CINEMISSES! Heat

Today's conversation tackles a very popular film, "Heat" written and directed by Michael Mann. Mat and Tug explore themes of crime, law enforcement, and the complex relationships between characters. They discuss the duality of the protagonists – they use the word parallel a lot, same thing – the realism of the narrative, and the moral implications of their choices. The conversation highlights key moments in the film, including character development, the planning and execution of heists, and the inevitable confrontation between good and evil. There's even a mention of Dennis Franz and his naked butt. Bochco!

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Transcript

 Matt Loehrer (00:00)
are they

Tug McTighe (00:00)
You're listening to Cinemisses, a podcast about movies that one or the other of your two hosts just never got around to seeing. I am Tug.

Matt Loehrer (00:07)
I'm Matt, reminding you that anybody can make a podcast about movies they have seen. We're here because we have it. Thanks for joining us on Cinemisses and action.

Tug McTighe (00:17)
Again, okay, you know, it's as this as we're recording at September 24th. It's a Wednesday night as of September 21st That was the official first day of fall and it's also do you remember the 21st day of September by earth wind and fire? that's very exciting Fall is I don't know about you. It's my favorite time of year. The leaves are turning the weather's getting cooler It's shorts and sweatshirt weather

It's my fave season But even though it's Getting colder and i'm wearing a fleece vest It's time to turn up the heat Do you see what I did there? And that was all all off the cuff buddy just made that up

Matt Loehrer (00:51)
I

It too. And why did you say it?

He just made that up. So I

guess what you're saying is that the movie that we're going to talk about today is Michael Mann's 1995 beloved.

Tug McTighe (01:08)
Heist crime

beloved thriller. Yeah. Yes, that is the film we're talking about. And I do love that song by Earth, and Fire. I don't know who doesn't.

Matt Loehrer (01:11)
Heat.

I do too. And I actually forgot.

I forgot that it was the 21st of

Tug McTighe (01:20)
So there you go. So, okay, I didn't see this. I know it had Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. I knew it was either their first ever performance together or their first appearance on screen, something momentous, ridiculous, that they'd never been in a movie together. I knew it was a crime, heist, thriller, action, gumbo, that sort of gumbo.

Matt Loehrer (01:22)
What did you know about this movie going in?

Tug McTighe (01:45)
I knew Michael Mann wrote and directed I knew he was famous, but I didn't know who he was Really heard the name but and again, I knew it had like a gigantic cast. I didn't quite understand How gigantic the cast was? But I didn't really know who was in it besides the two headliners plus Val Kilmer

Matt Loehrer (02:02)
Well, that's fair. Echoing that, the biggest takeaway I had when this came out in 95 was that De Niro and Pacino were in it together and they were legendary, top of their game at that point. That was a huge selling point for

Tug McTighe (02:16)
I when I started it Matt I didn't realize You don't understand how long ago 1995 is until you see Pacino and De Niro who are now old men by anybody's counting and They weren't they were young virile looking strong They hadn't you can see them becoming caricatures of themselves. We'll talk about that. I'm sure all day But they weren't quite yet

Matt Loehrer (02:42)
Right, yeah, De Niro especially I felt like lean, mean, hungry. Pacino was starting to look like a werewolf, but he wasn't quite there yet.

Tug McTighe (02:45)
Yeah for sure

Starting to yeah starting to starting

to but not all the way there

Matt Loehrer (02:54)
Right, but just, you know, hair everywhere. remember I can remember Val Kilmer with his little ponytail firing, firing an automatic weapon in the in the trailers. They all had Uzis back then. And I also remember even at the time thinking what a lackluster, sad, lame name for such a huge movie. It reminded me of the band. Remember the band Live? My bro.

Tug McTighe (03:04)
Yeah, everybody's got an Uzi in this everybody

Pete.

Sure! Give it up!

Give it up! Give it up! Lightning crashes indeed.

Matt Loehrer (03:22)
Lightning crashes. My brother asked my aunt for the live CD and for Christmas and she gave him George Thorogood live. Like like it made it and it made me wonder if she went into the record record store like Sam Goody. My my nephew loves live music. It doesn't matter what it is. If you've got polka, I'll take it like he could have gotten anything. He was probably lucky to get George Serga. It could have been like.

Tug McTighe (03:29)
You're there! There!

I just need the live record.

doesn't matter right now your nephews

Now you're,

now you're, it could have been a lot worse than that. ⁓ now your, your nephew's favorite song is one bourbon, one shot and one beer.

Matt Loehrer (03:48)
Fat Boon Live. ⁓

That's right. It grew on him, suppose. But

I do remember thinking that was Heat was just kind of kind of a lame name.

Tug McTighe (03:59)
Yeah. Yeah. All right. We got the log line here, Matt, a professional crew of bank robbers is pursued by the LAPD after a tip leads to a violent encounter, forcing both the criminals and the detective to confront their personal lives and motivations. and again, I'm going to tell you for, for a lackluster name, it's not a lackluster movie and it's not a lackluster, lackluster log line because that log line

And I will talk about it at length as we go through this, forces the criminals and the detectives to think about their consequences of their actions. There's a lot to unpack.

Matt Loehrer (04:38)
Well, we will unpack it. So let's get into the description of the movie. As we said, 1995 American epic crime film written and directed, as you said, by Michael Mann, featuring an ensemble cast led by Al Pacino, Robert De Niro and so many others. We'll get into that when we talk about casting. It follows a Los Angeles Police Department detective played by Pacino and a career thief played by De Niro while also depicting the effect of their conflict.

on their professional and their personal lives. There's a lot of psychology and how are they feeling and what are they doing? Exactly. It's not just kind of bang, bang, shoot them up and doing your job. So Michael Mann wrote this script in 1979. He based it on a Chicago police officer named Chuck Adamson, who had pursued a criminal who was also named Neil McCauley. So he kept that name for this.

Tug McTighe (05:06)
Yep. What is the toll this is all taking?

Very cleverly, very clever hiding of the name.

Matt Loehrer (05:28)
Yeah, it's a pretty good name.

The script was first used for a television pilot. Michael Mann did a lot of television and it became the 1989 television film, L.A. Takedown, which I have not seen, but I think. So, yes, it was a pilot and they just didn't pick up the pilot. So in ninety four or five years later, he'd had some success and had an opportunity to revisit the script and turn it into a feature film.

Tug McTighe (05:39)
Me neither, but it was gonna be a show, Okay.

Matt Loehrer (05:51)
He co-produced this with Art Linson, who produced a ton of stuff that you know, Fast Times Rich on High, The Untouchables, as well as current series like Sons of Anarchy and Yellowstone. So he's still doing this thing. Yeah, he's a big cheese. This was, as you said, De Niro and Pacino's first on-string appearance together. So naturally, the promotion was all about their involvement. It was released by Warner Brothers Pictures on December 15th, 1995.

Tug McTighe (06:00)
Yeah, so he's just a he's just been working for 50 years this guy

Matt Loehrer (06:17)
It's regarded as one of the most influential films of a genre. Whatever that is, we could talk about what the genre is because it's not as not as cut and dried as a crime film. It's said to have inspired movies like Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight and director Wes Anderson, who we love in his use of complicated heists and video games like Grand Theft Auto five, which. Yeah, and supposedly there's a sequel in production or in development, rather.

Tug McTighe (06:23)
Yeah, yeah. Not as cut and dry as you'd... yeah.

We do. Yep. Grand Theft Auto, all the way to Grand Theft Auto.

Matt Loehrer (06:45)
As of July of 2022, think it's my guess is it's stuck in development hell Major sticking points involve casting and budget and probably a really inflated budget because he wants a really expensive cast. So who knows if that's ever going to get made. But the script's done and supposedly it's part sequel and part prequel. So it deals with how the events of this movie came to be and also what happens to Val Kilmer's character.

Tug McTighe (06:59)
Right.

Matt Loehrer (07:14)
after he leaves Los Angeles, spoiler there. So who knows if that'll get made.

Tug McTighe (07:15)
after he, yes, he's able to get out.

Michael Mann again, I heard the name and I just never seen a lot of the movies. I think I've only seen one other Michael Mann movie Born in February 5th, 1943 just a little bit older than my mom American film director screenwriter author producer can best known for these kind of stylized crime dramas Won some Emmys earned nominations for the Academy Golden Globe Awards BAFTA. He's he's an acclaimed guy

Thief is a 1981 movie with James Kahn, which I've never seen, but Tarantino talks about quite a bit. Man Hunter was in 86 was the very first screen appearance of Hannibal Lecter. That's one of those Thomas Harris books about Hannibal. And then like I said, Last of the Mohicans, that's a pretty good one. This Heat, The Insider, which is about the

Matt Loehrer (07:53)
kind of kicked it off for him.

Tug McTighe (08:15)
whistleblowing on the cigarette industry Ali with Will Smith, which I didn't see collateral with I don't know who's in that I didn't see it public enemies with I don't know who's in it didn't see it Ferrari which I didn't see and I either one of the collateral I maybe have seen is that where he's driving around with I've seen that that's very similar to this He okay. There you go. Just learn something every day. He also produced Miami Vice From 84 to 90 on TV, which checks out

Matt Loehrer (08:25)
⁓ I do. Tom Cruise was in collateral.

Yeah, he a blonde Tom Cruise.

Here you go.

Tug McTighe (08:44)
And then he made a movie in 2006, which I think Jamie Foxx, but didn't see that one either. ⁓ Yeah. Yeah. Of note, my son went to Milwaukee school of engineering and Michael Mann studied English literature at University of Madison, Wisconsin. Madison is a beautiful city.

Matt Loehrer (08:50)
the remake, yeah, or the movie version of the show. also did not see that.

Tug McTighe (09:04)
so I mentioned the filmography I won't go into it again, but highlights are 81's the thief or just thief 86 manhunter lasso moheekins heat the insider Ali Miami vice public enemies so he's you know made a movie up to two years ago means eight My mom's 18. She was born in 45. So he's 82 years old. So it's probably hard making films these days for him

Matt Loehrer (09:28)
Yeah, with the exception of Heat,

I've seen zero of these movies.

Tug McTighe (09:30)
Yeah, I've seen

one last of the Mohicans. Well, two, now I know that I saw collateral.

Matt Loehrer (09:34)
The closest I came was on the remember the short-lived Ben Stiller show, which was funny. Yeah, he did a he did a clip for it was a commercial for the Moquit Mohican Master 3000. That was Daniel Day-Lewis. It was a treadmill that he used because basically he ran the entire

Tug McTighe (09:41)
Fantastic show. Yeah.

He just ran and ran and ran and ran. Ooh, we'll talk about running in a moment.

Matt Loehrer (09:54)
I thought that was pretty good.

