Unclear and Present Danger - U.S. Marshals

Episode Date: March 7, 2026

On this week's episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John watch U.S. Marshals, the extremely lackluster sequel to The Fugitive which dispenses with a straightforward cat and mouse story in favor of a byzantine conspiracy involving government moles, foreign espionage and the Taiwanese government. Directed by Stuart Baird, U.S. Marshals stars Tommy Lee Jones, Wesley Snipes, Robert Downey Jr., Joe Pantoliano, Kate Nelligan and Irène Jacob. The tagline for U.S. Marshalls was "The cop who won't stop is back. But this time he's chasing down a lot more than a fugitive."You can find the film to rent or buy on Amazon and Apple TV.Episodes of the podcast are released roughly every other week, so join us again later this month for a look at Mercury Rising, Harold Becker's conspiracy thriller starring Bruce Willis, Alec Baldwin, Miko Hughes, Chi McBride and Kim Dickens. And don't forget our Patreon, where we cover the films of the Cold War and produce a weekly politics commentary show. Sign up at patreon.com/unclearpod.

Still got one prisoner on the counter for. Mark Roberts. A daring escape. A cross-country manhunt. No one had seen anything like it. I have. Search every house, hospital, hotel, back road, and backwater for Mr. Mark J. Roberts. For Sam Gerard and his team of U.S. Marshals.

You ever make a fugitive arrest before? Yeah, how about you? Nothing is what it seems. I got to find out who the hill of Mark Roberts. really is. Ex U.S. Marine Special Forces, ex-CIA, black cops. All right, heads up. No one can be trusted. I got set up from the word go.

This is a ruthless killer who committed murder in cold blood. Because this time, the fugitive they're chasing. Give me a head. I'd like to listen to you explain why your ruthless assassin keeps going out of his way to let people live. Is a government spy who knows too much. You're the great Sam Girard. Yes, I am. And you always have to win.

Yes, I do. Jones. Get out from here and face me. Cats. Going to have to shoot me. Wesley Snipes. Pull it. Can't be caught.

Turn around. You want to kill it? From the producers of the fugitive U.S. Marshals. Stood large. He's armed. He's dangerous. What do you intend to do? Catch you.

Hello and welcome to unclear and present danger of the podcast about the political and military thrillers in 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. I'm John Gans. I think I still write a column for the nation. I don't know. I haven't written in a while.

I'm not sure if they're renewing me. I write the substack newsletter on popular front. And I also am the author of when the clock broke, con men, conspiracists and how America cracked up in the early 1990s, which is available in paperback, wherever good books are sold. Check out the book. It's very good. If you are a new listener, the book is very relevant to the subject of this podcast or a general remit of the podcast. And while I'm shilling things, let me say at the top, check on our Patreon, Unclear and Present Patreon at patreon.

Patreon.com slash UnclearPod. where in addition to doing a twice-monthly show about the political and military at the Cold War era, and we're about to embark on kind of a Vietnam War series, we also do a weekly politics show where we're just talking about the week and events. And so I'll say after we finish recording this episode, we'll be talking about the American and Israeli war in Iran. So if you want to hear about that, you should pop over to the Patreon and sign up. Okay, on this week's episode of Unclear and Present Danger,

we are discussing the 1998 film U.S. Marshals, a sequel to Andrew Davis's classic film The Fugitive. U.S. Marshals is directed by Stuart Baird, a English director, still living, still working, who was a film editor for most of his or through most of his career. Films edited include The Omen, Superman, 1979, a great little science picture picture that no one's seeing called Outland, Lady Hawk, and he was also second unit director for that film, lethal weapon and lethal weapon

to tango and cash, the last Boy Scout demolition man, which is covered on this podcast, executive decision, which we covered on this podcast, and he also directed, and Star Trek Nemesis, That's a film he also directed. And Namesis, he still edits. He edited a film back in 2021. But Namesis appears to be his last film as a director because it's bad. And this movie's bad. In executive decisions, I mean, I like it, but it's kind of bad.

It's bad. You get three bites at the apple, I think, and then you're done. So Derek Bush-Steuit Baird, written by John Pogue. This is his first film he wrote. actually. First film we got first, early's first script he has a story credit for. And it stars Tommy Lee Jones as senior deputy U.S. Marshal Samuel Gerard, who we meet, who he met him in the fugitive famously. Wesley Snipes as the fugitive in this film. Robert Downey Jr. are very young and kind of like sedate. I mean, this makes sense he was getting over a drug addiction.

Sedate Robert Downey Jr. Joe Pantiliano or Joey Pants for short. short, Kate Nelligan and Irene Jacob. The, had a decently sized blockbuster budget, 45 million, did okay at the box office, 102 million. Very clearly, people went to go see this because it was a sequel to the fugitive. A really quick plot synopsis. So the movie begins and we see two diplomatic security service agents killed during an exchange in a parking garage.

