The Mod Squad (The One Where Claire Danes Wore Levi’s)

This week on The Worst Movie Podcast, Ade and Aaron crack open The Mod Squad (1999) — the edgy-for-the-90s TV reboot that tried to turn counterculture cool into a leather-jacketed music video. With Claire Danes, Omar Epps, and Giovanni Ribisi cast as rebellious undercover cops, it’s a film that mistakes vibes for plot and attitude for character development.

Grab your club soda with lime and join us — because if The Mod Squad taught us anything, it’s that no amount of wardrobe can fix a plot you can’t follow.

Transcript

Ade (00:00)
Hello and welcome to The Worst Movie Podcast. I'm Ade.

Aaron (00:03)
And I'm Aaron and this is a podcast where we watch the worst movies ever made in the hopes of finding a hidden gem.

Ade (00:09)
Enjoy.

So what have you been watching lately?

Aaron (00:30)
⁓ I binged Stranger Things 5 this week with Amanda.

Ade (00:35)
How many episodes is that?

Aaron (00:37)
Eight. But the last one was like two hours long, so, yeah, it was, it was kind of a long, long series, but it's great. Have you, have you watched Stranger Things?

Ade (00:48)
I watched the first two seasons, but then fell off. Maybe I watched a little bit of season three, but I don't really remember it. Is it good? Did you enjoy it all the way throughout?

Aaron (00:58)
Yeah, I thought it was great. ⁓ think that this like the fans didn't love parts of this season, but I think that any final season is going to be controversial. But I liked it. I thought it was great. I've been following along for like, what is it, 10 years now, so. It was it was a good ending, I thought. Yeah, the kids are great actors, though, like I was surprised. mean, they've always been pretty good.

Ade (01:13)
Yeah, those kids look old.

Aaron (01:22)
But this season was a lot more emotional and I thought that they did a really good job of carrying the heart of the story.

Ade (01:32)
Yeah. Is there a movie too, or is that?

Aaron (01:34)
No, I don't want to spoil anything, but the ending maybe could leave a possibility for. Some sort of movie or finale that. Fans were generally kind of unhappy with the way it ended in some in some respects, I liked it, so I don't know, they might do something.

or some fan service maybe.

What have you been watching?

Ade (01:54)
Fair enough.

been trying to catch up on the award season stuff so watch Marty Supreme in theaters. Have you seen that?

Aaron (02:02)
No, how was it?

Ade (02:05)
It was amazing. It was great. I thought, yeah, thought Chalamet is incredible in it and it's just perfect role for him, think, and interesting character and super well done. I don't think I've been impressed by him as a performer as much as I have here in this movie. So I don't know if he'll win the Oscar, but I don't know, it should be close.

Aaron (02:07)
really?

Yeah, I didn't think that you were a big Chalamet fan. Are you? Would you say you're a fan? No.

Ade (02:40)
I mean, not a fan. I'm not a,

well, I definitely wouldn't say I'm a fan. I'm not a detractor either, but it's not like I have his poster on my wall. Are you a big Chalamet fan?

Aaron (02:49)
I don't believe you.

I don't know. kind of waffle on him. Sometimes I'm like, he's the next great thing. And other times I'm like. He's so he's trying so hard. Like, I don't know.

Ade (03:03)
Yeah, it does seem like that. I

have no idea what he's doing off screen. I feel like every time it comes up, Kelly makes some comment about him dating a Kardashian or like some something that's happening. And I'm like, I have no idea what you're talking about. So I loved him in French Dispatch. I thought the Willy Wonka movie was blah. And

Aaron (03:17)
Yeah. ⁓

Ade (03:28)
then I didn't really care for Dune that much. I need to re-watch Dune. So anyway, I think I've just been, it really depends on the movie and I've kind of been back and forth, but probably neutral on him.

Aaron (03:33)
⁓

Why didn't you like Dune?

Ade (03:44)
I don't know. just didn't get into it. It seems like the sort of movie I'd love it. Like did you villain of like, I mean, Sicario, one of my favorite movies of all time. I, I've loved everything he's done up until dune. And then I think I just couldn't get into it. It was so. I need to rewatch it. It's, on my list to rewatch because I think I just wasn't in the right mindset and maybe.

Aaron (03:44)
You

Yeah.

Ade (04:10)
had a little one too many scotches or something like that. And like by the second hour, I was just like, I have no idea what the fuck is happening on screen. I just don't care.

Aaron (04:19)
Yeah, and plus it's like such a dense story that like one movie isn't going to contain the whole story in it.

Ade (04:27)
yeah, every time I try to talk to somebody about that movie, they're like, well, if you read the books, then you know that the Lorathians are part of the second order. And I'm just like, I don't want to fucking do homework before I come to this like big tent pole, you know, sci-fi movie. Like, let me just, I don't know. I don't need it super dumbed down, but maybe.