We should let's talk about production. This was based, as I mentioned, on the true story of Neil McCauley. I believe he was born in Polk City, Iowa, criminal ex alcatraz inmate who was tracked down by a detective named Chuck Adamson in 1964. And he was a consultant on the film Detective Adamson was and had consulted on Thief starring James Conn as well. Man's first movie.

Man told him he was evidently he told him I'm looking for a couple rough, ugly guys to play henchmen. And Adam said I got just the guy and he called a cop that he'd been working with on the Chicago PD for 20 years. And you know who that cop was? Dennis Farina. He was a career cop. Yeah, an entire career as a cop. And then this. I know is not great if you ever see. I know you ever see striking distance with Bruce Willis.

Tug McTighe (10:37)
Billy Crystal.

Ahaha! Really?

I had no clue. And he's made 100 movies.

Of course! Dennis Farina for God's sake.

Matt Loehrer (10:52)
Yeah, it was crazy and ridiculous.

I don't know if that's just a foo V or if that movie is just garbage, but it's still so fun to watch.

Tug McTighe (10:59)
Right. Okay. So

now listen, I I gotta come clean here I had prepared an entire fucking talk track on how these heist crews and these quote unquote professional thieves don't exist and they're a totally made up hollywood bullshit trope and then I found out about this

Matt Loehrer (11:20)
Yeah, right. So a little of Macaulay's story in 1962. He was released from McNeil Island Correctional Center and immediately started planning crimes.

Tug McTighe (11:28)
So not a lot of correction went on.

Matt Loehrer (11:30)
No, the second he got it, he got out. He's like, all right, let's get back to it. Michael Paril and William Pinkerton were associates of his days, both cutters and drills to rob a manufacturing company of diamond bit drills, is shown in the movie. Pacino's character is largely based on Chuck Adamson. He and McCauley, and it's funny if you see actual pictures of them, Adamson looks kind of like Danny Aiello.

And Macaulay is just this scrawny, weasely looking dude. He does not look anything like Robert De Niro. But they actually met for coffee once and their dialogue in the script in this movie, which is one of the most memorable scenes in the film.

Tug McTighe (11:57)
Okay. Okay.

by

my not just because it's not just because it's Pacino and and De Niro's first on-screen interaction, but it's a really powerful sort of the centerpiece of the movie. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Matt Loehrer (12:18)
Absolutely. And sets up sets up a major kind of ebb and flow and yin and

yang thing. So that actually happened. They had that conversation in real life. On March 25th, 1964, McCauley and members of his crew robbed a grocery store in Chicago. They stole money bags worth thirteen thousand one hundred thirty seven dollars, which today would be one hundred grand, which is fine, but not crazy money. But.

Tug McTighe (12:44)
Not 12.5

million.

Matt Loehrer (12:46)
But when

that's when that's what you do, you do what you do. They escaped, but they were unaware that Adamson and eight other detectives had blocked all the potential exits. The getaway car turned out an alley. The robbers saw the blockade and realized they were trapped. And they all got out of the car and started firing, which also happens in the movie. Two were killed in the alley while a third shot his way out and escaped. And McCauley was shot to death on the lawn of a nearby home. was 50 and was a prime suspect in several burglaries.

Tug McTighe (13:03)
happens.

Matt Loehrer (13:15)
and Polesti, who Chris in the movie was based on, was caught days later and sent to prison. As of 2011, he was still alive and in prison, but I couldn't find anything after 2011.

Tug McTighe (13:27)
Looks like his life story is in a turnaround like the sequel about Chris's.

Matt Loehrer (13:32)
Adamson went on to successful career as a television and film producer. He died in 2008 at age 71. And the film Public Enemies, man's 2009 film, is dedicated to his memory. The character of Nate by John Voight, what did you think of him?

Tug McTighe (13:49)
You don't see a lot of John Voight these days. I thought it was a really good performance by John Voight and I was waiting for Nate to double cross Neil and Nate never double cross Neil. Nate took care of took care Neil the whole time. So it was interesting. Yeah.

Matt Loehrer (14:04)
He did. I thought he was a solid character.

He was based on a criminal turned author named Edward Bunker, who served as a consultant on this film as well. His story was really interesting. Chronic runaway, small time crook, spent a lot of his youth in these boy's town type youth homes. And one of the home's wealthy benefactors is the wife of movie producer. So as a boy, he was introduced to Aldous Huxley.

Tennessee Williams, William Randolph Hearst, not introduced to their work, introduced to them, the actual people. He was in and out of prison at 17. He became the youngest ever inmate at Sam Quinton and he read a ton and was inspired to be a writer. By 1970, he was still a criminal organizing crimes and he was friends with, ⁓ Squeaky Frome? Sure, he was buddies with her.

Tug McTighe (14:29)
That's crazy. Introduce to them as people, yeah.

Sure do. We can't get away from

her this season.

Matt Loehrer (14:52)
So he was still in prison and he his first novel, No Beast So Fierce, was published and Dustin Hoffman purchased the film rights and he thought maybe I can actually do something with his career. So in 1975, he quit being a criminal, became a writer and actor. had bit roles in The Running Man, Tango and Cash. I'd like to go back and figure out who he was. Reservoir Dogs. I know. And he was a nice guy. So kind of recent. ⁓ He was best buddies with Danny Trejo and

Tug McTighe (15:10)
I haven't seen tango in cash since I saw it.

Yeah, I love the nights, guys.

Matt Loehrer (15:18)
In 2005, he died at age seven.

Tug McTighe (15:21)
All right. Well, that's a lot. A lot of real. What am I trying to say? The blurring of the lines between fiction and reality, right? Art imitates life and life imitates art, that sort of thing. All right. So the tomato meter, 84 percent. Nice review. 150 or nice score on 150 plus reviews. The popcorn meter, 94. So very, very loved by by the fans, but good ratings by the.

Matt Loehrer (15:33)
Exactly.

Tug McTighe (15:49)
by the critics as well. Heat was released on December 15th, 95. Open on the, I mean, gosh. Only made 8.4 million from 1300 theaters. Finishing behind Jumanji and Toy Story. It was the 25th highest grossing film of 95. Ended up making 187 million on a budget of 60 million. So I'll give that a middling, pretty good, pretty good. Wonder what that is today. But,

Matt Loehrer (16:11)
That's pretty good.

I take it.

Tug McTighe (16:18)
So it clocks in at two hours, 50 minutes. It's a long one. And unlike Once Upon a Time in Hollywood that flies by, this is a lot slower of a paced story, grinded out longer scenes, goes away from the main story several times to

Bring us open up some subplots and then bring them together. it's a little bit more plotting is not the right word. So I won't use it. Just a little. Yeah, Yeah.

Matt Loehrer (16:42)
You grind you said grind and I feel like that's it like it wasn't easy. It didn't flow by. I mean it was

it was a lot of. I don't mean it in a bad way. It was work like you were paying attention.

Tug McTighe (16:55)
Yeah, you got to rewind a couple times to make sure you got it because because if you miss it, you might not you might miss a lot.

Matt Loehrer (17:01)
And there were so

many simultaneous subplots and things going on at the same time. Yeah. So I'll apologize for this But in when our plot summary, I tried to keep it in order, but I had to go back and rewatch it. I'm like, wait, that happened before this. This happened after that. So I just I did my best. You know, this is free. So people can't really complain about the quality of our podcast. You didn't you didn't pay for it. That's for.

Tug McTighe (17:04)
Yeah, and so many characters, yes.

huh.

That's correct. Well, they can complain all they want, but we ain't changing.

Speaking of not changing is our sponsor. That's Little Bear Graphics. God, you know what, even better than the writing of these, these spots is my ability to get into it, which is all off the cuff. ⁓ in heat, Robert De Niro says, don't let yourself get attached to anything you can't walk away from in 30 seconds flat. It's great advice for jewel thieves, not so much for your brand.

Matt Loehrer (17:37)
I love it. Well, the segues are amazing.

Tug McTighe (17:51)
You want people to get attached, like Machina to bad coffee and yelling and seemingly not blinking for three hours. That's where Matt and Little Bear Graphics comes in. They'll design a logo, a website ads, even merch so good your customers won't want to walk away, even if the LAPD shows up with assault rifles. In broad daylight, in the middle of a busy street. Look, it's simple. Val Kilmer's ponytail? Questionable. Little Bear Graphics design skills and marketing chops? Untouchable.

Logos, illustration, websites, merch. Always turning up the heat.

Alright, that's a wrap. This podcast is over. It's just never gonna get better than that. So let's now let's talk about the cast is this is Peak 90s this cast

Matt Loehrer (18:24)
That was amazing. Quit on that. That was incredible. my God. wow.

unquestionably. Al Pacino, talked about as Vincent Hanna, police lieutenant. Again, he looked great. He he he had he was coming off of. Son of a woman, he had won a he'd won a best actor Oscar, and I think he decided I'm just going to do that every single time.

Tug McTighe (18:52)
That's where it just sort of broke right broken out and again, like I said, this was 30 years ago These guys look like like they're 25 years was a time machine Yeah, denira was neil mccauley val kilmer is say chris's name for me matt

Matt Loehrer (19:05)
I knew this. ⁓ Sureless? That's sureless, I think.

Tug McTighe (19:08)
Yeah, sure.

Yeah, John Voight as Nate Tom Sizemore as Michael Michael Sherido Sizemore looked young and great That woman named Diane Venora who I don't know much looks familiar she was

Justine Pacino's wife, Amy Brenneman is Edie. She's best known for showing her can in, not her Coke can, her bottom, ⁓ in NYPD Blue in 93 when Steven Bochka was breaking all the rules. Right out of the gate, the show included a sex scene between David Caruso and Amy Brenneman, Janis LaCalcie. It showed a side boob and some butt.

Matt Loehrer (19:33)
Green knowledge.

Tug McTighe (19:47)
But people lost their minds. ⁓ Yeah, yeah, lost their minds.

Matt Loehrer (19:49)
I remember that that was crazy. People like what and then they didn't.

They didn't realize we were going to have to see a simple. It's naked. Yeah, nobody. Nobody was ready for that. She did. She was in a ton of things back then. And then she was in the show called Judging Amy. That was not very good, but this was pre streaming days of network TV where I'd be like this show sucks. And then the next week I'm like, well, I guess we're watching this again. Yeah, yeah, I'd be watching three seasons of judging Amy.

Tug McTighe (19:55)
We saw Dennis Francis later. Not what you want.

She worked, yeah.

No, it's for real and suddenly they did 27 seasons.

Right,

Matt Loehrer (20:19)
But we did!

Tug McTighe (20:19)
and you're talking 66 episodes. were 22 episodes in the season. Yeah, right. ⁓ Ashley Judd shows up as Chris's wife Charlene. Michael T. Williamson as Bobby Drucker. You know who he is, Bubba from Forrest Gump.

