BLACK LOTUS (Netherlands/USA, 2023) with Emil Struijker Boudier

We're going Dutch with King Of the Kickboxers Rico Verhoeven's first headline movie outing BLACK LOTUS, also starring Frank Grillo and directed by Todor Chapkanov.

To celebrate all things NL (movie notwithstanding) we welcome back Friend Of The Show and real-life dutchman Emil Struijker Boudier who gives us the lowdown on the explosive Fast 9, nostalgic The Flash & the CelineDion-a-thon Love Again while Simon watched Extraction 2 obvs (we'll get to it in another episode)

In the Trailer Park:
EXPEND4BLES (2023) Official Trailer - Jason Statham, 50 Cent, Megan Fox, Dolph Lundgren
THE ISLAND Official Trailer (2023)
Til Death Do Us Part - Exclusive Official Trailer (2023) Cam Gigandet, Jason Patric
Heart of Stone | Gal Gadot | Official Trailer | Netflix

The show's got a Twitter: @dodgethispod and so do @simonfeilder & @matthighton // Instagram: @simonfeilder & @itsmatthighton // and websites simonfeilder.com & matthewhighton.com. Emil is @fireside.panda & @emilstruiker
See what Simon is watching on LETTERBOXD and LIKEEEE AND SUBSCRIBEEEE to his Youtube channel!!!!

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This will help you watch all the international treats: nordVPN

If you're reading this far, doe normaal! Why not rate (and review) this pod on Apple or Spotify plz&thx?

Transcript

0:56

[MUSIC] Must be hard. Coming home with nothing left to fight for.[MUSIC] There's always something to fight for. I love the Rico for who's a strong fighter.[MUSIC] There's only one way to get into your life.[MUSIC] I have to go get her.[MUSIC] I am the most complete enemy fighter you are. Oh yes, hello, welcome to Dodge This, Action Movies Unplugged, season 2, episode 8.MKV. My name is Simon Fielder and well, like no one cares, it's been a little bit longer since the last episode, but some few changes, few exciting things. Sadly, Matthew is unable to join us today due to him being too busy and too popular. Those I've paraphrased essentially his life into that, but that's what it comes down to. He will be joining us in future because he is more excited than anyone about the new Mission Impossible, so I can definitely tease that episode with no further details of when it will be out. In his place, however, we've got an absolute treat. Friend of the show, returning Dutchman, it couldn't be more relevant than today when we are talking about the Dutch-American movie Black Lotus starring Rico Ferhofer. Joining me is actual Dutchman and expert on all things Dutch. I've given him that title. I hope he's going to fill the boots accordingly. It is your friend and mine, Emil Stregarboudi. Hello. We did the mic check and immediately he's, he's coming. He's coming so hot. Sorry. I just thought like, Oh, I'll do a book of Mormon. Hello. That'll be fun. And then immediately blessed our everything. Yes. I know everything about the Dutch and all the ins and outs. And I'm, I'm very interested in Dutch culture because I'm Dutch and I don't have any American leanings whatsoever when it comes to entertainment. So that's why people who does my focus has been mainly on the Dutch. I like this guy's obviously Dutch. Listen to his thick Brabant accent. I love the Dutch. We are great people. Now this I could, this would be more of. I love that Rico for Hoover is a strong fighter. She's such a strong fighter, you know what I mean? He's king, you know Rico. Oh my God. Yeah. Right. I want this throughout the podcast. This is my favorite thing. I've been in the Netherlands nearly five years. I cannot do a good Dutch accent, but this I enjoy a great deal. It felt like, listen, here's the background to this episode. We all, we all know by we all, I mean, people existing in the action spectrum. Is that true? Yeah. Uh, extraction to recently dropped. I mean, if you listen to this in the future, this isn't relevant, but in a timely manner, we were all very excited about extraction to it's been on the tip of everyone's tongue, I watched it the day it came out. It's yeah, it's great. It does exactly what you want. We, I wanted to talk about it, but I thought, you know what? We watched the trailer for Blacklotsers a while ago. We're in Amsterdam. It would be remiss if when I had a real Dutch human man, which I believe is what you are on the pod confirmed, we didn't take advantage of that. Plus this is probably going to be no spoilers or further details, but one of my last episodes of this podcast where I can see Amsterdam as I'm recording it, more excitement to follow listeners. Um, so I felt like we should do Black Lotus and last episode, um, I think Matthew and I realized, came to the decision that there's just not a really good action film coming out every two weeks, if you want to talk about new ones. So at some point you have to just decide what the film is and then talk about it. Regardless with all the information I currently have. I still think extraction two would have been a better choice. And second to that, we could have talked about Fast X. Have you seen it yet? Yeah, I did. Okay. So, you know, mistakes were made. I'll do a brief quick review without spoilers for Fast X. So what do people want? What do people expect of me? I get it. I mean, I understand. I'll play one of my greatest hits and then we'll move on to just the trash solo album of one of the, of the bassists of the band. With everything that I know about you, Emil, it's you know everything about being Dutch and you know everything there is about Fast and Furious. So those two things I feel like we could really lean into. And as such, why don't we just get started with, you know, things, other things you have seen that aren't our feature press, which is Black Lotus. Please, let's, let's get, let's start with the big boys. Tell me about Fast X, please. Well, it was I was a bit hesitant because I didn't love Fast 9 as much as I hoped I would. Hard agree. I mean, I would have to rewatch it to really put my finger on it, but I think it was just it was just a bit of a mess for some reason. Remember when they went to space? I can't remember anything. Yeah, that's the one they go to space. Yeah. Yeah. I think it was just too quick. Maybe because I may have even on this podcast, I may have pitched this. I know I've pitched this to people like this is how you get to space in three steps. It's within three movies. And also if you're going to do it, do it with the final movie. It's a bit weird. Anyway. To do it with the one that's two away from the end. And this just felt like a kind of a return to form in a weird way. It was like, we're staying on Earth and we're just doing a shit ton of weird shit here that it doesn't matter. constantly. If you want more of that, go to Leslie Jones, her Instagram account, she has a couple of clips up of her watching Fast X at home and giving commentary. And it was pretty much my feelings throughout the movie. She captures going, "Yes, rolling ball of fire. Go get it. Hell yeah. Save the puppy." I like the look of that because it reminded me of, you know, the safe from Fast Five. I mean, and I know this one is like vaguely tied to that. connect that slightly. Yeah. But I was like, yes, that is the stuff I like in the fast movies. Like it isn't, it is quite silly, but it's also like there's, there's gravity, there's some, both literal and, uh, figurative gravity to it. Yes. I will also say, however, I did also say drive the car down a dam. So, it's, but it's, but like it's still the real world. Technically you could probably, it's all those individually, you may be able to do each one, like you could like have a car fall down a dam and you know, quote unquote drive it, but anything beyond. It's the same thing with when they, uh, was it the Burj Khalifa towers? Is that the, uh, yeah, when they jumped out of one, but they still do an explosion behind it to give it a little bit more force because otherwise it wouldn't make it quote unquote. It'd be like a Wylie coyote. Just like, like, yeah. And you can absolutely drive a car out of that. That's possible. The next bit is not, but we're, we're going to throw something in there. to just sort of go like, nah, we respect the laws of nature and physics, which we don't, but, and it was a very similar moment here with, um, uh, with John Cena's car that he drives at a certain moment. That's just silly shit where you go like, but that is what I would think as a six year old playing with my toy cars. This is exactly what I would do. And that is the joy. And I wouldn't, with a car, I would never bring that to space. I have a space shuttle for that. Yeah. So yeah, it was maybe too fancy. This seems a ridiculous thing to say, but they reigned it in a little bit. Weirdly, yes. Um, because they went, well, they did this in Fast Night as well. Like the dialogue of a Fast and Furious movie is mostly exposition and explaining what's already happening. Right. I will also say there was so much of that going out of this movie that it was, that I laughed at a lot of it. Like there's, uh, also before I go into that, I don't know how you watch this movie without having like a quick recap of the other ones because even I was like, yeah, sure. Her, you know, hello, Mira might as well be here, but they don't explain who the fuck she is from a previous move in Venice. Before I watched nine, it had been, I w I only watched nine a couple of months ago because I thought, Oh, I'll go and see fast X. And then, and then I watched nine and I was like, I'm not going to go and see fast X. Actually, I don't, I'm not in the mood for it right now, but I had to watch like a YouTube be like, okay, five minutes. Here's what happened in every single fast and furious movie up until now. And it was like, Oh God, I forgot those characters and people and so insane. Insane. Uh, yeah. So without going into any spoilers, it weirdly feel like a return to form just because they kept