Aaron (04:48)
Yeah. Yeah, fair enough.

Did you see the David Lynch dune in the 80s?

Ade (04:56)
No, no, I've seen some clips, but that's definitely not on my rewatch list. Let me get through the modern version.

Aaron (05:02)
Yeah, it's wild.

It's an acid trip.

Ade (05:07)
Yeah. Should we get into this week's movie?

So this month's theme is awful adaptations and almost by coincidence, these are all adaptations of 1960s TV series and all movies that were in the late nineties, early two thousands. think probably the people who watched the TV shows were kids when the TV show aired. And then now as adults, guess studios thought they were ready for movie cash grab.

Aaron (05:39)
Yeah, I feel like also culturally at this time there was like a big retro push with like, you know, they're bringing back the Thunderbird and the PT Cruiser and all that stuff. Like, I feel like there was a big retro phase in the 90s.

Ade (05:56)
Yeah, I mean that probably happens every decade or so, like for a while the 80s were hot and then the 90s are hot again and in style and I don't know.

Aaron (06:02)
Yeah.

Ade (06:08)
so today's movie is the mod squad from 1999 starring Claire Danes, Omar Epps, Giovanni Robisi. 3 % on Rotten Tomatoes. So our, our, rare sub five for center, $21 million budget, which seemed kind of low, but 15 million at the box office. So yeah, didn't, ⁓ didn't do well at all. Did you remember this movie?

Aaron (06:27)
Yeah.

Oof.

No, I don't remember anything about this.

Ade (06:39)
Yeah, I, I wasn't sure if I'd watch it or not. I feel like I have this, little bit of a memory of being at somebody's apartment and it being on in the background and like catching clips of it. But we were doing other things or something, but, ⁓ yeah, I remember this being out just because the stars were super hot and popular at the time. I mean, especially Claire Danes and

I always liked J. Von Ernie, BC. I thought he was awesome. He had the arc on Friends before this and was in a lot of like boiler room and some like indie stuff and just.

Aaron (07:04)
Yeah.

Yeah.

This is

a year after saving Private Ryan 2.

Ade (07:18)
Yeah. I didn't watch that till much later actually, but, ⁓ so I don't, I didn't know him from that period piece. don't know. Anyway. ⁓

Aaron (07:29)
You know, that Spielberg period piece.

Ade (07:31)
Yeah, who's he? What has he done lately? Omar F. So that was pretty cool too. Although kind of undersung, but Claire Danes, I probably top of the game. mean, Romeo and Juliet was one of my favorite movies at the time. she, yeah, she was a mega star.

Aaron (07:38)
Yeah.

I've never seen that.

Ade (07:53)
What you've never seen right man, Juliet. Do you the story?

Aaron (07:55)
Nope. yeah

But I never saw the Leo and Claire Danes one Is it actually good or is it like

Ade (08:02)
Wow, ⁓ have you seen?

yeah, I think it's, I think it's incredible and I think it holds up one of the best soundtracks of the 90s movies and stylistically it's, it's really over the top and in your face and colorful. Yeah. As Lerman and, I think it holds up. I probably haven't watched it in the last five years. It's, it's probably due for a rewatch.

Aaron (08:12)
Really?

It's a baz, isn't it?

Mm-hmm. Maybe I'll watch it.

Ade (08:32)
Maybe, maybe

you can come over for Valentine's Day and we can watch it together. Yeah. Do you want to give a quick synopsis of this movie?

Aaron (08:37)
It's a date.

sure. Clare Danes plays a character named Julie Barnes. Robisi is Pete Cochran and Omar Epps is Lincoln Hayes and they are ⁓ three delinquents. They were arrested for kind of petty crimes and instead of going to jail, they were offered to be undercover cops to get them into like clubs and the youth scene to try to like...

infiltrate because. Yeah, I don't know. It's a it's a bit far fetched. It's a little 21 Jump Street, I think. So they get they get hired by the police to be undercover cops and they are trying to kind of crack a drug and perhaps prostitution ring when they're their chief or whoever, whoever set the team up gets.

killed and then they get kind of framed for it. that's where it kind of all kicks off.

Ade (09:44)
Did you enjoy the movie?

Aaron (09:46)
Not really, no. It was nothing to me. Like nothing happened. don't, nothing was memorable. There was no like great performance. Well, I don't know. It was just, was, I guess my, my note that I wrote at the end of this is I'm not mad. I'm just disappointed. Yeah, it was.

Ade (10:07)
that year to me.