Matt Loehrer (20:23)
Oh yeah, about 2023 I think. Yeah. Crazy.

That's right. He also was in he was Limehouse in Justified. I love that show so much. People just keep coming up. It's great.

Tug McTighe (20:38)
I know it keeps coming back. ⁓

Wes Studi, who I really love, is Detective Casals. You mentioned he was the Sphinx in Mystery Men, which is ridiculous and pretty good. But for realsies, he is one of the most successful Native American actors ever. He was in Dances with Wolves as the, ready for this character name? Toughest Pawnee, even though he's Cherokee.

He won an honorary Academy Award in 2019, becoming the first Native American to win such an award.

Matt Loehrer (21:05)
Ted Levine, as Detective Mike Bosco, of course he was in Monk and famously he was in got Silence of Lambs. He was the Buffalo Bill, is that right? The serial killer? Yeah. But here he is a cop. Yep, that's him. In this he's a cop and he's doing great. Dennis Haysbird who's been the president, he's been

Tug McTighe (21:15)
⁓ he was Ted Levine. gosh. That totally was him. Yeah.

You don't have to tell me President

Jose Serrano. He was president in 24 and Jose Serrano who couldn't hit a curveball in Major League.

Matt Loehrer (21:28)
Is this Sereno?

All

right. So he was great. William Fickner, who's ⁓ always a jerk.

Tug McTighe (21:37)
Fuck, Fickner,

he's incredible dickhead. And he's in a ton of movies as that role.

Matt Loehrer (21:41)
Yeah, he does that well.

Yeah, so he was Roger Van Zandt. Natalie Portman is Lauren Gustafson, born in 81. She was 14 in this. She was in The Phantom Menace when she was 18. She was in Beautiful Girls in 96, which I didn't see, but you did. ⁓ I think this was her second film after The Professional. ⁓ That was an awesome movie. ⁓

Tug McTighe (21:56)
Great movie.

That's an awesome movie She was probably

12, wasn't she? God she's so good. She yeah blew up Tom Noonan is Kelso Who sets up the big the centerpiece robbery? he's another that guy who unbeknownst to many but knownst to me as Kane the drug dealer from 89s Robocop 2 which was penned by Frank Miller comic artist

Matt Loehrer (22:05)
Yeah, I think she was.

I remember that.

Tug McTighe (22:27)
Kevin Gage as Wayne grow boy. What a butt head he was in this He's he's another character actor that's just done a ton of stuff. His first credit was counselor to in space camp

Matt Loehrer (22:31)
He was so good in this.

course.

Tug McTighe (22:38)
Chief Wiggum, Apu, Langmeier, Longmeier showed up. That's Hank Kaziri everyone. That's Alan Marciano. Yeah, he's so many voice roles for Hank Kaziri. But carving out a few on-screen performances here and there.

Matt Loehrer (22:55)
Probably a Danny Trejo as Gilbert Trejo. Yeah, and boy was he young. It's younger than I've ever seen him. ⁓

Tug McTighe (22:58)
Cleverly named

He and

he always looked like he was 50, but he looked like he was 30 in this gosh

Matt Loehrer (23:06)
Right. For sure.

Yeah, you look pretty good. Susan Traylor as Lane Chirito. She was in, I think, a scene, but she did fine. Kinston is the lane. Henry Rollins.

Tug McTighe (23:16)
Player, I'm

glad you approve of Susan Traylor's performance. Fine. Move on.

Matt Loehrer (23:20)
Yeah, she was fine. But

Henry Rollins as Hugh Benny.

Tug McTighe (23:24)
Henry

Rollins of Black Flag. Yeah, Hugh Benny, also my real first name is Hugh. You may be surprised to know dozens of listeners that my real name is not Tug.

Matt Loehrer (23:30)
That's right for people that don't know.

OK, so here is the that guy Martin Ferraro. OK, do know Martin Ferraro?

Tug McTighe (23:37)
Okay, okay.

No, I don't. I can't wait to hear about this.

Matt Loehrer (23:42)
Okay.

but you'll know him. He's pretty prolific. He's a prolific that guy. He's the guy who sells Val Kilmer the explosives right at the beginning.

Tug McTighe (23:50)
Okay, he's wearing

round glasses, he looks really familiar.

Matt Loehrer (23:53)
Yep, he's the lawyer in Jurassic Park that gets eaten on the toilet. By the two and this is my favorite deep cut that guy. He's the hotel clerk in plane strains and automobiles when Steve Martin gets a hotel room for cash and a really nice watch and John Candy has $2 and a Casio and he says I'm going to have to say good night. So that's the same guy. He's been. That guy looks familiar and I'm like.

Tug McTighe (23:56)
For fuck's sake he is, yes he is.

Slow clap. Slow clap to Matt Lohr. ⁓ you're right. Jeez. God.

Matt Loehrer (24:22)
That's who it is. So amazing cast.

Tug McTighe (24:22)
Okay. ⁓ Yeah. Okay, so we're gonna run through the plot here as we are want to do. We're gonna get it mostly right, but some of it, it's gonna feel like the movie jumps back in time and it doesn't. It's just, it was really, there's a lot of...

cutting away to other plot lines and then coming back and having a scene broken up by another plot line. So we'll think we'll mostly get it right.

Matt Loehrer (24:50)
Yeah, like you cut away for 50 seconds and then you're cutting to someone else somewhere else.

Tug McTighe (24:56)
Right,

we'll get there. All right. Neil McCauley is a professional thief based in LA. He and his crew, right-hand man Chris, Sherless, Michael Cherito, the enforcer of Gilbert Trejo, the driver and newly hired hand Wayne grow Rob a $1.6 million in bear bonds from an armored car during the heist. Wayne grow kills a guard without provocation. He's like, he was coming at me. He wasn't, ⁓ forcing the crew to eliminate the other two guards. ⁓

Matt Loehrer (25:23)
Okay,

can we talk about the bearer?

Tug McTighe (25:26)
when they're... They have three minutes, they got a clock on it, and they're trying to find out the right ones?

Matt Loehrer (25:32)
Why would you just not take them all?

Tug McTighe (25:34)
Yeah, it's they're literally no books, not notebooks, not even their Zemelos. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Matt Loehrer (25:36)
there are envelopes. There's like 20 envelopes. And he's like, no, that's

not it. No, that's something else. I found it finally. ⁓ So I immediately had a problem with this movie. I'm like, come on.

Tug McTighe (25:44)
Right.

Right,

you're like, what the fuck? the next morning, I think, but definitely later at a diner, McCauley is going to kill Waingrove, which again, right in the parking lot in the middle of the day, can you just find a better way to kill him? But Waingrove, Waingrove escapes. Cause look, McCauley is a pro. There's no need to murder these guards. And again, you know, they're, they're.

Trying to be a professional crew. There's honor even among thieves And Wayne grow is a bad dude. We learn later. He's a serial rapist and a murderer So again back to your point about these interstitials in the middle of all this we cut away to Chris at home with his wife Charlene who's being Ashley Judd who's just being a big bitch to him Complaining is not making enough money when they live in a sick-ass house

and he pulls away in a sick ass Corvette. We learn later that he's gambler. So this was a little bit of a shaky setup for me. What did you think?

Matt Loehrer (26:46)
It was not clear to me whether she knew that he was she knew he was a gambler and that he was losing a lot of money gambling. I wasn't sure she knew he was a criminal, but I kind of decided that she did know and didn't care. ⁓ Yes, nothing was more mid 90s for this for me than Ashley Judd. ⁓ But. yeah, but that said, I thought Val Kilmer was really good in the scene. He goes from everything's cool and chill to.

Tug McTighe (26:59)
Yep.

and then Ashley Judd. Number of the famous Judd family.

Matt Loehrer (27:14)
just an unhitched lunatic throwing ashtrays and breaking stuff and storming out. ⁓ Yeah. she, she, we also know that he has a son and his son is, yeah. And she's going to choose. Yeah, exactly.

Tug McTighe (27:17)
Yeah, breaking windows and stuff like that.

Dominic, yeah. They're kind of fighting, they're fighting over him. Yeah,

he's caught in the middle of their clearly crumbling marriage. All right, then we meet police lieutenant Vincent Hanna and his team, Bosco, Drucker, Casals, and Schwartz. They're at the scene investigating the robbery. They're very put together. Yeah.

Matt Loehrer (27:30)
the bargaining chip. Great.

I like that. Like everybody

knew what their job was. The minute Hannah shows up on the scene, he's like, what do we got? And they get five different people saying, you know, we got this, we got that. This person saw something. We talked to these people. We can't miss the area. So.

Tug McTighe (27:58)
Hey, there's a camera up here on the traffic light. Check it out. It's probably disabled.

Matt Loehrer (28:03)
Yeah, Tetamin was

really good there. Everybody was everybody did their part and you could tell they were really a bunch

Tug McTighe (28:09)
So let me start a really annoying refrain. You see that Neil's crew is buttoned up. That's why those murders pissed them off. That wasn't in their plan. That's not how they work. They each have a role. They know what they're fucking doing. Then you see these cops. They each have a role. They're really professional. They know what they're doing. So you're starting, I'm going to say the word parallel a lot during this discussion. You're paralleling.

the cops crew and the thieves crew.

Matt Loehrer (28:42)
Yes, I agree 100%. It's balanced. They're on opposite sides of the law, but they're really alike in a lot of ways.

Tug McTighe (28:49)
They're

⁓

Matt Loehrer (28:49)
let's do a different show. Let's start talking about that. Okay, go ahead.

Tug McTighe (28:53)
Hannah, dedicated lawman and former Marine, has a strained relationship with his third wife, Justine, and struggles to connect with his stepdaughter, Lauren, who is Natalie Portman. Neil McCauley, De Niro lives a solitary life, begins a relationship with Edie. She's a graphic designer there. They both kind of bond over the fact that they're lonely and sort of live a solitary life. They had like a rude meeting.

at this coffee shop. wasn't exactly a meet cute. She was doing some kind of accent, which you find out is Appalachian. Maybe she says it is. She went to Parsons though, man. So she's a pretty good designer. That's a famous design school in New York. She does. Yeah. She's working in some bookstore art store.

Matt Loehrer (29:29)
She should have a better job than she does.

She works at the bookstore, but she does like restaurant menus.

Tug McTighe (29:38)
Yeah

graphic design on the side. So anyway, she would have been in a design firm And then BAM she says I've seen you around the store. But but but but but next thing, you know She's at her place. Is that her place?

Matt Loehrer (29:51)
I think it's his place. Because he says she's like, where do you live? And he says here and she can't believe him. It's kind of a strange. I think you need to know LA really well, but it seems like he's in a really great part of town and she doesn't believe it. But I think she's I wasn't sure about this. I. I think they went to her play or his place. She spent the night because it was the was the wild Carefree 90s where I guess you just did that and.

