Unclear and Present Danger - The Devil's Own

Episode Date: September 27, 2024

On this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, we watched the 1997 thriller The Devil’s Own, directed by Alan J. Pakula and starring Brad Pitt and Harrison Ford.In The Devil’s Own, Pitt plays Frankie McGuire, an IRA soldier who travels to the United States to obtain advanced weapons for the fight in Ireland. He is put up in the home of NYPD Sergeant Tom O’Meara, played by Ford, who does not know McGuire’s mission. The two develop an easy rapport and McGuire becomes a part of O’Meara’s family, of sorts. When McGuire’s mission begins to intrude on the O’Mearas, however, the relationship — along with the family’s safety — is threatened.The tagline for The Devil’s Own was “One man trapped by destiny, and another bound by duty. They're about to discover what they're willing to fight, and to die for.”You can find The Devil’s Own available to rent or purchase on Amazon and Apple TV.For the next episode, we will watch “The Second Civil War,” 1997 HBO film starring Phil Hartman. You can find it on YouTube.And don’t forget our Patreon, where we watch the films of the Cold War and try to unpack them as political and historical documents! For $5 a month, you get two bonus episodes every month as well as access to the entire back catalog — we’re almost two years deep at this point. Sign up at patreon.com/unclearpod. The latest episode of our Patreon podcast is on the 1974 exploitation film Death Wish.Connor Lynch produced this episode. Artwork by Rachel Eck.

Well, it's not much, but it's dry and it's warm. Hi. How you fix for work? Let's start tomorrow. Good. Very decent news to put me up like this. Oh, Roy. Welcome to America.

Hi. So, don't you think it's lovely here? You're from Bailfast? Hi. He was welcomed into their family. Mom said dinner's ready. That's a lovely dress you have on there. Are you married?

And trusted as a friend. Ha ha ha ha. But something in his past... Jabberfield, go to bed it. Has brought the danger home. Hey! Gila, get out! Get out! Ah!

You stay right where you are, man. Who are you? Did you bring this into my house? I need that money, Tom. What's a lot of money for that you hid in my basement? The only thing I can think of is... I can think of is guns like the one my wife had jammed in her face. Francis Aguilier, aka Frankie the Angel.

I have been given the authority to use any means necessary to bring closure to this issue. You're gonna kill him. I understand why he's doing what he's doing. If I was eight years old and saw my father gun down in front of my family. You're on your own here, Lottie. I love him. You love him too, don't you? There is no way out for him.

He's gonna die if you and I don't do something. Gun, lady, God! God! Don't! Don't you come yet! Welcome to Unclear and Present Danger, a podcast about the political and military thrillers of the 1990s and what they say about the politics of a decade. I'm Jamal Bowie. I'm a columnist for the New York Times opinion section. My name is John Gans. I write the Substack Newsletter Unpopular Front. And I'm the author of When the Clock

block broke, conman conspiracists and how America cracked up in the early 1990s, which is available wherever good books are sold. That's right. You should pick up a copy. Everyone loves it, including, as mentioned before, former president of the United States, Barack Obama. That's right. On this week's episode of Unclear and Present Danger, we watched the 1997 thriller, The Devil's Own,

directed by Alan J. Pacula, who we've done before on this podcast and on the Patreon podcast, I believe, on the main feed, we did the Pelican Brief, which is a great movie. And on the Patreon, we did the Parallax View and all the president's men. So a real, you know, if you don't know Alan J. Pakula, you should, one of the great directors of his generation. Other films he's done include Clute with Donald's the late Donald Sutherland, Sophie's Choice, a fun movie with Meryl Streep and Kevin Klein, and presumed innocent, which is one of my favorite of the Harrison Ford, I Didn't Kill, Harm, Cheat on My Wife, Genra.

And there's, I think, like a remake series for Apple TV that I have not seen. But the original film is great. And obviously, Harrison Ford working with Pakula before. The Devil's Own stars Harrison Ford, Brad Pitt, Natasha McKellon, Julia Stiles, Treat Williams, George Hearn, Margaret Collin, and Rubin Blades. And it revolves around a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, played by Pitt, who comes to the United States to obtain black market, but Stinger missiles. And while doing so is staying with the family of Harrison Ford's character, Tom O'Meara, his wife, Sheila, and their daughters, O'Meer on Staten Island.