The murders are caught on a security camera, but the. killer escapes with the files. Months later, Samuel Gerard in his team captured some fugitives in Chicago. Around the same time, a tow truck driver played by Wesley Snipes named Mark Warren is injured in an auto accident and arrested for possession

of an illegal handgun. Imagine that back when having a gun was illegal. Not a thing anymore. He's arrested for possession, but a fingerprint check reveals that he is actually a fugitive from the law, Mark Roberts, wanted for a double homicide in New York. He is set to be transferred back to New York.

Gerard is also on this flight, but a prisoner attempts to kill him with an improvised firearm, causing the plane to basically begin to deteriorate. A hole is blown up in the side of the plane. The plane crashes. Gerard is able to save himself and many prisoners and other agents there, but Robert escapes. And so thus begins the hunt.

I got to say by this point, we're 30 minutes into the movie. It's a long movie. It's like, it's like this could have been five minutes. Like, it's a long movie. It's impossible not to, yeah. It's impossible not to compare this to the fugitive. But like the fugitive takes 10 minutes, the set up the chase, right? You get like a five-minute kind of montage of the murder and like the trial and the conviction and all of that.

It does not take very long. And then you're immediately on the on the bus to the prison. And then the bus gets overturned. Like he escapes and boom, like 15 minutes in. You know the score. And this just like takes its fucking time. We meet Sam Girard in like a chicken costume. It's very silly.

in any case, that sets up the hunt. Gerard is joined by federal agents, including one played by Robert Denny Jr., who say their colleagues were killed by Roberts, and so they are going to try to chase him down. What follows, I'm afraid to say, and then the other character here is Roberts' girlfriend, whose name is

let's see whose name is Marie who is sort of helping him out always believes in him, that kind of thing. Okay, so what follows next is somewhat convoluted. Roberts

did kill two people, but he himself is a former CIA agent or some kind of special operative. Yeah, he's a CIA Special Activities Division guy and former Marine recon guy. Yes. Yeah.

And he is being set up by someone to frame him basically for treason. Yeah. So he is trying to clear his name by finding the agents. He believes are responsible for framing him. so he's he's doing this Gerard and this team are tracking or chasing him down there then is a shootout

in the cemetery with this Chinese secret service agent or someone who is trying to kill Roberts I suppose to silence him yeah this

because they are stealing secrets. Right, they are stealing secrets. So this chase continues. There's a climactic, kind of climactic chase where one of Gerard agents is shot and killed, kind of the young guy who Gerard likes, which makes Gerard furious, and he hunts down Roberts, believing that Roberts killed the agent. And sorry, Snape's actual name is Mark Sheridan. Right.

So he's got three names in the movie. Yeah, three names, yeah. So Gerard and Royce, who is the Robert Denton Jr. character, are determined to kill Sherrod and they track him down to a freighter ship bound for Canada. They struggle. Sheridan almost kills Gerard, but doesn't. And then Sheridan is shot by Royce. Gerard realizes that the gun that was used to shoot his teammate was actually Royce's gun and that Royce, in fact, was the real mole in the age. who is in league with the Chinese government, and Royce framed Sheridan. And so the movie ends with Sheridan in the hospital.

Royce about to kill him, Gerard confronting them, Gerard killing Royce, and all as well that ends well. That's the movie. This takes 90 minutes to unfold after that initial 30-minute beginning, and it's very convoluted, and it's not good. Okay, that is U.S. Marshals. The film was, oh, tagline for U.S. Marshals, real quick. The cop who won't stop is back, but this time he's chasing down a lot more than a fugitive.

I think the tagline should have been, damn, Tommy Lee Jones has ripped as hell. We get like a shirtless scene of Tommy Lee Jones. Yeah, and not Wesley. Not yet. We get no, Wesley's no tank top. No tank top. Oddly unsexualized. Tommy Lee Jones, you're like, show off this guy's bod.

The film was released on March 6th, 1998. So let's check out the New York Times for that day. Okay. What do we got here? Well, there's the first little tidbits of Lewinsky scandal that we've had, I think, on our podcast. Clinton reported to call Secretary Maine Ty to intern. Testimony by president. His account of an arm's length.

Yeah, that's right. like relationship pushes Curry into inquiry spotlight. In his deposition defending himself against a sexual misconduct lawsuit, President Clinton repeatedly portrayed his secretary Betty Curry and not himself as the principal who dealt with Monica S. Lewinsky, the former White House intern, said lawyers who have refuted a transcript of the president's testimony. By the president's account, it was Mrs. Curry, who mainly dealt with Ms. Lewinsky, initiated suggestions about gifts and employment

opportunities for her, according to details of the president's private deposition on January 17th to lawyers for Paula Corbin Jones. Is there something you were trying to ask me about? The president suddenly acquired of his interrogators, according to one lawyer, as they brought up the role of Ms. Lewinsky at the White House and focused increasingly on a sexual relationship that Mr. Clinton denied having. Well, we all know that that wasn't true. And funnily enough, Clinton was just of testifying again, but this time to Congress about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, which had a very interesting moment I saw Clipped where Clinton's lawyer was very competent, obviously, and they were trying to ask Clinton, do you think Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide?