Aaron (10:10)
I mean, this movie has so many great character actors in it. ⁓ And it's just a waste of talent. It's a it's it's an incredible cast. Yeah. I mean, it's not just those three actors in it, but yeah, it's got Dennis Farina is in it.

Ade (10:14)
Yeah.

Such a great cast.

Real

Aaron (10:29)
Richard Jenkins is that his name? The yeah. Yeah, it's. Yeah.

Ade (10:31)
Yeah. Dennis Farina real quick. Do you,

he's, he almost always played either a cop or a mobster. What do you, what do you picture when you picture him? Do you see him as a cop or do see him as a mobster?

Aaron (10:40)
Yeah.

When I think of Dennis Farina, I think of sit down and shut up, you big bald fuck. Isn't that snatch? Yeah. Yeah. ⁓

Ade (10:49)
What's that? Which one is that? yeah. Yeah. ⁓ I love him. Snatch. I always think

of him as a cop and I don't know why I like, spent way too much time looking at his filmography. Like what was it that imprinted on me that he's a cop? And then, I mean, yeah, it's, it's weird that he's, those are like the only two characters he plays.

Aaron (11:11)
Yeah, and he hits it out of the park every time.

Ade (11:13)
Yeah, he's great. Yeah, he's great as Avi. Is that his character in Snatch?

Aaron (11:17)
I think that's his name, yeah.

Ade (11:18)
And I like him in Out of Sight. I know you haven't seen that, but he's a...

Aaron (11:24)
How do you know I haven't seen that?

Ade (11:26)
Cause we've talked about this before and I keep telling you to watch that movie and you're not listening to me. I'm like, you keep forgetting it's a Soda Bird movie starring George Clooney and J. Love. Yeah.

Aaron (11:29)
What is it?

⁓

Ade (11:40)
One of

the great movies. I'm gonna, I'm gonna sneak that on screen when you're here for Valentine today.

Aaron (11:43)
gonna have to check it out.

Okay, that's fine with me

Ade (11:51)
⁓ yeah, anyway, great, great cast.

yeah, I thought this show or this movie I've wrote down generic story, generic characters, like everyone was just a caricature is like a chat GPT, right? Dialogue for a dirty cop. And, and the story got so, it was both simple and convoluted at the same time.

Aaron (12:04)
Mm-hmm.

Ade (12:16)
Like I had trouble following it, but it was, at the same time I'm like, I, don't think this is anything more basic than the entire department is dirty. And it's, it's this huge sprawling story and enterprise that revolves around somebody stealing drugs from an evidence locker. I don't know. Like how much do drugs cost? Is that worth like all the murders and everything that's happening in this movie?

Aaron (12:17)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, it was an unfollowable plot in a lot of ways.

Ade (12:43)
Yeah,

it seemed edited to hell.

Aaron (12:47)
Yeah, it sure did. Yeah, it was. It was like a really long, really bad music video.

Ade (12:55)
Yeah, yeah. ⁓ Yeah, more style than substance. Would you go, would you? Yeah, what'd you think about it?

Aaron (12:55)
You

Yeah, the soundtrack was great.

I didn't like it. honestly, wait, the soundtrack or the movie itself? The soundtrack I thought was great, but every note I had about the music was like, this music does not fit the movie at all. It's a great soundtrack, but none of the music makes sense for the scene that they're in. It's like they just wanted to play their favorite songs.

Ade (13:08)
Yeah, the soundtrack.

Yeah.

Yeah, somebody just, yeah, somebody made a mixtape and then,

or like, how about this movie?

Aaron (13:31)
Yeah, like the music didn't capture the feeling of the scene almost ever. Yeah, was great songs, terrible choices though.

Ade (13:42)
Let's talk about the premise for a little bit. If somebody came up to you and was like, want you to go undercover, would you do it?

Aaron (13:50)
mean, if the other option is jail, probably. Being undercover seems terrifying though.

Ade (13:52)
yeah, sure.

Yeah. I mean, doesn't that, I don't know. don't think I would want to do it.

Aaron (13:59)
I watched a documentary one time about a. I think he was FBI, but he went undercover with like hate groups and just the documentary was too stressful for me to watch. I was like, fuck this.

Ade (14:08)
Yeah.

I, I don't know if it was the same guy, but somebody wrote a book recently about it. And I heard him talk, tell a few stories on a podcast. I started the book, but I didn't, I didn't get very far, basically they had him this like biker gang had him in the basement stripped him down naked. Yeah. And he had him. ⁓

Aaron (14:34)
yeah, same guy.

Ade (14:37)
He had, he was wired and he had a wire like in his jacket and they like patted down and just narrowly missed it. And basically, I mean, they were, they had guns at the ready and all that. I mean, I don't know. I'd, I'd shit myself.

