EPISODE 176 - COMMANDO AND TAKEN

The Podcast on Haunted Hill will contain spoilers and swearing.

I am the devil, and I am here to do the devil's work. I saw this when I come. And be one of us.

Hello, and welcome to the Podcast on Haunted Hill, Episode 176. My name is Gav.

My name is Dan.

And we are your intrepid hosts of the horror jungle of filmage. But tonight, we're not, actually, generally are, from the title. You can tell we're a bit of a horror-centric podcast. We're not this evening. We are getting our action groove on.

We're pumping some iron, Gav. We're going out on a vengeance revenge mission.

Do it! Yeah.

Do it now!

Do it now! We are doing commando and Taken.

We are doing them. And the reason for that is that this episode is Patron pig, pig, pig, pig, pig, pig, pig, pig. Before we get into who the patron is and all that, good stuff. How are you, mate?

Yeah, I'm good, thank you. I can't complain. Watched literally no films. Oh, actually, I'm pretty good. I had a health check and I was all okay. So I should say, actually, I'm pretty good.

Yeah, that is good to know.

I haven't been watching many films, but I suggested to Daisy to watch Breaking Bad. And I started watching the first episode of River and I was like, I remember this. This is great. I know you haven't seen it. And I just cracked on. I was forwarding through the boring bits of Skyler, which people would know. You don't know what that means. That's his wife. It's been family stuff at first.

Just give me the drugs.

Yeah, that sort of stuff. I forgot for that. Then it starts seeing all the gangster shit and the Mexican cartels come in and just the street stuff. And I was like, I'll stop playing it all. And then binge Breaking Bad. And then I went and watched El Camino, which is the film which kind of shows what happens to Jesse. But it's funny that it sees it like that because it's funny because you haven't seen it, obviously. It's five seasons.

Which I do know that is, you know, yeah.

So a really good show still, really impressed how great that show is actually. I still recommend watching it to you one day.

I definitely will one day.

Just sit back and go, I'm just gonna sit and watch this now.

There's two shows out of all the shows people ram into my ears that I should watch. People tell me to watch Game Of Thrones, people tell me to watch Dextre.

That's me, but yeah, I did Dextre, it was alright.

There's two shows I do wanna watch, Breaking Bad and Sons Of Anarchy. And I do really wanna watch both of those.

I've just not seen either of them. I tell you what, at some point, I'm gonna watch Sopranos, I've never watched that.

Yeah, I've never seen that either. Because I've heard it's a shit ending.

Game Of Thrones, I don't really like fantasy, so you know, it's up for life.

You wouldn't like that.

No, but Breaking Bad, I normally get to five season things, Walking Dead, five seasons, I gave up. Dexter, five season, I think it was, and I went, that's enough, I can't anymore. You get to a point where you're like, whatever. So five seasons, something's enough. But I do actually have the Blu-ray box of Breaking Bad. If you ever get stumped with it coming off Netflix, maybe, I don't know if it would, I'm not sure, probably wouldn't, I suppose. But a fantastic show still.

Very good. Unfortunately, I've not watched anything either since we last recorded. Well, that's a lie. There is one, well, there's two things I watched. One of them is a story for our patron in a moment, about our patron in a moment. The only thing I revisited, because I saw it was talking of coming off of Netflix, it was being removed and it had been on my list and I wanted to catch it again. And that was Life from 2017.

Yeah, yeah, I like that one.

God, that was, I'd seen it once before, but this time around, it was even better. The creature in it is really good, isn't it?

It's a really good effect.

Although it is kind of just alien, really. It's a remake almost.

It's nice because all the cast are likable people, you know.

Yeah.

And it's got a bit of budget to it. And like it's nice for those guys making film. It's a contained film. It's like one, you know, one area, so to speak.

I thought it was really good. And I actually popped it up a notch to a 7 out of 10 from 6.

Yeah, that's in my film collection.

Yeah, it's decent, really decent. There is another film I watched which I'll get on to in a moment then. But before we talk about our Patreon and my holiday with him recently, let's talk about what you've been up to, because I know you recently went to Horrified.

Yeah, as most people know who on the social medias know, we went to, as Deadbolt Films, Horrified, a new convention in the south of England, because most of the horror conventions are kind of midlands and upwards. Birmingham, Manchester, that sort of thing, a lot of them. So it's nice to have a new one started, and they went off with a bang with it and make it like a proper big event. Robert England was there, Lance Henriksen, loads of people.

I love the octopuses right up inside them.

But which is really interesting, because every person that bought those comics were all female.

Wow.

Yeah, it's not men buying those comics, which is really interesting. We made loads of friends there. If you are listening to the show, because we promote the show, if you're listening to the show and we saw you, it was great to speak to you. It was tiring, pretty draining. But yeah, it's really good because we released Amanda on YouTube. Do check that out people, if you like the old footage movies.

That's why I love wearing my horror t-shirts. Yeah, I was telling you before we recorded, I've got a new John Carpenter t-shirt, which is basically all of his movies on VHS stacked up in a pile. Yeah, but big enough that you can read them all. And I went out and about for the first time in a long time, for some drinks with friends. And everywhere I went, people were talking to me, people knew who John Carpenter was, it would start conversations.

Netflix, Netflix are going to have a John Carpenter documentary coming out. Yes. I don't know. I'm not even sure if I've made it yet, but I know that's been announced. Yeah, so it's really cool. We're going to try and go some more horror conventions, because it was just really good fun.

I saw some bears.

Nice.

Yeah. I went to a gay bar. No, I didn't. I went to the zoo.

Yeah, I was trying to go along the bear cheeks bottoms thing, but you just went straight into the gay bar. Yeah.

No, I took my kids to the new Bristol Zoo is moved. And we went there a couple of years ago, but we didn't get very far because they were tiny. But this time around, we got to do the whole zoo. And it's a much bigger space. And the only reason I mentioned this is because it was so fucking cool as horror fans and obviously haven't recently watched Cocaine Bear. And there's this bit called the bear walk, where you walk through.

Yeah, that's amazing.

It's really cool. Really cool. So that was a little day that we had. One other thing I want to mention before we get to...

That's near your house.

20 minutes.

Oh, after I've come down with larger sometimes.

It's really cool. I'd love to do it again. Yeah, yeah. One other thing I want to mention before we talk about our patron and get into that patron goodness is this is the first podcast we've recorded in 11 years of podcasting where we haven't used, and this is not a promotion in any way, but we haven't used Skype. We've relied on Skype for 11 years.

That sounds a bit like an advert.

And Skype...

Do you have problems with Skype?

And Skype closed as a business on the 1st of May.

Well, it's weird though, because I turned on my iMac, because my iMac is so old, I'm asking to use now my laptop here. My iMac is so old, I can't update to teams. There isn't even such a thing. I can't find it. But I logged into Skype, because like you said, and Skype just came up as normal on my iMac.

Yeah, it just doesn't do anything, though.

Oh, OK.

So we've upgraded and we're using Teams. But it's exactly like Skype, really. Probably not quite as good. But yeah, I just wanted to mention that, because it's quite historical, really.

I was here over the years, Skype getting dissed a bit. And I was like, no, Skype's fine.

Yeah, I have no issue. I miss it.

It does what it's supposed to do. Yeah.

And it was considering it was free.

I don't know what this can do, which is any different.

Not a lot. Yeah.

It might be able to record it.

I think you look a bit more crystal clear.

Yeah, I do look a bit more alcoholic. Even though I don't drink, I look a bit really like stone pale. But I think it's just because I've got the curtains open there.

I've said I look like an 80s American wrestler today.

He does. He's got a really cool, shiny head and a big beard.

I shaved my head today.

Or a big bushy beard. Anyway, Orified was amazing. So that was good. Please do watch Amanda, people.

Yeah, and we'll promote that again.

All right. Some people don't like it. Someone really liked it and has put on all the found footage groups saying you got to check out this movie because they're like, it could be a cautionary tale for internet dating. I was like, it definitely could. And then someone said, I've got nine minutes into it, 13 minutes into it, no more. And she said, it does get better. And someone else said, it doesn't. I was like, yeah, cool. I can't make everybody happy. Not one person ever make anyone happy ever.

Well, there is one more holiday, the sort of getaway that I'll talk about. But before I do that, it involves our patrons. So talking to patron, big, big, big, big, big, big. Let me just... Oh, that was the wrong box. Hang on a minute. Sorry, that was my cockery. Here's the crime. So our king patron of the episode is RJ McCready. We've never done a clap before.

Never had a clap before.

Well, if anyone's going to have a clap. It's going to be... RJ. Thanks. RJ McCready, that's why we're covering Taken and Commando, because he has selected those two for us to have a little... Because we do cover horror films, but we sometimes go down the more sort of cult or action or sci-fi. And we've covered Arnie in the past, covered him in mayonnaise and licked it all off. So, um...

It tastes so weird.

Get off me. Don't lick me. Sticky. So, yeah, RJ selected those two. And I also, coincidentally, last weekend was on holiday with him.

Yay.

So me and his partner and their dog and my children and my wife all went on a little college trip. We went on a cottage holiday out into the middle of nowhere, about an hour away from Stonehenge.

Did you watch the cottage?

We didn't, but we put aside some time in between all the children and dogs and everything else to sit down. We sent the women to bed and we watched. We brought a selection of DVDs between us.

To bed with you, woman.

And we said, what should we watch? There was only one choice, really, out of the five or six movies we brought with us, and that was John Carpenter's Big Trouble and Little China. And we sat down together with a couple of Zero Beers and we just talked. We just did a basically like me and you do on a podcast. We just talked over the top of the book.

You did a commentary.

Yeah. And afterwards, I said, we should have recorded that, really. It was brilliant. I loved doing it with him. We chatted for ages. Just you know what John Garland is like, as soon as you start talking about him, you go down a million different routes. But that was fun and I had a brilliant time with him on the holiday. And he also gave me a belated birthday present, which was a thick badass Evil Dead 2 t-shirt. I don't think I've shown you yet. Really cool.

What was his reasoning for no Facebook present?

What was his reasoning for? Oh, because he's not on Facebook anymore.

Oh, then that's it. There you go. That's him out of it. I still find that so weird. I still find that so weird.

Yeah. Shout out to Sheila, one of our listeners. Sheila, I think your surname is Blaine. She sent me a lovely personal message in my inbox. So I appreciate that, Sheila. I'm glad you appreciate my impressions and funny mouth noises. I'm here to entertain you. I'll do some of those for you right now. There we go. It's a little mouth noise there.

I didn't really hear it, but yeah.

And I'll do some irony impressions during this as well.

Absolutely. So it's a bit more of an action centric podcast today, people. Still genre in a sense. Commando definitely in that 80s. There's a lot of blood. There's people as an arm chopped off.

Oh, that's such a good, good.

I watched this on Disney, because on the Disney channel and it's in very high definition. Yeah, I know. Yeah, of course it is. Well, I think we should have a break for Commando.

OK, well, before that, I'm very sorry to throw you, derail you, but I'm going to read out RJ. McCready's email.

Oh, please do, please do.

And then we'll take a break before we head to, not the jungle, actually, because I always think the whole film was set in the jungle, but actually it's not really. So before we head to the jungle for the last act. So here we go. Hello, you bearded podcasting brothers.

Hello.

Hello.

Hello.

So it's loads of people. He says, so I really went back and forth deciding what to pick for this episode. I was thinking perhaps a Vietnam double bill, platoon and full metal jacket. Wow. That would have been too deep.

Yeah.

Well, let's not rule it out. Or a Terry Gillingham special with one of my favorites as a kid, The Time Bandits and The Nightmarish Brazil. But then I thought, as you guys kindly give us patrons the opportunity to pick a couple of movies of our choice, that it actually gives a little bit of license to bring another genre to your horror podcast. So I decided to go for a couple of classic action flicks, Commando and Taken.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I would normally do a mini review of both movies, but I'm going to amalgamate them on this occasion. And the reason for this is because I think they are the same film, but done in different decades. Commando is so obviously an 80s action movie, with Arnie in his prime. Over-the-top action sequences, memorable one-liners, and that always reliable, cheesy 80s song rolling on the end credits that stays in your head for days.

Dude. Somewhere, so good.

We were singing that in the cottage, actually, funny enough. Taken, on the other hand, as a slightly different tone, more polished, more slick, and perhaps a little more plausible, with a haunting piano score over the end credits. I personally think it opened up the door to John Wick, which later came out in 2014. And in some ways, I'd like to think they're in the same universe together. Imagine that.

That's cool. Hello.

Imagine John Wick meets Ryan. Jesus Christ.

I have, though, when we get to it, I don't think I'll spoil it now. I have, when we get to the best fucking mashup ever.

Yeah, you did tell me about this.

I told you because I could not release myself to you.

Oh, hello. So yeah, same universe together. He says, all in all, an absolute, all in all, absolute solid action flicks. And I can certainly rewind the VHS on them both. Be kind and rewind. Oh, and one more thing, because all roads eventually lead to John Carpenter or Kevin Bacon or Nicolas Cage. Again, he knows as well.

Yeah.

Did you know that Jack Crowe from Vampires 1998 actually said the line, I will find you, I will hunt you down and I will kill you? What did first Jack Crowe from Vampires 98, the John Carpenter movie, he actually said the line, I will find you, I will hunt you down and I will kill you.

Oh, so someone's just taken that and just kind of, you know, at some point, even if they're just watching it and it stayed in their mind and they're like, when they're writing the script, do you know what I mean?

He finishes the email with, have fun guys and good luck.

Good, good luck. Um, yeah. Okay, thank you. Yeah. All right. Well, on that note.

Well, let's kick off some steel drums.

Let's have some steam Bennett.

Let's eat some ice cream, feed a deer.

I can't wait to talk to that montage. That's one of my favorite parts almost. All right. Let's have a trade of commando doll.

They hunted him down. You know, Colonel, we went to a lot of trouble to find you. They murdered his friends and they took the only thing he would kill for. If you want your kid back, then you gotta cooperate, right? Wrong. Do you think that he is going to give us any problems? He'll do exactly as he's told. Last of the week, fellas. You're a funny guy, Sally. That's why I'm going to kill you last. Are you gonna tell me what's going on, or what? No. Don't disturb my friend. He's dead tired.

Commando! I won't. 1995, 18, one hour, 30. I love it when it has, this is like 80s action movies. This is something that fucking films nowadays have lost. Exactly one hour, 30. And I'm pretty sure taking might exactly be the same too. I guess. Yeah, it's just the same. And if you put them both up alongside each other, I bet you'd be like, yep, that happens. Yep, that happens. Yep, that happens.

And anyone could have been in that role.

It's terrible. And he was doing it just because under contract and he had to go global, whatever it was, isn't it?

Going global.

Under contract, he had to do it. But then this is kind of like, kind of after that. Obviously, we've got early on, we've got like The Terminator, which is perfect for Arnie because of the way he hit at the time, everyone was saying to him, like, your accent will not get you work. It was really interesting, really ended up helping him and becoming like his signature.

Oh, really?

And ended up going off and doing Nomads with Piers Brosnan instead, which is funny. Then a year later, because Schwarzenegger said that for Predator, he saw him sword Nomads and said he's right foot. But that would be such a short thing. I think this makes more sense that he was kind of already out for it. Then they watched Nomads as well. Yeah, you got to do this, because Nomads is nothing like Predator. And this is a weird one. The front cover of this movie almost doesn't look like Harnie.

