Mad About Mads

This week on Pass, Pirate, Pay, we dive deep into the intense, magnetic world of Mads Mikkelsen with a triple feature that spans brutality, survival, and raw human emotion.

First up, we trek through the haunting, dialogue-light Viking odyssey Valhalla Rising, where myth and madness blur in the mist. Then we head to the rugged frontier of The Promised Land, a story of grit, ambition, and one man’s battle against both nature and society. Finally, we close with the devastating and all-too-real The Hunt, a chilling look at how quickly a life can unravel when suspicion takes hold.

Three films, three unforgettable performances—does Mikkelsen earn a Pay across the board, or do any of these fall into Pirate or Pass territory? Tune in as we break it all down.

Check us out at www.passpiratepay.com

Transcript

Valhalla Rising

SPEAKER_03 0:15

Hello, everybody. Welcome once again to Pass Pirate Pay, the movie discussion show. My name is Ken. I'm your host, alongside my co-host Andy. Andy, how are you doing? I'm doing pretty good. All right. That's good to hear. So we got a bit of an interesting episode today. It's going to be listener-sponsored content.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Yeah, well, listen listener advised. Yeah, sponsored not so much. Yeah, you know. If long gives us some money, then we'll we could say sponsored.

SPEAKER_03 0:42

Yeah. Listener advised content, let's go with. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, one of our listeners, uh, Jeopardy Champion Long Win. Yeah. Uh we we uh came across him, found out he uh was listener to our show, made a bit of a comment about how why don't we do some good movies? Why do we do good movies? So uh you asked him what a what a good movie would be for us to do. Yeah. Uh and he selected uh for you Valhalla Rising. Uh-huh. So here we are today. We're gonna be doing a trio of movies featuring the inimitable Mads Mickelson. I'm gonna call it Mad About Mads. Oh, I like it. You know, uh everyone's favorite Bond villain and uh Danish weaver. Chifre, right? Yeah. So yeah, we got uh in addition to Valhalla Rising, we have the The Hunt and The Promised Land. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

So yeah, those those are gonna be the three movies that we're gonna do. So getting into Mads Medical Center a little bit, did you watch Hannibal? I didn't. So I watch Hannibal. I'm a big Silence of the Lambs Hannibal Lecter. I like all that stuff. Yeah, I I'm I mean I love the Silence of the Lambs, but none of the Jason stuff is. Yeah, I liked all of it, right? So this kind of is like Red Dragon era. Okay. Hannibal, so he's not in jail.

SPEAKER_03 1:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

And the detective who was in Red Dragon, yeah, uh Ed Norton played him, I think, in the movie. Red Dragon is a prequel, right? Right, Red Dragon is a prequel. Okay. That's how Hannibal Lecter gets busted. Okay. Right? Will uh Will something, that detective busts him, that character.

SPEAKER_03 2:15

Fair enough.

SPEAKER_01 2:16

So this is all about le all that leading up to Silence of the Lambs. Okay. That show, I think it was on NBC, right? And it was vile. It was so over the top, crazy, crazy gross. All right. I forget the guy, Brian Glazer, I think. There's a certain dude who was the showrunner who has done movies and stuff.

SPEAKER_02 2:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

And it was so disgusting. I I could not believe that they were showing this on like primetime ass, like right after SVU. Yeah, that's crazy. You know, it was really gross. And what was really cool about the show is the food. All right. So like Hannibal Lecter is his food enthusiast, right? And he's cooking people, but he's also doing like regular stuff. Yeah, fava beans, candy, the whole thing. All of his regular stuff is also like really creepy looking and insanely awesome. All right. Right. And I'm like, who is doing the food for this show? Because like it's like a star of the show. Yeah. Every episode had like a dish, and one of them had like combating eels. Okay. That he had that people ate the eels. It was so cool, man. Everything, and I found out Jose Andres was in charge of the food. That's funny. On the show. It was it was crazy. All right. It was great. It was not very good. Yeah. But it was a it was an insane show for violence and crazy looking, awesome, weird, disgusting food. So yeah, that's my kind of introduction to Mads Mickelson.

SPEAKER_03 3:47

Yeah, I don't have much of a history with Mads. Uh I uh like I said, I I he's in Casino Royale, right? That's the Bond movie he's in. Yeah. So I've seen that. Rogue One, obviously, and another round, which came out uh, you know, as that's a Danish language movie that came out a few years ago. But I think those are the only only Mads I've ever uh experienced before we get into these three.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 4:10

So yeah, not a lot of history. I just know him as uh I I look at him and I see his face and I'm like, that's uh that's a creepy dude.

SPEAKER_01 4:17

He is a creepy dude. He's a great actor, though.

SPEAKER_03 4:19

Yeah, yeah, I think he's good. He's definitely good. I'm a really good actor. Yeah. All right, so yeah, you wanna know you want to dive right in? Sure, let's go. All right, let's go for it. Let's start with Long's pick. Let's go with uh chronologically correct. It is the chronologically the first, but this week we're gonna we're gonna uh we're gonna diverge from our usual trick of uh of chronological order for reasons that will become clear. Fair enough. But yeah, we are gonna start with the first one, uh, that is 2009's Valhalla Rising. This movie is directed by Nicholas Winding Reffen. He's the uh uh best known for for directing uh the Ryan Gossing movie Drive. I had no idea. Yeah. And this was the movie he did right before that one. This is this was his uh his last Danish movie before making the jump to uh American screens. Okay. Even though this one's in English. It's it's very Scandinavian, even though all the actors I think are like English or Scottish or something. Okay. Except for Mads, who uh does not speak in this movie. Not ever, right? Not a single word. Okay. He's he's uh he's acting entirely with his eye because he plays a character called One Eye, named because he has one eye. Yeah, uh gross other eye. Yeah, it looks like it's been uh, I don't know, burned shut with the the eye socket where his other eyeball would be. Seems like it's uh it's it's pretty gross. The movie starts with some very ominous-looking text about how the Christians have come to Scandinavia, wherever, wherever they are, and they're chasing the heathens out of town through brutal means. That's our introduction to what's going on. We see Mads as one eye. He is chained up, he's being kept as some sort of gladiator slave. Yeah. Where in the mountains of where are they? I can't, I I can't really tell. All I it's it just like somewhere in Scandinavia. Okay. I don't know, Denmark, Sweden, I don't know exactly where, Norway, I don't know. Okay. We uh were quickly introduced to one eye as like the ultimate badass, right? Like the fights that they have him in are more like you know what bear baiting is so the thing from like uh Shakespearean times and before, where they would have a dog fight a bear, except the bear was chained up. Uh like really just fucking horribly brutal shit that they used to do in in the you know the days before cell phones. But yeah, so in this situation, one eye is the bear. He is like he's fighting against two dudes, he's chained by the throat to a post, and he's just uh like dispatching of these dudes with without really any kind of problem. Yeah, it's like he's that much of a badass. So then the dude who owns him is compelled to sell him to a different dude, but that guy, I guess, didn't get the memo. Speaking of Hannibal Lecter, uh when we're making the transfer of property from of one eye, they didn't get the all the security protocols because he quickly escapes and murders the captors.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

