Last Call At Torchy's #19 : Undisputed (2002)

So prison. I live inside my head. So that's how you're doing your time. Are you really that much in control of your emotions? Been that way all my life. Only time I ever lost it. What got me in here? I'm familiar with your case history. So you prefer your own company? Most of the time. I'm supposed to recommend whether or not you seem to require a detailed psychiatric evaluation. Other than the incident in the mess hall? That wasn't me. And why don't you

go talk to the hotshot champions, Ask him about it. So you deny any responsibility? Yeah, I deny it. Now how does that affect me moving on? It has no bearing in your transfer to false. You know this whole thing. This whole thing is about people being scared. Aren't you afraid of him? Afraid? Shit. He's a fighter. I'm a fighter. If I'm better on that day, I win. That's just the way it goes. Someday every fighter lose. Sooner or later somebody comes along and they got your ticket. Too old.

Just wasn't your day. Whatever the reason is. In the end, everybody gets most you can hope for that you stay on top of while be the best. Can you dig it? Can you dig it? Can you dig it? Every time you got a bar, a. Bar'S got somebody here that thinks he's. As tough as a nickel stick. But they all come to speed for the do. Ray, me. Now get this. We ain't partners, we ain't brothers and we ain't friends. My little brother was 15 years old. You think about that. You'll wait on me all. How about

cutting hair? Oh, I get it. You want some kind of contest, huh? You're a real smart boy, ain't you? I guess maybe you'll have to kill me. It'll hurt if I do. Well. Looks like I finally ran into. Someone that likes to play as rough as I do. Yeah. This must be your lucky night. Am I bodied? They not nice like me. Are we supposed to say things? You're not supposed to say nothing, soldier.

In the heart of the Mojave Desert lies Sweetwater Penitentiary. We house murderers, armed robbers, rapists. A high security prison with a long standing tradition. It's time. It's time. For 10 years, Monroe Hutchin has been undefeated. Monroe wins again. This is your house. You own this place. This was my house. I could get up and leave, but. Sweetwater is about to receive a new prisoner. George Iceman Chambers remains undefeated heavyweight

champion. The word is the Iceman's day of arrival is tomorrow. Boxing's various governing Bodies began stripping you of your title belt. Who they think they kidding? Everybody knows I'm the champ. And I'mma be the champ till I quit. Now the heavyweight champion from the inside. In here, I'm the champ. Will meet the heavyweight champion from the outside. Nobody can stand up to what I got. You got the heavyweight champion of the world and an unbeaten prospect. Quit wasting time. Set the thing

up. Boy came up to me and said. That if I fight some punk in here, he can maybe get me out quick. You're a good champion. We got a champion right here and he can kick your ass. Give him one. Take out the steeling. Well, rumor has it he took down. One of the skin boots. A lot of rumors in prison, you know. I want you to item in the cage at a finish, you win, that's 4 million bucks. And I think you can win. Wesley Snipes. I can take this guy and

I don't need no help. Thing RS ain't but one champ in here. Peter Fogg. You better get ready to fight. Michael Rooker. Give me a situation right in here. And Wes studi I was in trouble. Two undefeated boxers. Right time, right place, right circumstance. They all can be beaten. An unprecedented event. And if I KN I had to. Go to jail and see a fight. Like this, I'd have did a crime a long time ago. One undisputed champion.

Undisputed. Hello, folks. Welcome to the last call of Torches, the podcast all about one man's one man's mission to be a producer, director, writer, all those things. The king of Brandywine himself, Mr. Walter Hill. And with me to tonight, as always, is my brothers in this little venture, W. Russell. How you doing, sir? Well, I'm kind of a bum, you know, just a big uncoordinated. But I'm doing all right. So. Yeah, yeah, your footwork needs help too, is I'll say about that

one. Yeah, it does. Oh my gosh. Also with you tonight from just to stayed over from me is Mr. Cameron Scott. How you doing, sir? I'm still the champ, you know. I'm doing just fine. I'm doing great. I'm having a good day. Can't complain. Good. Yeah,

it's here tonight we're talking about. It's been a long time, guys. I apologize for that. You know, stuff kept happening and rescheduled and people getting sick and, you know, my gosh. But yeah, we're talking about Undisputed from 2002. Your cheap applause announces is this. When heavyweight champion George Iceman Chambers lands in prison, the resident Gangster arranges a boxing match with the

reigning prison champ. This is directed by Walter Hill, of course written by David Giler and Walter Hill. Big ass cast in this movie of people that. Most of which have never been in a Walter Hill film before. So this is nice. Wesley Snipes as Monroe Hutchin. Bing Rames is George Iceman Chambers. The great Peter Falk as. As Mindy Ripstein. So I like to say Mindy for this movie. Yeah, yeah. Michael Rooker as, as A.J. merker. Our head. Our head guard, I guess he would call it.