Nintendo games and stuff.

Yeah, like the typical real big guy. And he's there in this like vest, NASA, but it's got grenades on it. It's just like war paint over the face. It just says, command hall. Why is this? What is this movie? But it kind of looks like your exterminator rather than your terminator. Do you know what I mean?

I think, so Predator, I agree, is his best, you know, especially from this era, but probably his best. You know, I think Terminator 2 is an incredible film, but that's bigger than Arnie. That's more than an Arnie film. But when you're talking about Arnie films, you're looking at like Predator, Running Man, Commando, you know, one man army type Rambo style, you know, because that was what the 80s was about.

One of the sub genres on IMDB is actually one person army action. I clicked it earlier and straight away first it came up, it was like John Wick, so I was like, oh, I'll have to go through these because I'm a big fan of that.

Yeah, me too, me too. Commando, I probably came into that one a bit later. I think Running Man and Predator were probably my first real Arnie movies. I think I saw Conan. And I remember me and my dad used to watch Red Heat, which is funny because it's Belushi, but again, it's not a very good film and it's certainly not a great film for Arnie.

I went out my way actually to get a Blu-ray copy of Red Heat, just to give it a watch again. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I really enjoyed it this time around. It's quite funny because it felt like that Eddie Murphy kind of type movie.

Yeah.

But it's Walter Hills, I suppose, but it adds Arnie in it. So it's just, I don't know about Belushi though. I feel like it could have been someone else.

But I think going back to this though, I think Commando is definitely, if you're looking at your quintessential Arnie in his prime movies, you're looking at Commando, Predator, Running Man, and then you can throw in Turtle Recall and a couple of the others. But I think those are the three.

You're looking then 85, 86, 87, prime, prime Schwarzenegger film.

What an absolute run for his career. He was on top of his game. And also, Stallone was absolutely fuming.

And obviously, Arnie's always been a fairly ripped person. He likes to work out, because he likes to pump. For him, it's like ejaculation. That's what he said.

Every time I pump, it's like I'm coming.

But for him, obviously, doing more and more movies, you're not going to have as much time working out as he was when he wasn't doing movies. He'd been working out all the time. Earlier this year, I didn't have much on. I didn't have much work on. I was down at the gym. I worked out a lot. Now I fucking struggled to get down there. So this is kind of like him still ripped to shit. And like in Predator, ripped to shit. And then after that, he kind of is not as ripped.

This movie in Predator, especially, and Conan, they were about his body.

They were about two years, though, weren't they?

They were about, yeah, but he was dressed most of that. But for Commando, Conan and Predator, it was about his arms. Yeah. And we sound like bloody, always sunny at this point. Mike and Charlie discussing Arnie's body. Remember, they were talking about Predator, weren't they? Muscle mess. Look at the muscle mess. The director of this, Mark L. Lester, strange career. I mean, just the four films he's most known for.

Is he just a director for horror for this?

I'm not really sure how he came upon it, really. He also directed Class of 1984, which is a really dark, brutal film as well.

Yeah, it is a strange one. I don't know if he would have been just on the studio roster because obviously they wanted to film with John McTieran and he went off to do No Man's. He came back and did Predator with Arnie. It's funny if John McTieran had done this because it would have been because John McTieran, I wish he had not done No Man's because it might have been our fucking trilogy because he then went and did one year, next year, the year after that Die Hard.

What do you mean?

Well, just like the way he made Die Hard and just the way he directed that film, I reckon he could have done that with this with the one person against other people. Obviously, it's a different movie, but it would have been basically a mixture of Predator and Die Hard would have been the commander. That would have been fucking really cool.

This film, you're right, the production this time around with my reviewer's eye, pen and paper in hand as I watched it, the production is up there. James Horner's score is really good. I love the use of Caribbean steel drums to give you a bit of a tropical kind of flavor.

That with the saxophone because of the era is such a... You'd think saxophone and steel drums should not exist together in the same world. And they do quite happily.

They may speak these hit together.

I... The loop of this, as a hip hop fan since 85, 86, when this came on, I remember this had been before... I knew of looping before I knew I could actually do it myself and so on.

Die Hard 3 was going to be Lethal Weapon 3, if I remember rightly. So I don't know if you're thinking about that.

Maybe I'm thinking about that.

Die Hard 3 was originally a script that was supposed to be Lethal Weapon 3, and then it got reworked into Die Hard 3.

I'm thinking about that.

So maybe it's that you're talking about.

I am thinking about that, but yeah. Okay, no worries.

Before we get into, before we get Commando, then, let's have a quick chat about the cast as well. Obviously, Arnie, we've got Raedon Chong in this. She's the daughter of the legendary Tommy Chong from Cheech and Chong.

Yeah, I bought a Cheech and Chong product earlier, actually, just over there.

Well, there we go. We'll say no more.

Funny enough, I was chatting to my friend the other day, and he lives in LA, and his kid goes to private school. And he said, he said that his kid was in a football little football team with a couple of others, and one of them is Ray Dawn Chong's daughter, I think, or granddaughter, one or two, must be probably granddaughter now, one or two. Really random. I was like, that's so right. I said, what?

And that's something that makes this film special, is the casting, because she's brilliantly casting this. She's very sassy. She's unbelievable. It's something she just gets involved in the mission, but also it works well.

I remember, I don't know, it's one of those things where it kind of, I feel like it could be cast better, but I do find that she is absolutely fine in it. And I do think it's a bit of a strange cast in some ways. I don't know why. I feel like, I don't know, because you did need that sort of normal person who's fairly place it safe, quite clean person, and then all of a sudden this thing goes on, oh my God, and they get swept up in it. And there's a lot of movies in the 80s that had that.

We've also got Vernon Wells as the mental Freddie Mercury style Bennett.

Yeah, this is great, though. Right. So the last minute, I can't. I don't know who it was during that. Do you find out who was going to be the bad guy?

And I know somebody else was originally cast.

I don't know who it was. And I want to look meant to look into it. Anyway, last minute, last minute, Vernon Wells came in and Vernon Wells would you'd know from like he drives the motorbike into the party in weird science because he's kind of doing his role from Mad Max, which is quite an intimidating character. But he came in last minute and the costume like, well, we haven't got any other like chain vests of your size. And he was a little bit more of ample in size.

I think it adds to the character.

It's character, but what was, who's sure? I'm thinking it's like with a director, imagine that apparently at one point, Arnie said to the director, don't give him a real knife, which is like, duh, of course, who gives fucking real knives in movies? I don't know if it's true though. Don't give him a real knife. Maybe it's a joke because Vernon Wells apparently is really into it. And Arnie's like, I'm probably gonna get stabbed.

Yeah, he looks absolutely fine.

Yeah, it looks fine. But then that tight chainmail, come on.

Yeah, but it just adds to the craziness. We've also got warriors. Yes, David Patrick Kelly as Sully in this. And he just adds that slimy sleaze, which is great. You know, he's a bit of a predator, a sexual predator.

Sully, I like you. I was going to kill you last.

You said you wouldn't kill me.

I lied. I let him go. That's a double whammy of a fucking joke there, really. I lied. And then I had to let him go.

And just quickly, while you're on that tangent, that's the prime of irony was when he was delivering these. No one else was really doing that at this point. He was doing that.

This is like mid 80s. We're at a point where like the 80s have suddenly settled. They've come out the 70s, you know, always like the beginning of the decade then, not so much now. It's a freefall for everything all the time now. But you'd have like two and a half years before the last decade fucks off. And you kind of get, yeah, now we're in hyper color or whatever, whatever 80s thing we're doing now. And I'm 85, you're at peak, everything 85. And this is just, this is brilliant.

Another manly man makes an appearance in the cast, Bill Duke, towering Bill Duke.

A good director himself as well.

Yeah, he is, he is. And we got Dan, Dan Hedea plays Arias, the bad guy who is a bit brown faced in this. They kind of make him up to be sort of Latino.

Oh, okay.

It's a bit awkward, but okay.

Yeah, I thought he was. So fair enough, they did an okay job.

And finally, we got Jenny. A very young Alyssa Milano, which a lot of people will know from sort of late 80s, early 90s American TV shows. And I completely forgot that Bill Paxton, our buddy Bill Paxton makes a very brief appearance in this as well.

It's always good to get a little snippet of Paxton in it.

Yeah, and him and Arnie were good buddies.

I feel like, James from Jim Cameron, yeah. I feel like this is also actually almost like a rehearsal for Predator. I feel like it's like a year before the next movie is going to be Predator. So I really feel like this is just him just like going, OK, that's my rehearsal. Now I'm going to do it properly.

You know, and the simplest plot devices are often all you need just for the violence, because John Wick is a dog that dies, you know, in this is his daughter that's been kidnapped. Same with Taken, you know, and that's sometimes all you need is a simple device.

The Shadow of Death, people go out to the woods to buy some weed.

That's all you need.

Let's do it.

Let's get into it. So we start off with Garbage Men.

Yeah, I love this as a kid. I saw this, but do you know this was a comic book character originally?

John Matrix.

Um, yeah, yeah, come on. And so it was a comic by the writer Jeff Loeb.

Oh, yeah, I know Jeff Loeb.

Yeah, he was the one who wrote it. And I think he might have had something to do with some of the screenplays probably as well. Do you know also Vivaldi, the coach talk about it? Is it in your trivia?

It's in the World Of The Strange.

That's fine. For many years, I had never seen the goriness in this film because we had a cut version. How pathetic.

Yeah, I was saying this to RJ, funny enough, when we were watching Big Tremendous China, because we had a recorded version of that from the TV, that cut out the swearing and some of the violence. And, you know, it's the same with Robocop, Lead The Weapon. A lot of those movies, I'd never seen fully until probably in my early 20s, some of them, I'd seen them so many times and knew them off by heart.

No, it's cool when I first watched Young Cup version of Commandos. Wow, I found my trivia. I found my trivia.

Oh, the string vest?

No, no, no, the connection. Part two, Commando part two, yes, would have been Die Hard. It was going to be basically the exact same situation because obviously going off his daughter here is going to be in the thing. So, Commando 2 was going to be Die Hard.

Interesting. Imaginani in the Nakatemi Plaza.

Yes, I wasn't making it up in my head.

Yippee-gay-yay.

We start with a nice kind of suburban, like the burbs type, neighborhood, your lethal weapon, neighborhood, your fucking pot of glass, neighborhood, your fucking goonies, not goonies, gremlins.

Goobies, goobies, goobies.

Goobies is that knockoff goonies.

Gooby-dooby-doo.

It's just gooby-doo and the goonies.

What I love about this opening scene is it's so me as well, because it's a guy in bed, and I'm the guy that worries about the recycling in the bins. And he's like, what's that sound? And she's like, it's just the garbage man.

He's like, are you on Tuesday? It has to be you, because I was watching this, and I was like, I am definitely not gonna go, what's that sound when I heard a sound? Okay, let's say, for example, I am a lot sleeper. I hear that, the window's open because it's hot, and it's like, oh, what is that? Oh, fuck. And the woman's like, oh, it's a scarf shot. And then I go, but that's not right, it's a Tuesday. I'm not, though, jumping out of bed and taking the rubbish to him. I'm gonna fuck that shit.

He even empties the cutlery tray into the bin. Oh, God, he's just, it's too much. He gets it all ready.

Now, I want to know is how, when they planned this heist of killing this dude, this is a spoiler, watch the film if you haven't seen it, if you can, I love the fact that they planned this heist, but they like to say he's gonna come out and bring his trash out. We don't know he's gonna get out of bed. He might have been like hung over. He might have COVID. He might be ill. He's not getting out of bed. You don't know that. Why? And what if like loads of other people came out as well?

He comes out and he says, hey, guys, don't forget my trash. And Bill Duke, Bill Duke's one of the garbage men. And they put out a couple of AK-47s.

Blast him.

And they don't just get him down, they blow him to shreds. And then when he's led on the floor and you think, wow, they've killed him, they carry on shooting a little bit more. It's a bit like the N209 scene. They just, this guy's Swiss cheese by the end of it.

Yeah. Yeah.

And that's your opening scene.

That is the opening scene. And it's like, who's this? What's going on here? This is kind of like, it's funny enough, though. This is almost like the most boring scene in the film, even though someone's getting gunned down in the street. Do you know what I mean? Because the movie is so action packed with so much violence and rocket launchers and all sorts. This seems tame to it. Do you know what I mean?

Well, the movie is so action packed that in the first three minutes, we get three different death scenes.

And it feels a bit boring compared to the rest of the movie. What's coming? If you know what's coming.

In under three minutes, three men will die. So we've already had one of them. The next one is Bill in a car dealership. He's back. Bill's just like, we've just seen this guy.

So we've just seen this guy in his overalls. Next scene, we see him in a suit and he's just checking out a car. We're like, oh, we know this is bad. And I think you know from watching it, I think you could probably guess if it's your first time, like he's going to get in that car and just drive out that window. Didn't expect the guy to go jump in front of the car and just to mow him down and drive off.

He kills the car dealer guy. He does indeed. And then we cut back to another scene where it's on a boatyard. And this is where we meet Bennett in his Rambo style big green coat.

Bennett.

And Bill Duke presses a little button and blows up the boat.

How did they do that? How did he get off?

I don't really know.

I don't know how. I have no idea how he did this, got away with this.

All I know, Gav, is my testosterone levels were through the roof because in under three minutes we've had three deaths, one by car, one by explosion on a boat, one by gunning down by garbage guys. And the next scene is Arnold Schwarzenegger with a log.

I'm looking at that picture right now. This just to ruin this for you, it was an artificial log. Yeah, but still.

And this is where the steel drums kick in and we get this incredible score that we've talked about. And there's Arnie chopping wood, there's only Arnie could one chop at a time. All he does is one chop, that's the tree done. The next one chop, he splits it right down the middle every time. And then-

To be fair, I imagine that he probably could, looking at log, I imagine he could probably carry it, but for the purposes of whatever he's going through, it's not worth doing, risking yourself like that.

I don't want to get a splinter in my shoulder.

Well, if he had to go actually damaged, then that costs a lot of money. So it's best not to do it. So, you know, for such a simple fucking shot.

While he's chopping up the word somebody, and we see the shadow of somebody creeping up behind him.

Oh, I love this bit. And it's so early on. We've just had death, death, death, death. Action, action, machoness. I'm carrying a tree through the fucking woods, like Yeti, Bigfoot. And then all of a sudden, someone creeps up and he's still in real, still in like tense mode. Oh, buttholes are like, oh my God, what's gonna happen? And it's Jenny. He turns around, Jenny. Jenny turns around, it's this little girl. And she's like, the music drastically changes to...

We get a montage now to show the audience that he's a single dad with his daughter, Jenny.

How lovely they both are.

And they live out in the middle of the fucking woods, in the middle of nowhere.

Did they have a team of people in a room going, right, okay, what's the sweetest things you can think of? Feeding a baby deer, feeding a baby deer, got it. Next, ice cream on the head. Yes, ice cream on the head. That's hilarious. Next.

Sandwiches.

Yeah.

Well, that's in my sandwich. You don't want to know dad.

