Dodge This: Action Movies Unleashed
Simon Feilder and Matthew Highton are British comedians separated by a sea but united by their love of action movies. Join them for a celebration of the latest and (hopefully) greatest in action cinema from around the world, from big budget bombastic bonanzas to down & dirty DTV darlings.
Dodge This: Action Movies Unleashed
S̶I̶L̶E̶N̶T̶ ̶N̶I̶G̶H̶T̶ THE ROUNDUP: NO WAY OUT (South Korea, 2023) with Joe Roberts
It's a festive special and Simon is joined (for the first time evarrr!) IRL by Joe Roberts to touch upon John Woo's naughty Silent Night and Lee Sang-yong's niceThe Roundup: No Way Out starring Ma Dong-seok, Lee Joon-hyuk and Munetaka Aoki.
Trailer Kitsch
The Brothers Sun | Official Trailer | Netflix
Official Trailer - 13 Bom di Jakarta | Tayang 28 Desember 2023 di Bioskop
THE BRICKLAYER Official Trailer (2024)
The show's got a Twitter: @dodgethispod
All the other good stuff is here: simonfeilder.com and here iamjoeroberts.com
Apart from: See what Simon is watching on LETTERBOXD and follow Joe on there too
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If I want to know how to fix my dishwasher, I go on YouTube. If I want to know how to murder someone in the throat with a knife, I'll probably also use YouTube, but go incognito mode. Have you ever seen anyone punch so hard that they shit themselves? You're dead. I'm calling Theon of fighting without fighting. Stick around. Some motherfuckers are always trying to pass Skadoville. Dodge this. Ho, ho, my goodness. It's Dodge This! Action Movies Unleashed Season 3, Episode 6. And let me tell you, it is a very special episode for a number of reasons. Not least it being the most wonderful time of the year. It's our Christmas special. Should have probably told our guest that so he could have made it a bit more Christmasy. Doesn't matter. But the main exciting thing is I. I'm sitting in the same room as our guest, sat opposite him in what some people might describe as a podcast studio. We'll see how it sounds afterwards. He is a returning guest. We are going to be talking about the Roundup No Way Out. And it seemed apt that in order to talk about the sequel to a movie that we spoke about, I want to say last year, I would get back the returning champ. who featured on that episode to speak about the sequel to that movie. His name is Joe Roberts. Hello, Joe. Hello. Thank you very much for having me back. Welcome to my sound grotto. Really? It just, I'm so, I've, this is in the whole life of this podcast. I've never actually sat opposite the person. This is a very different vibe. Oh, well, you're welcome. Um, this is a, a top notch podcast studio. I'm not sure if you're going to see any of this, but it's not an empty office with cobwebs and a chin up bar. It's, there's, there's other stuff as well. So, welcome. I'm definitely going to post a picture of it, but also to say, thank you very much for hosting me, us, this in your office and setting up all these little, you've basically just built a little podcast studio for us and I couldn't be more excited about that. This is an absolute treat. Oh, I'm over the moon. Oh, I got over excited. And like you say, I'm slightly underprepared and over enthused, but We've got all the gear and... Some idea? Half an idea. Well, let me, I love to sort of peel, peel back is not the right thing, pull back the curtain. Peeling back the curtain suggests that it's covered in something, but pull back the curtain on, I just like to hear like the behind the scenes and the sort of how things work. So originally my plan for this was, I'm back in Amsterdam for a week prior to Christmas to see family, et cetera, et cetera. I thought, you know what? This is the perfect opportunity to do an IRL podcast record, which we are currently doing and to tie it in with both Christmas and the movie that I was very excited about seeing Silent Night. The return of John Woo to Hollywood after 20 years. He's made a Christmas movie. Joe and I went to see the movie in real life two days ago. Sadly, it didn't really measure up. So we've got a backup movie so that it's not a Christmas episode. where we talk shit about a movie constantly. I had a lovely time being out of the house. It was an amazing cinema. One I haven't been to that much. There was an IMAX. This wasn't in IMAX. It was big. There were a few people around us. It was nice to be in the cinema again. That's been a while, but. Then the movie started. Yes. And, uh, yeah, like you say, we don't want to. the shit all over it. We'll get to it in more depth. We'll get to it in more depth later. But I had an amazing time the next day just in my office watching the second film. So that kind of made up for it. Okay. Thanks for, I felt the fear that when you ask someone to come along and watch a movie and then the movie's not very, I really felt that emanating from me and I felt bad for you, but it wasn't, it's not your, it's not your fault Simon. Oh God. That's what I want to say. I choose the wrench. You're right. And it's, this is, I would say this has sort of plagued my trying to put this podcast together over the last year where I would, I only want to speak about movies that I've enjoyed. That was the sort of MO at the beginning when Matthew and I are doing it. We'll only speak out about movies that we really love. But what that means, like, you just don't know if you're going to love a movie. So I would watch like four or five movies to find one that I felt was podcast worthy. And so at some point you have to sort of go, no, you know what, this is the movie we're going to watch, and we'll talk about it. Which seems like a good idea, but then you're like, oh, okay, maybe I don't want to talk for half an hour about that. We'll talk for a few minutes about Silent Night, and then thankfully we did have a backup in the tanks before the Silent Night plan came to fruition. Which was... No way out of the roundup, no way out. So we'll get to both. It's an enormous preamble. Joe, I don't know exactly when the last time you were on the pod was. We weren't IRL together. You've directed two BBC sitcoms on the British Broadcasting Corporation. Yes. I have entered the world of low budget comedy, medium budget comedy. I've been in it for a few years. It's, uh, it's been fantastic. Uh, yeah, I've done two full shows, one on BBC one and one on BBC three. So I'm slowly making my way back down the ladder. Um, um, but yeah, it's been, it's been great. It's been going back to the UK. I'm based in Amsterdam and I've been flying back to Manchester and Liverpool, discovering two fantastic cities and, uh, trying to make comedy as best as I can and at the same time when I'm not doing that. I go home and watch comedy and films and quite a lot of masterchef professionals. Interesting. So, um, yeah, it's been really fun. It's been a really, a really great year. 2023 for me has been really good. I know it's been really hard for lots of people, but I've had a fantastic year, a lot of change. Um, uh, anything, any changes on your side? Not much really. No, hardly anything. Just quickly. moved over to Mumbai and then sort of just continued as before. Right. That's the main one. But how's that, how's that been? How's Mumbai? How's the culture shock? Gosh. I mean, this is, we don't think there's enough time in the podcast to get through it, but it's very exciting. It's very different. I've only been there four months. We've done a few episodes of the pod from there. Hopefully they sound quite similar. So the pod... remains the same. They have, I mean, we've had more, perhaps more Indian movies, cause I've got to go and see them in the cinema. That's been very exciting. Um, and life wise, Joe, it's been, um, an adventure, I would say. As life should be. Every day is an adventure, you know, it's hot, it's cold. It's not cold, actually. It's hot all the time. It's exciting. It's, uh, eye opening. It's, um, enjoyable. It's confusing. It's, it's easy. It's difficult. It's all those things. Mumbai. And this is all off the back of you falling in love with RRR and saying like, I need to go to that country where this emanated from. Gotta go. Yeah. Gotta go. It's brave. Yeah. Well, so far as a sort of year end roundup, I've appeared in two films and one TV show, which I think is pretty good. That's good. Certainly compared to four years in the Netherlands