Unclear and Present Danger - Hidden Assassin

Episode Date: October 14, 2023

For this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John watched “Hidden Assassin” — also released under the name “The Shooter” — a 1995 action drama directed by Ted Kotcheff and starring Dolph Lundgren and Maruschka Detmers. In “Hidden Assassin,” Lundgren plays a U.S. Marshall, Michael Dane, tasked with arresting a woman, played by Detmers, suspected of assassinating the Cuban ambassador to the United States. Time is of the essence; the Secretary of State will meet with his Cuban counterpart in Prague — where the movie takes place — in an attempt to ease tensions between the two nations. But Lundgren isn’t so sure that Detmers’ character, Simone Rosset, is the shooter. What unfolds is a conspiracy that threatens Dane’s life and implicates some of his closest allies.The tagline for “Hidden Assassin” is “Seduction is a deadly weapon!” Which doesn’t have much to do with the actual movie.You can find “Hidden Assassin” to watch on Amazon Prime or for free on YouTube.Connor Lynch produced this episode. Artwork by Rachel Eck.Contact us!Follow us on Twitter!John GanzJamelle BouieUnclearPodAnd join the Unclear and Present Patreon! For just $5 a month, patrons get access to a bonus show on the films of the Cold War, and much, much more. he latest episode of our Patreon podcast is on the 1979 film “Winter Kills.” Our next episode of the main freed podcast will be on “The Enemy Within,” a 1994 remake of John Frankenheimer’s “Seven Days in May.” And we’ll watch the original film for the Patreon as well.Links from the episode!The films of Chris MarkerA video essay on “La Jette” and “Vertigo.”

Agent Michael Dane was trained to keep his distance. Shooter's here in Prague. Simon Rosset. In two days, the city of Prague will host a summit to the U.S. and Cuba. Now that's a room full of targets. Not to get too close. My friend is innocent. This target doesn't fit a profile.

It was a signature job to keep. And never get personal. Are we clear? Clear. But this time, the rules have changed. Now, wanted by his own men, They have 48 hours to bring in the assassin before more blood is shed.

There has to be an explanation. Takes her back there and put one between her eyes. When there's no one you can trust. Maybe she's the guy, maybe she isn't. Who do you believe? Who do you believe? Trojan! Charge you!

Dolph Lundgren, Marushka Detmer's Hidden Assassin. Welcome to Unclear and Pregor and Present Danger, a podcast about the political and military thrillers of the 1990s and what they say about the politics of that decade. I'm Jamel Bowie. I'm a columnist for the New York Times opinion section. My name is John Gans. I write a substack newsletter called Unpopular Front. And I'm the author of a book about American politics in the early 90s called When the Clock Broke, which is now available for presale if you're interested. Yes. Like we said in the previous episode, if you want to get this book and you should pick up the book, it's really important to pre-order.

Uh, pre-orders are really what makes or breaks, um, a book. And so if you want to go to your local bookstore, uh, you can pre-order on Amazon, of course. But if you want to go to your local bookstore, uh, even at Barnes & Noble and requests the book, that would be amazing. That'd be incredible. Yeah, that would really appreciate that. You're helping me. And you're helping the country. Uh, for this week's episode, we watched a little film called, hidden assassin also released under the name the shooter i think it was actually released first as the shooter and then uh smartly they decided to uh change the name or re-release it or something as hidden assassin which is a much better title it's kind of like uh for uh a great movie edge of tomorrow

was released and people are like what the what the what the fuck does edge of tomorrow mean and then when they they re-released it uh when they released it on blu-ray they released it as live die of repeat, which is a much better title. You think so? I think so. I actually, the title of the Japanese manga, it's based off of, is called All I Do Is Kill,

which is a phenomenal title. Yeah. And I think they should have kept that. Yeah. Good movie, by the way. I haven't checked that one out. It's like one of Tom Cruise's better performances over the last decade or so. Okay.

So Hidden Assassin, The 1995 action drama directed by Ted Kachef, Kachef, Kachef, who is the director of Rambo First Blood, notable. And you can kind of actually see that in this movie. And starring Dolf Lundgren and Mariska Dettmers, who is a Dutch actress. And Dolf Lundgren, I feel like, has no need to introduce him, Universal Soldier, Rocky 4, you know, 6 foot 5, 6, a gigantic human being who is in a lot of action. movies of exactly this kind. So in Hidden Assassin, Lundgren plays a U.S. Marshal, Michael Dane, tasked with the arresting a woman played by Detmer's, suspect of assassinating the Cuban ambassador, which I believe

the United States or maybe the UN, the movie isn't entirely clear, just the Cuban ambassador is assassinated. Time is of the essence. Secretary of State will meet with this Cuban counterpart in Prague, where the movie takes place in an attempt to ease tensions between the new nations. Lundgren isn't so sure that Demers' character, Simone Rossett, is the shooter, and what unfolds is a conspiracy that threatens Dane's life and implicate some of his closest allies. You can find Hidden Assassin's stream on Amazon Prime is just a couple dollars, or to rent to

stream on Amazon Prime. It's just a few dollars. I think you should watch this movie. I had a good time with it. It is exactly the kind of like made for 10. million dollars and a good, good, good time at the movie's 90s action film that I like. So I would recommend that you watch it. But, you know, I mean, you should watch everything before talking about it.

But if you really don't want to watch it, I mean, don't subject yourself to it. I think, I think it's a perfectly, it's perfectly like two and a half three star kind of movie, something to watch on a weeknight. The tagline for Hidden Assassin is seduction is a deadly weapon which has nothing to do with the film. Not really. If anyone's trying to seduce anyone

it's Dolph Lundgren's character. Otherwise, there's not really any seduction in this movie. Hidden Assassin was released in the UK on December 15th, 1995. So let's check up the New York Times for that day. Big day, December 15th. 15th, 1995. The big headline here in the Times is Balkan foes signed Peace Pack, dividing an un-pacified Bosnia. Crushed by what he regards as betrayal at the negotiating table and thwarted

on the battlefield, General Ratko-Mladic, the Bosnian Serb warrior charged with the massacre of thousands of Muslim men, now spends much of his time isolated in a mountain bunker, surrounded by coterie of soldiers. His moods are said to swing from rage to uneasy calm. His partner in the Bosnian Serb cause, Radovan Karazic, the psychiatrist-turned politician, had the foundation of his political program swept out from under him by the Bosnian Peace Accord. Those who have seen him say that his speech is now often slurred, apparently by medication, and his robust physique has been withered by anxiety as he faces on a certain future that includes an indictment for war crimes. This is the picture that acquaintances draw of the two people who are most conspicuously missing for a day's peace ceremony in Paris, beaten men, desperately dealing to save their jobs and stay away from the international war crimes tribunal at the Hague.

