Unclear and Present Danger - In the Line of Fire

Episode Date: July 24, 2022

In this, our twentieth episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John watched the hit 1993 thriller “In the Line of Fire,” directed by Wolfgang Petersen and starring Clint Eastwood, Rene Russo and John Malkovich. They discuss Eastwood’s career and star persona, the anti-political apathy of the 1990s, and the “end of history” vibes of Eastwood and Malkovich’s characters.Contact us!Follow us on Twitter!John GanzJamelle BouieLinks from the episode!New York Times front-page for July 9, 1993A 2010 Guardian profile of Clint Eastwood.New York Times review of “The Defiant Ones.”

Three shots have been fired at President John Kennedy's He received an unconfirmed report from Dallas. It was his job to safeguard the destiny of a nation. Today America mourns the loss of President John... But at the critical moment, he was a split second too late. Now, after a lifetime of second thoughts and second guesses, Secret Service Agent Frank Horrigan is about to get yet a second chance.

Yeah. Frank Oregon? Yeah. Clint Eastwood. In the line of fire. Welcome to the 20th episode of Unclear 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'm a freelance journalist. I write a substack newsletter called Unpopular Front, and I'm working on a book about American politics in the early 1990s.

Today, we are talking about the 1993 action thriller in the line of fire, directed by the German blockbuster impresario, Wolfgang Peterson, and starring Clint Eastwood, John Malkovich, and Renee Russo, among just a murderous row of character actors, including John Mahoney, Fred Thompson, Gary Cole, Tobin Bell, and Dylan McDermott. Here is a short plot synopsis. Veteran Secret Service agent Frank Horrigan is a man haunted by his failure to save President Kennedy while serving protection detail in Dallas. 30 years later, a man calling himself Booth threatens the life of the current president, forcing Horrigan to come back to protection detail to confront the ghost from his past. Before we get started, if you've not seen this movie, you should watch the movie. It's extremely watchable, so you'll have a great time.

And it is available to buy or rent on either iTunes or Amazon. It is available for streaming on Hulu, which is how I watched it. And before we get to the meet of our conversation, let's look at the New York Times page for the day of release, July 9th, 1993. It's all you, yours, John. All right. Let's see what we got here. Actually, strangely enough, some weird echoes with the present, as often as often. is the case. Seven nations hasten aid Russia will push for growth and trade. So leaders agree to hold

session on unemployment. There was a concern that if Russia wasn't supported, that it might tip back into some kind of tyrannical government with nationalistic rather than communist leanings and menace its neighbors and so on and so forth. I mean, that didn't happen. No, exactly. But I don't know all the details, but it's obvious that the aid was not enough. I think that the policy of, I mean, the story's well known, the policy of allowing the transition from capitalism to capitalism be extremely abrupt and shocked. I think the term they actually use was shock doctrine was devastating for Russia and contributed eventually the of Putin and the aid in support of the United States and other industrialized countries was counterproductive in some cases and insufficient in others. So there's that. Then it's a hundred degrees of latitude in a New York meltdown.

So there was a, on this day, there was a giant heat wave in New York. And we are also currently living through heat waves across the United States. in Europe right now. I don't know that they connected this with climate change yet, which I think was still sort of a new, newish thing. It was called global warming first, and then because of the complications of it, they prefer to call it climate change now. But yeah, there's no angle on this about what's going on in the world, but just more kind of a human interest story of what it's really hot in New York and it can be dangerous. Candidate to lead, New York schools withdraws again, war and politics clog Azerbaijan's

Road to Riches. Well, there was a war that dated back, because this is right around the collapse of the Soviet Union between Azerbaijan and Armenia over a disputed territory. Part of this conflict, there were massacres, pogroms as the Soviet Union collapsed. And this is discussing Azerbaijan's oil riches, but the difficulties they have coming out of this period of war with Armenia. As I'm the right alley of the president then. I think there's still the president now. And they seem to have done all right at integrating themselves in the international trade community, despite, you know, what all kinds of horrible things the regime has done.

Oh, hey, we were just talking about this in our last episode. rebuking the U.S. jury acquits two and marshals killing in Idaho siege. This is the Ruby Ridge trial. And they acquitted the people hold up on Weaver's Homestead who shot and killed a federal marshal. And I think the jury found it to be in self-defense, which was pretty remarkable. It was a jury in federal court in Boise. So it was in the region, but this is like, you know, This is not a local jury. It's a federal, this was a federal case. I think, you know, that might have as much to do with the sympathies in the region,

but I think it also just has to do, it had to do with the, you know, egregious malfeasance of the federal government. So that was an interesting little echo of what we were just talking about. And seven executed in Egypt and sharp cracked down Islamic militants. That's the regime always having trouble with the Muslim Brotherhood and people to their right, I suppose he could say. And pretty much that's what's of interest on the page for us. This one has a lot of echoes today and a lot of echoes with what we've been talking about on the show. Yes, the last thing I'd point out is just on the section that tells you what else is inside.