Aaron (14:41)
Yep.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, same. Or you could just be Omar Epps and be undercover, but stand everywhere like you're an undercover cop. looked like a cop the whole time.

Ade (14:56)
But.

Yeah, I, I, I think I jotted it down. They're like watching this club and he's just standing outside of the club staring at it for hours.

Aaron (15:12)
He's like...

just staring down the suspects.

Ade (15:18)
I mean, and when they first get to the club, I think the three of them are, are standing on that parking garage that's overlooking the club and just looking down on it and talking about their plans. And it's like the bouncer is right there in the line. There's a line out the club. Like anybody can just look up a little bit and just see these three people staring down.

Aaron (15:26)
Yeah.

Yeah.

that they then

see later in the club, like working and like undercover, obviously. There was another scene later in the movie, like during the climax at a hangar at an airport and Robici and Claire Danes are trying to like scope it out stealthily from a ridge nearby, but there's this far away shot and they're just clearly just standing right at the crest of the ridge, fully outlined by the sky.

Ade (15:43)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I guess that's what you get when you don't hire cops or you hire criminals to be undercover. Why did.

Aaron (16:09)
The worst. The worst.

Yeah. How old

were they supposed to be, do you think?

Ade (16:21)
Uh, I don't know. mean, twenties, or are they supposed to be teenagers? I don't think so. I think they were supposed to be twenties and I mean, they were drinking and, uh, you couldn't serve at the club probably unless you were 21. So there at least that, I mean, I didn't understand why you couldn't just get cops to be undercover because it didn't look like they were. So it wasn't like this huge age barrier, like floor where it's like, Oh, we don't have any cops that are.

Aaron (16:27)
I don't know. I was confi-

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Ade (16:50)
25 years old and I think Claire Danes was 20 when this was filmed. I did look this up and Omar Epps was maybe like 27 or 25. they were, there was, you know, the young to mid twenties. Why did, why did deals always go down at clubs and movies like mission impossible? There are several, like we've got to meet the bad guy at the club and like Bond movies that always happens. Is that.

Aaron (17:04)
Hmm.

I know.

Maybe because it's loud?

Ade (17:20)
normal.

But that's so you're just yelling over each other. Where do you have the drugs?

Aaron (17:27)
Well, usually, I don't know. I have no idea. Same with like, it's a club and sopranos, like every. Every bad guy group has got a club that they do business in.

Ade (17:39)
That can't be a real thing in criminal enterprise. Why don't you ask some of your friends that are in the mafia?

Aaron (17:46)
I'm going to ask chat GPT.

Ade (17:48)
They don't know. They're just... They're mining all the same stuff we are.

Aaron (17:53)
Why are crimes always done at clubs?

They say alcohol and crowds, high density of strangers, late hours, cash, valuables, music and darkness equals chaos, security exists.

Ade (18:00)
Maybe.

Just throwing out words. Here are things at clubs.

I mean, why not just rent a conference room at the best Western and have a conversation there? That actually happened in The Wire. Do you remember that scene in The Wire where they have.

Aaron (18:16)
Yeah.

Is that when they're

taking notes on a criminal fucking conspiracy?

Ade (18:24)
Yeah, well,

that was that was at the funeral home, I think. But it was when when he was meeting with I forget his name, the character, the new guy.

Aaron (18:29)
⁓ right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, the wire is great and this isn't, so...

Ade (18:37)
Yeah.

Yeah. Come to think about it. I can't really think of deals on the wire being done at clubs. There are a few scenes, you know, there are scenes of bars and stuff, but it wasn't like, let's, let's meet at the club to talk about the deal.

Aaron (18:44)
No.

Didn't

they have in one season a like an office at a club that had a big safe in it that got busted?

Ade (18:59)
Yeah, I think that was maybe one of the early seasons and then they started to get more, I don't know, smarter about it. It's much more interesting to talk about The Wire than this movie.

Aaron (19:02)
I think it was.

Yeah. Yeah. That's, know.

Can we just make this a wire podcast?

Ade (19:13)
is this supposed to be set in the sixties or the nineties? felt like they could decide.

Aaron (19:19)
No, I don't think they had any idea what they were doing with this movie. Did you want to talk about like the background of how this gets got made or so? Well, so apparently when this came out, there was a huge push on MTV for the music in it like they were advertising this movie big time on MTV because of the music connection soundtrack and everything. And then also.

Ade (19:30)
Sure, go for it.

Mm-hmm.

Aaron (19:47)
Levi jeans sponsored this movie and they and they like gave all the characters these stylish like 60s style jeans that everybody hated. And apparently nobody remembers the movie. Everybody remembers the MTV ads and the Levi jeans ads. And I'm like, yeah, that makes sense because this is the most forgettable piece of shit movie.