So, yes, the peace deal that I think was negotiated in Dayton, Ohio, but ratified in Paris between the various parties of the post-Yugoslav civil wars. They weren't really civil, which I guess that they were international wars at that point, is brokered, kind of throwing, well, they deserved it, but kind of throwing the Bosnian Serb forces under the bus. Here's another piece on the same issue. Way clear for troops of U.S. and NATO. In somber silence, the leaders of Bosnia, Serbia, and Croatia signed a peace agreement today, even as scattered violence in Bosnia has made clear that the real peace was not at hand. Today's ceremony. presided over by President Clinton and other international sponsors cleared the way for the deployment of 60,000 NATO peacekeeping troops and the commitment of hundreds of millions of dollars to rebuild the country of your nearly four cruel years of war. My government is taking part in this agreement not with any enthusiasm, but as someone taking a bitter potion of medication, said President Elijah Isid Begovich of Bosnia. After the formal signing of the Accords reached with American

mediation in Dayton, Ohio last month. Though the agreement preserves his country name, it also ratifies the ethnic division of Bosnia that Mr. Isaacovich's Muslim-like government had fought to prevent, dividing the territory between government and Croatian forces on one side and Serbs on the other. The plan signed today with its calls for a new confederation of the rival parties and free movement of peoples within represents a desperate gamble that peace can be forged from the savagely splintered remnant of the former Yugoslavia. Well, how did that world work out? In some ways, okay, and other ways not so okay, because we have now still tensions over Kosovo. Those started to spring up in the latter half of the 90s due to the population of Kosovo Albanians and their tensions with Serbs in the region. because of our majority

Albanian but was annexed to Serbia with the breakup of Yugoslavia and now is an independent country but there are ongoing tensions over that what else do we got here U.S. fears India nuclear tests U.S. officials say

they suspect that India is preparing its first nuclear test since 1974 and are working to discouraging it fearing a political chain reaction there are some things about white water there's something a bit about AIDS treatment is there anything here that that grabs your attention Jamel um I did I was interested in this AIDS treatment story man gets baboon marrow in risky AIDS treatment San Francisco December 14 and a radical cross species experiment fraught with risk but with implications for treating many diseases scientists last night injected bone marrow removed from a baboon into a 38 year old man with AIDS the hope is that the millions of transplanted marrow cells, which are believed to be resistant to the AIDS virus, will proliferate to rescue the man's severely damaged immune system. The idea isn't to cure the disease, but to bolster the immune system such that it can fight

secondary infections. Because for listeners who are not super knowledgeable or whatever about HIV and AIDS, often what kills AIDS patients isn't AIDS itself, but all these secondary and opportunistic infections that emerge when your immune system basically has been, like, destroyed. So things like, you know, back in the early 80s, for example, when the medical community was first noticing this, one of the signs was people having these fungal meningitis infections, which are incredibly rare, right? Just very rare. And so when you're seeing clusters of people, develop like rare infections.

That's a sign something's happening. So the idea is to help the immune system fight this off. I saw this, was very curious about what the results were. And as it turns out, the procedure was ultimately unsuccessful. It did not work. The kind of the good news is that it's not long after this, after 95, that AIDS patients or doctors of beginning to treat AIDS patients with combinations of antiviral drugs, which began to sort of like push the disease into remission in patients, going to help people manage the disease.

But this procedure did not work. Getty lived until 2006. He died in 2006 at 49 of heart failure. So procedure wasn't successful, but he ended up living 11 more years. I think basically it's difficult for people who are younger and didn't live through the AIDS crisis or have no recollection of it to know how scary it was for people. And there was a lot of misinformation and inflated fears of how you could get the AIDS. But, I mean, it was a death sentence until, you know, the antiretroviral treatments that they've pioneered,

which have been extremely successful at the point where you can just live a perfectly normal life with HIV and not transmit it to your partner if you're if you're careful um but it you know that in the in the middle of the early of the mid 90s it was it was a horrible epidemic it was killing a lot of people and it was just a pure death sentence yeah i think you're right john it's it's genuinely i pulled up on Wikipedia just this timeline of um HIV AIDS sort of like from when it first emerges and then the bulk of it's like really the 80s and just the like just like the the rapid deaths of people from AIDS from a from a disease that no one really you know early on no one really knew what was going on no one really understood um and then it

kind of just like you know grows grows expands expands in terms of it's uh in terms of who it's infecting is uh it's very it's very scary very in and and you know If you're on TikTok with lots of anti-Royal Reagan stuff, the use hate Ronald Reagan, which good. I'm glad for them. That guy sucks. And one of the reasons he sucks is that the Reagan administration basically sort of ignored this in the 80s, kind of dismissing it is basically sort of like, you know, it's just the gays dying. Really, really scary stuff. And yeah, as you said, it's not really into the late 90s, really infective treatments begin to proliferate.

But I'm like looking at 95, like 95 in this AIDS timeline, it's like Easy E, the rapper, dies of AIDS. I think 95 was like one of the worst years or peaked or, yeah, lots of death and despair. Really awful stuff. So that was the one thing I wanted to, I wanted to comment on otherwise. I mean, sent a white water panel, you know, whatever, Clinton's scandal stuff. Not remembered for good reason. I hate to say that as someone who's a historian or would be historian of the era, but some of the stuff is just not historically all of that interesting anymore.

Yeah. Okay. So the movie, Hidden Assassin. So the movie's kind of structured as like first, a chase, a long chase. and then a reversal in confrontation. And the plot of it, or the basics of it are that Lundgren plays this U.S. Marshal who's been called into Prague to capture the assassin of the Cuban ambassador. The movie opens with the assassination.