it on earth. I guess. Um, what a sales pitch. But yeah, because there's so many characters and like weird things that I really was like, you have to have at this point, do need to watch a few of them or recap video. otherwise none of this makes sense or matters. And also, yeah, don't watch it and take it seriously because you're lost and done. Cause there's not one character in there that is to be taken seriously. Sure. And even, even if they die, there's still time. Yeah. It felt like they just did what they were good at. Unlike here's a little segue. I watched the movie Love Again featuring Celine Dion. Oh gosh. I watched the trailer for that. And I was like, what? Is this movie? Whoo, it's bad. So I went with our dear friend Katie, her and I were going to go see Celine Dion. She canceled the tour because she's ill with Katie canceled Celine Dion's tour. Yes, Katie did. Yeah. Why did she do that? That's so rude. She felt she needed some off time. OK. No, sorry. Celine canceled because she has a thing called stiff person syndrome, which is far worse. Like it's a silly name for something. I don't want to like make a joke about it because it probably is awful. Yeah. However, if ever there were a good reason to go and see this film that looks so bad, that is, that is, I will allow that. And Celine delivers. She's by far the best thing of the movie. She plays herself in this movie. Right? Insane. And every piece she is in, it looks like a postcard or poster. Like it's perfect. Her background is perfect. She's made up perfect. And she is just sassy and throwing shade constantly. So I'm not going to go into the plot whatsoever, but the main dude is a journalist doing a piece on her. That's how she comes into the movie. Is it like they've wheeled her into a green screen studio for one day and they film all of her bits there or it's like, it's a couple of days. It's a couple of days for sure. No, she's in the movie. It's not green screen. She's like interacts with other people and stuff. And there's like put in at least four days, I think. Oh, wow. Okay. We'll circle back around to this when we talk about black lotus and Frank Grillo, I suspect. Maybe. Yes. But like, go find the clips online, if you like, just to lean on throwing shade. My favorite one that I'm going to try and use in real life at a certain point is like, he's being indecisive about something and she goes like, Oh, can I see her? Can I see your hands real quick? Can I just see your hands? She's like, Yeah, come over here. Oh, yeah. And when she takes his hands in her hands like, Huh, swear, these are these are very manly hands. You're acting like a boy. Wow. Something that in an action movie, I would also love. You know what I mean? The show's constantly that anyway. Let's get Celine in Expendables 5. Yeah. I think we can do it. Well, I think we can do it. Yeah. And also only watch the flash. If you like Batman from 89, because that nostalgia will get you through it. But other than that, don't watch the flash. It's not a good movie. Gosh. I don't know what I'm supposed to go and see at the cinema apart from Indiana Jones and even that appears to be absolutely dividing people. Uh, yeah. Yeah. Or Spider-Man, uh, guardians was fun. So Spider-Man I thought was great. Spider-Man was fucking awesome. That actually got me back on the Marvel train. We took Matt and I talked about it at length last episode, but I was, I was out and they got me back in. I hate that it's cliffhanger and hate that. Apparently they're quite abusive to their animators. I don't like that. Don't love that. But the movie itself, I thought was excellent. So good. Um, as for the flash and Indiana Jones, they are both as I've, I think I did. I say this to you in person, perhaps on Sunday, when you've got one of those unlimited cinema cards, you're like, yeah, I'll take a punt on it. But when I have to pay the full like 15 Euro and to come out and go, that was absolutely. I just don't, it doesn't sit well with me. I don't know why. And they don't let you buy the card for one month just to do that. You You got to have it for like minimum three, I think. So there's no, there's no way around it. Anyway, we've been waffling for quite a long time. Am I watched Extraction 2? It was very good. Here's my one point. And I'll probably bring this up if I do manage to nail down Matthew to watch this movie. And maybe you have a thought on this. Why do we keep calling stitched together fake one takes, one us? My pitch is this. we give that thing a new name, because then when they go, this movie features a 21 minute one take. Well, I mean, it's not one take, it's like literally like a hundred different shots stitched together. So it's not, I don't know why we're, but it like looks like a one, but it doesn't look like a one because there's loads of really obvious cut points. And really it's sort of just marketing at this point.- 100%. Why I don't have, I don't have an idea of what to call it, but I just think if we just call it a different thing, then we can appreciate it for being technically still a very impressive feat to make it look like an event is happening in real time, like the Johnny Depp movie, "Nick of Time," which I know everyone's thinking about right now, but then we don't need to be like comparing, old boy or children of men to these, I don't want to say fake in a derogatory way, but they are like very manufactured one takes. Especially if it's just like one bit. Look, I even felt that type of way about 1917 where I felt like I understand why you chose this medium because it does, it really brings, or it can really bring you into the situation if you don't cut away. But it's like, um, I don't know. My pitch would be a one camera action sequence. Yeah. Cause then it's like a real, like real timer. I don't know. Yeah. Maybe like, yeah. Cause that's what it is. Right. The idea is that like, and it works great in extraction too, where there is this very extended, like you see it play out in quote unquote real time. But it just put me in mind of Carter a lot, which was like that to the nth degree. Anyway, the movie itself is, is a really solid meat and two veg action. I absolutely recommend it to you and everyone's dad will enjoy it. Whoa. Let's move on to some bloody trailers, mate. Trailers! I just need a soundboard so I can play these all in live and then I don't have to ever edit the podcast, which takes so long. I just want my voice to fade out as you play the jingle for it. That's why I did it. I'll keep, I love a bit. I'll keep all the bits in, mate. Don't you worry about that. This is good. This is all going in. This is where streaming this live now. I don't have time for editing. All right. Trailer. We're in the trailer park. Okay. Let's do these in order. Sit out, grab a beer. First of all, I'm here for it. X spend four balls. X spend four balls is, is coming through. Expendables for this feels and don't take this the wrong way, but maybe do. I feel like you're a fan of the expendables movies. And I, you would think so wouldn't you? But just purely on like the Fast and Furious vibes. I watched definitely the first one and I suspect that is where I stopped. I think I saw the second one as well. I never got my hands on the third one. Because I see clips from the second one and I go, I don't think I've seen what joins these together and I Scott Adkins is in it. I know Arnie is in it, but I just think the first one disappointed me. And I was like, no, not that one. Then I heard the third one was either better or worse. I was like, I can't remember. I don't know. And now this one, I'm like, well, I mean, as soon as 50 Cent shows up in anything, I'm off board. It was, I literally, this is what I wrote down, underwhelming, except the ship. Yes. There was also, because it was also the trailer is so also this, was this the one? There were two of them where it says trailer starts now. Is that a new thing that I missed? No, that's, that's the, the teaser for the trailer attached to the trailer. Right. Which I don't wear. Makes me feel old because people are like they think I'm dumb. Like, I don't know what a trailer is. Like you I clicked on it. I click. No, when I'm watching. But you've got, they've got five seconds to capture your attention. So they have to be like, thanks for the, about to happen in the trailer so quick. But just cutting back and forth. And, uh, I hated this trailer a lot. I just thought it was a bad trailer. The movie might be great for all I know, but it's just,ateur flash, flash, flash, flash, flash, flash, flash, flash, flash, flash, flash, flash, flash, flash, flash. I don't know what the fuck the story is. I really, with this trailer, I've been thinking about this for a while. I miss the inner world voiceover because now they put in so much exposition in movies as well, or just random lines that seem like they're just there for the trailer because otherwise they can't tell the story. I'm really all you need with the trailer is give me the premise. Yeah. And if that is fun, if you can, if you can hook me with that, then I can enjoy the rest of the movie. And with this, like there's, I don't know what the premise is. That is a good point actually. that the inner world guy could really, in a world where action heroes are out of a job, the old guys are back together to fight their biggest adversary yet. I think you see meet them, meet them, meet them. Each other. Yeah. I guess in a world where everything is a sequel to a sequel to a sequel, it's like, it sort of doesn't matter what the plot is, right? Especially with these, where like the, the selling point is how many names are above the title. But yeah, having not seen the two in between, I'm very on the fence with this. I'm, I love that, you know, Tony Jarr is in it. I love that eco is in it. Eco needs to be in more things and be given chances to shine. He's, he's, he'll obviously be great in