there's a little headline on streets ruled by guns two women are hit one fatally about shootings in brooklyn involving random gunfire now in this case right the early 90s we're still kind of we're in the drug war era that's sort of the the the ramping up of it although interestingly enough if you look at charts of the national murder rate and the murder rate in New York City this is pretty much at the peak of homicides in the country. After this, there's kind of a sharp decline continuing on into the 2000s and really kind of continuing on to the past couple of years where there's been an increase, but even that

increase is nowhere near the peak here in 93. So this is sort of a different kind of gun violence and what we tend to talk about these days, but it is just worth noting that sort of random gun violence is a very, very, very, much concern in the early 1990s as it will continue to be and grow as a concern over the next 30 years so there's that maybe we'll get actually into it later in this episode because there's some stuff with guns but it led to them actual policy changes in the 90s yes you know assault weapons ban and stuff like that yeah um yeah so that's the news that's all the news that's fit to print from friday july 9 1993 all right well let's let's talk about this movie um before we get into you know

plot and thematic stuff. Let's talk about some of the key players, some of the people involved because this is kind of, this is a big movie for the major actors and the director. I think it's sometimes easy to forget in this current age of sequels and superheroes how not that long ago big blockbuster hits could be basically sort of like adult-oriented thrillers. And this is what this is. And it was a big blockbuster hit. So it's directed by Wolfgang Peterson, who at this point is pretty, he's well into a Hollywood career. His first big film was the German language submarine film Das Boot, which was released in

1981. This next fact, I did not know, his follow-up to Das Boot was the never-ending story. The much-beloved children's movie also made outside the United States. But it was a big hit in the United States It grossed about $100 million on a roughly $26 million budget So big success He kind of gets into Hollywood in the mid-80s He's sort of a contemporary with Paul Verhoeven

Who gets into the Hollywood game around the same time And he does a couple of movies that aren't all that successful There's the science fiction drama enemy mine With Dennis Quaid and Lewis Gassett Jr. yeah i've seen that actually there is that's that's a weird movie um it's sort of like two war you know a human and an alien kind of a buddy cop kind of thing they have to learn to work together it feels like a weird remake of the fugitive kind is that is that what the movie i'm thinking of um let me look that up real quick they crash they crash into the alien planet they're

on the opposite side of this intergalactic war yeah what's it there's like a there's like a movie where it's like a Japanese soldier or an American or British or Australian soldier, a similar thing that they built it off of. I watched, again, like many of these movies, I think I watched it on TV when I was homesick from school. And I should say sick in air quotes

because I faked it a lot. Yes, and I got that previous one wrong. The Fugitive Kind is a totally different movie. It's a Sydney Lumet. It feels like a remake of Stanley Cramer's The Defiant Ones, which is Sidney Poitier and Tony Cure. Curtis as two escape prisoners, one white, one black, who are literally shackled together by handcuffs and must cooperate to survive. Very treakly movie. People loved it at the time,

but if you watch it today, you'll be like, come on. Come on. Here's the great book of its day. Yes, except without, except without, you know, Vigo Mortensen doing a delightful Italian accent, Italian-American accent. Okay, so he does, this is Wolfgang Peterson, does in 91 Shattered, which is a psychological thriller starring Tom Berringer from The Sniper, Bob Hoskins and Greta Scatchy, Skatee, I'm not really sure I'd say a last name. And then in Line of Fire is sort of the next movie after that. And really his first big Hollywood hit, it earned 187 million.

million dollars on a 40 million dollar budget just kind of gangbusters numbers and more less gave peterson license to do whatever he wanted next and his next films his next two films are going to be on this podcast that their outbreak the pandemic movie starring dustin hopman and rousseau again um and then air force one uh or or as i like to call it uh the story of president punch uh starring harrison ford um we will discuss those movies at length on this podcast and then after that i mean it's weird i i somehow thought he was still making movies but he does the perfect storm in 2000 then troy which is a critical failure but makes pretty good money and then this you know forgotten film like this film doesn't exist poseidon which came out

in o six and now he's pretty much out of the game so that's wolf king peterson was that a remake of the Poseid disaster? I think so. Yeah. I think it was, but I never, I've never seen it. I honestly had never even heard of it. So the Poseid, and I've heard about the Poseid, the original film. So, Clint Eastwood, who stars in the Let of Fire, is kind of at the, it's hard to say he

was at the height of his powers because he has just been in the game for so long. but he was he was doing very well he's very comfortably in his career as a director and kind of an elder statesman of Hollywood dramas and thrillers the previous year was unforgiven which he directed and started a great kind of revisionist western that won that was nominated for nine academy awards and won four including best actor and best director for eastwood also in 93 in addition to in the land of fire was a perfect world which was a kind of a small crime drama starring himself, Kevin Costor and Laura Dern. It earned, again, these are, I just find these numbers are crazy. It earned $135 million in a $30 million budget, just like people would just go to the theaters to see intelligent dramas. Yeah.