and 30 plus in the UK. I mean, whether or not I've made it into the final output of those, we don't know yet because they have not been released. But here's to 2024 being very fruitful for the both of us in the media realm. Indeed. Now, since last time you were here and in recent months, weeks, what have you seen that has popped its head above the parapet and is worthy of sharing? I've been watching more animation, which is something I haven't done a lot of. Same. Um, the not doing, I haven't done it. I still don't do it. Right. You should. Yeah, I've heard some of it's good. It's really good. Some of it's been really great. The two ones that stick out for me are scavengers reign on HBO. Quite hard to find. It wasn't released on HBO Netherlands, but, um, it's on HBO. It's a fantastic sci-fi animation. quite weirdly organic, a spaceship crashes on a planet and the inhabitants of the spaceship have to gather back together, but it's so well done. I was really blown away by it. I think it might have been the best thing I've seen this year, regardless of animation. And the other animation has been Blue-Eyed Samurai on Netflix. Heard about. Fantastic. Known nothing about. Really great action set pieces. brilliant. Uh, it looks incredible as well and amazing voice performances. So those two, um, programs have stood out for me and they just both happened to be animation. So yeah, those are my two standouts. What about you? Um, I've got a sort of a, a really little list and I'll just, I'll just razz through it silent night. We'll get to yesterday. I saw Godzilla minus one. Lovely stuff. which in a different world may have been a podcast episode. However, the stars did not align. I'm not ruling it out. But I really enjoyed that. And I'm not, I wouldn't say I'm not a fan. I'm not cognizant of the world of Godzilla and the multitude of movies prior to it. So I came in with very fresh eyes. But you know, the lore of it. And I would say no, probably. I mean, I've seen the American one. the Jamiroquai one as I refer to it, which I think is, that's its proper title, Godzilla Jamiroquai Edition. And you laugh, but everyone knows which one you mean. Yeah, that's true. It's a good tune. Yeah. As soon as I got home, put that on. Also put on Fairemunch, Simon Says, because that is the Godzilla theme music. Is it? Which I forget the... And in the cinema that goes and I was like, boom, boom. Get the fuck up. It doesn't happen. Oh, mate. Oh, it doesn't do that. It doesn't do that. Turns out he sampled it, not the other way around. Oh, really? It's a bit unexpected. Yeah, really enjoyed it. Just a really great, in my opinion, Godzilla movie, having seen hardly any, but it seems like the general vibe is, it's a great Godzilla movie and I enjoyed it as a movie as a whole. Outside of that, do you know what, a movie that has stuck in my head, because I think it just surprised me and it, I think made it onto my watch list because other action people had said, this has got one of the best action set pieces of the year in, is Malignant. The James Wan, I guess you would call it a sort of campy horror movie that sort of, it has those throwbacks to like horror movie like, like reanimator, you know, those blackly comic, yeah, campy horror flicks that aren't necessarily scary, but they do fall into the horror genre. I was like, you know, I'm just going to watch this. I hate to sort of be the person that goes, I'm not a fan of horror films because I like good films. And having recently seen Barbarian, which was another one of those that kind of horror movies that popped its head above the parapet, because people who don't aren't sort of steeped in the genre were like, this one's a good one. I would put it in that category and, and almost the sort of sub category of movies that you think are one thing. And then there's the, the turn. Don't know if they call that in the, call it that in the genre. And then they go absolutely bat shit. I love those movies. The hard left turn. I think Cloverfield Lane is a good example of that. I haven't seen that still. Really? Yeah. That's, but I feel that turn is, that's really a great term. It feels like it could have been bolted on at a later date, which is quite interesting. Yeah. What other hard turns are there in films? You should have thought about this before bringing that question up. No, I immediately think of like Shyamalan, but that's more of a, like a reveal. It's not a turn. It's a tonal turn rather than just a twist as well. Yes. Anyway, I really enjoyed Malignant. It does appear to have split people. There's definitely people who are like, this is awful cheese dog shit. But I don't know, it just caught me at the right time and I didn't know anything about it. And I think that is very key with these turn movies. That was good. Fight Against Evil 2, another Chinese DTV action movie. Some really great scraps in it. Just could have done with. The pacing. It made me, when I was watching the roundup No Way Out, it put me in mind of Fight Against Evil 2, because I thought if they had been more aware of the pacing, which I think they did very well in the roundup, which is to say, make sure someone's getting punched every 15 minutes, then Fight Against Evil 2 would probably be like a four star. As it is, it's too much build up. And then some very good... scraps. I have watched movies that aren't action. I should also throw that in. Saw Bottoms, which is a left field high school comedy, which I quite enjoyed. Also saw a movie called Time Addicts, which is an Australian black comedy thriller about a couple of junkies who just go on like an errand for a dealer and they get, they find this drug that takes them back in time and it's all set in like one house, very low budget, sort of first time writer director vibes. Nice. Clever. Enjoyable. As I even had the thought, I was like, well, I've turned it to all of my parents. So much Australian level swearing. They do it really well though. But you know how Australians will just shoot out a sort of... C word. C word, like it means nothing. Which it doesn't there. No. Times like 10. I mean, they're junkies. It's like, you know, it's character, but, oh my word, there's a lot of blues. There's so many blues in it, but yeah, it's, it's sort of worth a look. I think I'm a massive fan of time, time travel movies or time loop movies. Anything with a, with a, with a clever loop in it. I will watch. There's a couple of Indian ones that have popped onto my radar. There's one called Mark Antony that came out this year, which somebody said I should watch Jennifer Lopez is part. Exactly. Is it? No, no, it's not. But he gets stuck in a time loop. And just keeps saddened up. He's divorcing. Yeah. I'm an absolute sucker for the time loop movies. So if you're into that, worth a look. If you're not my mom and you're not going to go, there's just too much swearing in this. Too much effing and jeffing. There was so much jeffing. Anyway, that's, that's all. That's all I've seen. There's loads. We've already got trailers to get through. Do you think we should have a little butchers? Yes, please. Listener, this is very exciting. We're going to watch the trailers live in the room. I don't know if that's going to affect anyway, our enjoyment of them or our reactions to them, but the first one is the brother's son. I've got a lot of time for this one. This looks great. We've got Michelle Yeoh. So obviously that's, that's lured me in. I'm a big fan. And isn't it great that she's now Academy Award winner, Michelle Yeoh. That's so great. Yeah. It has like crazy rich Asian vibes in terms of like, in terms of how it looks and feels and the quips in it and stuff like that, but the action looks really good as well. Yeah. It's a series. In that case, I don't know if that makes me more or less excited about it. Cause if it was a movie, you're like, this is action packed. But if it now it's 10 hours long, you're like, oh, okay. There's a sort of spread out across. I'm going to watch it either way. I think it looks like it's got a good conceit. There's some laughs. Michelle Yeoh's there. We don't know how much. Well, eight episodes according to, according to IMDb and the action looks really good. So I don't know who's, who's behind it. We look at this is, this is the first time I've ever done this. We've got a screen between us, like we're