JAWAN (India, 2023) with Emil Struijker Boudier

We're back buckaroos and once again we're heading to Bollywood to open the season with a bang. And a song. And SRK. It's JAWAN and it's A Lot Of Movie. While Matt is off fighting interdimensional crime, Simon is joined by friend of the show Emil Struijker Boudier to get into this Indian Mass Entertainer co-written and directed by Atlee & starring Shah Rukh Khan, Nayanthara, Vijay Sethupathi, Deepika Padukone, Priyamani and Sanya Malhotra >>> JAWAN Trailer <<<

Outside of this epic cinema trip we've watched Til Death, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Expendables 3 and played the Spiderman game on PS5

Trailing Off
FREELANCE
Layers of Lies Finnish - Iranian Action Movie Teaser
100 YARDS Trailer | TIFF 2023

The show's got a Twitter: @dodgethispod and so do @simonfeilder & @matthighton // Instagram: @simonfeilder & @itsmatthighton & @firesidepanda // and websites simonfeilder.com & matthewhighton.com
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Transcript

1:04

You can't lead a horse to water, but a horse on fire will find water. Very quickly. I think that's the first. You got your aim up. You can call it the art of fighting without fighting. Stick around. Always trying to ice skate on bill Dodge this We're back, baby. Yes, it's Dodge This! Action movies unleashed a big welcome to what people are already calling season three. Hoo boy. If you've listened to us before, I am delighted to welcome you back. And if you've just discovered us, well, I don't want to have favorites, but I'm slightly even maybe more delighted that somehow you have discovered us in the big wide world of Here's what you've got coming up. We take a deep dive each episode into one new action movie from anywhere in the world, from big screen blockbusters to DTV delights. Before that, we'll also dissect a few new trailers. And even before that, we'll just sort of have a little catch up chat up top, see what else we've been looking at outside the world of action movies. So. There was a little break there over the late summer period. We weren't just out sunning ourselves and rollerblading down beaches. Big tings have been afoot where previously I was coming to you from Amsterdam. I'm in a new country. I can't quite believe it yet either, but I'm coming to you live from Mumbai. You will be heartened to know that Matthew Highton remains in London. However, you may be disheartened to know that the boy is so busy that he will be dipping in and out of this series when he can. Don't worry though. It's not just going to be me waffling endlessly into the void. I have assembled. a team of ragtag mercenaries to join me on a numerous episodes throughout the season, action aficionados, movie fans. They're like a sort of expendables of action cinema, if you will, which I feel like is almost an insult given the quality of the expendables movies. had a falling out or have got beef or I've made him mysteriously disappear since last season. He has sent one of his absolutely classic voice notes, for those of you missing his dulcet tones, which I will play for you right now. Hey, dodge listeners. It's Matt here. Sorry, I'm not there. Due to an ongoing issue with a robot, I sent Matt in time to befriend the future leader of mankind. And I can't stress that point enough. Befriend? that's what we programmed them to do. I will be in and out of the series this year. But you will have lots of good films coming out with Simon. And in the words of that said robot, I will be back. Put him down Thomas 1000. Sorry guys, I gotta go. Bye. He's just so busy. He's so busy with his inventions and patents. Hopefully you'll be joining us once, maybe if we're lucky twice this season leading up to Christmas. Now, as you know by the title, fitting as it is, I wanted to start my adventure in India with a big one. And there's nothing bigger. It's Jaon with SRK, the second SRK movie we've tackled this year. And who better? to join me to talk about it, that a man whose Indian movie journey has mirrored mine almost exactly since we both went to see RRR together. It's friend of the show, coming live from my old home, not my old house, that would be weird, Amsterdam city. It's Emil Strauker Boede! First of all. And the crowd goes wild. That means if, if... You set me up, like, oh, we're on parallel paths. That means we're gonna fight at some point. Yes! Because it's inevitable. Because there's only one person that could walk this path, and currently there's two of us, and now we're still like, oh, it's gonna be fine! It's gonna be fine! We can be friends, we'll be the first one to be friends to walk this path together, but we know that that's not possible. I just wanna say that now? Well, this goes one of two ways, doesn't it? It either goes, RRR, where we start as enemies and end as friends, maybe it goes the way of war, where we start as friends, and through some quite bizarre occurrences, we end up enemies, technically, but it- well, y'know, well. Not really. Or, maybe, no spoilers. We look very similar. Oh. And we might be one actor playing two roles. Possibly. Either way, it's an incredible makeup job, whoever's done that. Anyway, Emil, welcome back to the pod. Thanks for having me back. And thanks for forcing me to watch Indian movies. Hey. Well, it's more like just to keep it going, really. Like I watch any movies outside of this. I forced you to watch one Indian movie. which you gladly did. And then you went off and did the homework on your own. You've watched so many that I haven't seen so far. And vice versa. You've seen a couple that I haven't seen yet. So that's fine. We're just covering ground. We're filling in the back catalog together. Yeah. But it is fun now also having seen like a couple of movies with the same actor in it, because then you sort of start to understand the fandom of it as well and why they're so beloved. Yes. Start seeing like the tropes and the sort of the way things are plotted and the, yeah, how it all pieces together. I feel I would talk about this a lot when we get into Joanne. Before that though, it's been a while, but you know, anything in recent memory that's been keeping you busy, media-wise? Yes, usually there's movies or TV shows here, but recently I've been playing the Spider-Man game from like 2018, I believe. Is it that long ago? It's on the PlayStation 5 now, like an updated version, which is like, you know what, yes actually, there's a second one coming out. I love Spider-Man. Yes, actually. Everybody seems to love this game, so how bad could it have been? It is awesome. It is incredibly fun. I remember when it came out and the hearing it was very, very good. So I know also from like the early 2000s I believe there was a Spider-Man game on the PlayStation 1 that everybody loved for the web swing. Yeah. one of the PlayStations one through three, I would say. I don't remember which, but I remember I had it and it was very enjoyable. There's been a ton of them. There's one Spider-Man I played before this, I can't even remember what the title of it is, but that you had to play as different Spider-Mans in different universes. And this was before like all the Marvel Universe stuff. Which was super fun because then you had Spider-Man Noir and you played all these stealth missions. in the 1930s, because that's when that Spider-Man was... Oh, that's cool. Yeah, it's fun. And, you know, but this swinging around New York is just a pure joy. Especially if you've, I guess, grew up reading Spider-Man comics, then it's like, yay! Not even a video games podcast. But that's what's been keeping me occupied, and then I saw Jawan twice, so... You've had to see it twice! I also watch wrestling and Formula One, and Formula One these days has like a race every week now. Gosh, and Joanne Twice is the best part of several days, to be fair. Yeah. Absolutely incredible. Well in light of the upcoming Expendables 4 being released, Matthew and I talked about, he was like, oh yeah, I want to watch it. I'm definitely going to see Expendables. So I was like, okay, well maybe we'll try and find time to do the episode on that. And then it came out like last week. I have not read one good thing about it. But to put in the work, I caught up on the ones I hadn't seen, which was Two and Three. And I mean, they're not good, are they? They're not good, I would say. I don't remember really particularly enjoying one. I felt like, oh, there's a little bit of what I want to see in this, and then a lot of yammering. There was definitely a reason I hadn't watched Two and Three. Yeah, that's true. After watching one. Which was, I think, one maybe go, ehhhhhh. I watched two and two was like, I mean, fine. It did, all it did was made me, when I watched the trailer for four, kind of miss the like physical stunts and less CG and that sort of thing. Because the trailer for four was just like, anyway, this week I watched Expendables 3, which again, was not really good, I would say. I would say probably worse than two. For any number of reasons. On the plus side, in our Indian movie history