Unclear and Present Danger - White Sands

Episode Date: September 21, 2022

Somehow, a crime thriller starring Willem Dafoe, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio and Mickey Rourke set in the New Mexico desert isn’t especially good. Still, the 1992 film “White Sands” gave Jamelle and John a little bit to discuss for this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger.Connor Lynch produced this episode. Artwork by Rachel Eck.Contact us!Follow us on Twitter!John GanzJamelle BouieLinks from the episode!New York Times front-page for April 24, 1992

To solve a murder, he stepped into the dead man's shoes. Spencer had a first name. He can call himself Bob. Officially, I don't exist. Here you go. He followed the trail to White Sands. This is about creating enemies when there aren't any. I don't ever get involved in these kinds of deals.

Give a half million bucks to a business. half million bucks to a man you don't even know. Where truth is the ultimate disguise. I've never met anyone like you. You're honest. Even when you're lying. You don't trust me. Where's the money?

Where deception breeds like a virus. Willam Defoe, Mary Elizabeth Master Antonio, and Mickey Rourke. White Sands, the most dangerous place to be. But you're not bored anymore, are you? Welcome to Episode 24 of Unclear and Present Danger, a podcast about the place of unclear and present danger. and military thrillers of the 1990s and what they say about the politics of that decade. I'm Jamal Bowie. I'm a columnist for the New York Times opinion section. I'm John Gans. I write a substack newsletter called A Popular Front, and I'm working on a book

about American politics in the early 1990s. Today we are covering an extremely 90s type of movie, the 1992 crime thriller White Sands, directed by Roger Donaldson, and starring Willem Defoe, Mary Elizabeth Mastrontonio, Samuel L. Jackson, and Mickey Rourke. Here is a short plot synopsis. A small southwestern town sheriff finds a body in the desert with a suitcase and a half million dollars. He impersonates the man and stumbles into an FBI investigation. As always, you should watch the film before listening to our conversation. White Sands is available for rental on iTunes and Amazon Amazon and Amazon, video. Before we get started on the movie, let's look at the New York Times page for the day of release, April 24th, 1992.

24, 1992. Here we go. So let's see what we got. Well, a car plows into the park killing for and injuring many in Washington Square Park. This is just a car that went out of control and hurt and killed some people. Look at the byline. Dean Beckett. Yeah. He was just a, he was just a cub reporter back then. It's probably more than a cub reporter, but yeah, it's always funny when you read the Times and you see all these these names that have become legendary. Um, political memo, why Perot could pose a threat with 100 million. it's his own. So basically this is, Perrault is gearing up for his independent run at the presidency.

He has a lot of his own money to blow and he doesn't have to raise money and he could just create his own organization and, you know, spend a lot of money, which he kind of did. He was, I think, pretty resentful about actually having to spend his own money in the end, a little bit of a cheapskate, as many billionaires are. But that's the political memo for the day. Scientists report profound insight on how time began. The Big Bang Theory is backed. I remember this as a kid, the Big Bang Theory becoming sort of accepted. Now we just take it for granted, but I sort of vaguely remember. I don't know if it was this when this news came out, but I remember this being discussed. Pennsylvania governor criticizes process that's turning it to Clinton.

So Bob Casey, the governor of Pennsylvania, was criticized. the primary process because Clinton was being nominated, but there was kind of a sense of lack of enthusiasm behind him. He was winning very low turnout primaries. So he had a bone to pick with that. Of course, as we'll see right beneath this, Casey had his own political agenda here. This was not just for the sake of the Democratic Party. Casey was one of the last big pro-life Democrats, and he was involved at this point in a famous Supreme Court case, which would be decided later in the year, Planned Farenthood v. Casey, which was the biggest abortion case until Dobbs,

partially struck down, partially upheld Casey's restrictions on abortion in Pennsylvania, and according to many scholars, both left and right, sort of set up the end of Roe v. Wade by kind of gutting it. The dissents sort of created the legal pathway for Dobbs and, the opinion, you know, raised a lot of the concerns about, and kind of criticize the Bush administration for once again filing another amicus brief trying to get Roe v. Wade struck down and sort of telling them to stop that it was, it was settled law and they should cut it out, which, of course, no one listened to.

What's interesting, just real quick, what's interesting about Planned Parenthood v. Casey, in part is that in the lead up to, I mean, during oral arguments and in the lead up to the release of the opinion, the consensus was that we might, it was sort of not this similar to what we saw before Dobbs, right? That like there is a real fear among abortion rights advocates that like the court would overturn Roe v. Wade. And you have to remember that, you know, Rovey Wade decided 7-2 by a mostly liberal court of actually largely Republican appointees, but, you know, the ideology, the ideology of justices and partnership had not yet been so tightly connected. But by the time you get the Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 91-92, you have Scalia on the

court, you have Sandra Day O'Connor on the court, you have Anthony Kennedy on the court, who were understood to be conservative justices, right? They weren't, they weren't the liberal who they were placed, I think only one or two of the people who decided in Roe was actually on the court at that point. Blackman was still there, but he was very old. Is Thomas on the court yet? Yes. Yes.

So Thomas is an early decision of his, or early decision he was involved with. So you have four of the nine justices are Republican appointees who are conservatives, and two of them are very hard-right conservatives. And then you have kind of William Rehnquist, who is a conservative, another Republican appointee under Nixon. So you have this, like, at the very least, a five-four majority of conservatives who run the gamut from being very right-wing to, like, you know, moderately conservative. And there was real pressure within the Republican Party among a Republican activist to, like, kind of, you know, just get rid of row. And so the decision, which as you say, John, kind of guts. Roe in a lot of ways. Like Ro has the trimester framework, because what Ro introduces, that

abortion is basically, you know, is the constitution right in the first trimester, mostly constitution right in the second trimester, and then is open to regulation in the third trimester. And Casey says that actually abortion can be regulated throughout as long as those regulations are not an undue burden, which of course raises the question of like what the fuck is an undue burden. And that's what opens the door to all kinds of shenanigans because it's not, it's not very difficult to say, well, you know, making sure that this clinic has to abide by a set of rules that are impossible to abide by is an undue burden. Anyway, so that's what Casey does, but it does uphold the basic finding in Roe, which is that abortion is protected

by the Constitution up to a point under the 14th Amendment. And by an upholding, row in that way, even if they did provide this, like, you know, massive avenue for undermining abortion rights, like O'Connor and Kennedy became kind of like persona non grata for a lot of conservatives. And so the next, when, when W.A is in office, kind of part of the reaction against Supreme Court nominees or the Supreme Court nominee Harriet Myers, his first choice for the vacancy left by O'Connor is sort of like, we don't want another O'Connor. Like, we don't want, we don't want, we don't want a chance that you're going to nominate a justice who won't basically, like, hold to the Federalist Society line.

