there because he was getting something or because he was actually going to kill everybody? I think he was doing security. He worked for devilmogger. Then it was like a pill that was bad. It gave people. No, I know.

But. And so then when people started like saying like, I'm going to report on this, he's like, he's got to go up and clean up the mess. All right. So I just want you guys to know, I'm never going to ask to have anyone killed. But if I did, the guy would have two arms. That's right. Yeah.

I just think one arm is too risky. If I'm going to commit murder, I'm going to commission a murder, I want two arms. Also, if you are a major pharmaceutical, companies essentially hitman. Yeah. And you know literally where all the bodies are buried. Can't you squeeze out a nicer apartment? Yeah.

Maybe something like Lickside. Well, he's spending off money on cigarettes, which is what we find out. I'm going to flip this one other way. I actually think that this speaks very highly of Edward Sykes. He has to be twice as good at being a security consultant with only half the number of arms.

Oh, true. Because this is Devlin McGregor we're talking about. It's like Jim Abbott. This is exactly. This is not some run-of-the-mill pharmacist. This is Devlin McGregor. Do you think they have their choice? Boss is like,

So here's the thing. We got to take care of Kimball. He's going to blow this whole trial up. And that Sykes is like, I got a challenge accepted. And they're just like, look, Sykes, we love you. We love everything you do here. But when it comes to the wetwork, when it gets hand-to-hand, maybe bring another guy. Or another hand.

Other thing we didn't mention, we were talking about CEL Award. I think they're gilding the lily a little bit. The beautiful C-Li-Word. The beautiful, regal C-Ward. My point is you've cast C-Law-Ward. We already know that our hero wants to go home to be with her. We don't need to have her decorating their apartment with flower petals on a random Friday for a hookup. Yeah, nobody does that.

Nobody does that. That actually should have been in the most dated. Nobody's ever, Chris Ryan's not coming home tonight and there's not going to be roast pedals on the stair. No, my wife's out of town. So it would be super creepy. There's a smoking one-arm man at the top of the stairs. I'd pick you some flowers. Cela Ward should have been in six days, seven nights.

I would have liked to have seen her and Harrison Ford get a second chance. Absolutely right. I would have liked to have seen her in 20 movies. She could have been the Ann Archer and Fatal Attraction. I would have liked to seen her alive in a blockbuster film. See the word. Your agent sucked. New category.

Okay. Oh my gosh. It's a new category. Wow. Every time it's a curveball. New category from this point on. It's in every rewatchable. Zach Max on the edge of his seat.

He loves categories. It came from a reader whose name I can't remember. Would this movie have been better with Danny Treo? Oh, yes. Because he would have been in one of the prisoners on the bus. Great call. Done. Easy.

Could have talked to. in Danny Treo as the one-armed man. Are you going to talk about as many cigarettes? Danny Treo as U.S. Marshal Sam Gerard? Or Danny Treo as Cosmo or one of the guys in the Marshalls crew and he's like, go get me a donut. He's like, get your own fucking donut.

Or I'm going to throw one third act twist. They go to interview the other one-arm man at the heavily guarded prison, right? And they bring Clive out and it's not that random dude with one-arm. It's Danny Trejo with an arm. Who's just like, hey man, it's boring in here. Let's chat.

And then Richard Kimball's like, okay and sits back down it's a great great new category I'm so happy with it what a huge success for the Danny Treo can do we retroactively do a few rewatchables we have to maybe we do a special edition we just go back would you would Trejo be good in silence and lamps heat need me like this bro one of the great death seats she was everything to me Neal. Best quote.

I don't care. You know we're always fascinating when we find leg irons with no legs in them. I don't bargain. You find this man, you find this man. Our fugitives name is Dr. Richard Kimball. That's my choice. Is the I don't bargain scene the one

where he's like, I don't miss? No, it's when he comes up behind him and he's just like. After he shoots the guy. And he's like a permanent ear damage. I can't, you know. Oh, you didn't bargain with him? Well, he's just like, I can't believe it.

He doesn't say I don't miss. I thought he said, I don't miss too, he says, I don't bar. I thought he was like, what if you miss? And he's like, I don't. Well, any case, is that line. Because I remember the fact that he whispers it into a guy with hearing impairment is great. Can you have hair like that and be in the U.S. Marshals? Can you have just like a little tiny early 90s ponytail like that?

He was one of those guys. I still love our fugitives. That's the guy who gets killed in U.S. Marshalls. Thanks a lot. This is not U.S. Marshals pod. I may have watched it tonight. There's no spoiler alerts. So, by the way, 100% I knew that guy was the guy that got killed.

But the best quote is, I don't care. It's got to be, I don't care. That is perfect. But he had lived it. Yeah. He did. He actually did it. Screenwriter Tommy Lee Jones.

Three unanswerable questions for me. You might have more. The movie was pre-OJ. DNA evidence clears Dr. Kimball, I think, within probably a week. Right? They run some blood test that's over. Well, but didn't he, remember, she scratched him? So there's some like...