this. Uh, you know, I, I do like Statham's action movies by and large. I do, but that whole sequence with him and Megan Fox, like so little chemistry, or was that just me? All just felt so manufactured and some of the shots in the trailer, maybe they're not finished yet where someone's like sitting on top of a tank, just with the most awful green screen. Why do, why? I don't know if it was this trailer actually, or one of the the other trailers, but was there someone jumping out of a plane in this? I feel like there probably was. Maybe, but that's the point. Like that's a side effect of the next, next flash flash flash flash flash type of trailer, which is I lose all sense of where did I see what and why am I supposed to be in this? Yes. It's mad, isn't it? It's terrible stories. I am fully ambivalent about this and I'm ready to be excited and delighted. But I think like even if you're handed the reins to this to make it, you're under such. And this probably is exactly the same with the fast movies. You can't really make it anything more than like what it has been before or what people expect. Right. It's like, how do you make it special and different and exciting, but also have it tickle the expendables boxes? I think to some degree, this is what the Latin, or no, in fact, all of the Mission Impossible's have done is that like they each do check all the Mission Impossible boxes, but you managed to get like the sort of directorial stamp on each of them. You know, you can be like, Oh, that's the John Woo one that because it's got, it's got John Woo written all over it. You know, the JJ Abrams one was that one. It had all the fucking like lens flares. And then, and then, you know, Chris McQuarrie just is just like, and now this is how they will be and no argument so far because he has been knocking it out of the park. But it seems like with the fast movies, I don't know who directed which ones with the expendables. I know that the third one, was it Simon West? I don't know. I think I started with a reasonable point and then I lost it by not having seen the in-between expendables for good examples. fair enough. But that's the other thing. There's no hint even of a story whatsoever. It's like at least with fast, you know, families in danger and we gotta save them. There's a MacGuffin and it probably can destroy the world. Oh yeah. Which one was that? Every one? Was it the Expendables? The World War III one? Yeah. If we don't stop it, it's World War III. Oh, I mean, this is also the plot of Heart of Stone, which we're about to get to. That's the one. Okay. Let's just go straight into that. Since we're talking about a MacGuffin device that can somehow destroy the world, which I think was the plot of Fast 9 or 8. Of all of them pretty much. After 6. Whenever Charlize Theron kind of arrived, I still don't know if she's like a goodie or baddie, but there was some sort of MacGuffin pulp fiction briefcase that has some fucking bit of tech in it, you know, they've got to get. Anyway, in Heart of Stone, Gal Gadot plays the spy hero whose team is destroyed and must go on the lam to prove her innocence while also stopping a mysterious MacGuffin that can destroy the world from falling into the evil hands. Did I get that about right? much. This one definitely has a lot of people jumping out of planes or skydiving or parachuting, which I think in a post Iron Man 3 Mission Impossible 7/6 world is just a quite bold move, Because it's so hard to do well. Yeah. It's so easy to do it in a fucking studio. And then it looks like, you know, a Netflix movie, like the skydiving in the gray man where you were like, this is tolerable, but black widow has an old sequence in the air, which also doesn't look great. Part of it. And now we come back to like the one, one camera action sequence is, you know, when Tom Cruise didn't need to hang off of that plane, you could have done that shot in studio and still have it be impressive. Because what makes it impressive is you start on that plane and it takes off and you don't cut away. Yeah. So you're forced like, Oh, no, the ground is leaving the ground is getting further away. When if you just jump on have him on the side, cut away, cut to the pilot, cut back to him, you're like, Yeah, he's on somewhere in the studio hanging on to the airplane, whatever. It doesn't draw you in. It doesn't slow down enough for you to take call it that in when, you know, it's great that he did it for reals. It adds something for sure. But even if you were to fake it and just keeping that one shot there, it just forces you to come to terms with this is happening. This is what we're doing. Fair deal with it. And I, for heart of stone, I'm half on board. I'm ready for what sort of another, and I mean, I mean, I'm ready for it. clearly there's an audience for it. And clearly Netflix is so gagging for their, oh, another, uh, an IP that can like spawn sequels and what have you like extraction to gray. They're just like, I imagine it's done well enough. And that's probably already chat about making a third one. But with the gray man, I think a sequel got green lit. Don't know, but they're like, we need, we need our own mission impossible. We need our own James Bond, right? And this feels like another swing at that, that maybe. Yeah, Red Notice was another one. Red, the old guard, all these sort of things where you're like,"Oh, if it was, if it was just a bit better, I think you could have really been onto something." Like the old guard was like, "Yeah, I think the next one might be, might be, might be better." Now they sort of nailed it all, nailed down all the ideas. If they go into it with that set of mind, it all focuses so much on setting up for the next one, rather than just, just make a good standalone movie and you can take those characters and you're like, all right, this is where we ended up, okay, what can we do now? Yeah. And if you don't kill any of them, you're good to go. Like montages in that sense get underused a lot in Hollywood, cause it helps you out of a lot of terrible plot situations. Like, all right, we need to montage out of this. Something that like with Indian movies, I fucking love this is like, all right, we're going to quickly explain why this matters in a flashback of five minutes with a song. Boom, go. And you're invested, it gets explained to you. You understand. And now stuff has consequences because you're invested to it. Uh, but this, yeah, seemed fun. The trailer teased a lot. It wasn't as do do do do doing as the other ones. True. It's got money. Clearly it's got like money behind it. Which exactly makes me a bit more helpful for the set pieces. Yes. Set pieces where you're like, okay, could be good. Could be good. Could be good. However, it also had that very Netflix vibe. And I don't know why that's a thing when it's not like Netflix aren't the studio. I mean, they're funding it, right? But like some production company is making it. And I don't know if there's something imposed by Netflix about how things need to look or be, or it's something about the digital with the CGI on it. It's like the difference between this, how what this looks like and what Mission Impossible looks site and granted that might be because Mission Impossible has four times as much money, but there's that sort of muddy tone and just too much digital fuckery, I would say. I don't know how truthful this was of the dude on Instagram saying he worked on, um, Oh, what was it? What recently came out? Was it fast ten or no, it was about the flash movie. Um, cause there was a lot, there's been a lot of criticism on CGI and rightfully so. Some of it looks terrible. Oh no. Uh, and like DC's had problems with that before in the past. If you don't know if you can't remember which one it was where, um, they had to get Superman back in Henry Cavill, but he had a mustache. He had the mustache for the Mission Impossible. Oh, that's right. Yeah. And it just looks awful. It's like you could come on even with makeup like what is it, Caesar Romero from Batman, 1996 looked, capped his mustache, but even that looked better. But he very much said like, no, the movie, like the studio wants to make this movie. They know how many sequences there are of this. And then just shop around and whoever can make it cheap is willing to do it is going to get it. So money is definitely an issue there. But what they don't do is like, oh, we don't want to give this amount of budget. So we should figure out other ways to do this. Maybe we can do some more cheaper practical stuff or work some way around it. No, but I think they just then keep it and just do it for less, which makes it look shittier. I'm always reminded of, uh, uh, Jurassic Park. Where I'm like, but stuff look great there. The T-Rex it's like, it holds up. It's pretty good still. And then you see the flash and you're like, can't this more than 30 years or no, it's 30 years exactly. No, 92. You couldn't free age Batman. Well, no, that's the best bit of it. Like I fully enjoyed the team just going for it. That's I'm that draws me in to be fair. Like I'm intrigued, but not watch it at home for free. Just for Keaton. Keaton is awesome. But only if you have that nostalgia for the old one, I can't see any kid going like"Babble was the best part of this movie." No, no, that's 100% nostalgia. That's the problem with getting older, isn't it? We'll never be children again. And we'll watch Heart of Stone and be like, that was fine.- Yes.- All right, we got two more trailers. Let's absolutely burn through these. Firstly, The Island. I put this in because it looks very low budget and it stars Michael Jai White. And we're also talking about another fairly low budget action film. So I wanted to bring everyone's expectations back down to like, come on, not every movie can be Mission Impossible. Let's see what the levels are.