Tug McTighe (29:59)
Yeah, again, a little unclear. Yeah, a little unclear. Yeah.

Yeah, this is an-

Had sex. Yep.

Matt Loehrer (30:19)
He left her alone in his house in the morning. He just left. And he gave her he brought her a glass of water lovingly wrapped in a paper towel. ⁓

Tug McTighe (30:21)
He left, which was weird.

something

like this? He didn't want it to sweat. Yeah.

Matt Loehrer (30:31)
Is that what it was? Maybe it was.

don't know. But he it's like he almost did origami with a paper towel. ⁓ So I thought that was a little strange.

Tug McTighe (30:35)
Yeah, right.

We get a couple of horrifying green screens When they're looking out over the balcony at LA and I mean awful I 30 years ago. I said to myself boy. We really take these effects for granted these days The effects we get now are almost flawless and these really sucked So it was it was a it really stuck out to me

Matt Loehrer (30:57)
Okay, well, and then there's a quick cut to Hannah meeting with his criminal informant to lean on him. And I'm almost positive Pacino improvised this entire exchange. ⁓ And that happens more than once in this movie, but everybody else is just trying to keep up like he's singing to the guy. He's

Tug McTighe (31:07)
Yeah. For sure.

Yeah, maybe

the character's crazy or he's insane.

Matt Loehrer (31:21)
I guess there was an interview more recently with Pacino years after the movie came out and he said that he was playing it like Hannah was 100 % high on cocaine the entire time. And so I don't know if that helps you. If that makes it feel like that makes sense. Yeah, he's just singing songs to random lyrics he's making up. This is where I think he was channeling his character from.

Tug McTighe (31:37)
If that makes- yeah, if that's better. ⁓

Hoo-ah! Right.

Matt Loehrer (31:47)
sent up a woman. He's just like, I'm just

going to, got an award, so I'm just going to do this all the

Tug McTighe (31:52)
So yeah, he's meeting with this informant to get some information. We then see McCauley meeting with Kelso Kane from RoboCop, who's a computer expert who says, hey man, I can get you into this bank. I can shut down the computers, the security, and it's gonna be like a $12 million score.

Matt Loehrer (32:13)
The guys on rewatchables believe that that character invented the internet. Because he's basically like the information is all out there, man. I just go out and I just get it. Yeah, so Bill Simmons thinks that that's where that came from.

Tug McTighe (32:18)
good.

Yeah, I just grab it. It's just a matter of grabbing it in 95. Yeah. Yeah.

That's funny Then we meet John Voight who's Nate he's a McCallys fence. He's more than a fence. He's kind of a partner, but He says why not? Hey these belong to this rich dude. Why don't you sell them back to him? He's gonna You know get his insurance money from the loss of the robbery Why don't you sell them back to him for cheap? You make a bunch of money. He gets his money. Everybody goes. I'm happy

Matt Loehrer (32:49)
Yeah, John Voight was great in this and also I'm not a criminal, but I think that's probably a terrible idea.

Tug McTighe (32:54)
Yeah, it feels like it's a little too convenient. And you'll

now we just cut to President Pedro Serrano, Dennis Haysbert. Never seen him yet. He's a convict on parole. He gets a shitty job. He hates at a restaurant. You can tell it ain't going to last. And again, I'm like, I'm not sure why we're introducing this subplot, but I'm sure we'll find out soon.

And then...

Macaulay is talking to Chris earlier and Chris says I love Charlene the Sun rises and sets he goes you gotta You fucking around on her. No, not really. She fucking run on you. No way Well, he doesn't fucking believe it and guess what happens he catches Charlene having sex with Hank his area of all people and then she he busted and says You got to give Chris one more chance if he fucks it up, you're gone. I'll even set you on myself So he's very protective of Chris

Matt Loehrer (33:48)
Yeah, that was great where he he pushes the cart with the mops and the towels. So the maid's cart. And then just so she can see it out the window and then knocks on the door and she opens it for him. I thought that was pretty smart. He does a lot of things in this movie. They're like, I guess pretty smart.

Tug McTighe (33:48)
McCaul is.

The maid, the maid, yeah, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, he acts. He's really quick to figure out how to get where he wants to get.

Matt Loehrer (34:07)
Right. All right. So when I was cut, cut, cut. So now we're back to Hannah meeting with. So he had this meeting set up with the Scriminal Informant of his and the guy's brother, Tomo doing the wild thing. And he connects Chirito to the robbery robbery in an extremely random way. Like he wants something from Hannah. And I forget what it is. He wants protection or he wants him to help him get rid of some.

Tug McTighe (34:17)
Tone Locke,

He told Moak,

told Moak wants him to, some guys are fucking up his chop shop business and he wants him to get those Porsches from them or whatever.

Matt Loehrer (34:36)
Right, so this is a big waste of time for Pacino and he's about to walk away and this guy mentions the guys called him slick. ⁓ Which is what Charito was calling Wayne grow after he shot the guy and it's apparently something he says a lot. So again, I think this was a scene where Pacino is just making up dialogue and everybody else is going with it. But Hannah's team starts to monitor him. Charito that is.

Tug McTighe (34:43)
He calls people slick.

Correct.

Matt Loehrer (35:00)
and identify the rest of the crew and their next target. And they're all out to dinner, which I thought was really cool. They're all like a family.

Tug McTighe (35:05)
Yep, the crew is, yep.

Yeah, like a family.

And the wives are there. again, you see everybody's got a wife or girlfriend except for Neal. He's thinking about Edie. He gives her a call. And they're all together and loving on each other and kind of a family.

Matt Loehrer (35:23)
Yeah, more than you get out of your regular. mean, usually it's oh, it's criminal low lives and they just crawl back to their holes and they don't have any connections and they don't. Nobody loves them. They don't love anybody. So the next target is going to be a precious metals depository. The cops don't know who McCauley is, right?

Tug McTighe (35:27)
Correct.

no, no, no, you go.

That's right. This is really important. I They they they see the other guys and like okay, they got his rap sheet They got his rap they and then they're like, yeah, I can't get anything on this other guy I don't know who he seems like the leader which says to me. He's kept a pretty low profile Over the years. He's clearly a ex con But he's smart and measured and doesn't make a lot of mistakes And then we get confirmation of this pretty quickly when he tells Chris

Hey look, I know you love Charlene and everything, but the lesson we both learned is that you need to be ready to walk and weigh in 30 seconds flat from any of this and anyone when the heat arises, right? When the heat's there. And I love it when they say the name of the movie in the movie.

Matt Loehrer (36:21)
Yeah, he he says that in his apartment, which is really amazing. Has this amazing view of the ocean, but he has no furniture like like when he walks. He walks in and Chris is sleeping on the floor on just a wood floor. Crazy.

Tug McTighe (36:26)
Right. No, no, just like one chair. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓

Matt Loehrer (36:33)
So Van Zant, who's Fickner, who's a jerk, he pretends to agree with John Voight's plan. He says, yeah, that sounds great. I'll buy those Barabans back at 60 cents on the dollar. And then, of course, when he hangs up the phone, he tells Henry Rollins, well, we got to kill these guys and nobody steals from me. ⁓ But anticipating the trap, McCauley and the crew counter ambush them. They're supposed to meet at an abandoned drive in or something.

Tug McTighe (36:46)
Go kill it. Yeah, fuck these guys, Right.

McCauley says

come alone. He doesn't fucking come alone. He knows they're not coming alone. He goes I ain't coming alone

Matt Loehrer (37:03)
and they end up killing all Vans Ants guys except.

Tug McTighe (37:05)
This is a

really nice set piece. Very cinematic in an old drive-in movie theater parking lot. And you see all the gravel and the signposts where the speakers are shot from a really, really, really beautiful aerial shot. Yeah, just like I said, really cinematic, really interesting and beautifully shot.

Matt Loehrer (37:26)
Yeah, I like it where the dumb criminals think they're pulling one over on the smart criminals and then the smart criminals end up just beating the crap

Tug McTighe (37:33)
The hero, yeah, the hero criminals are always better prepared than the non-hero criminals.

they've they've escaped the the Vans in ambush and Now now McCauley and his crew are all having dinner together and McCauley calls Edie telling her he wants to see her Again, his isolation is leading him to make a mistake. He literally just told Chris Don't do this. You got to be willing to walk away and then they have a nice moment He wants to go to New Zealand. They're getting a little closer. And again, we saw the cops

having dinner Now we see the criminals crew having dinner and we're starting to say to ourselves. they're the same They work all the time together. They live with the time together. This is Their life. It's not just a job. It's not nine to five and you start to see these parallels again. I'll say parallels Really what you're learning is the two main characters is to what they do

is two sides of the same coin. And this job that Neil does and that Hannah does takes a daily toll in their lives and their relationships. I know this will come back to Roost. I'm watching it and I go, this is coming back to Roost. This is the theme. This is the theme in the movie. Again, there's a parallel between Hannah's cop crew and McCauley's crook crew. There's just a lot of, they show it from one side and then they flip it and show it from the other.

Matt Loehrer (38:57)
I like that. mean, it doesn't seem repetitive to me. It doesn't seem redundant. It's just establishing that there's so much alike. I thought that was

Tug McTighe (39:06)
We cut back to Wayne grow. We haven't seen him since the beginning He's in a motel post coitus with a prostitute who he then murders really scary person Vincent is called to the scene and we get some expositional dialogue between him and the and the CSI woman About how she's like this is the same MO as the other sexual assault and murders foreshadowing. Look out Matt diggity ding foreshadowing

Maybe this guy's a serial killer. We don't know but probably And then we see Wayne grow zero fucks given is that a bar or five minutes later drinking a beer and he gets Hey, they told me to come see you about a job. Yeah, there's this Cruz always looking for guys

Matt Loehrer (39:43)
He's a motivated guy. He's 100 % a serial killer, does he need to be a serial killer? That's there's a lot of stuff packed into this movie and this is where you get to the point where I feel like it's spilling over the top and I'm not sure we needed

Tug McTighe (39:51)
Yeah!

I'm

not catching up. Yeah, for sure. So yeah, yeah, Hanna Lee.

Matt Loehrer (39:58)
Anyway, so Hannah goes,

sees the crime scene, leaves the restaurant.

Tug McTighe (40:02)
He leaves the restaurant

and then he goes back to the restaurant where where Justine is still waiting. We get some nice dialogue here This is a classic murder cop trope That comes up a lot in these kind of characters. Look, I can't explain this to you. I can't talk to you about it It's horrible what I do. Do what do I need to tell you the story of the junkie who?

put his baby in the microwave and fried the baby to death because he wouldn't stop. Like you get a lot of this in these kind of homicide cop. And when they're talking about why the relationships don't work and you get it here, but it makes it makes sense.