Yeah, and he's out on his own with uh was that he disemboweled the yeah, he like there's a really awful disembowelment there.

SPEAKER_03 7:22

He disembowels a guy with his bare hands? Like, I don't it crazy. Like he just like we see him dig his fingers into the guy's guts and just rip his entire all of his intestines out. There's a lot of the early part of this movie is a lot of really disgusting violence.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

Yeah, there's like really gross Maz Bergles are very comfortable with ultraviolence.

SPEAKER_03 7:45

Yes, he is. Uh but yeah, so now he's out on his own. There's a there's a little blonde-haired boy who is following him around. Um, he had been responsible for feeding the slaves when uh when when one eye was enslaved. Yeah. So now he's like he's just, you know, Mads is, I guess, kind of looking out for him. I don't know, I don't really know what's going on. But anytime anybody needs to know anything about one eye, the little boy speaks for him because one eye is not capable of speech.

SPEAKER_01 8:14

So before we go any further, do we ever find out where one eye stands? Like, is he a Christian? Is he a Scandinavian? Are the are the bad guys Christians? Like, I I I got kind of lost on that. So the people I don't know what one eye is.

SPEAKER_03 8:30

The people who are enslaving him at the beginning, they're Vikings. You know, they like they they uh worship Norse gods and stuff. Okay, because they're actually And they're being driven out by the Christians. They're being driven out by the Christians. So then when One Eye and the little boy uh come upon a group of Christians, they're like, Oh, we should kill this guy because the Christians, when we meet the Christian, the first time we meet Christians in this movie, we see them in front of like a pile of burning bodies, and then there's a group of naked women chained together like a harem. Something went down, and but we never see these women again ever. But it's just like, okay, so it's pretty clear that this movie doesn't want us to think very good things about Christians because that's how we're introduced to the so-called Christian characters. Yeah, yeah. I certainly have no problem with that. But yeah, um, because one eye never talks, we don't really know if the the Vikings had enslaved him because he was a Christian, or if there was just like inter-tribal shit going on, and then the Christian showed up, and he but we don't really know. We don't know anything about One Eye, he's a total cipher because he never speaks, we never have any idea. But the Christians are like, hey, you're a really good warrior. We're on our way to Jerusalem to go murder some Muslims and take back the Holy Land. Why don't you come with us? So then they get on this like really tiny sailboat and they're gonna sail from wherever they are to Jerusalem. That's the plan. And uh eventually they get lost in this fog and for what is probably a really long time. It seems like a really long time. They're they're convinced that they're gonna die of thirst because there's no wind, there's no the there's a a dense mist covering everything, so they have no idea where they are, and they're just drifting. And at one point, so the Christians are like, Oh, it's that little boy, let's go kill him, and somebody goes to kill him, and one eye is obviously not having that. So, you know, quickly murders the guy who's gonna do it, and it's like, okay, I guess we're not gonna kill the kid. Um, but then for reasons we don't really understand, at some point one eye decides to take a sip of the water that they're in, and it's like, oh, we're now in fresh water. I don't know how this happened, but it went from being out at sea to being a river uh in a river somewhere. They don't know where they are, we don't know where they are. Right. And then they're just on land in a strange place, and the the Christian guys are like, This is New Jerusalem. We're gonna make this a haven for ourselves. And there are some non-Christian people there that are that are trying to murder them, and eventually all of the Vikings end up dead. Well, the Christians, whatever. They're all dead, and that's the whole movie. Right. Um, so this movie is an hour and a half long. For all of the things that happen in it, it could have been like 20 minutes. Like, it is a very, very slow-moving movie. Like with bursts of energy, yeah, for sure. Like things happen. This like Nicholas Winding Reffen is very clearly like he's aggressively directing this movie. Yeah, it is very, very stylistic. Uh and it is like like there's a lot of like cool-looking shots, like beautiful nature shots. Yeah, yeah. But then, but then there's like weird cuts to like a uh negative, like a photo negative shots of mads with red tinted face, and it just gives it seem like flashbacks, yeah, or something. But we don't really know. Nothing, it's never really explained. It seems to me very clearly that he's like trying to make something that is very artistic, but to me, it's just like it's messy. It's just like, I don't know, this is a humorless movie about a badass dude, which is a genre of movie that has existed for quite some time, yeah, and it is not one of which I am a fan.

SPEAKER_01 12:07

Yeah, I I had fun with some of it. Yeah. Uh I thought all the action scenes and all the gore in it was kind of fun. Yeah. I thought that was all done pretty well. Some of it came out of nowhere. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. It was it was kind of unexpected and fun. But yeah, I I thought that plot-wise, it's a little bit of a mess. It felt kind of like a student film.