journey, me and my girlfriend watched an SRK classic, not an action movie, but a rom-com from, I think, 1997 or 1998 called, forgive the pronunciation, Kutch Hota Hai, which fans, fans of Bollywood movies will surely know as the sort of... spiritual successor to DDLJ, it's got S.I.K. and the same lady opposite him. I'm not sure it was as good as DDLJ. It's definitely of a time, but I couldn't tell you what time that is. It's India in 1998, but at a time where they appear to have been colonized by an American university. It's like a sort of cross between like, Greece and Saved by the Bell. I'm in. Exactly! I mean, there is a lot to enjoy in it, but it is... I mean, it's just very difficult to sort of come to it thirty years later as someone who didn't grow up here, and not just be just like, your eyes just kind of going, I want it, what is? Yeah. Extraordinary. But, you know. Very nice to see... where S.I.K. came from, and also, similar to D.J.L.J., he just basically plays a prick in this movie, and I don't get his appeal. I don't get it. What? I get it now, but in D.J.L.J. and in this movie, he is just... To me, he is a prick, and women fall for him. He's just, like, rude and obnoxious throughout the whole movie. I mean, that's most... Like, James Bond was an asshole most of the time, too. And he's just like, ah, but I still got this girl and I still am an asshole. I make snidey remarks as I kill people. It's very interesting. But I mean, yes, it's very, like, in terms of like cultural perspective, very, very well given a look at. Well, yeah, because on that same note, like, well, if we look back at movies from Hollywood in the mid 90s, there's probably going to be a bunch as well where you're going to go heesh, but yeah. Oh, 100%. Plus, it's completely different culture. Yeah. We look back at 90s movies and go, oh boy, look what we used to wear. Like, oh my God, things were so different. But I'm like, this is 30 years ago in Indian cinema. Like, you know, there's just so many levels of like things, things are different. Things were different. That don't be unpacked. Yeah. That like, I'm like, I didn't live here then. I don't know why this is, this is what it is. But very interesting. Um, one of the movies that I, um, that I watched was called till death. which seemed to really sort of fly under the radar, I think it came out a couple of years ago. It's sort of quite a low, I want to say medium, but probably fairly low, low to medium budget movie with Megan Fox where she wakes up and her husband has killed himself and handcuffed himself to her. Whoa. That's the sort of premise. And she's in like a house in the middle of nowhere and things unfold. I like the premise. It's quite, it's very, it's efficient, I would say, lean. You know, it's like 90 minutes. It takes a little, little while to get going. But when it does, it's just like, this is what we're doing. We've got like a single location. It's mainly Megan Fox. There's a couple of baddies. It's sort of a mystery. Oh, it's like a thriller. There's creeping. She's being hard. Like, yeah, I didn't, I didn't love it, but I thought it was solid. I mean, I love a movie in one location, 12 Ingramen, my favorite movie. It's really similar to that. I said, well, then I'm gonna watch it. Thank you for the recommendation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like 12 Angry Men, if 12 Angry Men was shot on a Bulgarian soundstage. Okay. So better lighting. Gotcha. Yeah, basically. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, very affordable replicas of New York streets. And also just the idea of it being 90 minutes these days is a treat. Bang. Let's just do it. Press play. Exactly. It's like a trailer. I'll watch this before I watch a movie, yeah. Exactly. Speaking of trailers... Alright, we got three of them. I put them in the document in the order of how good I thought they would be. I wanted to start with a movie called Freelance. Why, tangent, when you're typing in a Google Doc, you paste in a link, and then you press Tab and it changes it to a nice little... Ooh, like a little... Button? I don't know what you call it, like a little block. Yeah. Little YouTube logo. And... Every... without fail, every single time I do this, I do like, a few of them, fine, and then you paste one in, and it just doesn't want to change. Just doesn't want to change. It's not related to action movies. Well, it makes you furious. Well, you can use anything as an ignition point for an action movie, as far as I'm concerned. I really want a bird of prey to just be about the egg sandwich that she like didn't get for it. It wasn't good at the beginning where she dropped. Oh man. But yeah, just trying to get, no, she got rerouted. Anyway, that's what I want and it didn't get it and it was frustrating. I really wanted birds of prey just to end. I just wanted it to end. Anyway, this first one had John Cena in it. So I had to put it in for the Emil episode. It's called freelance. Thank you. It's as they say in the screen in big letters. from the director of Taken, which I feel like is a double-edged sword, given that the first Taken was good and the sequels were diminishingly awful, I would say. So Taken almost sort of has like a bad memory for some reason, because the sequels, I feel like, dragged it down a bit. But- Jason Bahlman It's like Saw, you just have to remember the first one was good. Jason Bahlman Yeah. Jason Bahlman The first one was good. Oh boy. I don't think it's going to be good, but it could surprise. Yeah, I got Lost City knockoff vibes. And I really like Lost City. It is a little bit Lost City actually, isn't it? Just also with the way it looks. And like there's a jacked dude trying to save a lady in the jungle. And with a third wheel in this particular case. It's got those sort of Luc Besson's production company vibes. I don't think they make stuff anymore, but like... Hitman's Bodyguard, Two Days in Paris, those sorts of mid-budget action movies with quips. Which can be very enjoyable, it's just, like, the quality of the jokes in this wasn't particularly good. And it was very difficult to tell the quality of the action from the trailer. Yeah, which I'm like, doesn't have to be good, but then the other stuff really needs to be good. Which is what I enjoyed about Lost City. It's like, you're watching it because of them. The fuckin' Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum. Yeah, Lost City was enjoyable. Very enjoyable. I think like, yeah, you'll take maybe a point or two less on the action if it's like, if there's some logs in there. If the chemistry and the back and forth between the two leads is fun. And this just seems sort of very average, and then it got the kicker with, you know, the third wheel looking at John Cena's dick and going, whoa, Mr. Petit, not so petit. And it's like, oh, well, okay. Is that what it was? It's gonna be the level, isn't it? The best joke was in the trailer. Mr. Petite Bats so Petite was like, sheesh, okay. I don't know. I mean, I like John Cena as a comic actor, and he's clearly good and big in action, but it's like, I didn't really see enough of either of those in this. I should say Alison Brie is the other person in this. Well those are the two people that we hope have for the chemistry, right, is basically what I'm saying. Yeah, if they don't have chemistry, which wasn't proven in this trailer, then yeah, it's not gonna be a good movie. TBC is coming out pretty soon, I suspect it'll be on streaming within minutes of that. It's got a very content vibe to it, this. ALICE What do you mean, content vibe? RILEY I don't know, you know, just like, some movies look like they're just made to be content. They're made... not with the best intentions, maybe. They're churned out to fill out the Netflix... Oh, okay, content on a streaming network. Yeah, that sort of thing. You know, your red notice, your half stone. It did feel very, yeah, paint by numbers, but... Sometimes that's also just the trailer. The trailer was very... True. .. copy-paste. I'm willing to be surprised. Yes. I'll tell you what I was... And I was surprised by the next trailer. Were you gonna say that? There we go! This is just a teaser. I'm excited to see it, whenever it arrives. It's called Layers of Lies, and it is, quote, the first Finnish-Iranian action movie. I'm like... Which means they have been other co-productions between the two countries. Maybe, but it wasn't an action movie. Yeah, but it wasn't an action movie. Right, right. That really, I want it to be a cooking movie, in my heart. It's just like, wow, you made a fun cooking movie, but the next thing is going to be an action movie. Right. It's so interesting that by combining those... Three words, they were like, the first ever! It's like when The Rock quotes stats of his movies, you know, that haven't done that well, but he somehow engineers them to be like, it's the first that premiered on the whatever this and we're doing great. I really dug the trailer just because another word was said. I know, it's a good teaser, isn't it? And I think- I mean, you