Hard Target with the Boys Watching Buffy Podcast

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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Movie wars podcast. This is your host, Kyle. As a reminder, on Movie wars, we're usually a panel of comedians, filmmakers, other movie podcasters, celebrity guests where we use our war card to score movies and we laugh a lot along the way. Again, my name is Kyle and I'm so lucky to be joined by two amazing guests, Joe and Vance. Joe, Vance, why don't you introduce yourselves? Hey, what's up, everybody? I'm Joe Welke. I'm Vance. And we host a podcast.

Yeah, we, we. We're not a celebrity. We're not celebrities yet. Yeah, no, you are. You are to me.

We, we host a podcast called Boys Watching Buffy where we like, went through all of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. We had never seen it before, watched it for the first time, and reviewed and reacted to each episode and finished all of Buffy, all of Angel. We are on to Veronica Mars and Dollhouse now. So yeah, man, good to be here. That's amazing. And you both reside in la? Yeah, we're in la. We're in Los Angeles. Yeah, the great Los Angeles, if you want. I was just talking before we hit record.

I love following Joe's post. LA gym commentary on Instagram has become one of my favorite daily reads because he literally, like, it's so descriptive. You literally take me there. I love it. I try to be as descriptive and poetic as possible. Really set a scene for everybody about the goings on. You do it perfectly. So when did you start Boys Watching Buffy? This would have been 2021. I think we started it like late 2021. We did.

We had a podcast before that called Boys Watching Girls where we watched HBO's Girls for the first time ever. That was our initial podcast and we made it through there, took a summer off and then brainstormed what movie, what. What show we wanted to do next. And there were a couple, couple shows running and then, then we. We decided on Buffy. We had never seen it. We knew it was a cult classic. Somehow we both missed it, never saw it, and yeah, dove in and now we're deep in it.

We watched angel on our Patreon and we do movies. On our Patreon. We did the Mummy, which is starring one of the co stars of this movie. Yeah. So yeah, we just been going through it and now we're in Veronica Mars, which is. We just started that. We're still on the first season. So if you haven't seen that, want to ride along with the boys on that journey, jump on it. Hey, absolutely.

I advise anybody who's you know, into any show is honestly, your commentary adds a lot and it's fun and I love, I love it. Feels like I'm hanging out with two bros, two friends watching it. And I think that's the best type. That's the best type of podcast, so. And I would never have watched Buffy. And now it's like, I've got it loaded up because of YouTube. So here I go. Yeah, it's a lot of fun, man. Yeah, I enjoyed the early 90s movie that came out.

And so I never really connected the two, like, because if you recall, you know, I think there was a time period where if they made a TV show based on a movie you like, that was an insulting thing. I was like, that means we're gonna cast B and C level actors and actresses. It's going to go. It's. We're going to break it up into three parts. It's going to be corny as hell. But that's not the case anymore.

Now it's like, you can't wait for them to make a show on HBO Max, you know, based on your favorite movie because of the quality. But this kind of was that. This may have been one of those transitional IPs that kind of took us to the next phase where it was like, okay, I could see how they can do this in a good way. What do you two think? Yeah, definitely. Because normally that was just a cash grab to make a TV show, make some type of spin off.

But the show definitely became more popular than the movie because I had seen the movie, but I did not. I never saw the show before going the podcast. Well, I think it was a thing where it was like, the movie was not very well received and it kind of got swept under the rug. So they're like, yeah, maybe we could do like a TV show about it. And I know that Joss Whedon was, like, pissed at how it turned out the movie, and so he was like, no, no, no, no. This was not my vision.

Let me, let's figure this actually out and, like, let me expand the world how I wanted to do it. Because there was a lot of simply, there's a lot of studio meddling and director fights. And I think Donald Sutherland, like, hated it and he was getting into fights with people or something. So I think that that was like, it was an easy way to do the show from a movie that wasn't so well received or even like, in. It wasn't popular.

Like, it'd be one thing to like, I don't Know, do a. I don't know what's a popular movie? All movies are bombing these days. I feel like. Yeah, yeah. But like, if. If you. I feel like no one would do it now because it would just be, like, a huge money risk. And it seems like nobody wants to do money risks anymore. Well, something from this time was they did the TV show with the Sarah Chronicle, the Sarah. Oh, Sarah Connor Chronicles after the Terminator Mov.

And, yeah, I know some people like that show, but no one was like, oh, wow, they're doing a show based off Terminator movies, which people loved. And, I mean, there's other examples, but that was just like. Yeah, I was gonna say, I guess the modern exam. I guess a modern example would be Reacher, because, yeah, Tom Cruise was in that Jack Reacher movie. But aren't those books as well? Those are books. Yeah. Those are popular books.

And if you've read those books, you know, Jack Reacher looks more like the character in the show than Tom Cruise. Yeah, he's, like, huge. That's kind of one of his defining traits. Dude, that's crazy. Alan Hutchon is massive in. Yeah, he is. He is. I'm sure he's got Equinox LA join or LA Gym stories. He's an LA fitness guy. He's an LA Fitness guy, for sure. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He hasn't quite upgraded yet to the. The black Amex card. And then, you know, he's a steroids guy. Yeah, he's.

Yeah. And you can't put that on an Amex, so. Or maybe you can these days. I don't even know. I mean. Well, we're talking about cash. Yeah. Yeah. Cash is now illegal, even with drug dealers. After Covid, you know, they were like. You know, they. Social distancing. It's like, I'm gonna drop off cocaine at your door, but please don't come get your cocaine until I'm six feet away from your door. Yeah, please. I have a. I have a life to live here. Oh, it's hard to snort with a mask on, isn't it?

Did you by any chance disinfect this money that you're paying? This is gross, bro. This is gross. Don't share needles. Wow. Off to a great start here, Kyle. Yeah. This is what Hard Target does to me. And today we are doing Hard Target. Movie wars Regulars know that the 80s action, early 90s action, Arnold and Sly movies are my bread and butter. Yes, I am a Die Hard Taxi Driver fan. And Die Hard cinema, There Will Be Blood. Like, I'll do that any Day of the week. But I am obsessed.

And it's not even close with Arnold and Sly movies. And that, that kind of brings us into an interesting conversation because Hard Target really is kind of hit or miss when you talk to action fans. Some people either loved it or they hated it, or they don't really remember much about it.

It kind of got washed away in this transition and. And movie war fans are going to be super annoying. But I want to hear your feedback because there was this. There's this arc of the action star, right? Action used to be kind of like this subset in movies and spy movies, Bond movies, and then Dirty Harry kind of kicks it up a notch. And D then we get to the 80s where we have these identifiable muscly, tan, oily, jacked guys with grenades and freaking grenade launchers.

And they kind of like took it over, right? But then we get into the 90s and we start to see the Bruce Willis's and the Keanu Reeves jacked. Handsome, absolutely, but not oily, tan and jacked. Right. Like more of a. As much of an everyman as they could be. And. But we have this arc, this arc. And then when you get in there too, when you look from that transition from the late 80s to the early 90s, we start sprinkling in a few more action stars that kind of go under the radar.

Jean Claude Van Damme, Stephen Seagal, Brian's. Brian Bosworth, if anyone remembers Brian Bosworth, the old linebacker from OU given an old try. I think he had one movie, but you know it. There were some people that kind of got lost in that. And I think Jean Claude Van Damme is one of those that for whatever reason, for me personally, someone who's obsessed with the genre, I always kind of view him kind of somewhere in the middle tier. And we'll talk about that later and dissect it.

But Hard Target is such an interesting movie and John Woo's American debut, which I actually didn't remember because I probably was too young to care about directors at this age when it came out. But yeah, it's just. We got Jean Claude Van Damme with a mullet here. Lots of kung fu. One thing that he do, glorious. And you kind of forget about it, honestly, like it kind of just get used to it. Yeah. Oh yeah. It's a look. It's. It works. It was V look. Yeah, it's.

The thing about the mullet is when you parallel it with his very serious facial expression, you know, it's like he's never, he's never Even he's not acting like he's got a mullet. You know, he's here to kick ass and apparently do shipment work. Yeah, that jazz music really sells it. Soundtrack. That music. Doesn't it feel like at any minute a porn's gonna break out? It's just like. Absolutely. It's all saxophone, dude. It is all saxophone. It's. I was like, at any minute, there's gonna be.