Who'd have thought? I think the following year or the year after, Clinties would really notice that the churn out movies. This is kind of why the studios love them so much. But I think the following year was the Bridges of Madison County, which he directed and started in with Meryl Streep. I'm going to just say the numbers on this one because it costs half as much to make as in the land of fire, $22 million and earned $182 million. It's just that's staggering numbers. And he kind of continues through the decade with absolute power and true crime, which are movies we'll cover on this podcast, absolute power especially because it's basically clinging.

Eastwood witnessing the Lewandig scandal and being like, oh, it's terrible. Obviously, the other kind of big actor in this movie is John Malkovich, who was sort of like moderately famous at the time. He had already received one Academy Award nomination for a Great Depression period piece called Places in the Heart. And he got a second for this movie, which I find very funny. Because it's just like a bonkers performance. It's like very, it's very sort of like high intensity and kind of like big.

And it's funny to me that the Academy was like, yeah, let's give him a nomination for this one. And then Reni Russo was more or less at the start of her career at this point. She had been in Lethal Weapon 3 a couple years earlier. She would show up in a lot of stuff over the next few years. One role that I want to highlight real quickly is she was in the remake of a Thomas Crown Affair with Pierce Brosnan. And that's a fun, great movie. So those are the big names. And like I said, there's lots of character records you will immediately recognize this movie right from the start.

You know, there's in Dylan McDermott. I think Dylan McDermott, right? Yeah, not Dermott & Moroni. And Tobin Bell, who if you are a horror hound, you'll recognize from the Saw movies. He's the Jigsaw Killer. And he just said, I mean, the guy looks like a serial killer, unfortunately for Tobin. Bell, but that's just how his face is. And, yeah, I noticed Joshua Molina at one point.

It's like a Secret Service agent, just like there are tons of people in this movie. That makes it a lot of fun to watch. Yeah. Let's get into it. I feel like this is a kind of a companion piece with JFK, another sort of, like, traumatized boomer movie. Absolutely. I mean, it's difficult to, I mean, kind of took it for granted when I was younger, but it's kind of difficult to recall and the obsession with the JFK SS.

at the time, like in the importance people gave to it as a turning point in the country's history, as like maybe the turning point in the country's history, you know, more than Vietnam or the election of Nixon or the election of Reagan. It was sort of every disaster that happened after it was said, well, you know, if the if the JFK assassination hadn't happened, then all this would be different. So there was this whole alternate history that was imagined with JFK not happening. This movie definitely participates in a lot of those things, those myths, and like this guy, this is who must be older, really, than a baby boomer. Well, he's Clint Eastwood, but he was a, you know, a Secret Service agent, as you mentioned,

who failed to protect the president. And, you know, this is sort of a great burden on him personally and professionally. And he's sort of looking for redemption in the movie. It centers on this idea that the Secret Service would take a bullet for. for the president. So the would-be assassin is sort of mocking him that he didn't have the courage to sacrifice himself for the president. So the movie's kind of set around this conceit of can we redeem the country and this secret service agent as representative of, you know, his generation, I suppose, or as the movie kind of spells out in other places as kind of like

older white men, is he willing to sacrifice himself for the country and, you know, set things back on course, redeem himself. The movie also kind of suggests that this president is no great shakes and is not like worth it in a certain way. He's not Kennedy, you know, like the suggestion was that, you know, like the Secret Service agent was close with Kennedy, too, on a personal level somehow. And Kennedy was sort of suggested to be this great man. This new president is kind of a mediocrity.

So the drama centers on that. And the other part of it is that there's a, we've seen this before. in many of these other movies, there's a split, right? And two, there's good government and bad government. So there's the Secret Service protecting the president, the good feds. And then the villain is a former CIA guy, a CIA assassin. And we've seen this many, many times where there's like, there's like the evil side of the national security state and the defense bureaucracies. And then there's the kind of good side of it, the honorable people and the Secret Service are,

presented that way. The movie kind of deals with some gender politics or changing workplace politics, which were big in the early 90s. René Russo's character being one of the few women who are in the Secret Service. But yeah, this movie really, I think really resonated with people a lot because of the Kennedy stuff. And this guy, the serial killer is obsessed with the assassination of Kennedy, even though he calls himself Booth after Lincoln's killer. When they first track him down, he's got all this house with all this Kennedy assassination by mobility. Yes. Even if the movie isn't particularly political, there is actually just a lot of stuff in here that I think it touches on and that I think helps explain why it read. I mean, it's an exciting film, but I think I think the extent to which it touched on things that would have been recognizable to the audience is part of what made it such a big success.