SPEAKER_03 12:26

Yeah, I I honestly don't really understand. I mean, I like I I don't care if you want to make something non-plot driven. That's obviously my thing. Uh-huh. Uh, but I really don't know what happens at the end of this movie. I don't really have an understanding of what the plot uh mechanics are. I I didn't either.

SPEAKER_00 12:44

Spoiler alert. Spoilers for Valhalla Rising Ahead. Skip to minute marker 14 minutes and 34 seconds, or the next chapter. You have been warned.

SPEAKER_03 12:57

Spoiler alert. The ending of this movie is a mystery. Or something. I don't know. Um, but yeah, I don't know. Like, this is the kind of movie that I would that is normally within my wheel in my wheelhouse, you know, where it's just like it's very artistic, it's got a clear directorial vision. Yeah, it looks really good. It looks great, it looks really good, but I don't know. It just it just seems to me like it's all style and there's nothing really there. It's it's I felt so it's pretty empty to me. And and I I wasn't bored, it's very slow moving, but I wasn't I wasn't bored by it. No, not me neither. But I kept thinking to myself, like, come on, all right, I see what you're doing. Just can you try to make this about something instead of it just felt like it never turned the corner?

SPEAKER_01 13:42

Yeah, you know, it felt like it never like got past the first phase.

SPEAKER_03 13:46

Yeah, I just wanted it to be about something, and I never if it was, it never made its meaning clear to me. Um, it just seemed to me like a guy saying, This is gonna be cool. We're gonna this guy's this guy's a badass.

SPEAKER_01 14:01

Gonna rip rip a guy's guts out.

SPEAKER_03 14:03

Yeah, and it was it's it's gonna be awesome. This is gonna be an awesome moves, badass. And it's just like, all right, guy.

SPEAKER_01 14:08

But Drive was really good. Yeah, I like drive a lot. Yeah, I thought drive was really good. Yeah, I like drive a lot. So this if this was his step up, you know, then good move.

SPEAKER_03 14:17

Yeah, yeah, for sure. So yeah, I don't know. Eh, sorry, long. I don't know what I don't know what to tell you. Uh you may not like the choices that uh that we've made uh here on the show, but uh the the feeling is now mutual as far as I'm concerned, anyway.

SPEAKER_01 14:33

All

Valhalla Rising Review

SPEAKER_01 14:34

right. So Ken, are you gonna give Valhalla Rising a pass pirate or pay? It's right on the border for me, but I think it's just a pass. I think it's on the border for me too, but I think I'm gonna go higher. I'm gonna go pirate. Yeah. Um I I think it's I think it's a fun enough badass movie. Yeah. Like when I say badass, I mean the genre to recommend for somebody to watch at home. I see what you're saying, but for me, it's just like, I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 14:59

I feel like uh I could have done something better with an hour and a half of my time, and and I want our listeners to have that same life choice. That works.

The Promised Land

SPEAKER_03 15:18

All right, moving on. Uh, we're gonna go right to 2023 for The Promised Land. Uh, we're gonna be skipping the hunt, but don't worry, our conversation of the hunt is still to come. It's coming. So The Promised Land for 2023 uh is directed by Nikolai Arcel. Did you look up this gentleman's filmography? I did not. Oh, well, I I I have not seen any of his movies, but I know you have. Oh, okay. Yeah, he has directed uh a movie, a little movie called The Dark Tower. Oh no! Oh yes. Oh no. I know this is one of your all-time favorites. I'm glad I didn't know that before I went into this one. So yeah, uh, famously Dark Tower, a seven-book series by Stephen King. Um compacted into one hour and a half piece of shit. This gentleman decided to make into an hour and a half long movie. Um for no one. He made that for no one. That I have never seen it. I have read all the Dark Tower books, but I was warned about how terrible this movie was. And I just lucky goose. Yeah, I decided to heed those warnings. Uh, and I did not see this movie. But yeah, this the Dark Tower just widely reviled by uh pretty much everybody. Everybody.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

Because, see, as someone who's read all the books, yeah, I know the pieces he's trying to cram together. Yeah. And I'm like, what are you doing? Yeah, this is terrible. What are you doing? But as a as a just an onlooker, someone who's just going to the movies to see this Stephen King movie, it must have been the most confusing fucking thing ever. Right. Just all these weird elements and things coming in.

SPEAKER_03 16:52

And it's like, right, because the thing about the Dark Tower, I mean, it's seven books long, but not even that. Like, pretty much every book Stephen King has ever written contributes to the lore of the Dark Tower. Right.

SPEAKER_01 17:03

So if you're just trying to cram that onto a movie, all the roads lead back there. It's all it all rotates around the Dark Tower. Yeah. Uh so yeah, that's uh that's what this guy's. So there were uh in the Dark Tower, there are Easter eggs, two other Stephen King movies, making it even more confusing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:23