And Clinton really gave that answer a lot of thought before he answered and let his lawyer do a lot of talk for him. And he said, I forget his answer, but it was very politic and lawyerly. like I have no reason to believe he didn't or something like that. So yeah. Can I say that I go back and forth on this myself? I watched a bunch of documentaries about Epstein. And what came across to me is, I mean, this is obvious, right? He's just like an insane narcissist.

Yeah. So it actually makes a lot of sense to me that he would kill himself, just like psychologically. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. I don't think his life had a lot of meaning beyond what he was doing and what he was doing. and once he was not able to do it, why would he live? Right, right.

That's my kind of feeling about it. But then there's a lot of suspicious shit. Yeah. Like, they're like, oh, we turned off the, like, we don't know what happened to the, you know, like there's a lot of weird, like, oh, yeah, those guards fell asleep or they were disciplined. It was a lot of very strange things.

I mean, I think you could split the difference and say that maybe they were indifferent to the possibility that he'd kill himself. Yeah. Yeah, I think that could just be the general incompetence of the feds. Yeah. But it's, I don't know. We may never know. We may never know if Jeffrey Epstein was guilty or not.

Sorry to interrupt. Please, please go on. Busy Sri Lankan intersection shattered by bus bombing. At least 32, there's a large photo here. At least 32 people were killed in hundreds hurt when a bus carrying shrapnel packed bombs exploded outside of. Crowd station, Colombo, Sri Lanka's capital.

This was absolutely done by the Tamil Tigers, the insurgent group that controlled parts of Sri Lanka until not too long ago when the central government launched a campaign to reconquer it. Let's see, what do we go? If you listen to MIA back in the 2000s, you will have heard of the Tamil Tigers. Yeah, her father was a prominent Tamil tiger, I believe. New Serbia fighting were called Bosnia War. Serbia sent helicopter gunships and armored personnel carries against Albanian separatists in the south, leaving 22 dead.

And some see parallels in Kosovo province to the actions of Serbian forces during the Bosnian war. An Albanian political leader said massacres were carried out. Yeah. So not long after this, too, there would be another NATO intervention this time in Kosovo. Wow, this is interesting. tiny little item here. New role for Jesse Jackson. Since the start of the fear over Monica Eskluinsky, President Clinton and his family have frequently turned to the Baptist Minister for private sessions of prayers. In hush tones and the inner sanctum of the White House

President Clinton's new spiritual advisor said he offered counsel that has steeped as much in practical politics as in the Bible. Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut and don't panic. If you're president at the center of a scandal that may be sound advice, but it comes from a unlucky source, Reverend Jesse L. Jackson. This is a man who once condoned Bill Clinton as Machiavelling, Machiavellian and having a character flaw. And Mr. Clinton in turn fumed that Mr. Jackson was double crossing and backstabbing. Well, actually, it wasn't in turn because Clinton said those things about Jackson before Jackson said those things about Clinton.

He was caught saying that on a hot mic when he believed that Jackson had endorsed Harkin, which didn't actually happen. the Machiavellian stuff and the character flaw stuff came after the sister soldier incident. But interesting that Clinton would turn to Jesse Jackson, who, you know, he kind of ended his political career from a certain perspective. Yeah. I mean, during this period, Clinton is really turning to the black community for support. Yeah. To bolster himself.

This is around the time that I think it was Tony Morrison, who called Clinton the first black president. in terms of being kind of like sexualized and, you know, accused and everything. Yeah. Not like the best take, but somewhat understandable given the circumstances. Yeah, Tony, a good line, many good lines, maybe not to the best purpose in that one. Let's see. Yeah, gun battles in Serbia raised fear of another Bosnia. We looked at that.

Giuliani fundraiser points to running for higher office. had never worked out for him. Anything else look interesting to you? No, I mean, I guess there's China at a prime economic pump with math, mammoth building outlay. Yeah, that was during the Asian tiger crash. Right. And they kind of just did a big spending program. Okay.

Okay, let's go. Let's go. All right. So, U.S. Marshals, I had never seen this before. Surprisingly, never watched this. that I've seen you had. So, yeah, what, I mean, what did you think, John? It's not great.

It's not great, but it's like, it's serviceable. It's like not. It's too long. It's got some good action sequences, but like, the characters are not, wait, first I have a racial theory. I want to run by you. Yes. Do you think that they made Wesley Snipes white love interest French because that that, was a safer way to have him involved with a white woman.

I, you know, I, I do not know anything about what the casting directors were thinking, but it makes sense to me. I mean, I was, I was struck by the fact that his love interest was white. Like, that's actually quite unusual. Yeah. For the period. But yeah, if she's not American, if she's one of those French, then a good, a good red-blooded American can't get too mad about it.