It's pretty great. I got to be honest, when the shooter pulls the trigger and there's a great squib work when the Cuban ambassador like is you know get shot I was like I'm kind of into this already I will say if you are like myself and we've talked about this before if you're like myself a person who enjoys in these kinds of movies just kind of gratuitous violence this is going to make your day there's a scene later in the film where Lundgren runs over a guy with the truck and then this is shot of the guy being dragged under by the truck it's a like really gratuitous, and I thought it was great.

But anyway, the U.S. is like, oh, the assassin is this woman, Simone Rossett, known as a prolific assassin. And so we want you to capture her. She runs a cafe wine cellar with a woman who's presumed to be her girlfriend or partner. Yeah, what's going on there? they track her down this is kind of our first chase where Lundgren where they capture her but she escapes and they kind of have a chase through Prague that ends with her getting away and Lundgren and his partner this is important his partner being stopped by the police they try again

and this time Lundgren's able to catch her and again all through there's like all through all this. There's lots of action happening, lots of action scenes and such. After she's caught a second time, the whole time Lundgren's character is like, I'm not actually sure that she did this. Doesn't really fit her M.O. But she's turned in and he gets the strong sense that they're just going to kill her, not hold her, bring her to trial. When he brings you to the location, it's very apparent that's what's going to happen. So he, you know, he decides, no, I'm not going to go through with this. more shootouts they escape to back to his partner who is like you got to get you got to lay low she is then assassinated she is killed there's another shootout and we learn that his

language partner is actually kind of was the assassin was the original shooter and that this is all has been a plot of uh elements within the cuban government for reasons we're never told there's no attempt to kind of, like, give us a political explanation for any of this is happening. And that leads us to a final shootout on the rooftops of Prague. Lots of shootouts, lots of chases, lots of squibs exploding on people. It's good stuff. It's good stuff for this kind of movie. Unfortunately, for us, again, there's not a ton of political content here.

But I do think there's a place to talk maybe about U.S. Cuba relations in the 90s, maybe to talk about the role, like, because it's interesting that the movie is set in Prague, of all places, talk about sort of like the place of central Europe in the American imagination in the 90s. I don't know. What do you think, John? Well, about the movie, you know, I usually generally don't like this kind of movie that much, but this one was kind of entertaining. There are things I could get into. I didn't know. I also like just found, I don't know if I've ever watched a Dolph. I mean, I know the deal. I don't know if I've ever actually sat down and watched Dolph Lundgren movie before. So that was kind of interesting to me. What I found interesting about him, he's not a terribly good actor, obviously. Two things struck out to me. He's unlike Jean-Claude Van Dam and Arnold Schwarzenegger, who are also these other like Euro action stars, Dolph Lungren is of course, Swedish. His English is perfect.

He has no accent. Yeah, he doesn't, it's not so comical that his name is Michael Dane. Unlike in a Schwarzenegger film, his name will be like, you know, John. Richard Cooper or something. John Smith in Colorado is a 6'4-3 Austrian bodybuilder. And I wouldn't say that he pulls it off particularly well, but the, but the, the, the, the, the movie kind of makes him have these, like, kind of vulnerable and bashful and tender moments a lot like he's like portrayed as a very decent and kind person even though he's like this big you know

lumbering tough guy and i thought that was interesting i was like i didn't know that dolf lunger was supposed to be such like a sweetheart you know he's sort of like a gentle giant in this movie when he's not you know blasting people away or kicking them in the head or whatever so i thought that that was it tried to create a lot of tender moments with the with the actress uh the the dutch actress who's quite pretty and kind of interesting looking for an action movie and sort of like has cool style. I really appreciated the style of the movie in all of its 90sness. And I liked like, yeah, the style of the movie has clothes, him running around Prague with a Kafka t-shirt. I just got a really big kick out of. Here's what I'll say about the movie, what I liked about it, atmosphere-wise.

It seemed to be, and I think this leads into the Prague stuff, it seems to be like a precursor almost of later movies that take place in Central and Eastern Europe, they have some really great atmosphere and also not necessarily that, but like kind of like smarter action. Like it's a little bit like a proto Jason Bourne movie and some of its things. It's a little bit proto. There's moments of little proto Ronan, the movie Ronan, which is a really great. action movie maybe one of the best really um and it's so there are it's like i think this movie is trying its best also with its plottiness and its attempt to kind of have a romance a sexy

sort of romance between this ostensibly queer um lead in dulf longgren which is sort of interesting trying to be interesting and you know whatever because they're antagonists but then they have this romance it's it's like aspiring to be a smarter action movie than it is like in it's sort of held back by its budget the intrinsic limitations of doing that but it's like it's it wants to be a classier action movie with this with the setting in central europe and so on and so forth Prague yeah i mean Prague was very hip in the 90s like it was like a cool place to visit because you know you couldn't go to the it wasn't that easy to go to the eastern block and now it had opened up And it was like this interesting European capital that Americans didn't know much about.

It was very inexpensive. It had like a kind of cool bohemian vibe. And that was sort of the thing, you know, had all these sort of bars. The cemetery, it was a cool place to visit. It was kind of goth, blah, blah, blah. So the Prague kind of was a cultural, had a certain cultural cachet in the 90s of this movie is definitely trying to play on, I think. And, you know, the, it's a, it's a cool atmosphere. It's a kind of haunted and dreary, but romantic atmosphere that I think tries this movie,

this thriller is trying its best in its limited way to be something a little bit more substantial or interesting, but it can't quite do it because it's just kind of, I think it was released straight to TV in some places in the U.S. so it's it's sort of pathetic because you can see the the movie like really there's something earnest about this movie especially because of Dolf Lundgren's performance it's so most sweet you're like this movie really wants to do its best but it's just not very good and like it's not well scripted and is not you know but there's something kind of endearing about it and it's attempts to like make an entertaining movie it doesn't insult its

audience. It's trying it to do its damnedest. In terms of the politics, it has almost none. It has a certain kind of post-Cold War plot we've seen, which is the attempt of hardliners or whatever to stop a peace negotiation between a communist former common, or in this case, still communist power in the United States. It's a peacnick movie in the sense that it's like, oh, it's about like trying to save a diplomatic negotiation. So there's that. In terms of it's what kind of ideological subtext does it have? I mean, it does have Dolph Lundgren and this woman as kind of like alienated from the structure.