O'Meara is an Irish-American NYPD sergeant, very scrupulous, very concerned about doing a good job about treating people fairly. This all sounds very, I mean, I didn't realize they lived on Staten Island. This seems even more unbelievable to me. We'll talk about this later, but I find this to be the most unrealistic part of the movie. In any case, O'Meara and McGuire, Brad Pitt's character, hit it off. They develop a kind of rapport. Frankie McGuire begins to see O'Meara as a kind of father figure. But the entire time, he is trying to arrange this deal, which brings him into contact with Treat

Williams' character, an Irish mobster named Billy Burke. And so here's where the plot gets a little convoluted. That's like naming an Irish, I mean, an Italian mobster like Tony Riggetoni or something like that. When the deal goes somewhat sideways and Frankie does not bring the money he has to Burke, if things sort of unravel, O'Meara, Sam Lee has brought into the kind. conflict. He is, his wife is assaulted, his home is broken into, and thus begins the revelation of Frankie's real purposes in the United States, the corruption that has brought Frankie to O'Meara. Frankie is there with the help of a local judge. And O'Meara's attempt to

protect his family and protect Frankie and try to keep Frankie from following this path that will inevitably end in his death. The tagline for the devil's own, one man trapped by destiny and another bound by duty, they're about to discover what they're willing to fight and to die for. They come from different worlds. They fight for different causes. Now two men from opposite sides of the law are about to go to war. This doesn't really capture the movie at all. And I'll say, we'll talk about this later, I'll say this movie is trying to go for like these two men are committed to do different things. But I don't think the film really successfully does that at all. This is a movie that I feel like has a lot of things it wants to do,

but doesn't really successfully execute most of them. The Devil's Zone was a modest success, budget 86 million, box office, like 140 million. You know, it's good enough. But critics do not like it very much. And I'm going to guess for much the same reason that I am kind of mixed on this film. Roger Ebert gave the film two and a half stars at a four. and said that it showed ignorance of the history of Northern Ireland and that the issues involved between the two sides are never mentioned.

He states that the moral reasoning in the film is so confusing that only by completely sidestepping it can the plot work at all and that the movie only really works because Pitt and Ford are enormously appealing and gifted actors. I think that's right on the money. Yeah, and it looks great because it's a Gordon Willis is the cinematographer. Oh, shit.

yeah it's like i think it's his last movie um so i mean it has pretty good atmosphere the devil zone was released in new york city it's premiere on march 13th in 1997 so let's check out the new york times for that day okay let's see what we got here uh okay u.s agency secretly monitored chinese in 96 on political gifts rivalry with taiwan is cited in bid for influence federal investigation to whether the chinese government had a concern plan to infamous American office holders began early last year when the National Security Agency surreptitiously monitored a series of communications between Beijing and Chinese officials in the United States, law enforcement representatives said today. Those conversations,

the law enforcement officials said, offered a fragmentary sketch of China's interest in matching the Washington lobbying success of its rival Taiwan, and I also suggested that Beijing was prepared to take drastic step, funneling money to American politicians in violations of the United States law. As a result, the official said the Federal Bureau of Investigation prepared a list of about 30 members of Congress, so the Bureau thought might be subjects of the Chinese effort. But for reasons that remain unclear, the FBI advised only half a dozen of them in private meetings last June. Suspitions of a covert Chinese government effort to influence the United States policy have become central in recent works to the campaign

finance fervor, now swirling around Washington. I remember this story coming out. And, yeah, there was some connection to campaign finance reform discussions, but then nothing, I don't remember the long end of it. I do think that basically, I mean, there was an enormous amount of foreign influence in American politics. I mean, we have the FARA Act and people are, I think Max Boot, the Washington Post guy, his wife just get, like, charged with a FARA violation for, like, being. Yeah, I did not know that. Yeah, he got, yeah, he got, she got Farah for, I think, uh, yeah, South Korea, um, unregistered foreign agent in South Korea.

So, yeah, and this happens. Can I just say real quick, this side by side of Max Boot and his wife does not flattering to Max Boot. That's not nice, Jamal. Well, she might be going to prison. So I don't know. Like the, you know, I think that, yeah, this happens a lot. There are a lot of lobbyists in D.C. that work on behalf of foreign governments and government and foreign governments.

And in New York, too, there's, you know, in the swirling corruption campaign, investigation of Mayor Adams, there appears that he has some connection with the Turkish government, possibly the Chinese government. So, you know, we're, you know, when you have a democracy and there are officials that are accessible to the public in certain ways and can be lobbied, I suppose it could happen to almost any system. You know, they're susceptible to foreign pressure and definitely the Gulf states are all in there throwing money around and trying to lobby people. You can lobby on behalf of foreign government. You just have to be registered for it. But that most people, you know, and you get in trouble for not being registered. Um, but yeah, uh, it's, uh, this is, this continues to be a problem. Um, perils of free air time. Clinton's plan for political ads may face hurdles from Congress and broadcasters.