Ade (19:50)
Yeah, I saw something about that.

Aaron (20:13)
It's like it was just made to sell jeans and get people to watch MTV. And I'm pretty sure that's the plan.

Ade (20:20)
Yeah, that's funny. Yes, it's style. The style is pretty cool. The three leads look pretty awesome.

Aaron (20:26)
Yeah.

Yeah, I like the look of this movie. I didn't like any of the substance.

Ade (20:30)
I,

Yeah.

Yeah, agreed. I even wore, you can't really see it well, but I, I did the t-shirt over long sleeve shirt thing that you have, which is a very nineties thing. ⁓ did you ever wear a short sleeve over long sleeve?

Aaron (20:44)
Ha ha ha!

Yeah.

Nah, that was never me.

Ade (20:54)
That was never me either, but it's actually kind of, I kind of like it. I don't know how practical it is. Cause

Aaron (21:00)
I was

like, I was wearing like cargo jean shorts.

Ade (21:05)
Yeah. I was wearing very uncool jeans and just t-shirts.

Aaron (21:06)
at that time.

Mom jeans?

Were you a mom jeans kinda guy?

Ade (21:16)
dad jeans, probably cheap, Kmart jeans. if I get hot, then do I want to take off like the yeah. ⁓

Aaron (21:16)
Dad jeans? Yeah.

Both of shirts?

Ade (21:29)
to leave the short sleeve, but maybe it's actually genius because if I take off the short sleeve and leave the long sleeve, it's like I'm taking 50 % of my, like bumping down like to 50 % less warm rather than like going the full thing or like taking off the long sleeve. So I don't know, maybe it's actually kind of smart.

Aaron (21:29)
put on the t-shirt.

I'm pretty sure that both of us would rather talk about anything else except this movie.

Ade (21:57)
Yeah. I do have some other things about the, ⁓ have you ever seen so obvious a twist as Brolin being a bad guy?

He shows up all, perfectly coifed and smiling and smooth and I haven't seen you in forever. And he's just like the perfect guy that she starts going. Yeah. And then it's like, Oh, surprise. He. Yeah. And she has to be stuck in a closet watching him have sex with another woman.

Aaron (22:14)
Yeah, the perfect man.

He's a pimp and a drug dealer.

She stayed there all night too. That was creepier than like anything he was doing. She laid there in the closet and watched them sleep all night and then left in the morning.

Ade (22:29)
Yeah. Did she sleep?

Yeah.

Yeah.

do they have badges? didn't, I never understood how much of cops they were. Like, do they have specialties? Why three of them?

Aaron (22:54)
I don't know. don't think that they were, they kept saying like, you're not those kinds of cops. Whenever they'd be like, police stop, freeze. They'd be like, you're not that kind of cop. And I'm like, well then what are they?

Ade (23:02)
Yeah.

Do they have to go through basic training or is it just.

Aaron (23:09)
Like a police academy?

Ade (23:11)
Yeah, I don't really know what it's called, but...

Aaron (23:15)
don't think

so. Like, I don't, they're just informants, it seems like. Not actually police, but they kept saying they were police.

Ade (23:22)
I mean, they keep going into police headquarters regularly like the end. And it sounds like they get paid. Like it's not just an, an informant is just somebody that this is clearly an expert, ⁓ speaking here, but an informant to me sounds like somebody who is just going about your regular criminal enterprise. every now and then you're ratting on people, you know, through your, your crime jobs, but then

Aaron (23:29)
Yeah.

You

Ade (23:52)
The mod squad seems like they're actually hired by they're on the payroll. They're not doing crime things. They're just doing cop investigative stuff. But then why not just make them cops? Like you don't want, you don't want to just go up to somebody in prison and be like all no prison sentence. Go on the street. You have, you're now a cop.

Aaron (23:55)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, it doesn't make sense. I don't think this happens. Maybe it does. I'm not a cop, but it doesn't seem like a good idea.

Ade (24:23)
I guess they're not going to publicize it if it happens because they don't want criminals to be like, hey, that guy that's dressed in really cool jeans standing outside the club, maybe he's in that mod squad I read about in the New York Times.

Aaron (24:26)
That's true.

The guy that looks like a off duty cop or a bouncer. Why were they so good friends like such good friends? They like would do anything for each other. Did they know each other before they became cops together? The three of them.

Ade (24:40)
Ha ha ha.

I know.

I will say one,

one thing about the movie. did like how they just jumped into it. There wasn't all this backstory. They didn't show them as kids and getting into trouble. Yeah. There's no origin story, which I'm sick of origin stories at this point. But then to your question, I didn't really understand like their relationship or what they were like, why the mod squad was needed. I guess if you watch the TV show, you would know that.