Perfect. It's all wholesome shit. That's what we need, wholesome shit. So, England Monks, this movie where the opening of Three People Being Killed is pretty tame and boring because the movie is so full on. We've got this moment of loveliness.

Well, the sandwiches are interrupted by a giant helicopter that comes flying at the log cabin that they live in. She goes, Oh my God, dad, are you going to leave me again? And he's like, No, I'm not going to leave you this time, Jenny. I told you I'm back for good. So he's been away on commando missions, you know, killing men, ripping their heads off. And this time he's back to eat your sandwiches.

This is basically John Rambeau's boss coming in to say, hey, John, we need you. Basically, which is Rambeau 2. I wish it was Troutman. It's basically Rambeau 2, First Blood, part two.

Well, it's Major Kirby played by James Olsen. Major Kirby lands and he says, and John sneaks up on him. He says, you're still the best because you better believe it.

I wish, I wish it flipped. He went up to him and he jumped over like he does with Jenny. Then we had a montage of those guys doing the same thing.

Cleaning it there.

And put an ice cream on his head.

What's in my sandwich, Kirby? Don't worry about it.

No, it's the stuff we put together. Just eat it.

He tells, he tells John Matrix, because I mean, what a name for an action hero. John Matrix, that's it. He tells John, he says, someone's been taking out your X unit one by one, and they're making a mess of it. They want us to know about it. And they're going to come for you. They're going to come for you. And he says, but they're all changed their names. So all those guys that we watched get killed, they all changed their names after the last mission.

He's like, right, I'll be back. These guys will save you. They're good. They're not good as you, John. But you know, they're good. OK, fine. All right, helicopter just goes off.

The helicopter literally goes around the corner.

Helicopter goes off. And then at that second, someone in the bushes just over to the side of them, shooting at them. So, whoa, OK, straight in there. I'd love to see how that reads on the script, by the way, in the screenplay.

John picks up Jenny and runs inside with her. And he says, I've got to get to my rifle. It's in my shed. Now, my one thing here is, if I was John Matrix, I would have guns in every room.

My question to you, yeah, definitely. My question to you is, what do the bad guys smell like? Do you think?

I know, I know.

Because he says to the guys who get shot, who is guards.

Well, one of them is killed.

And the other one is shot. He says, how are you doing? I'll be all right. So he goes, why didn't you, did you know they're coming? And he says, I did.

And he says, he says, he said, you should have stayed downwind of them. He said, what the hell does that mean? They're not animals. What do you think you can smell them? The matrix goes, I did.

Yeah, he smelled them.

He smelled them coming.

But he didn't know. Well, at what point, at what point did he smell them coming? When the helicopter was going off, all of a sudden he went and then the gunshot went.

Do that face again. I can smell aftershave.

Who is it? Aftershave my left nostril over there. It's a weird thing. But yes, anyway, he goes to his dad.

He does. But there is a comparison here between this and Taken. Jenny goes under a bed, and we see the feet of the guys that are looking for coming around their beds, just like in Taken, which are interesting. And I'm sure that was part of RJ's thinking when he picked these two as a double bill. Yes, he goes to the armory. Jenny's kidnapped. The messenger, he kills the messenger who tells he's basically, he's like again, you ain't going to do shit. We got your daughter. Da da da da da.

I love that. He basically, it's like shit. She's been taken, goes in, backs his camera. It's just a dude, just sitting there going, hey man, how you doing? Like a Dennis Hopper type character or something. And he just says, hey man, we can be cool. We could talk about it. And he just literally says, I'm going to just shoot him straight away in the forehead. He goes, right, that's it. I'm going outside, jumping in my fucking car. I'm going after them. Here we go.

But his truck has had its brakes and some of the engine ripped out. So being Arnold Schwarzenegger.

I'm going to put it in neutral.

And just shove it down a big steep cliff. And off we go.

And I'm going to see what happens. Now, fucking hell, this made me laugh so much. The fact that it's going up and down, it's literally proper. And Arnie's actually driving. You can see he must have got whiplash because it's hilarious how he's trying to actually... And we keep coming back to it. But it's like definitely the bits of times when the van went too much sideways and actually rolled over, obviously got cut before they got, you know, re-showed those bits in the actual film.

He misses them on the first bend.

It's fun as fuck. It's just ridiculous.

He misses them on the first bend and then he crashes on the second bend and the car is blown up.

His comical bump act is so good.

He gets captured by Bennett, his ex-colleague. Ex-colleague, it's like he's worked in an office with him. I don't know why I said that.

My boy is in an office.

You know what I mean. Imagine that.

Give me my stable. He's been tranked and chained up. We next see him chained up.

He's chained to a table and we meet Arius in Brown Face, played by Dan Hedea.

And Bennett did his best with Freddie Mercury.

He says, I know, Arnold, you want to break free. No, he doesn't say that. He says, basically, this is what's going to happen. We've got your daughter. We want you to go and kill the president of Val Verde. And if you do all of that for us, you get your daughter back and it's all good. You're the only one that can do it. You're a one man army and that's what we want you to do.

He is like, this is pre-internet. He must just be like, if you want, it's like the A-team, if you need need help, there's no one else can help you. You need John Matrix, the one man army.

He would even beat the A-team, I think, wouldn't he?

Probably would.

Because they can't hit shit. They don't get anyone.

No, he would have chopped off Murdoch's arm and all sorts.

Although I'd love to have seen BA. Baraka sculpt for Cakes, John Matrix, Jesus.

He did get Sylvester Stallone, didn't he?

He did. He did. Expendables movies are so good. Anyway, so meanwhile, we cut back to John's house.

I meant Rocky, sorry. Mr. T and Sylvester Stallone.

I'm just thinking about the as a kid dreaming about these guys meeting up and then we got it in the Expendables for the most part. Yeah. Meanwhile, the army are back at John's house because they've heard about there's been a few deaths there and our men haven't reported in. And he says, Oh, Jesus Christ, there's been something bad here. John's up to take these two guys. John isn't here. His daughter isn't here. So Major Kirby is on the trail of the destruction that John is causing.

He's dying to be onus.

Yeah. Well, maybe that was the idea for twins. He says, Hey, here, John, have some beers and Valverde. It'll get everyone a little more time with your daughter. This is where John says, You're a funny guy, Sully. I like you. That's why I'm going to kill you last.

Yeah, OK, whatever. And he's taken away. Sully's there, Sully's escorted him to the airport and he's there to phone in again, obviously, pre-internet. He's there to phone in when he sees Arnie's plane take off. And then there's another guy at the end on the other airports and make a phone call for when the airplane lands, which is great because we have like a whole, like, taken time scale thing coming up.

Yeah, it's like 96 hours or whatever it is. I don't know what it is.

But yeah, so Arnie is taking on to the plane with the fella and he sits down.

And Jackson.

And he sits down with the dude and yeah, it's got to sit down and straight away, he's just like, fuck, fuck, fuck, looking around and going, oh, fuck, the door's gonna shut in a minute. Okay, shit, I haven't got long to go. What the fuck? And then he says, I can have a blanket and a hat.

I know, a blanket and a pillow, a blanket and a pillow.

Yeah.

And the lady brings him that.

Yeah.

Then he does a very, he's got a bit of acting from on it. He sort of flips out the blanket, sort of flaps it a bit to get it comfy. But as he's doing that, his elbow just goes, bang, and he takes the person.

It was nicely done. Did you notice when he got on the plane, though, he was checking out all the plane, the undercarriage of the plane as he gets on.

Yeah.

And I hadn't sort of really clocked that before because I'm reviewing it. I really watched this film. I kind of enjoyed this the first time I watched this bi-way reviewing it because I was really, really engaged with it this time.

Similar to Liam Neeson in Taken it. If Liam Neeson walks in a room and he checks everything out around him. Yeah.

You're making a plan up at that second in time. And Arnie's already made the plan. He needs to get off straight away. How could I do this? Oh, I could do this. I could knock him out and then I'll break his neck. Okay, cool. And he does that, knocks him out, breaks his neck, puts a hat over and puts a blanket over and says, my friend, he's dead tired. Please don't wake him up.

Brilliant.

At some point though, she must go though. Where's that guy? He went for a shit so long ago. And he said he had gas, but that was like two hours ago or whatever, you know.

Yeah, because he gets up and she says, sir, you can't get up while we're about to take off.

He must have noticed that.

I got tummy troubles.

He says, I got gas.

He goes into the toilet. But he doesn't know. Into the cargo area.

Yeah.

Rips through another wall, finds the wheel mechanism, climbs down.

This is Mission Impossible. This is basically a fucking Tom Cruise stunt for Mission Impossible. The way he's on there like that, hanging on to it and it's going along. And then obviously, I know you got stunt man, but you still got someone from a jump, dropping from an aeroplane wheel, which has been taken off. That's actually happening. That's not a fucking like a fake body.

Yeah, it's not green screen, is it?

No, that's someone actually going down and falling into like Everglade type area where it's got some water to land on. And that's really impressive. It's really well put together. It's really well edited. Yeah, it's really I was really impressed by it.

Yeah, he drops into a swamp. The first thing he does is he sets an 11-hour timer. He's got 11 hours before that flight lands and they realize he's not on it. So this is great. Like you said, we're taking he's got 96 hours in this. He's got 11 hours. So we're on the clock now.

At this point, he does cook and then just stops running full power. I say this dude, if there's any movie to say this is what this is what drive is. This guy has drive. He's just like, go, go, go, run, go, run, go on going, going.

Whoa. And I think part of the reason RJ would have picked this as well is we both got daughters. And this is the first time I've watched this since I've become a dad. And I was talking to Alice about taking specifically. And she said, but you do that. You'd go and rip up half of Paris to look for Edith if someone took her. I said, yeah, 100% I would. And I'm not even Liam Neeson. I'd be like, staggering around, going, oh, a bit of cheese.

But you see, he's lucky he sees Sully ring up and say that he's left. So he's made that phone call, which is brilliant. And he runs back and he sees Sully's there. And he's seen Chong, Ray Don Chong's to stand in there. And he's already sort of said, Hey, how you doing? She's blowing them off sort of thing. And then he's straight away there again. And well, she's on the phone.

She's on the phone to somebody, going, I really like you too. My flight's been cancelled.

He just starts talking over the top of her. Yeah, like, like, it doesn't matter what she's saying. It's so like real sleaze, proper sleaze, to the point where he follows her out to the car park.

Hits on her again and she tells him where to go. And he goes, you fucking whore. So, oh, okay.

Arnie sees, Arnie sees Sully, though, when he's chatting her up. And he knows that he's probably just seen him. He knows he's made the phone calls. That's right. But he can now kill Sully, basically.

So he grabs.

And he needs Sully for a bit more information.

He grabs Cindy and he goes, shh. Don't you know, don't make a sound. Let me just rip your car.

After that, and then and the car. And then all of a sudden, she gets kidnapped. She must be thinking, I hate men so much right now.

Well, it's gone from her flight being cancelled, her which she's an airline stewardess.

To the sleaze bag.

So she's she so she's called up her boyfriend and said, hey, good news, I've got the day off. So should we make a date? Brilliant.

All right.

Next thing you know, someone's hitting on her and calling her a fucking whore. And then this giant muscly guy has ripped out her car seat and kidnapped her.

Oh, yeah.

Not the day you were planning, really.

And then he's just like, right, follow that one. What? The guy who stalking me is, oh, my God.

She said, how did I know you were going to say that?

Do you know what? This could have been though. This could have been a ruse that they were both in on it. Jesus. Yeah. But he goes, follow her. And actually, those both those guys, they get there, then they just kidnap her.

Well, they follow him across the city into a shopping mall, and suddenly he gets there and he goes to meet a guy in a bar to get some passports and stuff, because it's all dodgy dealings. And he tells the guy, you know, this is all good. Thanks for these passports. I appreciate that. Meanwhile, Arnie's like, it's basically, this is to do with my daughter Jenny. He has information on where she is, because she's been taken. She doesn't know whether to believe him or not.

This is so good.

He was in trouble. So he calls for backer. He takes one look at Arnie.

No, no, no, wait, wait, wait, wait. She said it's some guys. So he gets, there's this other, it shows these different security guards. We get a geography of the shopping center. It's on different levels. And we see that there is different security guards at different spots. And then we see one guard is kind of looks like he's trying to chop up a couple of girls and he's real skinny, scrawly. And he gets through on his radio.

Oh yeah, that's right.

It's so good. And he must at that point go, I've just said to those girls, do you want to watch me kick some ass? And I've got this guy, I'm about to go and fucking have to tell, you know, and kick his ass. It's not happening.

So a team of security guards swarm on Arnie and he starts throwing them all over the place. Sully comes out of the bar and sees the person that he thought was on the plane, beating up all the security guards.

He's like, oh shit.

So he runs to a phone booth to phone in and say, this is all, meanwhile, while this is happening, did you notice the guy in the thriller jacket? There's a guy in a bright red thriller jacket, especially when Arnie, because by the way, dear listeners, while he's in the phone booth, Arnie runs over after having, you know, knocked out six security guards. He lifts up the phone booth that Sully is in and smashes it down on the ground.

No, no, it wasn't.

It's amazing. He then gets run over, but it's just Arnie, so it doesn't matter. He gets into Cindy's car, starts to chase him and Cindy jumps in and she's like, Well, I'm going to come with you now. I'm in with this.

Very quickly, when Sully was in the shopping center and he was having drinks with his rendezvous, doing his thing, he's looking around at the place and he says, This place used to be great for hunting slash.

Is that what he says?

And then he looks over at Radon Chong and is like, Don't worry, I found me some more. He needs to be let go.

Yeah, well, he does, because Arnie runs him off the road.

Another point very quickly. At one point, Arnie, back at the shopping center, threw off of him seven street guards and countered them, hurry round and countered them. Seven all at once, they all just bounced out of him like he was a butterfly coming out of a cocoon.

They're all on top of him and he did one of those sort of incredible hulks.

It was, it was.

So he grabs Sully, because Sully's Porsche is flipped, grabs him and he hangs him by one ankle off a cliff. And he says, information, give it to me now. And Sully says, and he tells him a little bit of information. And he says, you better hurry up, this is my bad arm. And Sully gives him a little bit of information. And then he goes, you remember when I said I was going to go your last? And he goes, yeah, yeah, you did say that. I lied. He just drops him. And then he heads back over to Cindy.

What does he say when he when he falls? Sully has a catchphrase in this.

What does he say?

He says it earlier and he says it here. His catchphrase is, oh, la la.

Well, yeah, he does say, la la.

When he falls, he goes, oh, la la.

Yeah, I did. I remember watching.

I can't believe Sully has a catchphrase. It's so bizarre. Oh, la la.

Um, well, that's probably what I'd say if someone dropped me off a clip.

Oh, la la.

Uh, Cindy says, what happened to Sully? And he says, I let him go. He then says, well, we're going to have to, the car's wrecked. What are we going to do? I know. I'll flip the Porsche back over onto its wheels. I guess we have a car now and off they go in the Porsche. And she's part of this now. So John now gives the exposition to Cindy, as they're driving along, tells her the whole plot.

And she says, well, what do you do, Sully? I let him go.