It's a Thursday night in the year 2000, you flipped on the tube to catch your favorite new comedy show about a gaggle of zany pals chasing romance and their dreams through the canyons of the big apple. Suddenly the screen fills with the gray suit figure of Al Gore, Democratic candidate for president. present. What year is this? Okay. Earnestly addressing, oh, they're talking about the future, earnestly addressing the camera about his fears of chloro-fluorocarbons and his vision for the microchip. Second pass. Half a minute. He is still talking. Like Clint Eastwood pulling him, James Bennett wrote this. Okay. I'm going to stay silent of my opinion. All right. Okay. Like Clint Eastwood pulling back his poncho from his holster, you can reach for your remote. You reach for your remote. is a dream of President Clinton and others who want broadcasters to give time to politicians

that will not flick away to other comedy for police drama. Instead, you will lean back and hear Mr. Gore out and you'll, as you will, other candidates for President Congress. Will it bore America to tears? Ask Paul Taylor, Executive Director of the Free TV for Straight Talk Coalition. I think people are underestimating the voters. I think there's real hunger for political information. I'm not sure that political ads count as political information. But sure. I mean, they have they are to some extent because people do like make decisions off the basis of them. Like people they wouldn't spend so much on ads. That's true. They're but I think presenting them as a public service sounds like a bit of a stretch to me.

I was reading I was reading about the 1960 campaign and really 1959 when Kennedy is prepping to run. And obviously Kennedy is not the. favorite of kind of like the party bosses there they want johnson they're considering stevenson they want like someone you know someone with experience and so kennedy writes this piece who it was for where he's like listen the future of campaigning is television and the great thing about television is you can see into the soul of a candidate you get a better sense of who they are than traditional methods and it was like very clearly his attempt

to kind of do an end run around party bosses and like kind of persuade people that like if you only see him on TV that's good enough but it is it is like funny to me this just reminded me of this of sort of like the notion that television is a kind of like political communication

that has like weight and substance to it. Yeah. Yep. And not easily manipulable. Um, who two refugees trapped in Zaire, but, I mean, can you, are you, are you just, you're just allowed to lie in political ads, right? Like, there's no, I mean, pretty much. There's no, there's no, there's no possible legal problem there. I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I mean, I can't, I mean, I can't, I mean, it's funny. I can't think of an immediate obvious lie other than, um, I'm sure that, I mean, there were plenty, but the one that immediately comes to mind is from 2012 when Romney was like in one of his ads. was like Obama Obama's just given away welfare. Right, right, right, right.

Yeah. It's like, that's not true. Also, what do you mean by that? Yeah, well, that's like so vague that it could almost mean anything or nothing. That's just like, well, what do you mean by it? Well, I don't really know. I just think, yeah.

Okay, here's some more stuff. Hutu's, who two refugees trapped in Zaire between Tootsie and the Crocodiles. Ubundo Zaire. For worn infamished refugees, the makeshift camp strung out like a splintered cross alongside this town's grassy landing field, has the frightening feel of the end of the line. After a walk of over 300 miles, pursued by the country's Tutsi-led rebels through some of the Africa's thickest jungles, terrorized and Britishly they set up camp. More than 100,000 Hutu have come to gather here. A head lie, the crocodile-infested rapids of the Congo, which they have no means to cross. From behind, perhaps as little as 20 miles away, their pursuers are approaching, threatening eventual route. From the start of Zaire's civil wars, the conflict's goals have neatly twinned. All along, the rebels led by Lauren Kabila have maintained that their goal is to overthrow

Zaire's longtime dictator Mobote Sese Seko. But throughout their campaign has just as shortly revealed another consistent priority, breaking up the huge concentrations of Hutu who have sought refuge. refuge in Zaire since Rwanda owned Civil War in 1994 and hunting down all those hiding among them who may have taken part in the massacres committed against the Tutsi. Many among them, the fleeing Hutu, have been armed by Zaire's government as counterinsurgents. Well, that's very interesting. I mean, yes, so we're in the post-genocide era, the many Hutu fearing reprisals by the

Tutsi-led rebels, fled into neighboring countries, including Zaire, which is now the Congo. And, yeah, Kabila, I think successfully overthrows Mobutu. And obviously, Mobutu was trying to use these Hutu rebels as fighters in his own fight. Let me see one that actually happens. he dies in 1997. Exile on death. Yeah. The seeds of Mobut. I'm just going to read from Wikipedia because this is interesting to me. The seeds of Mobutu's downfall were in the Rwandan genocide when 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were massacred by 200,000 Hutu extremists aided by the Rwandan government. The genocide ended when the Tutsi dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front seized the whole country leading hundreds of thousands of Tutsis, many of the genocide, including many of the generalis, including many of the generalizing. killers to flee into refugee camps in eastern Zaire. But Boutu welcomed the Hutu extremists his personal guests and allowed them to establish military and political bases on the eastern territories from where they attacked and killed ethnic Tutsis across the river and Zaire itself.

Ostensibly to repair for a new offensive back in Rwanda, the new Rwandan government began sending military aid to Zayyrian Tutsis in response. The resulting conflict began to destabilize Zaire as a whole. So this is like part of the aftermath of the Rwanda. on a genocide. That's very interesting. I should know more about the history of this part of the world and this period. Anything else here? Look interesting to you? Not to me.