Yeah, no. I think it was a little bit. There was a little bit of decision making there. Because we've seen other movies with Wesley Snipes where he does not pointedly have a white love interest. Okay. So my racial theory sounds plausible. Yeah. Okay.

The other thing, just to add to that, is that we've discussed this in relation to like Will Smith, especially the other kind of big black action star of the decade. And to a lesser extent, Denzel, who was doing action movies as well. But like Snipes, unlike the two of them, was like very clearly like sexualized. Yeah. Right. Like he was, he was a sex symbol. Everybody was talking about how hot he was. And so the extent to which he's, he's kind of de-sexualized in this and has his French

girlfriend. I think, I think your theory is right, John. Okay. And then, uh, yeah, you know, it's just a very, also like, this script is unbelievably cliched. Like there were times when I was doing stuff around the house and just listening to the movie. And when you, when you detach the script from the visuals,

you kind of pick up on the cliches of the movie way more. And it's almost cartoonish. Like he's got his wisecracking team. And like, it's just every, he's rattling off all his orders about perimeters. And then there's, all these stock figures, like, first it starts off in, like, the South, and you have all these Bubba characters, and that's, like, played for laughs, you know, like in the swamp with all these, you know, rednecks and so on and so forth. That's played for snow. It's just like there's an

enormous amount of, like, cheap tropism in the movie, which makes sense because it's like a spin-off and a, in a sequel in a way. It's just trying to capitalize on the fact that that Tommy Lee Jones's character was like well loved and popular. The other thing about it, which is kind of political, I get, well, it's not political, but it's a weird thing. In the 1990s, the U.S. Marshals had like a cultural moment. Like, there was this movie. There was obviously the fugitive.

Then there was the white art movie Tombstone, but there was also Con Air, Tombstone Rocks. But like, so I don't know what it was about the U.S. Marshals, but I think it had something to do with like there was also a neo-western thing in the 90s there was some kind of weird US nostalgia and the marshals are kind of like old America and very and you can kind of see and I can kind of begin to dovetail this into the politics such that they are of the movie is that you have like the marshals which is a kind of down home and working class almost one might say, part of the U.S. government. And then you have these spies and diplomats and the upper class of the U.S. government,

which are inherently untrustworthy. So I don't know. That's kind of the thought that I had if you could find a politics in the movie. I think you're right to identify a kind of moment for the Marshal's Service for kind of federal law enforcement, both good and bad, right? Like this is a decade of Ruby Bridge and Waco. Right. Also involved commercials.

Yeah. Right. But then you're right. Conair. I mean, the fugitive. And then beyond Tommy Lee Jones being just a very charismatic and enjoyable presence in the fugitive, you know, I think you're right to notice how Jones, who is a Texan, who has a thick Texas accent, who is working class coded. Yeah. Even if he's a professional.

He's always wearing jeans with his, like, shirt and. tie. He um, you know, he, he, he would, when offered, when offered like a fancy, you know, 90s windbreaker, which I got to say, they were like, oh, I got you this ridiculous looking windbreaker. I was like, man, that looks dope as hell. I'd wear that. Um, kind of a Charlotte Hornet style windbreaker. Uh, he opts for a t-shirt. He's like very comfortable in, in, in, and a more, um, again, more blue collar working glass environment. And his counterpart is, Robert Dena Jr.'s character who isn't just like a fresh-faced

agent, but he's, Robert Dena Jr., it's literally a nepo baby, right? Like literally someone born into privilege. And I think either consciously or not that this contrast is supposed to be there, like the blue-collar Gerard and the more white collar

and privileged and soft, Royce. I mean, the thing I would observe first about the movie and just like this is just like a script critique it's it's actually really strange

to me so this this movie is about a convoluted and kind of baroque plot involving you know counterintelligence and moles and all these things and this is a sequel to the fugitive which has a remarkably straightforward plot right like the fugitive is

this guy was wrongly accused, wrongly convicted, and he escapes, and now the marshals have to find him, and while he's trying to escape, he's trying to prove his innocence. And it's very linear. There's like not really that much going on plot-wise, which is great. It means everything else can kind of shine. And here, this plot is so convoluted. And I'm like, why didn't they just, why didn't they just like do, I mean, they were trying to do a man to clear his name thinking again by what, if they're going to to call this U.S. Marshals. So if the fugitive is about the fugitive, and this one's about the U.S. marshals, why not just have it be the U.S. Marshals trying to get some guy? Yeah, I guess it wasn't

interesting enough. I don't know. The other thing is, it's like it's so similar to the first movie and that there's like a crap, you know, like the premise is the same of how the fugitive escapes. Like they couldn't think of anything more creative. Oh, we're going to put it on a plane instead of a bus this time. If you, if you read about the making of the fugitive, everyone involved was like we were shocked that this movie was actually watchable really because they were like wow they were making it just seemed terrible yeah like the script the script was barely finished like there was lots of trouble in the production just like it was a hard movie to make and so when it came out kind of a masterpiece