Uh, John SATA thought it was. I thought it was Freddie Rodriguez actually. But I was wrong about that. I did too. Oh no, I, I mentioned. I, I instantly pegged him because. Oh, one of. One of the guys from Homicide. Life on the street. Yeah. He was working man as a Jesus Chewy compost. The amazing West Studie has Mingo Pace. There's a lot of amazing actors. Fisher Stevens as James Rat Bag Krochek. What a name. Rap bag. Dayton Kelly is Yank Lewis.

Ed Lover as our MC in this film. Can't hate about this as Marvin Bonds as your. As your ring announcer. I can't hate on this because it has to do with the soundtrack and I'm not gonna go there, but I had to shout this guy out because I just seen him in another movie. I watched, I watched Barbed Wire today for no reason at all. And Nils Alan Stewart, that obnoxious dude with that back ponytail hanging out of his head all the time.

You know this bald guy, he shows up in about a billion action movies. He's in this film. Stuntman, actor and second unit of or assistant director Nils Alan Stewart. Look him up. You have seen him in 10 action films. I can guarantee it. I've seen him in 10 action films this week alone. There you go. I had to mention him because I love I of. You know that, that guy, action stars. You know to do a whole podcast on Spinily Thorson.

Just top, top 10 roles. Be all good. Oh my gosh. But yeah, this, this is, this is, this is good to an extent. I'm gonna kick it to Cameron first. Ask him what he thinks of Undisputed. Well, believe it or not, guys, this was the first time watch for me. I had not seen Undisputed. I had not seen any of the sequels which I. I've looked into and I bookmarked on the old plex. I'm gonna, you know, try to watch those and see if anything. What's that? They don't. But they're worth Your time. Okay.

Okay. But I appreciated this was, I kind of, I, I think I, I, I, I think like Walter Hill does on this one, he just wanted to make a boxing movie that was just about a boxing that didn't have any ulterior motives. And for that, it's a good movie. It's, it's just about boxing. You know, it's about boxing in prison. But it's, it's kind of, I don't want to say it's not good, but it's definitely not great. I mean, it's got some great performances. I mean, Wesley Snipes is good with little. He's in

it. Bing Rhames is powerhouse in more ways than one. He's, he's intense. I mean, everybody is somebody in this movie. You got Fisher Stevens, like we already talked about West Studi. Peter Falkland was the MVP here and it's got my boy Michael Rooker in it. I find it hard to hate on anything that's got a little bit of Michael Rooker. He's a class act. He's always good in everything he does. But, you know, it's, it's just kind of blase. It's oddly

paced for a Walter Hill movie. Usually his movies, you know, are very swiftly paced and just, just misses the mark just a little bit. Like, like I was saying, I'm not hating on it completely. I'm just not loving on it completely either, if that makes any sense. But yeah, for, for a first time watch, I was, I was impressed enough where I would say I'd probably watch this again when I'm a little bit more in tune

with the, with the sequels. And I can, I can, I can achieve that here in the next week or so because I got some time off. But I walked away from this movie thinking one thing. I love filthy Peter Falk, like Foul Mouth Columbo is my jam. That, that was just great. And some of the things that were great about this movie, you know, Peter Falk, Fisher Stevens, for once, not, you know, doing the short circuit thing and. Yeesh. Yeah, we do a whole show about that later.

But, you know, this movie is a who's who of tough guy actors and you know, I mean, it's, it's a sir, it's a serviceable action movie and, you know, serviceable action drama and, you know, and again, Peter Falk is the mvp, so I'll leave it at that. That cool Ali. So it was a first time watch for me in the sense that I watched

it for the first time for the Podcast, but because like you mentioned, Gary, it's been a while since we got this episode out. I had already watched it once before in anticipation that we were going to record before we had to cancel, like last minute. And I did find that with the second viewing I liked it a lot more. I was kind of where Cameron was on the first time I watched it. But the second time I watched it I enjoyed it a lot more. But I, I agree with Cameron. It's very simple