Matt Loehrer (40:38)
So then we cut to a scene with Dennis Haysburg, we haven't seen him in a while, and his supportive wife who thinks he's great and is so proud of him and you're doing all the right things and he's just like, I hate my job and I hate my life, I'm pathetic. And then we cut back to McCauley and Edie and they're having a nice moment and everything's fine. then I think this is the scene where Natalie Portman standing outside.

Tug McTighe (40:48)
This job sucks, right? I hate my life.

Right, like when they were introducing another subplot with Natalie Portman where her real dad's a deadbeat, because Justine's been married before too. He says he's going to come, he's not going to come, she's depressed. I wonder if that's going to come back because we haven't seen her. She's been in one scene so far. So again, I just...

Matt Loehrer (41:22)
Right, but they've both

times, this is second time we've seen her, and it reinforces that, hey, yeah, your dad sucked before and he still sucks now. So he's let her down again.

Tug McTighe (41:27)
We were told the same piece of information, right?

So we don't know why she's even here right now.

Matt Loehrer (41:35)
I frankly am not sure why she's in movie, maybe we'll find

Tug McTighe (41:38)
We're gonna

talk about that later. Okay, the team is taking out the depository and they break in but when a Careless officer so Hannah is what now all over these fucking guys He knows they did the the armored car. He's surveilling everybody. He's tapping their phones. He's doing it all so they're they're watching the Depository and this officer from the cops their detectives makes a noise

But Kali hears it aborts the heist Hannah. They're like, let's go get him and he's like, I'm not gonna get them for breaking entering. haven't stolen anything, right? They'll just be get get a fucking misdemeanor. And I, I gotta wait and get them on something for that's real.

Matt Loehrer (42:19)
So this was inspired by actual events. The real McCauley was in a situation inside the building and they were staked out in the same building. And one of the guards went to use the bathroom. think he walked across the room or he went to the bathroom and flushed it. regardless, the real McCauley walked away in a similar situation.

Tug McTighe (42:36)
Right,

just let me get out of here because this is not right. Right's not clean. I need to be clean. So this is the midpoint, Matt. We're at the midpoint of the movie. This is the false loss for the now quote unquote, I'm going to quote, good guy cops. get the we get the 30 seconds flat speech again from McCauley. He says, we got to we got to do one big job and get the fuck out of L.A. This is when they decide to do the big job that.

Matt Loehrer (42:50)
I'm glad you quoted that.

Tug McTighe (43:01)
Kane set him up for calling him Kane, the guy that invented the internet worth 12 million. But again, our cops have lost. They had them, they lost it. So we're now careening towards the end of act two.

Matt Loehrer (43:13)
Yeah, there's a really good kind of a moment here where it's De Niro saying, hey, we can do this or not do this. And you feel like he wants them to say no. But of course, they don't. ⁓

Tug McTighe (43:25)
Yeah. Well,

he says to Sherido, you got a wife, your kids, you've put a ton of money away, you're set for life. Why do you want to do this? he goes, man, the action is the juice for me.

Matt Loehrer (43:38)
Yes, the actions the juice. Yeah, and there was another thing too. He said, you know, treato. What do you want to do? And he says, hey, I'm with you. And he's like, no, no, you can't. But you see that kind of that level of devotion that they have to this guy. He's like the dad, right? He's the dad and he's these guys are his kids kind of. It's kind of weird, but. Yeah, it was really good. So he gave everybody a vote. I think that was his mistake and he said, OK, we'll do it. It's good.

Tug McTighe (43:45)
Europe you pick for for sure for sure for sure.

Yeah, it's a good sequence, isn't it?

Right.

So in a completely unhinged De Niro moment, he shakes down Hank Azaria, who remember was having sex with Charlene, because he wants to get Chris. So he's turning him into an informant. And he finds some, we're going to extradite you to New Jersey from a cigarette smuggling bit you had 10 years ago. So it's just like, they're digging up anything they can.

Matt Loehrer (44:15)
Right?

Tug McTighe (44:29)
to catch these guys.

Matt Loehrer (44:29)
Yeah,

but she knows I'm not going to play this clip, but if anybody wants it, just go to YouTube and you'll know it when you see it. He's just unhinged. I'm sure he.

Tug McTighe (44:38)
His eyes are insane,

he's got crazy eyes, he's not blinking.

Matt Loehrer (44:43)
Yeah, as areas just got his mouth open like he doesn't know what to say if he had a line he forgot it or decided better.

Tug McTighe (44:48)
Right. He's looking off screen

to Michael Mann. Like is this my child? Just keep going. I'll keep going. Yeah. So we then cut to the guys who are prepping for their next, the next big heist and they're at this sort of container shipping yard. He's like, all right, we come in here, the exits are there. We do this. We pull that. We got to get this set it up here. So they're making all the prep. They're like, yeah, it sounds great. Okay. Very good.

Matt Loehrer (44:51)
It's just insane, pitching out this thing.

Tug McTighe (45:13)
So we cut to that hand of the cops are watching every move. They're up on the roof taking pictures, looking at them. They're like, man, we got these fuckers. But are they planning their next job, Matt?

Matt Loehrer (45:23)
No, they're not.

Tug McTighe (45:25)
They are setting up the cops. They're surveilling the cops. This is a pretend moment that they're pretending to set up their next job. So the cops will follow them. De Niro and his crew leave, the cops come down and they're like, man, this is a weird place. This is the fucking shipping yard. There's a scrap metal place. There's an old video store. And then Pacino goes, motherfuckers, they just made us.

They knew we were watching. They pretended here set us up and he looks up and then you see De Niro taking pictures of all of them. And he's like,

Matt Loehrer (46:00)
his telephoto camera.

Yeah, so he's figuring out they're doing the exact same thing. So another parallel, it's like, ⁓ they're both finding out information about this was a really good scene. And, and another like, yeah, we'll play that clip, because it's really good. And you get a sense of respect. I don't know, admiration from Pacino.

Tug McTighe (46:06)
Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, so let's play that. Let's play this. What are we says? What are they looking at? Yeah, it's really great.

100 % respect

Matt Loehrer (46:25)
So back to the John Voight, aka Nate Defense, brings some exposition about Hannah's crew to McCauley. He tells him Hannah likes McCauley and he respects him. He thinks he's smart. But with two ex-wives, he's the kind of guy that's out all night working on bringing bad guys down. He's just in it for the job. Maybe to get away from relationships. Maybe he can't have relationships. Nate tells McCauley there's just too much heat on him. Heat, hug. And he should walk away.

Tug McTighe (46:47)
Burn. Yes.

Right, McCauley though says that it's worth it, I think, and he's starting to fall for E.D., which is right, just what he tells everybody else not to do.

Matt Loehrer (46:57)
Yeah, where this heat come from? Tommy loves it when a movie says that he's like, that's the name of the thing. Every time so then Vincent comes home to a messy house, Justine's getting ready to go out. He's like, where we're going. She doesn't answer and he says, where are you going? ⁓ I don't know how necessary that scene was, frankly, like we know their marriage is in a bad way.

Tug McTighe (47:03)
Me me too, Tommy.

Where are you going? Right.

Well, again, it

came out of nowhere and it was so short and so unexp... like, yeah. Yeah.

Matt Loehrer (47:23)
Yeah, it was like 30 seconds scene. It just didn't

seem necessary. But anyway, it's just another indication their marriage is falling apart. So we didn't know. know now. And this next scene is pretty pivotal, I would say via helicopter. They're chasing. Hannah is chasing McCauley on the freeway and finds a way to cut him off, pulls him over and invites him for coffee.

Tug McTighe (47:37)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, well he in a helicopter They get him they get him Hemmed in he lands the copter gets in a car catches up to him pulls him over of course, they each know who the other is and he says why don't you Want to buy a cup of coffee? Yeah No, he says yeah, I can do that he goes follow me. So here we go

Matt Loehrer (48:13)
Yeah, it wasn't really a request. It was just like, you're going to have coffee with me right now.

Tug McTighe (48:19)
So yeah, so here we go They sit down. This is the famous scene Where they are across the table from one another they each sort of talk about their history He's like hey you were in this prison Folsom blah blah blah. Yeah, I'm never going back there I Got I'm dedicated to this. Why don't why don't you do so you seem like a smart guy? Why don't you do something else? I don't know anything else and then Hannah says neither do I right? They're both the same

You work all night. You work all night. You're losing people. I can't stay married McCauley confides I'm isolated. I'd never really had a real thing And then Vincent tells McCauley About a recurring nightmare. He has what he sees all the dead bodies he's encountered in his career sitting around a large table and He says what are they saying? He goes they don't say anything, know, and then

Well, Kali tells him, tells Hannah about a dream he has, recurring dream he has where he's drowning. So it's they're both lost in this. And they just said, I don't know how to do anything else. ⁓

Matt Loehrer (49:21)
Yeah, you feel like they

couldn't talk to anybody out there. The other guy is the only person they could ever talk to, honestly.

Tug McTighe (49:26)
The other

guy is the only person who will ever understand what I'm going through. Yeah.

Matt Loehrer (49:29)
And that was pretty great because you feel like there's

no there's no anger like they're not angry at each other. ⁓ It's like being mad at yourself. ⁓

Tug McTighe (49:33)
Nope Nope Right,

so they they they do Come to respect each other again. They are two sides of the same coin and Despite this respect moment. They both acknowledge look all if it has to be you it has to be you and I will kill you when he's like so will I and It's really a fantastic moment where they just both Admit to each other. Look, I gotta do this. You got to do what you got to do and I'm gonna do what I gotta do and again, it's

the only time they've been in a scene together, genius actors making it happen. And I like the subdued nature of their performances here. In this moment, Matt, there's not too much hoo-ah out of Pacino and there's not, know, a little bit, you know, I'm out Pacino, I'm out De Niro, I'm not, it's just more grounded, I think is the word I would use.

Matt Loehrer (50:16)
Yeah.

It They didn't rehearse that. Or rehearsal was minimal because man wanted it to be as natural as possible. ⁓ So they just.

Tug McTighe (50:28)
Just let them, let them cook

as the kids say, let them cook.

Matt Loehrer (50:31)
the kids say, I think this is probably the best dialogue in the movie. They were face to face at the table, obviously across from the tip from one other. But the scene is just alternating over the shoulder. So here's my hot take that this was a conscious decision by man because they are two sides of two sides of a coin and you can't look at two sides of the same coin at the same time. You can only look at one side. Very, very Zen.

Tug McTighe (50:37)
Yeah, cut, cut. Yeah.

Haha, very... Wow, Matt, you think? Yeah.

You may be onto something.

All right, we'll put this in a little bit of the scene.