on Drogen. So we can like live look things up during complete silence on the podcast. While Joe scrolls through the IMDb, he's looking up who did the stunts. Eric Brown. Oh, so it's not the, do you think it's the same people with Marshall club? Nice. That's who they're called. I dug it out. Looks really great. Does that thing, which pretty much every trailer does nowadays in terms of covering a song, slowing it down, but syncopating the action to the piece of the song. Nancy Sinatra, bang, bang. It's done really well, but I'm surprised it's a series. Like you say, I was more interested in it being a film rather than eight hours of something. watch. Because you do kind of, that happens a lot, I think, with Netflix where you're like, oh, this is good. Oh, is this it? Oh, okay. That means you're probably going to get one good bit of action every 45 minutes to an hour in a less than ideal world. However, if it's a full on action show, then I'm on board. Yeah. Rather than every 15 minutes that you want in a film, it's going to be every, it's going to bookend episodes maybe. So you've got... two every hour. That's technically only 16 pieces of action for eight hours. If we're doing the maths. Unless they use up all the budget and then you have to have the bottle episode. That is true. Where there's no action. A lot of talking. Yeah. They're just in a room. Yeah. This one has floated very quickly to the, to the top of my, my excitement on Netflix list. I think the beginning of next year is going to be an absolute banger in terms of stuff coming out. Let's move on quickly. This one I popped in. Because it's from Indonesia where I am outside of the raid and Gareth Evans output. I've not seen a lot of Indonesian stuff. This one is called 13 bomb D Jakarta. I didn't, didn't do it in the sort of local accent. I don't know what that would sound like, but I think it means 13 bombs in Jakarta. Again, looks really good. Like it looks like there's quite a lot of money put into that. Well, it's interesting, isn't it? Because I think like. There's a lot of things exploding. There's a lot of gun stuff. It's quite hard to do that on the cheap. Yeah. But it also does, in some shots looks quite low budget and in others quite grand. I think that's a very difficult sort of chasm to straddle. I was impressed by the, by how it looked. And, uh, that's just such a weird way to say that. I was impressed by the way it looked. Yeah. It looked in, um, Like you say, quite a lot of car crashes, which is hard to not do without crashing cars. True. It put me in mind of 90s thrillers, early 2000s thrillers. I love it as sort of a ticking clock. You know, there's like an investigation. There's 13 bombs placed around the city. We've got to defuse the bombs. We've got to shoot the baddies. There's some like martial arts action. It's in Indonesia. I don't know what that city looks like. It's very exciting. There's a Metro train. We know that because it was exploding at one point. Yeah. I've just, I just got a lot of time for this sort of, it feels like a sort of new school, old school. I love a thriller. I think we were saying this the other day. I love propulsive films that really carry you through. And they talk a lot about ticking clocks and scripts and stuff like that. And how do we keep it going? But if you've literally got 13 bombs around the city, there's your ticking clock, 8.7 on the IMDB, which is quite high. That's very high, isn't it? I don't, I don't know if it's out. I think I put it in actually, because it comes out in about a week's time. It says internationally, who knows where it's going to end up, but I'm going to keep my eyes open for 13 bombs in Jakarta. Also just nice to see stuff coming out of a country where I haven't seen a lot local cinema. In fact, basically everything I've seen has been directed by the same Welshman. Yeah, no. And everything nowadays is just, there's a level to it now that everything looks good. Yeah. No matter what the budget is, people expect things to look a certain way. And, um, this looks off that level. I'm really excited by it. It's the sort of, for better or worse, Netflix ization of movies, right? That's true. Like you making this. while it is a local production, you have to have one eye on the international market. Yeah. Now we've got one more trailer. It's in the wake of, I think we talked about it last episode, but we also saw the trailer before Silent Night for The Beekeeper. Fantastic. What a name, just on a name itself. Absolutely fantastic. I'm in. I'm in. Yeah. Sorry, Jason Statham. Oh, The Beekeeper is a secret society, but what is his job? Oh, he, oh, no, no. He actually, it's so on the nose. He's actually a beekeeper. Suddenly. I mean, I guess you see one, you start seeing them everywhere, right? But there's now, there's a movie called The Bricklayer. There's a movie called The Painter. We've already had the mechanic and the accountant. I'm waiting for the Avengers of these movies where they all- All come together and do their jobs. That's it. And they just do it. They just build a house. with some beehives outside of it and start providing their own flammable honey. Yes, we learned that from the trailer. So, I've picked the bricklayer because it looks the, I suppose, more interesting of the two out of the painter and the bricklayer. The painter looks like very DTV. This is directed by Rennie Harlin of Cliffhanger, Die Hard 2 fame. Oh, wow. There is a lot to enjoy in that trailer, isn't there? That is not good. Oh, I hate that. That's what you took away from that. Okay. No, I mean, well, just compared to the 13 bombs of Chakart and the brother's son in terms of trailers. Okay. That wasn't. This is a very cookie cutter trailer in terms of nuts and bolts. We've, we've made a very specific kind of movie for a very specific audience. Okay. And we need to sell it to them. Right? Yeah. But that's, it's so dated in the way that was done. I don't know. Yeah. Again, you don't want to. Yeah. No, I don't know what it was about that I didn't like, but, um. I heard the title of the Bricklayer and I was like, if he doesn't kill someone with a trowel in this, and straight away it delivered that, did he kill him with a trowel? Trowel through the neck, mate. Although I don't know if Jason Statham's gonna kill anyone with a B in that movie, so. With honey. Oh, he does kill them with honey. I don't like it when there's a fight at a party. and people keep dancing. John Wick 4. And they just keep, it's like anytime there's any kind of ruckus in a club, then the club that I've been in when there've been ruckuses, I've been to a few clubs where they've been in a few rumbles. It breaks up really quickly, even if there's tension, if there's a fight, you don't keep dancing. Yeah. So that broke it. That layer immersion ruined it for me. That's the part, right? In the roundup, there's a few fights in the club and they scatter quickly. Yeah. So respect, respect to that. That's interesting. Isn't it? One of your bug bears is the realistic adherence to crowd dynamics in a club fight situation. Yes. Um, yeah, these, these ones can go in one of so many ways. I mean, Aaron Eckhart. Yeah. I feel like, oh yeah, he's a, he's, he's good. But then if you said, what's Aaron Eckhart been in? I'd go, um, yes. Of course. Of course he's in the dark night. Uh, thank you for smoking. I don't mind him kind of, he feels like he could be an all right action hero. Yeah. In the Liam Neeson vein of action heroes. It sort of is, isn't it? Yeah. It's, it's not Jerry action quite yet, but he's got to be in his 40s to early 30s, looking very good. I would say 50s. Yeah. I think he can hold his own. So I'm interested to see him doing action. As for the rest of the movie, again, Renny Harlin, he's done some good stuff quite a while back, quite a while back, but who knows? It has been a while. He's been producing a lot. Yeah. This looks like it ticks all the boxes and it's going to be one of the ones where it's all the glue in between. Like in the trailer, there's. good bit of hand to hand. There's some exploding, there's some stunts. Somebody says, we're going to have to go to Greece. But you feel like in the background, someone else is going for tax purposes. Also with her. Because she's available to come with. He said a thing that's like, you can't be the boss, you're a woman. You're