She's a freelance assassin and small businesswoman entrepreneur with her partner. They have this wine bar or whatever. And, you know, he's sort of like alienated. He's a good soldier for the West and the United States, but he's increasingly alienated by the corruption of the structures that he involved in. And they kind of form a bond on their loneliness, which is sort of a thing we see in a lot of these movies, right? You know, like, you know, corrupts bureaucracies, individuals are the way to go.

He, you know, hands in his badge and his gun and his cuffs at the end because he's so disgusted with everything. and then there's this interesting moment at the end of the movie which i don't quite understand and maybe you can explain to me because of there's like some great 90s house music at the end of the movie which is like there's a lot of good 90s vibes in this movie i'll say and so they play this house music and then there's a scene of her dancing at a club and it's just like he doesn't seem particularly broken up about it like is he having some memory of her that's like, supposed to be poignant?

I don't know what's going on. But, but, yeah. I think that's what that, I mean, so that scene, it's a callback to a scene early in the movie when him and his partner are trying to find her and they go into this queer club, basically. So it's when he first scenes her, yeah. Yeah, when he first sees her jogging. This is when he kind of first really observes her in a serious way. And, and they're in this queer club and she's dancing.

And I think it's supposed to evoke. like a sense of like, I mean, first it's, to your point earlier, John, it's supposed to sort of be like, hey, Prague is cool. This is a cool place. This is like cool hip music. These are like cool people. But also I think it's supposed to evoke like a kind of sense of freedom for him. That's what that callback is. Sort of like, this woman lived free in a way, even if she did not ultimately survive this experience. Because he walks out, you know, he hands in his gun on his badge, he climbs out of the sewer where he was in. He has his sort of like recollection to watching her dance. And then he kind of like walks out into the distance. And that to me is like

that very much evokes sort of like, I am free now. Yeah. And it's interesting that like for an action movie, which generally has, um, representations of women that are pretty traditionally feminine and kind of like, I mean, sometimes there's like babes who kick ass. But she's like, you know she's got a short haircut she's presented as kind of this gay hipster or queer at least because she has sexual interest in him apparently you know like it's a little bit different and I wonder how the audience responded to this character and also his relationship to her although it's violent because he kicks her ass a few times in attempt to kidnap her uh which is kind of you know a little uncomfortable yeah there's a scene where he straight up punches her in the liver

He punches her. He tases her. And it's a, you know, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, that with that. But it's interesting. It's not a femininity that you would see. You may, no, I guess you see it. But for the level, for the dumbness of this picture, right? You might see this in a classier film. I think it was kind of going for this whole Euro thing. But it's almost like this is a weird action movie that's like, you know, it's like, trying to take the tropes of 90s European and art cinema and like grab them and be like, oh, we're going to like make this cool looking place. And, you know, it's just kind of funny. And I wonder how an audience going to a Dolph Lundgren picture kind of respond to all that stuff.

And even the representation of him, like other than the violence, he's represented as kind of as kind of sensitive and in private, not a tough, a macho, tough guy, really. I mean, like, he is, but he's got, like, a sensitive side, you know. Yeah, yeah. So there's some interesting gender stuff going on in this movie. I don't know how deep it is. And I don't know, you know, obviously lesbianism has been a long time thing perform for the male gaze.

But this is a little different because, like, they're not, like, represented. it, they're represented, you know, with short haircuts and looking kind of butch. And, like, it's, it's interesting. I thought it was interesting. Your right to clock that is being interesting because it's not, she is, she's very attractive. And we do get a scene when she's finally captured and she's taking a bath. And we do see, we see her topless.

So there's that bat. And that's, like, very clearly for the male gaze. Like, that is for Dolf Lundgren and representing sort of male watchers. That is what that's for. But the scenes of her with her partner are. very much not geared toward a male gaze. No, they're not like lesbians making out type shit. No, no, no.

They're just, it's like it's actual tenderness, like actual care. And that's, I think you're right to note that it's like, it's interesting how this movie does have clear pretensions to be something a little more sophisticated. Yeah. Just another action film. I wonder, I mean, the production was mostly. European, right? This was released in the U.S. Yeah. By Miramax, but this is like mostly European film. I bet Harvey Weinstein watched this.

Oh, I definitely did. And that might just explain it. That just might explain why this is not, this doesn't really seem to be aiming for like the typical kind of like American audience goer when it comes to this kind of movie. Yeah. And I, and I can see. why it wasn't maybe given a mass release, right? You know, like, perhaps they just didn't think it was commercially viable in the States

because of some of these things. And I could, and, you know, it's kind of funny, Mirama, I mean, Miramax obviously was involved in some pretty mainstream Hollywood productions, but obviously he's famous for, for popular art pictures, right? So, like, I think that that's, that's kind of notable, too. It's like, Dolph Longgren's, like, if you want, I'm selling this movie way too hard and I'm idealizing parts of it that are like that are barely there but it's like Dolf Lundgren's weird you know artsy Euro action thriller but it's not that good

it it could you could imagine it being a lot better when you watch a movie you're like man if this movie had a great script and a better plot and better actors like the the background the place where it's set like you could be like, wow, this would have been awesome. Like, the scenes on the trams, like, in, in, in Prague are awesome. Like, the club scene is cool. Like, the house music is cool. Like, it's just got, I think if you're, if you're like a very visual person and,

and you are purely trying to imbibe 90s vibes, you can throw this movie on as, like, the mood board for whatever thing you're working on and be like, you're trying to copy clothing styles from that or you're trying to get the you know like it's so dated in all of its styles that it really is very pure yeah and yeah yeah so i think that that's kind of adds to whatever charms it does have as a movie are definitely involved in that and we've talked about that phenomenon many times where it's like you know the the mediocre films are completely dated and rooted in their times and in some ways are like kind of better artifacts of the era than things that like have stood the test of time and are sort of time less, you know, this is a highly

dated movie under a number of axes. But yeah, it's again, like I think politically it has not a left wing. It's not left wing or liberal or anything. But it is interesting to note that the movie is about trying to save a peace deal. It has some centrally queer character. It has Dolph Lundgren trying to be very sensitive and and and and and and kind and distrusting the structures that he's been put into um and it presents a assassination of the main character or the death of the of the other lead is romantic kind of romantic counterpart romantic in the way that it's faded and doomed in a way i guess you could say as a tragedy and sort of but and he it disgusts him with the whole system. So there's something anti-establishmentarianism. It's infected with its neoliberal