And then meanwhile, we see that Jenny and his daughter has been placed into a mansion with loads of army guys and sort of vigilantes and commandos and jobs guarding her. They're not going to last long once Arnie arrives. We know that. We've seen enough action films. So Matrix and Cindy go to the motel that Sully was staying at because they find his motel key on his key rings. And they use his key. They go into his room and they search his room. I love all this stuff now.

They're duking it out, aren't they?

Bill duking it out. He says to him something about this green beret, he's about to kick your ass.

I eat green berets for breakfast.

And then she says, oh my god, enough of this macho bullshit.

It is very much macho bullshit.

And she also says, these guys eat too much red meat.

It was an after point, it was like, stop with these little lines.

They smash through a wall. Now, I've got a question for you. When they smash through the wall, they disturb a couple who are having intercourse. Did they not hear these two giant men smashing each other around the room? Did they just think that was really rough sex going on?

That's exactly what I was going to say.

Two big guys going at it.

And you don't see her boobs. I looked and you don't see them. They're covered up each time.

You almost do, but you don't.

It's weird though. I felt like you should.

You want it boobs. There's no boobs in this.

No.

Not even three in like total recall.

Yeah.

Maybe they made up for it with that. So yeah, he eventually flips Sully on to a broken table and the spike goes through his chest and he dies before he can give any information. So Arnie takes his keys and they go to... She says something about knowing by coincidence, she's been learning her pilot's license. So she knows a little bit about flying planes and piloting and stuff like that. So they go to a warehouse that's... They get the information from his keys or something.

I was watching this bit and I don't remember any of it. So where are they? And I was all of a sudden taking back a bit. And I just didn't remember this little part when they're looking in an office looking. It was literally like, is this new? I really weird. I must have just ignored it because I'm reviewing it. I'm watching it really closely.

Well, they go to like a big warehouse slash factory. He climbs inside and you can see all these drugs and weapons being packed. He hides under a tank at one point, beats up a couple of guys. Then he lets Cindy in through a door. Then they find the office. And this is where they work out. This is a bit far fetched how quickly they work this out. They find the coordinates to this island, which must be the island that Jenny's on.

As a kid, I love this bit when they're just throwing stuff on you. What did you take? What did you take? What did you take? It's so cool.

A couple of big knives, guns, some grenades.

But then again, I thought about this time, I used to love it because what did you take? All these things are just to take people's lives out and kill them and just destroy people and kill them. Just it's fun ways to kill people. Oh, yeah.

Not to comment too much on it, but very alien to us in the UK to have a shop that sells guns, let alone one gun. This one is full of them.

You watch it. You even watch that. Then you're like, there's no reason to have any of those guns. Obviously, it's for the movies. Probably gone. But still, I'm sure there's some play shops that have stuff like this. And it's like, there's no reason. They got a rocket launcher. I'm sure you could just don't buy rocket launchers in shops because you're not going to go and rocket launch anything because you can't eat it afterwards, if or self-defense.

That's a bit much. Imagine going in the shop and sort of saying, hey, how are you doing, Jeff? You're back for some more bullets. Yeah, actually.

Yeah, I'm going hunting this weekend.

Oh, well, I've got something new in actually. This is called a rocket launcher. Do you want to? What does it do? Well, it's as it sounds, it fires a big rocket machine gun.

Oh, yeah, that'd be perfect for a silent ninja stealth.

I've got some swords and a grenade here. Would you like these?

Yeah.

Good stuff. So this it always felt to me like there's a little bit of the film missing here because all of a sudden he's kind of arrested by these cops and he's in the van with them.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It feels weird, you know what I mean?

Like, it almost didn't need this because he's then set out again. He's freed really quickly.

Well, by Cindy, who rams a bazooka.

It's almost like just to put in another or is it to show her worth?

Maybe it's to show that she can handle herself a bit.

Yeah, I don't know. It's weird. But I think it was just for action sake, like throwing a rocket launcher because we can. It's the 80s and we make loads of new video.

Do whatever you want. We've got the budget for a rocket launcher.

And VHS sales. So, you know, after cinema.

Well, she accidentally fires it backwards, first of all, and explodes the shop.

Which gives the cops interest, that's for sure.

And then she turns it around and then she blows up the cop van. Miraculously, not killing John Matrix, who's in the back of it, blows it over. It's almost like she's a crack shot with it. And, yeah, he gets out and they carry on their way. Yeah. They arrive at the plane, which is on the water. And she says, Oh, my God, this is a boat with wings. And he said, Just get it started. Just as they're about to get in, here come the bad guys shooting at them.

I love the bit where we do get a bit of Bennett talking to the soldiers. I love your pissant soldiers.

Yeah, because he's got these Aussie actions.

They make me laugh. Me and Matrix. Matrix would laugh too. And then he just keeps talking about Matrix. He's like, Oh, have a shot. Every time he says Matrix, it's like, do you fancy Matrix?

I do think there is a bit of homoeroticism here.

He really is. He really wants to. It's like when he's having a fight with him later on and the way he is, it's almost like his knife is his penis, for sure. Absolutely. It's very homoerotic.

That vest and that mustache.

It's the way he is later on when we get to it. We'll talk about it.

That vest and that mustache really remind me of what you'd see in the Blue Wooster Bar in the Police Academy movies.

Absolutely.

You know, put that bonker going. Bill Paxton cameo.

We've got a Bill Paxton saying like, basically, you shouldn't be there, what you're doing, turn around. And then they just drop altitude because it's a seaplane. They drop super low off-radar.

Cut to Jenny in the mansion. She is trying to escape from the room they blocked her in because she's the daughter of John Matrix. So she, we know she was taught Kung Fu because we saw the montage at the beginning. So she knows a thing or two. So they try to, she tries to escape the room and the bad guys outside are saying, look, whether he does kill the president or not for us, we're going to kill Jenny either way.

Dead guy's hat falls off in the airplane. We just have a shot of that. So we know that that's not good because he's going to be discovered.

That's right. And also Vernon Wells says, the thing about Jan Matris is he's unstoppable. So again, he's bigging him up.

All the time. I love him.

Have you seen his arms?

Well, we do now because he rose to shore with a little boat.

What's he wearing?

He's in his pants, Speedos.

He's wearing the tiniest pair of briefs he could ever see.

Yeah. Well, yeah, he's almost going to commando.

Imagine if he was actually butt naked for this scene, for no reason at all. Just dick swinging.

Apparently, there was a romance scene which was dropped.

I'm glad.

Because that's why she's so like, hey, I'm like such a family member now when she's happy to see him at the end. And it's all a bit, yeah, lovey-dovey almost. There's a bit which was dropped and cut out. And it's like, yeah, the pacing would be terrible. There's no point. We have on the boat where he basically gets ready montage. And this is just basically what I did. This is basically me not knowing it. I watched it and I was like, oh, this is what I did for Dan in A Shadow Of Death.

And it's been referenced in many other films. Evil Dead, Shaun Of The Dead, Shadow Of Death.

But in my head, this is where it comes from. Absolutely.

This is probably one of the first getting kitted up scenes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's perfect. It is. And mine, I think you should put yours with mine. Have you watched a new version on YouTube?

Of Shadow?

Of, yeah.

The last time I watched it was on Prime.

Oh, so you saw the new music at that point when you're getting ready there?

Yeah.

OK, cool.

Yeah, I did. Thank you.

The whole new music I wrote for that bit.

Thanks for making me look cool, badass, but also absolutely mental in the shadow of death.

Yeah, that's fine.

So yeah, kitted up, even puts his war paint on.

For no reason whatsoever. There's just some fog as he stands there staring at the camera pretty much. And the camera just looks at him with all of his stuff, holding all of his gear and a bag. There's just all of a sudden fog. No other shot next or before.

They got the budget for it.

There's fog on the beach. All of a sudden, there's just fog. And then the next shot, no fog, no fog again. It just looked cool.

One of the producers is fine, because it did. Guys, we haven't got through the cocaine yet. There's still quite a lot of budget. Bring in a smoke machine.

Absolutely.

Fire the bazooka twice.

There's no reason for smoke, but I liked it.

Why not?

He sneaks up to the place now.

He does. And Arius and Bennett are in the mansion. They've got no idea what's about to hit them. No, he sneaks up on the mansion.

We do just before we start doing that, though. We do cut back to the aeroplane and the plane lands and the dead body is being taken out and they've seen that. Oh, no. So straight away, there's a dude getting on the phone to make a phone call. Cut back to the house.

And Arnold is putting landmines down and setting little traps.

So he's all about to kick the fuck off.

He starts killing bad guys, takes a few out.

He takes them out, left, right and fucking center. It's John Wick all over, isn't it?

And their boss, Arius, is told, look.

What is the name? John Wick, John Matrix, John Rambo.

John McClane.

John McClane. The uncle John. Guess what my middle name is?

Frank.

That's John. It is John.

John Hannibal Smith in the 18 as well.

John's the name. John's the action name.

John's the name, baby. Henry Swanson's my name and excitement's my game. He never played a John, or did he? No. He played a snake. Yes, John kills loads of bad guys. He blows up a couple of huts.

And because they miniature happening, I love the fact that these miniature buildings being blown up and you've got cardboard. They might not be total miniature, but you got cardboard cutouts of guys all around it with guns. Just like this. And they're being blown up and you can just see them there in front of it. Because in the high definition, I was like, oh, that is really weak.

And that because because of this, Arius is told John's here and he's on the loose. He gives the order, go and kill Jenny.

But he's too late.

Yeah. He grabs his rocket launcher, blasts him people left right and center. And Cindy radios into Kirby and says, this is Commando. This is a, what does she say? Password Commando or whatever it is. And Kirby now knows. And then Arnie goes into the forest and then onto the lawn. And I've just written here from my notes, so many kills like he's honestly killing hundreds of men, loads of bullets and grenades.

This is kind of enter the dragon.

No one's touching him.

It's just one person going in and just fucking kicking ass slowly. Yeah.

Even the bit earlier, mind you, being called in.

Yeah, it's very much that sort of thing.

When he sees the guns and the drugs in the warehouse, that might need to be a bit of that. He goes into his shed and gets stuck in the shed for a little bit.

There's loads of gymnastic stunt men in this. When they get blown up, they are just doing the flips all over the place.

No wires. No wires back then. While he's in the shed, he sees a machete and a circular saw.

Because he's out of ammo.

So he grabs the circular saw and he ninja stars that at someone.

This shit was a cut out of the cut version that I grew up with.

Yeah, same here. But the guy just gets his arm chopped off really nicely.

It's great.

Really good practical effects. You wouldn't normally see that. It's more of a sort of Italian zombie movies effect, really. But it's great. That's good. Jenny, meanwhile, escapes into the basement. She doesn't know that Bennett's on her tail. Oh, shit. Ah! John's, I've written here, John has a magic gun. Magic gun. He doesn't reload it once, does he?

No.

And he also hasn't been hit by it. I've written also, he must also have a force field around him.

Yeah.

Because no bullets are touching him. He gets into the mansion and he hears, Dad! Come from the basement. He goes, Jenny! See more death and he kills a few more people. Arius appears and shoots at him. He kills Arius easily. So that's the main boss dealt with. However, he's not the main boss. Bennett is the final boss of the game. So he heads into the basement and Bennett is stalking Jenny. And she goes, Daddy, is that you? And he goes, I'm not your daddy. So, okay.

Just before we get into this, very quickly, when he was finding the boss, and he obviously shoots the boss just before he gets to Bennett and stuff. All the music just cuts out for no reason. And it's the score. Music score is almost like it's just the gun shooting. There's so much going on. It's just when he gets to the boss in the house, the music score just cuts out. It's such a weird choice because then when he shoots and kills the boss, the score comes back in again.

All right, that's weird.

Watch it back and see it. There's no reason for it whatsoever. It just turns into like it's supposed to be for tension, but it does the wrong. It does the other thing. They've done it for tension. They drop it out so then the music comes back, and when he dies, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, and it's like, no, that's not right. You should just keep the music going. But yes, weird choice.

I didn't notice that.

Yeah.

Well, him and Bennett now have a knife fight, a few slashes, turns into a bit of a fistfight. He eventually knocks Bennett back onto a pipe, which impales through his chest. Some steam comes out.

It's...

And it says...

But just before... I know you've got to say it now.

Go on.

Just before when they're fighting, this is when it's quite sexual, they're looking at each other really closely in the eyes, and he says, stick the knife in me and twist it. Because I know you want to do it on his same team while looking really in the eyes. And then he's saying, come on, let's party, he says to Bennett. And they're really looking in the eyes. And Bennett, at that point, is almost all having an orgasm. The way he's just like, ah, ah, I can do it, John. He's really excited.

He says, he says, I can kill you, John. And he says, come on, let the girl go, just between you and me. Don't deprive yourself some pleasure.

Yeah.

Come on, Bennett, let's party.

Yeah, come on, Bennett. I can beat you. I can beat you. I don't need the knife. I don't need the gun. And it's really over the top, hyped up, and it's just quite, yeah. It's like if he wasn't fighting him, he'd be bumming him.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, he gets piped in a way. He does get some pipe right through the chest. The steam comes out and Arnold finishes with a little some steam, Bennett.

Classic line. Most of these lines in this movie, this and Predator are the best lines. They really are.

Yeah, they really are. And that's kind of the end, really. The chopper arrives too late, as it always does, and into the dragon and in the other movie and then.

But actually, just before that, he looks over to Jenny and Jenny's all happy. And that was like Jenny's absolutely happy. But there's a guy next to her with a pipe coming out of his chest with steam coming out of it, which must be horrific and traumatizing. As a kid, I remember being a bit traumatized by that whole thing. I go, oh, that's really weird. But she's like, hey, dad.

And he picks Jenny up and carries her out and he sees the soldiers.

Imagine being Jenny's first boyfriend. You have to be my dad.

What did he do? I can't really talk about it.

He's killed a lot of men. I saw him kill at least 40 people in one day. It's probably about two hours, to be honest with you.

How did he kill them? Knives, machetes. He just ripped a saw.

He threw a pipe through this guy who looked like Freddie Mercury's chest and then said to him, let off steam. It was just off the chain.

Shot a couple of guys in the head. He dropped a garf at Cliff as well.

I don't want to meet your dad. You're dumped. No, actually not dumped. Dump me.

He always says funny things, though, when he kills them. He's got a great sense of humor. No, it's all right. Well, he picks Jenny up, walks past the soldiers, walks up to Kirby, who says, John, you know, you could always restart your unit if you wanted.

Of course it does.

Because I told you that was the last time. I told you that's it. Maybe there's time for another one. One more mission. And he goes, no chance. Cindy's waiting for them at the plane. Come on, let's all go home together. And they fly off home. Yep. And then we get that amazing song at the end.

Dand, dand. Yeah. Somewhere. What is it? Somewhere, someone, one somehow, something like that. It's great. I love that song. I love the whole movie. It's a lot of fun. It goes by so quickly.

It's back when you had a lot of Blood and Guts, much like horror films. A lot of Blood and Guts, but a lot of fun. It was really just enjoyable, silly, almost comic book, wasn't it, really?

Yeah, yeah.

Really enjoy it and great to revisit it. Yeah, definitely a thumbs up. It's really good to revisit it.

It's quite a macho film. I don't know if in 2025, if you've never seen it and you're someone that possibly doesn't like those sorts of films. Might not like it. Don't know. I have no idea. It's something we grew up with, so we fucking love it and that genre.