know, Iran is on everyone's minds at the moment for like all the wrong reasons, but they do make movies in Iran. I don't know if I've seen any of them, but I know they don't really make action movies. There's a lot of quite sort of serious things. And Finland? Sisu. We saw Sisu last season. So that's one sort of action movie, I suppose, that came out of Finland. But the combination. I listened to a very interesting interview with the director, producer star of this recently, and it's sort of one of those like, Labour of Love projects that's taken years and years and years to get off the ground. And I mean, it looks great. It looks like it's gonna be a lot of fun. Punching combo by those two countries. Yeah. This dude is a proper ninja, and he's putting it all out there. I can't wait. I hope this has been picked up by a distributor, and I hope we get to see it soon, because I know it like, premiered. at a festival in LA recently. So some people got to see it and apparently it is a good. All right. One more, come on. One more for you. This one, absolutely just a slam dunk. It's called a hundred yards. It premiered at the Toronto international film festival. Apparently it's already been acquired by well go, which is good news because that means it'll probably be on a higher streaming service. That's the one that I pay 3.99 a month for and watch less than one movie a month on, I would say. But, they do get some good stuff coming through. This looks like a delightful period kung fu epic. Great cinematography, great performances, big old backlot sets of oldie, worldie China. You love to see it. And it looks like it's got some tasty old fight tings going on too. It also looks like it so easily could have a video game tie-in, by the way. Because they essentially just... I think the premise of the movie is just him expanding his territory? It sounds like that, yeah. That's what I gather from it. It's like, well, the first generation came here and taught kung fu, now there's within a hundred yards of the entrance, and my grandfather expended it by two blocks, what can I do? And then you just see him fighting a bunch of people and like, is this sort of like Pokemon bosses? Is he just making his way through the city and just beating people up to gain, like I'm all in and also video game of that. It looks amazing. Like try might make it look like that. Yeah. Is it like he's expanding his territory and he's like a goodie or is it like now you've got too big and you sort of taken over the city? Oh, interesting politics, but mainly, mainly people like with cool swords and stuff. Yeah, but I'm assuming there's a moment where, hey, your dad wouldn't have wanted this. What do you know? Yes! What do you know what my dad wanted? You're not my dad! I think that'll be the emotional arc. But yeah, look, amazing. It's funny you said I put this into the order of what I think was gonna, like, the quality of them. And I did write here, best of both worlds in this thing. Because it was like, yeah, this sort of has the beats of the first one, which gives you sort of... They show a little bit more of the story. Which, freelance, that's all they did. Which I hate. It's like, now you just put the entire movie in it, it's supposed to make me go, ooh, intriguing, I would like to see the rest, please. And not, this is the summation of the movie, do you want to continue? And with this, 100 yards, yeah, best of both worlds. It looked amazing, but it didn't give away too much, I don't think. Much like the Juman trailer. RILEY No, it just was like, the premise. Like, okay, that sounds pretty interesting, and then like, look at all this cool stuff. I'm in only a little bit and then we're going to cut away. Yeah. Great. I'm ready for it. Okay. We did it. It was in the trailers. It always takes longer than we think it's going to. Emil, I don't know if you've checked the runtime on the movie, Joanne, but it's approximately over three hours. Oh no. We've got to get into the cinema. Weee, it's fine. Let's, but I need to do, I need some popcorn. Okay. I'll meet you in there. I'll find you in there. Alright, it's a big one. I saw this a couple of weeks ago now after floundering. Is it irony or does it just make sense? I now am in Mumbai. I was so excited to see the new And there was no English subtitles. Of course, of course, why would there be? I'm in India, but it just felt, it was like, oh no, oh no, am I never going to be able to see this in the cinema? And then after absolutely nerding out for a couple of weeks or a week and a half after it came out, I finally tracked down one screening. And I was like, I'm going immediately, middle of the day on a, you know, Wednesday or whatever it was, got it in. great times. You, however, saw it before I did. Yeah. And now after. Livid about that. And now. And then you went to see it again! Yeah, because it has a bunch of screenings here with English subtitles. It's great. I could have gone in the morning if I wanted to. Unbelievable. I went at night. I came all the way to India. And they wouldn't let me see it. They have a bit of a history with the English. I respect that they don't want to do subtitles. Yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely fine. Don't want to get into it, thank you anyway, managed to see it. But what I'm saying is, it was a couple of weeks ago, whereas you have it fresh in your old brain box from a couple of days ago. As much, I don't know how much that's worth with these masala movies. No, true, true. There's so much to offer. I think maybe at the beginning of this, I will say this would probably be a sort of light spoilery chat about this movie. If we're gonna go deep, let's flag it, but I think it's very tricky to talk about certain parts of this movie without sort of revealing, you know, revealing some of the reveals that you will see. Yeah, and there's a ton of them. So yeah, I would say if you're... Look now if there's any screenings near you. If there are, go see it, and then come back. Walk out that three and a half hours. Then come back to this. Um, because it's well worth it. Well, since you've seen it fresh in the last few days, God bless you. Please. And the best of luck. Please. Can you sum up the plot? Good luck. It's very easy. So there's a military man who falls in love without doing any major spoilers yet. Well, okay. No. My summation, without any spoilers, this is a movie about why voting is important. That's what this movie is about. And that's it. That is literally what the whole movie is about. Good tagline actually, yeah. I don't think it's gonna get me to go and see an action movie in the cinema. Look, no no. If you haven't seen the trailer, go into it with just knowing that this entire movie is about how important your vote is. then watch the trailer and tell me then that you don't want to see that movie, Simon. Because when you watch the trailer, it's impossible. This movie is clearly not about that. What is he going on about? But it is. For the entirety of it. Part of me at a certain point was like, episode one, try it with a treaty talk. And it's so boring. This is so exciting. But it is just about politics. It's like, you don't know that it's about voting until the point where as like a delivers like a five minute monologue, basically down the camera lens saying those exact words. And you're like, okay, okay. I guess. Yep. Sure. He's spelled it out. Fair, fair play. Fair play to him. It's his entire motivation throughout the entire thing. Okay. So give us the actual like plot, you know, for the uninitiated. Chronological order. Cause otherwise it's going to be too complicated. Because. In chronological order? Yeah, in chronological order. Which is because it's way easier than what the movie does, because it's already complicated in chronological order, but then Indian cinema's like, here's what we're gonna do. How are you gonna do it in chronological order? I can barely remember it in the order it happens in the movie. No, so what happens is there's a military man, he falls in love with a woman, he goes on a military operation, his men, some of his men die and get wounded because their weapons don't work. This, he calls out the company that makes these guns. I already forgot about that part. So integral. The motivation of the bad guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Come on. There's so much! So, military man, falls in love with a woman, goes on a military operation, his men die because of malfunctioning weapons, the person who makes those weapons gets called in front of like a court or like a, I don't know, committee of some sort, he gets called out, he says not my fault, they should have read the manual. He picks up a gun, says, like, may it demonstrate, you know, that these guns don't work? He points it out at him, shoots, doesn't work. That bad guy, like, his company gets blacklisted, he holds a grudge. He then goes to this military man's cabin, kills his... no, doesn't kill his wife, tries and kills him by shooting him out of an airplane. He's presumably dead. Of course. His wife goes to