So then we get Sam Alito. And they were very afraid, I mean, like, the, like, on paper, George, George H.W. Bush was very uncompromising about abortion, but in practice was very scared that they were going to do Dobbs then, basically. because that could have been a real, I mean, he didn't win, but they were worried about a big, huge political debacle in the election year of getting, of Roe v. Way getting struck down and just having to deal with a lot of angry voters because of that. So they were kind of relieved by the compromise, even though on paper, you know, and in public statements, H.W. was very hardline about abortion. But that was really strictly political because if you look at his past, he had come from this kind of Yankee line of pro-plan parenthood politics, which sort of has some unsavory aspects of like not wanting immigrants and Irish people and Catholics to have too many babies, but was pretty supportive. of Planned Parenthood and Family Planning in general as a practice. So had not been a hardline anti-abortion person until, you know, that became the politics of the Republican Party in the 80s and he had

to go that way. What I find interesting about this, like how the Republican Party becomes so anti-abortion is that even in the 80s, right? Like it's not, there's still this like relatively large facts of moderate Republicans who are in the party. You know, Reagan, who is, you know, kind of in some sense, the first pro-life president. Also, it's not something that, like, compels him. He's just sort of, I mean, it's not like he was a libertine in Hollywood, but he's also like a Hollywood guy. And so it's sort of like, you know, Reagan has a political commitment to anti-abortion policy and nominating anti-abortion judges, but sort of like, it's not something that, like, kind of clearly inspires him. And it takes basically until the, the gingrich cohort of Republicans to get the kind of more

contemporary style, like, oh, these people are all true believers. I don't think, I mean, I think that, you know, with both issues, Reagan's record is bad to the point of being disastrous. Same thing with gay rights. I think Reagan thought he was an open-minded guy. He knew he had gay friends in Hollywood, and he wasn't really animated by homophobia. He definitely tolerated it and used it politically, but I don't think it was a real passion for him. And I think it bugged him when it went too far in the, and I think a similar thing with,

with abortion politics, which he was sort of, yeah, tolerant about it. And just in case listeners are wondering why we're spending so much time on this, it's just in the news today on the day we're recording, Lindsay Graham of South Carolina, the senator from South Carolina introduced more or less a national abortion ban into the Senate. And it's not going to pass, obviously. But it is a statement of purpose for the report. Republican Party. So it's sort of, you know, abortion rights are very much a live question. I mean, they've been a live question for years, but like in this particular moment, sort of like whether

or not American women are going to be subjected to basically a pervasive reproductive police state is a live question. To your point about they're being pro-choice Republicans at this time, there were pro-life Democrats because Casey was case in point. There's just that the parties have totally ideologically polarized on that pretty much at this point. For Moscow's first post-communism May Day, portraits of Lenin are giving way to advertisements at the Kremlin Wall. An unfinished billboard was that the backdrop as the guard changed the Lenin's tomb. Okay. Peru's fugitive ex-president tells an escape from troops.

Alan Garcia that currently featured a former president of Peru at safe house and described how he was able to avoid the tanks encircling his home on the night that his successor, Fujimori decided to disband parliament and curb the judiciary. I don't know very much about this.

I mean, I know who Fujimori is, but I didn't know about this what sounds like coup in Peru at this time. I'm going to look more into that. And a very small note, DeClerc defines proposal for black role in government. South Africa's president offered to bring black

black leaders into a transitional government proposed that his presidency be replaced by a popularly executive executive council. So we're still in 1992 in the winding down of apartheid, which I don't think fully ends until 1994. So that's often in the news. You know, apartheid, basically apartheid South Africa

has really relied on the Cold War to continue to exist and in the absence of the Cold War did not find many countries willing to justify the continuation of apartheid. So the end of apartheid is sort of part of the post-Cold War story as well. The one thing I want to highlight is in the bottom left corner, Satya Jit Ray dies. The Indian filmmaker died at 70. And he's just one of the great pioneers of 20th century film.

His sort of magnum opus is the Apu trilogy. Bengali language, Indian films, tracing the life of a young boy named Mapu. Highly recommend you watch them kind of really, you know, towering achievements in world cinema. And again, just because it's in the news, right, Jean-Luc Godard passed away today at 91. I got to be honest, I thought he was already there. Me too. I really didn't think he was alive.

I know that he was alive recently, but I didn't know he was alive today. My wife this morning was like, hey, did he see Goddard die? And I was like, wait a sec. Excuse me? He was alive. He wasn't even that old. He wasn't even that old. He was 91.