90s, you know, stuff, of course. But like, it's, it's a, yeah, it's a funny little movie. To the extent that there's any kind of explicit political content, I guess it would have to involve U.S.-Cuba relations, which are kind of in an interesting point in the 1990s, because the Soviet Union was like the chief benefactor of Cuba, with its major international sponsor. And so with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Cuba was hit by like real economic hardships. The United States allowed private humanitarian aid to Cuba for the first time during this period. But the U.S. also did not let up on its embargo and actually reinforced it twice in 92 and 96. Interesting in 92 and 86 was our election years, of course.

So I would imagine that they represent an attempt to win the support of Cuban Americans in Florida. I'm looking at this timeline of U.S. Cuba relations. In February of 96, so a couple months after this movie comes out, the Cuban Air Force shot down to Cessna's killing three Cuban Americans and a Cuban U.S. resident, and the Cuban government claimed they had entered Cuban airspace. So, yeah, I mean, this is, it's sort of there's some soft, there's a little softening after the Cold War some hardening as well

but kind of like it's not implausible to imagine as this movie does an attempt to begin to ease up on restriction of the American part and even though the movie does not actually go into what motivates the Cuban plotters

one can it's not hard to you know we watched the what was that movie the package the Andrew Davis film very early on in the podcast which is about US military officials like scuttling, I think some sort of peace deal in order to like maintain

you know, arms production or whatever and it's not hard to imagine that this is basically what's going on in the Cuban set of this movie like kind of a version of that. But they don't elaborate, of course. No, no, no, there's no motivation. That's why I think you're right that this this is the kind of movie that is actually ripe

for a remake. Yeah. You could do something really interesting with just this premise filling it out Um, yeah, getting better actors, but sort of like keeping the bones and trying to, um, it's a little absurd. Like the idea that she's like a freelance assassin, like such things. I guess, all right, it's an action movie. I'll allow it. But, you know, like, there's a whole John Witt, the whole John Wick series is about a world where like, it seems assassins the primary profession.

I tried to get any less like a normal suburban life. Kind of, like, I tried to watch that movie on the plane because I was like, oh, John Wick, I should finally watch that. You know, everybody talks about it. And I started it and, like, his wife sends him a dog at the beginning with some kind of noping, like, I left you. But the dog is that. She died. She died. She died.

She gets killed or she dies? She just dies of cancer. And the dog is sort of point. But she's like, I have to go, but I'm leaving the dog with you. Anyway, the dog. Yeah, anyway, I was just like, I'm turning this shit off. I'm not going to do for this bullshit. Yeah.

I like the John Wick movies quite a bit. But they, I mean, they're absurd in many ways, but kind of like maybe be the biggest absurdity is it. Those movies take place in the world or like literally every other person in the street is like a hired assassin. Right, exactly. It's like the main thing people do is kill each other. Yeah. I mean, how many. the thing about Dolph Lundgren is as sweet as he is in this movie he's not terribly

they don't have terrible chemistry but he's like a big he's not sexy you know like he's like too he's too much of an action star it's not I feel like every time they try like is Arnold ever had a successfully romantic did he really have chemistry with what's her face in true lies Jamie Lee Curtis. Jamie Lee Curtis, not terrible, but like they're not that good at it. You know, like they're just too muscle bound and like there's not, it's too, like, it's too hard for them to look like, I don't know, vulnerable or or even like accessible to the, it's just like this guy is looks like a world wrestling federation character. It's interesting because I don't think, I think you're right that Arnold's never really been a second.

symbol in a movie. He's been like a comedic object, right? Like, he's always sort of hypermasculine or like comedic in some way playing off that hypermasculinity, but not really sexy. No. Same need the same but just alone. No. I mean, I presume I don't want to speak for the world. Presumably many people find them attractive, but they're not put on screen primarily as a sex symbol, unlike, you know, the guys who play Bond or something like that. Right, right. Yeah. I'd say that Van Dam occasionally does it.

Like in Van Dam movies, the fact that, for example, he has, like, a great ass is like a thing that it's like a thing that is. They keep on focusing on his ass. Right, right, right. It's from all those kicks. I think it's blood sport. Is it blood sport that just maybe begins with just like a shot of his ass? Yeah. It's like, yeah, you're a 14-year-old boy.

you come in here to watch a movie called Bloodsport, but first you got to check out John Glad Van Dam's ass, which I'm sure for some 14-year-boys is actually very important. So I don't want to dismiss the experience. We cannot enforce our heteronormative, as this movie teaches us with its queer-coded characters, we cannot enforce our heteronormative gaze onto the films that we're watching. There are many things going on.

And you know, it would be really funny if this movie was like, recovered in a in revival at some art house cinema of like queer cinema from the 90s and then it was like a bunch of movies and it was just like oh yeah and this john cod van dam movie which like is like actually secretly blah blah it would be funny if someone who understood the theory behind this more than than than i do gave this movie like a subversive reading but yeah it's too deep it's not that again we're we're trying our best with this film i will say one thing that this movie had me thinking of just both in it's like queer coding and just like the role of prague in the role

of eastern europe is a more recent movie um atomic blonde which is sort of in the way there's there's actual like we we mentioned john wick this john wick is interesting in terms of a hollywood action picture because like it's very much kind of this return to basics approach to shooting action and one of the uh i believe one of the stunt coordinators on atomic on on rather john wick directed atomic blonde which stars charlie's thereon it has a similar kind of like back to basics kind of gritty action um uh filmmaking and in that movie charlie's thereon's character is is like clearly queer coded and so it's interesting to me that like that and i'm sure i can think of other examples of like characters in eastern europe

Like, movies that typically Eastern Europe or characters have that, that queer coding. It's interesting that, that setting. I think it was the association of the times with, like, an avant-garde kind of culture going on there. Yeah. That was a big part of it. And, like, yeah, Europe being a place of sexual freedom and experimentation, as far as Americans are kind of concerned, that are more. perhaps open to those sorts of things. And also I think it's like safe to place in Europe

because then it's like, oh, these weird Europeans. Like that doesn't make me feel weird. That's just the way Europeans are. Right, right, right, right. Yeah. Versus putting it like, you know, you couldn't. And Americans always think Europeans are a little gay anyway. So, yeah, I feel like that was even like a stock joke in the 90s.