There's gonna be a copy machine and two people. Just bull. You know, right there. It's all that 90s transition saxophone. You know, like when the scene ends, it's like, oh. And it's like. And then you go to another scene, but they do that underneath the whole scene. It's amazing. Yeah, that's a great observation. Also, one thing, I just thought of this.

I didn't have this written down, but doesn't it feel like, like, when you associate filmmaking, New York City, Louisiana, San Francisco, maybe Seattle. But those are kind of the locations for, like, 80% of films. Right? But this one reminds me that in the early 90s, there was a fascination with Creole, if you want to call it that, with Cajun, this Southern Louisiana. And of course, it comes with all the tropes, Right. With voodoo and satanism.

If you remember Angel Heart, you know, the Robert De Niro, I think that was the bayou down there. Right. There was this weird period where they were making movies in and about Louisiana, about New Orleans, the Cajun aspect of things. That kind of was like a real quick window. Is it just me, or was that a thing? It was a thing. Because I think the. The detective character in this was in the movie Eves by you. That was. That came out around that time.

It's. I don't even remember what it was about, but, yeah, she was in Ease by you. There was a lot of that. That stuff. I don't. What I thought about with this movie. What I thought about with this movie was the streets. They kind of treated it like RoboCop and Detroit. Mm. How bad? Like, I don't know how bad New Orleans was in the 90s, but I've been there twice in, like, fairly recently. And I would just never assume the streets were going to be that empty where it was just that lawless.

I know there's some corruption, but this was a whole new level. Yeah. What were you going to say, Joe? Yeah, I was going to say that, like, weird time, too is like, this is a separate topic, but, like, this was also around the time period where, like, all the comedies that were coming out Took place in Chicago. Like Chicago was booming then. It wasn't all New York and la. I feel like in back then. So it's like a different shift.

And it was a nice, it was like, nice to see New Orleans as a backdrop to a movie because like I just. You don't see it anymore. Mm, yeah, yeah. And it acts as a very interesting. Like, even in like when you play red Dead Redemption 2, there's an area that is supposed to like some like be the early New Orleans. You know, like everyone kind of. There is a trope. Ish thing that comes with it though.

It's always like if we're gonna do our New Orleans, we gotta have the, the Cajun accent and we gotta go. Like when I was down there, Vance, to respond to your comment, like, I don't remember a lot of this type of behavior when I was down there. I was absolutely thinking about Red Dead Redemption too. When I was watching this, when they showed that, that house of email and this. And I was like, oh yeah, I've driven up that like tree lined street and then the swamps.

I was like riding a horse through the, through the swamps. Okay. Yeah. I remember this from a video game. Arthur Morgan style. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so we get. And we get, you know, and gosh, Van Damme's, his, his catalog is so interesting. Bloodsport, Universal Soldier, you know, he never, to me, he never had a franchise like, you know, Arnold and like Sly because a lot of his ended up being kind of hijacked and going straight to video. Even Hard Target 2 was a straight to video movie.

They made it. I don't even know if you know this, but they made a pathetic attempt at hard target 2. Is he in it? I think Bloodsport had a couple of theatrical releases, I can't remember. But I think eventually it also got hijacked. Universal Soldier, like became major. That became major. Straight to video. But, but the first thing I always think about with Van Damme is the fact that he, you know, his first gig really in Hollywood was he was the Predator when it was this totally different thing.

And it was like, if people haven't seen it, there's a YouTube video and it looks like a clown. It looks like it's like an alien bread with a cl. And Van Damme was trying so hard to convince John McTiernan to let him do spin kicks. And he even wanted like dialogue. He wanted to be, you know, Arnold in that movie. He's like, you literally are just an alien that doesn't speak English and doesn't do kung fu, like, shut the fuck up. And they fired his ass. So we already got one guy with an accent.

We don't need another. Yeah, I love Hollywood's like, yeah, we need some, like, American heroes. Who do we got? We got Arnold. We got Jean Claude. I'll be honest with you. This is the first Jean Claude Van Damme movie I've ever seen. Like, he's one of the people that just really just slipped under the radar for me. I knew the name. I've, like, I've heard of movies that he was in. I knew that, like, what's his name?

Johnny Cage in Mortal Kombat was, like, kind of based off of him, but I never saw any of his movies. And when you're talking about, like, the kind of weird transition period, I feel like that's where I fell off with it. Like, I. I've seen some Arnold Schwarzenegger movies. I've seen Sylvester Stallone stuff, but, like, for whatever reason, Jean Claude Van Damme just never, never saw anything. No Bloodsport. No, no, no. Street Fighter.

Oh, wait, I may have seen Street Fighter and forgotten about it. Yeah. Raul Julia. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, this time period, he had some interesting movies that come out. You know my shirt, right? Dennis Rodman, my favorite basketball player of all time, he did double team with Dennis Rodman. There's a scene where they're in a. In like, a Roman, like, type of arena, and Dennis Rodman fights a tiger. It's incredible. Yep, I think that's totally.

I would put money on Dennis Rodman in real life to win that battle. That's how big of a fan I am. I love. I love Dennis Rodman and his crime. Or Dennis Rodman now. I. I don't know, man. Now, post rehab now, how many Dennis. Rodmans can beat a gorilla? That's the real question. Yeah, yeah. How many. How many Rodmans does it take? And then he did a movie called Sudden Death, which was, you know, Van Damme. It was like a bomb in a hockey stadium. And he's like a security guard. He knows just.

You're so right, Joe. Like, when you say under the radar, what I think of is maybe slightly under the radar, but just not really making great impactful movies. You know, Hard target to me is his opus. Well, these movies, like, like Death Warren is one of mine that I remember where he gets sent to prison and he has to fight his way through a prison boxing something. I forget exactly what happens. And I remember Sudden Death. And I'm picturing myself watching it on on the tv in the kitchen.

So I was growing up. It was one of those times where they would have those movies that would come on in the middle of the. Of a Sunday or Saturday and it would just be on tv. And yeah, you. Those movies were there. That's how I saw, like, Steven Seagal movies. Because Steven Seagal movies were always on, like, on a Sunday at 4pm and you're just like, what? When it's not football season, you're just like, what the hell am I doing out here?

But, yeah, I mean, I. I think the one that we've skipped over talking is a kickboxer, which is the one that I know was like his, like, big hit. And that was like, I guess if he had a quote unquote franchise, that would be it. Because I think they did a kickboxer too recently, didn't they? I think they did try to reboot it. Yeah, they did. I think they tried to do another, like, reboot. Yeah, because was Bloodsport not his biggest one? Because I just. I remember Blood Spot, Bloodsport.

I think Bloodsport was like, his first, like, big role that he had that like, really took off. And then I think kickboxer was after that. But I recognize him from knowing about Kickboxer more than anything. I'll say. I did not see this one. I had not. I had not seen this one. And I know why I didn't see it kind of. I feel like this was the cutoff for me because this came out in 93, and in 94, they were surviving the game, which was also a Hunting the man premise starring Ice T and Rutger Hauer.

And that's the first movie I remember watching where it was like, man is the hardest thing to hunt. You know, like. Yeah, so the Most Dangerous Game. Man. I'm. I'm literally looking through this and I'm laughing as you're talking, as. I'm just trying to remember where all these came out.

Yeah, I mean, you're talking 1989. I mean, you can say hard target. Maybe he peaked in a weird phantom way. But if you take that movie out, then he really. He really maybe did peak with Bloodsport. Another one that's. It's funny because he had Universal Soldier and cyborg, which are kind of almost. Oh, yeah. Same Kickboxer in 89, Lionheart in 1990. The funny thing is all the covers, minus the cyborg ones is him in a tank top in a karate pose. That's literally the COVID of everyone.

Double Impact is the one I remember where he Had a twin and they had. He was playing himself as the twin and they had the same love interest. Huh? Yeah, that was insane movie. His hope field, like dream seeker. Yeah, he was losing his mind in that movie on a boat. Yeah, he. He invented the coke farts, man. I'm telling you. He. Yeah, he. Yeah, he could jar him and sell them on Etsy for sure. Oh. So, all right, let's do the questions.

All right, so again, the questions are just kind of like generate funny banner, sometimes a little serious potato. We're just gonna have fun. I'm feeling like we're having fun. Let's keep having fun. What do you say? I've never had. You've never had less fun. I tell you what, I'm glad to hear that. I was intimidated by you, too. A couple of LA gym goers. I didn't know if I could keep up. Just a bunch of Hollywood fat cats on the podcast. Yeah. All right, question number one.