- Some of them now look like they were shot on an iPhone without the use of a special lens. I think Michael Jai White has so much potential and he's such a good martial artist and he's just given such bad everything. He just, he just, I know he's, he won't, we all got to work, right? He's not, he's going to take the work. Why can't anyone put him in a good movie? That is indeed what bothered me, bothered me about watching this. I'm like, but he's way better than this. Why is he now getting the work or like slightly more infuriating? And there's, well, I have so many questions like this and I think I, what it's like. You want, and maybe we get to this in a bit, but let's take this example. I would love to have a candid conversation with Michael J. White. And actually Scott Adkins is actually quite good at this because he talks about movies and is sort of candid to a point that you don't get from a lot of quote unquote, you know, Hollywood people, like, especially in more recently, say with like accident man, too, I listened to interviews when he's very honest about how hard it is to make a movie and like how hard it is to get the money to make a movie and do this, that and the other. And you're like, okay. And when you kind of hear it laid out, you're like, well, uh, you know what? It's fucking hard to make a movie and you've made a pretty good one. So when you see like Michael J. White in movies like this, I would just love to like hear him, you know, off the record being like, look, we had like two days to do this and we needed two weeks. So this is the best we can do. Like they wouldn't, the guy who choreographed the thing wasn't like, didn't wasn't good at shooting this way. Or like the director didn't have experience in like shooting action scenes. The editor, blah, blah, blah, the dirt. You know, I would, I just want, I sort of just want to know, and I haven't even watched the movie, but I think I can say with some degree of certainty, it's not going to be great. But it is, it is getting made. So people must watch it. Right. Like there's just this such an incredible, I think I just want to talk to more industry people to like get the inside scoop. even then getting like the real answers that aren't like, this is more than my job's worth. So I can't really actually tell you the details. It's like, fuck, the only way you know is basically by, you know, making a movie. It had a really good line in it though. Which kind of made me sad. Cause if you're like, oh, this is a really good line and it might not show up in another movie, which is, uh, he took, he takes out his gun and said, that's right. I had it and I didn't use it. I was like, that's so badass. Yeah. I like that. Especially after you just kick the shit out of somebody. Oh my God. Yeah. That's right. I had it and I didn't use it because doing so many movies like that and it happens in Black Lotus quite a bit. Well, I was like, Oh no, the gun is jammed or can't use guns. So we have to do fist fights. And the fact that he chose to do that because he knows he's, Oh, I love that. Love it. I haven't even seen it, but that was worth it alone. That was pretty good. The man is an absolute beast and given, you know, given the opportunity, he can really go to town. I just, uh, if this trailer is the best it has to offer, I'm, I'm worried. He's not being, he's not given them being given the material. We keep I keep having Michael Gia white trailers on this podcast. Every time, because we love every time I'm disappointed. Right. One more quickly. It's till death do us part, uh, featuring cam gig, gig and it from, uh, from never back down, right, I'll take your word for it. He's never back down. He's also in, um, um, angry naughty, naughty Santa angry Christmas, white Christmas, um, stranger things, Santa. Oh, is that sense? Slays violent night, violent night. Slays might be the Goldberg one. I can't remember. So you enjoy that was a little, uh, there's a little journey of, uh, of brain association there. Live on the podcast got there. Eventually. Uh, yeah. My note on this was what? Question mark. Yeah. Mainly because I look, I love a bride kicking people's asses in a, in a, you know, a wedding dress. But the trailer does nothing to explain why this is happening at all. No. Not one bit. It feels like a good concept. I need to know something. Why are the bridal party allowed to try and murder the bride? Yeah. Quickly tell me that. And then I'm delighted to see her. Absolutely. quite kicking some quite serious ass in this, which looks like it could be very fun. ALICE Yeah. It was like,"Ah, I don't know, but I don't know, because you're not telling me why she got into this situation. If that's really stupid, it's not gonna be as fun, I guess." JUSTIN No. ALICE But yeah, the action looked pretty good. JUSTIN It looks like it could be, uh, some throwaway font. She's- ALICE Remind me of The Princess. That was the name of the movie, right? JUSTIN Little bit like The Princess, yeah. Except in The Princess I don't think anyone gets stabbed in the dick that I remember. ALICE I mean, that was my only criticism. Three out of five. No, no dick stabbings. No dick. So sorry. You lose a star because of that. Big hopes for the sequel. All right. I think we've, we've dawdled enough in the trailer park and, uh, you know, that, my hope is that we will have filled up enough time because I suspect we're not going to have too much positive to say about Black Lotus. No. So good old hang of the trailer park. Join me. Take me by the hand and come with me into the feature presentation. That's me driving out of the trailer park. And now our feature presentation. We are talking about the 2023 movie Black Lotus. It's a co-production, I believe, twixt the Netherlands and the US. But since me and Emil are both in Amsterdam, this movie takes place large, I say largely, supposedly largely in Amsterdam. It definitely features some Amsterdam scenery and very Amsterdam-y things. So what better way, um, than a real Dutchman and another human man, me who is in Amsterdam to get into this movie. It's also the trailer at least sold it as a beer, you know, action. Rico Verhuva, who is a kickboxer. Royal champion. I think still. Well, every time I have a question about something Dutch, I'm going to ask you, can you answer my question in your best Dutch accent? Who's Rico Verhuva? He's the king of kickboxing. That's my favorite. Literally my favorite. Okay. Also- He's not a bunch of people. Generic Dutch person. Can you give us a little sum up of the plot of this movie, such as it is? So Rico is a soldier and he goes back to Amsterdam and then a little girl gets kidnapped and he gets her back. Yeah, but he's very troubled and that's a great sum up. Thank you. That's pretty much it. That was really solid. That's the plot. That is that in a way that is the plot, isn't it? And yet the little girl doesn't get kidnapped until. 48 minutes into it. I wrote it. So far into the fucking movie. Okay. Let's let's say some good things about this movie first, because I feel like it's very easy to pile on and I think we'll be able to do that without any real effort. On the plus side, how many action movies come out of the Netherlands or are set in Amsterdam? I feel like a few have had scenes in Amsterdam. I think the Hitman's Bodyguard had an Amsterdam bit. Yeah, so sequence. Can't remember anything else off the top of my head. No, not big ones. The last Spider-Man movie has, he goes to Dutch Jill and he gets picked up in a in a tulip field, so that was great for our image.(laughing) When you are on the other end of it, for such a brief moment of time, which gets done to other countries constantly, you realize, oh my God, they do just pick the two, three cliche things, drop 'em in there, and that'll get you sold. We're in France somewhere, show the Eiffel Tower.- We're in London, mate. Oh, I'm coming out of a red telephone box in front of Big Ben.(yelling)- Yeah, and when you actually walk around, Like none of this is really true. True. So, all right. I remember saying that spiderman in the Dutch cinema and people sort of being like, hooray, the netherlock. Spot on this again. This again. All right. If you represent it, Tom, welcome to our come up now. At least it wasn't set in the red light district. Yeah. It was the next one. Take some boxes. So this is, um, Yeah, set in Amsterdam, ostensibly. And that is represented in a few, you know, nice drone shots over the canals. Rico runs, runs over the old, what do you call that one bridge? The old, the old bridge. I don't know. He doesn't run over the math. No, no, it's a different one. Okay. It's the one that lights up nicely at night. What's that bridge? I don't know if it goes up. No, that is the math. Yeah. He runs over that like twice on his little. It's a different bridge. different bridge. Yeah. All right. Well, you are the Dutch expert, so I have to defer to you on anything. Well, it's so the macro is essentially thin and the bridge he's running on is not that thin. But also either they shot a real weird, maybe it was implied. Maybe it was, I don't know. Now they check it out. There's like, there's some tulips. He runs over famous bridges. Final sequence take place on the cross, the Polsky hotel, even though they named it as something different, but the site is too big. So they can't shoot around it somehow. That's right. Yeah. Which annoyed me. Yeah. Um, there's a shot in a dam square at the end, the famously outside of the. Oh yeah. We'll get to that. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. And, um, also he, when he gets off the train, he gets off a sloter dyke station, which I found very, very, or quite realistic in a way. Like he probably doesn't live near central. It's very expensive. He's probably more, if you want a big house, you're going to be out there. That was definitely just too, that's budget. You can't, you can't shave in central. Even Oceans 12 shot at Harlem Station for Amsterdam Central. You can't shoot there. It's just logistically impossible, I think. Because if, if Brad Pitt and George Clooney can't get Amsterdam Central, who can? But I get on train every day on the track, they shot that movie. Well, it speaks to, I think, like a lot of the things in this movie that like budgetary constraints, right? And so I think when you set out your stall of this is set in Amsterdam, like you've already set yourself quite a tough challenge because as you say, like we can't shoot at the main station. Also like the center of Amsterdam is so busy that to film anywhere near canals and stuff is just like logistically insane to shoot in Dam Square. I feel like just the fact that the shot exists is like congratulations. You managed to get Dam Square shut down for one hour at 5 a.m. on Monday morning. Yep. Great job. Unfortunately, does it add anything really apart from like, it's that looks lovely? No, it makes for a very disappointing finale. What it does. You knew like, Oh, you didn't have her for that long. That's why this is the end of this movie. Yeah, it's just, I feel we can spoil a little bit because we're not gonna advise anybody to see it. And quite frankly, the people listening to this are not gonna watch it. Right? I think, I mean, even neither of us were going to watch this, but it seemed like a great idea 24 hours ago. Well, to give people a taste of sort of how bad this movie is, after the premiere, there was, you know, this is a celebrity premiere, all these celebrities and friends come along and when that happens afterwards, it's all gushing reviews. gushing reviews from one of these celebrities was, um, I'm so impressed that he did this. Oh no. It's like, yes. What was my thought when I saw the trailer? Like that's a great sizzle reel for Hollywood. I understand why he did it. I don't expect it to be good. I just didn't expect it to be this bad. It's like when you come off stage and someone goes, how do you think it went? Oh, okay. So why is it so bad? What are your thoughts? I have my thoughts. Okay. So let me say Amsterdam looks nice in this movie. Rico Verhuva is a large man in this movie. There, you know, people, other large men have had very successful careers in movies when they were maybe quite dull at the beginning. So I don't want to write him off entirely based on this. Frank Grillo, I would say, is the best he can be in this movie. He was good. I assume half of the budget went on getting Frank Grillo, although increasingly his choices baffle me. He seems to have sort of gone from almost A-list sort of B-list, being in quite a lot of good things, to increasingly... It wasn't Marvel. He was in... He was in a bunch of Marvel movies. Right. Yeah. He's also just in a lot of straight to video, "Drek" recently. And again, I know everyone just wants to work, but this one you're like, maybe he just wanted to spend a week in Amsterdam. Fair play, because I think he probably had three days work on this, maybe four. I think it was a week. It could have been a week, because they had to have a whole day in Dam Square. They had a day on the roof. Not like Chelsea Grammer and Moneyplaying, which was before lunch. Fair. It's not like Steven Seagull, you know, turning and being doubled, but like, it is Frank Grillo's face all the time he's talking. And somehow he manages to say the lines and not sound as dreadful as everybody else in this movie. Like he elevates the movie. the beginning, there's a scene in a theater which is okay. I will say that technically, most people did a solid job on this movie. Nothing is out of focus. The sound is good. ALICE You're really impressed that they did it. JUSTIN It just looks fine. There's a couple of shots that are quite nice and imaginative. There's a shot where he sat on a bench and And the camera sort of goes like 360 around him. That's a TikTok feel. Sorry. A couple of like nice, uh, in camera edits. There's one quite nice dead body idea. And I don't know the budget. If I knew the budget, I think maybe I could say, and for the money, they've made the best thing they could. And I think even without knowing the budget, we can say every, all of our criticisms are probably the answer is we didn't have time. We didn't have money. A lot of it. My main issue with this movie is the, um, the sheer amount of illogical choices that are constantly being made plus the storytelling is all over the place. And it starts with that very first sequence, which is an orchestra getting ready to rehearse because there's not an audience. But then for some reason there is theater lighting, which I don't think happens ever when somebody's rehearsing. So that pissed me off as a theorist. Like I would definitely not be here for this. This is bullshit. Um, but they surprised this orchestra and take him hostage. The SWAT team was like six seconds behind them. And I'm like, couldn't stop them before they went in. Couldn't do that. But then there's a complex bomb situation. Like when the fuck did they set that up? Like you didn't show, you didn't show me time passing. Maybe that did happen. Maybe there is no explanation for it, but you're not. And throughout the movie, there's a bunch of, I feel like you cut something out that it's kind of mission critical to me understanding it. But I can also see maybe they went, "Uh, it's too long. No one cares." We need to cut stuff out. Cause even in some dialogues, I don't think I wrote that bit down though. Shoot. Um, but the husband, Paul is reacting to his wife and he's repeating back something that she didn't say. Right. I was like, "Ugh, this, oof, you can, can fix that, huh?" Um, I'd love to talk to the editor of this movie. I bet they've got some answers. Oh, they got half a dozen thoughts. Oh, that's a good one. We may be able to track them down. They might be willing to come in the pocket. Yeah, for a perhaps. It's not a Hollywood one. So I mean, yeah, for me, I think it, the, it falls down immediately on the script. And I don't want to lay the blame entirely at the feet of Tad Daggerhart, who has the, that is a great name and also he has a story credit on Expendables 4, so maybe this worked as a calling card. Well, maybe I don't want to watch Expendables 4 now. But my word, this is like, it's like the sort of bullet points on a napkin of a movie. That's exactly what I wrote down! It's like, this feels like watching the beer coaster idea. This is like, "Oh, and then we have this scene, and then he gets pissed over here, and then this happens, this happens, and then he kind of says, 'Hey, what's going on with you?'" Right. And instead of writing the actual dialogue, they just went with that. Nothing is fleshed out. So much. They're like, okay, so at the beginning, there's like a tense hostage situation in a theater. And then for the rest of the movie, that is irrelevant. Also, for some reason, one of the orchestra is the bad guy for no reason. We don't see him ever again. The trained special forces operative Rico Verhoever just decides to go rogue. Absolutely. Absolutely no reason. At the top of the movie. Yeah, not no reason, but he's been very clear about not, you know, not jumping the gun. And he very much does that. Yes. Yeah. Even though he's already too late. So it's not, yeah. Absolutely. There's no like this guy. He's a hot head. He's got to be, he's buddy. We keep him around because he's so good at his own character development. Nothing. He barely says anything for, well, the entire movie, to be fair, certainly the first half of the movie. What I don't get is Rika Verhuva wants to be an action star. Great. He's a fucking enormous man and he's a kickboxer, right? There's been innumerable people before him that have achieved this success, right? It's a well-trodden path. Fair play to him. Looks good. A lot of thought. He takes his shirt off a lot in the movie and he's very ripped. He seems like he's 19 feet tall. I don't know. He was standing next to a young girl. There was the perspective. I couldn't work out, but he seems like he's a huge guy. And if the qualifications for being an action star are you are huge. He's that he's the, he's right up there. A hundred percent. Oddly for a movie that war is supposed to launch him. I find it an interesting decision that for two thirds of the runtime, he is not doing anything resembling action. I wrote down Rico's face. 90% of the time is the old, I'm going through so much, but I can't show it. Literally ridiculous. Also. So that sequence happens then it gets to like five years later and he shows up. Uh, uh, so his, his captain, like his boss is kept, I don't know what they call it in the SWAT team dies in that place. So it's his fault that his captain dies. A hundred percent is his fault. A hundred percent of his fault. Um, it just doesn't deal with that for five years whatsoever. It shows up to his widowed wife. He just goes to chop some wood in Eastern Europe. Yes. He just goes to work a wood factory in Eastern Europe. So we can see him take a shirt off. How it looks. You do? Yep. Yeah. Um, and then just shows it like, uh, oh, by the way, I know I didn't show up to the, to the funeral, which blew my mind. Like what the what you didn't go to the funeral. How dare you? Like it's the honor among your SWAT team. Surely. So those are your comrades, your brothers, his fucking captain says it. I want your family. Yeah. You didn't bother to go to his funeral because you had a tough time. his pregnant wife needed a fucking shoulder to cry on. You left, which then she says to him and like, thank God, you are right. Get the fuck out. And we go. And then I remembered, oh, no, the little girl comes in because of the fucking trailer. Like, she needs to be kidnapped. And then five seconds later, she's outside. I actually come back in. We have a spare room. You don't have anywhere to stay. Yeah. And it does that quite a bit throughout the entire movie. Yeah. And like illogical stuff