and straightforward. It's, it's definitely just Walter Hill wanted to do a prison boxing movie or just a boxing movie. I mean, he already did Hard Times, so let's take Hard Times, but let's do it in, in prison. It works for what it is. It's very cheap. But it shows and it shows. But I mean it's, it's like effectively shot effect. I think I'm in agreement. Like the first time I watched it, like Cameron was saying, it's slow in parts. Like it drags a little, the pacing's off,

kinda. A lot of lovingly loving shots of Wesley Snipes building things with toothpicks. Yes. But I think for me, the second time around I found it much more palatable. My biggest problem is it starts off a little draggy with all the flashback stuff. Like I don't think this movie needed any flashbacks at all. And I think that's the worst part of the movie. Otherwise it's very straightforward. It works really well. If you cut the flashback stuff out, I think it would move at a much

quicker pace. And then you get into it and it's just about the boxing match and the build up to the boxing match and you have all these great character actors just doing their thing and it's really enjoyable, I thought. And I'm not a big fan of boxing movies and like that either. Like, I'm not really into that stuff and I found myself enjoying it a lot more the second time around. And yeah, I think it's pretty

decent, I'm gonna say. You know, it's like upper middle of the pack for Walter Hill, in my opinion. So. But yeah, we'll get more into it as we, as we talk, but I'll pass the baton. Yeah, I, I dug this

upon its release because of, you know, the time it came out there was, there was some decent boxing fair that wasn't like Rocky stuff coming out. You know, this, this was out Play to the Bone, the Ron Shelton movie with Woody Harrelson and, and Antonio Banderas. Oh yeah, yeah. I enjoyed stuff like this. So I was, I was like all in for it now, like you guys mentioned. You know, it's, it's, it's, it's good, you know, once it gets to the lead up to the fight. And it's fine

before that too. I mean, leading up to. But, but at least at the flashback stuff, if you guys didn't know Ving Rham is supposed to be Mike Tyson, okay, this was supposed to be. But they keep going back to why he went to prison. They keep going back to media scenes of not Robin Givens telling her story as like, you just don't care. Just. You need two minutes of exposition of why he's in prison. And that's, that's all you should have.

They should have maybe one of those flashback moments instead of like six. Yeah. Like a quick news bite or something. And you know, I mean, this is. A movie that starts out with like the, the so like 90s, early 2000s cliche of character introduced with title card kind of thing where it's like so and so in prison for this, this, and this. And it's like, okay, so there's your backstory that, like, that's the effective way you bring the backstory. And you don't

need to know anything else. Like, and most people at this point watching this would know, oh, this is Mike Tyson. Like, this is. This is totally Mike Tyson. They're just not calling them Mike Tyson. So, like, you don't need all that extra flashback exposition stuff to know what this story is actually about. You know who else does this? Does it? That annoys me. This is going to be controversial statement, but I don't really need 20 minutes of the movie Sorcerer by William Friedkin. Oh,

you can go right off the. Whole telling all their backstories and stuff. It kind of takes me out of it a little bit. I don't know why. Oh, you did to me, sir. I'm not even. I'm off this podcast. If you like it, you like it, and a lot of folks do. You're on my favorite movie of all time right now. This is a personal opinion. Yeah. Oh, man. Like, people that, that love the no Limit

Soldiers. I'm not one of those people. And you know, I, I grew up right around 20 years old when these are 8, 17, 18 when this came out and Master P and his no Limit soldier show up in this film and they show up on the soundtrack. And you know what? The biggest he takes me out of this film is not those flashbacks. It's the weak sauce hip hop soundtrack that's in this movie a little out. Of date, isn't it? It's not even that. It's just not very good.

Well, that all? Well, that too, yeah. Master P was never any of that. I could watch the shocker. He wasn't there that good either. I could watch the movie colors and enjoy the hip hop soundtrack and that. Yeah, you know, that's, that's, that's a good hip hop soundtrack. And that came up before this. I can't say, hey, I don't like hip hop soundtracks. But, you know, this is, it really takes, you know, something that should

have been a story that should have been told, not better. Because this was. This is a film filled with characters. I can't say all the characters mesh well together, but I love everything that they're doing, if that makes any sense. Yeah, everyone's getting to play. Like, it feels like Walter Hill just kind of had people like, do, do your thing. Like, here's, here's the script and all. But,

you know, do your thing. Like, you're great. I mean, I feel like in one of the best parts of this movie, frankly, is that

like two minute monologue that Peter Falk has where like Cameron mentioned where he starts getting like every second word is. And, and, and, and the government taking the, putting, taking my taxes and the. My wife is sick and I had to move here. Yeah, suckers. Like, hearing Peter Falk say would have been worth the price of admission alone. Have I seen this in theaters? Yeah, it feels like, especially in that case, it feels like he just let Peter Falk go.