Are the Cajuns the last group of people we can openly mock without backlash? Oh, it kind of feels like we don't give a. About Cajuns here in this movie. Right. I mean, I think you can make fun of the Swedes also. You can make fun of Irish people. Any. Basically any, like, spicy white. Spicy white. You know, you could do Italian spicy. Yeah. I mean, I've watched Wolverine, Deadpool, you know, I've seen. I listen to the accent of Gambit in that. So. Yeah, I mean, I mean, that's kind of accurate.

I mean, that's kind of just kind of on point. I don't know enough about the Creole accent. Yeah, I think about the water boy a lot when I think about the Creole accent being spoofed. Yeah, yeah. Like, you can make fun of Cajuns like, you know, like Peyton Manning and Eli Manning. They're like, from New Orleans and they've got, like some kind of little bit of an accent there too, so. But they never get made fun of for. Yeah, yeah. Why the hell not? Because people.

People look at football players differently, right? Like, you can punch a woman on an elevator and like. So am I getting a contract extension or what? What's the hold up? That's hitting way too close to home for us originally. We're from Baltimore originally, so. Yeah. Are you Ravens fan? Kareem Hunt's been in two Super Bowls. Yeah, you know, we just look at football players differently. Dude, if that wasn't on video, you're absolutely right. He would have gotten, like, a new contract.

He still would have been, like, one of the greatest ravens of Meanwhile, like, Tyree Killed. Didn't he, like, punch his pregnant girlfriend or something? Or. Or is that Kareem Hunt? Yeah, that was Tyree Kill. Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, yeah, I guess you can make fun of Cajuns. Yeah. And if you're on video, NFL players. To answer a question. Yeah, it sucks because, like, one of my. My favorite X Men is. Is Gambit.

And, like, dude, I remember just watching the cartoon as a kid and being like, what the hell is that accent? It's like this weird blend of, you know, French and Southern and. And all this shit. I. It was just. It was interesting to see the depiction of, like, who is Cajun in this movie, though? Because, like, what, Jean Claude is? No, Jean Claude isn't at all. But then, like, Wilford Ripley is in it. Oh, he's so good. Yeah. Well, there is a rando for that. That didn't make my final randos.

But I'll just go and say this now. Like, Kurt Russell was originally who John Woo wanted for this movie, but they wanted someone that was French ish. And so obviously he's the muscles from Brussels, not the muscles from Perry, but they were like, you sound French ish. So maybe we can also make fun of the French ish, too. Can we add that to Cajuns? Maybe. Maybe to John Woo. That's what it sounds like, you know? Yes. Maybe this is. This is his debut in America. I mean, there's a lot of.

I don't know, there's a lot of social mores at play here. I mean, Channing Tatum doing Deadpool or Debt doing Gambit and Wolverine. Deadpool was pretty good. I mean, it was. It was funny. I don't know how accurate it was, but. Yeah, I just don't think people care. I just think, oh, what? What's now Southern Louisiana? That's a hole. Let's go forward. All right. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yep.

Question number two. After a while, you just don't even notice the mullet anymore. Huh? Like, you just. I don't know why, but you just. You know, they talk about suspending disbelief. Is that the term? Is that the right way to say it? Is it? Yeah, you just kind of forget and you suspend the idea in your mind that he's kicking ass and he's got this crazy mullet. Did you guys just forget? Did you kind of notice it the whole time?

So as someone with a mullet, currently, I was honed in on that mullet the whole time, trying to, like, get. Get tips and, like, understand the the physics of it. Because it's like. It's, like, so plastered back on the sides. Like, I was like, it's long on the sides. Like. Like the. The mullets that people have now. It's, like, shaved on the sides. You know, short on the top and obviously party in the back. But this mullet is long everywhere except for the top.

Like, his sides are slicked back that flow nicely into the back of his longer mullet thing. And it's just like this weird flat, like, pyramid shape of a head. Like the top. Yeah. I don't know. Was a rhomboid. Not a rhomboid. Rhombus. What's this fucking shape called? I failed geometry. I think it's a rhombus. I also got. I think there's a high correlation of people who podcast and also got a D in geometry. I think I'm also. I also failed statistics, so someone will have to tell us that.

But I'm assuming the correlation is high. It's an 18 chance that you would. Recognize Vance did not fail statistics. Yeah. If people don't know. Joe will always lock in on some looks. Oh, well, I got some notes about, like, that's his things. Yeah. I think once. Once you start with the slow motion, you're locked in because there's so much slow motion. So you're locked in on the hair then. But then he does a fight scene, and then they kind of.

They. They scale back on the slow motion again in the middle. Somewhere in the early middle, before. And then you're starting to, like, let the hair flow over you. By the time you get to the action, you're just like. People are getting kicked and blowing up. I don't. I don't care what, like, he's diving. Through windows and massive explosions. I was just. I was just concerned that, like, the sides of his hair were going to, like, go in the front of him.

Like, it's always so pristinely in the back. Like, after sweating. I love that that was your worry. Knowing this movie. I don't want Jean Claude to go blind while he's kicking ass. Like, yeah, but it's. It's glorious, but I just didn't understand it. You need to see Bloodsport. Does he have a crazy one in Bloodsport too? No, it's something else that you said that it relates to. Oh, no. Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. There's a lot of craziness in that one.

Yeah. But. All right, last question. This. This one. Oh, go ahead. I'll say something else.

If you don't mind if we're going on like, a tangent about how people look? I. We weren't. But okay. I also love. I feel like this was an era of movies. And this movie in particular, though everybody in this movie, except for the girl is ugly as. Fucking ugly. You. Dude. Even the settings are ugly. Like, the streets look horrendous. Like it's post apocalyptic.

And everybody else in the movie is just like, you know, you go to a movie now and like, everybody's so pristine and, you know, it's like Timothee Chalamet. Everyone's looks maxing and everything. But, like, not in these movies. Like, we, we reviewed. What was that Bill Murray movie, Scrooged. And dude, everybody in that movie is fucking ugly. Like, these were the. This was the height to be an ugly movie star. Was just leprechaun, late 80s, early 90s. You could just have a little bit of riz.

Be ugly and be fine. See this, this shows. This shows how much of an old, like an old soul, old person I am. Because I think everybody's ugly now. I think everybody's ugly now. This is. This is like prime. Dude, take me back five more years, man. Go to. Go to, you know, Red Sonja with Arnold. And we're. That's. Now we're talking. We're talking. People have never looked better. So do you think that this movie are good looking? Yeah, they're all right. I mean, I'm not, you know, I'm not Kyle.

I mean, the guy. The guy in the massage parlor with the, with the gut. He is. He is a stud. Oh, Brimley stud. Primo now. Primo stud. Lance Henriksen. Given it. Remember when Brimley was the postmaster in Seinfeld? Did you guys ever watch that? He. Yeah, he was the Postmaster General. He's most famous for the diabetes. Yeah, diabetes. Got the diet. He definitely got him here in New Orleans. All the beignets. Yeah, man. Mint Jules. He's having a great time in this movie. Oh, yeah. I love the side.

I love this side change. And everybody's ugly in this movie. That's incredible. They're hideous. People talk about how Walton Goggins is, like, hairline is brutal. Like the bad guy in this movie. Like, his hairline is like Goggins. But no one's looking at that guy. Like, oh, that guy. Yeah. Which one you talk about? Lance. Lance is beautiful. Don't give me that. Well, he's got. Lance is a beautiful man. He's got, like, scars coming down.

Like his laugh lines like, go from his eyes and they're just like wrinkles down. It's like insane. Like, he got perfectly cut scars right down there. It's freaky looking. They're from Sigourney Weaver. Yeah, it's a guy from the Crown that has that same sprinkle pattern. It's very interesting looking, like. I know that. I know they're beautiful is what they are. Stop, stop. Stop lying to yourself. Stop lying to your audience. I was not exaggerating when I said Joe locks in on looks.

My audience is not surprised. Okay? My audience is you. They agree with you guys. They're tired of hearing me talk about how beautiful Arnold was like, there. Trust me, there. You guys are actually a breath of friends. Some guy. I mean, even Van Damme is good looking to a point in this movie. And the lady is beautiful, but everybody else, man. And this whole city is just ragged as dude. I don't think the sad detectives unattractive. I mean, she. She doesn't have any care for fire safety.