Yeah, but the phone. Like, I just think when they redo this, yeah, we're going to have to figure that out. Would anyone survive the damn waterfall jump? No. I don't think there's any way in hell. And not just survive it, but thrive. He's better after that point of movie.

He was great. Came out, came out almost like he was finishing a triathlon. Is the idea that the waterfall somehow, like, lessens the impact that the water would have had on his body? I'm glad you asked, because we sent Zach Mack to the waterfall in L.A. recently. The backpack's in a full body cast. I just don't think you survive that ever.

Can I also ask, while we're thinking of it, how much money did Charlie give him? Because as soon as he gets that whatever pocket change is, he rents a home. He has new clothes. He's eating fresh fruit. Charlie slash Chuck had $580 out of him. Here, take it. Take it, you criminal. It does seem.

I tried to kill and I should probably alert anyone. The part of the movie that Yada yada is where Richard Kimball is just robbing people for weeks just to get food. Yeah. How did he eat? Where did he take a dump? Where was he? He slept in leaves once. I could have been in the woods longer with him, too.

He ran by the... I always like when people are escaping in the woods. I just would have loved it if he just was like, this week on the fugitive, if it was a procedural, it would be like Richard Kimmel makes another sandwich out of whatever he finds. He looks like everything.

He's like, these eggs look great. Let's put it between slices of bread. Yeah. Also, the movie is good enough that we never paused to think like Tommy Lee Jones, master, master U.S. Marshall. His strategy isn't the guy's just running

in a straight line next to the river for three days? Yeah, right. I mean, come on. Yeah, he had the six-mile radius, but somehow couldn't catch the guy out of the line. It was just like limping up the, yeah. The last unanswerable question for me. All right. Netflix hires us to make this a show.

Oh, challenge accepted. It's an 11-episode show. Yeah. Do you stick with Devlin McGregor? Do you stick with that whole thing, or do we come up with a whole new thing? I think the Devlin McGregor plot is more believable now than it was in 1993. I think I agree with you. Who's your Richard Kimball?

that was going to be one of my questions i got one okay ruffalo oh yeah okay mixture of intelligence innocence but could buy him running a lot looks like it looks aggrieved looks like he could be taken advantage of so i'm gonna go ruffalo what about what about ham what about john ham too too attractive i'm sorry ham i don't know when you i he because here's just want you guys to know that ham was also my choice yeah really yeah ham is the fugitive i'm in here's why if you think about why he's a believable doctor yeah he's the right age range great jaw no but i also think that i could see him killing being thinking that some his wife was murdered by him people wanting to take him down for whatever reason because he's too attractive but also i think that if you apply the same logic that made the movie work which was

we're going to get a movie star who can hold the screen without saying anything and just running and we care about him you need a tv star and he is legitimately a big charismatic tv star like i i i get why you're saying Ham, but you're overlooking one very important part about Ruffalo is that at the end of the movie, we could have gotten a sequel to, they knew! They knew Robbie! And they let it happen! Maybe he could be the U.S. Marshal. They do!

So who's your U.S. Marshal? So I think you go black with the U.S. Marshal this time. It's one of the ways to mix it up. Well, I think you have to flip. Either the fugitive or the marshal should be a woman also. Like, I think you have to change it up. You have to change the dynamic. Oh, like a Viola Davis?

Ooh. That's where I was going. Ruffalo Viola or Ham Viola? Ruffalo's not the fugitive on Netflix. They knew, Robbie! Ruffalo's making indie movies. He's not chasing. He's in the Avengers.

He's Hulk. Ham and Viola. That's a myth that Mark Ruffalo makes indie movies. Mark Ruffalo makes the Hulk. He makes bad rom-coms and indie movies. Yeah, but then you get Joey Pants to come out of retirement. He's just like the older Cosmo. I remember the case like this.

Maybe he's like, you guys need a one-arm man? Yeah, I'll do whatever. No, he plays the same part. Okay. Let's say if we went male instead of female for the Tommy Lee Jones part. Mm-hmm. And we went minority. Mm-hmm.

Who would you go with? I think it's somebody who's almost like a comedian or somebody with a comedian or the comedian background. See, I think it's got a withering kind of. Are we talking a movie or Netflix show? 11 episodes. Because in terms of having, you got to have beleaguered. You got to have.

smart and funny Chris Rock. Watchability. No, I was going to say Idriselba. Oh, yeah, that'd be good. I don't know if he can do sarcastic, though. I just watched him in Molly's game. He's good.

And Luther is very, like, belabored like that. Yeah. Like, it's very sarcastic. What about an old version of the fugitive and Liam Neeson is the fugitive? And he's like about to retire doctor. I just don't think he lives through that damn fall. Like, even the actor.

He probably just like, that's the end of his set of skills. If they remade this as a movie, doesn't have to be Brad Pitt. Brad Pitt would have been a great fugitive. I think the problem with these guys is that like, well, okay, so how would we get around the internet with this movie? How would you get around the internet? How would you get around the internet now?

The only way to do is with Netflix series. No, no, no, no, I mean, inside the world of the show or inside, how would you get around the idea that somebody was just like tweeting like, I just saw Richard Kimball at this place. But isn't it, that would be how you make the, that would be the wrinkle for this. I think you're doing the fugitive again, but in a technology era. That's kind of interesting. But that's what I was saying.