again, like, oh, and here's a closet full of my dead husband's clothes that you're free to use. Like he's two feet shorter than him. What are you talking about? I'd love it if he just stepped out in like a t-shirt that showed his belly button. Thanks for letting me know this. Peddle pusher, trousers that were really tight. Like I think I'm going to go to H&M actually. These are dreadful. I've got to be in down square later. There's three H&Ms in a one block radius, mate. And also that didn't need to happen at all. They didn't need to say that. Yeah. You could, why couldn't he have his own clothes or buy some clothes? Why we don't, it doesn't matter. It's like going to a gas station to get gas in a movie. We don't ever see it because it's, we don't need to know it happens. It's fine. There's so much in this movie that happens and it's just like, there's a Rocky run without a montage. It blew my mind. That's the way he runs over one of the bridges. Maybe the macro bro, but I have my dad's. Twice, twice he runs over that same. Yeah. They've got the, they've got the drone up, mate. Put him in a different hoodie. Oh, but that's that whole sequence. Yeah. But they do a bit, which I sometimes do in videos when I realize I don't have enough footage. All right. Let me cut something in between and cut back to it. Cause it is a good shot. Exactly. But then I don't have anything else. I got a good shot. I'm putting it in there regardless of if it helps or is useful. Oh my God. There's the, here's I think, and again, some of the actors in this are probably good actors in their respective countries, but- Honestly, probably yes. It felt like a lot of weird directing. Everyone in this movie has a different accent and they are all speaking English. I understand you'd want to sell this internationally, but they say some of the weirdest And maybe Tad Daggerhart hoped some wise cracking Americans. It is a good name. It is a good name. It gets better on ReefBeat. There's no way it's his real name. And if it is, God bless him. You know, you write these lines and you're like, fucking John McLean's going to deliver these. He's going to sell the shit out of them. You don't expect like, Oh, a random Belgian dude is going to have to say this or like a French woman or an Israeli lady. or a Swedish fucking strong man. And it's just like everything sounds so unnatural. Like at the beginning there's the cop lady is sort of, you know, having these like offhand quips with these and they all just sound like so awful. And it's just like none of it is earned. None of it is like character building. It just sounds like the sort of thing I, a long time ago, I took a script writing class, right, when I lived in London and we had to write a scene, right, like an inciting incident scene, which is, you know, the turning point in the first act of the movie that sort of spurs the rest of the story on. And I read it back and I had fallen into that exact trap of like, instead of like, you know, writing something set in London about some shit I knew, I was like, I fucking love action movies and American movies and And I'd written this like two cops or ambulance drivers and it was the most forced, wordy, unnatural, you know, like I grew up loving Kevin Smith and Tarantino. Like those words only work if they're coming out of the right mouths or, you know, somehow they're either very well written, they're very well acted. The whole thing is put together great. Whatever it takes, that magic to make that work is so much harder than you think. things like this, I watch a lot of bad movies and I'm willing to cut them a lot of slack, but when you hear these sort of like things that are like meant to be throw away offhand quips delivered by, by non native English speakers in situations where they just don't land is so clunky. Yes. I, I took a note of one of them, which, uh, he's torturing some guy for information at the end. And he says, if you move one more time, I'm gonna, like, I'm gonna hurt you again or some sort of something. Yeah. And then the dude gives up the information doesn't move and he still hurts him. And the bad guy's like, I didn't move. And then he says, yeah, but you were talking. I'm like, that's not the phrase you use there. It's, but your mouth was moving. Right. If you want to add that, but your mouth was is enough. How do we miss this clearly on the first read through? Like, Hey, can we change this real quick? Good. No, actually. There's an obvious fucking line, but like, and I'm not the world's greatest script writer, cause I don't write scripts. So, and it's to bring Ed Sheeran into this, he's got a great analogy for songwriting, for instance, cause that's, that's what I did as a teenager. Made an appearance finally on the podcast. I mean, he has to come into the most popular culture at some point. He got into Ted Lasso, Game of Thrones. He's coming onto this pod. It's the Holy Trinity. It is true. It seems like a good one. But there's a documentary somewhere out there of him. And in it, he's talking to a bunch of students at his old school and he talks about songwriting and he says, "It's like a faucet. It's like a faucet that hasn't been turned on in a while. So when you first open it up, there's a lot of gunk that's gonna come out. It's like a lot of shit. And occasionally, oh, bit of fresh water. And if you just keep that open, if you just keep writing at a certain point, there is no real gunk anymore, it's mostly water. And it's mostly gonna be good because you kind of figured out how to do it. And it's when you said that about like, I'm going to write my own writing bank, it's like, yeah, I have some of my old songs and they're terrifying. Cause I was 14. But this movie is the gunk is what you're saying. Yes. It feels like that's why it's the beer coaster radio. So it's, Oh, this is the first thing it's like, no, no, no, no. You need to like go over it a couple of times to like, get out the wrinkles or get out the gunk, if you will. And like, I didn't move yet, but you were talking. It's like, Oh, but a clear, but you just tag. It's move and move. That's the like, sorry, we don't still have the money for your promise. I'm going to hurt you when you move. Cause technically he did, even though you're a bit of an asshole for doing it. It's like, it's that classic. Ah, he's a good guy, but no, you're a little rebel. Of course it's, are you Maverick? I thought you said you were going to kill me last. I lied. I lied. It's that, but the worst possible version of that, the worst possible. Or you're like, Oh, it's the improv game where you don't, where you have to not rhyme. Yes. Yes. Which is fun if that is the game and it happens a couple of times, but then you're also, that's a warmup game. You don't ever really do that during a show. And that's sort of what this movie feels like. It's like, why is the star, I mean, essentially the star, Rika Rauva, who is a world famous kickboxer, why is he not kickboxing people throughout this whole movie? Why does he not really get to do anything very cool in the whole movie? Just one cool thing where he just jacks a dude out of a car with one hand and I want just more of that. I mean, that was funny. Just be the Hulk. He's so big, yes. He should do mental shit like that. At one point, he rides a bike. He chases someone on a bike. And he's so big it really looks silly. A funny nod to it being set in Amsterdam. Yes. But it was also like, yeah, ridiculous. It's 100%. I dunno, it, the whole thing sort of looks like an, like a mediocre episode of a TV show, right? That's about where it is. Yeah. And because there is so much logic missing, like it's so little, maybe it's cut out, who knows? But when he's in the hospital and Interpol comes and questions him and he sort of just walks out where he'll go like, "Yeah, you killed two people, mate!" How is he allowed to walk? What's happening? Just don't have him, don't have him arrested then. He's very big. He's very big, so he's allowed to do whatever he wants, I guess. Oh, I don't know. I don't know. Oh, I just read another weird line that I wrote down. It's like a wildcat in your pants. I remember that. Makes no sense. Don't know what that is. Makes no sense. What is that? Is that a thing? I think they mean it's a bad idea. Says that. But nobody, you can't do that. It's... Oh, but I do. It reminds me of like, you know, going to do jobs in the Netherlands, which I do. This is why I live in the Netherlands and I will offer my USP here is that I'm a native English speaker, right? So I can do things in English that sound natural and English. And sometimes people will be like, can you just take a look at the script to, you know, pull out things that maybe you wouldn't say it like that. And that's not what it, and it's like, there's so much of that in this where, I mean, I don't know where Tad Daggerhart is from, but he certainly wasn't on set to go, actually, that sounds awful as you say it. Why don't we, why don't we change it? Change something that you would say naturally. Like there's no time, there's no money for this. And okay, so it's meant to be an action film. There's the opening scene where you're like, okay, there's some people shooting guns. I guess that in the dark, so we don't know who shooting who. I will say this. It did seem like there was some physical squibs and gun shooting. It wasn't two CG smoke, CG muzzle flares. So that's another one in the plus side. You've You've got to take them where we can at this point. After that, you've got a solid 40 minutes of no action. Just talking, setting up this weirdly, not really setting up anything. Like very little happens in those 45 minutes. A plot where there's a guy, there's a guy who has, I think lost some money, some of Frank Grillo's money. We don't know how really he lost it or why. I didn't write the sentence down, but it was like the worst version of Star Trek tech talk where they just