One little quick bit of trivia I just want to mention. Alyssa Milano said that Arnold Schwarzenegger was very, very protective of her on set and always helped her with her homework.

He's a good guy, aren't he? I hope when he passes, there's not things that come out that would work or anything.

There's been a few already, haven't there?

Yeah, but generally, he does seem like an all right person.

Imagine that. Alyssa. Oh, Arnold, I'm trying to do my algebra. I'll be with this, come on.

I think he's quite a clever person. He's quite good all around, really, isn't he?

Oh, they actually shot a sex scene. They shot it.

They cut it out. It must be on the boat, yeah, it must have been awful. Terrible.

Right, well. Bill Barry's here talking of action stars.

Talking of sex scenes.

He's walked in. Oh, my God, he's taken it literally. You've gone commando. No, Bill, commando means you wear clothes with no pants. It doesn't mean you wear nothing at all.

Jesus Christ. All right, Bill, take us. Well, don't take us out of here. Lead us in.

Guide us in, Bill. Hi, welcome back to World Of The Strange. World of the Strange.

World of the Strange. That's the word of the strange, I will find you. Strange.

World of the Strange, thanks, Bill. Glad you've covered up a little bit. Yeah, so thought for this World of the Strange, in keeping with our Patreon picks, we can chat about action movies, macho action movies, particularly from the 80s.

Macho, macho man.

I want to be a macho man. What a great song. The village people, I think, they did some great songs. They knew what to sing about. They had one topic really, which was men, and they sang about it.

Yeah.

About in the Navy, YMCA, go west, macho man. So before we get into some fun chat.

When you're having Mexican and eat nachos, you can see it when you're buying them in the supermarket. And I've done that before. I've bought them and walked down the aisle going, Nacho, macho man.

Brilliant. Love it. Yeah. Before we get into some fun and even a little quiz for you. Just want to give you, I think you were alluding to this earlier, so this isn't going to surprise you, but it might surprise your honestness. That did you know that Commando, Predator and Die Hard are all connected?

Yes.

No, lie to me.

No.

Thank you. Yes. So there's a theory that Commando, a commander, who's commander? Who the fuck is commander? That Commando, Predator 1 and 2 and the Die Hard movies are all part of the same cinematic universe way before Marvel. So here is the theory and the links between them. So John Matrix and of course Alan Schafer from Predator, both played by Arnie. They're the same person, or they could be twins or brothers in this theory, okay?

That's so funny.

Then he met the Predator and had his spine and skull ripped out.

That's going to stop your career.

Yeah. And then the next link is that in Commando, going back there, Arius, the main bad guy, tries to force John to assassinate the president of Val Verde, which is a fictional South American country. And in Predator, their rescue mission takes place in Val Verde. And finally, in Die Hard 2, General Esperanza was being extradited from the US to the South American country of Val Verde, meaning that all three of these movies are part of the same cinematic universe.

Yeah, must do.

Because it was probably in the script, and they just left it in the script when they reworked it.

Nat Jom, Nat Jom, man.

There's also a theory that Hudson in Aliens is a descendant of Jerry Lambert from Predator 2.

That's cool.

But I thought that was fun, I thought that was interesting.

Yeah.

Val Verde pops up a lot. There we go. Although in Predators, they actually say that he had a mission in Guatemala.

Yeah.

But, fuck that.

I liked it. It's still the most fictional country of Val Verde. It's great.

It's cool. So let's talk action films from the 80s.

Amazing.

What I thought would be fun to do is I asked, I am DB. I said, what are the top rated main? Well, only 80s action films. So I haven't gone 90s, just 80s action movies. What are the top rated, please, IMDb? And I thought it would be fun to go through the majority of the list here. And I'm going to start with number one. I'm going to do this the wrong way around, because the highest rated action film from the 80s on IMDb is none other than our favorite Christmas film, Die Hard.

I thought you said it was, I don't know why it's called the National Amplified Christmas Face.

Gremlins. Die Hard is the highest rated 80s action movie on IMDb. Isn't that interesting?

That is, yeah, I agree. Die Hard is incredible.

It's not your typical, because he's not ripped and he's not got loads of guns and stuff, but it's still one man army and it's more realistic, isn't it? It's more plausible.

It's good casting.

It is probably in my top five action films of all time, and it is very near the top.

Oh, yeah, very much.

You'll be really pleased with this, Liscuff. Number two, First Blood.

It's fantastic. I love it. It's...

I didn't appreciate how good it was until we reviewed it for your birthday episode a couple of years ago. It's really good.

It's really good.

And it's deep. It's quite deep as well. There's much like Die Hard.

Yeah.

There's some deep moments in it.

More so Vietnam war and that whole that and him coming back and then someone died of cancer and just like, it's just the first but that like that whole bit then and it's all misty and he's cold. And there's a member as a kid watched it again. This just feels really bleak and desolate and horrible. And I feel for him so much. And I actually feel sadness in a film as a child watching it.

I mean, he's sort of bullied by the cops and stuff.

Well, I wouldn't feel that Die Hard.

No. Number three is Raiders Of The Lost Ark. Now that is an action movie. Absolutely. I don't think of it in the same way I do as the ones we're talking about, but it's definitely a great action film.

I threw it on the projector recently with Sarah. We just laid in bed, watched it, and it was fantastic. Just watching the India Jones again. Fantastic.

The first three Indie movies are just a phenomenal watch with all the stunt work and everything. Yeah. And Harrison Ford is again an unlikely action hero, but an action hero of all the same. He's got the one-liners. He throws a punch. He looks good with a gun and a whip and everything, you know. Number four, Predator. We talked about it a lot, but it's up there. It's Arnie's highest rated.

Yep.

Number five, Beverly Hills Cop.

Okay.

I agree. It's very adrenaline-y. The music, it's so quintessentially 80s as well.

It is comedy action. I think a bit more comedy, though, for some reason. I wouldn't put that almost looking at it and go, oh, yeah, there is actually, if I watch it, I was like, oh, it's actual time. But you don't think that compared to the other films, you know.

And the same can be said with number six, which weirdly, Big Trouble In Little China is the sixth highest 80s action film on IMDB. But it's balls to the wall action. It's got kung fu, magic.

Yeah, fair enough.

I agree with number seven, lethal weapon.

Oh, yeah, of course.

I'd put that much higher than some of these.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's a real script. It's classy, isn't it? It's just class.

I watched that again recently. I'm reading Jordan.

Number eight, probably the first adult action movie I ever saw, RoboCop. Oh, God. But again, I don't think of that so much as an action film. It's more of a sci-fi.

It's almost to me. Yeah, I don't look at it as action. I look at it as sci-fi horror because it is horrific.

It's fucking horror.

It's proper horror.

Yeah.

What did you do?

It wouldn't surprise many people that Top Gun is the next one. Number nine. I'm not a massive fan. I appreciate it.

I'm not a fan at all.

Yeah, that's fine. It's a different type of action.

It's not the sort of thing I'm into. I don't really like movies about airplanes. Not much interest, but I love movies set in airplanes.

You do.

But I don't like movies about airplanes.

Snakes on a Plane. Number 10, the original Red Dorm from 84. Kids Take On The Bad Guys. Great. Gotta love it. But again, I wouldn't be putting this in my...

I've not seen it actually.

The original Terminator. It's the next one on the list.

Yeah.

I would put number 12, Aliens. That is way higher for me. That is one of my favorite action films of all time. And even though it's sci-fi and horror, it's so action, it's crazy. It's higher, much, much higher than even Beverly Hills Cop.

To me, Aliens, Rambo, Predator, they're like big proper action. I know those three. They're proper, full on action. Like those guys are proper, like fucking sweat. I know Die Hard is, do you know what I mean? It feels more... Die Hard is, it is, but feels more contained in the way. There's so much more fucking brutality and death going on in the others, I feel, almost.

The first Mad Max movie is next. It's a lot of action in that, but again, I don't think of it, because it's vehicles really more than anything. Yeah, yeah. Commando, that makes the list as well. Escape From New York. Again, it's hard to remember. That is so action packed. And then we get sequels. We've got Rambo 2, we've got Beverly Hills Cop 2, Lethal Weapon 2, Indiana Jones 2, Red Heat, any which way you can. Conan the Barbarian, Road House. That to me is in my top 10 action films of all time.

And you could probably do this list for next hour.

Yeah, well, I mean, there's 50 on there. I'm not going to go through them all. There's a couple more, a couple more I want to mention, just because it's like Cobra, because it's such a weird film. It's like a slasher horror film, but an action film.

And we know why, because they said we got a movie perfect for you. What's that? It's this Beverly Hills cop. No, let me go home and rewrite it. OK, you're Sylvester Stallone. Here you go. I've rewritten it. OK, that's not a comedy anymore. No. Well, we don't want to do that. We want to go with Eddie Murphy. Oh, OK. I'm going to go and make this. All right. And that's what happens.

Running Man's in there, and a couple more Indiana Jones movies, Rambo 3, Tango and Cash, a couple of Steven Seagals. Tango?

Cash?

So from this list, the interesting thing is that the top three actors in this list are actually Harrison Ford, Sylvester Stallone and Arnold, closely followed by Mel Gibson, because of Mad Max and Lethal Weapon. And so he's like the fourth highest action star from the 80s, Mel Gibson. Harrison Ford being in the top three, but I guess he did Star Wars and Indiana Jones. And those were like some of the biggest movies, you know.

Yeah, and they were competing against each other, but yes, they were.

But we grew up, and this is just a brief tangent I wanted to go on. We grew up watching those movies that, even as a kid, you knew they were unrealistic. They were comic book. But that's why we love horror, because it's unrealistic, it's comic booky. That's why I love martial art films. They're unrealistic. But you love watching that crazy action unfolding. The reason we fell in love with cinema is because of these movies, not just horror, but these as well.

Yeah, it was my Sunday Roast movie. I'd sit on the floor just eating a Sunday dinner, like watching Rambo every Sunday when I was a kid. Brutality, and me going, Yay.

And it's funny, when Enter The Dragon, obviously was a 70s movie, but that is another fantastic. And we covered that on the last episode, which is, so we've been very action packed these last couple of episodes. The last thing then, Gav, is a quick quiz for you on action films, not just 80s, but just action films generally.

Quiz me.

You ready?

Go.

Some of these are easy, some of these are not.

18.

That's every question you've just answered here.

Amazing.

No, what's the name of the building where Die Hard takes place?

Oh, the Nakatomi Plaza, and I snuck into it.

You did, and then you got kicked out.

I got kicked out, and the guy had a gun.

Who played the baddie, Howard Payne, in Speed?

Oh, that would be, is that Dennis Hopper?

You got it. Two out of two so far. Well done. You look a bit nervous. You're right. You're going to get your action license.

Yeah. Well, with Speed, luckily, I know, because I'm not really into that film so much, but like, I knew the characters, the cast. Go on.

What's the name of the hotel that John Wick checks into? To retrieve his weapons and gold coins.

Because they made it into a TV show as well.

They did, they did.

For fuck's sake.

To give you a clue, if you want.

Yeah.

It's the type of breakfast you might get.

Sausages, hash brown, bacon, tomato.

No, and you're in a hotel this year, and of course you can have...

A croissant. A co...

It begins with a C. Con...

Condom. Continental. Yay, you got there.

We'll let you have that one, that's fine. Which actor famously said... What would you like for breakfast, cock? Yes, John Wick. The different type of John Wick. John Dick.

John Dick.

There's gotta be a...

John's dick.

A poor, poor parody of that, isn't there? There has to be. Okay, what actor famously said, I feel the need, the need for speed. Yeah, you got it. Top Gun. How many movies, how many movies so far have been released in the Fast and Furious franchise?

Eleven.

Correct. Including that spinoff, Hobbs and Shaw. You got it. That was good. You're braiment, because that's recent for you, so you're still thinking about these movies. What's the name of the final and most and the last completed film that Bruce Lee starred in?

Oh, completed, isn't it? Into the Dragon.

Correct. Who sang the theme song, this is a slightly obscure one, for the final, For No Time To Die, the Bond movie? Who sang it? It was a female.

Is that Billy Eilish?

Wow, you're doing well, very well on this. Look at you, you look chuffed. How many, this is difficult, how many members were in Kill Bill's Deadly Viper Assassination Squad? Five.

Oh, is it six?

It's six.

Dammit.

I'm gonna let you have it, I'm gonna let you have it. Why, that was, I don't know how you did that. What is, this is a real test, Jason Bourne's real name. We do find it out.

No, I'm even in one of the movies, but I don't know, I've not really seen them. I couldn't tell you. Jason Donovan.

Correct. No, it is David Webb.

Yeah.

Just one wrong so far.

No.

That's all right. What year was the first Rambo movie released?

I wanna say 84, but I feel like it's earlier than 84.

You're right. It is earlier.

I'm gonna keep that clear. 82.

Perfect. Well done.

Okay.

Ooh, a bit. Okay. What does, there's no point in asking you this. What does John Matrix eat for breakfast?

The cream berets. Correct.

How many rules does Jason Statham's character have in The Transporter?

Oh, one rule. There are no rules. I don't know.

There's four rules.

Yeah, I don't know that.

Do you want to know what they are?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rule number one. The deal is the deal.

The deal is the deal.

Rule number two. No names. Rule number three. Never open the package. And the fourth rule is never make a promise you can't keep.

OK. Yeah. Again, a film series. I've seen them, but once.

That's all right. What crime is Harrison Ford's character accused of in The Fugitive?

Kidding his wife.

You're smashing this. Doing great. How many Mission Impossible films is Simon Pegg been in, not including the one that's about to come out? What? How the hell did you get that so quick? Is that a guess?

No, I pretty much know that, I reckon. Yeah.

Wow.

He came in part four, I'd say. So four, five, six and seven. I think the one would be seven, maybe.

Brilliant. Who directed the 2010 remake of True Grit?

Oh, that was the Cone Brothers.

Wow. Great stuff. I've only got two more questions for you. Which James Bond film was the first time that Judy Dench appeared as M?

That would be a Piers Brosnan movie. Maybe, not GoldenEye. Is it Die Another Day?

Is that your final answer?

Yeah, I'm wrong, though.

It's GoldenEye. You did say it.

Ah, shit. OK.

And the last film is, the last film, the last question is, what film involves somebody infiltrating a group of surfers? Oh, Point Break. Brilliant. You've actually only got about three wrong out of all of those. That is incredible stuff.

That's not bad.

You did so well.

Well done, Bill. Thanks. Why couldn't this have been like a GCSE school thing, you know?

You'd have been acing it. Imagine that.

Unfortunately, I failed every film I scored.

Rambo, 1982. Well done, Gavin. You got an A+.

Thanks.

What exams have you got tomorrow, Gavin? Well, mum, I've got my hip hop exams tomorrow. Are you going to do all right in that one? Yeah, I think so. Imagine that. I'd have been the same. It would have been amazing.

But yeah, obviously, I like films because I'm trying to work in films still. So and I do essentially. So yeah, I love movies and we're talking about movies all the time. So yeah, I should know. I should be able to do all right in a quiz.

You did very, very well.

I think you would be just as good though, to be honest with you.