pr- let me finish. His wife goes to prison. Emile, it's 2027. His wife goes to prison, is about to be hung, which by the way, the bad guy comes to the prison to make fun of her and explain what happens when you get hung, which is fucking disgusting. She almost gets hung. She faints, they feel her pulse, turns out she's pregnant, because that's how that works. Which means she cannot be hung until the child is five years old. This child grows up in prison. On his fifth birthday, his mom delivers a speech, says, you are gonna run this prison one day and you're gonna lead a revolution. You're gonna be so important. Then he goes, lives his life, comes back, becomes the warden of the prison. In prison, he recruits six women who form the A-Team, and he goes out and commits these terrorist acts in the name of socialism, essentially. Um, he, all of those women have, like one of them is the daughter of a farmer. And like the taxes on farmers are so ridiculously high compared to that for the rich, uh, that they can't earn a living and they're ashamed and like 10,000 a year kill themselves. Uh, and so he demands that all this money comes from, and here it is the bad guy arms dealer who has been paying the government for like, for bribe, you know, just bribing them. And the government has billed him out, now it's time for him to bill them out. So that's how the bad guy comes back into it. Basically, bad guy just keeps going after this now-returned sworn enemy that got his company blacklisted. And as they are continuing to try and better the Indian healthcare system and farming regulations, But that all comes to a head in the finale. That is Joanne in Chronological Order. Thanks so much for joining us on Dodge This, that's all the time we have for you this episode. I really hope I did well. The plot of Joanne succinctly explained by Emil, very impressive to be fair. Doing it in Chronological Order makes it sort of make sense, doesn't it? come up with the plot in that order, and then they kind of write it on pieces of paper on the wall and then they rearrange it all. Yes! Extraordinary. I don't know where to start with this, Emil. I will say, I enjoyed this movie a great deal. I was very excited to see it in the cinema. I wish I could have seen it with, A, a full cinema of people. It was not that. It was... Oh, really? It was... I think about, I want to say under 10. Oh man. Oh, that is a shame. Yeah. Um, but I had a very comfortable reclining chair, so that was nice. And it was a big screen and great sound. Um, but yeah, I didn't get that full sort of like people wooing and excited to see SRK experience, but I did feel that within me. Good. I mean, it's hard not to. They do a lot of entrances. And I'm really, I mean, obviously the wrestling fan in me loves that whenever somebody important comes they're like, they have their own theme music, they walk down to the place where the action is going to take place. It's essentially a wrestling entrance every single time. It's also how you know, like, oh, this person is important because they just got an entrance. Other people, whatever. But we know who the main female lead is, because everything goes slo-mo. minor spoilers, but I think we know this from the trailer. He gets two entrances in this movie, which is incredible. Yeah, there were parts where I was just like, oh, this is, what an absolute joy. It's just insane in the best way. And then there were other parts where I was like, this is dreadful. And it's sort of, there were more parts where I was excited than the dreadful parts, but in that same way that all of these kind of like mass entertainers do, when they're just trying to be so many things, often at the same time to all people, it's just, yeah, it's like, it goes from amazing action to like, now we're in a romcom to like, oh, this is so on the nose. It's just like, there's just so much going on. But as a whole. Yeah, I really had a great time. So my current theory on this is, yeah, it's that making a steel bowl and like to do that out of a sheet of metal, you have to bang on it with a hammer real hard. And like, that's not subtle in any way, but if you do it enough times, you end up with a really nice curve bowl. So the end product doesn't really show the work that goes into it. And it's You're right. What is this analogy? I can't tell if I love it or not. Follow me on this. There's some very jarring moments. Like on the train, there's a very jarring death that happens. And I was like, I don't know if I can recall. Like that was something. What just happened? But then you have to wait it out. Because in the conclusion, one, they tie together so much more than you ever think they would. So many reveals. And so many little, no, this mattered. And like, we're going to follow up on this and we're going to. So it feels at times for me anyway, like you're being punched around also with some cultural differences where you're having like, is this normal? How am I supposed to interpret this? But how are they viewing this? Cause I'm looking obviously from a different point of view. Sure. It's like what position? So you're constantly being banged around, I think, but at the end I'm like, yeah, but that was, that was really good. I mean, it's a great time at the old pictures, as we would call them. It's a bloody great time at the movies. SEAN Yeah, because there's like plenty of weird moments as well, but then I posted this on Instagram as well. And this is not a spoiler, because the man's screen time, I think, is seven seconds in reality? And it's, you know, a better bane, because he has a cheetah, and that man is in the movie for seven seconds. Seven seconds. But it's a Bane slash Matt McSherry Road ripoff. So bizarre. And he has a cheetah. So bizarre. And that's only seven seconds. It's sort of oddly wasted when you're like, okay, there's a seemingly... That's a whole character you could use. Russian? Bane? Don't know. It's mafia money. Then he was gone. Then he was just gone. Yeah. I mean, this movie sets out its stall in the first couple of minutes. Like... As I say, his name doesn't appear on the screen until after the incredible intro. I mean, the bar is set. I was excited going in and then that sort of introductory scene where there's, there's a horse on fire. I'm not saying that's a good thing. I'm just saying that's the sort of level that we're at where there's the, there's your classic, no animals were harmed, no snakes, no horses. no bulls, no cows. It's the same warning that we had on RRR and we didn't know why they would be so specific until we saw the shit that went down in that movie. Yeah. And in the first couple of minutes, there's a horse on fire runs across the screen and I was like, well, this is already amazing. Yep. Uh, that is to know if you're not, uh, as some people are, uh, our friend Kiki, uh, who likes Bollywood movies. But as I. asked her, have you seen this one? She's like, I've been told not to watch. And like, you're right, there's a dog that gets killed and you would hate that. That would ruin the entire movie for you. So, yeah, be aware. It's very graphic. Yeah. Needlessly so, by the way. And can we talk about the idiosyncrasies in that of what they show and what they don't show? Because a man and woman are not allowed to kiss on screen, I believe. Yes, that's true, yeah. But the amount... in that same scene, and I feel okay talking about it because it's the opening of the movie, so no story has happened yet, there's a slow motion shot of a grown-up making a child shoot, presumably, his own mom. Like... That's why I mean, it's beating a steel sheet of paper, like, yeah, a steel sheet into submission, into creating something that ends up being cohesive. I hesitate to say beautiful, because that's very subjective. But it's sort of extraordinary what is allowed and what isn't, and what is seemingly acceptable for, like, bring the whole family to this movie. Don't worry, there'll be no one kissing in it, but there will be so much violence. Like, so much! And it's something that I do need to remind myself of occasionally in talking about these movies, to... you recommend them only, and be like, sure, if you wanna check them out, check them out. I don't, like, if you don't like violence, you're not gonna like this, cause it's grassy. Well, I wanted to take my girlfriend to this, cause I was like, oh, you know, it'll probably, it'll have some like, big song and dance numbers, and then I was like... Which it does. You, that, but you would not like 70% of this movie. Yeah. Or if something... as visceral as the killing of a dog can take you out of it completely, then yeah, unfortunately, please don't watch this movie. No. The horse we don't know, I think it's fine. We assume he was running to water. You can't lead a horse to water, but a horse on fire will find water. Very quickly. I think that's a surprise. Oh no. But, it has a bunch of that, especially between the romance stuff and the action. Like the difference in what they show there. Like there's actual censorship, I don't want to talk about the scene, I don't