everyone's like wow you know the magic of the movies U.S. Marshalls feels like what they thought the fugitive was going to be kind of convoluted not really working and not really holding together very well. As far as the politics of this movie goes, one thing that when we talked about the fugitive way back when on this podcast, we talked a little bit about the racial politics of that movie and how so much of it,

so much of Harrison Ford's characters, Richard Kimball's ability to escape and prevail, was a function of his whiteness. It's how he's able to blend in. It's how he was able to do all these things. And I'll say, I'll give the writers of this movie credit for this. It's like interesting how much of, like, Wesley Sett's character cannot hide. That's the thing that's like happening constantly in this movie.

He's trying to hide and he simply cannot because he's just like he's a black guy. And the extent of which this film at least like tries to nod towards like that differing dynamic, I think is interesting. It doesn't do a lot with it. But it's, it's, I do think it's there. I mean, a lot of ways this, the U.S. Marshals is almost like a, it's a little bit like generic as a 90s thriller. Yeah. You know, it fits the era. It fits the time that kind of to the extent that there's a foreign adversary, it is China.

You know, Chinese espionage. you know the the the FBI as untrustworthy should of those federal agencies as unfit-the-era but there's like there's not like a ton going on under the hood it's just it's a rehash of the first movie except not as not as good that's well written Tommy Lee Jones is doing the most he can with the material he has wasley-snipes is doing the most he can with the material he has but there's there's no attempt to really say anything deeper and unlike the fugitive which is this great showcase of Chicago it's like it's maybe one of the great Chicago movies the US Marshalls takes

place in Chicago in New York but you'd barely know it yeah it kind of jumps around the country but doesn't really make it much of those locations yeah yeah I don't know it's really pretty flat I I don't know um you know you know Yeah, Taiwan is a subplot, I guess, because it's like they're trying to put the secrets involved. They're Taiwanese defense secrets, which I guess is kind of relevant these days. Did you know that Kamili Jones was Al Gore's roommate? I did know that. Yeah.

Yeah, and Harvard. It's a fun fact. Yeah, I don't know. I think that that is true that he can't hide as well. There is some, there are some gestures to his race. But I have to say also, like, we don't know that he's innocent. So that's sort of a convoluting thing. Like the whole fugitive is like, you're pulling for the guy because you absolutely know he's innocent.

And the other thing is, although, you know, Wesley Snipes is obviously a hero and sympathetic, but he commits a lot of crimes in the, in the course of escaping, which I guess you can justify because they were trying to kill him. But he does, you know, he hijacks those poor, that poor trucker. his wife. I mean, it's bad. He commits a lot of felonies in the course of the movie that are like violent crimes. And yeah, okay, like, you know, he's got to escape. He's got to do what he's got to do. But I mean, like, those are bad things. And the movie never, and it's never like, and I don't think in the fugitive, in the fugitive he commits some crimes while trying to escape. But like, I don't think he commits violent felonies in the course of escaping, does he? No, I don't think he does. Yeah. He commits like misdemeanters in the course of escaping. Yeah.

I guess the escape itself being the felony. Yeah, so I don't know. And like the whole, I don't know how I feel about movies like that are lionizing the marshals who are just like, it's, it would be they're just like they hunt people down. You know, like they, I guess they're bad guys. But it's sort of like when you abstract a little bit, you're like, oh yeah, like this is a movie about the people who like, you know, put people in prison. And then you're like, is that cool? I don't know. Like they're just sort of, they're cops.

And they're not a particularly glamorous role. Yeah, they have like a down homie art old time America thing going on because they're like associated with the old West. The marshals were weirdly or enough, weren't they involved in the attack on Venezuela because like it was a law enforcement, a law enforcement. thing where they were like capturing a fugitive quote unquote yes they were yeah they were that way they were capturing um maduro so they were they were sent it was it wasn't technically a military intervention this is the legal cases because the marshals were um it was there they were there to serve an arrest warrant and the military was just there to protect the marshals right right I mean, also the marshals, not for nothing.

You know, there's sort of like kind of dumb left wing cliche, which is that like cops are the descendants of slave catchers. Not quite true, but the marshals did enforce the fugitive slave act. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they also did escort Ruby Bridges to and from school and James Meredith. So they're famous for that. So they've redeemed themselves somewhat, I guess.

The U.S. marshals, they contain multitudes. They contain multitudes. Very interesting and storied. The thing is, is they're one of the oldest federal law enforcement in the country because they were authorized by the Judiciary Act of 1789. Yes. And they have kind of a weird function within the separation of powers because they are under the executive branch, but they're somewhat the enforcement wing of the judiciary. Like they're supposed to enforce court orders. but I think that there was a reorganization of the law enforcement.