Okay, great. I see one little thing. It says, Nitton Yahoo exasperated. This is just an inside. Israel Prime Minister declared himself fed up after a barrage of criticism of his policies. If only he had quit then and never come back. Anyway,

that's it, I guess, for the news. All right, so let's go to the movie. John, have you ever seen this before? I have seen it. I have seen it. I saw it in the theaters, I think, with my dad. I don't think we cared for it that much at the time. I have seen. I think I've watched it again, like on TV, like, or streaming, like, just to pass the time. Had you seen it? I have never seen this before. Yeah. This is my first time. Yeah, I didn't even really know what existed before I was, you know, making a list for this podcast.

Yeah, I've seen it. And I don't think of. it is, I mean, I don't know, there's some interesting things about the movie, but as we're talking about, kind of fails in a number of different ways. So, let's start with the beginning of the movie. The beginning of the movie is that Brad Pitt's character, then a child, sees his father get killed, presumably by some loyalist or English death squad. And then it jumps forward 20 years, and he's a, you know, operative in the IRA. And there's actually really well, filmed, I think, an exciting shoot-at between British soldiers and the IRA.

I thought that was excellent. Yeah, it was dope. Yeah. And like the again, like the movies photographed really beautifully. Like this movie also like the music is cool. Like the opening credits with that cranberry song. Like you think

this movie's going to kind of be a banger and then it's sort of a dud. And then his you know, his Irish accent is not very good. And just so many things about the movie don't make sense. like how does he end up in this cop just takes him in he's not even presented as like a refugee he's just like an immigrant who's i guess he's being housed by some you know irish politician judge who's probably helped doing constituent services in some way for immigrant community uh so that kind of makes sense but this cop just takes him in and uh you know doesn't know anything about his past uh brad pitt's character i mean i think here's where the movie fails. It tries. It's probably about, as Ebert says, it doesn't really present the conflict in Northern Ireland in its political dimension at all. It doesn't really talk about nationalism.

It doesn't really talk about, it barely talks about religion, even though the titles the devil's own has a scene in a Catholic church, which kind of repeats the godfather famous, you know, scene with the, with the baptism, but this is a confirmation. it's just a kind of like it's got bits and pieces of ideas like oh i think the main idea it's trying to do is that they both follow a noble essentially it tries to make a tragic conflict right the tragic conflict being both of these people have an understandable and ethical position that they are sticking to and leads them into conflict but it can't really present It maybe goes as far as it possibly can, both for Hollywood audiences' interest and for how much of it could get away with sympathizing with the politics.

It can't really sympathize with the IRA or show their politics and their cause in any great detail, right? And then the goodness, the ethical, the ethical stance of, the ethical stance of Harrison Ford's character is just not believable. You know, he's so virtuous. And it shows it just, it just makes him seem like a character that's not fully. fleshed out. So neither character's motivations are very believable. I mean, like, they show, like, they couldn't make, you know, you know, Brad Pitt's character to be,

um, has complicated motivations. He has to be a simple revenge plot, right? His father was killed. That makes his psychology really understandable. Um, so they can't really present the IRA's motivations in any interesting way. the other character's ethical I'm a cop I mean they could have made him a little bit more of a complicated character he's just such a goodie two shoes Boy Scout which Harrison Ford sometimes falls into these sorts of roles Brad Pitt's like also kind of portrayed as a little bit of a sociopath you know like he's shown to be a killer and kind of doesn't have a lot of patience for I mean he likes Harrison Ford's character and he wants to be a And it feels a certain worth to him, but he feels kind of impatient. He shows, this is some of the better scenes in the movie when he kind of is beginning to show a little bit of impatience with his moral scruples, you know, where he's like, you know, like this is just the way he calls it like big boys rules.

He was like, you know, we, we use guns, like in our profession, so people get killed. So he's a killer and he does no, he just thinks like this is part of the life I live and he's a little bit annoyed with with Harrison Ford's scrupulosity. in this regard. But yeah, and I would say the issue of this and so many other IRA movies, this one is more sympathetic to the IRA as a cause or a political movement, although it views it in a kind of tragic way, than say Patriot Games, which comes from a very kind of right-wing Western point of view that the IRA is just a bunch of murderous thugs, right?

Yeah, I mean, I'd say maybe like more anglophone view. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's like, yeah, it's more like, okay, this is like, you know, Reaganites who are sympathetic to Thatcher. Thatcher's England comes out of that, you know. I think that that's basically my, most of my complaints with the movie. It's just like there's a lot of interesting things going on, but it falls into vibes. Like, none of the things get articulated. And that's like the IRA. And I think this is kind of funny and I like it. And I like appreciate these movies for their atmosphere. But like, it's depiction of the IRA and Irish. republicanism and the troubles because of their thick atmosphere are just used in Hollywood for pure atmosphere and for the Irish accents and the sad Irish people and their tragic history. It's not given any specificity or political or political contact. And that happens. That's in Patriot Games.