think, because if you are gonna watch it, that journey is one hell of an emotional rollercoaster. But they censor it a bit. I've had totally forgotten that. You're fine with me watching a child kill his own mother? Uh huh. Alright. Cultural differences. Yeah. But, yeah. And also, like, that happens in a flashback. Not within a flashback yet. But that happens a bunch in this movie as well. It's hard to know when you're in a flashback. It's also, if you're gonna watch, if you like watching movies, buzz, this is, you wanna follow the plot, don't do that, cause you're gonna lose track so quickly with this movie. Well, this is quite interesting, isn't it? Because I think I can't remember if it exactly happened in Patan as well, but I know that movie was pretty steeped in flashback. And I'm gonna say. So I wanted to rewatch that now. Yeah. Well, you'll be pleased to hear that the extended version is on Amazon Prime. Woo! I'll tell you one thing that movie needs is a few more minutes on the old runtime. But it seems like a trope. of these huge mass entertainment, masala movies is the interval block, which is like a massive either action scene or revelatory moment that happens just before the interval. This definitely happened in RRR classically was our minds were blown and like, what is going on? I don't quite remember what happened in Pataan. Matthew and I spent the interval going, are we in a flashback? Are we still in a? So I know there was something of that ilk. And then I guess this one solidified it for me when the scene before the interval is like this massive batshit reveal where you're like, what the actual fuck is going on? And then there's an interval where, I watched this in Mumbai, so I had to wait like fifteen minutes before anyone explained. We needed that. I said to watch like five different commercials with SRK in them, for all manner of products. I should have gone to get some food, I just went for a wee. Anyway. Also a good choice. Solid choice. Solid choice is a long movie. And then, my point is, we start back up with... basically a thirty minute long explainer that sort of irons out where we are in the movie up to this point. Which is exactly what happened in RRR, right? Where you're like, oh, why is he being such a dick? And then they're like, well, let me tell you a few things. Yeah. And then in this one you're like, what the shitting shit is going on? And then they're like... Well, why don't you listen to a little story where I explain the whole plot that's happened up to now and put everybody in their place and make sure you know that maybe your favorite movie stars that you thought were gonna be baddies might actually not be baddies, so don't stress it. You know, don't worry about it. That's part of what is mind-blowing every time though with these movies, where... everything is jarring, but then they take a step back, and like, we're gonna explain this to you, or we're gonna progress this relationship within a song to the point of engagement. Don't worry about it. We're gonna take care of it. Oh my god, they get married so fast in the rom-com bit. Or engaged. We don't have the time to spend on that. I mean, they spend the solid, y'know, 20 minutes being a rom-com. But yeah. It's like... A montage, but it isn't a montage. It's just like, quickly hit all the beats, let's go. That's exactly what it is. But it's sort of a self-aware one, because they're singing to camera. Yeah. Which I think is the odd thing for any westernized, potentially. But essentially, it's just that. When I watched all the Rocky movies, that last year I believe it was, I loved the fourth one, mostly because it has four excellent montages in it. It just does a great job and they're all good. Is that how they number the Rocky movies based on how many montages there are? Unfortunately not. Otherwise they would continuously get better, but they don't. But this is, they just do that. It's like, yeah, now we're going to do it because that's quicker and more efficient and getting you emotionally on board with this as well. Because it's cute as hell. It is a really, really sweet sugary rom-com. Yeah, I mean, it fully is a completely different tone to, you know, the rest of the parts of the movie. And by design, you know, that's how this overarching sort of mega mass edged data movie works, right? It's literally meant to be like, this is the rom-com part for the people who don't like the knives going in people's eyes and causing them fires. It's absolutely extraordinary. What I really enjoy increasingly in this masala genre of movie is the sort of, you're right, there is so much batshit going on, but they are very good at tying up all of these threads and even things where maybe you would overlook it and just think nothing of it. But my little keen eye. For example. The opening scene of this movie, a tiny little Asian boy, who's not Indian, but he's from sort of somewhere else, maybe slightly more East Asia, says to a man who's lost his memory, like, when I grow up, I will tell you who you are, or I'll find out who you are, or something like that. And then you sort of forget about it for the best part of two hours. And then, just before the reveal, you're like... Of course it is! Of course! Of course that's who that is! Of absolute course! It's so good. But that line alone, that's an entire movie. You could make that an entire 90 minute easy little kid finding out who this mystery man is. That is a great movie that I would want to see. Wait, this kid gets rescued in a village by this strange man who's lost his memory, and he's gonna find out who he is? that is a movie I would want to watch. It gets about, essentially, maybe five minutes of screen time? Like the wrap-up is quite quick. But it's very satisfying. It's a good reveal, isn't it? That wasn't just a nice moment. That wasn't just a little kid, like, oh, we're gonna have this scene where the little kid goes up and shows his love for this man and his gratitude for saving the village from these evil people. For the bad guys who are attacking them. But then it has a payoff. And that's, I find that so satisfying that it's not forgotten. It's like, no, we remember that moment. Just there's so many of those little bits that are just like, they're just sort of textbook screenwriting, I guess it's there's so many things where when it switches to a rom-com and it's like, Oh, he's a, he's a single guy, but he's got a secret and now there's like a child is in charge of finding him a wife. And then, and then you're like, goodness, how's this gonna go? I wonder who the... And then, like, five... I'm not very good at, like, seeing this so far in advance. I, like, four seconds before it happens, I'll be like, of course that's... Of course! Of course! Of course! What's the most ludicrous, but perfect thing that could happen now, to set this movie on an insane course, and then that happens every time? It's... Oh, it's the best. I mean, it's completely absurd, but it's like, so perfect for just to set up the insanity that comes after it. I don't want to give more details, but I feel like you could literally say everything that happened in the movie, and yeah, you'd, you know, quite-on-quite spoil some stuff, but just watching it unfold is just like a thing of such beauty and joy. Yes. I think I had a recent conversation that kind of solidified this for me, as far as like I guess what my pitch is in actually general attitude in watching movies. Whenever somebody nitpicks something like, well that's not realistic, or that wouldn't have it, or aware of it. You know, the classic being in Car Chase movies, you never see them at a gas station. The question you need to ask yourself is, but do you want to see that? I think that's minutiae. You don't want to see that. You want to get to the good bits. And that's what they continuously do. It's like, we're gonna just do all the best bits of a 90 to 120 minute rom-com, but we're gonna do it in 20 minutes. Not only that, you're gonna get two excellent songs out of it. With giant dance numbers. True story. So, hey, if you like Eurovision, tick. You got it. Yes. And they do that with the action as well. Essentially, it's like, oh man, we wasted some time with his rom-com stuff, better catch up with his action stuff! And for character introduction, I think it's the same thing, though. It's that, like you said, like, it's basic screenwriting. It's like, but who's here, who have we introduced, what's important? Like, yeah, so do that. It's the logical next step. Yeah. So do it. There's, yeah. There is, A leads to B in every situation. There's like, there's like, surprises, but they're sort of like, earned. It's a direct path. I don't think I'm explaining this very well, but you know. There's like this whole crew and every single one has a story and then all the stuff that you sort of touched upon in your explaining the plot for two and a half hours was like all, I just picture it as that sort of meme from, is it? workaholics, or no, it's all sunny with the strings, the like murder wall or whatever it is. The conspiracy