So that's our that's our friend uh uh Nikolai Arcel. Oh no, that's a bad start. So yeah, here's this here's what this this movie is about. It's uh uh Mads is uh is our main guy. He plays uh Captain Kalen. Uh this movie takes place in like the 1700s. That feels right, yeah. And the King of Denmark uh is offering titles and nobility uh and land for anybody who can go out and tame the barren wilderness the heath of the Jutland, which is a section of Denmark. Um, just a bunch of dead ass grass, right? It's like it's there's no soil anywhere, it's just rocks and and heather and and uh wind. It's it's it's very, very desolate. Um and there are also bandits who are gypsies. Yeah, who are you know ready to ready to to kill the people who come out to settle this land. It's uh it's uh this I I was I I got the feeling early on, like, is this gonna be a Western? Is it gonna be like a Danish version of a Western? I think it had a few elements of that. It definitely early on, it definitely has. Yeah, like outlaw Josie Wales. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So yeah, Mads, the the he goes with this plan to the to some Danish noblemen, and they're like, listen, nobody can do it. But we already sent a bunch of people out there. We're not giving you any money to go do this thing. Just we're it's not happening. Get out of here. And he's like, and and Mads is like, nope, I don't need your money. Just if I when I go out and do this thing, just make sure I get to be a nobleman. Yeah. And so that's I'm using my own money. Yeah. And he's broke. Like we when we see him at the very beginning of the movie, he's like, he's living in like a homeless shelter for for veterans. Because he's uh he's been in the army for 20 years, you know. Uh but anyway, so he he goes out there and he's gonna do it. He's gonna he's gonna tame this land. Now, his uh his foe in this in in this enterprise is this Danish nobleman, this young prick named uh DeShinkle. I thought a fucking legendary bad guy. Like I was gonna say, one of like and I Like he is Longshank style bad guy. I actually can't, I couldn't stop thinking about Braveheart while I was watching this movie. Not only because DeShinkle actually defenestrates somebody, tosses a woman out of an oh out of an open window to her death. Like, like that's not the only comparison to Longshanks. I hated him so much. He is an absolutely punch-in-the-faceable dude right from the get-go. Like just a great job. Yeah. Like the guy who's playing him is Smarmy and like shit, he just the worst dude ever. Perfect casting. And and like the things he does, like he's just he's got his his uh his cousin, who's a uh a woman, beautiful woman, living with him. And because it's you know the 1700s and it's and it's the royalty, he's going to marry her. Her father is has got a title, but he's got no money, and DeShinkel has all this money, so he gets to marry whoever he wants, and he's gonna marry his cousin, and she is not happy about it, mostly because like the way he's trying to impress her is like bragging about how he's raping all of the women's servants that he has working for him and and torturing people to death. Like, this is the this is the kind of things he's doing. Like, there's a scene at a party that they're throwing where a worker who had been contracted by DeShinkle to to work his his farms and run away because DeShinkle is such a monster, then he's caught and they're like, All right, well, we're gonna take a look at the room. But he ran away to he ran away to Captain Kalen, yeah, to Mads, and he was working for Mads.

SPEAKER_01 20:59

And they had a relationship. They, you know, they were and and a his wife was living back then. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:04

And his wife, another servant that had been raped over and over again by this reprehensible human being. Uh-huh. So yeah, the the reason why the man and his wife are willing to help Mads even though he has no money, is because helping him negatively impacts DeShinkle, and all anybody wants to do is screw this guy over because he's such an absolute monster. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But anyway, the guy is is captured, and the punishment for uh being a runaway worker, apparently, uh, in addition to the the lashes from whips that are like scars all over the dude's back. This is a second movie of the two that we're watching where somebody has whip scars all over their back, too. Apparently, bad shit was going on in Denmark back in those days. It was going on all over the place. That's for sure. But these are white people. But anyway, so the punishment is they throw them in this pit and they're gonna pour boring. Boiling water on him. Yeah. Like that's the simplest thing. And so they pour some boiling water on him, and they pour a little on him, and he's screaming. And DeShinkle just keeps saying over and over again, he goes, one more time for the pretty girls. And they just keep pouring more and more boiling water on this dude.

SPEAKER_01 22:19

Yeah. Right there, standing right there. That part got me. Yeah. I was like, he's just murdering this guy in front of a bunch of children.

SPEAKER_03 22:26

And like everybody at the party is just absolutely horrified. And DeShinkel's advisors are like, listen, just knock it off. You're you're losing the crowd. Nobody wants this. And he's like, not one more time for the pretty girls. Yeah. And they just keep pouring water on this dude until he's dead.

SPEAKER_01 22:42

And it's just like, yeah. It was really bad. And like Mads Mickelson can't do anything about it. And you know, like, and he was the one who brought him there. Yeah. You know? Oh man. It was there were so many layers of to that scene.

SPEAKER_03 22:55

It's it's it's a great scene. And yeah, I'm I'm totally with you. DeShinkle is just an all-timer as a movie villain goes. He's really, really fantastic. Yeah. He's like top 10, man. Yeah. But yeah, so eventually, Mads, there's a he's he develops like a ragtag bunch. There's a there's a little, we don't know what ethnicity she's a brown-skinned girl who has been living with the bandits, but they don't really like her. She's just there. Right. And her mom and dad either left or died or something. And the bandits are, I don't know, just keeping her around because she's useful or something. I don't really know. But eventually she escapes the bandits and she comes and she's living with Mads and the widow of the dude with the boiling water and a preacher from the town. So the four of them are like this ragtag band. At some point, the bandits are are helping them till the land. Mads promises the bandits that he's going to give them money that he doesn't really have if they come and help him till the land. Right. So the bandits are there, but then DeShinko makes a proclamation that any bandit who is found on the land working the land is going to be executed. Right. So then they leave. They leave. Yeah. And then so then Mads and the little girl and the widow and the priest get all the work done themselves and they actually cultivate the land into a viable potato farm. So they're making all these potatoes. So that's when the king decides to send all these satellites. That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So then the king sends it, sends them the so the king and de Shinkle are working at cross purposes because the we get the impression that the king is kind of out of it. Like he wants this wilderness to be settled, but he doesn't really care who's settling it or why. Right. So DeShinkle is just like, we're gonna, I don't care. Let's just the king will be happy if the land is settled, and we'll just kill this guy and get him out of get him out of here anyway. So he hires a bunch of, like he lets a bunch of thieves out of prison and he gets a band together and they're gonna just start murdering. Yeah, yeah, and they're gonna start murdering the settlers. And the settlers, because the little girl is brown skinned, they think that she's bad luck. So when DeShinkle's assassins come and murder two of the settlers, they're all like, it's the little girl, she's bad luck, you gotta send her away. Like, we're not gonna lift a finger until you send her away. Yeah. So Mads makes the decision that he's gonna send this little girl to live in a convent or an orphanage somewhere. And that in turn tells gets the widow who had who had developed a romantic relationship with Mads. Uh-uh, she's like, Well, if you're sending this little girl away, like their daughter. It was like a little family. Yeah. And so the woman's like, all right, it's if you're if if you're gonna get rid of her, then I'm out of here too, you know. Yeah. Just lost everything. Yeah, so he loses everything.