I thought he would expect him to be in his mid-90s, but not even. Yeah. But yeah, so just kind of worth noting the death of Ray back in 92, the death of Godard today. Just if you've never seen Breathless, go watch Breathless. Go watch a movie that's still. um does radical and startling things with the very form of the movie of of of the of cinema um a fun little piece of trivia that i like uh when what's his name when warren badie was so warren

badie starred in bonnie and clyde and more or less produced the movie and got the movie made and when warren baby was looking was trying to get someone to direct the movie he actually like went to jean le godard first um and like you know really tried to get this kind of direct the movie. And although that did not happen, the movie does have a lot of touches from the French New Wave throughout, including in the final sequence when Bonnie and Clyde are killed, which is, by the way, still kind of like shocking and disturbing to watch. When they're killed, right before it, Faye Dunaway looks directly at the camera and sort of an homage to Goddard. I've never seen that one still. I've got to see that. That's a, that's a movie that I

like, it's good. It's very sort of like late 60s, like in its pacing. It's a little dated. Yeah. It's a little dated. But like I said, that final sequence of Bonnie and Clyde getting ambushed and killed is actually incredibly disturbing. Like it is, it is still kind of like when we watched it when my wife and I watched that, I should have just like taken aback by how violent it is and how sort of like visceral it is in a way that I think that if you tried to if you made it for screen today like the movie is basically PG until that scene and I think if you're doing ratings today reading the movie today that scene a little like bump it up to an R that's how just sort of like intense it is did you see that movie that was from the that they made for

Netflix the the highway was it highwayman that was it Kevin Costner Kevin Costner and what's his name you know he's super famous I'm just liking on his name is it Bridges Jeff Bridges no it's the other one he's he's in he's in he's in no country for old man oh um not Tommy Lee Jones but um oh why can't I remember his name he played George W. Bush um um um um And his dad, come on. His dad murdered a federal judge. How could I not remember his actual name?

This is so weird. Oh, Woody Harrelson. Yes. It's Woody. Yeah, it's Woody Harrelson. Of course. It's shameful that I forgot his name. Anyway, that's an interesting weird little made for Netflix movie,

which was kind of like the law and order, obverse of Barney and Clyde, because that movie was very like the same. 60, 70s, like, uh, isn't it cool, like crime and outlaws? And this movie was very much like these old Texas Rangers like bringing law to the, to, to, you know, the Wild West again. So, so two things. Before we get to the movie property, we feel like tangents, but listeners like tangents. Um, two things. First, I thought you were talking about Jaws of Brolin. I did not know that Woody Harrelson's dad killed a federal judge. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

He assassinated a federal judge. That's absolutely crazy. And the second thing is that a better version of that kind of movie, even though I'm not sure it's a good movie, it's a better version of it, is Michael Mann's Public Enemies with Johnny Depp. So if you're not a Johnny Depp fan, you know, got to get past that. But it's about, it is about. I recently watched that. Yeah, what's, I can't remember the criminal that. John Dillinger.

Yeah, right. John Dillinger. And it's about baby face Nelson. and because they weren't in the same gang. That movie is good, except I can't get past the digital photography, which is aged so badly. I like it. I like it a lot because, I mean, I think man's very intentional about the use of digital photography. And then this, I think the point of the digital photography is actually the sort of like strip away the myth and the edifice around a guy like Dillinger, sort of like the whole theme of the movie, kind of.

I mean, is this transition from analog to digital? digital analog crime, right? Sort of like, you know, people with faces and names that you know and they're famous and they're romantic to kind of more impersonal, you know, financial style crime, sort of like things that don't really involve organizations and same with law and same with the law. Right. So the FBI is a bureaucratized law enforcement. Christian Bale's character sort of like the last, the last gasp of the lawman who you

recognized onto this. Yeah, bureaucratized modern form of law enforcement. And so the analog, that digital photography, I think, is there to emphasize the thematic, the themes of the film that, like, trying to strip away edifice. It doesn't, like, I agree that, like, early digital photography, which at this point is still pretty early, it doesn't age all that well. But I think it's used to good effect in this film. I'm going to have to agree to disagree there because I rewatch it now. I was like, this is driving me fucking crazy. I mean, like, it just makes all the amazing costumes and sets look terrible.

That was my takeaway from it. I get what you're saying, that there's like an artistic case there, but I don't know. I'm also like a total, you know, Michael Mann. Right. Apologist. Apologist, whatever you want to call it. I'll defend all of his movies and all of his choices. All right.

the movie White Sands, which we did watch and we will talk about before we talk about it. Some quick production notes. I have a lot. I'll streamline them because it gets in the main discussion. We've seen a Roger Donaldson movie before. We previously covered his 87 film with Kevin Costner, No Way Out.

And we will cover his other collaboration with Costner on the Cuban Missile Crisis 13 days, which came out in 2000, kind of a big hit. If you grew up in the 1990s or if you were like an adult in the 90s, you will recognize Donaldson's other big 90s hit, Dante's Peak, the disaster film about a volcano that came out the same summer as volcano.

Donaldson from New Zealand, he doesn't really have a particularly strong style. He's very much a journeyman director, but he has had other hits. He had the 88 Tom Cruise movie Cocktail, which is like the third film, I think, or maybe the second film in the Tom Cruise is a hot shot insert profession who needs to Learn Humility series. Previous entries that series include Top Gun, Days of Thunder, Cocktail, Oh, and the color of money, so that's four. And then Donaldson directed Species, which is a 95 horror film.

A movie we will cover on this podcast at some point in the future, that Donaldson directed, which was a hit, like broke $100 million, was 2003's The Recruit, which is a spy movie with Pacino and Colin Farrell. And I saw that in theaters in high school. I don't remember a thing about it. It's basically a forgotten movie, but we will probably cover it. White Sands, much less successful picture than all of those other ones, kind of a big flop. And we will go into Y.

William Defoe, who is the star of this movie, is at this point, kind of a, he's a big name Hollywood guy. He's not like a megastar. He'll become a megastar at the end of the decade. or beginning of the next decade with Spider-Man, but he's still like a star. We saw him previously in flight of the intruder and then also in clear and present danger. And at this point, he has a deep filmography at this point already, but he has notable roles in Paul Schrader's Light Sleeper, Alan Parker's Mississippi Burning, Scorsese's The Last Tentation of Christ, Oliver Stones, Platoon, and Born on the Fourth of July, and Walter Hill's Streets of Fire. I'm a big fan of Mary Elizabeth Mastrontonio.