And so I guess where I'll start is just with the movie being centered around an assassination plot. And I think, you know, it's been at this point, what, almost over 40 years since anyone's actually really tried to kill a president, like anyone other than a pretzel, right? Yeah. And so I feel like I've made this point in writing before. But Americans today are like weirdly sort of distant from. political violence, like really explicitly political violence in a way that is quite historically unusual that the United States, for most of its history, has been a place kind of like soaked in political violence, just a recurring part of our politics. And for an audience in the

1993, you would just have been, in addition to not being all that removed from Kennedy's assassination, just being 30 years removed, right? You'd also be just, what, a little, over 10 years removed from the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan. There is an attempt on Gerald Ford. There is an attempt on George Wallace. There's obviously Bobby Kennedy. There's M.K. I mean, for adults, for someone in their 40s or their 50s,

either someone of Clinton, basically either Eastwood's age or younger, an immediate memory you've experienced or seen kind of like multiple attempts of like killing political leaders. And I think I think that's still. really resonated with people, especially since this is also sort of contemporaneous with the stuff we discussed last week, sort of like the militia movement and sort of right-wing extremism and sort of proliferation of guns and high crime. There's sort of a nod to high crime when Eastwood, I think when he's undercover at the beginning talking to Tobin Bell's guys and like, oh, you're packing,

you have a gun. He's like, I live in a bad neighborhood in D.C. All of this stuff is as part of why the movie lands with people also as you as you mentioned john the kind of gender politics the the white male anxiety stuff which is like again not a big part of the movie but is very much there eastwood um being this something of an anachronism kind of a dinosaur within the secret service uh someone who's clearly uncomfortable with women in the secret service who sort of is trying to like grapple with all of that even if we're going to discuss other eastwood movies on this podcast this may be where i kind of begin to make my defense of cladiswood sort of the explain why i actually like him a lot as an actor and as a director and even though he's not

directing this movie i have to imagine that eastwood had some input in the crafting of this character given given who he is absolutely um and it's interesting right that like the hero is this he's an older man, he's kind of out of shape. He's always like huffing and puffing and he's sweaty and he's red and he's sort of like a little, like out of step with everyone else. And some of that out of stepness is in a way that's supposed to like, you know, make you like him kind of like, oh, this is an old fashioned kind of guy. But some of that out of stepness is like literally just like he isn't up for it anymore. He's like he's paranoid and he's not as quick as he used to be and all these things that are subversive to Eastwood's own persona as a Hollywood leading man, right?

Sort of like he is, Eastwood in this movie is sort of like, if you compare him to Dirty Harry, at least in like the first two Dirty Harry movies, it's like, you know, this is not the kind of vigorous, you know, hyper-competent, confident character of Dirty Harry. Magnum Force. It is a guy who probably should have retired and who is now struggling somewhat to deal with the crisis before him. And I just find that interesting as far as like Eastwood being willing to play that kind of character in such a big picture, right? This isn't like a small film. This is like a Hollywood blockbuster and him kind of really underscoring his age and tweaking his image in ways he'll continue to do throughout his career up until

up until the present yeah i mean i mentioned that to you like he's been playing this role of like the guy who's really too old to do his job anymore for 30 years which is kind of funny he's he's really old now um but like yeah i mean this rule is a kind of a rule that he's he's made his own which is you know kind of crusty cranky old white guy who still has something who people think is past this prime, but still has something to contribute and kind makes his peace with a little bit like Robert Duvall's character in falling down, but sort of has figured out the way to make his peace with the way things are going in the world, having women as co-workers, minorities, so on and so forth.

You know, he's not thrilled about it, but he's found, he's trying to have a role for himself and show that he still, you know, has something to contribute and maybe a certain amount of wisdom and intelligence to contribute that other people don't have. It's also like a post-historical thriller, which is something that we've dealt with on the show, because it's like both like the villain who's like a mirroring, who's John Malkovich's former CIA assassin, and Eastwood's character are like, kind of like, well, what does our role in this country even mean anymore? The great ideological struggle is over. Maybe Eastwood feels like. like he missed his chance to do what he needed to do.

They have these mocking telephone conversation, but part of their conversation is like, what do we really mean? You know, we used to be useful parts of this apparatus. And now we're sort of cast the side. And Eastwood's reaction is just like, this is my job. This is what I do. He has a sense of duty.