That's it roan to a certain extent. Even though I love that movie, that's in this film. I think my issue with this movie is. It is, like I said earlier, it is trying to accomplish a couple things that it just, the script just cannot, cannot actually do them. And that's not the fault of the actors. I think it really is a, is a script problem because it's clear that they want to have this, they want to show this parallel track of Tom O'Meura being this dedicated, very scrupulous and honest cop. and then Frankie, you know, being this dedicated IRA member, committed to his job in the same way that O'Meara is committed to his job.

But in the film, these are not presented as sort of like, it's not mirroring like you see in like a Michael Mann film, but sort of like two guys doing two separate things. Like there's no particular connection between them. Nor is the, it's clear in the one of the reasons this movie clearly begins. with Frankie seeing his father killed in front of him, is that it's trying to establish this idea that O'Meara is a kind of father figure to Frankie. Like, that's what's happening here.

And that part of their emotional connection is that Frankie does not want to, like, lose another father. I'm sure that that's, like, the intent. But, like, it just does not come across in the film whatsoever. It's sort of forced at the end when Frankie is dying in O'Meara's arms. But it's not really developed throughout the film. And I think you're right to say that like so much, so much of the movie kind of just

like leans on vibes, which to an extent is fine because it's very competently made. I mean, Alan J. Picoula, like, knows how to make a movie. So it's not like, it's not bad in the sense that it's like incompetent, but it's just sort of like it's biting off way more than it can actually chew. And that, that's a little unsatisfying. Like I could have watched either a movie about Tom O'Meara, cop who finds himself caught up an IRA plot, which would make a lot of sense, given the connections between, especially the New York and Boston-based Irish community and the IRA, and that's maybe something we can talk about, right?

The extent to which there were these connections, there was fundraising for the Irish Republican cause. Peter King, the New York representative, where I think is retired now, was like basically funneling guns. to the IRA. So that's like all there. And there's a movie to do about that. Or there's a movie to do about Frankie as like kind of an armed dealer and him getting caught up in this community.

And it's almost, then it becomes sort of an immigrant story because he then is sort of torn between his home, his old home and his new home. That's like the other movie you could do. But trying to mash them up just doesn't really, just doesn't really work. Yeah, absolutely. I think that's right. The movie's like, yeah, there's, there's a lot of, like, potential that's not developed. I like it almost. Like, it's just because it could be good. But yeah, I mean, dude, frankly, also the, the, the goodness of this cop character, like, this is the 90s in New York. This is Giuliani's NYPD. They chased down a black kid and they, they, they like, let him go because he, like, committed a very petty crime. Dude. this is broken windows earring of policing. They would have whipped his ass and like that would have been that. Like, you know, like, they would have been like, and then he gets all, he gets so conscious stricken, which when his partner like shoots a guy in the back who had been armed,

but then threw his gun away. And then he lies about it and this makes him want to quit. I mean, come on. I mean, no doubt that there are police officers who are, you know, you know, that honest but he's a sergeant in the mypd presumably he's had to do some politics to rise to this position so more interesting movie would would perhaps show a more morally compromised complicated character um faced with the situation that he just could not go along with right like facing an actual conflict he does not shown to be like it would also be more

interesting say if he had been a sympathizer an IRA sympathizer and then he realized oh you know actually that's just my toy politics and and it's it's homeland kitch and when it actually comes to the thought of people being killed like i can't quite stomach it um you know like if he had some actual views about the conflict that change or he has to confront the difficulty of the reality of it um you know that would be another thing or on the other hand if brad Pitt's character face some kind of crisis where he's in the United States now, and he feels like I might just abandon it, right? Right.

You know, the movie, like, an opera, like, needs more arias where, like, the characters are kind of going through crisis of conscience because it suggests the movie is about crises of conscience, but that doesn't actually have them. Like, it needs to show Brad Pitt considering, more seriously considering abandoning the cause. It needs to show Harrison Ford actually having a moment where he considers that, you know, he believes in what Brad Pitt's doing and helping him or at least being complicit or letting him go. Like it needs to have, in order for it to be the moral drama, it needs to show, it needs to show moral crises on the parts of its characters. And it really doesn't show them. Brad Pitt's very simple.

I mean, he's just a killer who's good at his job and he likes these people, but it's his first duty. and he doesn't question his duty, you know? And no one questions their duty. No one has a crisis of conscience. It's not like a modern tragedy like, you know, Hamlet. Everyone should not be sure what to do all the time. And then there's, so I think it could have heightened its dramatic impact by having more of a crisis in the lives of the characters about what they should do. And then Billy Burke, the Irish mobster, is just so cartoonishly evil.