throw in some random words, but these all felt like random words your grandmother would know. And then it doesn't really work. There is a point in this movie and I was thinking of having it as my action replay, but I've thought of a different one where Frank Rillo goes into this guy's office, the character of Paul, who is, I guess, an investor, a trader, someone you give your money to and you go, can you make this into more money for me, please? Yes. And he has a screen next to him that has got a very clearly comped in sort of stock footage shares graph on it. And then Frank Grillo goes like, where's my money? And then he sort turns the screen, which this thing stays on that screen, then he taps the keyboard a bit and goes, yeah, I could see what's happened here. Whilst pointing at this screen that just basically just have like a graph on it. I mean, obviously, when they were filming the scene that he didn't know what was going to be on it. And then I mean, it was literally the most like student film, ridiculous. Oh, God, how on earth are we going to cover this that like we don't have any footage of him going over to a screen we don't see. Like why, what just so many times I was like in this whole movie, I was like, why, what the choices that have led to him pointing at a screen that has a sort of generic like Google image sound of graph goes down, lose money. But also goes back up again, by the way. Oh my God. It was back. That was baffling to me and it may, it just, it sort of made me hand it to like Frank Grillo for just like clearly rolling with it. Just being like, this is not going to turn out to be a good movie. Surely you must know that. I just realized something. I, it, it's not only just doesn't, uh, have logic in it. It goes out of his way to show the illogical, uh, illogicalness of the situation, if that's, yeah, that's illogicality, illogicality, illogicalityationism. Um, yeah, like there's the moment when he decides to go, uh, after the little girl and, um, he point puts a gun to the interval guy's head and steals his car. There is a car right behind him. There's no reason for him. Like, but it, but it happens a lot in action movies, I think, but mostly it like, oh, he would take the car drive off and then you have another scene in between. And then you cut back to, oh, they need another car and they just take that car. And then your brain has forgotten that that car obviously was already there until you watch YouTube video pointing out the model and they're like, yeah, whatever, but we need it this and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. But they kind of go out of their way to show like this situation is ridiculous. Isn't it? Yeah. But we're going to treat it real serious. That's it, isn't it? When Fast and the Furious is like, this is all illogical. However, we're not going to take ourselves seriously. It's like the sort of Venn diagram overlap of the worst things where it's like there's no logic, there's not enough to sell it, but you have to, you're taking it so seriously that we're almost like veering into like the room territory of like, yes, like, this is like awkward to watch. And like, I can't say this enough. I watch a lot of bad action movies. And I'm very forgiving of a lot of bad acting, plotting, like nonsense. And somehow it's like, well, that fight scene was pretty good. Somehow this movie manages to absolutely miss the mark on every single thing. Apart from you've got Frank Grillo, who's like, Who's doing his absolute best. I mean, most actors are doing their absolute best, but it really feels like the script and directing is letting him down. But yeah, the, I just read a note that says, oh, there's a lock at a certain point that he needs to, oh, it's, uh, his death captain's like army box. Oh, yeah. We don't ever see what's in it. I don't think it's got guns. Lots of guns, right? Um, sure. Probably. Um, but he goes like, how do you know the combination of this lock? And she's goes, yes, it's six, 12, six, 12. His daughter's birthday, which pretty sure, um, child wasn't born yet when he died. Well, I'm not sure. I don't know about that. But worst of all, it's like six, 12, six, 12. They show the lock and it's one of those classic, you know, tumbler, or yeah. Is it a tumbler lock? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. With the numbers on it. I'm like, I've never seen one of those with 12 on it. What are you talking about? And then I quickly pause one too, isn't it? Yeah. No, but there's only four like little, uh, attorney thingies. So I'm like, what, you could have just picked a different birthday. There's no need for this to not work. That was even that guy at this point, I was hysterically laughing and angry at the same time. My note on that scene was why has he carried the whole box down the stairs from the room rather than just going, Hey, what's the code to that box upstairs full of guns? Also, he could have ripped that open. He's the Hulk would have been better. I think, I think at this point, you know, we're sort of flogging a long, a long dead horse with these, these tiny bits. Yeah. Um, I'm just going to just rinse through my notes. I think we've covered most. Oh, why is it called black Lotus? Is that the name of the bat gang? Oh, that's what that was my final note on it. I think there's, I don't know. I couldn't, the tattoo doesn't shows up twice. It may have been on his arm. Otherwise I don't know. explained, not explained. Not one bit. It was literally when it came back, I was like, so why the fuck was it called Black Lotus? Is my note. I prefer it to like, at least it's better than a very generic DTV title, you know, like Revenger or X, well, Extraction or like, there's a new Liam Neeson movie coming out that is called Retribution or like one of those just sort of rubbish could be anything title. So Black Lotus, good, better title, not explained enough that it's stuck in either of our heads. How many days did Grillo work? I'm going to just go through each of my notes. How many days did Grillo work? I'm saying three or four. Maybe I'm being generous with how quickly they could choose. How long did they get in Dam Square? An hour? My guess is an hour. As you say, the finale of the movie when finally the boxer, Frank Grillo, who's very trained in boxing and is very adept physically gets to face off with the world's champion kickboxer, Riko Verhoever. Oh man, this is going to be the worthy showdown that we've all come here for in the one hour that they've had to, they've chosen to film it at damn square at 5am. So it's empty. Oh God, they haven't got enough time. I'll tell you what the best thing you want to do is have them do a sort of Mexican standoff where they don't even get near each other and then just wrap that up within seconds. Cheers, mate. Credits. Credits. Unbelievable. What was the budget is my next note, which I really, it's probably the answer to quite a lot of our concerns, but not all of them. And then I just wrote, how did this get made? Rico? Question mark. 100%. Is he like, I don't, my awareness of that. Is he a co-producer on this? That was, yeah. Is he like a multi-millionaire? Did he just throw like two or three deals and like he can get, he gets to work out with Kevin Hart if he wants to. Like if he's in LA, like he's got friends. I'm not sure how big he is. Is my question as to can he just go? He's a big name. Like people all over the world know him well. So I'm sure he's got sponsorship deals. I'm sure his name is big enough to get some money going. Obviously not millions and millions for a project like this. But like I said, I, it felt, even when I watching the trailer, it felt like, Oh, you just made the suit. You have a good sort sort of fighting sizzle reel for Hollywood, but you can sort of shop around and show. Which fucking fair enough. I still hope that he does well. Fair enough. Fuck you for me. If there was a memorable scene of him fighting in this movie, I would say, yeah, which there isn't really, there's like, I feel like they saved all the action budget for one scene towards the end. That is kind of a, I would describe it as a John Wick. If you bought it from shine. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, it's in a night. We've got colored LEDs everywhere. There's a couple of bits of like, um, jiu-jitsu. There's a bit where the lady jumps on someone and rolls him over. She shoots people in a fun way occasionally, but none of it quite. It's it all smacks of not enough time. She deserves some work out of that action sequence. She did a great job. She did. And I actually think she, then she gets another fight after that with, um, a guy who's, who, what's his name? This guy can't find his name. I want to say Simon Wan, because he's an Asian man who plays a sort of wily assassin. And so you're like, okay, he looks like he looks like he's good at martial arts. That sounds problematic, but he does martial arts in a way that says... I was going to say he does it. Yeah. So, okay, great. Let's have a good showdown with those two. She does all right in that. while fucking Rico faces off with Sweden's strongest like mountain or whoever that guy is in a sort of quite boring stab fest. I don't know. I don't know. Oh, that's another one where, um, the Paul Woodley and Paul Guy at a certain point, but with that same, uh, assassin dude is in a fight and he gets cut up and halfway through, even though he's already like bleeding profusely goes, Oh, you want to dance? And within 10 second he's down and out and killed. Ridiculous! Oh, not killed, sorry. Ridiculous. Oh, you want to dance? Oh, god! I mean, that was incredible moment for me. Where I was like, okay, that's what you say when it turns out you're a good fighter and you can actually hold your own and there's going to be a fight. When you've been holding back, but you've already been fighting for a little bit. He's literally, oh, you