Yeah, I probably would have got some of those, but I think I wouldn't have known things like how many there were in the Viper Squad and stuff like that. Maybe if that was a guess, it was a bloody good one, but you did really well.

I can pitch them.

Good stuff.

As soon as I pitched five, I was like, shit, no, it's evened out totally. It was six.

Excellent.

Yeah. Excellent, though. Well, let's get into another trader.

Yeah, so Bill, could you? Oh, dear. Don't look at him. Oh, he's saying something about I will find you and I will what? That's not what Liam Neeson says.

He does not say that.

Right. OK, let's take us out of here and into a trainer for taking a quick off.

That's all the time we've got for this week on World Of The Strange. Next week, though, give me iron. Careless pets.

Weird. Oh, my darling. Happy birthday. Dad, guess what? You know my friend Amanda? Yep. Her cousins asked us to spend vacation with them in Paris. I really, really want to go. Hi, Daddy. You were supposed to call me when you left. There's something here. What? Oh, my God, they got Amanda. They got me. All right, listen to me. Go to the next bedroom, under the bed. Tell me when you're there. Now, the next part is very important. They are going to take you. I don't know who you are.

Taken from 2008, rated PG-13 one hour and 30 minutes exactly. That pleases Gav. Oh, yes. A retired CIA agent travels across Europe and relies on his old skills to save his daughter who's been kidnapped whilst on a trip to Paris. That's what you need to know. They basically fucked with the wrong guy. Yep. Written by, in part, Luc Besson, who produced it as well, and directed by Pierre Morel, who was a French director. And it is, as Arjay said in his message, almost like a version of Commando.

It's more up to date.

Sex trade.

Not saying the sex trade wasn't around in the 80s. Of course it was. But it's more up to date with people's knowledge of that stuff. So, yeah.

And it kind of hits harder in a way because he's got 96 hours to find her before she vanishes into that weird, horrible underworld.

Yeah.

And this is an interesting one. So I was late to the party with this one because it had been out about a year back when it dropped in 2008 and everyone was talking about it. And I thought I've got to check this out. But I can't imagine Liam Neeson.

We watched it together.

We did, didn't we? Yeah.

That was my second viewing of it.

I couldn't imagine Liam Neeson doing the things, I thought. But I watched it and I was pretty blown away by it.

Yeah.

My dad was also, it's a real dad movie as well. And I'm a dad now. And it really did open that door. You know, after the Bourne movies, we were looking at a lot more sort of that quite realistic, older blokes that you wouldn't expect, like Keanu Reeves, for example. You know, and then we had, we've recently had Nobody and Nobody 2 is coming out soon.

Bob Odenkirk.

Amazing movie. And there's a bunch of these movies coming out now where older people that you wouldn't even sometimes expect to be an action star. And even Neeson has done some action. You know, he was in Crowl back in the day, and he's been in a few stuff like Rob Roy. That was the other one. He was in a few bits and bobs here and there, but he's not always known for his action. But in this movie, he kind of makes a bit of ass, doesn't he?

He does indeed. And he's a big fella.

He's quite realistically as well.

You'd believe he... It goes with that sort of thing. Like when you start getting movies with actors, like you're literally saying the same reason Die Hard did well. Like it's that more realistic type person. It's not just Schwarzenegger, like full of muscles and stuff like that. You can't all be like me.

I know. Luckily, I'm a lot more like Keanu Reeves. I've got a bit, that's about it.

But yeah, one thing in this, though, Liam Neeson's character, luckily, he is a fucking crazy helicopter parent. But god damn it, like, what the fuck? She's like, like, when are you going to let this go? Like, he is over the top, like, protective of her. Like, like, give her a break. Like, she would have been pissed off with him by now. He is over the top, Aaron.

At least it's addressed, though, because it's the reason that him and his wife split, partly because of his job, but partly because he was so paranoid and still is, quite rightly so.

Because of his job. But it's just such a weird dynamic. He's never there. And when he's there, he's just over the top, like, you're not safe, you're not safe. So it could be like, this is like passive aggressive, like, paranoid in here.

It's got a pretty decent cast for the small amount of people that are in it. Obviously, we've got Liam Neeson, Famke Jansson, talking to Bond earlier. She was a Bond girl, and she's also in the X-Men movies and a few other bits and bobs. She plays his ex-wife, Lenore.

House on the Haunted Hill remake.

Yeah, she was, yeah. Maggie Grace plays Kim, his daughter, and Kate Cassidy, who a lot of people who watch the DCCW shows will know. She was in that. She plays Amanda, his daughter's best friend. And randomly, Holly Valance, ex-neighborhood star slash pop star, shows up as She-Ra. Yeah, not that She-Ra, guys. This isn't a He-Man film, but she plays a pop star called She-Ra in this as well. She-Ra. Yeah, and Xander Barkley also plays Stuart, his ex-wife's new boyfriend or husband, whatever he is.

It's 90 minutes, like I said, probably, I'm sure if we got into structures and we really broke films down in the technical aspect, we could throw all these films, these 90-minute exact films together, structurally wise, even if it wasn't, they've gone and chopped it. It would have been in the script anyway. They've gone and chopped it. It's all exactly the same. Okay, at this point here, he's getting going to, he's found out what he's got to do. That's the mission. And I love it, though.

There's a TV series as well, I think. Even The Transporter, we mentioned that. That was Jason Statham taking on the guys.

It's because they do well, so they need to do enough. And in the sequels, always like, okay, then the third one.

People were excited for the second one because they want more of the first one. And then they walk away from it like, it was all right.

And then the first one has just got a few people like, well, I'm just maybe, just maybe it'd be like the first one, maybe. And you have that hope. It's like the Jurassic Park fields, whenever another one comes out, you're like, you know, it's going to be shit. But you go, it's dinosaurs on the big screen though. I get to see dinosaurs. So, so yeah, I think this is like almost a cemented blueprint in 2008 for a lot of other films, exactly the same since coming out. And I love them. It works.

It was absolutely slated when it came out.

Simple premises.

Critics didn't like it. Empire movies gave it one out of five.

And then I guess all the audience came along and went, hang on, this is fucking great fun.

Well, where it really picked up steam was rental and DVD. And like I said, my dad bought this. I think I might have watched it because my dad owned it.

Well, at this point here, we're still being able to go down to Blockbuster and rent out a DVD. Yeah. Let's get into it.

Cool. So we start off with very happy family footage, all happening in Brian's head. So Brian Mills, Liam Neeson's character. And it's all really a nice little montage to show us the audience that Brian at once had, once upon a time had a lovely family, a little set up with his wife and his daughter. And he wakes up alone in his apartment, retired from his job, whatever it might have been. We'll find out in a moment.

Why do you keep looking at it over and over? Just fucking buy the thing.

Why do you have to decide on it? I must have read that instruction manual from front to back ten times over. Should I buy it? I'm not sure. Does it have an echo function on it? And does it go to eleven? I just want to know if I sing Reese's Lightning on it, will I sound like John Travolta? That's all I need to know. So, yeah, he wraps it up and he takes it to the party. Welcome to the party, pal.

That's pretty much how it should be. It's greeted by his ex-wife. He doesn't like him. I don't like you. Yeah.

He's like, hello, Lenny. Nice to see you. She's like, my name is Lenore.

She tries to shut him down every moment. It's literally like, whoa, like, she really does not like him.

Yeah, there's a lot of tension between them. And she basically says, she brings it all up again. She says, well, you were never there for her. You know, I just kept waiting for the phone call.

It's that info dump we need for the audience to know what's going on really, don't we?

And some guy comes up to him and says, oh, the adult party is over the other side of the giant mansion. And he's like, I'm her father. She's like, I work for her father. And he goes, her real father. It's like, Jesus, okay.

But that does show you quite cleverly there what's going on very quickly.

Yeah, and I do feel sorry for him because he's bought this, probably $100 karaoke machine, maybe.

It's the thing, like he grew up as a kid going, I'm going to be a dad, da da da, but I actually going to get this job, gets this job, tries, has a kid, married, doing stuff, tries to be that. But his job was his life. He got too carried away and then just kind of, he's still always trying to do the right thing, but getting it wrong slightly.

And this is that classic, Yeah, you feel bad for him.

John Wick or whatever, where somebody as a dad back into the game, as a dad, you'd feel bad when he hands like the karaoke machine over. Then what present does she get?

Well, this is what I was going to say. So he basically gives her the karaoke machine. She opens it, even though mom said, no, no, we're not opening the presents now. She wants to do it because she doesn't see her dad often. She's really shy.

She wants to make her dad happy.

That's why she says she says, why did you get a karaoke machine? And he says, well, she's always wanted to be a pop star. And she's like, yeah, when she was 10 and then his daughter whispers to him, I still want to be a singer. And he's like, haha, fuck you, ex-wife. And then unfortunately, they're like, Kim, Kim, can you see what your new dad's bought you? Look, he's bought her a big fucking horse, hasn't he?

He's bought her a horse, yeah.

A fucking horse. You can't compete with that. You cannot compete with that. So she gets on the horse and everyone's clapping.

But if he's got the echo function, it's close.

I suppose. And he just walks off like a fucking karaoke machine. And he just walks off and that's that. He gets home. Does the karaoke machine shit? No, it doesn't. Can you ride it into battle? He adds a photo of her to his photo on her 17th birthday.

Hang on, what side are you on there? Can you ride a karaoke machine into battle then? Yes, I like apocalypse now. Then to the is going to ride in the karaoke machine into battle singing, singing into it. Yeah.

What song would you be singing in riding into battle? Go on a karaoke machine. War.

What is it good for? Sing some Beach Boys.

I'm picking up good vibrations. No, it's got to be Let's Go Surfing now. Riding that one into battle would really throw the enemies off. Let's go surfing now where everybody's learning.

No, I'll do that. I'll tell you what I'll do. That bring your jukebox money.

What?

Love Shack? Yeah. That guy with his funny voice. Your jukebox money and a love shack. I would do love shack. That would throw them well off.

That would be amazing.

What is this?

Riding into battle.

What is this love shack?

It's coming. It's a little old place where we can go.

We're all going to go to the love shack.

So he goes home. He adds the photo of her at a party to his little photo album. Knock on the door and it's his buddies who are all still working in the industry, security.

One of his buddies, he's got four buddies there and you know, some of them from movies here and there. One of them, this is a fact that I learned from when I first watched this movie back in the day. I was so happy because I looked at it and I was like, I know that guy, right? One of his mates is the werewolf in Fright Night Part 2 and is the werewolf in Monster Squad.

Yeah, I believe that's John Grease.

He's in loads of shit. This just remind me, right? My amazing mash up film idea.

Oh yeah.

This is, everybody, settle yourselves down, but buckle your seat belts if you're driving, hopefully they're already buckled. Wind up the windows, because your brain is going to be blown. You don't want it flying out the window. You want to keep it contained in your head. I love this. And you can see the movie. You just don't know how it's going to end, but you can definitely see the whole film. Taken, mashed with hostile. It's perfect. It's so good.

So good. Because I was thinking Commando would work well with Rambo. Yeah. What? I don't know how it would work.

Okay. But with this, you can see Liam Neeson going in to hostel.

To find his daughter.

Yeah.

She's in that hostel.

That'd be fucking brilliant.

A lot of weapons in there for him to use. I'd be well good. Be really good.

Anyway, I was excited by that. Let's carry on.

So his buddies show up, who all still work in the security industry that he used to work in. And they have a barbecue and some beers and they have some banter and they all chat. And he says, when they're leaving, they say, look, Brian, you know, you should really come back. There's a job opening. And he's like, I don't want it.

I told you I'm retired. Yeah, because he's trying to he's trying to now get his life back. He's trying to get his daughter back.

He's moved closer to his daughter. Yeah, he's living in his little life, buying his karaoke machines. But then he says, look, it's security for a pop star called She-Ra. And he's like, oh, She-Ra, I used to watch. She-Man when I was a kid. Now he says, She-Ra, hmm, okay. Cause he knows his daughter like She-Ra as well. So he says, okay, I'll do it. So that's it. We cut straight to the next day. Concert, they're the security guys for this big pop star. She's like Beyonce or...

She's in Neighbours, wasn't she?

Yeah, she was, yeah. And she was a pop star as well. As a lot of women from Neighbours were, and men in fact. In fact, if you were in Neighbours, you either went on and starred in Hollywood movies like that guy.

Guy Pearce.

Yeah, that's his name, thanks. Or you went off and became a pop star like Jason Donovan and Kylie Minogue and Holly Valance. And other ones, Craig McLaughlin, many more. So they're on security detail for this She-Ra girl. And they get her inside, he chats to her a bit. He's like, my daughter wanted to be a singer. Do you have any tips for me? Like she's going to say, yes, of course. While I'm about to step on stage to 10 million people.

And he takes it really badly.

He's thinking about, I've got ways I could kill you.

He's thinking to himself.

I spent $99.99 on a karaoke machine. You're telling me it was a waste of time. I wonder if I have the receipt still. He's searching his pocket. So while she's on stage performing.

It's the way she walks out of the room. He's just there going, ah, receipt. And he's always under the pocket of the receipt. That's the scene that was cut.

So him and his buddies are playing cards and chatting while she's on stage performing. His daughter calls him and he says, listen, do you recognize that song? And she's excited because he's like, yeah, I didn't come here. He says, I'm not here in the audience, by the way. I'm working here. Like he would have bought a ticket to see She-Ra and not taken his daughter with him. Like it'd be a bit weird. Like if you phoned your dad, where are you dad? I'm at an Avril Lavigne concert. What?

Yes. When he's with his mates, they're like talking about his daughter and stuff and he can't help but talk about it because he's fucking obsessed by his daughter. And they say, and he's like, she's off to college next year. And they're like, you're going to lose her. And he says, I won't lose her because I'll find her again. And it's like, whoa, dude, like she's going to college. Let her go to college. That's really like he's full on.

I do feel sorry for him because his daughter, when he goes back in the room, he says she's invited me to lunch tomorrow. I know all his buddies are like, yeah, that's just the only thing you've ever wanted is your daughter to interact with you a lot more. We don't realize until the next day, this is all a set up by his ex-wife and his daughter.

And then they do a massive lie to him. So it's like the worst person, the most intense helicopter parent ever to exist. And you're giving them, feeding them the wrong information. Then just drop it at the airport and say, no, that's not what's happening actually. What?

It's just going to make him even more paranoid.

Yeah, it's terrible. But we get to that because he just then, oh, next second, he's like, have a good trip. So, well, okay.

Well, just before that, She-Ra is attacked by a crazy fan. Brian takes out the fan and they sort of get her to safety. And she cries a little bit and he says to her, you're safe now. And she's sort of like, oh, thank you so much. Later on, she thanks him. In her skimpy dressing gown, she gives him a kiss on the cheek. And she says, you said your daughter was into singing. And he's like, I did, yeah. I bought her a karaoke machine and everything. I couldn't find the receipt.

She's a bit much because she's just said she wants to be a singer. My kids all the time, I want to be a YouTuber. Right. Okay.

Yeah.

The next day, it's something totally different. It can she actually sing or is this going to be a total waste of time? Okay. Let's hear you sing. Right. Yeah. I haven't got a shot. I'm afraid. Sorry.