And I mean, he, he's really, I'm surprised there wasn't like, it was, there's like an Irish defamation league or something. Yeah. To be like this character's like borderline racist. Yeah. I mean, if people complained about Brad Pitt's accent, I don't know if they can, they, they complain about Billy Burke, the Irish mobster. But yeah, I mean, like Billy Burke, you know, the people who provide, like they should, oh, he's uncomplicatedly self-interested and just out for money. I mean, that would be another interesting thing would be like, well, he may affect some. I think it would be more interesting if the movie was about, you know, in modern society, people have pretences of moral positions, which when they're put, when push comes to shove, they realize they can't really live up to without having tragic consequences in their lives.

And I think all three characters in the movie could have had that crisis where they had a superficial identity that they presented themselves with. and then they get into a situation where the the what comes from trying to inhabit that identity becomes full of conflict so it's not possible for him to just be an IRA gunman anymore because in this new moral context it's not possible for Harrison Ford just merely to be a good cop and a good dad it's not possible for the Irish mobster just to be a mobster you know like yeah yeah so like or without some so it doesn't be become a tragedy, really, because it doesn't have that dimension. So I think that that's a missed opportunity. And as a political thriller, the other thing is, is like, okay, so hidden, of all the IRA movies we've seen, hidden agenda probably has the richest depiction of the background world of the IRA, right? We see, you know, we watched this a long time ago, but we see the poverty of the Catholic

sections of Northern Ireland, of Belfast. We see sort of the aggressive police presence, the way in which that like the people don't actually, you know, they are, they are visibly second class citizens. Yeah, they're under colonial rule, you know, in a real way that, you know, that they understood themselves to be, they understood themselves in solidarity with Palestinians and they understood themselves in solidarity with South Africans. Like they understood these struggles to be similar and they were, you know, like there were different commonality. you know, I think that this movie lack, again, it shows an assassination, a personal tragedy, but it lacks like the back, the political background. It does show the, and this is why it's maybe slightly IRA sympathetic or more than a British movie might be, well, Hidden Agenda was not, I, it was definitely critical of, of Britain, but it was made by very left-wing British filmmaker,

Ken Lodge. So, yeah, it doesn't show the conflict in it. any kind of interesting way. It's just like a, it's a background for human tragedy, which I suppose it is. And that's not, that's a fine way to make a movie. But it doesn't show it as having any kind of political content. And it would be more interesting if Brad Pitt's character didn't have a personal tragedy. He was just like, what does it mean to be convinced or had experienced oppression in a more subtle way like what does it mean to be convinced to join this groups like it doesn't you know yeah i mean there's a scene that i thought it was actually quite good where they're talking um ira and frankie and frankie you know omira says something to be they're walking to a bar

or whatever and a mirror system to be effective you know it doesn't even seem like you know what are people even fighting for it just seems like a big mess and and frankie is like oh you know when you when you something to be effective like when you see people die that you know you know, what choice do you have, but to get involved? And that's like an interesting dynamic, right? Sort of like, that's, that is, that's the seed of something that could be fruitful in terms of the approach of the film and to really kind of interrogating what, what gives the Frankie character this sense of duty. And then what are the kind of things that might complicate it? But again, And I think the film was like torn between maybe being this interesting examination of these two psychologies and then just being a straightforward thriller about, you know, who's going to get the guns or the gun's going to get transferred.

And it couldn't really do both. I wanted to note real quick that, you know, this movie comes out in March. We're basically a few months away from the reinstatement of the ceasefire. The IRA reinstates its ceasefire in July 1997 during negotiations for the Good Friday Agreement. And at this point, Sinn Féin wasn't really part of the discussions. They would join the discussions later in the year. And this is also when we start getting IRA groups like splintering as there's, as like more, say, like more radical, more middle. militant group members are unwilling to, you know, commit to the peace process.

So there's a lot actually happening in the conflict in this part. But the movie takes place in 1992. The movie takes place in the earlier phase in the conflict, at least in the 1990s. Yeah. The IRA conflict, you know, does get resolved. I mean, I mean, it's no longer a living, I mean, you know, some of the issues still exist about what the future of the of you know the of northern island is going to be but yeah essentially you know the arm struggle section the IRA has disarmed I mean there's some suspicions they

may still have cash as a weapon somewhere but for all intents and purposes I'm sure they do yeah that they've disarmed and they've given up on on arm struggle as part of it so this yeah this movie's almost not quite a period piece but it's almost about an earlier and the kind of like open gun battles it showed in Northern Ireland. This was more maybe there's troubles in the 70s and 80s. So yeah, I think that this movie does depict a slightly earlier time in the conflict. And, you know, it's already sort of world is going out of date. And I think that also perhaps makes its drama.