Putting a lit candle in her desk. Is that a question? Is that a rando? Why did you get a slow motion of that? Yeah, yeah. She doesn't give a damn till she almost gets shot or she does get shot. Then all of a sudden she's like, damn, why We. We never pay off. I don't know if I'm going ahead of your question, but we never pay off. Her slow motion, blowing out a single birthday candle to herself. No, no. That. When that happened, I was like, is there a. Is there a thing here? Is this.

We. We don't even like this character. And all of a sudden we care that it's her birthday? What's the birthday? Yeah. And I thought that she was supposed. To be like a bad guy. And then all of a sudd, like, on everybody's side. And I was like, what? I thought that she was a. She does not care about paperwork too, or evidence handling. She's holding the evidence. She's throwing paperwork in the Morgan. I was like, that's just. That's just sloppy. Yeah. This is someone that has seen a lot of.

Sorry. I can't believe I can't remember the name of the big holiday in New Orleans every year. What is it called? The Marty Gr. This is someone that's seen a lot of Marty Gr. Come through, knows what happens to this town once a year, does not care anymore. Just like this town's gonna just get dumped on and I'm just gonna not even care anymore. Are the police on strike in this movie? Yeah, that's a good question. I was trying so hard to understand what they were chanting, but I just never got it.

But then, like, she's the only cop, and she's blowing out a sad birthday candle and then putting it in a drawer and then taking it back out. Yeah. You know what I gotta say? I gotta say, bad on Natasha for interrupting her, watching her about to blow out her make her birthday wish. He's like, excuse me, I have a report. I'm like, let her blow the candle out before you. Yeah. You could see that. Yeah. This actually just came to me. This is the last question.

Look at this as like in NBA, NFL rankings. Right. Because we talked earlier about this arc of action stars. I'm gonna throw out the ones that come to my mind. If I miss any, let me know. But this. These are the ones I think are essential. Arnold, Sly, Keanu, Bruce Willis, Van Dam, Steven Seagal. We. Will we say Mickey Rourke. I don't know if we would. I don't think we toss Mickey Rourke in there. Who. Who am I missing? Dolph Lundgren. I wish I knew a couple things. Yeah, you might be.

Yeah, you could put Dolph in there. Yeah. Where's Van Damme on that list? Run that. I think. I think he's above Seagal easily. Tricky. Is he above Seagal in Fame or. Or is it just. Yeah, more famous, but for the wrong reasons. Like, he's like a clown at this point. And it's like watching. Because he had a show where he was like a sheriff in New Orleans, right. Yeah, I did. He saw Hard Target. He was like, not on my watch. I'm gonna be the hard target. Yeah. Yeah. You'd be so easy to catch.

Yeah. Apparently he was horrible to the cast of snl. Like, someone reposted a video of him because he, like. You know how everyone. Every star that hosts that does, like, their intro monologue. And apparently he. Because he plays guitar, he tried to, like, sing a blues song. It was horrible. And then apparently he was just torturing the cast the whole time. Yeah. So are we doing this list in terms of quality of, like, film or fame or what? Like public consciousness, action stars.

I would say action stars, when you just think about their impact on. Damn. Would be above Seagal for sure. It's tricky because Seagal did have the Under Siege movies, which were. They are good time. And that was. I mean, Tommy Lee's in one of those. It's. Those are good. Like, blood. Bloodsport was big time cop. Made some money. It was in The. I mean, I think people knew about it, you know, I mean. And being in Street Fighter was big. Being in Street Fighter was big. When it came out.

I mean, it's a. It's a movie that's made fun of an owl, but it came out on the heels of Mortal Kombat, which did pretty well for what it was. And that was like. And video game adaptations were not a thing. Yeah. They were not stories in it. Video games weren't stories. Story driven. So it's like hard to turn them into movies and TV shows. But now it's different behind Keanu and Bruce Willis. Yeah.

Oh, yeah, Yeah. I mean, Keanu's really like the Matrix and Speed. John Wick and Point Break. And Point Break. Point Break. But he. Point Break was written by co. Was actually. I actually interviewed the writer of Point Break and actually James Cameron did the script polish on that and bought that property from Ridley Scott. So there's. There's some James Cameron behind the scenes of that Point Break movie. That's like a. That's a legit act, like genre changing action movie, in my opinion.

Because John, his. His wife made that movie, right? That's. Yeah, one of them. His. For his ex. His ex wife. One of the. One of the sex. He marries one woman per movie. That's his rule. Yeah, that's called the. That's called the Cameron rule. Yes. Catherine Bigelow. Yeah. Yeah. Keanu. Keanu has probably. He's sewn together the most decades. Think about the decades he covered. I mean, bill and Ted89. I only know that because we're doing the Bill and Ted series right now.

Didn't Point Break My Private Idaho was not an action movie. But with River Phoenix, then the Matrix and then John Wicket, that dude has revitalized his career four times. And speed, I mean, speed is considered speed. Yeah. Okay. Speed is big. Yeah, I'll give it that one. Because, God, Keanu third above Bruce Willis. Yeah. I think Die Hard's gonna already jump ahead of that. And Die hard has like 80. There's so many of them.

Because with Keanu, I'll say, like, if it wasn't for John Wick coming later and then if you take the Matrix out of like, the Matrix felt like even the Matrix felt bigger than just like action star type. But like speed, I'll give you that. I'll give you Point Break is also kind of like a tweener. Where would you put this late career revitalization of Liam Neeson? Because he's had a couple of like action Movies with like, Taken and the Gray or whatever. A lot of them have been bad.

A lot of them have been in. The one called, like, Airplane or whatever. I feel like he's in the same league as Van Damme. Jean Claude Van Damme is, like, on a very, like, low rung of the tier list. I feel like he's like, in the C tier of these action stars. I think he gets bumped down more when time goes on, but I think during the time period of the 90s, he's definitely number three. Where are you putting, like, Jackie Chan then? Oh, well, I mean, if you want to add martial arts stars.

Yeah, that's. I mean, like a whole different. Jean Claude Van Damme was. Before all this. He was a martial artist. Yeah. Well, then, dude. And Van Damme just going lower and lower and lower. In that case, should we do randos? I make all my guests say rando. Say it in your chestiest voice. Randos. Randos. I have been ousted on my own podcast. That was sexy as hell, gentlemen. I love it. I love making people do it because some people get really uncomfortable. Like, what. What's a rando? Randos.

Randos. Way too good at it. Making me uncomfortable now. Yeah. Gonna get kicked off my own show because I can't say a rando. Right. Yes. So this was.

We talked about this early, John Woo's American debut and the. They were not excited about. The producers did a lot of control mechanisms. They oversaw the editing. They were on set. They imposed a lot of oversight on him and at one point even put Sam Raimi as quote, unquote, insurance on top of John Wu to make sure because there was a language barrier. So he's like, is this movie actually get made in a good way?

And. And also there's culture shock because the gun, the gun fu thing had taken off in Hong Kong. Like he had made his name there. It was a big deal. And he was going to do that with this movie. This movie was going to have a lot more of that in it. It was actually originally a lot longer. It was going to be 116 minutes. It had earned an NC17 rating when it first came out because of the slow mo.

Also, if showed a lot of blood, a lot of violence, and it was a lot more zoomed in, a lot more grotesque. So the studio stepped in and basically, you know, made them tone down the violence. And then there's another random. I just lumped these all together because they kind of all go together. But later then what happened was Jean Claude Van Damme gets Pissed off because he realizes that this is not a Jean Claude Van Damme movie. This is a John Woo movie.

So between the edits for the violence and Jean Claude Van Damme feeling like he had been kind of made second fiddle to John Woo's technique, they added it to make it more of a. A Jean Claude Van Damme centric movie. So when they were editing it at the end, he was in the room with the editors. Van Damme was and overseeing it to make sure that it became a movie about him. So it went from 116 minutes to 97 minutes after those edits.

So that's kind of the short and skinny version of the hell that this movie went through. And what kind of John Wu went through. Because eventually, because I don't know about you fellas, but when I see John Wu, I think he's. That's a. I mean, that's. Let's legendary. I mean, John Wu is up there. He's got his own status. But it's crazy to think that it was not always received well in Hollywood. I'm glad that they let him keep his. Keep his dove. That makes sense.

In the movie, though, you gotta have. We did have one dove. There's little pigeons. The one that sits on the. On the. Yeah, yeah. Doves are pigeons. Pigeons are doves. That's all the song. Yeah. I'm glad they let him keep the birthday cake too. That's. That had to get cut out. That's what got cut out of the movie. That absolutely had to get cut out of the movie. Because it doesn't make sense for them to have that slow mo birthday cake, the cop thing.