SPEAKER_00 25:47

Spoiler alert. Spoilers for the promised land ahead. Skip to minute marker 33 minutes and 36 seconds, or the next chapter. You have been warned.

SPEAKER_03 26:00

So the movie ends uh with the the sinkle and the other noblem noblemen do an end around on the king, and they they've decided uh so mads and and some of the settlers come and they murder all of the mercenaries, one of whom was an arm was a member of the army. So then they one gets away. And one of the other army guys gets away, and he tells his story, and they're like, oh, well, that's great. This captain just murdered an army guy, so now we can execute him. So they go to Mads's potato farm and they're like, Okay, we're gonna, it's your it's time for you to be executed. Uh-huh. And they bring him to DeSinkle's castle to get executed and the boiling pit. And in the in the pit of boiling water, yeah. And who should happen to be there but the widow of of the guy who was boiled in the earlier scene. And she uh she's got something cooked up. Yeah. She got a plan. She's got something cooked up. She has the plan. Uh and in one of the more satisfying scenes satisfying is the best way to describe it. Um, she she uh tricks DeShinkle into drinking some doped-up wine, gets him all incapacitated, and then uh cuts his dick off. Lorena Bobbitz's ass. It was so great. So then she, having murdered this nobleman and she's a peasant, so they take her away. They say she's gonna be sent to some horrible woman's prison somewhere. Uh-huh. Eventually, once DeShinkle is dead, there's nobody with any appetite to kill Mads anymore. So he has been boiled a little bit, but not enough to uh to actually be dead. So he's able to survive this problem. Right. And the m and then so then he goes, now the settlers are all gone, and it's just him again. So he decides, all right, I'm gonna go to this orphanage where I sent the little girl, and I'm gonna go bring her back to the farm and we're gonna be a family again. And now here's where the movie gets weird for me. I don't understand why it didn't just end there. Like, it seems to me like a perfectly reasonable ending for this movie.

SPEAKER_01 28:09

Is it based on a true story? I don't know, actually. Because I it feels like it might be with the whole like this is what he did then, and this is what he did. It could be. But even if it's based on a true story, then I get the ending. I don't know. It just I really love the ending.

SPEAKER_03 28:24

I didn't. I didn't like it at all. I feel like the movie should have ended with him and the little girl going back to the farm. Instead, we get this coda, which is like 10 plus years later, where the little girl is grown into a young woman and they have a flourishing potato farm again. Uh, just the two of them. And then the king sends more settlers and tells Mads that he is now Baron Von Kalen or whatever the hell he is, and some some wandering uh vagabonds or whatever coming up. They're also gypsies, right? Something like that to to do some kind of work on the house, and they stick around and are helping around, helping out around the farm. And then one of the guys falls in love with the the with the little girl who's now a woman, and she eventually leaves Mads, and then Mads decides there's nothing holding me here anymore either. So he renounces his title and goes and rescues the widow from the prison that she's in. I thought that was nice. And they ride off into the sunset together. I thought that was nice.

SPEAKER_01 29:26

I just don't get it.

SPEAKER_03 29:27

I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 29:28

I just don't know why you need that part. I thought after all this guy's been through. Yeah. You know, like uh I was watching Aaron Sorkin once on a master class. Uh-huh. And he said, here's how you tell a story. It's really easy. You uh you have your character and he wants something and you put stuff in front of him. Sure, yeah. And I mean this is a classic example of that. Yeah. You know, you go, and they can he said you they can get that thing or they can not get that thing. It's about the journey of trying to get that thing.

SPEAKER_03 29:56

But the thing is, like, if you end it with him and the little girl going back to the farm, like all the things he's been through, he now has this family. I mean, it's just him and the girl, but it's it's the family that he was seeking, and the thing that he wanted was to have this estate, and they do. So he gets his land, he gets his family, everything, and and he doesn't get his whole family. Right. But in the end, he doesn't get his whole family either because the little girl leaves, and it's just so it But I mean the little girl leaves, but it but she's not a little girl. No, I know people leave. Well, but like I'm saying there's an extra 10 minutes on this movie that don't tell anything new. They don't, it doesn't add anything to the story. I think it does.

SPEAKER_01 30:35

And here's what I think it is. All right. I think that all along you think that Mads Mickelson is after this noble title and this farm, and the and the but it wasn't. He was actually it it was the people that were important. Right, but you get that same message when he goes back and gets the little girl. And you get it even more when he goes back and gets a wife. That's just how you know. I didn't want to see that wife linger away in prison after such a noble deed. No, for sure, that's true.

SPEAKER_03 31:04

But at the same time, like credibly, that's not a thing that ever would have happened, right? She is a peasant who has murdered a nobleman. She would have been executed on the spot. They would have hanged her right away. We only invent this. Like, they even talk about how, oh no, we're she's gonna have to be hanged. They even say that, but then that the movie decides that it needs this extra beat with her. Like, we could have the movie end with her being killed, but Mad still finding his place with the little girl. I I you just have to introduce this non-plausible factor into the movie of like, oh no, no, she killed this, she killed this nobleman, but for some reason we're just gonna send her to prison instead of killing her so that she can be rescued later in an entirely implausible and unnecessary plot device.

SPEAKER_01 31:46

I don't know. I don't know. Well, we saw him in Valhalla Rising. I don't think it's that implausible. But this movie is clearly a badass. But this movie is clearly trying to take place in the real world where that one wasn't. And and and that's that that's where I was like, I because I watched Valhalla Rising and then the next day I watched this. Uh-huh. And I'm like, come on, mads. I know you've got the skills. You know? Yeah. Go there and sneak in and kill that motherfucker.

SPEAKER_03 32:11

I just I feel like the last 10 minutes didn't add anything to the movie. It was just like, it was just doing the same bits over and over again, implausibly and unnecessarily.

SPEAKER_01 32:22

After going on this journey with this guy and just seeing setback after setback after setback, and you're just rooting for him the whole time. I agree, yeah. After setback. I was kind of it was kind of nice to see a happy ending. See that, but I just know how you, you, you're sad sex when the phone you don't know. Happy ending.