They became more a part of the executive branch and the Department of Justice. I'm not exactly sure when that happened. But, yeah, they're kind of a weird and interesting and old organization. So they currently operate under the direction of the U.S. Attorney General. right so they are they are they're tasked yeah they're tasked with providing protection for the judiciary yeah but um their their reorganization uh their reorganization as opposed to put them under the attorney general uh the marshals enforced prohibition which makes sense yeah was was was elliot nass no he was an fbi guy right no he was an fbi guy yeah okay so and in part of i mean if he this was covered in the movie

Jay Grubbich recovered, and it's part of Bev Gage's book, but part of the story of the FBI is that Hoover wanted them to do some of the functions of marshals. Right, right, right, right, right. It's so funny how, I mean, funny. We have many overlapping, like we have the U.S. Marshals, we have the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and now we have DHS investigations. You have so many federal law. You know what?

You might say we could abolish some of them. You probably could. You know, you could abolish ICE and probably... I would have a Department of Homeland Security entirely. Get rid of DHS entirely. Reconfigure CBB. I think Congress actually probably needs its own Marshall's service. Like basically to serve subpoenas and enforce its, you know, when officials are like, we don't have to testify.

And you can send the congressional marshals to come drag them in. You want to give, you want to give them, you want to give Congress an army? Yes. Yeah. I think this would not sit well with conservative justices. I don't think it would either. It used to be the office of the special counsel. Is that what it was called?

Or the independent council, which was directly under the, under Congress, but was ruled to be a separation of power. issue. That's right. Yes. But I think that you're right in the sense that it's not separation of powers. It's overlapping powers. So it does kind of make sense. That's why I think that the marshal should be under the judicial branch entirely because then everybody could say, well, oh, the federal and judges can't, the Supreme Court or federal judges can't enforce their rulings. Well, if the marshals were directly under the judiciary, the U.S. marshals could technically get into a shootout with the FBI. So what an interesting thing, to kind of switch gears from this movie, which I mean, there just really isn't that much to talk about. It's like it's a long, kind of boring movie.

it's mostly apolitical obviously you know Taiwan to part of the story but there's no like there's not like Taiwanese politics happening here and this is actually an interesting period in Taiwan's history right this is like democracy's the democracy movement is like really kind of taking as taken hold in Taiwan I believe in 96 there was a democratic election or there there there is um uh uh Li tenghi was reelected in uh the uh the first, the country's first direct presidential election. And he was corrupt, but it was like a, it was like a democratic election. So there's just like, there's a lot of interesting happening in Taiwan.

But to switch gears and talk about just federal law enforcement a bit, which is like a recurring subject on this podcast. Yeah. It is interesting. So like you have all these, you have, we love federal law enforcement. Part of what's happening in the 90s, there are all these controversies around. the behavior of federal law enforcement. Ruby Ridge and Waco, chief among them.

Oh, and also the Atlanta, the Atlanta bombing. Right. Where, or is that the movie, but that was in Philadelphia, but that was like earlier. Oh,

yeah, the Atlanta bombing. This is the Olympics bombing. The Olympics bombing. Right, right, right. Yeah. Dramatized in the movie, Richard Jule.

Yeah. Which I've never seen. It's good. I mean, it's like a Clint Eastwood, these guys were railroaded movie. It's like, it's good. They really stuck into this white guy. But it's good. You know, I mean, a long time listeners will know that I'm a total Clint Eastwood

Apologist. So this is what you'd expect for me. So 9-11 is an interesting point, right? Because we just mentioned DHS. DHS is a product of 9-11, right? Like 9-11, the one of the big controversies was that the FBI, and the CIA both kind of knew something was up. They both had pieces of the puzzle, but there was no communication between the two agencies.

In part by law, the FBI is a domestic law enforcement agency. The CIA is a foreign intelligence agency. CIA cannot spy on Americans at home. FBI cannot engage in, you know, foreign intelligence operation. So there's a disconnect there. And the other, various other agencies, INS, right, knows about the hijackers in the country. Like, all the agencies have bits and pieces of the puzzle, but there's basically no ability to, and no will to kind of like share the intelligence that might put things together.

So DHS is this attempt to put a lot of these agencies that are federal law enforcement under one branch, under one umbrella agency, the better enhanced communication between them. And then there are efforts taken to enhance communication between CIA and FBI. There's a big kind of effort to kind of make sure that all the agents can talk to each other. And this was regarded at the time that the mainstream view is that this was a necessary thing to prevent terrorists. The kind of critical view was that this is a privacy nightmare. and that the level of friction involved in interagency cooperation was actually like an important piece of privacy protections. And I'll say I think that criticism is basically borne out to be completely true, especially in the context of a current administration that is 100% like weaponizing the connections between agencies to do like insane domestic surveillance.