now wearing a dress. It's the glue in between these bits that make the films for me. Yeah. And, and you never know that from the trailer. Yeah. So that's, that's what, that's what flagged it for me. I'm watching more and more of these films. It's obviously the action set pieces are so key in terms of the enjoyment, but getting to those action set pieces, if it's laborious, then it's, I might as well just be watching highlights package on YouTube. I'd rather do it like that. I think it's so, so important. And again, in terms of the 13 bombs of Jakarta, people expect more nowadays in terms of storytelling, I think. I think that's a very well-made point actually. Yeah. Because you can sort of get action. Well, I know this because I watch a lot of things that maybe sidestep the storytelling to some degree, because I'm like, Well, if you, if you offer me up some good scraps, stunts and set pieces, I'm willing to overlook a lot, but you are right. Like that, you can get that in a lot of places. So to, to have the sort of joining up bits, though that's what elevates it above. For what have a better word, DTV status, right? You know, genre. DTV stuff is look, we know why we're all here. We want to see him put a trowel in someone's neck, but the ones that stick out are the ones that offer you a little bit more. And so for example, the brother's son, even the quips in between, they felt a bit marvely, but still kind of a bit of humor and like that's so important and that's really what divides our two kind of feature presentations in terms of the roundup and silent night is the action is, is it's similar. But the how we get there is so different and it completely changed my enjoyment of each of those films. So that's where maybe the brick layer kind of raised some red flags for me. It feels like this is the perfect time to seg into our feature presentations. Now, our feature presentation. Dodge this. So the original plan was Joe and I go to the cinema. We watch Silent Night. John Woo's back. We talk about it and have a lovely old pod and it's Christmas. However, we did at least half of those things. We went to the cinema. We saw it on the biggest screen available. John Woo has returned to Hollywood. I don't want to spend the whole pod talking about it because as a, I want to say lifelong, but you know, 30, 30 year John Woo fan as the teenager that had the poster of the killer up in my university dorm room and owned all of his movies on VHS back in the day and some of them latterly on. on DVD. I went in with a level of excitement, but nervous trepidation. Having seen his last movie Man Hunt, which went straight to Netflix and that irked me quite a bit because it felt like John Woo almost sort of parodying himself. His last Hollywood movie was Paycheck with Ben Affleck. Wow. I saw it in the cinema when it came out, but that was a solid 20 years ago. But you know, hard target in Hollywood. He made Face Off in Hollywood. He made Broken Arrow and Wind Talkers in Hollywood. All of which to varying degrees are good movies. And then he also made some of the greatest action films ever made in Hong Kong. We're talking The Killer. I forgot Mission Impossible 2, of course, which a lot of people hate, but there is some absolute textbook John Woo in there. The hard-boiled, the killers, the better tomorrow twos, the bullet in the heads, these are defining movies of a generation and they kind of carved him out as this auteur of action. So maybe there's a lot resting on his return to Hollywood at the age of, I want to say, almost 70 or something mad. But what we get is Silent Night. A unique. take on an action movie, I suspect this is maybe what drew him to it, that he could make a movie that was slightly different because its thing is there's no dialogue in ostensibly the whole movie. What is the rest of the plot, Joe, if I forced you to sum it up? It's quite a bleak, a depressing plot. have a four year old little boy who is killed by a stray bullet. And then the most of the film is spent grieving that child. Brian Godlock is the character's name played by Joel Kinnaman. Get shot in the throat in the opening sequence. Never heard of anyone living through being shot. at point blank range in the throat. I'll allow it in the suspension of disbelief to get the plot on the road. I will let that one slip through. If there was a fight at a party and no one moved, that's where, that's where I'd get mad. Um, so, um, Joel and, um, his partner, uh, played by Catalina Sandino Marino, who we've seen in a few other films. She's really good as well. Um, they grieve. And... quite a long time. Then she leaves him, and then Brian goes on the road of revenge, and there's montages where he gets slightly better at fighting, through doing chin-ups, watching YouTube videos, buying stuff off Amazon, and fighting it. It's very kind of budget John Wick. A very modern hero. That is a very modern hero. I mean, if, if I wanted to reap revenge, I'd probably go about it the same way. In fairness. Yeah. If I want to know how to fix my dishwasher, I go on YouTube. If I want to know how to. Murder someone in the throat with a knife. I'll probably also use YouTube. You're gonna head the same place. I'm going cognito mode. That would be the two differences. That wasn't clear. Which mode he used actually. It looked like it was just, um, browsing. Yeah. He didn't care. He knew he wasn't coming back. Um, and so he goes after his son's killers, uh, which happened to be from the Latino community, which he lives, uh, amongst in, um, and, um, yeah, reaps revenge in a, in a, in a quite, um, sad way. There's the, the action. is underpowered and full of regret, which is quite strange. And he gives himself a year as well. So his son unfortunately dies at Christmas. Right. He returns to find the presents under the Christmas tree, which is strangely kind of very, very sad. As you say it, it sounds like this could be handled in a way where it really pulls on the heartstrings and yet somehow. It doesn't. It just feels. Yes, Mordlin, saccharin in a very sad way, whatever the sad saccharin, whatever a sweet sad, cheesy way. And so he gives himself a year to get better at fighting, get better at doing chin ups. Right, kill them all on his calendar. Yep. Circled. Important. And the calendar is used to kind of... track his progress throughout montages. There's a little bit of welding thrown in. It's important to keep yourself accountable. If you're on, you know, a new workout regime or a knife murder YouTube course, keep checking in, look back a month ago, I didn't know the knife goes in. You pull it out. Learned it from Gareth in the office. But so, you know, you can chart your progress. Exactly. Progress charting is incredibly important when you're want to reap revenge on the murderers. In first there's about two thirds of the movie, isn't it? It is. There's quite a lot of montages revolving around the calendar as well. Yeah. So it's like you say, there's an awful lot of everything else before the action. The bits of the action that we do see early on in terms of the cars and the guns are really good because John Woo does cars and guns like no one else. It just, there's just too much sadness in between. And I don't know about you, but I don't go to watch action movies to feel, feel sad. No, no. I think it just didn't know what sort of movie it wanted to be. Right. Was it death wish or death sentence or one of those like, I don't know, even like falling down or one of those movies where you're like, Oh boy, this guy is charting a path towards self-destruction and we're just kind of watching him fall apart. Or did it want to be all guns blazing from the producers of John Wick and John Woo at the helm? Can you imagine what this is going to be? It just didn't seem to fall into either camp. It was like two acts of bleak, God, he's really sad, he can't talk. And then the sort of finale of let's make cool action. But also like... Not cool enough in a sort of post John Wick world, it doesn't measure up. But is that what the plan was? That he's not John Wick, he's a guy who's learned off YouTube, but they don't lean into, oh God, he's massively out of his depth, he's really struggling. Apart from in that one, I would say the probably the best action scene where he first tries to get information out of the guy who works for the