She did not do a ton of work in Hollywood, but I think the work she did do really stands up well. She was the, had the lead female performance in the aforementioned the color of money, which I think she got an Academy Award nomination. That movie is a sequel to the 1960 film The Hustler of Paul Newman. Both of them are great. I think the color of money is actually super underrated in Scorsese's photography. I totally agree with you. Yeah.

And then she also starred in James Cameron's The Abyss, as well as the kind of generically directed but monster hit with Kevin Costner, Robin Hood Prince of Thieves. She was made Marion in that. I'm going to skip Mickey Rourke because we'll get to him and Sam Jackson will get to him in future episodes. I will say that this is 92 and Sam Jackson is not quite a star yet at this point. No, yeah, I was going to ask you about that. Yeah. He really isn't yet. No, no, you'll find him in these, like, small but in still very compelling parts, but he's not, he's not someone on the marquee.

If you, if you were paying attention to his career, you will have noticed him in coming to America, do the right thing, Mo Better Blues, Juice. He's sort of a spikely guy pretty much. He was in Patriot games in a very small role. The following year, he's in menaced society and true romance. And then in 94, he's in Pulpiction. And then that's when he becomes the Sam Jackson that, you know, is one of the most bankable black stars in Hollywood and the thankful stars in Hollywood. And Mickey Rourke, kind of the same story. He's about to hit his decline, but he's still kind of, he's a known quantity at this point in Hollywood.

So that's where we are with the cast. This movie, we were talking about this beforehand. Not good. not really it's well i watched this movie twice which sounds strange because it's not good you know usually the movies we watch like i can sort of like do something else and watch and make sense of it i actually had trouble following it the first time so it's like i got to watch the movie again but then i realized it wasn't my fault uh it legitimately doesn't make a lot of sense the plot moves like there's no massive what they call plot holes the motivations of the characters don't make sense and the pacing

I guess sort of also adds to that. William Defoe is a small town sheriff in New Mexico, and he finds, you know, a murdered man in the desert with a suitcase full $500,000. And for some reason, he becomes intent on solving this crime alone, and he impersonates the guy who was supposed to be the courier for, you know, an arms deal. And he ends up, mixed up with Mary Elizabeth Bastro Antonio, who knows that he's not, He's an impersonator, but still plays along. And he's married at the beginning of the movie.

I mean, he's married at the end of the movie. He's married. He seems to have a good relationship with his life. He ends up having an affair with her, getting involved in those stuff. And his motivation is like, he doesn't seem that passionate about it. Mary Elizabeth and Master Antonio's character, very strange, what she's doing in this world of arms dealers, seems like she's selling arms to some kind of, or she's providing arms to some kind of idealistic cause.

freedom fighter national liberation movement only hint to that mickie rourke is sort of like you know cool like he's always kind of cool in his movies but and then it's revealed that he's a CIA agent and that's what he's doing and it's it's a bit of a mess and it doesn't make it sense you know it's almost sometimes i'm like this kind of feels like no country for old men because of the you know just chancing across the money in the desert and like getting involved in a situation that was way out of control. But it's nowhere near as, like, you know, dark and compelling as that movie. And it's kind of like, I don't know if it's just seeing Willem Defoe, but I was like, what if David Lynch had directed this movie and made it like a billion

times weirder? Yeah. And then the kind of randomness of the characters and their apparent strange motivations or lack of motivations would have been like a interesting artistic choice. As it exists, it's very hard to believe as a straightforward drama. Like, this guy really cares how much about the crime. Mary Elizabeth Master Antonio would want to fall in love with him. Samuel Jackson would want to risk his career for whatever cape or he's getting involved with. Mickey Rourke just being a CIA agent. It's all very odd.

I guess, you know, if you wanted to try to, like, save the movie from itself, you could propose something like, well, I mean, this take is like, well, this is about post-history where people's motivations don't. add up anymore. So it of course seems a little thin because all of the ideological motivations that existed before, you know, don't make sense anymore. And that's a stretch. I just don't think it's very well made, but I'm just putting it out there. Two things that might support that theory. One is the fact that this is sort of a midlife crisis movie as for William Defoe's character. He sets out on this trip in his like what is like Mustang or Thunderbird or something like that. I think it's like a bright blue Mustang. It's a very very handsome car. Yeah. I mean, yeah, he looks great. It's like it's a little bit of an escape his fantasy for him. He's like a little

maybe bored is the small town sheriff and he's going off on this and he has an affair which he, you know, he's able to break off at the end because he's still in love with his wife. So the other thing about it is the weird, you can talk about this a little bit, is the weird motivation for the arms deal of the movie, which is not a terribly big arms deal, like half a million dollars, I think even in 92. I mean, it's a lot of money, but it's not like a world-changing amount of arms. Like, that's not going to start a war or something or supply a war. But Mickey Roark's character is like, oh, we want the old.

arms deal to go through because this is a trope we see in many of these 90s films, end of Cold War films about wanting, like, the military industrial complex needs to continue, right? So we're going to go through with a deal because we're supporting the military industrial complex. $500,000. We're talking about trillions when it comes to, so it's not like a huge amount of money. So I don't know if that motivation makes sense. It's all a little bit of a mess. It's not terrible. Like, it's got a lot of good actors in it. The dialogue's not totally stupid. It just doesn't really work. It's sort of like to the extent that there's any real kind of like legible politics in this

movie, it's it's sort of it's just, it's tropes that would be familiar to an audience at this point. And like an audience of moviegoers who go to these kind of movies will recognize these tropes. We'll recognize, um, and we'll recognize sort of like what they're alluding to. So, right? Like, or recognize that the very thin idea that, um, Mary Elizabeth, Mastr Antonio's character is kind of funneling money to, you know, rebel groups or national groups or whomever will be familiar to Americans who live through Iran-Contra, who will be familiar to Americans who, you know, who watched Rainbow 3 and saw, you know, the original post-film Stinger, you know, with this movie dedicated to the brave fighters of the Mujidine.