SPEAKER_03 32:38

I feel like him riding off into the sunset with the little girl, taking her back to the farm. That is a happy ending. It was, yeah. Like he loved her. He he learned that he was able to love this little girl. He realized his mistake and he writes it and brings it back, and like he takes her and they become this family. She gets a happy ending, he gets a happy ending. It's the same happy ending, it's just with a with a different person. You're just doing the same happy ending twice, which is unnecessary. This is the problem. Okay. But anyway, that's what that's it. It's the the last 10 minutes of the movie just feel totally unnecessary to me. That's all I was saying. Okay. It feels like you liked it though.

SPEAKER_01 33:15

Yeah, for sure. Because I really liked it. Yeah, for sure. I really liked it. I thought and it was kind of unexpected for me. Yeah. Because I had heard good things about this movie. Uh-huh. And when I was watching, I'm like, I was, I was like riveted the whole time. I loved it. Yeah. I loved the whole thing.

SPEAKER_03 33:31

Yeah. I I I'm with you. I thought I was totally into it. I think it's really good, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 33:35

All right.

The Promised Land Review

SPEAKER_01 33:36

So, is that all you got, Ken? That's all I got. Is it a Pass Pirate Pay for The Promised Land? Yeah, this one's a pay for sure. This is a pay. Way more people should see this. Yeah, for sure. I feel like no one's seen it and more people should see it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:48

Oh, hey, uh, just uh on a side note, somewhat tangentially, I want to alert our listeners. Uh, we we we call the show Pass Pirate Pay, but I have discovered a new service that uh allows you to watch movies for free without pirating them, as long as you are uh you have an active library card. Okay. So I just want to turn people on to this. Okay. We're not being sponsored by Canopy or anything. I just uh this is a I feel like this is a good resource for our people. I know we have listeners who uh have moral qualms about pirating things. So this is a fun way for people to be able to watch things for free without having to resort to piracy. So it's an app. Uh you can download it on the on uh uh, you know, uh an Nvidia Shield or a Fire Stick or whatever you use to stream things. It's the app is called Canopy with a K, K-A-N-O-P-Y. And you just you hook into a library card and you can watch something like 12 movies a month for free. And they have a really wide and super interesting library of like really cool, weird stuff. And all three of the movies we're doing on the show this week were available on Canopy. That's how I watched that's how I watched all of them. So unedited? Like unedited, no commercials, no full disembowelment. Oh, yeah. I saw the guy's hand, I saw the guy get disemboweled with Mads's bare hands.

SPEAKER_01 35:01

It's great that you know you can get a library card and see people disemboweled. You know, that kind of warms my heart. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 35:07

It makes you proud to be an American. I think that's why the public libraries were invented. But anyway, yeah, so that's just a bit of a tangent. So anybody, if you're listening to this and you're looking for more ways to find content, especially things that are kind of outside the mainstream of a lot of stuff we do. Which is a lot of the stuff that we do. Uh yeah, I cannot recommend Canopy highly enough. I think it's really good. All right, cool. Yeah.

The Hunt

SPEAKER_03 35:42

All right. Our last movie uh is uh 2012's The Hunt.

SPEAKER_01 35:47

This is directed by Thomas Vinterberg. Uh who I did not re-watch this. Okay. So I watched this probably a year or two ago. Okay. So it was a while ago.

SPEAKER_03 35:55

Okay, fair enough. Uh Thomas Vinterberg is the director of the aforementioned Another Round. Um so that his that's his other movie that I had seen. What did you think of that? Uh of Another Round? I think Another Round's really good. Yeah, I thought it was a good one. It was a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_01 36:06

They're doing an American remake of that, I think, with Leonardo DiCaprio.

SPEAKER_03 36:09

Oh, interesting. Who's doing it? Do you know? I don't know. Okay. Anyway, so this movie's about sexual assault, sexual abuse, which I think we can both agree is a problem in our society. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Especially as of late. Yeah, for sure. And so this movie has decided to tackle the far-ranging issue of little children being uh gaslit into thinking that they have been sexually assaulted when they haven't been. And in an age where uh sexual predation is rampant, this movie is bold enough to ask the question what if the real victims of the whole thing are men? Because that's the story of this movie. In this movie, I think that is the story of this movie. That's the story of this movie. In this movie, Mads, uh, our old buddy Mads plays a divorced man whose son is living elsewhere with his wife. He is working as some sort of an aide in a kindergarten, and a little girl, the the daughter of his best friend in the kindergarten, develops a bit of a crush on him. And when he tells her that this kid that this crush uh is age inappropriate, and maybe she should focus her energies on a maybe a boy her own age, she decides to repeat some language about a penis uh that she had heard from her older brother in regards to Mads. So she tells the kindergarten teacher that Mads has shown her uh his penis. And the teacher, uh, you know, right, uh, oh, this is this is some serious, uh, serious business. Uh-huh. They bring in some dude, I don't even know who he is, to ask the little girl some questions, and he leads she's very clearly uncomfortable, but he asks her some very leading questions that she basically just nods along to. And now the entire town thinks that Mads is a sexual predator and his life is ruined. So I think this is a uh well-crafted movie with some very good actors in it that is in service of something that is at best deeply irresponsible and at worst morally reprehensible. Where in our society, sexual assault is a crime whose victims are shamed, not believed, and put through the ringer so much so that something like 3% of people who commit sexual assault are actually ever uh held accountable for it. Uh-huh. Like that's the actual number. And anytime a man is accused of something like this, all he ever does is say, no, no, no, the woman is lying. She can't be telling the truth for this reason, this reason, this reason. And you're just casting doubts on the believability of victims who are claiming that they've been assaulted, making it this impossible crime to report even more impossible. So, what this movie is doing is giving anybody who has ever thought, uh, what if uh all those women that Louis CK showed his dick to were lying? What if all the dudes that Kevin Spacey assaulted? What if they're just in it for the publicity? Anyone who ever had those thoughts is like, oh, wait a minute. Maybe this is a thing that really happens. Maybe the real problem is these guys' lives are being ruined uh because these women or these children or these men are just lying about having been assaulted. I think uh like we we have to stop the witch hunts. That's that's that's what the movie is saying. It's a witch hunt problem. That's why the movie is called The Hunt, because Mads in the movie is the subject of this town-wide witch hunt uh trying to bring him for to justice for assaulting this little girl. So yeah, I feel like this is a completely irresponsible movie. If not, like if Thomas Vindenberg didn't think about these things, then he is irresponsible. If he but I'm not even getting rid of the possibility that he must be like, that he might be like, oh, you know what? I think we are gonna throw a little more uh water on this fire, this this me too thing. We're gonna we're gonna get out in front of this and say, you know what? I think uh it the the real problem is you can't destroy a man's reputation like this. It's just it's just not fair. Like, you know, like Louis CK, he he couldn't perform comedy for like two years before everybody forgave him for showing his dick to a bunch of women that didn't want to see it. Like that how horrible must it be for him. Kevin Spacey, I mean, he can't be in movies anymore. He's still got millions of dollars and lives in a house, but you know, I like what happened to this poor man's reputation. It's a horrible, horrible thing.