Aaron (24:57)
Yeah.

No origin story.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Ade (25:21)
stuff a lot more.

Aaron (25:22)
Yeah, I guess I should preface by saying I know nothing about the TV show. I didn't know anything about this movie. I went in completely fresh and I'm very confused.

Ade (25:28)
Mm-mm.

Yeah, did you have any favorite scenes?

Aaron (25:39)
No, I mean nothing happens in any of the scenes, did you? Nothing stands out to me from this movie.

Ade (25:46)
I had probably two favorite moments and that's, you know, when I say favorite moments, I mean, of this movie, not, not ones that are going to be memorable or lasting. ⁓ I thought the, the weird, was so weird that I kind of liked it was when Omar Epps was, I don't even understand why he was there, but he's, he's at some mobster guys house or whatever. And, played by

Aaron (25:54)
Yeah.

Ade (26:15)
I the actor's name, but.

Aaron (26:17)
⁓ was this Michael

Lerner?

Ade (26:21)
forget his name.

Aaron (26:22)
The guy from Bart and Fink and...

Ade (26:24)
Yeah, yeah, and he starts dancing with them.

Aaron (26:27)
Yes, that might so many great performances, like great talent wasted in this movie. Like that scene could have been. Like awesome, it could have been an all time great scene, and it was like because of the rest of the movie didn't make any fucking sense. I'm just like, here's somebody giving a great performance in a scene that means nothing and like is so forgettable.

Ade (26:34)
Yeah.

Yeah.

And he didn't, he didn't really take it anywhere. He, he asked him to dance and it's this, it's this tense moment kind of, or it's supposed to be this tense moment. And he, Omar abs reluctantly dances with him and then he's like, spin me. And he's like, what?

Aaron (26:57)
Mm-hmm.

I love that.

Ade (27:08)
Yeah. And, ⁓ I was like, ⁓ he's, he's about to get killed right now. Like, that's it's some like weird mind shit he does before he has his thugs. Cause his thugs are in the background with guns at the ready and exactly. So you thought, okay, this is like, you know, ⁓ Jules and Jules and pulp fiction doing the reading some scripture to him right before it. And then it just ends. But so.

Aaron (27:20)
Yeah.

They're like loading their guns. He's feeling them out.

Yeah.

Ade (27:36)
but it was a little funny.

Aaron (27:39)
Yeah, like there were a lot of I think there were good performances in this. I think I said there weren't earlier. I take it back. I think that there's too much talent in this movie for the performances to be bad, but none of it made sense. So each time you see this great scene, you're like.

Ade (27:51)
Yeah.

Aaron (27:57)
What does this mean? don't get it.

Ade (28:00)
Yeah,

I thought all the I thought everybody did well in the movie. I thought Claire Claire Danes is great. She's I mean, she's one of the greatest actors still working right now. I don't know if you've seen her in any of the more recent stuff, but I I saw her in the I'm drawing a blank, but the one with Jesse Eisenberg, Fleishman, Fleishman is in trouble. And and I thought.

Aaron (28:05)
Same, yeah.

Not really.

Ade (28:26)
one of the, just all time greatest TV performances that I've seen. and she's actually really good in this. I think Josh Brolin is good in it. I just think they didn't have anything to work with really. Like it was such a flat script and the dialogue was, I only wrote one piece of dialogue. I forget all the supporting characters names, but, the one of the cop boss.

Aaron (28:40)
Yeah.

Ade (28:48)
guys, Giovanni Rubici escapes in a car and he yells, not the yard as he's cutting through the yard. And I just wrote down that piece of dialogue because I was like, this is the shittiest looking yard that like you would get kicked out of the HOA. It was like weeds everywhere. like, you know, it's like short in some places, tall and it's like, why does he care about him driving through the yard? anyway.

Aaron (28:55)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, I had two pieces of dialogue that I wrote down. There's there's one where Robisi and Claire Danes are hanging out at the beach or something together. Everything's gone bad and they're like distraught. They're like, we don't know what the fuck we're going to do. They're they're. ⁓

Ade (29:25)
Mm-hmm.

Aaron (29:30)
detective that was in charge of their group got murdered and they're being framed for it. And I think Omar Epps was on the run at this point. And so they like kind of hook up to try to come up with a plan and they're sitting there and they're both just like, you know, down on their luck. And Robisi said, I think everything's going to be okay. And Claire Dane said, do you think? And he was like, I don't know, it just feels good to say it. And I was like, that felt so real. Like that was a great.

Ade (29:54)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Aaron (29:58)
And the person who wrote this wrote like eight mile and like he's capable of writing good movies, I think. he wrote The Joker, The Fighter. He's done good movies. So I was surprised that there was only a few good pieces of dialogue. There was also a scene where Omar Epps is.