wall, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like that, but it all makes sort of perfect sense. But it makes sense. Yes. That's a great description. You could take the movie, snip it up into little pieces and you can arrange it in a way that it does form a cohesive strand, right? And to your point of just showing the good bits, I think you're right. Like in the rom-com section, that's... sort of works. And, you know, I didn't really need a one hour rom-com. So I'd be happy if there wasn't a rom-com, but I understand that is a part of this. So fine, I'll take the bullet points of the rom-com as delivered. But then sort of later in the movie, they're like, now's the section of the action movie where we do the car stuff. But really, does it matter, like, if it looks like it's in a real place or? Should we just do it on the emptiest roads in the world? That are clearly like just these, like a purpose built road in the middle of like a, I don't know, a desert, I guess. Just try not to look at all that. Look a car's on fire and flipped over. It's like, it's sort of like the bullet points of that as well. Like, it's like in the Matrix Reloaded where they built that stretch of road to do the Incredible Car Chess, but they filled it in with like other CG cars. This they're just like... No, just leave it completely empty apart from the cars. So you can focus on the cool shit. Yeah! And they're just like, well, I guess it is what it is. I don't imagine they were like, we ran out of budget to put other cars in. I don't know, it just seemed so sort of weird. I don't think so. No, I think it's a very deliberate choice, because in Attack Part 1, I believe it also happened? No, it's in Platon, sorry, where John Abrams is on the road. with an RPG. In the middle of Dubai. And nobody's around. And it's like, yeah, because that looks way cooler. But that was in the middle of Dubai, which looks, you know, quite cool depending on how you look at it. This is just empty. But empty? Nowhere. There's just, it's just like, a massive highway, with like an eight lane highway, in the middle of a desert, with just these trucks and cars on it, and no one else. Yes. However, all you need is one scene before that where they go through a diversion that says like, road closed under construction. I don't want to watch that because that's unrealistic as hell too. And the movie starts off with an unrealistic diversion. Like, really? That's a big gamble you just took on that actually happening. And that's exactly what I mean. Don't get stuck in the minutia of what reality is. That doesn't help you. I get it. It's an emotional storytelling. It's an epic, operatic storytelling. We're not concerned with the Manouche. Especially, the reason I brought that Pisan scene up is because when I watched it the first time, I was like, you go, how- but they see him. Moving the other direction. Move aside. Why are you still driving towards this man with the RPG in his hand? Because that's cool. Because that's the thing that looks the coolest. The same exact thing happens here, they're all standing on a bridge waiting to jump on these trucks, I'm like, you're telling me they can't see that? There's nobody else around, literally the only other people. No cars on the road. Are standing on a bridge that your troop is about to go under. It's like, yeah, but we want to see them jump on the trucks, that's cool. That just looks cool. There is, the suspension of Disbelief-O-Meter is set to full pelt on this one, but even, it's so like... There's just some things where I'm absolutely happy to be like, oh, well, I mean, it is what it is, you know, approaching on its own terms. It's absolutely ludicrous. And then there's just some things where it's like, they just sort of stick out. I don't know. That was just one of them that stuck out. I don't know why. Also, like, there's a shootout on a train where there's just people just shooting at a train and there's like innocent people running every, it's not clear where any of the bullets are going. No one gets hurt, it's just an opportunity to film the lady shooting a gun in slow motion and for it to look cool and have stuff exploding. Don't get me wrong, it does look cool. It really does. It looks amazing, and they got a little Home Alone cameo in there because of it, I love it. Mad. I don't think that was necessarily a Home Alone, but yeah, there's a mannequin reveal in the subway. Oh, that's what you mean. I get it. Very nice. Which to me, it reminded me of Home Alone. But they do a thing later, with Lion King, that was very satisfying to watch. Because in the moment itself, you go, it's kinda like Simba. But then it gets used later. As a reference. And you're like, oh, that was deliberate! JUSTIN They set him up, and they knock him down. ALICE And it's exactly those little points where you go, oh man, it's not just blatantly- they're still using it, it's not just- nah, that's a cool moment. Yes, they are. But usually it does have a point to make. It just does so very bluntly. Yes. And if, yeah. And if subtlety is your thing, stay far away. If subtlety is your thing, then Bollywood mass entertainers are not for you. Yeah. Because they don't do anything subtle, including love and yeah, cuteness. Yeah. This is, uh, everything is so on the nose, you know, the funny stuff on the nose, the romance stuff on the nose drama. the nose. Action on, on the nose, through the eye, in the guts, around the neck. Two people get hanged in this movie, and it's very unpleasant both times. Like, it's such a tonal shift. I mean, there's so many tonal shifts, but that is one- There's a ton of moments where you sort of flinch back in your seat and go, moral moments, let's call them that. Again, in contrast to, well, men and women aren't allowed to kiss, but here's a child that's dying. It's like, why are you showing me? This is not nice. But it kind of has to be blunt because there's so much happening over an extended period of time that dialogue is a lot of exposition and getting you back up to speed with where you are. I was sitting next to Matt Castelvi, our dear mutual friend. Boom Chicago's Matt Castelvi, for the listener. Boom Chicago's very own Matt Castelvi. And there's so many times in that movie where he just sort of turns to me like, is this still the flashbacks? No, we're in a flashback, it's fine. We're gonna come back, that's the bad guy. I know you don't recognize him right now, but that's a young bad guy. He has less beard. But he's a bigger mullet, and it looks awesome. He looks like he needs his battings. It's 20 years ago. And just like, but where are, and just at a certain point he went, but this is impossible for anybody to keep track of, right? This is not just me. And like, it's not just you. No. You just have to like, be on the ride. Yes. But also, I think you only have to sort of pay attention to what's in front of you at any point, because if you're confused, then you're probably meant to be confused, and it will be revealed and explained at some point in the next two hours. Oh, you know what? And that's a great analogy of what it's like to like to smoke weed or do a mushroom, she's just have to hold on. Just don't try and explain it. Right. Feel it, experience it. Make up your mind about it afterwards. Yeah. Cause you're a hundred percent right when you say if you're confused, you're probably meant to be confused because they don't do things subtly. So if they haven't given you any information, there's a reason. Get in. Get your popcorn, get your treats, get your drinks, strap in for three plus hours. Ideally, ideally take a couple of friends. Yes. Even, even here. I mean, I don't even have you to go with now. I'm literally like, I've only been here like a month or so. Like I need to, I've got to get new friends to come and see these movies with me. Yeah. A hundred percent. But yeah, it's, I mean, it is a crowd pleaser. And I think, I think I preferred it to Patan. Me too. I think. know if I'm going to re-watch them and change my mind. But coming out, I felt more sort of satisfied by this one. I think it covers a lot of the same ground, you know, in terms of not literal plot, but you know, structure and what it delivers as a movie. But I think it just, it felt like it hung together for me slightly better than P'tahn. TK Yeah, same. Especially after the second viewing, which is why I want to see P'tahn again, just to see if that changes it. If the first time just isn't enough, weirdly, because there's so much going on, that you miss some of the subtleties that are in between there, I guess. Yeah, for me, also, because there was such a strong message, a more... well, more of a message I could get behind, essentially, because I think Bataan is just like pride about country and stuff, which a lot of these action blockbusters are, but this has a very moral message, and like, he literally forces healthcare into submission within five hours. and makes it better. And the speech to the camera at the end is phenomenal. It just makes them with a sledgehammer to the face, right? Yes. It reminded