So the next day he meets Kim. Oh, look, her mum's here as well. Oh, I didn't realize you were going to be here. You're here. Yeah. And she says, Look, basically, dad, the reason you're here is I want to go to Paris and I need both my parents' consent to be able to go because I'm only 17. And he's like, I'm not comfortable with this. You're only 17. And he just keeps saying, I'm not comfortable with this. I'm not comfortable with this. I'm not comfortable with this.

All right, childhood trauma.

And he says, she says, she starts crying, Kim does. And his wife says, Jesus Christ, Brian, for God's sake, you're just so overbearing. All she wants is to go to Paris. And he's like, but we didn't, but we didn't talk about it. You've just sprung this on me. And then she gets up to leave and he goes, wait, Kim, I've got a phone number for you. And she goes, I don't want it. I only want one thing and that's to go to Paris. And she runs off.

But he's like, I know the world.

I know Paris.

But at some point, she's going to grow up. She and be able to do this herself. It's just crazy. He's just, I don't know.

Well, he thinks about it and he goes and knocks on the door. And he says, look, you can go to Paris. But here's a list of rules. You've got to ring me 65 times a day. Here's a phone I've given you, which is encrypted, which I can trace and I need to know where you're staying, who you're staying with every last thing about you. And, you know, basically, you might as well just have a tracker on her the whole time. But she's just happy, happy enough that he said yes.

Do you think when it's all finished and one day there, there, she's got a daughter's got over it and stuff, the trauma a little bit. It's all after this movie, like months off this movie, six months off this movie. The mum's there as well. And she's like, I never got to say thank you. And he's like, ha, told you so. I fucking told you so at the restaurant. The world's not a safe place. I fucking told you so.

Maybe.

Did he get it? Did he get that one in there? Cause he should do at least because all that helicopter parenting ended up saving the day.

It did. It did. Well, he says, I also, the other condition is, I'll drive you to the airport. Cause he wants to say goodbye. You know, it's the first time she's leaving the country. So he does. He drives her to the airport and he says that, I just want you to be really, really safe. And she talks a little bit, a bit more exposition. What did you do? You know, I never knew what you did as a, when I was a kid dad. And he just says, I worked for the government as a preventer of bad things.

Following you too, a tour around Europe.

And obviously, because her mom and her stepdad are super rich, she can afford to just fly all over Europe with her buddy and mother. Yeah.

You would think, though, because the dad's so rich, he'd have like a handler would go with them, just keep an eye on them.

It's just it's mental. So she's essentially not a groupie, but she's going to be following them around. Yeah.

I doubt they're getting into like strange groupie sex sessions with you two.

He says to his ex-wife, He must be like, YouTube, I know we used to drink in the same pub. He says to his ex-wife, you are there and you're a bubble in your mansion. You don't know what the real world is like. And she says, well, she won't know what the real world is like, unless we let her go out and see it and experience it. So she's got a point.

Oh, of course.

They tricked him.

But that trick, then, right at the end, just to say that, just at the airport, when it's a go. But then she's told that he's like, you what the hell? Then the next second he's like, have fun. Bye. And he's waving. What?

OK, he's he's fuming, he's fuming.

Well, no, he's not. No, he's not. When he says bye, he actually looks like he's quite innocent.

No, but inside.

I'm sure he must be.

He's bottled it up. They get to Paris, Amanda and Kim. They're literally there for about two minutes and there's a man chatting them up.

This is basically hostile. As soon as I saw this, I was like, this is like hostile.

And I was like, Liam Neeson in hostile. He says to them, it's very busy around here. Why don't you two, where are you from? California. And he goes, Ah, I wish they all could be Californian girls. And they're like, oh, Peter. He says, let's share a taxi.

Pretty slimy.

Basically, this is his way of finding out where they're staying. He even asks what apartment. She's like, the whole fifth floor. My cousins are rich. And then he says, all right, I'll come and pick you up for a party later. He gets on the phone and says, two 17 year old girls from America gives the address, fifth floor.

Yeah.

Basically, the spider has caught a couple of flies.

He cuts a limb, totally panicking in the middle of the night that he hasn't had a phone call that she's landed in Paris. Admittedly, he did say, he's leaving a message or something and she hasn't, but he's now is like, oh my God, oh my God. So he rings up the ex, have you heard from her? And she's like, no, I haven't. Wakes her up and stuff. She'll be all right.

But then Kim Kim gives him a kit or call in the end, thank God. And thank God she did because lo and behold, she's on the phone to him.

This is all this is. This is when watching this movie. This is when it's quite the first time watching it. It's quite fun here because. It's almost a safety bracket, you know, like I like when the cops turn up or something happens as a safety figure there. We know Liam Neeson is the one who's going to save and look after. Even though he's not there, we've got him on the phone discussing with her and giving her advice.

It's almost a bit like a horror movie as well because. Yeah, it's a really quick way to shock.

You could change it into a horror movie.

Because she's on the phone to her dad and she sees her buddy Amanda dancing through two windows. So on the other side of the apartment. And then suddenly she goes, oh my God, dad, there's men here. There's men here. And he's like, what, the cousins? And she's like, no, they're not here. They're in Italy. Oh my God, dad, there are men here. Oh my God. And then she sees them grab Amanda and she's like, they grabbed her. They grabbed her and he goes, oh my God, listen to me.

And then we get this. On his face, you can see, obviously, helicopter parent there, listening to his daughter be kidnapped. He can really, like, in his face, you can see just like the panic in there at the moment, sort of weakness, if that makes sense.

It's a really great piece of acting from Liam Neeson. And then we get the classic. Everybody knows it, but I'm going to do it anyway. And I'm not going to do it in Liam's voice. It's very good. But it's got to be done. There's a little moment where somebody clearly picks up the phone, her phone, and Liam Neeson waits. Then he says, all he says is coldly, I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. But if you're looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have any money.

Yeah, a long time ago. I'll have to watch it again.

Because it kind of reverses it almost, because he's weak at the moment, because his daughter's been kidnapped. Then he flips it and turns it into a threat about...

Yeah, that sounds good.

Get her back.

I'll have to watch it again, yeah.

Yeah, it's great. Great movie. And that is the scene that's inspired a billion memes and gifs, but it's great stuff. Yeah, so it's on now.

It goes to the ex's house and it goes in and says she's been taken. And she's like, Oh my God, I would have a million questions. What do you mean she's been taken? Taken by who? Where? What happened? What do you mean? You were just burst in the middle of the night. What do you mean? Taken. Explain. She's just like, Oh no, but obviously it's a 90 minute movie. We don't have time to talk.

He says to her new husband, Stuart, he says, right, do you have any enemies? You've done this, this and this trait. And he's like, how do you know my details? It's like, do you really think I'd let my daughter live with just anyone without doing an extensive search in their history? And he goes, okay. And he goes, don't worry, I'll get her back. And he says, what do you need? What do you need? And he says, you own an airline company, get me a plane to Paris.

When?

Tomorrow. Yesterday. Yeah.

And he's looking around the daughter's room, trying to find anything, which would give him some tips. I don't know what he's looking for, but OK. So he gets a plane to Paris. The next thing we actually. Oh, his mate rings up and tells him all about. He said to him, like, you know, can you listen to this? Obviously, give me information. His mate comes back with an info check on on basically the people who have taken his daughter and says that it's just a group.

And he says she described that she's shouted tattoos. They've all got tattoos on their hands. They're part of this Albanian gang. And she shouted, and I heard one of the voices. We've analyzed it. And it's a guy called Marco. And he was last seen here, here and here. So he's even got some information on like the guy. So friends and high places, Liam Neeson has already got quite a lot of information.

And we cut to a shot of him on the plane, listening to his Dictaphone, just saying, good luck, over and over and over obsessively, to the point it's like, oh my God, this eternal anger is with good luck.

He gets to Paris, he goes to the apartment, he searches here.

He gets to Paris and starts doing parkour. He just starts flucking, jumping all over the place. What is going on with you?

He's climbing around the window to get in.

I reckon he's a methad. Methad?

I'm a methad.

Methad.

He builds a picture of what happens.

He kind of does slow parkour, to be honest. He's kind of a bit slow, just kind of from a window sill to a window sill.

I'm going to jump from this tree onto this. Slowly.

Very slowly. Yeah.

It's about how you do it, not how fast you do it. He builds a picture of what happened in the room. He finds the phone. He takes the memory card from the phone and looks at the pictures that are on it. And he finds a picture of Amanda and Kim that Peter took. And he can see Peter's reflection. So he zooms in on this guy. And he thinks, right, this is the, he knows the routine. He knows that this is probably the guy that's the spotter at the airport. So he looks around the airport.

I like at house when he did, he even got under the bed to listen to the dictaphone.

Just so you can read it for his daughter.

It's a bit much.

That's all good. It's believable. So yes, he sees Peter and he grabs, Brian grabs him.

Very quickly. Just before this, he finds a memory card.

I've said that.

Yeah, I know. But when he zooms in on the memory card, it's like this is like what? A couple of megapixels. It had been shit. He manages to zoom over, zoom right in and then get high def to know who is. That is absolutely incredible for like a smallest little reflection. That is just amazing technology.

Well, he knows this pizza guy's face now. So he goes to the airport and he sees him doing the same routine with another woman, like a Dutch woman or something.

In a taxi.

Let's get a taxi together. But before she can get in, Brian grabs him, beats the shit out of him. Another huge black guy shows up and Brian just pummels him as well.

Taxi driver is like, fuck this shit. So then the guy who's been up at that point has run off. So he gets in taxi and he's like, I must fucking take the taxi.

Yep. He chases him, chases Peter.

He doesn't. Peter is not very good at choosing what to do to get out of situations.

But he jumps off a bridge onto a lorry, which is pretty Jackie Chan, decent.

Yeah.

But then when he gets off the lorry, he doesn't remember that he's still in the middle of a really high, high speed freeway. And unfortunately, he gets final destination by a big truck.

He does. So that info line has been flattened.

So that's that. Can't get any more out of that guy. And we now meet Jean-Claude, not Van Damme.

JC.

But it would be amazing if Jean-Claude was in this.

He's like an old pal, basically.

He's like, he says, hello, Jean-Claude. And he's like, oh, God, if you're in time, it's all going to go tits up, isn't it, Liam? Jesus Christ. And he's like, I thought you were a friend and I need to ask you some help. My daughter has been taken and I've got 96. Well, I did have 96 hours. I've now got 80 hours to find her.

This is another movie where I watched him breaking bad. It happened in there. Someone died and they just went, yeah, and said, did you kill him? They didn't say anything. It's like, listen here, this J. John Claude was like, so, oh, what the spotter? He's dead. What about Peter? And he says, what, you killed him? And he just doesn't say anything. He doesn't need to just let them think that he's murdered. He could be like, he jumped to his death. I didn't actually kill him.

Now, obviously, if you're listening to this review, you'll know this, but Jean-Claude, it turns out, we will find this out probably later, is actually a bit of a bastard because he is basically taking bribes and letting the Albanians do whatever they want because he now works behind a desk. And as he says later on, I work behind a desk for somebody behind a bigger desk. I take what I get, I get for my pay. And if I get extra pay to look after my family, then so be it.

In another country, this was known as 96 Hours.

That's a pretty decent title. 48 Hours, the sequel, 96 Hours. Brian picks up a translator. He says, are you the man that wanted an Albanian translator? He says, yes, I am. OK, and what do you need me to translate? How much do you charge? He says, right, here's enough for 10 hours.

Does he think he's getting into some gay situation?

He says, what do you mean? And he says, how much do you charge? He says, wait here.

That's your job right now is to wait here. Yeah, I don't understand.

He goes up to the guy's like trying to sell himself as well. He goes, yes, I translate Albanian, Algerian. And he starts listing.

He's very innocent, isn't he?

I don't give a shit as long as you can translate Albanian. And then he goes off to speak to a sex worker. He leaves the Albanian translator in the car and he goes over to her and his premise here is basically he's here to get the pimp to come out, to cause a bit of a ruckus so that he can sort of figure out where the pimp is, who the pimp is, and they can listen in to him. So he goes up to her and he's asking lots of questions like, am I allowed to kiss you on the mouth?

Can we do that?

Will you suck my toes? Are we able to do anything like that? If I bought a strap on, would you be interested in pegging me? He doesn't say any of that, but it'd be brilliant if he does. Anyway, she keeps saying to him, look, the more you talk to me, the less time I've got to grab one of my customers.

Well, guys are coming up to her and then just driving off. And she says, oh, for God's sake, she's realized that he's useless. So basically, he's trying to annoy her to the point that a pimp's going to come along because he wants to put a bug on the pimp. And that's what he does.

That's what he does. Because the pimp takes 100 euros off him and says, I take 50 and 50 for you being an asshole. And then Liam gets back in the car with the translator and he says, who's super like, I'm really confused by this.

Like, you're just annoying, like, talking to you. You want me to watch you talk to sex workers and then get almost beaten up by pimps. I don't know what's going on.

Am I going to be in a threesome with you in the sex worker? I don't know what's happening here. But he basically, his jaw blasts about five seconds because he says, what are they talking about? He says, they're talking about football. They're talking about you. Now they're talking about a warehouse.

And he says, are you sure you want to just keep this thing? Tell me, okay.

And then he says, right, you can get out of the car now. I've got everything I need. Oh, where's my Albanian dictionary? And he gives him that as well. He says, see you later. And the guy's like, I've just earned 10 hours worth of pay for sitting in a car and telling a guy five seconds worth of information. But I'll take it. Pretty decent, but scary. And almost almost got into a threesome, telling his wife about it later on.

I think I almost got into a threesome, love.

With Liam Neeson, which had been with threesome with Liam Neeson. That rhymes nice, isn't it?

And a neesom.

A threesome.

Whatever, carry on.

So we are now on a construction site, and this is where the pimp is. And this is where they keep a lot of the girls.

It's all really grubby with like a little tent. It's squared areas up between dividing the sex workers. It's horrible.

They're all on drugs, they're all on heroin. And it's really sad, actually. And this is probably quite realistic. So Liam gets in the queue of the punters. He goes in and he just starts pulling back all the curtains trying to find his daughter. He finds her jacket and he says to the girl, where did you get this?

Where did you get this?

Where did you get this coat? All she keeps saying, so sad, she's on so much drugs, she just keeps saying, I'm good. I'm really good. I'm really good. She's been like, you know, brainwashed to just tell people that she's really good in bed. It's awful. Then there's a bit of a fight and a shootout. He beats up a few guys, escapes in a truck with the girl. Because he wants to sober her up to get more information out where his daughter is. Excuse me. And the car chase, it goes on for quite a while.

It's kind of like raw dill through the sort of or even, I guess, Tango and Cash through the sort of area, the location.

It is a bit. Yeah, it is Tango and Cash, actually.

Raw dill is the same at the end.

Well, the pimp ends up getting beheaded by JCB. He just drives into it and it takes the top of the car off. And therefore, I assume, his head. Meanwhile, Jean-Claude gets a call from the cop saying, Your buddy Brian has been blowing up pimps and beheading them and rescuing sex workers. So what the fuck do we do about this? Brian switches cars. He takes the girl to a hotel. He makes an IV for her to get the drugs out of her system. And there's a phone call. Jean-Claude, he wants to meet him.