And he's like, well, I don't care. You know, my feelings about it don't matter. Like I made a commitment. I have to complete my duty. And the psychopathic Malcovich character, decided, you know, he's going to exact a measure of revenge as he puts her or another character puts it one way. And he's completely not integrated into the society anymore. He's just murdering people left and right. So there's just two different ways in which, you know, like these

slightly outcasts are not totally integrated into society perfectly anymore. People are, you know, one is kind of grumpy and the other one has gone totally insane. Again, like which way, Western men sort of thing going on there. So, you know, we've talked about the kind of folk devils of American movies of this kind, like freaks and creeps like Travis Bickle. But Malcovich's character is something else, which is I can't, I feel like it's a stock character. I feel like it's a, it's an archetype of some kind, but I can't put my finger on where

else it appears. He's a kind of hobbyist. He's very handy. You see this in lots of serial killer things where these are very meticulous, fastidious. And it sort of suggests that these subcultures of hobbyists and model builders, which allows him the technique to build this gun

that can get through the metal detector, which people, when this movie came out and I remember them talking about, I thought it was a really neat conceit in the movie. He's kind of a part of a weird and slightly suspect subculture and a creep and a, and like, and not exactly like a dark nerd but in a way getting in that territory so yeah there's just like

these two different ways in which you can kind of be not fully part of the team or the crowd anymore and eastwood's character sort of presented as being like well you can you can still you can still make a con be yourself be an individual and make a contribution and sort of like not this character like Malkovich, who's completely become unmoored from any moral or social conventions. And it's just, you know, it's kind of his motivation is bizarre. And I guess he's crazy, right? But his motivation is bizarre. He, why he doesn't even really want to kill this guy?

He's playing some kind of game. That's the two things. Like, here are the two post-historical possibilities that the movie presents is there's either duty, which is, you know, it doesn't, there may not be any greater ideological reason for what you're doing. but you do your job because it's your job. That's just, yeah. Or this other guy is playing this kind of like Nietzschean,

I'm over morality game, right? Where he's like fucking around with the secret service agent and he's trying to test himself against him and he's using his skills he learned as a CIA assassin. So there's just two different ways of interacting with post-historical life, which is one, you just do your duty as you, did before, even though it's become unmoored from something that made sense to you, like, say, the presidency defined by John F. Kennedy, or you just become, like, a hobbyist. But this guy's

hobby, like, he's literally a hobbyist. He's making these marble cars. But he's also, like, a psychopathic hobbyist who's trying to test himself, play this game of wits to see if he can assassinate a president. Yeah, Malkovich's character seems to both embody the kind of bringing the war home aspect of these things that we were talking about the last episode. The CIA agent character in the movie calls him and he says like he's not just a killer. He's a predator. Right. So sort of like an apex assassin. But also I think you hit on something right. He's sort of like a like a Roskalinoakov kind of character. At least Ross Kalenikov in the beginning of crime and punishment worries. Like I can I can kind of overcome traditional morality to do this

commit this act of pure will and that really seems to be Malcovich's character's main motivation just sort of he wants to kill the president because it would sort of it would help him sort of like put a stamp on history right sort of he would demonstrate his own will

as an historical actor you know as we talk about Malcovich I just have to say I've already referred to this performance as bananas but it really is I mean it's not just that Malcovich has that that sort of not quite manic energy, but just sort of like unhinged energy the entire time that he uses to great effect.

But then everyone might see this movie. I forget certain scenes. Like I forget the scene where he is done up in the costume and sort of the downtown park. I can't quite figure out a park that is as a former D.C. guy, this part of this movie look quite D.C. other parts you're like, that's not D.C. but he's like you know malcovic is like ratty and wearing this wig and has his gold tooth and it's very silly there's a scene where he snaps two women's necks yeah my god it's pretty disturbing it's very disturbing and i always forget about it just like he comes to the house and then like you know he just like

he kills them and i i know he kills them that's the thing i always remember that he kills them but the neck snapping i thought he shoots them right right i thought he shoots them or something but no he doesn't and he doesn't just snap their necks the camera straight up like you watch him snap their next it's it's a crazy scene to be in the middle of a hollywood blockbuster it's like it's um it's this is going to sound terrible but it's moments like this that really knock this up a notch they really make this the kind of you know thing you keep returning to uh watching john mokovic just snap next left and right so um that's that's that part of the movie. But as for the more thematic stuff, yeah, I think I think you're right about sort of the kind

of person, which is supposed to be, and sort of the kind of reaction to the, the quote, end of history that you, that he may represent in contrast to Eastwood, who is, yeah, who does sort of embody traditional masculine duties, sort of these are the things that we do because we are, we are supposed to do them. Yeah. And he's also a hobbyist. He plays jazz, which is a normal, nice, good hobby, not a creepy hobby. Yeah.

Yeah. Now it is, you know, when Eastern was a child, it was a, it was a dangerous hobby, you know. Right, right. Yeah. Because I've spent so much time, you know, in my adult life covering, you know, partisan politics, electoral politics. I can't help but notice when these things are in. movies and how they're presented. And one thing I thought was interesting was how, you know,

we get the impression that the president isn't particularly popular. At one point, his chief of staff played by Fred Thompson says that they're down like 12.6 weeks before the election, which, you know, thinking about modern presidential elections, if you're down 12 points in October, or I guess this would be late September, you're probably going to lose. I would just give up at that point. But not a popular president. And we get, snippets of speeches from the president as he's doing his campaign tours in competitive states, California and Georgia. Another thing that just, I raise my eyebrow, I guess in the early 90s, California was still somewhat competitive on national elections. Georgia was too, because

didn't Clinton win Georgia? I think Clinton won Georgia. Maybe not. He won some sudden stage. Yeah. We hear these speeches and they're more or less like content free, right? This should have just like generic, generic political. Right, right. And, you know, it does make me think of this attitude that was prevalent in the 1990s in American politics, which is that there's no longer any meaningful political conflict between the two parties, right? That they're all, they're basically the same.