Ade (30:08)
Yeah.

Aaron (30:20)
Riding in a car with somebody, don't know who that person was. It was like somebody that he knew from the street, I suppose.

and Omar apps is trying to like get him to clean his life up. And he was like, don't save me from a life of crime. Crime pays well. Yeah. Okay.

Ade (30:36)
Yeah.

Aaron (30:39)
But yeah, there were a few good lines of dialogue, but then there were also lines of dialogue where Claire Dane said, I didn't do him okay. After she spent the night with a guy like who says do him. Yeah, maybe.

Ade (30:51)
Yeah.

you did in the 90s. don't know.

was Eddie Griffin was the guy in the car. Yeah. So he, and he was, yeah, it was kind of played as a, I guess it was a cameo. He only had that one scene.

Aaron (30:59)
Yes. Yeah.

I thought the dialogue in that one scene was like, head and shoulders above the rest of the movie, to be honest. ⁓ Yeah, it was really a strange movie. It was mostly trash and then like, really great, talented actors trying really hard to carry this thing and it all just makes no sense. It feels like it was, I don't know, fucked up in the edit or something.

Ade (31:15)
Yeah.

Definitely had some problems.

Aaron (31:35)
What was with all the, at the end, were like really pounding you over the head with how cliche all of this was. They're like, we're like, whole thing's going to end up in an abandoned warehouse, like in the movies. It's like, we should start saying I'm too old for this shit. Like, why did they do that?

Ade (31:52)
Yeah, I don't know. I

don't know if it was if it was in in reshoots, they got the notes that everything felt cliched, so might as well laugh at themselves in the movie, but it didn't. Yeah, I just kind of groaned.

Aaron (32:03)
You

Yeah.

⁓ It's a remake of a show from the 60s, right? Talking about cliches from the 80s. It's very confused. I did laugh at ⁓ a... So Omar Epps has like this prized car that ⁓ he doesn't want anybody, especially he doesn't want Giovanni Robisi driving it because he can't drive and he keeps like...

Ade (32:14)
Yeah.

Hahaha

Yeah.

Aaron (32:35)
crashing throughout the whole movie is banging into shit and scraping it on walls and getting into little fender benders.

Ade (32:35)
Yeah.

He runs it

through the car wash with the top down.

Aaron (32:44)
with the top down.

And ⁓ at the end, he and Claire Danes are like going to try to rescue Omar Epps and she they're getting in the car and Giovanni Robisi says, no, don't drive. Link wouldn't want you driving his car. He definitely doesn't want you driving it. Yeah.

Ade (32:59)
I did think that was kind of funny.

like this whole cliche of don't scratch my car or don't do anything to my car was really huge in the nineties. Is that, I feel like I don't see that on screen anymore. Do we just care about our cars less?

Aaron (33:10)
Yeah, reminded.

Yeah, maybe it reminded me of like Starsky and Hutch were like, he's got that was a grand tour, grand Torino and that show. like, it's just, you know, they all had their car that was like it was as much a character as the General Lee or whatever. Like, it seems like cars were were as much a character as of the shows back in those days as.

Ade (33:22)
I don't know.

Yeah.

We had a lot more pride in our cars maybe or you had characters with just unique cars that I don't know. Yeah.

Aaron (33:38)
I don't know.

I cringed

every time. It was also popular in like the 80s and 90s for like people to maybe before that too, but like to stand on their cars or like sit on the hood. And I cringe every time I see that. Were they just like better made back then so they didn't dent or are we just too careful now?

Ade (33:53)
Yeah, I did cringe.

That is weird. I never, I would never stand on my car until I get a better look at something.

Aaron (34:04)
I know, I wouldn't.

Yeah. But they did a lot of that in this movie.

Ade (34:11)
need to we need to research that a little bit why don't

Aaron (34:14)
Robici

stands on top of the car in at least two scenes, three scenes. The car wash, there's one where he's looking over a wall, and then there's one where he's like just dancing on the hood.

Ade (34:22)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Just by himself, like passing the time. Yeah, that is interesting. All right.

Aaron (34:29)
Yeah.

Did you

like the line in this movie when they said, so what are you kids, some kind of mod squad or something?

Ade (34:39)
⁓ my gosh. I was

like at the very end. nobody used the word mod, by the nineties, I think.

Aaron (34:50)
No.

Ade (34:52)
I had to look it up to understand why it was called The Mod Squad. Yeah, that's so stupid. I think that's all I have about this movie. What's your favorite TV show adaptation into a movie? Do you think it works?

Aaron (34:55)
Same.

Ade (35:06)
I feel like most of them don't seem to.