Like he just like, just come up with something like, here's a bullet point of what you're talking about, but just come up with something and because it does not feel scripted to me, I could be totally wrong, but it does not feel scripted. It just feels like this is what. This is Peter Falk riffing. You know, I mean, Peter Falk's played these sort of characters his entire career, so it's like, it wouldn't be hard for him to like, be an old mobster in prison. He's like, he's like

Alan Arkin. Yeah. Who could bring prestige to the Jerky Boys movie. Okay. Jerky Boys movie is salvageable because Alan Arkin is in it. You put Peter Falk in a movie like this where, you know, he has lots of great scenes in here to where he's like, the property first goes to the Iceman cell. And he's just talking about him being a one punch slug. And. Yeah, you're a Champion. Yeah, he's definitely trying to,

I love it. He's, how he's subtly just like trying to send these two alpha bulls headbutting each other because it, you know, he can make a good bet on the fight. You know that, that's the big thing. Like he's still got power in prison. He's got outside contacts with bookies and stuff like that to make Vegas bets on this. And, and it's like I can, I can clean up betting in prison and I can clean up betting outside because there's people outside interested in this fight as well.

And so he's, his entire thing is just to like get Ving Rhames pissed off. Because Ving Rhames is a egotistical, self centered, just higher than thou who walks into that prison with his chest puffed up like he's the biggest in the world. I mean, he's the world champion, so you could kind of get where he's coming from. You know, he walks in like he's a God among men and he. Yeah, I mean, he pretty much is. I mean, but you know, the mortal words of Dennis Hopper, tone it down,

man. Let's try to be that pompous. He's trying to be. Again, they have the, the whole. Again, the Peter Fox stuff is amazing. I'll listen to talk about Rocky Marciano for, for five minutes. The same reason why I listened to Pat McAfee talk about college football. I give a about college football, but he's enthusiastic about it, so he makes me care about college football. Yeah.

When you hear someone have passion for something, even if it's something you're not into, and, but they can talk about it in a really eloquent and

maybe even poetic way, then yeah, it's, it's going to be something you can listen to regardless. But yeah, I love the relationships, you know, the surprise relationships, because he gets, he gets west duty as, as a, as a cellmate and you wouldn't think they'd like come together and be buds, but they kind of come together, be buds. That's like his only like real soft spot is his relationship with Mingo in this movie.

And he, it's hard not to love West Studio in anything because he's, he's stone face but, but you know, serious thing, you know, I just, he's, he's. Probably the closest like him and like John Cedar are probably the, the closest thing to like quote unquote nice guys in this prison, you know. Right, right. Because. Because they present Wesley Snipes and Ving Rhames as, like, major shades of gray because you. You don't like. You know, we see that Wesley Snipes killed somebody

over, like, a kind of a lover's quarrel thing. Ving Rhames, it's never even really confirmed if he did rape that woman or not. But the way he carries himself just makes you hate him anyway because, you know, like, he's talking to that female, like, prosecutor or lawyer or whatever the it is that he's talking to. And. And even when she brings up, you know, she said this and this, and he's like, well, she enjoyed it, you know, and she wasn't feeling pain when I

was her that night. Like, just how arrogant he is about it makes you think maybe he did. Maybe he did rape that woman. You know, maybe he misinterpreted signals, but maybe he raped that woman. And. But you never really 100% know. And so that, like, makes him sort of the de facto villain with his attitude when he comes in prison, because everyone hates him. Everyone's like, immediately like, fuck this guy. He thinks he's better than everyone else.

And so it's. It's. It's almost, you know, everyone starts, like, coming behind Wesley Snipes as a prison pride kind of thing. Like, he's not gonna walk in here and treat us like shit. Yeah. He's not gonna pretend like he's better than the rest of us because he's in here too. You know, whether he did it or not. You know, every. Everybody's got a story. Everybody's, you know,

everybody's quote, unquote innocent. But, you know, they don't have to confirm whether or not he actually raped that woman or not, because we already know that he's a complete piece of. Yeah, he's just a scumbag. Although I guess. I guess some.