This is a little later in the decade, but, you know, more for Gore, the son of a drug lord, none of the above. It's raised against the machine. that was like be very much the attitude and you see it all throughout pop culture in the 90s it's sort of like it's like a dominant theme in American pop culture that um electoral politics is essentially completely meaningless has no real important anyone's life and even though the movie doesn't really like say that out right I just think that the way the president is presented also is kind of a coward right someone who's like very very afraid of physical harm and at least like touches on this um this view that you know none of this really matters uh in terms of partisan politics i mean that's just like the presidency lost its aura associated with kennedy the cold war the president's kind of commander in chief and so and so forth and now it's just kind of a stupid almost embarrassing functionary who you see this in

other movies like Canadian Bacon who's sort of like an idiot who's just trying to get reelected. The the magnitude of the office and its duties is not emphasized. I mean, it starts to come back later in the decade, I think. But like, yeah, there's this diminution of politics and the presidency, which this movie definitely participates in. And at the same time is really building it up. But it's only building up insofar as he's trying to save, he's trying to redeem the past. You know, it's like only like, oh, I'm doing what I couldn't do.

I'm doing my duty, even though he's not as good at president as Kennedy, sort of just an idiot. We still go through the motions, even though we don't feel like it, so on and so forth. And that's, like, sort of the attitude towards politics that I think, like, a lot of people had the time it's like, well, I don't want to vote, even though they're all idiots. There's definitely that. I want to touch a little bit on the gender policy stuff that we mentioned, like, so René Russo is playing, you know, a young, youngish compared to Clint Eastwood.

Secret Service agent who's a woman. I'm trying to figure out how old she is now. She must be in her 30s, no? Yeah, she must be because she's in her 60s now. She would actually have been like just about the hit 30. Oh, okay. So really young from my perspective. So she was in her 20s and he was in his, I don't know, 50s or 60s at this point.

But yeah, so they strike up this kind of bantering for Tase's relationship where he's not, doesn't exactly. respect her. And she kind of meets him on this level of banter that's really from an earlier era of movies, 40s, 50s, 30s, kind of romantic comedies where this kind of saucy dialogue between men and women, which is fun. But in the, it's, you kind of cringe too, because you're like, this is sexual harassment. Like when he's teasing her at the workplace. But this was sort of an anxiety that has become more palpable today, but, but was very much. much in the air at the time when sexual harassment was first becoming a topic of national conversation and attention, especially in the wake of Clarence Thomas and so on.

All these high-profile lawsuits about sexual harassment, where, you know, like men, especially of the kind of Clint Eastwood, who sort of prided themselves on their savile affair or whatever, we're like, oh, I can't say fortatious remarks at the workplace anymore. And obviously, there's no sign that he is, is, you know, conforming to that norm. But René Russo's response to it is to be game, essentially, to flirt back or to challenge him back. And then this becomes the basis for, as it does in old movies, when, you know, people sort of flirt with each other in this aggressive way, you know, becomes the basis for a passionate love affair or so and so forth. But it's kind of funny to watch today when you're like, damn, like, this guy could not do this sort of talk in this sort of way to, to a female coworker.

And like, but the fantasy that she would like it and flirt back and so on and so forth is kind of funny. I mean, the dialogue is good. It does recall those old movies. It is sort of, it is sort of, you know, like sexy. But, like, it's also like, you're like, oh, man, like, this is why people get all these stupid ideas and try to flirt in this way is because they see movies like this and it working and there's no way in hell like you could be that obnoxious and it would work.

I mean, he's clever, but he's also, you know, borderline. So that was funny to me. But then there's also parts of their love affair that they are just so silly. This movie actually, parts of it are, I forget which naked gun movie, but naked gun movies are wonderful, absurd parodies of this kind of movie that were, you know, came out in the 80s and 90s and like they literally made fun of you know down to like sight gags um this relationship in this movie and it is kind of silly at times um i was just watching it with my nephew who's in his early 20s and he was just like cackling um yeah it's interesting it's sort of shocking in a way

from our perspective but it's a lot of fun um but uh yeah i was wondering what you were thinking when you were watching those scenes oh yeah no i mean i had i had very similar thoughts, especially at the very beginning when he is like, you know, the secretary is like better and better. And it's like, wow, that's, um, yeah, that's like really bad comments. That's aggressive. Um, yeah. I mean, what's interesting, again, just to touch on this aspect of the character, um, or Klonis would sort of like poking at his own persona, um, is that, you know, at various points, uh, in the film. So there's a, there's a, you know, when the, they're about to consummate their relationship for the first time. And, um, and they, you know, they're about to consummate their relationship for the first time.