All that stuff will be familiar to a viewer. And then the, you know, the CIA wanting to keep the military. military industrial complex in gear. It's going to also be a familiar trope to viewers. But in terms of the movie actually developing any of these ideas, they're not, it doesn't really do that at all. You know, I kind of liked this movie, but that's mainly because I like the actors and I like the atmosphere. I sort of think that this kind of movie just doesn't exist anymore, which we've talked about many times. And so seeing one of them just like makes me happy, scratches, scratches and itch like going to a like going to uh an applebee's um kind of kind of deal uh the movie yeah

the movie isn't isn't particularly good um and doesn't really have a ton to say in terms of kind of the post cold war moment that the politics might be kind of involved in the background of the motivations but the characters themselves seem actually very apolitical And so that just leaves it kind of like, yeah, the politics stuff has made me window dressing. There's some like a little cultural resentment elements in there when Willem Defoe threatens him with arrest. Sam Jackson's character is like, you know, well, I'm a minority officer, which is like a weird thing that no person would say that's like bad script writing. Like he would just say, I'm a black officer. He's like, I'm a minority officer with a spotless record.

Who's going to believe you? You're a redneck cop, that kind of thing. you can imagine in a theater, you know, insofar that anyone went to this movie and went to see this movie in a theater to think it only grossed $8 million domestic, which is not good. You could imagine, you know, some, you know, limbalisting Chug, Chud being like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you tell him. Or being, you know, not you tell them, but sort of like being like, yeah, those blacks, they, they use that stuff, they use that stuff to their advantage. Yeah, and like to see a character like cynically admitting to it.

they're like, that's right. That's how it works. That's that affirmative action. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. But that's really it. I mean, that's really it in terms of the movie's politics.

I'm trying to think if there's anything, anything especially noteworthy. I mean, there's, you know, back to the smuggling arms. There's a scene where you meet the arms dealers. One of them is unclear and present, unclear and present danger stand by Fred Thompson. Always, yeah. He shows up. He's almost like in every other movie. Right.

He fires a rocket launcher, which is pretty cool. But, yeah, it's the movie is much more about kind of like William Defoe's character getting caught up in this convoluted web of alliances and interest and so on and so forth. And then also kind of having this, as you said, a fair with Mary Elizabeth Mostrantonio's character and then kind of Mickey Roark in the background as like a menacing figure. And the problem with it as a movie is that like all this stuff is very underdeveloped. You spoke to this. There's not, none of the characters have anything that would apparently draw someone else to them. Right. Like there's a version of this movie that's more or less the same. But

Mastr Antonio's character is kind of much more of the protagonist and much more ideological as compared to, say, the apolitical, um, defoe and the cynical Mickey Rourke. And it's her sort of like ideological fervor that attracts the other people to her. Like that's, I, I can like, I can picture this version of the movie in my head very clearly because then like the politics is a bit more, a bit more developed. There's a bit more of a motivation for why anyone would be in business with her in the first place. and would it would give you really something to grab onto.

But it really seems, I mean, it seems as if, you know, this movie, which I think is billed as a crime thriller, I refer to it as a crime thriller, but it's kind of in this in this style that was a thing in the late 80s, nearly 90s. It's like not quite a crime thriller, not quite an erotic thriller, kind of parts of both. The Alec Baldwin movie Miami Blues is like one of these kinds of movies. to live and die in LA is one another one of the kind of the movies are kind of glossy. I mean, even though this takes place in New Mexico, there's like a glossiness to it. It's much more growing for a vibe.

And I think it does work on that level as like a vibe movie. But as a movie that has some politics in it, it's sort of, you know, it's not really, there's not really much there. Another kind of 90s thing it has going on is the Southwest. Like that was huge. Like for some reason New Mexico was huge in the 90s. Do you remember this? People were obsessed with, like, Santa Fe architecture and New Mexico style. So I think it was almost just, like, kind of like, they picked a locale that was, like,

going to be kind of compelling for people at the time. Like, that's the thing about, you have to remember, but these movies, like, they kind of come from a lost world, you know? Like, there's lots of signifiers in the movies that, like, we barely understand anymore. Because, like, you know, we were just, like, losing the context more and more. But, like, I think making a movie set in New Mexico in 1992 kind of like said something a little bit more than it might say now. You're like, oh, yeah, New Mexico, it's a place. It was invested with a kind of romance in the early 90s for a lot of different reasons.

I think just because of the popularity of the design of the area. But so I think that that was another thing that's sort of like a takeaway. This movie was like, hip is the wrong word, on trend in a certain way with a lot of its things. I mean, even if it's stars, like with Wolf DeFoe, I mean, William DeFoe is almost like, well, no, I mean, he'd been in a lot of Hollywood movies. But he's a little bit of a, he's a little bit of an indie movie guy. So there's like, I think his movie was like maybe trying to be a little cooler than it really was or something like that.

You know, in the same way where you have like, you see, you see Hollywood movies now and you're like, oh, this is like trying to be a, be a, hip movie, you know, maybe it has a star that you would more associate with indie movies. Maybe it has a visual style. You'd more associate with indie movies or maybe it's trying to be edging in a certain way, but it's still very much a Hollywood movie. So, yeah, that was just some thoughts about the datedness of the movie. Again, my only stab at making a real thing is that the passionlessness of the characters,

I think, which makes it so difficult to believe that they would do any of these things, is maybe some kind of unintentional comment on the just the fallout of the end of the Cold War, the entering into post-history in people's motivations not making a whole hell of a lot of sense. I mean, you know, there's no, there's no ideological matrix to plug themselves in. They're all kind of aimless and trying to figure things out. So it is a kind of post-historical thriller in that way. But there's not that many thrills. That's the problem.

This is like, there's not that much passion. The characters are passionless. You don't believe the love affair. I mean, as you said, like, they have pretty good chemistry as actors. They're both great actors. They, they sort of like, you know, seem to be attracted to each other legitimately on screen. But you're like, there's no more. Like, why?