SPEAKER_01 40:46

You're kind of like building the uh a massive, massive argument for somebody who probably wasn't thinking that.

SPEAKER_03 40:53

I I'm saying if he wasn't thinking it, then that's terribly irresponsible. I think this the existence of this movie in the world is a net negative for the world. It is bad for society to have this movie.

SPEAKER_01 41:06

I think that it is interesting when you take a different perspective on anything. The X-Files to me, I'm a massive fighter of conspiracy theories. Uh-huh. And the X-Files is like, hey, what if they're all real? Sure. What if all the conspiracies are real? But I still liked it. Yeah. I still thought it was a great premise and was fun. You know, not that this was a fun premise. Yeah. I I but I still think looking at something from another perspective is interesting. I I Especially since this is a thing that could happen. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_03 41:39

But like when the real problem in the world is the reverse of the thing that happens in this movie, and you're just reinforcing that this totally farcical thing, like if this if this thing is totally farcical, right? If this thing that happens in this movie happens one time, the reverse of the thing has happened 10,000 times for every one time that this is that the the real thing has happened. Yeah, so it's it's completely ridiculous to even talk about it. It's like the transgender argument, it's like the transgender athletes in sports thing, right? The number of trans women who are competing in sports or trans girls in in high school sports, it's like eight people in the entire United States of America. And but everybody's like blowing it all out of proportion like it's this massive, huge problem, and this is all anybody wants to talk about, where talking about it is detrimental to everything in society. Talking about this subject in this way is detrimental to society. This movie never should have been made. The talented people who are responsible for making this movie should be ashamed of themselves. Mads Mickelson should be out in public decrying the fact that he ever made this movie, saying, I'm sorry to everyone. I'm serious. This movie made me so angry, I can't even understand it. I like I tried to get you to not have us talk about the movie on the show just because I'm so incensed by the subject matter of this movie and the way it's like.

SPEAKER_01 43:03

I mean, it's very similar to our bone tomahawk thing.

SPEAKER_03 43:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:06

This is like bone tomahawk times a hundred. It's so much worse. Right, but but but in both movies, uh, it is it is a situation. It is not it is not like zooming out and looking at all the people who are it's a very uh uh intimate situation, right? Which it which deals with just a very close small group of people.

SPEAKER_03 43:28

But by making a movie like this with like with high-profile actors and directors, you're putting the idea out there that this thing is real in a time when what we need to be focusing on in society is that the the actual facts of the matter is it's not as real as the opposite problem. With not even close to as real as the opposite, which is the real problem.

SPEAKER_01 43:53

I don't think it makes that particular argument. It's it's not it's not saying here's another situation where this happened. Here's this is happening. It's not. It's just this this tiny thing. Right. Same thing with Bone Tomahawk. In in fact, in Bone Tomahawk, there was other Indians that say, no, no, no, these Indians aren't like uh regular Indians. These are crazy. I I And it's a very uh it's a singular situation.

SPEAKER_03 44:17

But but by putting it out into the world, you're making it bigger than it. You're you this is not a sm this is not a real thing, right? This is not a small incident in a small town, right? This is a movie that is going to be seen by tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of people, whatever. And by that's a Danish movie. I mean, whatever. I don't know how many people saw this movie. It was it was nominated for Best Foreign Language Picture at the Oscars. Oh, okay. It like it should it should have gotten a pretty uh I mean for for a small Danish movie, I'm sure lots of people saw this thing. And I just think that you are that by making it putting it out there on this scale, you are normalizing the lies that the people who are in this situation who are actually guilty are telling. You are making liars seem more plausible in a time when the truth is getting harder and harder to recognize in our in our world.

SPEAKER_01 45:13

I see your point, but I also see how it makes for a compelling story. Yeah. I and I think if you're telling stories, I I don't think it's your job to think of these massive social ramifications that you're responsible for. I think if you're telling a story in bad faith, you are. If you were telling a story like I can't think of a an example, but if you were telling some sort of propaganda-ish story, some preachy thing about an awful thing, but I don't think this was that. Yeah, I I think it absolutely is that. I absolutely don't think it was. You really think that the filmmakers in their head were thinking we need to say something for the real victims. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 45:52

But I'm saying that there are there are bound to be huge numbers of people in the audience of this movie who are thinking exactly that. I was reading some of the the comments on Letterbox for people who watch this movie. Yeah. And the absolute fucking bile that these dudes, all dudes, are spitting about how this fucking little girl, how this this fucking little bitch ruined this guy's life. Like, that's the way people think about these things. I imagine some people do, yeah. And that, but that's the world we live in. And I just don't think that we are uh a strong enough society.