Matt Loehrer (51:02)
Yeah, that's worth listening to. Hannah goes back to check in with his cops. We tell them that they don't know where Hannah's crew went. They went to the airport. They went to the airport where there's no flyover, so they just lost.

Tug McTighe (51:08)
We lost them all! He's like you've been... He's like you've been

on him forever! What the fuck? He's like they disappeared as of 9pm.

Matt Loehrer (51:16)
Yeah, he was pretty mad. And that's the end of Act 2. All is lost for the cop and crew.

Tug McTighe (51:20)
Yeah,

the cops have lost the bad guys. They don't know what's happening. They don't know what the next job is. We're heading towards a lot of action and terrible bloodshed here in the last hour or so. So let's go.

Matt Loehrer (51:34)
Yeah, I don't know who to root for. It's like I both want him to win. I don't want anybody to lose.

Tug McTighe (51:36)
I agree with you totally.

Yeah. And again, not, not, not accidental. So now we'll fucking Wayne Grove makes a deal with Van Zandt to just creepy fucks in the same room. He's like, you got cause cause McCauley said, I'm going to fucking kill you. Right. When he'd cross double cross him, he called him and said, I'm gonna come kill you. And so Vance is living in his office. Like I, I'm terrified. This guy's going to come murder me. ⁓

Matt Loehrer (51:55)
Right.

Yeah, I

don't know how Wayne Grove found out about it, but it must have been at the bar when he was looking for work. They must have said, hey, I know a guy.

Tug McTighe (52:05)
Yeah, yeah,

that's a little shaky for me But you but now van zandt Says hey, let's get rid of these guys from when I'll pay a lot of money and then trejo Janie trejo and the character trejo the same He he quits. He calls him and says I can't do this man. They're on they're all over me these cops I can't do this. It's gonna compromise the mission I just called the job a mission but but he's like there

They're too close to me. So who does Macaulay recruit but an old colleague that he sees slinging hash in the diner but Don Breeden President Pedro Serrano. So this is why

Matt Loehrer (52:42)
President Pedro Serrano.

Did he know he worked there or did he just happen to be

at the diner where a former con that he knows and trust happens to be slinging hash as you said, the minute he didn't have a getaway driver and he's like, well, that guy can drive a car. Yeah. And I couldn't tell if Trey O was really being surveilled or if he got cold feet or if he'd been threatened.

Tug McTighe (52:58)
The second one.

Let's, the second one. me outside in five minutes. All right.

Yeah, for sure. Me too, yeah. I think he was trying to do the right thing. That he was on.

Matt Loehrer (53:12)
But I liked Danny Trejo, so I'll assume that he, the heat was on, as it were.

So the crew's like, okay, we're gonna do this thing.

Tug McTighe (53:21)
Yep. So Hugh Benny, Henry Rollins, tips off.

Hannah that this is all gonna happen and I'm like, well, wait a minute. How did he know from Wayne grow? I Don't know there this this was a little shaky. Did you can you suss this out?

Matt Loehrer (53:33)
Okay.

I did figure this out because I had the same question. I'm like, they got the bank tip from John Voight after they kicked Waingrove to the curb. So he wasn't privy to this. And the cops know the cops get a call giving them the time and the address. But we will find out that a trail got tortured. So.

Tug McTighe (53:56)
sorry,

dude. I just, of course I lost the fucking play. Of course. Yeah, they beat the shit. Yeah, they get it out of Danny Trejo.

Matt Loehrer (54:02)
And that was, I'm sure it was Wayne Grow, under orders from Vance Ant to set them up because he wants to get, he wants to get McCauley killed or put away in jail because McCauley is going to kill him. Okay. So that's how we know.

Tug McTighe (54:04)
No, 100%. 100%. Yeah.

It's gonna kill. Yeah. Okay. Sorry.

I remember I was like what and I'm like tug just watch and then I go ⁓ Okay So they intercept the crew after they leave the bank the cops do and there is a Gargantuan shootout in the street where many innocent victims are getting shot up

Chris kills Bosco while Breeden and and Chirito get killed Chirito was killed by Vincent after Chirito or Chirito has picked up a little girl in the park I thought for a minute he was because you saw him with this little girl before He maybe was trying to save her but then maybe she was gonna be a hostage. It was just yeah, Matt says no no, no, Vincent

Matt Loehrer (54:55)
She was a hostage.

Tug McTighe (54:58)
headshots, shurido. And again, like I said,

Maybe he was going to save her, probably going to be a hostage. We then cut to Sherido's wife and Breeden's girlfriend hearing about this giant shootout and robbery on the news. And then it's another reality check as to what kind of people these are and what kind of life they're leading. And I felt it was pretty powerful stuff. Again, the bad guys and the cops are not so different. They're all shooting up people in the street.

They all have Uzis. They're just ones, the good guy and ones, the bad guy quote unquote.

Matt Loehrer (55:33)
So a couple of things. Yeah, Macaulay and Sureless get away. Sureless has been wounded. Yeah, but somehow they got away, which I thought was nuts. So a couple of things. There's more shooting in this scene than I've ever seen in any shootout scene in the history of shootout scenes. And maybe it's possible they're playing fast and loose with the time frame because we see them in the bank.

Tug McTighe (55:38)
You get shot,

Jesus Christ. Holy shit, no kidding.

Matt Loehrer (55:56)
They've already started to rob the bank when the cops get this call that says, yeah, we got a call about this bank robbery. It's going to be at this location.

Tug McTighe (56:03)
I specifically

chose to suspend my disbelief here.

Matt Loehrer (56:07)
Okay, so it's possible they actually got that earlier and yeah, they couldn't.

Well, yeah, we saw them, but we don't know that that was that those things were happening at the same time. We assume they were because that's how time works. But. OK, because there was no way. Yeah, it did look sequential. I've yes once.

Tug McTighe (56:17)
Then edit it better. Then edit it better. Because it looks sequential. No. Have you been to LA? The

entire sketch, the Californians on SNL, is about how all people in LA talk about is how they're getting somewhere because it's impossible to get anywhere in LA. That's the whole point of the sketch. And it's 100 % true.

Matt Loehrer (56:33)
Hahaha

Okay,

Tug McTighe (56:45)
So yeah,

Matt Loehrer (56:45)
that's fine.

Tug McTighe (56:46)
I just like, okay, it's fine. Let it breathe.

Matt Loehrer (56:48)
Okay, well, I don't know where, yeah, I don't know where the police station is relative to the bank. Maybe it was down, maybe it was a block away. But there's that. There's no way the cops are getting there for the cruise out, too. I can't figure out where they are. Like they've parked and got out and then Hannah's running from a couple blocks away. And then you've got his two, you know, you have West Studio and McKelty is on the are they across the street? But I don't know if they're running parallel.

Tug McTighe (56:52)
Maybe next tour, that's why chose it. Right.

Are they near? Yeah, yeah,

yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a lot of inner cutting and it, yeah, and I don't need it to be sequential, but I need to be able to pay attention to it.

Matt Loehrer (57:20)
Yeah, you don't know where anybody is.

It

just gets worse. Spatially, I have no idea where anybody is. Third, Val Kilmer is like a step behind De Niro to get into the car. And then suddenly he's like eight steps behind him. So they were pretty casual getting into the car. I mean, I get you don't want to raise too much suspicion, but come on. Yeah, West Studio and McKelty Williams Center are apparently right across from the bank. But the getaway car takes off, right? With Pedro Serrano driving and they're not going.

Tug McTighe (57:32)
Right, right.

get right and then he gets shot

Matt Loehrer (57:54)
five miles an hour. going 50 miles an hour,

Tug McTighe (57:55)
no yeah no there and then they're running behind yeah there's just a lot of

Matt Loehrer (58:00)
Yeah, West Studio and McElty Williamson are keeping up with them on foot as like it's like the flash. I can't believe they would have gotten away also when they steal that car at the end when McCallian. Yeah, it's like how did they get out of there? any case, a lot of gunfire. They got a lot of people. I'm 100 % convinced Tom Sizemore was using that girl as a shield. So pretty bad. But anyway, rant.

Tug McTighe (58:03)
Yeah.

Yeah, that hatchback, yeah.

Yeah.

Matt Loehrer (58:29)
ran over, that was my issue with that scene.

Tug McTighe (58:31)
I

love it. Yeah, there's a lot there. And there's a lot there when you're working with Little Bear Graphics, our sponsor. Heat is about professionals. De Niro's crew doesn't pull jobs at a 7-Eleven. You shouldn't trust your brand to your cousin who knows Photoshop. Little Bear Graphics is a real deal. Logos, websites, ads, illustration, merch, the whole package. They make your brand look as slick as Michael Mann's LA Skyline. But they won't leave you in a shootout somewhere near the Staples Center.

Go with little bit of graphics because in design, like in heists, you either look like the main pro or you look like Wayne Grow.

Matt Loehrer (59:07)
That was a good one. I love it. I love all those. It's just I want a whole show that's just us cutting all Little Bear commercials into it. It's too.

Tug McTighe (59:08)
You're welcome.

So we are now fully into the... It's

one big long podcast. We're now moving pretty quickly here, I think, towards resolution. Macaulay takes a shirtless to a doctor, Jeremy Piven, in his mustache to treat him. And then he leaves him with Nate. He's now worried, as you were, maybe Trejo tipped off the LAPD. So he goes, Trejo,

Matt Loehrer (59:27)
Mm-hmm.

Tug McTighe (59:38)
to confront him and he's mortally wounded, his wife's dead, Wayne Grow killed him and killed the wife and beat the shit out of. Trey Hall, like he's not getting better, he's in real bad shape. Yeah. So Trey Hall reveals that Wayne Grow and Van Zandt force him to divulge the Bank Heist plans. And then he says, hey, don't leave me like this. And we cut away and we just see the light of the gun in here, the muffled shot. And so it's a nice...

Matt Loehrer (59:46)
no, he's almost dead. He's 90 % dead.

That was great.

Tug McTighe (1:00:02)
nice bit of cinema. also like how no that's right boom the back of his head comes out. But I liked how Trejo in 95 and Nate Trejo and Nate are both like call me on the landline they're already worried about cell phones being non-secure if they only knew what we're dealing with today. Trejo's trying to call

Matt Loehrer (1:00:03)
Tarantino wouldn't have done it that way. Tarantino would have showed, 100 % showed it.

They were right to worry.

Tug McTighe (1:00:25)
McCauley and he gets a gets a call. Hold on. I got another call potential spam. Come on. And by the way, just so everybody knows, here's my public service announcement. If it says potential spam, it's spam. It's not, it's not, like, maybe this isn't spam. No, it's spam. Yeah. Nope. Damn it. Spam. I also liked

Matt Loehrer (1:00:31)
You

it's my grandma. Nope. Spam.