I think that makes it less of a purely enjoyable ride because it's so tech-heavy. It's so much about having to be able to evade things and have the knowledge, a particular set of skills. Yeah, right. It's not just like one of the appealing things about the fugitive is that he's not,

he's a good surgeon, but none of those skills are relevant to what he does except when he shows himself up and saves that kid, right? Otherwise, he's just a pretty smart guy who runs. Will Smith? As the fugitive? I mean, he basically did it

and then he made me of the state. I just think it signifies something different now because there is now an accepted genre of when actors are like, okay, Cossner's done it, Jackie Chan has this movie at now where they're like actors of a certain age, they're like, I can do an action movie,

which is literally about me running from, I've been wronged and I'm running or I'm getting revenge. I have a slightly weirder, Sam Gerard suggestion. Let's hear it. Michael Shannon. Oh, that's great. I know, I don't like him.

In a part like that, though. That's, he's, he's, he's, he's, you're out on that. To watch is the demo for him. Not Bill Simmons. Okay, well, this is a crossover at. Yeah, this is why the crossover. That's why I'm glad we disagreed on that one.

All right, who won the movie? I don't even think we need to do that. TLJ. Yeah, he's the star of the movie. It made his cool. I mean, he was, you know, a well-respected character actor. And Al Gore's College. Remember that up until this?

I played a couple of villains. He's in, you know, and this was, I mean, he does. He was younger than I thought. He was 47. I think he was on people's minds, too, because he, you know, incredible in JFK as Clay Shaw. Tommy Lee Jones' biggest movie before this probably was Coal Miner's daughter, the Patsy Cline movie.

Well, he was also, he was great in the executioner's song, which was the movie when I fell in love with Roseanne Arquette. And then he's in, and then he's in, you know, JFK. Yeah. Well, JFK, under siege, then fugitive, then all of a sudden, client, natural born killers, Cobb, Batman Forever, Men in Black, like now he's a star. Man, Cobb.

Well, he had an unbelievable run after. Oh, yeah. Fugitive just unleashed him. Yeah. I hope there's one executives or agents somewhere listening because I really think the fugitive should be a binge watch show. Oh, yeah. I think 1,000% it would work. And the fact that it worked in the 60s and just every week he was trying to find who the one our man wanted to get away.

Like, why wouldn't that work again? It's such a simple and pure concept. And the thing that didn't work about it as a TV show, which is that how could he keep coming up with adventures and solving, you know, crimes or helping people week to week while still running? That problem is solved now. because that's not how TV works anymore. So you do a series and yeah, you have a different fugitive every year. You can do a show called The Fugitive and have a different case every season. You have a different fugitive, different director, different writer, different.

All right. Whoever does it has to make. Do they know where to send the checks? I forgot to do one unanswerable question. Richard Kimball, obviously an awesome guy. Great. Incredible guy. Sure.

Even on the run, he's finding time to heal people's fractures and just do nice things. Does he kill anyone in the movie? No, he only hits that guy. Never kills him. Not capable of death. No. It's a beautiful thing. This man is accused of murdering his wife.

Obviously, he's had this pattern of incredibly nice behavior this whole life. Where are the character witnesses? Exactly. He's literally never been angry. This is one of the best people I've ever met my life. Is that a way he did this? Yeah, I worked with Richard Kimball. Isn't it supposed to be?

Although. Yeah. Where are those people? Why are those people pushing him? Yeah. Would you? I would be like he did love Fincher movie. It's like a really weird way.

So where's my character witness? We've been working together for more than five years now. I would say there's no way he did this. He would have wanted to see how the Embed Simmons Fultz thing turned out. He wouldn't have risked it. He wouldn't have risked it.

He wouldn't have wrist it. You don't have cable in the joint. Can we do a separate podcast on Julianne Moore's hair the morning after she was supposedly up all night taking care of people with traumatic gunshot wounds? Oh, yeah. And she literally looks like she just came out of a cleral commercial. She shakes out.

She's making a nice big run. She's probably still mad that they cut her scene. She got to be in Jurassic Park because of this. Hey, if you enjoyed this one, go check out our archives on the rewatchables. I think we're up to what, 12, 13 movies now, Zach Mac? 10? Okay. A lot of good ones. Got of a heat check there from Zach Mack.

What's the next one the three of us are doing? Well, there's a couple on the horizon, but I don't know what the next one is. You're the schedule master. Do we want to include fantasy in this or do you just want to keep cutting them out? I think it's good. Sean's actually been on this podcast. We just cut them out. She's in the room for this whole thing.

Sean's in there. Yeah. Indie and Wilde, Chris Ryan. Thank you. Don't forget to pass the word for the rewatchables if you like this podcast. We love when people subscribe. We love comments. We love emails.

You can email suggestions at the mailbag at the ringer.com. Thanks, Zach Max. See you next time. All right. Thanks so much to Seek. Thanks so much to Fennacy and Ryan. Thanks so much to Hotel Tonight. Remember, things change, the weather changes.

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