Like the. One of the sequels that his. Like, his character carries over into one of the sequels not played by Ving Rhames. Right. But I. I guess he's like the. In, like, the sequel that his character carries over to is. He is like the. The good guy in that one, which is weird. Yeah, it's odd. That's not really, like, tracks with it

with the. This one here, obviously, but it's all about Boycott and those sequels, so you don't really don't care, you know, Good old Scotty Atkins kicking all kinds of ass in those movies. Oh, yeah. Highly recommended Those. Those undisputed sequels, you know. Oh, my gosh. But, yeah, I. I like that. Like, I think the setup for the fight is pretty good.

But then you get to the fighting, you just see how, because Wesley Snipes this film he's built himself up to be, you know, Bill, this is the, the slimmest and most muscular he's ever been in my. And oh yeah, he put the work in. I can't say so much about being reigns in this movie as far as like putting the work in. You know, I mean, I've seen, I've seen Vig Rhames like carry more like obvious fat on him in certain roles. Like he's pretty cut in this. Like he's just a big meaty, but you

know, he's fairly cut at least in the arms. He looks like a boxer and Wesley Snipe looks like a boxer. And I'll say this, Wesley Snipe is really playing against type in this one too. He's not like a cocky, like kind of cynical guy or whatever. Like he usually plays something who. A guy who's like, you know, saying one liners and stuff like that. The Blade type

role. Yeah. So he's, he's definitely like going a different direction here and it's like it wasn't for, you know, the, all those unfortunate like tax problems that he ran into and like he, he could have been like the one big action hero like successor to like the, the classic 80s guys, I feel, because he's just so good and he's, he's a really good

actor too. And yeah, I mean this is kind of his, his version of doing Stallone's Lockup just with Lock up if, you know, Stallone was playing Rocky in prison. Yeah. You know, this is, this movie is Lock up or it's like Penitentiary without like the, the more like cheapo exploitation

elements. Like this is very. It's a kind of an old fashioned boxing movie really. Like, it's, it's very. It feels. I think I've, I think I read a review that agrees with me on this. Oh, I think it was. Ebert actually said it that like this reminded him of like a 1940s boxing movie. Like, just like a cheapo like you know, programmer that they put out there. Like a boxing movie or something like that. And yeah, I'm kind of in agreement with that. It feels

very old fashioned in a lot of ways. Like it's, it's not, it's not particularly sleazy. There's not like, there's, there's like one, maybe one pair of tits in it in the flashback or whatever. The violence is not exceptionally bloody or. Yeah, there's not a lot of gore in this. No. A lot of blood. I mean, there's the obligatory cut above the eye kind of thing.

But yeah, when they show Wesley Snipes in the flashback doing, you know, killing the, the, his girls, like you know, side piece or whatever you would want to call it, you know, that's not bloody or gory or even particularly violent. I mean, like the most violence in this is the beginning opening boxing match, in the end boxing match. Yeah, I, I honestly, I think maybe that's what ultimately Walter

Hill was going for. He was trying to make one of those like old fashioned boxing movies, but just set it in modern context, in modern times. So, like you get the hip hop stuff and you know, he's done that before. He did that all through the 90s when he was making movies with like, you know, trespass and stuff like that, you know, like.

So, like, this is not, this is not new for him. But I mean, he's, he's, he's really trying to like frame it in a more modern context, but still do it like a classic kind of genre picture. And I think for that it works pretty well. Like I, I, like I said this second time going through it, I really enjoyed it. So I think I'm biased because when I used to work, I still work at the same place, but many, many moons ago, there was young kids there that would just eat up that no limit shit.

I just listened to against my will. Mafia and all this shit all day long it just kept playing in a loop and I just wanted to kill myself in my place of work. And, you know, so the hip hop soundtrack in this kind of reminded me of the good old days to where I want to kill myself at work. Well, bad, bad hip hop for me just kind of like goes in one ear and out the other. I filter it pretty well. So I don't have your unique problem with that. Like I did. It was just like background radiation

for me, really. Like, if I can ignore shitty country music, I can ignore shitty hip hop at the same time, you know, it's. Kind of like when Alicia Keys was on the radio every 45 minutes. First time you're like, wow, this sounds nice. Second time, this, this still sounds okay. Like that third or 18th time of the day because they're playing the same over and over again. Yeah, yeah, I just can't do it

anymore. Leash keys. I can't do it. You know what I could have done with Maura in this movie was Fisher Stevens trying to