cartel. Yeah. And he has him tied up. then the guy kind of escapes and they have quite a brutal and a good, I would say good, good is a weird word, but it feels real. He's like, oh shit, I didn't plan for this, I'm not John Wick, I can't just put this guy in a choke hold, this guy's fighting for his life, they're both fighting for their lives, it felt like quite a good, tense fight. And then there's another big gap, and then he's kind of, you know, runs up 15 levels of a building. shooting sort of faceless goons who just run into his. Perif with his shotgun. Yeah. I mean, Joel Kinnaman does every man really well and does the action man every man really well. But, um, and this, it felt like he was overacting because of the gimmick of everyone's not being able to talk. He wasn't, he was over-emoting. I guess there was a lot for him to emote as well. So it felt. But it's like sort of soap opera melodrama sometimes. Yes. And very melodramatic. Yeah. That was the way to do it. And I guess when you're grieving the loss, the worst thing that can happen to you, I think is as a parent is to lose a child. So that is, you do need to go there, but it was so strange tonally, like you say, and with the producers of John Wick and John Woo, you just thought, what is this? Right. Like where, where does this sit? It's also a Christmas, a Christmas movie. Yes. Cause he's wearing a, he's wearing a Christmas jumper at the start. Yeah. And there are four or five set pieces. No, the main, the final set piece has baubles. There's quite a lot of baubles. Yeah. Really ill placed thought through ill advised. There's a bauble bit, the bauble bit at the end where you just go I mean, fair play to the auteur's vision if John Woo was like, this is how I see it, this is how it's going to be, but I just don't know how it didn't get... someone didn't go... People are going to laugh. And even, like, I can't stress this enough how big a fan of John Woo I am, and it pains me, but it was just, ugh, it was just almost bad, I would say. As a movie as a whole... probably bad. I don't think it was almost bad. It was bad. I'm, do we have to- I'm very forgiving. If the, if those last 20 minutes had been the best action I've seen this year, or even just John Woo tier action, I think the worst thing I can say about it is if no one told me, I wouldn't know John Woo directed it. You didn't, there weren't flashes of it? Little bits of embers? There was, was at the beginning, at the beginning, it was a bit in- in a hospital where there's some very odd, like digital zooms into his wife, which was sort of confusing, but I was like, well, that's, that's a choice. There was no doves. There wasn't as much slow-mo as you would expect. There were a few glimpses of what is that camera that shoots at super high frame rates? Phantoms. Yeah. There was a few shots shot on the Phantom. You could tell because like the exposure drops on those shots, because you've got to light it so bright. And there was, there's just like, it's in the trailer, I think, where there's the cars are kind of doing that car dance where, you know, they're both skidding around each other. There's like, gunshots, pinging off stuff, and it cuts to like the phantom shot of that super slow mo, the kind of practical spark effects where I was like, that's a great shot. That's a great John Woo shot. And there's maybe three glimpses of that in the movie where you just go, oh, what this could have been. If you just look at, you know, one of the set pieces from like hard boiled or something, there's no bit where someone does something and you see it three times. There's no one, there's one bit where, um, Kid Cudi has two guns. We, I mean, Kid Cudi's role is basically to exist in this movie. Part of me feels like a lot of this movie maybe got chopped out. I don't know, because they were like, mate, we've made the decision for no one to speak, but it's boring. We have to make it shorter. What about the bit where the detective speaks? I think we can lose it. But then we don't see him in the whole movie and then he just shows up at the end for no reason and it is an inaction scene. Yeah, don't worry about it. Does feel like it's been edited strangely. If you're going to cut out that stuff and leave in all of the morning, so much grieving. Strange, strange choices. But like you say, and as I said at the start, you shouldn't feel bad for showing me this film because in terms of the hallmarks of like, it had all that. I really like Joel Kinnaman. I really like the RoboCop reboot. I like the Suicide Squads. I like, I like him. as an actor and I think he's really good. I was just, I was shocked at how bad this film was. I think he's doing his best. I think everyone in it is doing their best and maybe John Woo is doing his best. I don't know. It's not his best work, obviously, but yeah, I dunno. It just feels like a lot of pieces of the puzzle that do not fit together. And it, it's, it's feels confused. I just can't, I can't recommend anyone watch it. I felt dated as well. And I don't want to sound ageist, but in, you know, it felt like when I see a Clint Eastwood movie, because it's a certain point of view that's a little bit older. It's slightly conservative. You might say it's a conservative viewpoint, but they don't lean into that. Right. Let's see what happens if you think this way and you follow it to its natural conclusion. And you're like, actually he's, he's maybe a lunatic. Yeah, exactly. It's actually like, he's gone too far now. These people he's, he's lost it. Yeah. That's not explored, right? No, not at all. And they keep pulling him back from that in terms of him having panic attacks and throwing up after killing people. So they obviously want to pull him back from being the... Travis Bickle. Exactly. Becoming the madman of the piece. So strange, but it felt out of time and it felt in this post John Wick world in terms of action and the more nuanced storytelling of other films that weren't this. Yeah, I was really disappointed by it. Same. Let's not end the podcast on that vibe. It's Christmas. Whew, thank goodness. We already had this backup one in the chamber, which this was the movie we originally were going to talk about before I realized that I was going to be in town and that we could do it at IRL. Last time you were on the pod, we talked about The Roundup, The Outlaws 2, The Roundup, starring Don Lee and his massive Hulk fists. Well, there's a new The Roundup. It's called the Roundup No Way Out. It's the nomenclature of these movies is slightly confusing because the first one was called The Outlaws, the sequel was called The Roundup, and now this one is called The Roundup No Way Out, which sort of almost distances the first movie. The literal translation is crime city. In Korea, they're called crime city, crime city two, crime city three. But you know, things get bought internationally and rebranded. So this is the third movie. in the crime city series where Donley is a cop who punches people. As soon as this film started, I was like, yes, especially after we saw this the day I watched this today after seeing Silent Night. And you, we both really enjoyed the roundup. I loved the roundup. For people who didn't listen to that episode. If you want to hear Joe and us talking about the South Korean movie, the roundup, that was a, that was, I think that was a really solid bit of a cinema. Yeah. Good thriller, good bit of detecting and some solid action. Yeah. And some comedy. You're right. And a few little bits of unexpected comedy thrown in. Give us a plot sum up of this one, mate. I'm sorry. Um, Don Lee returns. Um, he's back with his big punch. It's produced by big punch pitches, which I absolutely love. They really lean into it. That has to be his production company, right? 