He's taking, I know you already said it, but he's taking that girl to the hotel. Because he goes in first, chats to the guys. Oh, nice to see you again. Yeah, room. Then he goes back out and comes back in with an unconscious teenage girl. It's going to be a question. Like surely.

It's also the kind of hotel that probably isn't very, you know, it's probably quite normal. Yeah, you know what I mean?

Yeah. What the hell do you want?

What do you think? I want you mean old bastard. I want a room.

She comes to, because she's been on Drip and stuff, and he's been sorting her out and talks about the jacket. And then he goes to her house, doesn't he?

Yeah, she gives him an address as to where she was. She says Paradise. I think it was called Paradise. So he goes there and he pretends to be Jean-Claude. He bursts in. He's got some bollocks on him, hasn't he? He walks in and he goes, where's your boss? And there's just this place is just...

He kind of comes across as that. He could play that character fairly well. So he could, he's fairly like, you can imagine, yeah, he's quite straight in there, very positive stern. He's quite a big guy and neatly dressed. Yeah, he could be a bent cop, a bent copper. Do you know what I mean?

Well, this place is basically full of dodgy Albanian gangsters, but he doesn't give a shit. He walks around going, get your boss. I want to speak to him now. Where's Marco? Get me. So he goes up into the sort of kitchen where these four or five guys are sat. And like we said earlier, he scans the room straight away. He sees everything that's in there. He looks at all of their hands with the tattoos on them. And he basically says, here's what we're going to do.

I think he's worked out from the people talking who he thinks it is.

Yeah.

So he gives it to this one particular person. And he just says, good luck. And as soon as he does it, he's like, right, that's it. I'm kicking ass.

He says, you don't remember me, do you? I spoke to you two days ago on the phone. I told you I would find you. And the guy's like, oh, fuck.

And then he just kills everybody.

Kills everybody except Marco. He literally walks around the house, taking out every single guy, comes back in to find Marco. Marco wakes up in a bad place. He's got two spikes in his legs, and he's wired him up to the mains, the electricity.

I know this is where he just starts discussing about different terrains and different territories and places where the current's not very good and it's really annoying. You start torturing someone and then just the current's not there, and it's just no use. But here's good. The current's really good. It's stable. You can throw anything at it and it'll just keep going. It's like, oh my god.

And we should also mention when he was killing those bad guys, he found Amanda dead. Kim's best friend, Amanda, was dead in a bed. Oh, deed. So he's got that drive now because he thinks, shit, time is ticking here. Yeah. So Marco tells him a little bit of information. And he says to her, what did you do? He says, we sold her, we sold. He says, you sold my daughter. Obviously, you don't want to tell Liam Neeson that. And he gives him a name, St. Clair. We sold him to a guy called St. Clair.

Yeah.

Let's keep this guy. Oh, baby. Jean-Claude's at home. He gets home. And who's dropped by, Gav, when he gets home from work?

Hey, it's your old buddy, Liam.

Brian's here. And his wife's like, oh, Brian, he's told me all about how you guys used to work together. He's told me that he wants to buy a place in Paris. He's a great guy. We've been chatting a lot. So he's really, like, been sweet talking the wife. And she says, oh, put the kids to bed first. Like, extra stress, because putting the kids to bed is stressful. So Jean-Claude's got Brian in his house. And now he's got to put his kids to bed, which he does. He grabs his gun from the bathroom.

I do like that though, because she's just like at five seconds ago, like, oh, are you all right? How's it going? This is nice, isn't it?

He says, give me the information on Patrice St. Claire or I'll put a bullet through your wife's head. And the last and that'll be the last thing that you ever see before I make your kids orphans. Well. Let that sink in.

Yeah.

And then when he leaves with the information, he says, thanks, Jean-Claude, apologize to your wife for me. Wow. Oh, Brian says sorry, by the way, lovely. All right. He says sorry for shooting you in the arm. So we're coming up to the end already. It moves at a rapid pace, this film, doesn't it? Brian Gate crashes a big party. He knocks out a security guard, puts the body in a closet and works his way through a few more guys. Into the buying room.

It's an auction for a human trafficking.

Yep. And they're bidding on girls.

He's pretending to be the person who's giving wine to the person who's sitting in a chair, drinking wine, all looking all suave, clicking basically yes to when they want to bid.

It's like a young, slick, Arab guy who works for the big, big boss we find out later on. And he's bidding on what he thinks his boss would like. What sort of girls would my boss like this week? And they bring out one last girl.

Luckily, he steps in just at the time when his daughter comes out. It's very, very handy for him.

And he says to the guy, buy her, buy her now. And he makes him...

Put a gun to his neck, yeah.

And we get the voice over saying, sold, sold. And just as you think he's got his daughter back...

When he does that, I feel like he should have just stomped in there, just fucking take it and just start shooting everyone. I don't know why he just hesitated and said, buy her, just stomp the fuck in there and do it.

I guess his plan... Because it doesn't work, though.

He fucks up in a second. He fucks up. He's knocked out.

I guess his plan was probably to go with the Arab guy to collect the girls, get his daughter and then get her out of there. But like you say, it doesn't work because as soon as he steps out of the room, because he's killed about six guys on his way there, they've all been alerted to it. Yeah. So he gets knocked out and he wakes up, tied up. He says, what are you... They say to him, don't know what the hell you're doing here, buddy, but you're not wanted here and this is all business.

When he got knocked out, I thought to myself, ah, midpoint turn. Then I looked at it and went, nope, we've got 18 minutes of the film left. Like, Jesus Christ.

Yeah. And the guy says to him again, this is all business. This is all business.

When he's tied up, it's very rigs and lethal weapon, isn't it?

Yeah. Except Endo wasn't there electrocuting him.

Yeah.

Well, he breaks off the pipe, knocks a guy out, fights his way out, confronts Sinclair and says, where is she? Where is she? And he says, she's on a boat. But listen, you don't have to kill me. It was all business. It's just business. And he goes, it was all personal to me. It just blows him away. Yeah. He chases the Arab that brought his daughter all the way to the docks. And he sees them getting on a yacht with the girls. So he steals a car, he follows the boat.

And he's like, what's funny here is all of a sudden, out of nowhere, this guy who hasn't been in the movie whatsoever has nothing to do with the story at all. And the boss guy and the guy who was at auction turn into the big bad people like he's been after them the whole time. He just goes on this boat and just starts killing all these people. That guy was just like, I just sent him off there to get a woman for me.

Well, Brian, like you said, jumps on the boat, he fights his way along the boat, taking out loads of guys. The girls get brought into the boss and they say there's someone on the boat. We don't know who he is. Let's take him out. So they go off. They're trying to fight back. He fights the younger bio guy.

Who out of anyone he has to pick, this guy can almost fight Liam back.

And he's got a giant knife as well.

Yeah. So it's just really strange. I wish it had just been more him trying to get his daughter back. And that was the ending. Do you know what I mean? It's weird that it just flips into this whole other thing on a boat. It's OK, but I don't know, it's a bit strange.

It's quite a satisfying death, though, because he kills the guy with a champagne bottle, doesn't he?

Yeah.

Sort of bottles him in the chest with it. And then he walks into the main bedroom to find the big fat guy with a knife to Kim. And he says, it's quite cool, actually. He says, listen, we can negotiate. And before he can even finish the word, Liam Neeson just blows him away.

He does, yeah. Which is like commando, when they're about to start talking and he just shoots. It's very, very strange coincidences. Just before, when he's having a fight on the boat with some people for about 40 seconds, some really bad techno just comes in. Out of nowhere, there's no techno for this whole soundtrack. All of a sudden, there's just some techno comes in there. For no reason at all. It's really out of place.

I feel like there were a lot of movies that were happening around Paris at the time that had that kind of soundtrack, like the Bourne movies. There was a couple of Jet Li movies that took place in France as well.

You did it around mid 90s. Yeah, you're definitely in taxi in those sorts of films. But that's not, Techno is not at any other point in the film. When it comes in, it's really odd.

Well, as RJ said, it's mainly a haunting piano loop, really. Apart from this little bit of Techno. But I guess named Neeson, you know, he needs that to fight the bad guys.

Should have gone Commando, where all of a sudden there's just no music for a minute and a half. And it's like, this is weird. But you should listen to that again. Go back to Commando and just watch that last little bit when the music cuts out. It's really odd.

Yeah, I'll have to check that out.

You could put your own music into it if you wanted.

His daughter says, you came for me. And he says, I told you I would. She cries. They hug. And then we don't see how he gets her home on a plane, but he does. He avoids all the rest, gets her back to America. She's reunited with the mum at the airport. And Lenore thanks him. And his daughter says, I love you, dad.

What happened? Did he just hop off the boat full of dead people for it just to carry on going to some people to find a boat full of dead people? What happened? How did he get out of this situation and not get arrested at the airport?

I guess he probably called Sean Claude and said, you need to get us home now.

I guess he must have got a private jet straight away, but it's just very weird. How did he got away with that?

Well, just when you think that's the end, because in the 80s, it would have ended there. But this, we get a little extra scene.

Well, when he comes off the airport, it looks like Liam's just had a nice weekend away in Europe. But he's got a bit of an arm and a sling. That's it. So you've just slaughtered so many people.

Like, 50 people.

And had so many fights. But you just look like you've just had a nice weekend away.

Also, your best friend's daughter OD'd in a sex house. Dead. But you've got to explain that to her parents. Yeah. But at the very end, there's a knock on the door, and he's with it, and he's like, Dad, where are we? And he's like, you're going to like this, I promise. Remember that karaoke machine? This is even better. And who should open the door? But She-Ra. And she says, I have the... Oh, no, sorry, that's the other She-Ra. She says, Oh, welcome. Your dad tells me you like singing.

It does the job. It's 90 minutes. It flies through. I just wish... I don't know why the last 18 minutes include like a new boss, some Arab boss on a boat. I don't know, that's a bit weird, but it was good.

It's kind of like a video game where you complete the last level and then you get a boneless boss to fight.

It was just odd. But yeah, thumbs up. It's a fantastic film. I've watched it. That's probably my fourth time, maybe. It's an enjoyable film.

The sequel is all right.

It was OK. And then the third one is just really bad.

Yeah, it's a shame because this was gold dust. It should have just been left as one, really.

Yeah. And I feel like that with a lot of them like John Wick. I think you should just have one John Wick. Yeah. And I do appreciate the John Wick movies, but if I was going to watch a John Wick movie, I'm going to go, I'd watch the first one because that's quite fun. And it does have a wrap up. You could watch that as a solo movie. Go kill. Wicked.

I rewatched the fourth one again the other day, and it is two and a half hours long, but I do enjoy it.

I still don't know if I've seen it or not. I can't tell.

It's the one with the steps where he fights his way up the steps.

Oh yeah, no, I have seen it.

And then falls back down, so he has to fight his way all the way back up.

Poor Orc, yeah. Right, let's get out of here.

Yes, we'll come back for the outro.

And we're back again.

Back again. So that was episode 176, Taken and Commando. Thank you to our king patron, RJ McCready, for selecting you.

Thank you, thank you. It's a nice, appreciated films to review.

Yeah, we always love to chat about things that are slightly off the grid of horror. So I'm gonna take the crying back now. Polish that up, put that away. Thank you, RJ. Well, that was that episode. Let's talk about what's coming up, Gav. OK. And on next episode, episode 177, Get Your Ketchup At The Ready. Maybe a fried egg as well, if you want, because we are having a bacon sandwich.

I was like, where's he going?

Kevin Bacon. It's a Kevin Bacon special because he's dabbled in horror and he's a unique actor. And he started off in Friday the 13th. So we're going to be looking at 1990s Tremors. Big monster worms. Good creature feature. We haven't done one of those for a while. And we're pairing that up with the very similar to The Sixth Sense, same year, 1999's Stir Of Echoes. Great movie. And we'll talk all about Kevin Bacon, seven degrees of bacon and all that kind of stuff.

I am a fan of both of those films.

Yeah. He's good and he plays a good baddie in some films he's in as well. So we'll talk about all of that. After that, it's a director's special. Where's Craven? And we're looking at screen two and screen three. From 97 and 2000.

I need to see. I need to pick up on Blu-ray. I think I've got one and two.

I can get three. Yeah, that's going to be fun. After that is another... But as yet, I have no more information to give you, because I am awaiting information from said patron. So it's a mystery as to what that episode will be. OK. I can tell you what the episode after that is if you want. Just to keep you... To wet your whistle, as it were. Go on then. OK. Episode 180, which will be coming after that, is...

180!

It's returning back to the Chance Play franchise. We'll be doing Chucky 5 and Chucky 6.

OK.

Climbing our way through those bad boys. So we've got a lot of stuff coming up. And obviously, as we get closer and closer to the summer, we'll be having our annual Jason double bill as well. So that'll be cool.

I found a thing.

Here we go. Hopefully, that came out for the listeners. Yeah, there we go, Liam Neeson singing ish. So that's what's coming up. We've got Kevin Bacon, Wes Craven, an unknown patron pick, followed by a double bill of Chucky movies. Cool. Lots of good stuff coming up.

Yeah. Nice. Getting there to the 200s.

Yes, I know. And like I say, we're getting close to our summer special where we'll be covering the two more Jason movies.

And thank you to our, sorry, Carol.

No, go on.

And thank you to our patrons, obviously, because with you, non-patrons, you can thank the patrons for episodes being out because it is life is busy at the moment. So it's really nice that we can do these episodes for you guys.

Indeed. Okay. Well, let's do some ice keeping. And then we will say good night and goodbye. And we'll say good luck. So we have been and always will be the Podcasts on Haunted Hill, a proud member of Legion Podcasts Network, and also falling under the deadbolt media umbrella. If you want to know more about Legion Podcasts, just goto LegionPodcasts.com You can find our show and all our past episodes, as well as all the other shows on the network and all their past episodes too.

Yeah, there's so many projects on the go. Yeah, loads of things. Amanda, please check out Amanda.

Go to Deadbolt Films on YouTube. That's our YouTube channel. Watch Amanda, leave a comment, like it, share it, tell us what you think. There's other bits and bobs on the YouTube channel as well. And our website is deadboltfilms.com And our Instagram handle is DeadboltFilms, or one word. Finally, as mentioned, we are on Patreon. We really appreciate our patrons. We'll get into who they are in just a moment.

Obviously, a choice. Weird.

I like that, though. That's cool. I like it when rappers do that. What else do you get if you're a patron? Oh, you get sometimes you get our episodes exclusively early. You get our entire back catalogue is now on Patreon and you can sometimes get exclusive content as well. So loads of that stuff on there. You'll also get your name read out at the end of each episode. So I will be thanking all of our patrons now by name. But not as Liam Neeson.

Thank you so much. We do really massively appreciate it.

I will find you all and I will love you. We will find you and give you new episodes. So, yeah, that's it.

That's it. Thanks for coming along as always, ladies and gents, non-genders and aliens and Bigfoots and everything else in the world, Loch Ness Monsters, Nessie, everything. Thank you.

And remember, if you go on a holiday to Paris with your friend, call your dad as soon as you land.

Do.

Please. And if you're feeding ice cream to your dad in the woods.

Oh, did it.

Ah, a little bit on the end of his nose. It always makes him laugh. Oh, good. Get the ice cream on me. Thank you for listening to the podcast on Haunted Hill.

We will be back again real soon.