It's not a period piece, but the drama of it feel less urgent to audiences at the time or who just had a very vague understanding of what was going on in that conflict to begin with. The conflict doesn't really exist in the public mind the way it did earlier in the decade. It isn't the same kind of, you know, subject of concern. And I think you see that in the films. I mean, we haven't, this is our first IRA film in some time. It's not really something that's like capturing the public's imagining. nation. What is, right, is the usual conspiracy stuff, but also increasingly kind of like

Middle Eastern terrorism is like coming to the floor as something that at least producers think audiences might be compelled by. Pretty soon we'll be doing the peacemaker, which is more of a loose Soviet nuke's movie. And that's also one of the big concerns that's still out there. But the Irish conflict and the idea that it might produce consequences for ordinary Americans is not really a thing that I think we're concerned about. Even this movie, right, the consequences are kind of limited to this family, these particular individuals. It's not as if there are like terrorist attacks happening on random people as this is as this is unfolding it's it's really talked about and thought to be a distant conflict and part of part of the what the

story is trying to do is sort of it's a mirror trying to convince frankie that it is in fact a distant conflict that you don't have to fight it you don't have to do this um uh this isn't this doesn't have to be your life anymore you can be you can be here in america um And even when they arrive, right, like his buddy is sort of like, do we really need to do this, right? Like things are pretty good over here. Yeah. There should have been more of that in my view. Yeah.

Well, he's. I think he's too. Yeah. Some real crisis. Yeah. I don't have anything to add beyond that. It's like a, this isn't a bad movie by any means. But it is, it is sort of, you'll watch it and you'll be like, oh, I wish there is more here.

Like, this could have been a much better movie than it is. but you know Brad Pitt's good Harrison Ford's good the supporting cast is good good vibes I actually made a playlist on Spotify

inspired by 80s and 90s IRA movies vibes including some of the soundtracks and some things that just sound like they could be on a soundtrack so if what's on it

well I've got this cranberry song I got the crying game I've got several Shined O'Connor songs. I've got Klanad, I think who Enya was a member of in the beginning of her career. That's a song you may remember from the Patriot game soundtrack. But yeah, it's all got kind of these funny mix of like synths and pipes and Gaelic singing that you see in these movies to give them their atmosphere. So if you want, if you can't

get enough of the atmosphere of these IRA movies, you can search on Spotify, 80s, 90s, IRA movie vibes to find the playlist. I might even just put this in the show notes. Yeah, put it in the show notes. You can listen to it. Yeah. Well, that is the devil's own. I feel like I've been down on this, but it's like a modest recommend.

I didn't have a bad time watching it. It's a pretty good action movie, action adventure, thriller movie. And that opening sequence with the shootout is like actually it's fantastic. It's really tense and really well done. Surprisingly brutal. we get we get some um some headshots yeah so if nothing else it's some some well-directed action at the beginning there and treat we haven't talked that much about treat williams who plays billy burke but i love treat williams rip passed away this year um and he's really good in this just like really

you know chewing up the scenery so well that is our show uh if you're not a subscriber fleet subscriber We're available on iTunes, Spotify, and Google Podcasts, and wherever else podcasts are found. If you subscribe, please leave a rating and a review. It does help people find the show, and you can reach out to us on social media if you want to. You can also reach out to us over email at unclear and present feedback at fastmail.com. For this week in Feedback, we have an email from Aaron titled Absolute Power Episode and Comment. Hi, I wanted to follow up on your absolute power episode. Excellent as ever.

Thank you, Aaron. You guys discussed how the movie falls apart towards the end, as well as its 70s neo-noir vibes. My theory is that these two things are related, that the movie stumbles because it's not enough of a 70s noir. Ultimately, the movie has no real theory of politics. The president is simply a bad guy surrounded by an extremely small circle of people, willing to cover up his vices. The great 70s thrillers, Chinatown, three days of the condor, the parallax view, etc. often involved a conspiracy of powerful political and business forces. Absolute power doesn't have that, with its evil being so personalized to Hackman's president

character. Indeed, as you point out, the billionaire political donor in the film is actually a good guy. There's no broader conspiracy for Eastwood's character to track down, and the movie is much more boring for that, since great thrillers often feature the protagonist slowly working their way towards a dark hidden truth about American society. Anyway, love the podcast, and love that Absolute Power forces the Eastwood character to sit in a cut chair. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Aaron. Thank you, Aaron. That's also a very funny part about this movie. And I agree with this assessment. As I think back on absolute power, it's like, I mean, this is why I, even though it's based on a book, this is why I really do see it as sort of like a anti-Clinton movie,

because it very much is sort of like, everything would be fine if the president weren't a scumbag. And the president in the movie is a scumbag. And so everything is not fine. Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. I think that, you know, yeah, it's, yeah, there's no mystery in the movie at all. Yeah, no mystery, no kind of like, you know, yeah, no hidden thing to uncover. There's no grand conspiracy.

It's not that the president and the billionaire are involved in some, like, secretive plot. It really is quite simply, the president is very horny. and like gross and you know sexually transgressive and he in the midst of performing this gets someone killed and eastwood saw it and that's yeah that's that's the hope that's the whole thing but like um that that that leaves it with like much less substance it's based on like a shitty airport novel i think right right right yeah i'd love to see the sales numbers for that novel because I have to imagine that like the following year they just like skyrocket. Oh, I'm sure they did incredible.