So if you've been following, you know, the ICE incursions in various places, you'll know that agents are given this app powered, I believe, by Palantir, that they scan faces and it connects to this, like, big database. In part, what was happening with Doge last year was an effort to kind of create a gigantic database using basically every bit of information the federal government collects on its citizens to be able to identify people, presumably for deportation. But, you know, for who else? It's a little funny to me that in the the plot of the Marvel movie Captain America Winter Soldier is of like fascists in government using domestic surveillance to target their enemies. And it's like, oh, well, you know. Yeah. No. I mean, also, yeah, there's the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which is a new.

well, they used to be basically they kind of brought together the CIA, like the CIA was, the director of the CIA used to be called the director of central intelligence. And that was supposed to be the clearinghouse of all U.S. intelligence gathering. But then they created another institution, which is the DNI, which is a cabinet level post. Now, Tulsi Gabbard is the D&I, which is very bad, which was supposed to kind of re-coordinate all the intelligence branches. But there's so many different, there's such a huge proliferation of national security bureaucracies.

And like, you know, I'm sorry to use the analogy, but it kind of reminds you Nazi Germany a little bit because you're like, there's a Gestapo, there's the There's the right main security office. Like there's all these like competing bureaucratic centers of security and and like efforts to centralize them. But they're all sort of like just different ways to strip people's constitutional rights. Yeah, I really think that if we get out of this era intact, there has to be some real thought to reforming the federal government to actually be smaller. it surprised me as a lib to say that, particularly in the respect to, I don't think that we need some of the, I don't think we, I think we should get rid of the DNI. I think we should get rid of

the DHS. And I think that, you know, we don't need a cabinet level post that's, you know, and then a director of the CIA and then a director of the NSA and then the director of the FBI and then the Homeland Security Chief, it's like, come on, you know, what is going on here? Yeah, so this movie was from an era when, yeah, federal law enforcement was in the news for a lot of unfortunate incidents. And this movie also, there was a lot of copaganda about federal law enforcement in the 90s, too. So there were two countervailing forces. but yeah I don't know this film not much meat on the bone

yeah I get nothing all right all right should we wrap it up we should wrap it up so that's the US Marshals I wouldn't this you know my friends at the the we hate movies podcast

refers to some movies as dad for noon movies the kind of film that might come on T&T on a Saturday and you kind of just watch it cut it's on Perfect example from our podcast is in the line of fire. Not a perfect movie, but if it comes on, it's kind of hard not to just sit down and watch it. It's pretty good.

We've covered some other movies that are great Dad for Noon films. Another Clint, Absolute Power, Courage Under Fire. I mean, this is the bread and butter of this podcast. But, like, U.S. Marshals is actually too boring to fit that. It's just sort of like you Yeah, it's on the lower end, yeah Yeah, it's on the lower end It's really, it's actually quite inexplicable

How boring it is And how much it just doesn't really work all that well It's too long, it's really why It doesn't need to be two and a half hours long It could be a 90 minutes I don't know It's just this is a problem with movies today Yes, very much so

Okay Well, that's our show. Thank you for listening, as always. If you want to, you can find this podcast or a podcast for a podcast or found. And if you want to leave a rating and review, we always appreciate it. It helps people find the show. You can leave us feedback at unclear and present feedback at fastmail.com. For this week in feedback, let's see here.

for this week in feedback, we have an email from Garrett titled G.I. Jane and military masculinity. Hello, I really enjoyed your episode on G.I. Jane. It got me thinking about the military as a vehicle for masculine validation for the men who participate in it, as well as an avatar of national masculinity for civilians and politicians. I think one of the reasons that this administration is so insistent on reifying masculine savagery in the military is because military service no longer requires the same level of savagery that it once did. Infantry combat and soldiering in general are less important to a country's military strength than they were a century ago. We've seen with the Russian invasion of Ukraine that combat between modern militaries is increasingly roboticized and remote. The contemporary battlefield is characterized by massachusetts. massive no-man's lands that are dominated by swarms of highly lethal drones.

I'll say those drones are often also, this is me commenting now, those drones are often also autonomous, and so they are run by kind of AI programs that use pattern recognition to determine whether or not someone is a target, and then they unleash their payloads, which I think there are a lot of problems with that. I'll continue with this email. When one nation attacks another, it is usually with long-range missiles rather than with boots on the ground. There are so humans shooting at each other, but generally on a much smaller scale than a popular imaginings of war. Like other parts of society, war has become less personal and even more alienating. I think this explains by the pop culture archetype of a heroic soldier has evolved from

the World War II infantrymen to the operator. Increasingly, operators are the only ones who get to affirm their masculinity by killing. The problem is that special forces make up a very small part of the military. So the average person who wants to live out a traditional fantasy of violent masculine valorization has fewer realistic avenues. By militarizing and massively expanding the ranks of ice, the Trump administration has created an outlet for these fantasies. Unfortunately, in the modern world, the only enemies you can provide the blood to sanctify these rituals to perform masculinity are civilians. I enjoy both of your work. Please keep it up. Thank you, Garrett. This is going to segue into our politics.

conversation later, but I think this is basically right. I mean, right before we recorded, Defense Secretary Pete Hankseth gave a press conference where he was like doing this like raw, raw, you know, hyper-masculine, you know, we are hitting the enemy when they're down kind of speech. And to me, that's all, that's like pure kind of like, that's pure, that's pure an attempt to edify his own kind of sense of masculinity. Like his own kind of masculine insecurities. I know. What do you think?