It's like, he's not gay. He's just European. Oh, right. And Euro trash. And eventually that, yeah. he's not gay, he's just European, right? And I think we had more contact with the East and more, you know, globalization, man. We were, it's a global village and we're learning from each other and foreigners are here and we're there.

Trying to think of any other political content movie. Dolph Lundgren's character, his backstory is that his, he was a kid in Prague and his mother ran sort of like a, it seems like an underground newspaper and she was killed. by the secret police. Right. So there's that. Yeah. So, yeah, he has some resentment of the communist system. There's some implication that, like, her assassinations are somewhat, like, even though

she's a business, like, she has somewhat kind of political thing going on. Right. When she asked him, when the Simone character asked him, you know, is that story true? And he says it is. She says, you know, those are the kinds of men that I killed. Right. She's like kind of like a Robin Hood of assassins. I don't know if that's the right analogy.

But you know what I mean. She has, it's highly suggested there's some ideological content to what she's doing or that she's only killing bad people. And the idea that you can have an ideologically coded business, once again, we've seen this many times. It's very 90s. It's like the body shop, you know? It's like, do you remember the body shop?

Do our listeners remember the body shop? I don't know. I don't know the body shop. The buy shop was a thing that was in malls. And it was like, it was like earth friendly, non-animal tested cosmetics. I don't think we had that kind of thing in our malls down in Virginia. Oh, really? Oh.

I thought that was, I thought that was all over the country. But maybe it was only up here in the Northeast. Anyway, it was like, there was lots of businesses that back then that tried to be like, well, we're environmentally conscious. Of course, that's taken over. But that was like really a first thing in the night. 90s. And I think that that's another thing that's not political, but it's like the ideological temper of the time is kind of in there. So, yeah, I don't know. What else can we really say about it?

It's not a terrible movie. It's, I mean, it is a terrible movie. It is as terrible movies go, a fairly harmless, amusing, and it has little glimmers of something greater there, however. would sum it up. I think that's right. It's like I said at the top, I think I think this is like a totally fine picture to watch on like a weekday night. You know, you just want to put something on that's going to be a little nostalgic. I think this does it. And it's like you could imagine a version of this movie that's actually a genuine classic, like much better, much better than it is. But maybe it doesn't have Dolphongren in it. Right. Nothing against him, but let's be real. I like, though, I like, I have a soft spot for all those guys, all those sort of 90s, not quite box office draws, but like reliable, you know, reliable.

This is a genre picture. Yeah. When action was a genre and these kind of B stars or whatever kind of existed. And once again, they don't really make like this anymore. No, I mean, there's John Wick, I guess. There's John Wick, but that really cruises on. Kianu's star power. It's like unless you have...

He's a megastar. Yeah, he's a mega star. He's like one of the biggest... He has been one of the biggest Hollywood stars for almost as long as we have both been alive, right? Like since the early 90s. And so unless you have that kind of star power, Tom Cruise, the other guy,

who has this sort of like maybe the last Hollywood star of a certain kind. So he can, he can, he can, he can, he can convince a studio to give him $200 million to make a movie. But unless you have that kind of star power, it's, like, difficult to get any kind of like non-franchised, non-IP-based action film or adventure film off the ground. And even though the 90s weren't necessarily like a paradise of filmmaking,

although the more I've learned about Hollywood, the more I think it's fair to say that. I'm not sure any period was a paradise. but there was more diversity of stuff on screen in the 90s and it was easier as we've as this podcast is sort of like you know the kind of the the concede of this podcast it was just like easier to finance and release these sorts of like mid to low budget action movies thrillers that would do pretty well at the box office if they were released into theaters right I think you're right.

This wasn't released in the theaters. But this kind of movie would, like, easily do $30, $40, $50 million. Right? Yeah. Not a ton of money, but it'd make its money back. People would go see it. It might get up on HBO. People would watch it on HBO.

And, yeah, and that, that, that, it did decent business. I think, yeah. I think basically what we keep coming back to both commercially and our artistically and aesthetically is in a way the 90s were as a decade of sublime mediocrity, right? Yeah. So there's like a lot of things were just fine and very good or pretty good. And like they delivered a satisfying product.

And it was the sense, you know, back then this, again, with the whole end of history theme on top of that, this was just sort of the way things are going to be, right? There are going to be Dolf Lundgren pictures. That's just, you know, the way the world is and that history is over and now we can count on, you know, a certain amount of movies of this type and a certain amount of movies of that type. And, you know, it's not the best thing in the world. They're not, you know, but we all kind of like it. And, of course, there was some, you know, there was dissatisfaction in the 90s in the 90s, of course. It's famous for it.