act hard and punch Ving Rhames in the face. No, that was the best seat, that. Other than Peter Falk's, like, monologue. That was the best scene because I was just like, oh, no, dude, just walk away. Just walk away. You. You might be. You know, you're. Just because you're rat bag doesn't mean you have to be a rat bag, man. Fisher. Steven. I'm sorry. It's gonna end bad, you know? Yeah. Fisher. Fisher Stevens, like, looking like he's. He's. He's like auditioning

to be like the. The successor to Tracy Walter or something in this movie. Because first time I watched this is like, is that Tracy Walter? Oh, no, that's Fisher Stevens. Holy. Yeah, he was not looking good at this point. Yeah, it was like. It was like Mr. Stevens trying to play Tracy Walters by way of Gary Oldman as Drexel and Jesus. True romance. Yeah, that. I can see that a little bit too. Yeah, I just. I just watched that literally, you know, because I guess it was

white boy day, so I'll say about that. I guess it ain't white boy day, is it? Oh, man. It ain't white boy day. That's a great movie. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, I like, I like. It kind of reminds me of like the way you would, like, watch YouTube videos now, like, leading up to a fighter, like, tick tock. I kind of played like that, like, leading up to the fight in this movie. And of course, very theatrically, I enjoyed. I enjoyed that segment of this movie very, very much. And.

And when you got to the fight, you know, it, it. It's Phil again. It's Walter Hill. It's film. Well, it looks good inside of. Inside of a cage. It ends with, you know. Yeah, the way it ends. I don't want to give it away. People saw it disputed, but, you know, it's. It's, It's. It's. The right man won the, the fight and got more. Peter Falk and Peter Fox took care of his man. I like that part of the movie. Yeah, I like that part too. That was a nice touch that. I did

not have that on my. Bingo card because the way he was talking about him, like, like Mindy. Mindy, whatever his name is, had like Alzheimer's or something. He would come in and out of, like, different fight scenarios. I don't think he did because I think he just like talking about old, old fights, you know? Yeah, no, no, he. He. He plays a fully realized, like, kind of three dimensional character who. But he's not like, given a lot necessarily. In the script to do it with.

It's just Peter Falk being Peter Falk and just, like, living in the shoes of the character. And, like, he. He's got stuff going on behind the eyes, you know, or the eye, I should say. Hey, but. But, you know, like, he. He is manipulating things behind the scenes for. Throughout the entire movie. And, like, honestly, it was the second watch through that really made me appreciate that more, where I was like, oh, yeah. No, Peter Falk is, like, on. On top of everything, he. He feels

like he knows he's gonna die, basically. And. And he's been engineering this whole thing to, you know, give his friends of taking care of him some money and like that. So, you know. Oh, yeah. I never felt like he did have Alzheimer's. I thought he was playing everybody. Yeah, like, when he came up with that, that was like. Was it three pages of rules for the fight? And he's like, yeah, no gloves. He's like, why? Because the rules say no gloves. Why? Any other reason? Because I said so.

Marcus of Queensberry. Dayton. Tally is so good in this, too. He's not given a whole heap and hell of a lot to do other than to be, you know, ving rhames, like, verbal punching bag. Yeah, but. Yeah, I mean, much like. Like, there's one big travesty in this movie is that they don't give Michael Rooker very much to do. Yeah, that's true. But they didn't give him the, you know, The. The atypical storyline, you know,

the. The stereotypical, you know, badass, you know, you know, head of the guard or whatever you want to call him, you know, where he's just like, okay, you know, I mean, he. He definitely plays the. What the hell's the name of the guy that played the. The warden? Dennis something. I can't remember his full name. The place. Warden Lipscomb. But, you know, he's just like, yeah, what do you want me to do? He's like, I don't want anybody, you know, killing me on the way to my

car or anything. Yeah. He's like, I ain't gonna. I ain't gonna cross these guys. No, he's a. He's like a middleman and a peacekeeper, and he just, like, you know, he. He skirts, you know, he. He. He jumps between both camps, like, kind of like making sure things move smoothly in the machine or whatever. Like, he. You know, he's. He's. He's kind of shucking and jiving, but, you know, without like, stepping on anyone's Toes. And he's like a very smart character.

And I, you know, I think, you know, part of the reason why you don't get a bit more from him is basically just because the movie's an hour and a half and it's like there is room for these characters to be in like a two hour movie. But that's not what Walter Hill was making here. You know, he's making a 15 million dollar movie in 2002. It's not going to be two hours long. It's just not happening. So he's gotta,

he's got to keep things short. And I mean, he's looking, I feel, again, I feel like he's looking to make a simple, straightforward boxing movie. So, you know, some of those character things don't get expanded upon. But you know, Rooker's good for what limited screen time he has in this. Oh yeah, yeah, he's, he's still very good. What do you call it? Taking Kelly's got a great name too. Yank Lewis in this movie. Yank Lewis, yeah.