SPEAKER_01 46:29

I even thought, like, what there was a part where he like forgave her, right? Where he like where they kind of the movie ends with him forgiving the little girl. Yeah, I think I that's kind of cool. That's kind of noble.

SPEAKER_03 46:40

That's that's not that's not something that's gross and disgusting and preachy and Right, but the the movie doesn't like because the movie is taking this narrow view that you're talking about where it's about this one thing, you're it's able to like Mads Mickelson's character in this movie is not a rapist, he's not a predator, he's not a bad guy. Right. So it who cares that he forgives this little girl? Obviously, he should forgive this little girl. She was uh she was in the in the movie, she was railroaded into the into the confession that she gave. Right. She she didn't know what was going on. She's five years old. Like the reality is that most of the time, a huge, huge majority of the time, when someone is accused of something like this, they will be guilty. And we need to be focusing, and they will be guilty, and they will be saying all of the same things that Mads is saying in this movie. And we need to stop normalizing that. This is like bone tomahawk is one thing where it's bad because Native Americans are treated like shit in this country for 500 years. But like this is an actual pervasive problem where victims of sexual assault are not being believed. It's it's an actual huge problem in our society. And this movie is offering a way out for all of those fucking assholes committing these crimes.

SPEAKER_01 48:03

Uh, I am wondering what I asked you about this earlier, too. I'm wondering what you would think about Baby Reindeer, which you have not seen, right? Yeah, I have not. Baby reindeer is the story of a man who is stalked by a woman. Yeah. And and the the lead in the show is the guy who this actually happened to. This is a a by a biographical story. Okay. Yeah, I haven't seen it. And I wonder what if you would have the same thoughts about that. Yeah, I don't know. Because women don't stalk men very often. Sure. The other happens mostly. Yeah, I don't know. But this was a story about a victim. The all these stories are about victims, just on the opposite side of the thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 48:41

I don't want to say that that this movie that like shouldn't exist, that these people shouldn't be making it, but I would like to think that people who I respect, like Thomas Vindenberg and Mads Mickelson, would know better than to do a thick like this. I feel like this is the kind of movie that should be airing on Fox Nation or whatever, uh, and starring John Schneider or or Kid Rock or somebody like I like that's the kind of people who are doing this kind of shit. Oh no. Yeah. Like that's terrible. Actual artists should not be making content like this. They should have more acknowledgement of the responsibility that they possess as notable artists.

SPEAKER_01 49:20

Yeah, I I I I'm not seeing this massive zoomed-out view when I watch this movie. Same thing with the other ones. I I'm looking at a singular situation, and all of these movies I thought were good.

SPEAKER_03 49:31

Yeah, I just don't, I don't think you can I don't think we can afford to be that blind in this society. I don't think that you can look at a movie and not think about what it does in the world.

SPEAKER_01 49:40

I mean, you know, if it's birth of a nation, sure. Yeah, birth of a nation is another example. It's a perfect example, it's exactly like this. But birth of a nation, you could tell, was made in bad faith. It's it's a it's it's propaganda for awful people. But it's doing the same thing. It's do like and it's told on a grand scale.

SPEAKER_03 50:00

I'm sure that at some point in the in the late 1800s, some black man raped some white woman. So the story of birth of a nation, you could make exactly the same case where it's just like, are you you could be talking about birth of a nation, saying, Are you saying this thing could never happen and has never happened? Because I'm sure a black man has raped a white woman.

SPEAKER_01 50:18

Birth of a nation was clearly trying to rewrite history. Yeah. And and that was the goal of the filmmakers. But it's it was not the goal of filmmakers to make a good movie about a singular situation told from a different perspective. It was a grand scale look. This is how it really is. It's still doing exactly the same thing. It's it's exactly the same thing.

SPEAKER_03 50:39

I don't think the intentions of the filmmakers were the same. I I can't speak to what the intentions of the filmmaker were, but I'm saying the outcome. The outcome is exactly the same to me. It's it is exactly I thought of birth of a nation exactly in this situation, where it's just like, this is exactly what we're doing. We're taking a thing that could very well have happened, that's that a certain element of society is blowing the importance of or the frequency of way out of proportion, and we're elevating it by putting it up on a huge movie screen. Weren't they rewriting history in that though? I mean, sure, but it's fiction, right? This movie's fiction too. It's not describing an actual event that happened. So in it in some cases, yes, this is this movie's rewriting history too. Who knows? Like maybe Thomas Vindenberg knew an actual kindergarten rapist and decided, I'm gonna tell the story, but what if maybe this guy didn't actually do it? Maybe he's trying to rewrite history too. You don't know. So that's why you can't judge intent. You have to judge results.

SPEAKER_01 51:36

Okay. Yeah. So I can. Are we gonna give the hunt a pass pirate or pay?

SPEAKER_03 51:49

Pass. Don't don't give this movie a watch. Don't give it a thought. Fuck this movie. Get out of my life. I never want to think about it again. I'm gonna give it a pay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:00

I thought it was good when I watched it. I thought it was really good.

SPEAKER_03 52:05

Uh yeah, I liked it. Yeah, I hope to uh if if if uh I could eternal sunshine of spotless mind the shit out of my brain right now and never have to think about it again, I would do that in a heartbeat. I never want to think about this movie again. It is horrifying to me. Okay, fair enough. See you next time, everybody. All right, see you next time, folks.

SPEAKER_02 52:31

Thanks for tuning in to Pass Pirate Pay. This episode was produced by the one and only Andy Morris. If you haven't already, hit that subscribe button on your favorite podcast app. We'd hate for you to miss out on all the fun. Curious about where to stream the movies we talked about? Head on over to PastPiratePay.com. We've got everything listed with handy links on where to watch. You can also join the conversation on our Facebook page or stalk our cinematic musings on Letterboxd. Links are on the site. Got a movie or TV show you think we should review? Fill out the contact form or this is cool. You can even text us right through the episode player on our website's front page. Thanks again for hanging out with us. Until next time, keep watching, keep rating, and keep it past pirate pay.