me of Batman 66. There's an episode in that where Batman runs for mayor. Robin questions Batman and says, look, I think we need to get bigger posters and bigger buttons. And Batman is like, no, no. It's about the message. If we live in a country where people are distracted by the size of posters and buttons, we're in a lot of trouble. And he kind of does that to the camera as well. It's phenomenal, and it's very much about, please think before you vote. My favorite line out of that, because I'm not going to do justice to his delivery, which does a lot of heavy lifting as well, but I thought there was a great bit of writing where he said, like, five hours. We think about a mosquito coil that lasts for five hours, so long. How much does it smoke? How effective is it? What color is it? Can I hang it up? when we don't give that time to the people who decide our future for five years. And they're like, yeah, he's right. He's so right. This is true. And like, he doesn't want to do this, but- I want to say they really snuck in some sort of, not even subversive, but like they really snuck in messages. They didn't sneak them in at all. They are writ large. Yeah. I was halfway through. I was going, so Republicans were upset by the Barbie movie. And that was very subtle, certainly compared to this and what it was saying. Because the Barbie movie at the end is just going, hey, no spoilers. I still haven't seen it yet. It's not a spoiler. The message of the movie for me anyway, at the end of it was, hey, maybe, maybe think about what you want to do and respect if the people around you who want to do what they want to do. which, you know, the Republicans took as taking a torch to the freedom itself for some reason. Which in my mind is a very basic like, yeah, try and figure out what makes you happy. Do that without hurting anybody else. Like, it's a beautiful message. That's kind of what it is. And this is just a very hard-handed like, you son of a bitch, you better not vote again for assholes. Get bribed and like corrupt our system. But it also is like, You know, in some way quite liberal, but while at the same time there's like constant sort of like graphic beat downs and there's like no reprieve for the bad guy and his sort of way out. While again, you know, fitting in a kind of screenplay logic way is quite, you're sort of like, oh, I don't, I mean, I get it, but like, a bit, you know? Doctrine, real quick, there's constant reminders that this man is evil. Which at a certain point you're like, we get it, it's okay now. And the dog is certainly like, that was so not necessary. Why are you making me watch this? Which I can totally get behind. I don't know, sorry, I don't know if that's what you wanted to say. But that was a very stark reminder. NARESH No, literally it's like everything that's coming to him he deserves, and yet somehow they make his comeuppance to feel quite like Oh, is this feels like, no, like it's almost a bit too much, you know, like there's so many ways that the baddies die in movies, but this one, while you know, he deserves it and fits in a sort of narrative way is a bit like, Oh gosh, it's quite, I don't know. It feels quite Republican in its approach, you know, it's literally the death penalty. Like, yeah, like it's really brutal. Anyway, that was just another. one of an odd tonally jarring moment of many. ALICE And then there's only like, one little scene after that, and then it's credits, which is also a little jarring, because like, wait, that's it? When they're done with it, they're also done with it. RILEY During the credits, they're like, should we go to a studio set of a sort of Mediterranean country and sing a song? Yeah, go on then. Come on, guys. ALICE Oh, do you want... I start gay twice. Yes, you can. Yes, please. If there's a way to get people to sit through a lot of credits, it's that. I'm staying. I'm on board. If the Avenger movies did that. Can you imagine? We just pray for outtakes, but I mean, this is next level. There's, I mean, I think I've said almost everything I want to say about this movie. It's just a great time. I think all the things that we've probably said about RRR and Patan, you know, the highlights, It follows a formula and it does it very well. Yes. I think the action beats in this. I mean, we should talk probably about that. There's a lot of great stuff in here. The opening is 10 out of 10. Should have been Batman scene. Loved it. Batman never got that respect. Yeah. That is a bloody great point to Neil, isn't it? When you look up at him and the sky's behind him, he jumps to it. Yes. The shadow. It starts with the shadow immediately. I was thinking Batman's like never got this, the looming shadow that literally rolls over all these bad guys. Cause he's walking up this mountain and there's an incredible superhero entrance for a not superhero, but you know, to all intents and purposes the people in these movies do behave like superheroes a lot of the time. And there is, yeah, there's some that scene is great. The shooting the guns in slow motion is very enjoyable if geographically confusing. The interval block is absolutely batshit crazy. Oh, the weapons. I wanted to mention this. I've seen this in a few movies now, where someone is just brandishing a weapon, but it isn't like a thing you've ever seen before. It seems like someone's gone into a metal workshop. just gone. Right. Get that spiky thing and that thing that spins round and put it on that pipe and put that on it. And then I guess that's it. He just finds that on the way in and it looks cool and it slices people up and he can just twat everybody in the face with it. That scene is absolute madness. The road scene has a lot of very fun car road explosion action flips. Some biological warfare with eggs? In spite of it, it's true. In spite of it being on the emptiest road you've ever seen. The end also has some mad stuff. It suffers only mildly from my sort of bugbear of so much Indian action cinema, and I don't know what it's a- I think it just stems from the old ways meeting the new ways of standing in the middle of a massive room, sort of. It's like old Bruce Lee movies, or like Dick Tracy, where he punches all those guys in a circle. Where it's just like, we're just gonna film this in 120 frames a second and we're gonna speed ramp the shit out of everything. Where it's like, he stands there and then just guys come in, like they just wait their turn to have a move done on them. And it doesn't happen as much as in some other stuff. But it happens. a little bit more than I would like in the end. Where it's a sort of all-star generational team-up, and there's just like, well there's just about five guys there with guns. What are they, I can clearly see them. What are they doing? Why aren't they shooting them? Are they waiting their turn to get close enough to get kicked or flipped or whatever? And I mean, you know, what are we complaining about after the previous two and a half hours? But yeah, that's my feedback. for the, for, for Atlee, for an entire industry. Can we just like have less people waiting to get kicked? Yeah. Make them all come at the same time. Or maybe just not have that many people or figure out a way where they can come in one at a time. But I mean, yeah, it's complaining about something stupid in a movie that is full of batshit. And I mean that in the best way. It's it's so it's all there. It's all on screen. Every rupee of the budget is up there. It looks amazing. It sounds amazing. Like there's so, it's just fun. Just take it on its own terms and you'll have a great time. I think. I think so too. There's, there's always the thing in the back of my head though, watching this where I'm like, am I missing some sort of cultural context or history context that, you know, uh, maybe put stuff in a different light and I like. where I'm just bombing along and bombing along enjoying it. Like, oh, this is fun. And then maybe later gets explained. Yeah, you were laughing at something horrible. Well, I think there's definitely a few things that probably went over our heads. I mean, all of his sort of quote unquote acts of terrorism are based on like real things, I think. So that probably- It's like a Saw mentality. Like, I'm going to make you pay for your sins with your sins. Yes, it is. And also I think there's some stuff that sort of movie industry stuff that has probably passed both of us by, because this guy, I think is a Tamil director. And this is his first Bollywood movie. And there's so there's some people from his Tamil movies in this, or there's, you know, characters or references to things. There's loads of stuff like that, that I've sort of heard about or read about that obviously went. way over my head, and I'm sure you the same. But you know, give us time. We're getting there. One movie at a time. Yeah, one movie at a time. But seeing it a second time with Nervy, there's a cameo that happens during one of the songs, and you know, at first I didn't know who that was. I just assumed it was another movie star, because we had this with Patan, where he just