Because movies, movies of this time period would do this where the action would end and the movie would end. There was no epilogue, no cleaning up, no hey, Wilford Brimley, where are you going to live now? You blew up your house. Like, none of that. Just like. Yeah, yeah, I'm just walking away. The cop died. I would like to be fine. I would be like, interested to see, like, what the movie would have been that wasn't a Jean Claude Van Damme centric movie. Like, what version would that have?

What would that have looked like? I think it's just cutting to other people and stuff. Right? Great segue. Next, next and final Rando. One of the things about that came after this movie is that they wish they had. They had really focused on making a spin off that just focused on Emil and on Van Cleef, the villainous pair. And that actually is one of the problems. Van Damme had. Not only did he feel like it was a John Woo movie, he also felt like this movie was all about Emil and. And Van Cleef.

And he felt like that they really focused and John Woo was really interested in these bad guys. And it's kind of. Yeah, it's actually kind of interesting because I. We actually have a category on the scorecard for this. But they're very convincing villains. And I think that's one thing that actually elevates this movie in this genre is that really two very interesting. I love duo villain types, and they are really good. And the producers wanted to figure out a way to do a spin off.

They never did, but they thought they were. They had earned their own film. Yeah, they're great in this. I mean, just. Just the scene where Lance Henrika Henriksen catches on fire and he's just screaming. While he's on fire. He's like, damn, he's good. God damn it, he's good. It took like 15 minutes to get that coat off too. He was just like, ah, damn it. Yeah, it definitely feels like the slow mo is used to extend the runtime, doesn't it?

I will say, like, the slow mo is different each time that he does it too, because, like, there's some where there it's like really choppy. Like, they just didn't have the right framing, like the frame rate for it, so they just like slowed down a 24 frames per second. And then there are other times where he had like a higher frame rate. I mean, this was.

Yeah, there was like that one scene where the guy, Roper is being chased through the streets of New Orleans where they would just like have a snapshot of him, like, looking shocked, and then the guys with the guns and there would be like another snapshot. It was like a very interesting style to. To do. But then, yeah, like this. I could totally see that the slow mo is potentially used as an extension. Because, dude, when.

When Emil was on fire in that coat and he's just like turning around, it looks like he's like yelling at somebody like, get this coat off of me, dude. Like, why aren't you helping me? Like, it took so long. I would say it's to extend the runtime, but I've seen enough John Woo movies to know that it's. He. This is his luck. I mean, they use the exact same shot from Face off when they're talking behind the. That was their backyard. Yeah, Pick is the name.

But that's the same exact shot that you get with Nicolas Cage. And John Travolta and Face off, it's, like, identical. They're loading guns, they turn and they start shooting at each other. And in that movie, it's mirrors that they're shooting at. Back to the tier listing. Would you consider Nicolas Cage an action star then? Nick Cage, he was in Con Air, right? And he's in Face Off. The Rock. The Rock is amazing. The Rock.

I actually often describe the Rock as a transformational film because Michael Bay, that's when he started to kind of exert his brand onto action. And he changed. He changed action. Point Break was kind of the. You called it a tweener. That was a good. Describe a good description. And then, like, the Rock kind of, like, that kind of felt like, oh, this is the future. And it really was. It really. Then he kept, you know, bad boys and all that stuff. Like, it definitely had that flair.

So that's a really good call, man. Yeah, I mean, he would. I would think he would fall neatly with, like, that Bruce Willis genre because he's not like, Nicholas Cage isn't, like, jacked as hell or anything, like. But, yeah, he had a run of those action movies where I was like, oh, yeah. Even in, like, Face off with the John Woo movie, like, yeah. Con Air is basically the same premise of this. It's just like, one guy taking on a bunch of other bad guys. And he's just the baddest of the bad guys.

The baddest of the good guys. Badassery. One man, one mullet, one plane. Con Air. Damn. That's a good. That's a movie brought to you by voice. That's great. That is good movie voice. Thanks. Yeah, I've done voice work before. I don't. And I never got to use my movie guy voice. I was always reading, like, ebooks, and it's like, well, if you look at a molecule. I always wanted to look at the molecule. I want them to bring that back, man. Movie trailers. I'm waiting for the next.

The next run of movie trailer styles. Yeah. Because we've been stuck in that. Playing the COVID slowly over the trailer. Anyway. Yeah. One man talking about with this movie, what was your favorite? This might not be my favorite slow mo moment, but the slow mo when he gets his shotgun. And the time they take of him looking at that shotgun, he has never looked at that girl. That's harsher that way. He's looking at that shotgun like, oh, where have you been, baby? Yeah, it's great.

Yeah. He. A long look. I love stare. I think my favorite slow Mo and it happens a couple times is obviously like Van Damme is doing these crazy spinning jump kicks, and everybody's mouths are just so full of spit that just like, go, boy. It's like. It's like Triple H, like, spitting the water out at the beginning of his match in wwe. Like, it's just like, so much water. I think my favorite spin would be the one when the cops getting shot and falls into his hands.

And then he spins and grabs the gun out of her hands at the same time. It's just. They don't. They don't do a clean handoff, but it's just perfect. Why do you have to kick people and shoot? Double guns. Double gun to the chest, and then a spin kick to the face. The double gun is. Is. Is a. Is an important fixture of these films. The guy off the motorcycle, that was sick. Great slow mo there. Yeah. That faceless person didn't even get any facetime. When he's.

When he's punching people in a motorcycle helmet. I'm like, are those helmets not protecting anything? I mean, ask O.J. simpson. I don't know. If only CTE. CTE gets there. I think that. I don't know if that helmet was helpful. Imagine taking a Jean Claude boot to the Buffalo Bills helmet. Well, in the last scene, like, he's hitting it with his fist and, like, looking at reflections in it, and I'm like, I don't think punching a helmet with your hand is really doing what you think it's doing.

Shall we go to the scorecard? Shall we? Shall we hunt? Shall we? I'm trying to think of a. Shall we punch a snake? Oh, my God, yes. Let's. Let's punch a snake. Right in the face, right in the teeth. We have seven categories here. There's three of us. That means whenever we. Two of us pick one, whether we like it or not, that wins the category. And then we'll have a final score at the end. Five of the categories are our normal ones that kind of COVID the filmmaking basics.

Then we have two, what I call bro categories, which are generated to kind of match the movie. Sometimes they're comedic, sometimes they're, you know, legit, whatever. But they're fun. Categories for yes and no. Today's yes. Affirmative. I dig it. Is hunting season is over. I love that line. That's a really good line. Kind of like is the climactic line.

And then you don't have to say this whole phrase, but I just wanted to say it out loud because it was such a great Line if you don't like it, if you don't dig it. Careless and stupid and now you're sorry too. So you can just say sorry, true. Or whatever. But I just love saying it's just so devastating. I want to say that to someone in real life. Like if a cashier or a waiter messes up my order and be like, careless and stupid and now you're sorry too. Now bring me my breadsticks.

You know, poor teenager that's going to get the brunt of that. Or like divorced mom that's just trying. You're careless and stupid and now you're sorry. Jeez. Sorry. Now go get my chip, my cheddar poppers now. Yeah. All right. I love you guys. This is. We gotta do this again. You are so fun. Top Bill cast Jean Claude Van Damme, Lance Henriksen. I said lawns, lawns. Maybe I'm sorry too. And Yancy Butler. I'm going to say you're careless and you're stupid and you're sorry too, unfortunately.

Oh, I liked Lance Hendrickson. I thought that he was a great villain and it was like a very over the top, very fun. I wanted to definitely see him get his ass kicked. But Van Damme not. I mean, I know that he's working with a different language. It's kind of brutal. But the Yancey Butler is just wide eyed through the entire. Like her for like her eyes are just the widest thing I've ever seen. And she doesn't really bring much to the movie, I feel like.

So that's why, like if it was solely based off of the villains. The two villains, absolutely. But I don't think Van Damme brings enough and the lady just doesn't bring anything for me. Joe's bringing the. No. What do you think, Vance? I got. Hunting season is over. I think Lance Henriksen is bringing it. He's great in it. It sucks that there might be more stuff on the cutting room floor. I'm sure there's stuff of Yancey on the cutting room floor.