Tug McTighe (1:00:48)
When De Niro's talking to Nate, he says, I already had my exit laid on. I need another exit. He used the term laid on. And then West Studi, the cop, says to Vincent, well, he already had his exit laid on. So they're using the same language. They're the same. If I haven't made myself clear.

They're not any different. Just one of them has a badge.

Matt Loehrer (1:01:14)
Yeah, they

So Macaulay goes to kill Van Zandt in his mansion.

picks up a he sneaks around to the back. It's all glass in the back. He's got a big glass window. It picks up a patio chair and just throws it through the window. Van Sant's terrified and he gets right to it. He just takes him out. He doesn't ask him, which I actually liked. He didn't ask a lot of questions. didn't. You know, he didn't waste a lot of time. Yeah. Meanwhile, Hannah's team is detaining Hugh Benny, AKA Henry Rollins.

Tug McTighe (1:01:22)
Big LA's, the LA house.

Throw the right to the window.

Yeah, yeah.

No, it's, I'm here to do this job, that's right.

Matt Loehrer (1:01:47)
and Charlene and Hank Azaria, her lover who's a piece of shit. ⁓

Tug McTighe (1:01:52)
He's like, I'm really,

and he's like, man, I want no part of any of this. I had sex with the wrong woman.

Matt Loehrer (1:01:55)
Yeah.

So they're with the cops at a safe house. She's agreed to sell out Chris to secure her safety and her son's safety. Drucker gives a great speech about Dominic and he's going to be institutionalized if she doesn't give up Chris and it's it's going to be the end.

Tug McTighe (1:02:10)
Chris will be dead, you'll

be in prison. He's gonna be the war of the state. He's gonna rob, he's gonna steal a car. It's just a really great, very great, yeah, and a great truthful, I think, in some ways. Look, this is a fucked up system. ⁓

Matt Loehrer (1:02:18)
It was a good bit of coercion.

Yeah, I think

he's pretty he's somewhat sympathetic. I mean, he's he's still hardcore. So. So learning about McCauley's connection to Waingrow and knowing that Waingrow is hiding in a hotel, Hannah uses him as bait to learn McCauley. So he's just.

Tug McTighe (1:02:28)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah,

it's all coming together.

Matt Loehrer (1:02:44)
Right. And but meanwhile, McCauley wants to flee the country. He wants to get out, go to New Zealand, go with Edie, have this new life. Edie knows that he's a criminal.

Tug McTighe (1:02:50)
with Edie. Yep.

She learns

here now, yeah. I'm not a salesman. ⁓ But she does. She's little reluctant, but she's falling in love with him, He says, all I know is there's no point in me going anywhere if it's going to be alone. And this is a huge piece of character growth for him because remember, when the heat turns up, you've got to be ready to leave everything and anything in 30 seconds.

Matt Loehrer (1:02:57)
But she still agrees to go. I mean, she still feels like there's something.

Yeah, and what's that line he says that's so great?

Yeah, which is great. It's nice to see character development, right? ⁓ But he's. So we'll see if that actually happens. So now Hannah's back at home again. Because they do this all the time. Now he goes home. He just goes home when they need something else to happen.

Tug McTighe (1:03:21)
Yeah. Now he's got a to-do list.

Yeah.

Right, and again,

there's a time problem here. I don't know how this happened, but carry on.

Matt Loehrer (1:03:38)
He walks in and Justine's there with some guy named Ralph, which is Zander Berkeley. And this is the famous you can do my wife, but you can't watch my TV. He picks up his TV, which is, know, I had one of these in college. It was a 19 inch color TV that probably cost $400. He picks it up and rips it out of the wall and they're pretty sure this isn't going to work. But yeah, Zander Berkeley gets humiliated and he's like, I didn't I didn't know you had a.

Tug McTighe (1:03:52)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, for sure.

Shut up. You can't watch my TV. We'll play it. It's pretty funny. We'll play it. It's a pretty funny bit.

Matt Loehrer (1:04:06)
I had no idea. It like, sit down.

Tug McTighe (1:04:11)
before escaping, Chris attempts to reconcile with his wife Charlene right after she's been forced by the LAPD to bring him in. there she's in a safe house and they're using her as bait. He pulls up to the safe house. They sort of had she's on the balcony. He's down at the street and he smiles and she doesn't smile and then he goes serious and she kind of waves her hand in like a no.

Motion and she she's warning him away She's like look don't come up here. You're fucked. So he escapes Again, we get more parallels here She's no better than Chris is though. She purports to be all of this thematically for me is About how these people are just the same just again, like I said, sorry if it's annoying It's just I want it the movie does it so I'm gonna do it Some of them are good

Quote, good guys, and some of them are, quote, bad guys.

Matt Loehrer (1:05:02)
But she helped him escape though. That's pretty good, didn't sell him out.

Tug McTighe (1:05:06)
Yeah, but he's also a terrible criminal.

Matt Loehrer (1:05:09)
Well, I guess, but I don't know. guess you could say that. And then he somehow gets away. So he's in his car.

Tug McTighe (1:05:12)
The lines are blurry, for sure.

Well, he has fake ID from Nate. Yeah.

Matt Loehrer (1:05:19)
And they pull him over. Yes. And she

said, this isn't, yeah, that wasn't him. And so the cops, they say, detain that guy. And the cops say, yeah, his name's, you know, Bill Schmidt. And he's just, this is licensed to him. They didn't. But did you notice he had a haircut? Yeah, he cut his hair, cut the ponytail off. I thought that was interesting.

Tug McTighe (1:05:23)
Right.

You know what they didn't ask? Hey, where'd you get that gunshot wound?

He did have a nice haircut. Yeah, he cut his hair. He cut it into the Iceman.

Hannah decides, fuck, we've lost Neil. We're never going to get him. And the whole thing's over. He's like, it's over. We lost Neil. Everybody else is dead. So I'm going go back to my hotel and take a shower. When did you book a hotel? When did you pack that suitcase? And Lauren is there.

Natalie Portman, when, how, and why, and he finds her in his hotel room in the bathtub unconscious after trying to commit suicide. I don't know when any of this happened. don't know, I mean, I know why it happened because it advances the plot, but this was a tone break for me. I don't know how she ever got there. Because remember it was a time jump when he saw Justine and having sex with Ralph and she wasn't, it's just, it's a little messy. He met that, that's right. So. ⁓

Matt Loehrer (1:06:16)
Why would she even be there? That makes no sense.

She wasn't really having sex with Ralph. He was watching television. She was doing that. She was smoking her

800th cigarette of the movie.

Tug McTighe (1:06:32)
Now again, an interesting scene in the ER in my mind when Vincent, you see he knows a shit ton about injuries like these, about gunshots and slit wrists, and he says she cut both her arteries, her femoral, her bub, you need to do this, and the ER brings her in right, and Justine sees this and she sees just a glimpse of him in action and sees who he really is.

Which leads them for a sort of a minor reconciliation in the waiting room, but although After this is after the daughter stabilized, but they both agree right that this will this will never work again This part of the movie this third act Well, I'm not gonna say it falls apart in the third act because it certainly doesn't it all ties together It all happened a little fast for me Because at the top the jump we talked about this being such a slow burn Well, this all

was a little frustrating how fast all this happened. didn't know when, why, the who. But all that being said, the script now directly states what I've been saying, what you've been saying all along, that these people are the same. Hannah says to Justine, it's like you said, all I am is what I'm going after. And that's the...

in Save the Cat, they would say that's theme stated, This is what the movie's about. So we wanted to make sure we said it to you.

Matt Loehrer (1:07:59)
That makes sense. They kind of cut it down to the bare bones. I have a feeling a lot of this, if you went back through editing, there's like a seven hour Michael Mann cut of this where all this stuff's explained and. Yeah.

Tug McTighe (1:08:08)
I cannot imagine I am 100 % sure there is a four

and a half hour cut right like Could have been two movies. So Macaulay's in the car with Edie. They're going to LAX. They're gonna flee to New Zealand It's all worked out. They're on their way. However, Nate says I got to tell you cuz you asked you didn't have to tell him fuck stick Here's where wangro is so he abandons his usual caution to seek revenge. I have a one-word answer for that. It's dumb

Matt Loehrer (1:08:35)
But it was going to happen this way. He's he is mad. He is being the thing he was mad at Winger about about being reckless about going off plan and going against what he always believed in. But now he's doing it himself. So of course going to end that.

Tug McTighe (1:08:37)
HATTU!

That's Yeah. That's exactly right.

He poses as a hotel security guard. Like you said, he's real good at figuring out quickly how to do what he needs to do He poses as a hotel security guard pulls a fire alarm He infiltrates a hotel and kills Wayne go in his room good death that this dickhead got but still dumb You could have been on the plane

Matt Loehrer (1:09:09)
was a surprisingly interesting execution to me, the way they did it, that he came in the room. Wayne grows on the couch. It was what I thought was good acting like Wayne grow. He's like, look at me. And he makes him look at him and confront his death. And you see Wayne grow get suddenly terrified because he's like, this is it. And then he's like, okay, I got what I needed. And then he shoots actually a couple in the chest and

Tug McTighe (1:09:23)
and then bang.

Pop pop pop right again bad dudes not not great dudes.

Yeah

Matt Loehrer (1:09:33)
And a couple in the chest and one in the head. So it's not like he just shot him twice in the chest and took off like it was. He did it by like textbook, I assume from what I know about executions, which is not that.

Tug McTighe (1:09:37)
Right, no, I got him. Yeah. Yeah. From all your murders, yeah.

Allegedly murders, alleged murders. ⁓ So once again, time problems. He's now suddenly back with Edie. Hannah's at the hospital. No, Hannah's at the hotel. Hannah sees him. And then you see Neil about to get in the car with Edie. He sees Hannah, the heat's on.

Matt Loehrer (1:09:46)
I'm more of a poisoning person.

Tug McTighe (1:10:04)
and he walks away from her in 30 seconds flat when the heat is on, you feel really bad for both of them at this point. And I think that is the true feat of this film is that you care about these people so much. Because Neil is a douche bag for real. He's murdered many people. He just left this woman that he's fallen in love with. It's tough. This was tough.

Matt Loehrer (1:10:25)
Yeah, no, that's a great point. And it goes back to that shootout.

You know, I said, I'm not sure who to root for. Once they started just shooting cops, like killing people. I'm like, I'm not rooting for the guys. Those are bad guys. So I was thinking about this, too, where Hannah sees Edie sitting in the car by herself. That's the only way I can explain this, because he starts walking back toward her like he sees her. He sees the car. She's in the passenger seat. There's no driver like she's waiting for someone. Everyone else is running.

Tug McTighe (1:10:34)
Right. Right. Right. Right.