100%. It's gotta be. Uh, he's got one gimmick, but it's such a good gimmick and it keeps working over and over again. He's a cop and they work for, um, what are they called? Like internal? No, what's their little, uh, oh yeah, I dunno. Media City I want to call it. Soul Police Force. Yes. The Soul Detective Squad. And there's five of them. It's a little bit of a ragtag group led by Don Lee. And, uh, they've discovered a drug ring. Drug ring. Um, they're selling a drug called hyper, um, which are little blue pills, which for me are Viagra. Yeah. I, you can't put little blue pills on film and not make them into, into penis drugs. I do love any movie that has, um, uh, made up drug in it though. They describe it as better than cocaine and heroin. And so then I thought, well, that's fentanyl, but it's fentanyl Joe seemed to know a lot about this. It's white, very small white crystals. Quite scary. It's not big blue pills that people take. And this drug ring is run out of Japan with Yakuza. Yeah. And it's flowing through Korea. And so the Japanese are the bad guys in this, for want of a better word. That's pretty much it, isn't it? That is pretty much it. It's quite thin plot-wise. There's a lot of nefarious double dealing and stuff, right? There's like in between people, there's sort of some local, no spoilers, some local South Korean guys who are dealing And there's a lot of double crossing and there's some, the drugs sort of get disappeared. And then they're after the drugs and there's all, you know, different warring factions. Yeah. They make it very clear. It's quite nice. There's these drugs that go missing and they're worth 30 million. Yeah. Just really fantastic. I love this film. And I don't know whether it was because of off the back of, of Silent Night that I liked it so much, but it really knew what it was. Whereas Silent Night didn't know really what it was. Fair. This film knows exactly what it is right from the start. It really, it really does. And I think that's to its benefit, but you could also argue if you wanted to, to its detriment in that it kind of takes the exact template of the previous movie and pretty much repeats it. Yeah. There's not a lot of surprises in here, right? No, but I could watch more of it. That's the thing. Well, there's no surprises. No spoilers because it's already announced on the internet. And I think it says it at the end. Yeah, I think it does. There's already the next one is already in production. Right. What it does really well that I really like is it does deadpan comedy really, really well in terms of, I think I talked about this last time in terms of, it reminds me of like lethal weapon in terms of the way it blends its action and comedy. And you can have comedic action bits, comedic bits just on their own and then out and out action. I think it works really well. I really like these movies. I really like Don Lee. I think he's really great. Dead pan. He's got really great comic timing. I think as with action movies and martial arts, the timing is everything, whether it's fighting or whether it's delivering lines. And the pacing of it, it is a bit rote by the numbers, stuff we've seen before. You could say it's probably not as good as the roundup one in terms of outlaws to round up one, round up to whatever we're calling this. So first, outlaws one, round up to round up three. No way out. Um, so it's probably not as good as that. Yeah. I think it looks a bit different. I don't think it looks as good. Interesting. Yeah. I think that they went to Thailand in the last one. Yeah. Which gives it a really kind of unique feel. Yeah. There's definitely a way that Thailand feels it's yellows and greens. Yes. Whereas South Korea is cleaner and this looks cleaner as well. Sort of clinical. Yes. Yeah. And it looks a little bit more clinical, a bit cleaner. Um, well going into this, I did wonder, I was like, Oh, there's a sort of, um, samurai sword wielding bad guy in the, but are they going to pop to Japan? But they don't, they stay, they stay put in South Korea for this one. And it is the same director as the last movie as well, which probably speaks to it, hitting all those same beats. Right. And it's very confident, which I really like. Yeah. It knows how to deliver a joke. And there was some really great, I really funny. Just. well-timed action jokes that I love. Physical comedy. It's hard to do. It sort of catches you off guard, I think, sometimes because I go in thinking, okay, here we go. Don Lee punching everyone. But there are enough of those moments. There's one moment in the movie which is very balls out, just a comedy beat. But it caught me so off guard that I, dead inside, never laugh out loud, gave it a good, ha ha. All right, go on then. Go on then. Right in between him smashing, smashing people's skulls in. Yeah. And once again, the thing that stood out for me is really good sound design. Really good. The way that, that it all sounds, because you've got Don Lee who punches people really hard. If you haven't seen a Don Lee movie before, it sounds a bit mad just to kind of say his thing is he punches people really hard, but it's sort of, that is what it is, right? And he does. He's an ex-boxer in the movie. And I want to say in real life, he certainly moves like he knows what he's doing. He's MMA trained and trains other MMA fighters. He's a beefy lad. He's a big guy. So he's not doing any Donnie Yen style spin kicks. Nobody's getting clonked in the noggin with a heel. He's got two massive cannons. Yeah. He ducks, he bobs and weaves. What's that move? What's the boxing move where you... duck out of the way of punches. Bob and Weave. Yeah. He does that. People try and hit him. He ducks out of the way like boxers do. If you ever watch one of those YouTube videos where a trained boxer goes, try and punch me in the face and you're like, well, obviously I'm going to be out punching. And you're like, oh, actually, if you're trained to get out of the way of punches, it's actually quite hard to punch out of the face. He does that. He ducks out of the way and then lamps people. And they react in sort of the way that I think. you and I would react if a real boxer punched you in the face, which is one punch and they're done. They fold like a deck chair. Every time. It's fantastic to watch. And like you say, it happens over and over again. It's so satisfying to see someone be punched and be reacting in a way that is genuine. You're like, yeah, that sounds about right. And the sound design and the way that Donnelly moves and the way that these people take their hits, it's so satisfying to watch. Not to bring it back immediately to Silent Night, but on that sound design note, for a movie that is kind of pegged on, there's no dialogue in this movie. I would have expected the sound design to be so extraordinary. Like, okay, we have to like paint this movie as if a blind person is watching it. Yeah. And it And it just didn't stand out. No, there were too many moments where I could hear people rustling in the cinema and just, yeah, anyway, that was, that was my only point that we didn't sort of say it, that the whole conceit of there's no dialogue, I felt like didn't actually really add anything to the movie. In Silent Night. Yeah. I didn't realize that was, that was the conceit. I didn't realize people weren't talking. Yeah. I just thought, I just thought. Which is maybe a good, it was like, oh, well, that's impressive that you didn't notice that they told the story, but at the same time, you, you just could have, they just could have, people could have talked. The detective could have talked. Yeah. And, or I just thought the wife didn't want to interrupt the husband. So just texted him on it. Yeah. I didn't realize they weren't talking. Such an idiot. Anyway, to bring it back to the roundup, no way out. I'm, we definitely said this last time, the, the sound design of his sort You know, him Hulk smashing people. Just the weight you feel every time he wallops someone. And to your point of view, you would think it would get repetitive. They managed to just sort of sprinkle a little bit of special sauce on each of the skirmishes such that they're never boring. It's never just like, oh, he's just going to punch five people and done. There's always like a little maybe. Somebody's on a, one of those sort of retractor wires, like wangs them through a bookshelf or over a desk or through a window. Yeah. Not to pooch my action replay moment, but there's some really nice bits where, yeah. And they never learn. They always want to fight him. Yeah. Uh, usually with knives, once again, we talked about it. There's the knife work in this. Quite a gun free country. Yeah. Um, and, uh, a samurai, samurai sword. There was a samurai sword. Yeah. Did it feel slightly less R rated to you? Yes. Cause I feel like the second one, the roundup had a very stabby bad guy in it. And there was some quite brutal. And this