Why does she like him? Why does he like her? There's not enough dialogue to make it make sense. You know, there's not enough friction. They're just like, oh, we're attracted to each other. You know, like, um, So there's something a little bit Just weak about the whole movie

But it's not terrible either I didn't watch it I wasn't like we've watched some movies on this thing Where I was on this on this podcast where I've just been like This is difficult to watch This wasn't like that I was just like what is going on with this? This is really not really not quite

Quite adding up So anyway Not one of the best Definitely not one of the worst And, yeah, not giving me a whole lot to talk about in terms of it. I didn't see, I don't think that they were trying to make a psychological thriller, right? Where the characters' motivations were tortured and passionate or confusing and obsessive, you know? It wasn't like that.

It wasn't like a North by Northwest or more to more like vertigo would be the better example there. It was just sort of like, just meaningless. So I feel like that kind of counts as our final thoughts on the movie. But, you know, one thing that we had talked about before recording the podcast is at the very least, the arms smuggling aspect of this is an excuse to talk about some news, like the developments in the Ukraine war, which are very significant. And, you know, you can imagine a version of this movie that takes place that's, like, more modern and involves, you know, people raising money to send arms over to Ukraine. A more compelling movie. But kind of the news is just sort of the Ukrainian offensive that has really begun to push Russian forces back and is sort of threatening the Russian position in the south, if I have that right. Yes. And the East. I mean, yes, and the East.

In the East. You recently wrote a little about kind of what this reversal in fortune, now reversal in fortunes, but this advance on Ukraine's part as like kind of what it maybe signifies in domestic U.S. discourse about the war, which is just that it puts sort of a lie to some of the defenders of Putin, especially on the, right. There has been a clip going around of Tucker Carlson kind of very recently going on about how Ukraine's doomed to lose. And that kind of is, I think, emblematic of a view on the on the populist right, the nationalist right, whatever you want to call it, that Ukraine should just give up. And Russia is like this strong, powerful country that is really the real leader of the West. That's sort of like the subtext of all of this. The discourse around it has shifted a lot since the beginning of the war, but there's been just a bunch of BS narratives that kind of have to retreat over and over. First of all,

you know, there was this whole thing, this discourse before. There was no possible way Putin was going to invade. It was ridiculous. This was all just the, you know, bullshit cooked up by the Western intelligence agencies and the same kind of bullshit that led to Iraq or, blah, which many of these people actually support it, but whatever. And then, you know, the war starts and then it's like, well, look, I mean, I was surprised too. Western governments were surprised about the resilience of Ukraine. I thought that Russia, you know, would quickly conquer and cause a collapse the country. That didn't happen. And it just became clear and clearer that, you know, not only after the Russians had to retreat from your Kiev, then they launched a more successful attack on the

East, which kind of stopped, and now we're seeing this kind of going to the third phase of the war, this Ukrainian counterattack. Look, the quick victory, lightning victory that it wanted at the beginning is out of the question. Now it's even, and then, you know, in the East, it seemed like, well, they might grind them down and grind them down with artillery and war of position and eventually force, you know, Ukrainian forces into untenable positions. and then, you know, really begin to to deal serious blows against, against Ukrainian side who has, you know, limited resources and manpower. Now, you know, with this with this counterattack, which has been a terrific success, especially in the east of the country, it's hard to imagine in the present point, you know, how this could be turned around into some kind of Russian victory.

I mean, the best I think that they could accomplish now is to hold on to the parts of Donboss that they were able to capture in the recent offensives. But I think that that might even be in question. They're, you know, in the South. I think that they might lose the territory that they were able to capture in the South. I mean, it seems like the speed of these Ukraine, we don't know how much losses or what cost are coming. But the speed and decisiveness of these advances are pretty remarkable. And, you know, and now you just have to revisit the whole boosterism of, you know, belief that there were some brilliance or strength in the Russian side and that they were going

to be able to accomplish this and that it was total fantasy on the part of the West to believe that Ukraine could stand up to them. And by arming them, we were just extending the war. There was no way they could win. It was hopeless situation. That all seems like, you know, bullshit now. It seemed like bullshit to me then. And I was like, it seems like they're quitting themselves pretty well.

But now it's like, okay, more of the proof is of their ability to fight and win, at least tactically, is starting to become apparent. So, yeah, that was basically what I was saying. And I was annoyed with the kind of constantly shifting narrative that first Russia was going to win quickly, then eventually they were going to destroy them, that it was only a matter of time that, you know, objective. Effectively, of course, Ukraine was going to lose. I mean, Ukraine still has much territory. I mean, from a certain perspective, yes. Ukraine still has a lot of territory that's under Russian control, especially if you count Crimea and the parts of the Donbos that were already controlled.

But, you know, after 2014, but, yeah, it seems like this narrative of Russian victory, Russian strength, Russian victory, Russian cop, Putin's brilliance as a leader, military, leader and an ideological strategic leader of the world is nonsense and just pathetic propaganda. You read about the 30s and the 40s when these dictatorships had these worldwide movements of apologists who would buy these reality denying lies about their projects and justify them And you can kind of see what that's like to live through now. You're like, oh, that's what it was like to see people like do everything Stalin did was actually brilliant or, you know, or justify it. And everything Hitler did was, you know, proving that he was invincible.