Forget to mention, other folks show up in this film too. Like we mentioned, Peter Jason up there shows up for a hot second as a TV announcer. But one guy I want to mention is Stuntman and Super Freddy and the Thing himself, Michael Bailey Smith shows up in this as, as the head skinhead in this movie. Yeah, I like this guy and things. He's like, he shows up in action things, you know, similar to that guy with the ponytail. He shows up in things. He might even be in an Undisputed sequel.

If I remember, he might even be. I, I think he is. No, this was another film I'm thinking of In Hell with Jean Claude Van Damme, which isn't a bad movie either. It's like a foreign prison. Yeah, it's not bad, but Undisputed.

Anything else you guys want to say about Undisputed? Lee Russell, how you doing? What's up, sir? No, I, I think I said all I need to say about it. I think it's good, I think it's worth watching. I think this is one of those ones that, you know, we can, we can all be honest here that this is not necessarily Walter Hill's best period for his films. We've kind of run into a couple stinkers or movies that haven't quite lived up to what we kind of expect from him

in the last couple years. But this is really surprisingly good, especially for Walter Hill. 2002. Someone got him the money and he put together a really good little B pitcher, basically is what this is. And it's one that I don't think people should sleep on. It's, it's actually a quality little. Especially if you like, you know, if you like boxing movies, if you're into that genre, this is a good one. It does all the things it's supposed

to do. It's got a little bit of shades of gray, a little bit of like, is this character that much of a piece of or not? Who knows? Like, there's a. There's enough ambiguity in there to make it interesting. And a bunch of great performances. Wesley Snipes again, going a little bit against type here. Thing reigns. Just like owning every scene he's in. Peter Falk owning every scene he's in. Yeah, it's. It's definitely worth people's time to check out. I liked it quite

a bit, so. Yeah. Because I think we have, like, redeeming, like, story arcs. No, there's a relationship is between Chewy and, And good old Mindy Ripstein there. Yeah. You know, because he kind of dumps on him, but at the end of the day, he takes care of him. Yeah, he took care of them. And that's what, that's what's important. Yeah. Listen, kid, you're a piece of. But I'm gonna give you $2 million when I die. And what about that

sad ending? I mean, like, that, you know, Peter Falk ended up dying like three weeks after it, you know, was over. It's just like, oh, but, but, but I like crotchety old Peter Falk. Yeah. We'll not be back for the sequels, people. But. What. Yes. Spoiler. He didn't have his eye out for the sequel script. Yeah, damn. Literally. What about you, sir? Other than going for the low hanging fruit there?

Like I said, I like this movie well enough. I, I feel like Lee's got a point that I probably should, you know, give it a second watch. I won't give it a second watch anytime soon because, you know, I, I want to revisit it again in maybe another year or so, in six months to a year. Because I believe in giving every movie a second ch. Chance. But it's, it's a serviceable, you know, boxing movie. I tend to like boxing movies, you know, a little bit. I'm not my biggest jam, but, you know, I'm here

for the character actors. And like, I love guys like Peter Falk, Fisher Stevens, Wes Studi, Michael Rooker, Dayton Cali. I mean, they, they make movies like this because if you don't have somebody good for somebody like Wesley Snipes and big ribs to play off of. Then what do you have? Yeah, you know, but I, I think it's definitely a step up from his, from Walter's previous movie Supernova. Oh yeah, because I think that's why he probably made this lower budgeted movie. It wasn't an 80 million

dollar movie. It wasn't sci fi, it wasn't horror, it wasn't craziness. It wasn't like, you know, low rent and it's been calling Supernova low rent event horizon lately. But you know, I think he probably did the right thing by making something a little small, you know, almost not kind of studio picture, you know, using air quotes here that you can't see but you know, there's, there's enough meat on the bones here to you know,

the satiate, you know, any good action lover. I think if you love, you know, Wesley Snipe being Rheims, watch it. Definitely. You'll probably like it. And if you like boxing movies, you'll probably like it even more. You know, I will give it a second chance and you know, give all Mikey Michael Bailey Smith and Nils Alan Stewart their, their day in court once again. Yeah, yeah. You know, but you know, with all the horniness and Supernova, this probably had really had one