one did feel brutal, but it felt like some of that brutality happened off camera. People get thonked. But you don't see it as much in that traditional way of three thongs. They're dead. Dead. And then the blood comes up on the thonkers face, thonkies, the thonkers, thonker. And then that's it. It felt more mainstream. Interesting. Yeah. I think less violent, more comedy. I think there were more, more comedic moments. You think they were angling for that deliberately? So, yeah, it felt, and that's why it made it slightly less. Um, yeah. interesting or edgy for me. Yeah. Uh, I enjoyed all the comedic moments, but it felt like that was something they were going for in terms of more mainstream appeal. That's interesting. Like the second one was maybe super successful and they were like, well, we have to literally repeat this, but also draw in new people by making it slightly more accessible and not having people very much stabbed up a lot of stabbing in two really early on. Um, I mean, and this one, someone gets thonked in the head with a pipe right at the beginning, right. And the, and you see the blood splatter. And I noted that as well. I was like, you'll, you'll definitely, when he thonks him, you'll definitely see a bit of blood on his shirt. Cause that's how you know the guy's dead. And the first thonking, he turns up in a blazer and a white polo shirt, which really stuck out for me. I'm like, why is he wearing a white polo shirt? And then it gets covered in blood. He's like, he probably knew he was going to thonk someone. and did want to wear his best Oxford shirt. Right. He went for a polo shirt. Yeah. So that's something that stuck out for me. I felt the guy who plays Ricky, um, Munitea, Munitaka, okay. He's the samurai. Samurai wielding. Yeah. Um, bad guy. Not, he's not the chief baddie, you would say. He's the sort of end of level boss you have to defeat to get to the chief baddie who is. And it's sort of one of my bugbears in movies, but, and I get it a lot. And in this one, I think it's fine, but sometimes, you know, it's what you might call, um, like the sort of Alan Rickman in Die Hard effect, where the chief baddie is a good actor and he's very good at being a good actor, but he's not a fighter. So you have to have him have a chief henchman, big long haired, blonde German guy with a machine gun for our hero to fight to get to him. Right. I don't remember him in this, the long head German henchman. Yeah. It was he in? No. Right. No, he's in the Nakatomi Plaza. So yeah, Ricky is, Ricky is the guy in front of the bad guy guy. But I thought the bad guy was a really good actor. Yes. And really, really menacing and worked really well. Yeah. He did a good job. He took his top off. He was fairly hench. Did he take his top off? Yeah. I'm quite sure orientated. I think he might have taken his polo off. Or, uh, yeah, after it had been, he'd thonked. So, yeah, he's like, I'm going to have to change this. I have to watch this. Yeah. I was thonking. Yeah. He's very good. Yeah. He was really very, um, well, yeah, not, no, no spoilers, I think. But, um, yeah, he sort of is of, is a quite suave, but also quite menacing. Yes. He did that really well. I think it's what you want in a baddie. And there were again, similar to the first, second roundup of the first film. Second outlaws first roundup. Um, The comedic turns from the, there were some really great performances from people who turned up and were just comedic relief, but they did it really well. The guy who played Cherry really made me laugh. And obviously I see the car salesman. Yes. Yeah. He was really good. Yeah. Just really good dead pan humor, which is my kind of humor anyway, but to see it filter through a lens of this South Korean action movie. I really ticked so many of my boxes. I'm not sure why I love these films so much, but I really do. Because everyone brought you back and you were like, oh for fuck, didn't we just watch one of these? This is the same thing. It was like, no, bring it on. Yeah. Fantastic stuff. Yeah. I will say the, my only slight sort of, not hypo observation complaint, whatever opinion is the team, the police team. Yeah. Is very much Don Lee. and some other sort of interchangeable. I know they are, I hope they are the same one, the same tier as before, but I couldn't really tell them apart, you know? There's like his, his boss, he sort of has a tiny bit of role. And then there's just like four or five other random detectives. I would have liked it if, for example, one of his team was a good fighter. Right. But not like a thonky fist fighter. Like he was just good at martial arts so that whenever something kicked off, it wasn't them barely surviving and Don Lee hulking everyone, but it was a little bit more evenly matched so that he isn't sort of just a superhero. Yeah. They do a good job. His main kind of sidekick in that group just always tries to stop him fighting people, which I do like. That's quite funny. Just trying to break up. You know, you don't want to do this. I do really like that, that role of like. Yeah, the peacemaker in it, but yeah, they're completely, they're useless, his crew. They sort of are. Two of them get really badly beaten up and then they get quickly replaced by two other people who are equally useless and they're bringing them in. That's great. They just, yeah, get taken off the bench. Yeah. I'd like to have the beat downs a little bit more evenly spread, even though, you know, we're going to see Don Lee. the beat downs, right? But it would be nice if he wasn't sort of surrounded by seemingly incompetent other detectives. They're all detectives, right? They've got retractable batons. And yet as soon as anything kicks off, you're sort of like, oh, maybe they'll hold their own, but they sort of, no. Yeah. I get that. In terms of like the plot stuff, I remember the second or like the third act of the roundup being quite propulsive. Like it kicks off and there's this sort of cat and mouse chase. Yeah. And that hooked me in. I didn't feel it quite as much with this one. No. It's this sort of, not a wild goose chase, like an actual goose chase. A goose chase? Was it a wild goose chase? What? Why? Why is it called a wild goose chase, Joe? Cause tamed geese are just too easy to catch. To catch. Yeah. And a wild goose, you'll never get it. No way. Well then maybe it is a wild goose chase. Cause there's basically, they're trying to find this bag of Viagra. Yeah. 30 million pounds worth of Viagra. 30 million US dollars worth of Viagra. Which probably, probably about the same Brexit. But it didn't feel quite as just exciting in the chase part. It was more of a putting the pieces of a puzzle together. Like we go here, then we have to go here. We better have a scrap quickly. Then we go here. Whereas the other one was a bit like, we've got to get there. We've got to get here. Like there was more of that ticking clock kind of vibe. Yeah. No, that's fair enough. That's that's it was slightly underpowered as it went towards the end. It's still powered by the, by the performance of the main bad guy. That really kept me, kept me hooked in, but yeah, it was missing the big final act. I think. Yeah. Um, I think that it was nicely peppered with action. This is to my fight against evil to the Chinese DTV that I talked about earlier, which had great action, but in very short burst at one end, this it's almost like if you took the timeline from the last movie, which starts with someone wielding a knife in like a news agent, him turning up going, don't be a twat about this. And then the guy going, oh, I'll stab you. And then him, Hulk smashing him. It starts with almost the exact same scene. Yeah. Just like, um, a prang, a car prang in the road and some big sort of wide boys giving it all that, him turning up and being like, don't be a cheeky little, you know, and then them going, oh yeah, what are you going to do about it? And him just belting them. Yeah. And you're like, okay, great. We know what we're in for. It even starts in the same way. The first time you see Don Lee. It's behind his head as he's walking into cowboy entrance, cowboy entrance, cowboy exit, exit finishes the same way. Don Lee walking off into the sunset. Yeah. He's always walking home at the end of one of these things. Never gets an Uber because he spends all his money treating all his, uh, his