And that kind of power worship, which, you know, George Orwell famously criticized and, you know, these people just always think that the big bad bullies are the ones that it really are going to call the shots. and the West is too stupid or too weak to deal with these kinds of figures. And it's just a similar, a similar atmosphere, I think, in terms of discourse. I think, you know, obviously this is not as apocalyptic as that, as those times. But that's just some of my thoughts about that. No, I think it's sort of one thing that this reminds me of that I'm thinking of is our conversation in a previous episode. just about sort of the the, about not underestimating the strength and fervor for which people will fight for national liberation or will fight for something like, you know, democratic life

that on the right, because on the right, on this segment of the right, there is a real hostility to democracy, to sort of like as a, in general, I think what's, what we're witnessing is sort of people backfilling, like starting with their hostility to democracy and to liberal democracy and whatever. And not to that Ukraine perfectly embodies either of those things, but Ukraine has become a symbol for those things, for democratic self-determination. They have their hostility to this, to that, which they see as responsible for, you know, the collapse of traditional hierarchies, for all kinds of things that are catastrophic in their minds. And in Putin, in Putin's Russia, which I think objectively is sort of just like a

gangster state, but has been able to at least create the image of itself, much in the same way, like Orban's Hungary, as some sort of, like, you know, defender of traditional Western values, traditional Western civilization. And so you have people in the nationalist right on the populace, or whomever, looking at Putin and kind of like, you know, beginning with their hostility to liberal democracy. saying, well, you know, Putin's Russia is obviously just like stronger and more powerful because of what it represents. So obviously they're going to prevail in this aggressive war. I'm thinking of J.D. Vance, the Ohio Senate candidate venture capitalists, you know, Chud, saying that he

doesn't care about what happens to Ukraine. It's sort of like, you know, whatever. Or what's his name. Um, the American conservative guy who loves hungry and is like, has weird psychosexual issues. Um, Roger air. Uh, yeah, Roger air. It's got to be him. Uh, also kind of being on this whole, on this whole thing. So, uh, uh, what, what is sort of like not anticipated by, I think by, by these, by these folks is that people, which we've seen historically will fight fiercely for self-determination. I mean, that

may be the thing that people will fight most fiercely for in the modern era. And they'll fight pretty fiercely for democracy. On Twitter, there's a bit of a conversation about this sort of I think Adam Serwer, a guest in a previous episode, pointed this out in relation to U.S. history that

like some of this conversation is reminiscent of how Southern reactionaries and even the Civil War were like very confident they could, of beat the north in open conflict because, you know, these are just a bunch of, you know, their wage workers and their shopkeepers and they're kind of a bourgeois occupation and so and so forth. And what those reactionaries didn't anticipate is that, in fact, these people would be willing to fight to the bone to preserve the union and preserve sort of what that

represented. And I think we see this again and again that when push does come to shove, Essentially, democracies will mobilize in a way that more often than not defeats their authoritarian foes. I think the military performance of democracy is just like generally superior to that of authoritarian states. And I think it has something to do with kind of like the ideological fervor that democracy can generate in a populace. Yeah, I agree with you totally. And also there's like the, it has the mechanical ability in a way. It has the, has the institutions to mobilize because it has a civil society. And it has people who have organized before and have causes that they're enthusiastic about.

It's not a hollowed out society where everyone is, you know, doesn't know each other. It doesn't like their neighbors and so forth. People were talking about even before the war that Ukrainian civil society was was highly integrated, highly complex, you know, unlike Russia. And not, you know, I think it's electoral process and it was corrupted and it was still highly dominated by these kind of oligarch figures in politics. But it did happen, I mean, as you can see through, that's, you know, several big uprisings against its corrupt governments, it did have this kind of democratic society, you know, kind of existing under an imperfect democratic government, which I think we also kind of have in its state. So I think that, yeah, it's not only just that the democracy generates an enthusiasm for its defense, it has the social institutions for that. And dictatorships can only kind of fake it. Like they have to do, they have to do an enormous amount of like propaganda, sort of astroturfing mass organizations to do that.

And democracies kind of organic, democratic societies kind of organically generate these mass organizations, these civil society groups, volunteerism, you know, feeling like you're bought into this society and you want to defend it and not feeling like, you know, oh, I'm just to keep my head down and hope for this to pass. So I think it's just like, yeah, underestimation, you know, something I talked about at the beginning of this conflict was the underestimation of democracies, both. the Western democracies, the public feeling of enthusiasm for Ukraine, and also Ukraine's own democratic culture as being part of its war fighting effort in this.

Look, I'm not going to pretend that there are not really unsavory parts of Ukrainian civil society that if they were in the United States would really alarm us. Of course, there's a far right there. But the fact that matter is, it's like, the national project led by this president is, so hegemonic that they have even, you know, been able to recruit the entire political society from left to right behind this one project. And so, like, yeah, I'm sure, you know, under conditions of political chaos, it would be horrible for those people to be armed and to have, you know, sense of popular legitimacy. But the fact of the matter is, is like, they're,

like, they've united the whole country with this one project, which is to fight the invasion. They've organized the country around that, and it's working. And I just think, like, if it was just that Ukraine was this vassal of NATO or Western imperialism and was really a hollow, it would be like South Vietnam in the sense that it would collapse. Right, right, exactly. South Vietnam collapsed. Even with years and years and years of U.S. support and arms, material troops, it collapsed immediately, or Afghanistan, which collapsed immediately. these countries that really were not did not generate the national enthusiasm maybe it was too early maybe they didn't their institutions were corrupt maybe people just didn't feel like the national

feelings for that government you know but that's not what happened here the government even before the massive transfer of western arms i mean you know they had some help before but was able to not collapse and i was like okay once they don't collapse and they have the backing of the public and the and they hold together, then you're like, okay, this is, this is something different and kind than the U.S. and Vietnam, supporting South Vietnam. This is a country that has buy-in from its citizenships, has popular legitimacy, wants, is getting mass enthusiasm behind it. So I just think that it's, you have to be completely diluted to believe that this is just like a paper tiger set up by the West. No, it has its own internal legitimacy. And it's

You see it in the way Ukrainians relate to the politics. I mean, they're fighting for their lives, literally. But you see it in the way that Ukrainians relate to the politics of the external of the West. They're only interested in their fairness, they're only interested in politicians that have a very, you know, friendly stance towards their, you know, their aspirations here. Because they're just like, look, we have one thing going on right now, the war. We need to win the war. And, yeah. So I just think that this.