If Jean Claude's in there, he's like, I'm not making out with her. I'm not having sex with her. I don't think she needs to be in the movie. Her role in this movie. I don't even know why she's at the end of this movie. I thought there were multiple times where they were gonna like let her send it out and then we could have a recap and she could just sit next to the ambulance, you know, at the end of one of These movies. Blanket on, come over, make it hug. But Jean Claude is doing the kicks.

I mean, this is thing. He's doing the kicks. He's riding a motorcycle, he's punching snakes. You can't ask for more than that. No, really, you can't. Yeah, I'm with you, Vance. I'm going. Hunting season is over. Although I do agree with Joe, Yansy tips this scale downward. She. She doesn't. There was supposed to be more romance between the two. There was a more romantic arc. That was something that got kind of cut out as well.

I don't know who decided, but I can't imagine her, like, being more romantically involved because she's already just so. Just annoying to see on screen. But Lance here. And this was really fun to see Lance in this role because, you know, I associate him so much with Alien, where he's a helpful, you know, helpful cyborg, you know, So I. I love what he does. I think he's a very convincing. And I agree with the producers. Like, a spin off would have been great.

So. And I think this is primo Van Damme. I like a lot of Van Damme movies, but I still think, I think this is his best one. A lot of fun. So, dude, hunting season is over. 1 to 0. Will hunting season be over? Supporting cast. Here we go. I'm gonna name a few folks here. Arnold Vu as Pick. Van Cleef. Robert Espasia, or, sorry, Robert. Aa. Why do they give me hard names? That's not fair. Mr. Laki. Cassie Lemons as the detective with the cake. Yeah, and I'm gonna stop there. Brimley.

Yeah, I'm gonna stop there because they gave me a bunch of no names here.

Yeah, I would say hunting season is over for these guys. I liked a lot of the supporting cast. Like, Brimley's doing some crazy shit. Like, he's like the oddly comedic side. Side character, which, like, I don't know. I. I don't know if it was needed. But I liked seeing him on there and it was funny. Seen him be like a. Like a French hillbilly. Like, say, what was. What's going on here? I like the secondary, like the right hand man. Pick Van Cleef. I thought that he was incredible.

The cop lady, she was fine. But I liked Roper a lot too. Like, I thought that his chase scene through the. The graveyard was very entertaining and very fun and unique. Like, that's something that you can only really do in New Orleans and like the bayou type, because that's how they have to have their graves there. So I would say, yeah, I like the supporting cast a lot. So hunting season is over. Yeah. These aren't your skid row homeless folks. These are nice, helpful, you know, got your back.

Homeless people like, you want a Butterfinger? You know, everyone in this movie is ugly. Yeah, Joe. Joe nailed that one. That'd be funny if the homeless people were the only people he thought were attractive in the movie. Yeah. Hunting season is over. Oh, and holy smokes, you sold me. Because Wilford Brimley crushes it. And yeah. Who's lowest pick is really greatness. And Roper, I really liked him in his scenes too.

I really do wish before he got executed on that Steve dude realized he had $10,000. I wish he would have realized that he had the $10,000 in his wallet. And, you know, maybe he could have turned to Ted Raimi and say, no, Ted Raimi, I don't need your money. I have it. The Ted Raimi cameo was great, but yeah, it's just like I was like, oh, please take the money out of your pocket. You have it. You can go into any bar. Bars were closing. Which I did not understand because if you've been in.

I think the money was sewn. I think the money was sewn in there because, like, when he gets killed, pick he knifes. It was it? No, it wasn't. It wasn't because he showed it. He showed him the money before he showed him the belt. He only cuts it off of him for dramatic purposes. Did you enjoy that? When Roper gets executed in the streets surrounded by hundreds of people, everyone just freezes. Someone else died too. There was another guy in the front that got shot. Yeah. And when we see the.

I think when the cops show up, we only see the one death. Yeah. But I think the other guy was the participant. A bunch of people. Yeah. The thing that got me about Roper's death is when they like the judgmental New Orleans street walker dick, get a real job, it's like, dude, you're, you're in New Orleans. All right? Like, this is, this is just part of it, bro. Like, there were YouTubers. Judge, you know what brought you here? What? How many divorces are you on? You know, make a right or left.

Duck into one of the bars or, like, try to do something. Take a shower. Man, I love it when, when people convince each other of the category. That's great. No, I, I, I needed some convincing too. I did go. Hunting season is over. I, I think the guy, I like the guy. The, the Big guy at the office who gets the shotgun to the head and his car and a windshield. Like, I think he's great. He's real good. Scummy guy. You Good stuff. Arnold Vosloo is pick. Van Cleef is fantastic.

Don't love the detective as much. I. I think she's actually playing it really well. But her. The way she's written is not great. Like, I don't. We don't know what her purpose is or why she behaves the way she does. I don't know if that's her or the writing because she actually is an actress I enjoy in other films. Brimley's interesting. I. I think Brimley is. Is good here, but I feel like his script just said, make weird noises because this is not. I don't think he's speaking Cajun.

I think he's just hollering. I don't think it's real. I don't. I don't know, man. I think he had some lines, and in between he said. I watched this without captions and I wrote down two of his lines I thought were hilarious. And they're all whiskey based because that's all he's about, is that moonshine? But when we first get introduced to him, he's making, like, whiskey. He's like, good whiskey. Make jack rabbit slap the bear. And I thought that was hilarious.

And then later when he's with Natasha, I thought they were going to run away on the horses, but he's going to, like, blow up his whole house for some reason. But he tells her to take a drink. Drink, but do not spill. It'll kill the grass. Like. Yeah, I don't know. Can you get up? I cannot dance, but I can get up. That was actually the original idea I had for the yes affirmative category. That was. I just was like, I got two really long ones if I do that. But no, that was. Yeah, all right.

Two to zero. I love that you wrote those down, by the way. Those are great lines. Two to zero writing. Chuck Farrer. And I want to talk about him because this is no schleb here. This guy wrote Sudden, which is one of the Dirty Harry movies. He wrote Dark Man, Liam Neeson, Barbed Wire with what's her Face. Is that Pamela Anderson? Yeah, I think Pamela Anderson, yeah. The Jackal he wrote. And then Red Planet and the Green Hornet. So this dude's no schleb here, but this is early in his career.

This is after. This is his fourth movie, and it's the third one after Sudden Impact. And the last one, After Dark, man. So this dude. This dude was cranking him out. So what do you think about his R writing here? I'm gonna go. Hunting season is over. But my reasoning is because of the new information I got on the cuts to the movie, because I think, knowing his other movies, that he had a plan.

I think there was a plan with the whole cop and how crooked things were in New Orleans, because that's how it started.

It started, like, we're going to talk about, like, they were doing montages of, like, the homeless people and people not caring and Lance Henri character when they start to talk to the. The buy the second buyer. That's like trying to hunt down Roper. He's talking about, like, hey, you know, we move around to one bad city after another and it's always some corruptness. And I think they were going to pay that up with the cop. And I think they were.

I think there was stuff that they were going to play up more New Orleans centric, like, build it there, make some little social commentary a little stronger. And for me, because it doesn't go down that path. Well, for me, the movie really picks up after we get the snake punched in the head. And then we meet Wilford Brimley. So Wilford Brimley comes in right after snake gets punched in the head, knocked out. It's rattle. It's rattled, tail bitten off.

And then it kills someone and then gets its head blown up by Lance Hendrickson. At that point, I'm like, all right, we're just in cartoon land. And then we meet Wilford Brimley working on his science project of a whiskey still. And I'm like, oh, yeah, like, that's. That's all, like, fun and things are blowing up and stuff. So it's. It's a tricky balance. Like, the beginning of it didn't have me as much because they.

They were trying to build the relationship with Van Damme and her, and it doesn't come across. And it's probably cut down too. So I don't know. But I think I. I can't knock them too much for the writing of this because I feel like it's. It would have been a solid action movie. They probably could have got 90 minutes. But cut other stuff. Maybe cut some Van Damme out and keep some other stuff. I'm going, sorry too.

There is a lot of stuff that just, you know, like, Vance, your argument is like, oh, yeah, they left a lot of stuff on the. I'm going off of what I saw. Not Some hypothetical what the movie could have been. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He wrote a better movie, but they didn't make it. So I don't know, There was just like, a lot of. There was just. No, I enjoyed it. It's. But, like, I feel like there was a lot of the writing stuff that didn't make sense as the movie went further along.