shows up, and you're like, what? We just get a little duo dance with another star with zero to do with this movie? And it's just like, hey, I'm here too. All right. Bye! And they move along. In this case, it's the director of the movie. Oh. So, it's essentially just, you know, Indiana Jones dancing, Spielberg comes along, hey, what's up, we're just dancing together, and then gives him a kiss and goes away. That's like the end of RRR, right? Yeah, at the end of RRR, same thing. Like, yeah, we're gonna have the director in this. It's gonna dance a little bit. Well, yeah, I absolutely didn't notice that. I mean, obviously. Oh, but chef's kiss. I love that so much. Like, hey, I'm the director. I'm in the same shirt. I'm gonna dance a little bit. Bye! I'm in the movie. It's like Alfred Hitchcock. He just puts himself in there, one little sneaky cameo, every time. The exact opposite, almost. Not sneaky in any way. He's in the background somewhere, crossing the street. And he's like, no, he's in the middle of the frame next to the movie star. Sitting on one of those director canvas chairs, holding a massive megaphone. Hello, it's me! I made this! Fair, fair absolute play. I mean, I hope I noticed that on second viewing. You've been to see it twice. Every time there's so much more to note, which I feel like has to lead us to one of the arguably hardest decisions we've made for your action replay moment. I, from memory, have written down four potentials already. Okay. And I'm sure you have, since it's in your more recent memory, got some absolute treats in there. I'll, maybe I'll just run these by you and see if any of these land for you. Yes. I mean, okay, maybe it's three, technically, but SRK's entrance, I think, could just be an action replay moment. You know, first five, ten minutes of the movie. Absolutely great. Alright, but in terms of smaller, more memorable parts that made me, and I laughed out loud a lot during this movie, in a good way. 100%. I aimed the best way. There's... R3, I wrote down, kick, double jump, flip. Does that mean anything to you? Kick, double jump, flip. There's a bit where there's two guys, and... SRK, I think, is like, holding onto one of them, he jumps in the air, kicks the guy behind him, after he's kicked him he's still in the air, then he flips over, lands on the guy's shoulders, then flips the guy back. I mean, it's gravitationally impossible! Absolutely incredible. That's one. Second one. I just wrote, knife mouth attack. Yes! And both times I turned to the person next to me and just went, he's been attacking them with a knife in his mouth. That's what's happening right now. That's literally all you need to know. You know how people laugh when they can't deal with grief, or like something tragically sad? But it's just an overload of emotions, right? And that's what's happening a ton of times in these movies, with just so much happening on screen, and you get so much input. Shock or delight. It comes out in giggles and laughter. And pure delight. All at the same time. It's like a little baby just going, it's more ice cream! That's exactly it. And the other one I wrote down was Bazooka Shield. Oh, and they both move backwards? And that reveal... Ugh. I screamed a lot with the full room, obviously, with any reveal or like a moment like that. But that was so picture perfect. That's on par with... the beginning of Natu in RRR, when he spins into position behind him and they do the shoulder shimmy, it kills me every time too. It's so perfectly in sync. Aw. There's so many action replays. It's not my action replay. What did you have? I didn't get any of them! No. Incredible. Well, one, there's so many, but the one that I talked about right after, as a sort of a non-spoilery pitch... Which, obviously, again, it is a spoiler in that sense, because if you follow it along for the first time, it's incredible. It's on the highway chase scene, when Baa goes like, I'm just gonna head out front real quick on his motorcycle, and then goes out front, and then the slow motion starts. I wrote that down, I did write that down in my notes. lights his cigar that is ever present in his mouth. He steps off the motorcycle, flings open the gas cap, takes a puff of his cigar, then throws the cigar into the gasoline tank, which ignites, and he kicks it towards the oncoming traffic of bad guys, and it explodes, and his son drives through it. It's so incredible. But the fact that it's so easy to follow along, you're like, no. No. No! Oh my god. Yes! Of course! Of course he does! Of course! And it becomes a fun game, because as soon as that started happening with those sparks, I'm like, please light a cigar, please light a cigar, that would be so cool. So I also, the one disappointment I have with this movie, action wise, is in that same scene at the beginning. there's a gun that lands in the windshield of a car, and I 100% thought somebody's gonna shoot the trigger of that gun, shooting that gun into the vehicle, killing somebody. And it doesn't end up happening, and I was so disappointed. The missed opportunity. But this park's made up for it. Easily. So easily. It is like one of the, there's so many moments where, I don't mean this in a derogatory way, but if you're like, arsed like an 11 year old boy, what? What would be the coolest thing you could think of that would happen? And they'd be like, what about, okay, if the shoes and sparks came out, and then they went on his cigar, and then he plucked it, and then he opened the thing, and then he threw it. There's like no sort of respect for reality, or... It's just like, what would a really cool thing be? It's really cool. It's really cool! Because you say, oh, he gets two entrances, and I'm like, well, he gets a lot more. I mean, yes, he gets two first entrances, which are big, but he also gets an entrance as the warden, which is also incredible, which includes fireworks and falling flower petals. That leads into a song. Sort of hero moments, I suppose. Yes, hero moments. Perfect. Because, fucking, good ol' Baba when he first shows up, has a thing where he's standing in like this little tower. He punches two people, one goes through the ground, one goes through the window, and he busts open this pipe, and like, oh, that kinda looks cool, but then he jumps through the gap in the floor through which all the steam is going, does a superhero landing, looks up, and it's just backlit steam, it looks awesome. It looks so cool. And like, oh, we don't do that enough with our superheroes in the West, to just kinda show up. Like, hey, I'm here. It's like, I don't wanna see that. There's a great fan movie of Batman where he lands in this puddle of water and he just has the longest cape, and as he rises, it's like the tarmac itself is building up Batman as he rises up. It looks so cool. The cape is obviously impractical, but it doesn't matter. It just looks so cool. ALICE It looks cool. LIAM Then you want to be Batman. ALICE I will end on this. I think I'm ready to go and see this movie again. Go and see Jaune. See it in a cinema. You don't have to see it twice. Just go and see it once. I don't think you can be mad at it being three hours when it's so much ridiculous fun. Yep. Well, we've done it. Emile, thank you so much. It's episode one of season three. We have kicked off. It's gonna be a very exciting season. You're gonna hear from some new people who you haven't heard before. We're gonna have a whole lot of fun, and I'm gonna ask Emile live on air so he can't say no. Hopefully, Emile, you'll come back later in the season for a rematch. Yeah, yeah, sure, sure. Okay, then I'll be back. Yeah, yeah, okay. To defend your title. Defend my title. I'd like to be defending champion. Thank you. If people would like to find you on the internet, where would you like them to head? The only thing I would like you to head, because I think it's fun and silly, is fireside.panda on Instagram. It will baffle their tiny little brains. You won't understand it, which is kind of the point. It's little media things I make during improv shows at Boom Chicago that end up in the show. And most of them are just a recap of the show, essentially. So that's why you... It's a niche on a niche on a niche. Yeah. You gotta love it. Well, you don't have to, but that's the only thing I have to plug. Alright, well if you wanna get in touch with the show as an entity, we exist on Twitter, I exist as a human man at Simon Fielder on Twitter and Instagram. I would love it if you would rate and review this on your podcast app of choice, but mostly Apple's podcasts or Spotify, since they're the main ones. And if you love us and you've just won the lottery and you want to support the show with real earth money, there is a link in the show notes where you can do that. That brings us to the end of episode one of season three. of Dodge This! Action movies unleashed. We will be back in two weeks to get deep on more action movies from around the world. I'm Simon Fielder and that was Emil Streikermedier. There he goes. He's gone off into the sunset. Bye. See you next time. Good bye.