Aaron (35:10)
Wow, I did like the Starsky and Hutch with Owen Wilson and Ben Stiller.

Ade (35:17)
I don't really remember that well.

Aaron (35:19)
I saw that one a bunch. like that one.

Ade (35:21)
I, the one that jumps to mind for me is Mission Impossible. That has to be the most successful of all time and really good. never saw the TV show, especially something that may be part of the formula is you elevate a TV show that wasn't super popular, but has potential into something more like taking a really popular TV show and making a movie out of that probably is terrible.

Aaron (35:25)
Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Star Trek?

Ade (35:47)
Maybe. But I like I like the movies.

Aaron (35:48)
Did you count that?

⁓

I'm looking at a list of the man from uncle I loved. 21 Jump Street was great.

Ade (35:57)
Yeah.

Fugitive?

Aaron (36:01)
Fugitive. Beavis and Butthead do America. ⁓ yeah, Naked Guns movies were from Police Squad, the TV show.

Ade (36:06)
hehe

yeah, ⁓ that's a good example. Yeah, would say Beavis and Bad didn't really transcend the TV show. it's a two-part, like which ones resulted in good movies and then which ones transcended the TV show.

Aaron (36:14)
Yeah.

Yeah.

think the Simpsons movie was...

I don't know if it transcends the show.

Ade (36:30)
Well, it definitely doesn't transcend the show. That's like the most successful, like longest running show of all time, almost.

Aaron (36:38)
Yeah, for me,

the Addams family, because like I don't I don't think I ever I've seen the the original TV show. But like to me, if you say Addams family, I think of the movie.

Ade (36:40)
Yeah.

Have you watched Wednesday at all? So that's an interesting IP that the movie transcended the TV show and then the new TV show transcended that even further. It's going to it's going to be the year like 3050 and it's going to be like the 40th reboot of all the shit we're watching now.

Aaron (36:58)
Yeah, I have not seen it

Yeah.

Ade (37:11)
Well, did you have any outpicks for this movie?

Aaron (37:14)
Yeah, Giovanni Ribisi was in this mini series called The Offer, which was about how the movie The Godfather got made. And it has Miles Teller. He's like the main character. then he put Giovanni Ribisi played Joe Colombo in it. Matthew Good played Robert Evans, who was like the one of the producers or he was the head of Paramount at the time. Incredible performance. ⁓

Ade (37:19)
Okay.

Yeah.

Aaron (37:40)
I watched that mini series twice just for for Matthew Good's performance. I thought it was a really good series.

Ade (37:48)
Yeah. I didn't do my homework again and pick an alternate pick, but, Giovanni Ravici played his character in this movie was Pete. And I was like, yeah, sneaky Pete. really liked that show in which he started in. I may have only watched the first season, but, I'll, I'll file that officially as my alternate pick, even though I've only watched it.

Aaron (37:51)
You

sneaky Pete. ⁓

Yeah, I think if you picked any of the actors out of this, anyone, like a side character, main characters, anybody, and just went through their IMDB and picked any other movie, you'd probably find something great.

Ade (38:12)
But was.

Yeah.

Oh yeah, sure. mean, it'd be hard to, it'd be hard not to top the 3%, uh, rotten tomatoes Levi ad that, uh, that was the mod squad.

Aaron (38:33)
Yeah.

Yeah. I didn't really like it.

Ade (38:38)
Yeah.

Well, I think that's about all we have for the Mod Squad. special shout out to my other brother-in-law, Landon Caldwell, for the new, what do call it, theme song that we have? Jingle, intro, outro. I used it on last episode and I forgot to shout it out, but that was a nice Christmas gift from him. And yeah.

Aaron (38:54)
Yeah. Intro music, jingle music.

Yeah. Thank you.

Ade (39:06)
And yeah, so thank you. Landon Caldwell, he's a musician in Indianapolis, Indiana and does this sort of thing. Very talented. ⁓

Aaron (39:17)
Wait, can I, are there

any other Indianapolises?

Ade (39:22)
What did I say?

Aaron (39:24)
You specified

Indiana after Indianapolis.

Ade (39:27)
I said Indianapolis, Indiana. Uh, I didn't realize I did that. Um, yeah, there's an Indianapolis in Australia and another one. Why don't you look it up? don't know. Maybe I'm right. Uh, if you find another Indianapolis, let us know at the worst movie podcast at gmail.com. Uh, feel free to.

Aaron (39:29)
Yeah.

Is it really? No way.

Yeah. All right.

Ade (39:56)
or not feel free, please subscribe on Apple, Spotify, like, all those things. Amare.

Aaron (39:59)
Please.

Tell your friends.

I'm Aaron. Thanks for listening to the Worst Movie Podcast.