and then Renee Russo's character gets a phone call that she has to like just to work and so then they don't and there's this kind of funny scene where Eastwood is like half undressed he's like well now I have to put all these clothes back on um and it's sort of like you don't often see Eastwood like an alpha an alpha male character like the ones Eastwood has typically played basically have to like you know get cock blocked by work but it's sort of an interesting twist and I was thinking more about this aspect of the character of the film. I mean, even at the conclusion, and the final sequence, which is at a presidential fundraiser, John Malkovich's character has managed to donate enough money to the president

to get invited to this fundraiser where he has smuggled in his sort of like plastic gun, like handheld, plastic and of sought-off shotgun is going to use to kill the president. Eastwood helps stop the assassination. may have a struggle sort of an elevator in the hotel or whatever. And the Malcovich is defeated. He's killed. By Eastwood essentially is sort of like being put into harm's way accepting the threat of death and allowing others to, you know, kind of take the reins in terms of his fate, right? He's sort of like is giving directions to René Russo, who then gives the order to the snipers, but like whether he may make it hit, he sort of recognizes that he may end up

dying in the course of doing this, but the important thing is stopping Malcovich. And sort of having, again, an Eastwood character, having an eastward character relinquish that kind of control and relinquish it to a woman, no less, I think it's just an interesting thing to do. It's sort of for as much as there are, there is this sort of like white male anxiety aspect. the sort of like gender politics aspect to the character and to the movie that moment and those those final moments sort of like maybe balance is too strong of a word, but they kind of add more texture to what the movie is sort of touching on in terms of how a person like Eastwood, how a man like Eastwood

accommodates themselves to a changing world. Yeah, yeah, I agree with what you're saying. I mean, it definitely shows a kind of settlement, if you will. Like, you're like, yeah, well, as long as I'm still sexually viable and attractive, then I can I can adjust myself to this you know to the world of you know smart women who can give who boss me around so and so forth and I still have it even though I'm older so I think like he's not impotent and he doesn't have the frustrations associated with that so I think that that's like a funny ideological thing the movie suggests is like look you're not completely

emasculated by all of this like you're still you still got it Clint Eastwood, who, you know, American men presumably fantasize about being. Yeah, that's a kind of way, I think, these ways of dealing with feminism and with the integration of workplaces on the basis of gender was just like, it's not really emasculating. You're still a guy. You can still be a tough guy. And you can find ways to work with women and respect them as co-workers. It offers a kind of nice compromise to wounded American masculinity.

It's like, you're still sexy, Clint Eastwood. Don't worry, even though you're old as shit. So do we raise our eyebrow a little bit about the terms of it today? Perhaps. Is it completely without merit? No. I mean, René Russo's character is presented as being extremely smart and competent. and worthy of respect and so on and so forth.

It's not a ridiculous character. I mean, one might say that Eastwood is a little too old for her, but like much of the movie, you know, it's like, yeah, there is a future. There is a future for you. Don't worry. You'll be able to do things that are meaningful. You'll be able to have affairs with beautiful women. It's not all over yet, and you don't have to become a weird, creepy.

killer like John Malkovich. Right, right. Or a deranged discontent, like defense from falling down. Right, exactly, exactly. It's like, look, you can still be a hero in some important way. You can integrate yourself in the society. You don't have to be a freak or you don't have to go Ruskanikov or go Travis Bickle. I think a lot of American movies have, there's the two sides of American individuality.

It's like you preserve your individuality, but you still have, you're not. not a total freak and have something to contribute to society and people like you? Or is your individuality such that, you know, you're a complete outcast and you can't be reintegrated into society and you're a freak and a weirdo and so on and so forth? And this movie kind of offers another take on that possibility. And Clint East was obviously presented as a better approach, which I agree with. You can almost do like psychoanalytic reading of the movie too, where you're like, this problem dealt with in a pro-social way and this is the same problem in a certain way dealt with in a pathological and antisocial way but yeah and i think it kind of makes sense

that the movie was such a hit but it's very exciting in front of watch but it was also just like people were like hell yeah like still america Clint eastwood cowboy guy with a gun still got it dirty hairy you know still shooting straight in every imaginable sense of that term, you know, like, and yeah, I think it was just really satisfying for people who were kind of aging and also for young people who, you know, wanted to just see a fun movie. It was for adult, but as you're saying, it's for adults. Like, it offers an adult love affair, not young people, it falling in love for the first time, you know.