want to dance? And then just gets absolutely murdered to pieces. What is the motivation for him saying that? It's not, I, R, Riddick, so stupid. So stupid. Okay. I think we've covered most of the notes. Oh, the bit in Amstelfeld where he turns around and there's four like S and M thugs behind him suddenly, and they hit him with baseball bats and wrenches. Like, or like, surely that is the moment where you're like, thank God, finally, we're going to see the champion kickbox to do some champion kickboxing. No rubbish. And then he gets on a bike, whatever John Wick. Yeah. Wrote that. And then the whole ends bit on the roof is sort of graded in that like day for night way, where it's meant to look like either very late at night or very early in the morning. And it just early in the morning. It's supposed to be because they come, yeah, they're coming out with the night, so it's supposed to be early. Cause they have to lead up to dam square at 5am. So yeah, it just, just looks cheap. Sorry. Yeah. A few more things before we get out from my end. I don't know. I'm just so we can wrap up really shit all over this movie and then wrap up. Well, because I just saw my last three notes, uh, it says, and we're on a boat. Question mark. Cause some, for some fucking reason he's on a boat. And then why was it called black Lotus tattoo? There's a fucking credit scene in this movie. Oh yeah. Post-credits worth it. Which I nearly didn't see. You weren't expecting Samuel L. Jackson to pop up. Why are you? Oh, but they try. It really feels like with a bit of jumbling, because there's quite a few flashbacks in it as well, because when his captain gets killed, you don't give a shit because you don't know who he is. You don't in the relationship. They kind of built that very poorly within the movie with a few flashbacks. And I'm like, this, this is where any moves get a very right. And just like, we're going to briefly explain to you with high intensity, why this person is important to this person. And so because then you will care what happens next. And that's why you get into ridiculous situations, but it, you know, on an emotional level, it pushes the buttons. And of course, if you don't like your emotional button push, you know, you also probably don't like Disney because that's all they do. It's that level of like, yeah, it's the obvious because it kind of works really well, but not in a super original or creative way. And with a lot of the stories like there's something there's I try to uncover, like, what's the good movie in this and a good movie? Like, he's a very true. The bad version of which we watch this, this is just a very troubled soldier who hasn't dealt with trauma, who goes on a killing spree to save a girl he barely knows and didn't even show up to the funeral of her father. So this is just him trying to make up for that.- Retribution. That's what they could have called it if they would have a shit name.- Yeah. But like the Hurt Locker is also about somebody, you know, who goes through a lot, except they show all of that, make you go through it, and then at the end, at least, because I know I didn't really like love the movie itself, but I love the final scene of him in the supermarket, because we spend that entire movie in war and getting into his mindset as much as we can or could in that particular setup for that movie. But it is so it's changing when you see him in the supermarket and you kind of get a glimpse of what it's like to live with that kind of trauma. You go, oh my god, that's true. The Denzel Washington movie, American Gangster, has a very similar ending. And as much as he's the fucking man goes to jail and then 30 years later, he comes back to a world he doesn't know. Like that's a very interesting subject because you are a part of the world, but you're not, none of that, like it's even mentioned or hinted at. No time for that, mate. Although you did have 40 minutes at the beginning. If you're not going to fill in with action. Just so much time. Yeah. Well, Emil, we say this a lot, but I think we could go on and on about this. And I feel like you've been here for quite a momentous podcast because up until this episode, the MO of this podcast has been only celebrating movies. And that, it turns out, is a double-edged sword because like I said earlier, there's not a good action movie every two weeks unless you start digging into the archives and everyone does that. We're trying to keep this one current. So you know what? Last time I promised that when the Jackie Chan John Cena movie comes out, we will watch it and talk about it on the podcast. Oh yeah. Jackie Chan, baby. I suspect it might be- My two JCs. Not a dissimilar episode. Anyway, we're Amsterdam, we got to talk about the local stuff. I wish it was better. And if by the grace of the Dutch gods, anyone involved in this movie hears this and would, I would love to genuinely have a conversation about it. I would just, I've got so many questions and I, and like I just do sort of, um, go just to cover, cover ourselves in a really sort of cowardly way. I know how hard it is just to get a movie made. I don't think it's fair. Yeah, no, I mean, I was about to say something very similar. Like we both understand working on like too little budget or too little time and having to figure out how you can execute the idea the best you possibly can. And you know that this is not the best it could be, but under the circumstances it is. Yeah. And yeah, I would be interested to know what the circumstances are. With that said, I cannot recommend anyone watches this movie. It's absolute dog shit. So that's how we get it.(laughing) Please come and talk to us. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry to everyone. I just feel like nothing gets said no to, but not in a good way. No, you know, there's some things in it that aren't awful. All right. But yeah, I cannot recommend anyone watches this. So I hope you've enjoyed the podcast. Anyway, Emil, thanks so much. Oh, action replay. Oh shit. Let me rewind quickly for the action replay moment. Whoa. He just does. He does the actual jingle. I love that. Yeah. What is your action replay moment? I bet it's going to be the same as mine. Oh, well I have, uh, I'll give my two, it's literally just a cool two, the two cool things that I saw in this movie, which is right at the beginning. There's a cool shot because of a smoke bomb in which somebody like and it's backlit, so it's kind of, um, so you just see the shadows work that it's very short. And they don't pay it off as well as I hope with like, then you need to walk through that smoke and like action hero reveal, but they don't do that, I believe. Um, but that was a cool shot. And at the end, there's a moment where. The big Duke gets stabbed in the back. I just can't reach it and that falls down. And then I've goes through and I was like, that was a nice moment. That was okay. actually. Yeah, that wasn't all right. Yeah. Yeah. You didn't get mine, which is quite good. I mean, my first one was the screen in the guy's office with the stocks on it because I thought that was so incredible. But the actual, it's not, it's not action, but I remember I was bored and then this happened and I was like, Oh, that's a good idea. Well executed was a dead body is hung off a bridge in a canal. And one of those tourist canal boats goes underneath it and everyone's like, "Ah!" And then it kind of squeaks like a long glass roof and I was like, "That's a good gag. Well executed, actually. Well done." It was, at that point I think it was too far out of it because my brain immediately went how, this is clearly somewhere during the day, it was noticed absolutely before this and no one called. The logistics of getting out a dead body suspended above this canal, impossible. In Amsterdam you'd never get a permit. It's like so many people around. Go away. Don't know. But yeah, the idea was fun. 100%. Sorry. That was the celebratory action replay moment where we tried to polish this turd one more time. Sorry. That brings us to the end of this episode of Dodges Action Movies Unleashed. I hope next time we will be back with something that we're more excited about. But in the meantime, Emil, thank you so much for joining us on this Dutch special edition. Please tell people where they can find you on the internet in your finest Dutch accent. You can find me on Instagram, Emilpundstrauker. No, that's it, Emilpundstrauker. Or firesidebonda. Firesidebonda. I love that. And the fact that- The Firesidepan account is just stuff I make in Boom Chicago. There's zero context to it. My only thing would be get very high and scroll through it, that it might be fun. Otherwise, I think it's fucking terrible, probably. I also like that it was Emil Bunt. Stryker. Yes. Bunt for the non-Dutch speakers is Dont. Emil Dont. Stryker. Spelled S T R U I J K E R. Got it. I wobbled a bit on the J, but I remembered it was in there. Thank you so much for joining us. If you want to follow the podcast on Twitter, it's @dodgethispod. Me @simontfelder on Twitter and Instagram. Of course, Matthew still exists. He's still out there somewhere and hopefully we can lure him back in for next time. If you like the show, give it a rate and a review on your favorite platform. And if you're an insane, wealthy benefactor, you can do a subscribe. And that means we get actual money for making this, which, which as I say out loud fields ridiculous, but if people knew how much time and effort it takes to make a podcast, maybe would. I love the idea that there's fans enough that would be like, yeah, I will give you, I will give you three Euro a month. Yeah. Love it. In the meantime, we'll catch you next time. Still haven't come up with a good outline for this. Emil, can you say a good, um, Dutch, a good Dutch goodbye for us? I'll say, I'll take a line from Black Lotus. Please. Is that decaf?[MUSIC] The decaf?(laughing)