Like, it seemed like they were trying to set up a love story between Natasha and Chance, and that just, like, never came to fruition. Like, they have a weird kiss at some point and I was like, oh, wait, when did that start happening? That's just like, out of nowhere. There's. This was like a. This bugged me a lot. And this is like a nitpicky, like, thing. But early on in the movie, they arrest Chance for going past a police yellow tape situation.

And that's like, he's trespassing, but later on he's like, helping the cop and he's, like, examining evidence. Pass. Like, you can see the yellow tape behind him. Like, he's on a crime scene. And it's like, this is just a homeless guy. Like, what is he doing? He's, like, reporting to the cop. And it's like, how come nobody's a. I guess the cop is, like, in charge of that investigation. But, like, what.

And then there's no. Like, I know that you're saying that the movie picks up after that, but in terms of dialogue. Yeah, in terms of dialogue, there's none. It's like. Well, I guess entertainer, like writing the action sequences, but it's like all kicks and. And I thought that. I mean, I love the. The slap and the out of the snake and the biting, the rattle off. That was insane. I'd never seen that in my entire life. Yeah, There just isn't much when the movie gets entertaining for me.

There's not much in the way of dialogue. It's more the action sequences. Which would you have to write? The action sequences. Yeah. I don't know how. How that works. So I'm still saying it's. Sorry to. Have you ever read a book writing, oh, and then they jump off of a bridge onto a moving train isn't going to be as entertaining as, like, seeing it. You still have to make it. The visual work. Like, you know what I mean?

Well, Joe, if I could support your opinion and something that you said when I was thinking about it is that it does get crazy that the bad guys say, okay, this is our last hunt, and then decide to execute people in broad daylight and on the street. And I was like, are you supposed to, like, aren't you guys trying to leave unnoticed? Yeah, they're just like, well connected. They've got like a whole barracks worth of. Of guns and shit, like, which I know is like action movie, I get it.

But like, there's so much artillery and. And helicopter. I'm surprised they didn't have a tank to just like, shoot through that construction site that they were fighting in at the end. That laser tag arena. Yeah, so you went. So you are careless and stupid and now you are sorry too. Not you. But you know what? You can think that about me all you want. You know, Gosh, you're both. It's interesting talking to you both about this because you're both making interesting points.

This is a category I struggled with. I did. I do think I'm going sorry too. In your face, fans. This is bringing out a lot of unsettled tension between you two. There's a lot that's being delivered here that fits into the genre really well. Some of the one liners. I actually think some of Van Damme's dialogue is up there in this movie with some Sly and some Arnold one liners. Like, I love the very first scene in the diner where he says the. The coffee's or the food's a tragedy or whatever.

And I think it's a really good introduction. I think he says some really funny things here. But there's too many. There's just too many characters that are written weirdly. The oddly friendly homeless people which seem to be just. Listen, you live in la, I live in Nashville. We've all been to Chicago. This is just not. I know, I know it's a movie, but they're just too friendly, these homeless. Like, I just. I don't understand. I think that's written horribly.

There's just too many things to stick out. And yeah, I know you're saying, like, you love Arnold so much, so it's like, how can you let them off the hook? But just. I just feel like some of those movies are written so evenly. Like, you just. The expectations are there, but here there's moments like the detective, and there's just moments where I'm like. Like what? Like you. I'm already, like, suspending disbelief with the mullet, and you've already got me, I'm good.

But then you're gonna really throw me off with the cake. And this weird, this unresolved line. And again, like you said, Vance, it could have been cutting room floor, it could have been whatever, but it's like kind of a squeak on the. No. So it's kind of a squeak. No. So I hate to say it, but. Yeah, there's a. There's a lot to like, but there was a lot that confused me. Yeah, that's fair. I mean, I can't. I'm not. Yeah, I'm not. It's not an emphatic. Hunting season is over.

It's like a hunting season over. I mean, it's just. It's all right. Don't try to change me, Vance. I am who I am. I'm just kidding. All right.

Directing Mr. John Woo and his American debut, man. I'm just looking through some of his later movies. Face off, Mission Impossible 2, Hostage, Paycheck, his first movie came out in China in 1968. That dude has dozens of movies before this come out. He is like, is between 90. Between 68 and 92. I see, like, 14 movies here, maybe more. Wow. Didn't know that. Anyway, what do you guys think of his directing here, knowing that this is.

What we got was a Sam Raimi, Jean Claude Van Damme, John Woo hybrid? Yeah. I wanted to mention that Sam Raimi did Dark man with the. With the writer. So that's kind of how that connection with Sam Raimi being a producer on here and Ted Raimi getting a cameo, I'm gonna say careless and stupid. And now you're sorry, too. He said it. I love it. My reason, my reasoning for it is that he let. He let them railroad him into letting Jean Claude into the editing booth, and he let.

He didn't get Raimi to back him down. And, I mean, Remy does not have the Spider man cachet yet, which. Which would have carried a lot, but, yeah, I don't think there's anything wrong with his actual direction on this. Like, I mean, you know that he's capable. You know, he's done stuff before and he's going to do stuff later. This just isn't probably one of his best directed pieces, but it has all the hallmarks. I don't know if this is the beginning of his, like, pigeon dove stuff.

I haven't gone back. But this one has. I mean. I mean, we got plot contingent pigeons. In this one, that dove comes in and sits on it sits on the dog tags and gives plot advice, whispers on Van Damme's shoulder later. So I was like, I didn't know he was that connected to the birds. So I don't know. It has its flair. It has some moments. But like we say, like, with some of the stuff that we complained about with the script writing.

Some of that also can be with the direction where you're like, I don't know, like. And English isn't his first language. He's got people overseeing him. It's tricky. So I just. Not really. Not really burying him here, but I'm just gonna go negative on that. You're so careless and stupid and you're sorry, too. I just feel like. Like, there were just, like, so many wacky. They were like, wacky characters. There was like, the. The pigeons, the slow. Like, I get that he got railroaded.

I understand how that would definitely change a lot of stuff. And I would more give him grace with that because it is his American debut. And I'm sure they had to, like, cater to some of the demands. Obviously, like, he's trying to get into a new market after being successful. And, like, I feel like the. The American studio were probably, like, a little bit cautious, like, oh, I don't know if, like, the stuff that you did before was gonna work here. So, like, we'll American it up a little bit.

And so I can't really fault a lot of the weird direction that goes on here, but it doesn't mean that it's like making a good movie. Yeah, well said. I mean, they just weren't sure that Americans liked guns at all. You know, that was a hard thing. They were like, do some. Do American like, guns in action? Yeah, I'm gonna say it, too. Careless and stupid. And now you're sorry, too? Yes. It feels good just to say it. You know, I. It's similar to the writing. Van, you kind of said something similar.

Like, there are moments, but there's also just choices here. And again, I'm not going to blame John Woo because we. I've covered enough movies on this podcast to know that directors have a vision and they get railroaded. And it does not even because they don't speak English or they're not from here. There are directors that speak perfect English and are from here and are esteemed directors that get railroaded. And it's rarely good. Sometimes it turns out okay, but rarely does it turn out good.

And this is a situation where I enjoy this movie, and I will watch it a lot. Like, it's a movie that I love to revisit, but there are some just moments that make this final cut that just make me go, why? And ultimately, that's just not good. You know, Like, I don't watch Rambo 3 and think that Rambo 3 is pure dumb fun. It is just Dumb fun. But I never go, why? Because I'm in it and I understand what's going on. I've been in this world. Nothing pops up. Like, well, why does that happen?

It's just. That's Rambo 3, baby. That's how it goes. This is just like, why. Why that choice?

I had two big why that choice moments. One was the cake in the desk drawer with the lit candle sitting on top of paper. Did not understand that. That's like a. Like, when you do that early in a movie, you're setting a comedic tone. Like, you need to punch that snake two scenes later. And then. And I don't know if that's, like, writing or directing choice or whatever, but then the.

The other one was at the end of the movie when Yancy gets her one scene to shoot a guy and she kills him and a guy has a gun pointed at her. And then Wilford Brimley comes over and gets mad at her and takes the gun from her. And I was very confused. Yeah. I don't know why she came back. It seemed like Wilford Brimley and her, like, went separate directions, and then, like, they're together again at the end. I think it was something to do with, like, she lost her innocence or whatever then.

Because then she. She's, like, looking down and he's like, look at what you did. And she's just kind of like. Like, shoulder checks him. Like, brushes him off a little bit. Yeah. And me being a person that watches action is like, okay, I gotta understand if you're upset because she just made a lot of noise and brought a bunch of people to you, but, like, you now have a gun and you're not just shooting arrows. I don't know.