It's obviously people who have some experience and, you know, they're hesitant about romances or they've been through breakups and divorces. They're in the later part of their careers. So, yeah, but it's very much for grownups. And not, like, as we always talk about, not many, that many movies are today. So all the anxieties and hopes and aspirations that come with middle age are definitely, and, you know, dealt within the movie.

And I think pretty well. Unless you have any final thoughts after that, I think we can wrap things up. So any last comment? No, I think that this is like one of the better movies of the genre that we picked. It's and it's very sleek and it's so good in its kind of movie magic and entertainment that you really could very quickly miss anything that was, you know, maybe a little ideological or a little political underneath the surface and just watch. the movie just goes down really smooth and then you're like hmm maybe there's some things of historical note here uh but yeah this is like it's a high quality uh Hollywood movie that's really entertaining well made on a number of fronts has some of course like all Hollywood movie some

silly parts but those kind of add to its charm um yeah it's kind of like you know I hate to say it again as we always say on a show they don't make them like this anymore but But that's sort of the feeling you do come away from the movie. Yeah, when I think about the genre movies we've chosen for this podcast, I mean, I think about sort of what the aim of the podcast is. I actually think that this might be maybe not the ideal movie, but close to the ideal movie in that it is, both represents a kind of Hollywood filmmaking that no longer exists in the same way.

It represents a sort of nostalgia that people have for the, this era of Hollywood filmmaking. This is the kind of movie that people, like people who are of our age would have like seen on cable TV on a regular basis. But it also does kind of plug in to American politics in these not necessarily subtle ways, but not necessarily direct ways either. It gives you a sense of how Americans understood their political lives in this in this very specific moment.

So I think it's, I wasn't necessarily anticipating that going into this rewatch, but I think it does really stand as kind of close to an ideal unclear and present danger movie, just for how it relates to both the genre, but also both to just American perceptions of the world. Sure. Definitely. That is our show.

If you're not a subscriber, please subscribe. We're available. on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Radio, and Google Podcast, and wherever else podcasts are found. If you subscribe, please leave a rating and a review. It really does help people find the show. You can reach out to us over email at Unclear and Present Feedback at Fastmail.com. And for this week in feedback, we have an email from Neil. It's titled Deep Cover. Hi, and thanks for the cool show.

I found you via plug from Ezra Klein, and I appreciate the big picture context. I couldn't help but think of deep cover during the last couple of your episodes that I heard. I haven't noticed you covering ghetto policing yet, and that movie makes it easy to connect urban policing to foreign policy. It's also a great production story in a nice 90s time capsule, in addition to having a great cast. I'd enjoy hearing your take on it. Because I research Hollywood cop movies and teach this one to crime majors, I could make them listen to your episode. Thanks for considering and carrying on.

John, have you seen Deep Cover? I don't think I actually have. I know the song, of course, but I don't know if I've actually ever seen the movie and I would like to watch it. It just makes me think when we're talking about cops, I know a movie both you and I really love is also Copeland, but I love that. And that would be maybe something we could squeeze in there. But yeah. Yeah, no, I love Deep Cover. I have on my movie shelf, a criterion edition, a recent criterion edition of it, starring,

stars Jeff Goldblum and Lawrence Fishburn. It's directed by Bill Duke, who you will recognize from Predator, great actor, and actually a great director. He also directed a great labor movie. He directed, he directed the killing floor. Yes, the killing floor. That's right. That's such a good movie.

That's such a good movie. Yeah. So I think we should do Decover. I'll throw it on the list. Yeah. We're kind of at the point, I feel like, where as we go on, I'm sort of like thinking more broadly about the kind of movies we cover. And so we may be going back in time chronologically just to get things that I missed or that we missed and kind of plotting out the movies we're going to cover. But I think, yeah, I think deep cover. And I just loved, I'd like to rewatch that movie.

It's quite good. Thank you, Neil, for the email. episodes come out every other Friday, and so we will see you in two weeks with the Sean Conner and Wesley Snipes Two-Hander Rising Sun. This will be one where we can get into, you know, kind of some of the Japanese panic of this period. Yeah, interesting stuff. Yeah. Here's a plot synopsis, when a prostitute is found dead in a Los Angeles skyscraper occupied

by a large Japanese corporation, detectives John Connor and Webb Smith are called in to investigate. Although Connor has previous experience working in Japan, cultural differences make their progress difficult into a security disc showing the murder turns up. Close scrutiny proves the disc has been doctored, and the detectives realize they're dealing with a cover-up as well. Rising Sun is available for rent on Amazon and iTunes,

as well as available for streaming on appropriately enough, Cinemax. Yeah, that should be an interesting one. Yeah, definitely. It's been a year since I've seen this, so I'll be excited to revisit it. Another kind of like phoned-in Sean Connery performance from this era, but I do like Wesley Snipes quite a bit. Our producer is Connor Lynch, and our artwork is from Rachel Eck.

For John Gans, I am Jamel Bowie, and this is unclear and present danger. We'll see you next time. Thank you.