But there was a sense that even that was reacting to the mediocrity of the times against it. But there was something kind of reassuring about all that. And I think that that's what comes across in these movies. And I think that that's what a lot of people kind of are nostalgic for about the 90s, is its kind of sense of sublime mediocrity. The Clinton presidency is sort of sublimely mediocre. I mean, he was just didn't do, he wasn't a world, his story. historical figure. He tried to manage the transition out of the Cold War and the country away from

a welfare state. And he wasn't, and he was sort of just a guy, a horny guy. He was not, he was not a Lincoln or a, and everyone sort of liked his regularness. You know, he, I mean, he was like a, it's interesting, because there aren't that many analogs for him. But like, A less, in terms of like his position in the trajectory of the U.S., like kind of like an Eisenhower, like Eisenhower, like Eisenhower, obviously a world historical figure for his role in winning the Second World War. But in terms of Eisenhower's presidency, as presidency was this transitional presidency. It was sort of like a consolidation of the New Deal order. Right. pushing, there are ways in which Eisenhower, like, did push against some elements of what came

out of the New Deal, right? Right. The, uh, especially the, the red scares, um, uh, more or less like killed whatever social democratic promise came out of the 1940s, but the basic, the basic structure of the New Deal state was like, not just left alone, but like built upon during the Eisenhower years. Yeah, and Clinton did that for Reaganism and a lot of. ways to kind of liberally moderated in certain ways, but continue its project in other ways. But it's just like, yeah, I think that that's what's what people miss so much about the 90s

is just the, it's just the feeling of the feeling of mediocrity. There's a restaurant that's going out of business, right, a few blocks from me that's been there since like 1989. It's perfectly, it's not going out of business, it's moving out of its old space. It hasn't changed or updated since the 90s. I love this place because it is. a perfectly decent Italian restaurant. It has no...

When it started, it was like, oh, this is the most amazing place. No one would take another look at this place today. It's completely unremarkable in every way. It's total mediocrity to me, and it's totally being a leftover of that time is so nice and reassuring. I'm like, oh, some things never change. Of course, it has to change. But I think that that's really a huge part of the 90s nostalgia.

is it's its sense of, you know, comfort. Like also just think about all the video, like it just provided so many. I think people just miss the sheer amount of entertainment provided all the video game systems. You had so many VHS tapes. And now everyone's like, it was so lovely to have this kind of pluralistic, so many different movies you could rent, so many different video games you could play. Their graphics are not that good.

The movies are okay. But we love it. You know, like, there's just something about that I think people miss a great deal. And I got to tell you, I mean, I don't think we'd be doing this podcast if we didn't do. No, I agree with that. I mean, I, and I have said, I've said before that I do think that the diversity of things that you could find on screen, even if it was often, often the fact that some filmmakers got opportunities was entirely opportunistic in further studios, even if things weren't. perfect. I mean, people in the moment complained about all the sequels that seem to dominate 90s cinema. But, like, you could, right? Like, on a given weekend in 1995, you could on a

Friday go with your partner to see Apollo 13, and then the next day, go with your kids to see Toy Story. And then maybe if you were a crazy person and did three movies in a weekend, you could go on Sunday and see, I don't know, I'm sure like Waterworld came out that year. I mean, lots of stuff came out in 95. You could go see a Batman movie. I mean, there was just a lot of stuff if you wanted to see it was available. And people felt people went to the movies. It was like a thing people did.

I have firm memories of watching my parents open up the newspaper and just being like, okay, what's playing? Yeah, exactly. What's playing? I had, when I was doing research for my book, I had almost Proustian memory moments reading, looking at the, when I was reading newspapers for the book

and seeing the advertisement, the newspaper advertisements, and remembering when that movie was in theaters and remember going with my parents or remembering wanting to see the movie and not being allowed to and stuff like that. It was pretty, almost moving. And I was like, yeah, man, like that was fun. It was fun to look it up in the

newspaper. It was fun like it had a special, everything had a special place, you know? And now you just, everything's on the computer. Now all day, everything was with the internet and the social media. Something like that. Well, I'll say pornography. One interesting thing about this past summer is that we had kind of a moment that seemed to have been culturally lost, which is people went to go see Barbie and Oppenheimer just because, hey, that's a movie. I feel like I should go see. Yeah. Right.

And I think Oppenheimer really felt like an old Hollywood, an old Hollywood movie. Oh, a Hollywood movie from this era more sometimes than a newer movie. And I really, I was like, it's kind of stupid at points, but I like what it's trying to do. And like, yeah. Barbie, I don't want to talk about it. But like the, yeah. But I think that people are like, you know what? it is nice to go to the movies.

It's special to go to the movies. And this seems like a movie I should go see, right? Like it must see it because everyone is seeing it. I don't, it's not necessarily the kind of movie I, I would like to see, but people are seeing it. People are talking about it. So I should go see it. And that feels like a kind of different approach to movie going than like the recent, the recent past 10 years where it's like, oh, well, if this isn't, if this isn't

Avengers, you know, infinity Ultron. I say that, like, I don't know what the movies are called. Of course, you know what the movies are called. I'm not doing it. But unless it's one of those, I'm not going to go see the movie. But this felt like kind of old school in a lot of ways. We got to wrap up. Okay.

I got to go pick up my kids soon. So let's go. Let's, let's, let's, let's, let's, let's, uh, let's wrap up a bit. That is our show. If you're not a subscriber, please subscribe. We're available on iTunes, Spotify, Shitra Radio, and Google Podcast. and wherever else podcast are found. If you subscribe, please leave a rating and a review.

And you can reach out to us on social media if you want to. I say that and I usually, that social media here just means Twitter. But like, I'm barely on there. I don't know. I've deactivated because of the war in Palestine and Israel. Yeah, we have not talked about that on this. Maybe we'll find a way to talk about that at some point.

But yes, it's horrible over there because. of the conflict. So you can find me on blue sky and threads if you're interested in that. Otherwise, really the best way to reach out to us at this point is our feedback email, unclear and pressing feedback at fastmail.com. And also just on Patreon. If you are on Patreon, if you subscribe to the Patreon podcast, then you can leave comments and its messages, which we will reply to.

There's sort of like a chat on the iOS app that I started using and popping in to talk to people you can contact us that way so patreon is like if you want to if you want to chat um patreon is is like the best way to reach out to us on a regular basis beyond the feedback email so i'll just throw that out there um for this week in feedback we have an email from jason titled twelve monkeys so a comment on our recent 12 monkeys episode people are really obsessed with that episode people like it um yeah i think people are obsessed with that movie okay Okay. But also I think it's a good episode. All right.

So here's Jason. I love the show and enjoy the latest episode on 12 Monkeys. You both did a great job of teasing out the political and ideological pathology specific to the 90s as usual. With relation to the themes of memory and time, I wanted to pass on to you the important connections between this film and Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo via LaJette. Legette being the short The 12 Monkeys is kind of an adaptation of. I suspect that might not be the only one to bring this to your attention. Chris Marker, director of Leggett, is one of the most important experimental filmmakers of the 20th century. Although highly regarded for Leggett, this film essay work that he later made is perhaps even more exceptional.