Yeah. The only emotionally engaging scene in the movie, all of a sudden it's like, oh, now we're guilty about killing people. Yeah. Yeah. That's something that she cared about. Or. Yeah. Man, we made it interesting. Wow, it's tied. How is this going to turn out? It's two to two. This is the last of our standard categories. This is. We call it what's in front of Us. So this is cinematography, production design, sound, costumes, editing, and movies like this. Stunts as well. Hunting season's over.

I mean, even the cinema. The cinematography is, like, cool, too. Like, I like the excessive use of slow mo. Like, didn't bother me. It more bothered me that it was, like, different frame rates. Like, that was the thing that was bothering me more. Like, the choppiness, but, like, the stunts are awesome. The wacky dude. Like, when he slapped that snake and then bit his tail off, I was like, what the hell is going on? And just so many kicks. Like, I love that Van Damme had, like.

He had, like, machine guns on him, and he's still taking some time out to, like, leap over and kick people. And then planting the snake is a trap and just. Just banking on. That's gonna work. That had to have more. There had to be more scenes between that. It felt like it was going to be like, a setup. Maybe he can talk to animals because he. That snake woke up perfectly. He was like, oh, this will be a nice trap for the boys. And he's talking to the pigeon. Like, I mean, it was.

I was gonna say it is his. His backyard or whatever. He says, like, now they're on my turf. The bayou. The bayou. So it sounds like we're all. Hunting season is over. I. I'm same. I. I just. It's the most enjoyable part. It's the part that. I mean, ultimately, it outweighs a lot of the bad choices that were left in this film. And I just think the kicks, the. Yeah, it stinks that it became so Van Damme centric.

I do think there was a good idea and there's somewhere with the villains and making it. Making it more interesting and more compelling and more violent. But, you know, if you want to see Van Damme, Van Damme, which I do, this is a thrill. So I give it. That's why I go. Hunting season's over. It's three to two. Oh, my gosh. Where does it go? We got two categories left. This is where we judge the villains. And this is one of my favorite categories because we can do it in a lot.

We've done it Mad Max. We've done it in all kinds of categories. I call it, how good are these bad guys, huh? I mean, I think, you know, the hunting season is going to be over for these guys. Like, they're great. I like. I like Pick more than the. The main bad guy. Yeah. Yeah. Hunting season's over. I thought Pick was a great. Like, I thought their interplay was. Was nice, too, when they had that moment where he's like.

They were saying something about being professionals or whatever, and then Pick gets back at him with it. Pick wants to just take him down from the helicopter, and Emil wants to get him on the ground. And then they get blown up and stuff. And then he's like, are you mad at me? I love that. No, I never get mad. I'm a professional. I'm like, you're a professional at an illegal profession. Yeah, yeah, I guess. Yeah. Gunning for a promotion. Great villains.

Yeah. And I, I will say, like upper tier villains for the genre. I, I think, Yeah, I enjoy a lot of Arnold villains, like Commando. You know, there's some great, yeah, there's some good ones, but this one, actually, this is where the movie breaks the trope, because usually when you get a twosome or, or any kind of movie, one of them is dumber, one of them is the lesser, one of them is less intelligent and is getting bullied around.

We have two equally powerful and interesting people, and they really do make you think, Like, I want to know more about these guys. Like, I want the backstory. How did they come together? Why are they such a good pair? You know? And you don't always get that usually. And again, I, you know, me, I'm, I, I idolize Arnold and Sly, but those movies, the, the enemies are the dominoes. They're the bowling pins, and Arnold is the bowling ball. Stallone is a bowling ball.

And there's just, you know, at the end, they're just, yeah, they're gonna get beaten up and bloody, but ultimately they're gonna, they're gonna kick some ass here. It was like, this is a bit of a chess game, you know, these with some brilliant dudes. Totally. And this is probably the, My most resounding hunting season is over here. I just love these villains.

I do, I do want to, I do want to ding a mill just for having the single shot gun that he was, like, really harping on, where he had to load one bullet at a time. I feel like, I don't know. I, I, it's cool. It's also not faster than a running Van Damme coming at you. That was intentional. The gun was intentional because they wanted it to have a feel of a Western. And so they did try to add some Western elements to it. And the horses were one of those things.

And then, then adding that single shotgun was kind of like a, kind of like a callback to an older type of Western weapon, so. And then he unholsters the leg. That was unbelievable. As soon as I saw that scene, I was like, all right, I know what I'm in for, and I love it. Yeah. Yeah. There's literally not a part of my body that I could unholster and be taken seriously. Just not even, you know, and I lift, I lift all the time, but I'm still, it's like, I'm not going to holster the arm today.

It's not going to do anything at this bar. Well, we're on the last category. I mean, this movie, this gets a, this gets a, you know, an approval from us.

But let's go and go in this last category, I call this action oriented. And this is just us assessing this as action. We talked about all we stack, ranked the stars. We talked about some of the great action movies, the Rambos, the, you know, the Commandos Under Siege. Think about all those movies, Die Hard, Point Break, where. How do you assess this? Does this belong in that, that oeuvre of great action? Or do you think this misses the mark?

For me, it misses the mark just, just because of the first half. Because it's a short movie. So like only an hour and a half or so. Right, but the first, yeah, but the first half of the movie is very sparse in action. Besides that, that scene that we just talked about where he unholsters the leg and then there's like a couple little shoot chases or, or that scene where Van Damme gets his ass kicked for. No, I mean, he gets hit with a bat, he should be down.

I thought that was kind of realistic enough, but because I see these movies, I just expect him to break the bat and kill him, you know? But yeah, I, Other than that, it takes a while to really get into it. And by the time you get into the action, it's really one of those like, okay, here's all the action now. All of it's pretty fun. Yeah, I would say that the hunting season's over for it. I, I see what you're saying, Vance.

Like, when it gets like, that's when it's like kind of slows down quite a bit. And that's not the best part of the movie. But when the action's happening, like, it is awesome action. Like, it is, it is good, man. Like him riding that horse through the swamps with his shotgun and the helicopter, like, chasing him down. Like, that's like not a very memorable thing in the movie, but it is still very cool. I, I, yeah, I liked it.

Like him beating up four guys in the middle of the street and those two guys that were just automatically in on it because when we see like that they're gonna rob this lady. It's just two guys in the diner and then they follow her out and then two guys outside of the diner just get up and start walking with the two guys from inside the diner. I was like, how do they know they're all in cahoots? They're all in cahoots. Okay, fair Enough. But I mean, that scene was great. And then.

Yeah. I mean, so much of it is action centric. I would say of the, like 90 minutes, 60 of them are action centric. And that's what you come to, a Jean Claude Van Damme. You don't come for the Oscar worthy performances, you know, so I. I do. Go careless and stupid and now you're sorry too. It's hard. It's a hard target to hit on this. But yeah, it's. God, that was bad. Sorry, I'm gonna edit myself on that one. But do I enjoy it? Yes. And do I think it's good action like you said?

Joe, I agree with you, but when I. I just go through the list of movies, it just doesn't crack top five or even top 10, unfortunately. And it's sad because I don't know that Van Damme has one that does. And that's why I kind of asked the question earlier about where are we? Stack Ring was like, yes, are these movies enjoyable? But, man, like Rambo 3, or this. Or First Blood or this. Or, you know, Terminator 2 or this. It's just like Point Breaker.

It's just like, you know, the greater Than sign is always pointing the same direction. So I. I hate to say it because it's a good movie, but it's just. To me, it's. It's fun and it belongs in the action genre and it has its place, but it definitely doesn't crack the greatness marker for me. So. 4 to 3. This one got by. By the skin of the teeth. It's still a good movie. We gave it. We gave it. Hunting season is over. Affirmative. With boys watching Buffy here.

Well, dude, thank you so much for coming. This was. We got to do this again. I had too much fun, honestly. Yeah, this is great. Yeah, definitely. We got to have you on our podcast and talk about some movies, get some more action movies, please. I would be absolutely honored. Do you want to tell people where to find you? We're in the middle of doing Veronica Mars and Dollhouse. You can. It's just at Boys Watching Buffy on Instagram and Tick Tock and.

Yeah, Kyle, dude, thanks so much for having us, man. This was a blast. Absolutely. Thank you, guys. All right, love y' all. Bye. Movie Wars.