The idea that this is some kind of paper tiger held up by NATO, and there's nothing. It's hollow. And if it wasn't for Western support, it would completely collapse overnight. I think they might struggle and they might lose without Western support. But I don't think that it would be a pushover. Yeah, I tend to think that given what we've seen without Western support, the likely outcome is that, yeah, the Russian. Like, it becomes, this is already a brutal war. I think with that Western support and with Ukraine on a much more of a defensive front,

it become even more brutal because it'll be, it'll be much more like Syria, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Right, with civilian casualties far worse. And with the Russian military out of frustration escalating its test. tactics, even more than it already has. Well, yeah, and that's another thing of what I don't understand about the people who don't, this is more left than a right thing about, you know, saying that the arms transfers are extending the war, causing too much suffering.

I don't think so. I think that when if you physically, this is war, it's physical, the troops need to be stopped so they can't drop their bombs and shoot their guns, you know, that's basically it. It's like you, by preventing the Russians from getting their hands on more Ukrainians, you're going to prevent them from killing them because they clearly like to use indiscriminate fire against them. They clearly are not, you know, are undisciplined or maybe even have intentional orders to commit massacres. So by just, from my perspective, this is like where this goes back into the old world. And we're not maybe in our postmodern condition. We can't think

about things in these terms physically it's war physically preventing the enemy troops from coming into your territory is important to save your country you know like they're going to destroy severing their supply lines right sort of harassing them in their rear making it difficult which you're you're talking earlier about sort of like early science of this war was not going to be a walk in the park for russia to my mind the earliest sign was you were getting reports of just like not enough supplies, not enough material, difficulty, you know, repairing vehicles, difficulty getting ammunition to the front. That, you know, it's sort of, it's warfighting. Warfighting 101 is that, like, fighting in war is 90% about your supply lines. My, my, my, my, uh, my faith, this is a weird

thing to say, my favorite campaign of the U.S. Civil War is the Vicksburg campaign, precisely because it is a case study and innovation in the use of supply lines, like Ulysses S. Grants, splitting his forces, having them go shortening the supply lines, having them live off the land as much as possible in order to move quickly and divide Confederate forces as quickly as possible. It is sort of like it is a case study and why and why this is what fighting wars is about. It's logistics and supplies. It's all these things. The U.S. military is not powerful because it has the biggest bombs and the most advanced technology, which it does. But the U.S. military, the example of what makes the U.S. military such a formidable

force, even with its failures in occupations, is the fact that the U.S. military can ship fresh lobster anywhere in the world. Right. Yeah. It could just provide food and comfort to its troops at like mass scales. Right. At mass scales on any place in the planet. So yeah. Anyway, I think we're running over time. We already did our final thoughts on the movie. It's, I mean, I'll just, one last thing on the movie. If you're like, if it's like a Sunday and you're kind of hung over, you should put it on. Yeah, can't hurt.

Can't hurt. You'll glance up. You'll see Willem Defoe and Mary Elizabeth Montonio make out a couple times, which is cool. And you'll see Mickey Rourke. This is a spoiler, I guess. Let's see Mickey Work at like shot the back, which is kind of cool. I like Mickey Work. I do too.

He's great. It was fun. It was a good getting shot scene. Here's some Samuel Jackson yelling, which is always a pleasure. So lots of stuff that it's good to just have one in the background. Assuming you don't have kids. I can't do that anymore because I have children now and they ask questions. That is our show.

If you are not a subscriber, please. subscribe. We're available on iTunes, Spotify, shit your radio, and Google podcast, and wherever else podcasts are found. If you subscribe, please leave a rating and a review. It really does help you find the show. And you can reach out to us on Twitter. I am at Jay Bowie. John, you are. I'm at Lionel underscore trolling. I'm not currently on Twitter, but that might be over by the time you hear this. You can also follow the podcast for at UnclearPod. I

typically post things about the movies we watch. thoughts, and movies, observations, and other stuff will show up there at some point. So that's at UnclearPod. You can also reach out to us over email at Unclear and Present Feedback at Fastmail.com. For this weekend feedback, we have an email from Tom commenting on just our movie selection. Hello, Jamel and John. First, I'd like to thank you for creating the podcast. It's been a highlight of long car rides during a family road trip this week.

And I sparked many good-natured debates among my siblings. It's great to hear. As someone who straddles the millennial Gen X border, it's been fascinating to revisit the films of the period through the political and cultural lens. I'd like to make a case for a film that may not be on your list yet. 1995's Strange Days, starring Ralph Fines. Oh, hell yeah. Let's definitely do that movie.

All right, there you go. It's probably the best of the mid-90s cyberpunk movies. And while the main plot is very much in the mystery thriller space, there's also chock full of strong political elements regarding race, policing, privacy, and alienation. The film was now set in a now anachronistic version of future Los Angeles leading up to New Year's Eve in the year 2000, which you may find interesting. In any case, looking forward to many future episodes and they're visiting these quintessentially 90s movies. Well, you're enthusiastic about it. I'll put it on the list. I've actually never

seen Strange States. It's a Catherine Bigelow picture, right? I think she, it's one of her first films. Yeah. Yes, it is. I've never seen it. It's cool. But I'm all for cyberpunk. And I like Angela Bassett a lot. So let's do Strange Days at some point. I guess if that's 95, actually should be coming up pretty quick, pretty soon on the list. And speaking of the list, episodes come out of every other Friday. And so our next episode will be Passenger 57, another 1992 movie directed by Kevin Hooks, starring Wesley Snipes. I think this is our first Wesley Snipes starring film.

A quick plot synopsis. An infamous terrorist has evaded capture for a long time by being extremely clever and ruthless. Things get interesting when he hijacks a plane carrying famous security expert, John Cutter, who isn't about to stand for this sort of thing. I like this movie a lot. It's very stupid. But I like this movie quite a bit. And I like Wesley Snipes. So that'll be fun to watch.

it's available for watching, for streaming, whatever, for rental on Amazon and iTunes. And I think we'll have a guess for this one. Stay tuned for that, but I think we'll have a guess for this one. Our producer is Connor Lynch, and our artwork is from Rachel Eck. For John Gans, I am Jamel Bowie, and this is unclear and present danger. See you next time. Thank you.