This work might be challenging in a conventional narrative sense, but it is brilliant, overtly political. These later films center on an examination of cinema, time, and memory, through which he processes the after effects of May 68 and historical tragedy. And then Jason offers a place where you can watch some of these if we are so inclined. Marker has been direct in explaining that Legit is intended as a dialectical interrogation of Vertigo released three years prior. As a lover of physical media, Jamel, it is worth noting that in these days before home viewing, films would become largely inaccessible after leaving theaters. This is my parenthetical. I was reading a Roger Ebert essay or something, and he writes about. like in the 60s like you know obtaining prints to screen of movies and it'd be like you know

if you if you didn't catch we didn't catch the birds in theaters i mentioned the birds because i just watched it last night if you didn't catch the birds in theaters when it came out that it might be years before you ever saw it again right um yeah uh okay so on one level legit is a resurrection of vertigo manifested from memory hitchcock is of course known for concealing complex themes and narratives within a pot-boiler veneer, Vertigo is perhaps a supreme example and a film itself dealing with memory and the image. There are, therefore, layers upon layers of recursive reflections going on here. I won't go into detail, but there's plenty of material on this relationship in the offers another YouTube link. What is interesting is how clearly this is

also being examined in 12 Monkeys. It's the most obvious example being the scene where Willis and Stowe watch Vertigo in the theater. There are many more examples you can discover throughout the film, including the opening shot of the eye. One of my favorite interpretations is the one John explored, that the film Twelve Monkeys is possibly all in the imagination of Willis's character. You can make the same case for all three films. It is possible, for instance, to read Vertigo as occurring in the mind of Stewart as he convales in the hospital, everything before and after that moment being the product of his imagination.

Much more canon has been written on all of this. I just wanted to point it out to you. Personally, I have a lot of fun thinking. about how these films work together. I also cannot recommend Marker's essay films more. I do hope you give them a chance. Jason. Thank you, Jason, for a phenomenal email.

This is super interesting. Yeah, that's good stuff. That's good stuff. The only thing that I have a problem with that, in which I tried to raise with that whole, it could be happening in their imagination, is that I think it feeds into the kind of solipsism that Tara Gilliam kind of indulges in.

Okay, it could be happening. Everything could be in our imagination. What then? I don't know. Right. So, I mean, unless you're saying, oh, isn't it interesting that this is some kind of response to the world? I don't know. Sometimes I get a little impatient with that. But the points that you raised are very interesting.

And yeah, Chris Marker, when I was younger, I was very interested and I haven't have to re-explore. Yeah, I think with 12 monkeys and with Vertigo, the fact that there's a textual basis for the argument that it could be the imagination of the of the yeah protagonist i think makes those theories like more um palatable to me right uh i'm i'm i'm otherwise very opposed to sort of a very common it was all a dream yeah it was all a dream kind of thing i i hate that shit like unless there's unless there is evidence in the text that that might be true then i i really have no tolerance for the last most recent argument i've seen to this effect that i thought was actually good even if I don't agree was, I think, was it Dan Cois?

My old colleague at Slate made this argument about Tar that the moment at which Lydia Tar kind of like bangs her head on the stairs is when you enter kind of a dream state within the film. I don't think that's the case. No way, dude. But it was, it was a good enough, good enough argument. I love that movie, by the way, going to recommend that people watch Tar. It's good.

I also love the joke that Lydia Tar is. a real person. I think it's very funny. We're all just a dream in the mind of Lydia Tar. When you die, you see Lydia Tar conducting the orchestra. Yes. That's the real meaning of the movie. Thank you, Jason, for a great email. And I will include the links you provided to us in the show notes. And I'm going to check this stuff out, too. episodes come out every two weeks

And so we're going to see you then With an episode in a movie we accidentally skipped I was looking over our master list And I was like there's something we missed And I remember what it was We missed the 1994 remake of John Frankenheimer's Seven Days in May A movie called The Enemy Within

Starring Forrest Whitaker That I would like to watch Yes So we're going to watch The Enemy Within And then on the Patreon I said we did the Patreon episode last week And I said then that our next episode is going to be this Larry Cohen film on Jake Hoover. But I think that if we're going to do the enemy within for the next main feed,

then we should do seven days in May for the Patreon, which is paired the two up. And then we can get back to Larry Cohen later. So I'll let people know on the Patreon in the chat. And here, if you're listening, you'll know that our next Patreon episode is going to be seven days in May. and then that will be next week, and then the week after we'll do the enemy within for the main feed. So that's the next two episodes, Patreon main feed. So check those out.

Here's a brief plot synopsis, I guess, of both movies. An officer with the joint chiefs of staff uncovered is a planned military coup of the U.S. government and has only one week to prevent the takeover. The enemy within is available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and YouTube, and I think it's probably available to stream on HBO Max since it was an HBO movie originally. And you should also watch

7 Days in May, which is a great movie. You should watch John Frankenheimer's movies in general. You mentioned Ronan. John, Ronan is a late Frankenheimer. The Frankenheimer, I think, is one of the most underrated Hollywood directors. Just a tremendously impressive

command of like action cinematography and directing, but also he directed the Manchurian candidate. He directed Seconds. A phenomenal movie. He directed the train, a great action film. Grand Prix, another great action movie, a car movie.

So Frankenheimer, one of the greats, and we're going to dive into his work a little bit with Seven Days in May. So that's those in the next episodes. I mentioned the Patreon already multiple times, but the Patreon is patreon.com slash unclear pod. It's $5 a month, two episodes a month. Our latest episode is, I mean, 1979, kind of jails. FK Conspiracy Thriller Fars Winter Kills,

stars a very young and handsome Jeff Bridges, a very funny John Houston. So a weird movie. We had a, we tried our best to get something out of that film, but you can listen to that episode and much more again at patreon.com slash unclear pod. $5 a month. And you can join about 800 other people.

in hearing us talk about the movies of the Cold War era. For John Gans, I'm Jamo Bowie, and we will see you next time.