Matt Loehrer (1:10:56)
I wonder if he made the mental connection or if that's the explanation that he made the connection like she's waiting for him to come back and get in the car. Now, what doesn't work is that the idea that a guy like McCauley would have a woman or have her waiting for him so they can run off. That's not what he would do.

Tug McTighe (1:10:59)
Maybe.

Does not make any sense. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. I could have done without this final, final, final chase cat and mouse game. I mean, it's three and a half hours. And again, I'm to tell you how the fuck did they run from a downtown LA street to the airport tarmac? They ran there. You can't more about that. My final thoughts.

Matt Loehrer (1:11:33)
I know it was LAX, but that was lax security.

Tug McTighe (1:11:37)
There was lax. see what you did there. Hannah chases McCauley onto the tarmac at the airport. They stalk each other for a while before Hannah gets a drop on him and shoots him in the chest. And in a nice moment of respect, Hannah takes McCauley's hand as Neil dies of his wounds. It's sad because they made a connection. But Hannah's just going back to work tomorrow and try to bust some more perps. So I don't know how much Hannah grew.

Matt Loehrer (1:11:38)
See, it's a double.

Tug McTighe (1:12:02)
Maybe he grew a little bit. Neil certainly grew a lot and then blew it in the end, which sort of is a Shakespearean tragedy, typical. But you know, it's a very satisfying engine. It's down, a satisfying engine. Good name for a band. Ladies and gentlemen, Matt Lohr and the Satisfying Engines. No, it's a satisfying ending, but it's down. And I like a down ending.

Matt Loehrer (1:12:22)
pretty good.

Yeah, I agree with you. I think if there was any development, was in Macaulay and that kind of evaporated. And at the end, he was just he was a victim of his own kind of mentality, the way it was. All right.

Tug McTighe (1:12:36)
Yeah, that's exactly right.

Okay, so what do we think?

Matt Loehrer (1:12:41)
I have some thoughts. OK. So you may remember several years ago there was this huge buzz in Johnson County, Kansas, because we were getting a new fast food chain. Called what a burger. Remember that you don't know what it was like where you live, but in Olathe people are going crazy. We're have what a burger. It's going to be amazing. My God. Because there are so few fast food restaurants in this.

Tug McTighe (1:12:42)
Let's hear them.

Yep, yo yes!

Finally! my god!

Yeah.

Yeah.

Matt Loehrer (1:13:08)
So the gym that I used to go to, was the kickboxing gym. And I would go early in the morning at like six o'clock, five, five 45. And at the time I was finished, I'd come out and the water burger was right across the street. And I would see this huge line of cars every day for months, just people waiting to get their water burger breakfast. And people are like, have you been, have you had the water burger? It's amazing, it's amazing stuff. Can't believe you haven't gone yet. So finally Eve was home for the summer. My daughter's home from college.

And she said, can we go to Water Burger? And I said, sure. Everybody's telling me how good it is. So we went and it was it was OK. It was fine. I mean, after months of this, people telling me how amazing it was or I know I'll get hell for this, but I've had in and out burger. It's fine. ⁓ So this was kind of the water burger of movies for me. It was there was so much hyper on this. My God, they say there's a rewatchable episode where

Tug McTighe (1:13:44)
It was fine.

Right.

I knew where this was going. I know you well enough. Yeah, too

Matt Loehrer (1:14:06)
Chris Ryan is like, this is my favorite movie of all time and I've seen it a thousand times. I barely got through the first time. It's extremely long. It's it has tons of unnecessary fattening, fattening subplots. feel like it's like what else can we pump into this thing? Let's throw a suicide in there. Let's have a relationship with the daughter. It doesn't need to be there. It's got a lot of really good characters and good actors that just don't have enough to do. It's a fine performance by these actors, but

Tug McTighe (1:14:15)
grinding like we said

Matt Loehrer (1:14:33)
but nothing amazing. And I think what it ultimately comes down to is this was supposed to be a TV show. And if it had been a TV show, it probably would have been a

Tug McTighe (1:14:43)
If there was 20 hours, in those days, it would have been 20 hours, right?

Matt Loehrer (1:14:46)
Yes, if you ⁓

could build out Pedro Serrano and his girlfriend, if you get the daughter and why she's so depressed and all this stuff, if you build all this out, instead we got this.

Tug McTighe (1:14:54)
You get Chris's back, yes.

I like this take. Yeah, I like this take.

Yeah, you

can't cram it all into three hours, right? And like you said, there's definitely a six hour cut of this somewhere.

Matt Loehrer (1:15:08)
No, it's 20 pounds of shit in a 10 pound bag.

for sure. What did you think?

Tug McTighe (1:15:15)
All right, so for me, a lot to think about. It was 95, and I can see, did a little research. I can see the baton.

being passed from this old style crime thriller heist movie to new style action or superhero movies. So this movie won me over because it felt mostly realistic on how it portrays the crimes and the injuries they suffer and tries to stay true. It's a movie still, but it tries to stay true and grounded as to how things would work in the real world.

gunshot wounds and physics and what happens if you jump out of a moving car? You're hurt, right? And you can't just shake off five gunshots and be fine. These are humans. They're not superheroes or meta humans. And then this led me to thinking about after X-Men came out, we got this, really after the Matrix came out in 99, everybody could jump 12 feet in the air.

Even Charlie's Angels in 2000, the angels were great fighters in bullet time who were acrobatic. They're just people. They can't do this. But it all exploded into that. Everybody was copying that. And then we saw in The Fast and the Furious, we saw regular people driving cars, becoming superheroes, and doing things with themselves in their cars that nobody could really do. At one point, they'd

jump a car out of a parking garage into a helicopter and everybody's fine. So again, heat is more realistic for how this stuff would play out giving way in the 2000s to this fantasy and superhero and superhuman. We're moving now fully into the world of like fantasy has a chocolate coating like the ⁓ of

to use one of math's analogies. like, it's a fantasy core with a chocolate coating of realism, just so you'll buy it. But again, this was in my mind here, one of the last bastions of a realistically rendered story that took place in what we showed as the real world with real stakes and real consequences. I mean, everybody dies with Hannah. And then like, so this was to 95 and I'm talking about 2000, 2002, 2005, and then 2008, what did we get? We got Iron Man that

Launched where we are now in this fully full-on superhero suspension of disbelief That was a lot, but I want to say a personal note John August the guy who wrote Charlie's Angels and Charlie's Angels full throttle. He wrote go he wrote big fish He wrote Charlie in the chocolate factory Corpse Bride Frank and weenie. He wrote the live adaptation of Aladdin. He wrote some novels

Arlo Finch in the Valley of Fire and the Lake of the Moon and in the Kingdom of Shadows. He and I went to school together at Drake University where your daughter goes. We were in the same advertising tracker whole time. John also hosts a very successful podcast called Script Notes with Craig Mazin. Craig is one of the guys who brought The Last of Us to HBO. And only when I used Charlie's Angels as a lever

Matt Loehrer (1:18:17)
Yeah.

Tug McTighe (1:18:34)
Did I even think about John August writing that and I wondered he might be a really good guy for us to try to get on the podcast to talk about some of this shit. writes a, he's a script, script, screenwriter, famous screenwriter who talks about the craft of writing scripts. So I can't make any promises, but you know, once a bulldog, always a bulldog. Yeah. So Matt, is it a sin to hit or a sin to miss? I got an idea what you're going to say.

Matt Loehrer (1:18:52)
Yeah, I would love that.

⁓ I think

it's a cinemass. This might want to be one of the rare movies we don't agree on. ⁓ In my opinion, I suspect if you want to get the real Michael Mann experience, watch a couple of seasons of Miami Vice. He did six seasons of that, I think. You'll get just as many classic 90s actors and that guys and probably that gals with better character development. It's possible I'm just not a Michael Mann's man.

Tug McTighe (1:19:03)
I love it.

That g- those gals, yeah.

Man's man,

Matt Loehrer (1:19:25)
⁓ But

yeah, it's a sin and miss for me. I don't see me going back and reading, looking into his other films.

Tug McTighe (1:19:31)
Well, I'm not watching again either. Yeah,

for sure. I thought it was a sin to hit for me It took me 30 years to make it a sin to hit so that may be saying something But I did like that. It was a slow burn of a thriller Heist crime cop movie for the most part obviously we've talked about some of the problems it had with being over packed and Like you said, there's a somewhere. There's an extended edition of this that helps clean up these messes

Okay, so that was good

Matt Loehrer (1:20:03)
good. As always, we'd like to ask you to help us grow the show. This is episode, I want to say 19. That's pretty great. So there's nine 18 more of these out here if you haven't listened to any of them. Thank you for listening to Sinemuses. If you like what we're doing, please help us grow the show by subscribing or sharing episodes with someone you think might like it. Writing a review. It really does help. I know you can do reviews on Apple, pod bean, I don't

Tug McTighe (1:20:10)
19.

Matt Loehrer (1:20:31)
bunch of you can do it.

Tug McTighe (1:20:32)
Yeah,

just tell someone you like it. And even just tell somebody, even if you don't do it digitally, just go, hey, man, I listen to this podcast, check it out. You'll like it.

Matt Loehrer (1:20:34)
Yeah, tell somebody you think might like it, give it a try.

Exactly, that's called viral something.

Tug McTighe (1:20:43)
Yeah, that's called

peer to peer marketing, bro.

Matt Loehrer (1:20:46)
Yes. And we do want to hear from you. So follow and comment on socials. We're on Instagram and Twitter or X is I think it might be called. Yeah, you can drop us. You can drop us an email at cinemas is a Gmail dot com with ideas to improve the show or recommendations for movies that we might want to cover and maybe we'll pay attention. And tug. What is our next cinemas? And what do you think you know about?

Tug McTighe (1:20:54)
We're gonna figure out TikTok here pretty soon, ahead of season three.

Alright, I'm pumped about this actually we're gonna do the 2022 hit everything everywhere all at once Which I wanted to go see when it came out, but it just didn't go see it Which is sort of the reason we're doing this fucking podcast because I just didn't get around to seeing it Then it won a bunch of awards I know it has Jamie Lee Curtis Michelle yo Kihoi Kwan and is a Multiversal mind-bending special effects laden hot dog finger wagging

sci-fi fantasy flick story zero clue

Matt Loehrer (1:21:46)
Well, I've seen it and I'm excited that we're going to see it together. So I'm looking forward to it anyway.

Tug McTighe (1:21:52)
Alright!

Who knew? Alright!

That's another Sinemissas in the can. I'm Tug.

Matt Loehrer (1:21:55)
Go ahead.

And I'm Matt and that is a wrap.

Tug McTighe (1:22:00)
Thank you guys. Thanks, Matt.

Matt Loehrer (1:22:02)
Thanks, bud.