Or the rentals for this movie. Yeah. You know, if the records for Blockbuster still exists somewhere. That would be interesting. That should be like a historical archive. Yeah. I mean, what people were renting. It'd be interesting to see.

All right. Episodes come out every two weeks. And so we'll see you in two weeks with an episode on. on an HBO movie, The Second Civil War, directed by Joe Dante. Huh. Joe Dante, people will know from Gremlins and Gremlins, too, the new batch, as well as small soldiers, looting tunes, back in action, a director who really did shape my childhood. in this movie

when a plain load of Pakistani orphans are shipped to a state for permanent relocation the governor of Idaho defies the president and closes the state's border newsnet television a cable news program that makes hay by reporting on political scandals quickly spins the racist act into an overnight political

media sensation creating a divide and national opinion over the issue huh wow wow weirdly topical Yeah, weirdly, very topical It doesn't often happen on our show So we'll be doing this movie The Seconds of War

It stars Bo Bridges Joanna Cassidy Phil Hartman James Earl Jones RIP James Coburn Dan Hadea And Dennis Leary

And Ron Perlman Wow, this is like a stack cast Yeah I love TV movies So I can't wait to get this Yeah I do too I just I mean on your recommendation

I just watched The Freakin 12 Angry Men Isn't it good It's so good it's so good I think it's well I think it's better than the original I don't know if you agree with okay well let's go out a little too far okay okay I think it's I think there are things that make it I mean honestly I'm not this is not just being a lib I think having a diverse cast actually really makes the movie more interesting I think you're right I think having like so I love the

original and so much of that's like sentimental as much of anything else but I think but I'm looking at the Friedkin one. It's interesting to see, you know, a different director take a different approach to the same material, how we, how we shoots it. Because, of course, this 12-anger-Men was written as a stage play. Right. And you can't, it's unavoidably very stagey. Yeah. And so it's sort of like one of the tricks, one of the things the director has to figure out is how do you, how do you imbue energy into the proceedings?

Lumette does it by kind of like strategic changes in focal lane. Freitken does it by strategic changes in camera positioning. Yeah. The camera gets lower and lower and lower and lower as the film goes on. Yeah. I think the MET1 is like a better movie in terms of the way it's edited, the way it's shot. Like it's more artful. But I will say that the performances in the Freed Kim one are just so enjoyable to watch.

They are. And I was going to, to your point about the diversity, I think really adding to it. It does, you know, what's his name? McKelty Williamson's character, Juror 10, who is the bigot in the group, who's like this openly anti-Hispanic bigot. That's an interesting dimension. He's like this ex-Nation of Islam guy who hates Hispanic people. Yeah.

Is like a really interesting dimension. Yeah, he's, and that character is very funnily put together. And he does a great job. I mean, he's terrific. Yeah. James Gandelfini as sort of like, you know, just like a salt of the earth kind of guy is really good in it. Jack Lemon, I think, is really great. Yeah.

He has the, he has the Henry Fonda role. Yeah. No, I mean, I think a movie's great. And it's, you know, it's an incredible cast. Courtney B. Vance, Ossey Davis, George C. Scott. Yeah. A lot of, I mean, it's crazy that this was a television movie. I know.

And George C. Scott, I mean, George C.C. John and Jack Lemon are towards the end of their careers and put in terrific performances, you know, with a lot of energy and a lot of, you know, yeah, it's not, they don't seem like, I mean, they're old in the movies, but they seem, you know, they bring it all. Yeah. Apparently, George C. Scott starred in a 1985 Mussolini biopic that's, two hours. It's like four hours long. It cannot be good. about it? Yeah. Is it Italian? This was made for American. Yeah, wow. We should watch that for the, we should watch that for the Patreon. It's about six hours long. Sorry, I got that wrong. The letterbox reviews are not kind. It's an American production shot in Yugoslavia. Okay. Well, was it made in the 1980s? I think this may be one of those Ugo, Tito, like kind of communist

movie. You know, like, like, Force 10 from Navarone, like, we made these movies in Yugoslavia, but like the regime, like, made sure that it had favorable depictions of Yugoslav partisans and stuff like that, you know, so that could be kind of interesting. Yeah, we might have to check this one out. Okay. This feels, this is, I mean, obviously for the Patriot, you got to pay money for us to do this one. Right. And speaking of the Patreon, we have the unclear and present Patreon, Unclear.com. Patreon.com slash Unclear Pod. $5 a month, two episodes a month. We're currently doing a little mini-series and Seventh News Vigilante stuff.

And by the time you listen to this episode, the Dirty Hairy episode will be up for you to listen to previous episodes where Joe. Next episode is Death Wish. So check that out. $5 a month, two episodes, huge back catalog. We're coming up on like, I think, two years with the Patreon. So lots of good stuff there. All right. For John Gant, I am Jamal Bowie.

Thank you for listening and we will see you next time.