horny part in it. The part where you know, they offer the, the effeminate prisoner took ving rhames. I guess I forgot about that. But I digress. No, this is fine. This is, this is very more than serviceable as far as like you're in it for, for the character actors in, in my opinion. And you know that they're working, they're all

working their ass off of this movie. Even the small ones like you mentioned, Neil's, Allen Stewart and Michael Bailey Smith, they're all playing, they're all playing the role in the movie. And I could say that about everybody in the cast that they're all playing that role in the movie. And yeah, nobody disappoints from an acting standpoint. Nope. But yeah, the, the, the, the, the fact that, and I get there a time, I, I keep going

back to this, the hip hop soundtrack. They're, they're all in this movie too as like whatever quartet was singing in the ring. Yeah. Kind of Hypman or whatever for the crowd. Master P and his no Limit soldiers are in this movie. And I just, I, I, it, it doesn't fit the movie. Not that I'm dumping on hip hop, it just doesn't fit in the movie. And this movie could have used a run in from the West. West Texas rednecks so you can wrap his crap. Oh, man.

You know what? Does actually work somewhat in this movie, and I wouldn't have thought it when I looked at the cast. Ed Lover is great in it. Like, the. The line he has about, like, if. I don't know, there was this much action of boxing in prison, I'd have committed crimes a long time ago. You know, that's just great. You know, but him and Ed love him. And, you know, the other Dr. Dre, you know that they brought rap music to two white kids all over America on YOMTV

Rap, so. And they sold it very well. And he sells his. His role in this film, you know, it's kind of like. It's kind of like the weather should not be named the Rollerball Redux. Oh, God. You put Paul Haven in that film. It works with the. With Paul Heyman's on. Besides that, it's kind of. Kind of hot garbage. But you know what? Paul's trying real hard to make it something. Yeah, he's got a real.

The more modern equivalent. I would probably sit on it. He's got a real, like, Tracy Morgan vibe to him. Kind of like. Yeah, I could. I could. Like, if they remade this movie, I'd put Tracy Morgan in that role. Oh, that'd be perfect. Oh, gosh. But, yeah, this is. This is very decent. I. I recommend. And unfortunately, it's. It's. It's owned by the mouse. And, you know, stuff that's owned by the mouse, stuff like this,

they don't make really readily available. Although, you know, I. I have a whole argument about Disney plus and Hulu and the. They just don't put on there. You know, this is one of those things they can stream that people would watch. Like, you know, people to always say, oh, we just watched ripd on netflix, and it's like. It's like a top 20 movie on netflix. Like. Well, I saw when it came out and I enjoyed it then, so I'm

just gonna throw it out there, you know. Yeah, they could put this on some streaming service and I think it'd be a hot movie. It would get some streams. You know, it's better than most of the. You see just get flung in Netflix these days. Honestly. Like, it's. Oh, yeah, yeah. And I mean, this, like, this was made for like 15 to 20 million dollars, something like that. Like the. I assume the 20 million is like 8 with added advertising budget

or whatever. And like the box office was 15 million but apparently Miramax Films also bought it for like 4.5 million as well for distribution rights. So, like, I think everyone, although this didn't make money, quote unquote, I think everyone basically got paid at the very least. So, you know. Yeah, well, that's it. The check didn't bounce. No bounce, man. It did not bounce. But that's

the end of this one. The next thing you should hear on this segment of the podcast, the main feed, we were discussing the Deadwood pilot, the HBO TV show. Walt Walter Hill directed the very first episode. So I forget if he's on the first episode, so you might get us talking more Dayton Cali in the next episode. I'd look this up to see if he's on there, but he did. I think he is. I think he isn't. Peter Jason definitely is here. Jason for sure. You know, good. Good old.

Why is my mind a blank right now on this? He's Carradine, the one that calls a. Breakcock sucker on that show. Oh, yeah. Oh, Ian McShane. Yes. Why isn't my to a Blake right now? Swear engine or is the one character kept calling them swedging switching. Excellent TV. Walter directed the first episode. So we're going to discuss it on this episode of this. But over on the Patreon as Lee's

choice and it's a good choice. I will. Spoilers ahead. Right now, the Empire Pictures tale of man versus monster and a fight you to death. Gonna talk about arena from 85. I think it is. 89. 89. Oh, wow. Oh my gosh. Way to make 1989 look like 1985, right? Exactly. But yeah, that's the end of this one. And we'll see you all next time on the last call of Torchies. Bye bye now. Bye bye. Bottoms up.