Yeah, no, I mean, that sounds right to me. Basically, yeah. I mean, there's this fantasy about war that happens now just exactly when a lot of those things are not. that important when it's a lot of automation and a lot of computerized systems. And yeah, the operators are still out there. And operator culture, unfortunately, has really run rampant in the military. I mean, there was a great piece by Seth Harp recently about this and the author of the Fort Brad Cartel. And yeah, you know, I think that basically it is a kind of, of it's all image.

I mean, this is all about like this entire, I mean, we're going to discuss this, but there's so much about the war, pursuit of wars and in this era and under this administration is mostly about fantasies and images and spectacle. And very little about actually achieving political goals or having a strategy. And that is a result of the fact that, like, basically they're only interested in propaganda. And it was, and they're impressed by propaganda because it was all this ridiculous Russian propaganda showing soldiers doing silly maneuvers, very muscle-bound airborne soldiers doing silly maneuvers that made Western conservative, American conservatives freak out that the American military was like getting sissified or something like that. And you're like, dude, all those people are, if they were actually in comic, they're all dead now. Right. I mean, the other thing is I'd say, I'd say they got freaked out. I'd say they got horny.

Yeah, no, you're right. They were like, oh, we wish we had that. And you're like, are you so stupid? Like, they, this is not, anyway, it's, it's terrible. But yeah, it's because of these images have, have taken over people's minds. Large part to do with also some of the films that we, comment on. Yes.

That, you know, I think it's a big part of why we end up in this situation. Yeah. So I think that that's the letter is well observed. Yeah. Thank you so much for the email, Garrett. And a reminder, if you want to send us feedback, unclear and present feedback at fastmail. Episodes come out roughly over two weeks. And so our next main feed episode will be on Mercury Rising.

A movie that I kind of vaguely remember from my childhood, but I've never seen. Oh, yeah. It's directed by Harold Becker. It stars Bruce Willis. Here's a very, very brief plot synopsis. Renegate, FBI, Agent Art Jeffries protects a nine-year-old autistic boy who has cracked the government's new unbreakable code. This is during the period where people are like autism, what's that? Yeah.

And there's lots of sort of like people with autism have superpowers. kind of content. So that is our next film. Over at the Patreon, if I remember correctly, we're doing Southern Comfort is what it's called. Yep.

We're doing a Walter Hill Vietnam War film called Southern Comfort, yes. And we're going to follow that up with, I believe, Apocalypse Now in the Deer Hunter. and we might do deliverance as well. So kind of your Vietnam, your movie is about or loosely about Vietnam and the reaction to. There are others, but I recently rewatch Platoon, so I don't feel like watching it.

And I do not particularly like casualties of war, which is Brian DePaulmas. He shouldn't be allowed to make a video movie. I guess that's cats out of the back. Yeah, I'm not that crazy about Platoon, honestly, but I have a lot of issues with Oliver Stone in general. But, yeah, no, I think Southern Comfort will be interesting. And then we were talking about maybe doing something about the Nuremberg films for the... Yes, yes. And so to give you a fuller view of where the patron is going, we'll do these Vietnam films.

And we're going to do a bunch of Nuremberg films, apropro the recent film Nuremberg. We've already done judgment at Nuremberg. And there is one other, there is one that you wanted to do in particular. There's a TV movie from the 90s, I think called Nuremberg, also called Nuremberg, with Alec Baldwin and Brian Cox, which I think is worth taking another look at. Yes, it is, it is just called Nuremberg. It stars, yeah, Alex Baldwin, Brian Cox, and Christopher Plummer, and Michael Ironside and Max von Seidow. Yeah, he's in it. Wow.

I forget what he is in it. I think he might be a Nazi. I mean, if you're hiring Max von Siedout for a Nuremberg movie, he is 100% playing a Nazi. All respect to the great Max von Sighto, RIP. Brian Cox is Gerbils. I think he does a really good job, so worth watching. All right.

So that is what's going on with Patreon. Guring, not Gourables, Guring. Goring, yes, yes, yes. That's what's going on to Patreon. So join us over there at Unclear and Present. Sorry, join us over there at patreon.com slash unclear pod. For Jamal Buoy. For guys, if you're listeners, I'm getting over a migraine, so my brain is a little scrambled.

For John Gans, I'm Jamal Bowie. This is unclear and present danger. And we'll see you next time.