pals. They were a big meal at the end. Yeah, that's true. You don't get paid enough money as a detective. You got to be walking over again, lads. All right. See you later. So no, it seems that there's tropes in it as well. Yeah. But my point was that. It's neatly the propulsive, the plot is not as propulsive, but there is a action beat probably every 15 minutes that keeps you in. Whereas fight against evil two, the plot is not particularly interesting. So you really, unless you're a super nerdy fan of the genre points itself, you have to put the work in to sit through 45 minutes to be like, God, is somebody gonna We know why you're here. We're going to make sure you get the action. And also like, you know, an elevated, I would say the two to hark it back to the beekeeper builder, painter, architect, the joining together parts are interesting enough. Yeah, definitely. And they're funny as well. Yes. And you have that extra special source of they have comedic beats that maybe you wouldn't expect. No. And they land them really well. I think it's all very well nowadays to have comedic beats that are just Marvel quips, as I keep saying in terms of like, Oh, this will be funny. We'll undercut it with some quips. It's like, and that takes the power out of scene so quickly. Whereas this, it does comedy, but it doesn't, doesn't undercut it. Yeah. It's really well done. I'm such a fan of it. Yeah, that's true. Actually. Yes. It isn't. as you say, that Marvel quippage, which has got quite prevalent. It's like, and there is, there's another bit in the previous movie where there's like an interrogation scene, right? Where does he, he has like a phone book or a book or it's anyway, somebody doesn't want to talk and he persuades them in that sort of NYPD blue way. And in this one, there's almost a very similar scene where someone doesn't want to talk and then they just do a little bit of business that's sort of It's almost like a sort of slapstick. It is slapstick. In its nature. Yeah. It's physical comedy. It's almost silent movie, but it's really well done. Yeah. It's quite funny and it just, yeah, it works. It lands in a way that yes, I wouldn't, if anyone asked, I wouldn't call this an action comedy because I think that puts an expectation in your head of, I don't know, like bickering cops, that sort of thing. Yeah. But it's maybe like an action comedy, like a Shane Black movie or something that is the action goes, but there are surprising comic beats. Yes. But you want comedy to be is ultimately surprising. Things get too nerdy about it, but you want to be comedy comes from a reaction of, of something happening that you wouldn't expect to happen. I think I would call it an action comedy. Okay. I think I would sell it to my friends as like, yeah. Do you think if you showed this to someone else, you'd never seen any of these movies, they would tonally be like, that guy just thunked someone to death in the first scene. Is this meant to be funny or what's the... I think I would cherry pick the friends that I showed it to. You. Yeah, you'd get it. You'll get it. Have you ever seen anyone punch so hard that they shit themselves? Then this movie's for you. That's the car about that. That's my action replay moment. I'm fine, I'm fine! We've stepped into action replay. This seems the perfect time to do that. I forgot on that moment. It's flagged up at the start of the scene. It's so well done. There's a guy at the back complaining about stomach troubles. And you know that he's going to be punched so hard in the stomach, he's going to shit himself and he does it. And, but it's, it's not over egged, pardon the pun. And it's not, um, it's just really well done. And he's punched hard in the stomach and fills his pants. That's my action replay moment. When you bring up moments like that, I think maybe it is more, it is an action comedy, cause I'd forgotten, I'd forgotten that moment. Yeah. Where he goes, don't hit me in the stomach. Please. And then he, you know, he tries to stab him. So he's going to get, he's going to get hit. Yeah. You're right. That is amusing. And it isn't, you're right. It is not overplayed. No. It's not super played for laughs. Yeah. But it is funny. That's a great pick actually. I was. I was trying to, as I was saying earlier on that there, there are enough scuffles in this that you might think, oh, it's just, he's just going to punch five new people in the face. But they do add to use the phrase I used with you earlier, action design. Nice. An action designer. Like a production designer, essentially a fight, fight coordinator. Yeah. Fight coordinate, but you know, if it's a gunfight, you're not a fight coordinator. That's true. Right. So you're an action designer is all encompassing these days. There's some just lovely bits of action design business that stuck in my head. And I can't, I, this isn't necessarily the best one in the movie, but it's the one that I remember from watching it where I was like, that's pretty good. Where a guy ends up on a desk and is, he's like kneeling on the desk and he punches him. in the leg so hard that he slides backwards off the desk as if he's sort of been hit by like a wrestling chair. Yeah. It's bits like that where you're like, how many different ways can there be to punch a person? Lots. This is the movie where you will find out. And there's something quite mainstream appeal about Don Lee and the fact that he is non-lethal. That's true. Actually, he doesn't stab people. He's quite Batman in his approach. He just punches them really hard. So and knocks them out. So it's, you can see the mainstream appeal of it, which is maybe why they've leaned into it a little bit. And that's something I like as well. That it's, that it's quite Batman esque that it's, it's non-lethal in this approach to yeah. If you love Batman, you are gonna, that's a, that's a tough tangent. I would say. Do you like Batman? Yeah. But then I hadn't thought about it like that. He is non-lethal, isn't he? He's not John, John Wick. No, John Wick is the other end of the scale where he is nothing but lethal. Too lethal, if anything. Too lethal. Then, yes, he is a non-lethal weapon. Come to me next time you want to rename these movies for the international market, please. Non-lethal weapon two, no way out three. I think this feels like a perfect place to wrap this up. I really enjoyed it. I think this one gets a four star recommend from me. Four and a half for me. Wow. Yeah. Pushing it up there. I feel good about that because you rated Silent Night a solid one and a half stars less than my what's in retrospect seems generous rating now. So, and I still haven't seen the Outlaws. I haven't seen the Outlaws as well. I think before the roundup three, Outlaws four. comes out. God. Maybe we can reconvene next year to do that. One more crime city. Yeah. And maybe we should go back to where it all started, which I suspect might be even grittier. I think so. Yeah. Let's see how it's turned out. You could say the same about the Lethal Weapon franchise though, couldn't you? Yeah, that's true. First one is about a suicide, he's a suicidal cop. And by the fourth one, it's Joe Pesci. being like, they fuck you in the dry throw, you know, like, even though Jet Li is there to be pretty hard, it's turned into sort of a different animal, hasn't it? Yeah. People harnessing this animal and trying to force it more into a mainstream zoo. Less of a wild goose. More of a very tamed goose. Just a house goose. Laying a golden egg. Golden egg? Well, I don't know how we got there, but we both got there. Joe, thank you so much for, I want to say joining, but I've joined you in your office. This is an absolute dreamsicle. If people want to find you and all your stuff, where do you generally point them? Uh, I am joeroberts.com. Yes. Love that actually. I read an interesting, and I use interesting in quotes, tweet thread or article or something the other day that was like, Stop having a link tree with 10 different links on it. Yeah. Just send someone to your website, which does to be fair, have all those links on it. If you want them. Yeah. No, I am Joe Roberts on everything pretty much because there's quite a few Joe Roberts's. So yeah, it's a bit John Smithy, isn't it? In a way. It is. Yeah. Uh, I've had to go with Joseph Roberts for some stuff. Have you? Yeah. I think on IMDB I'm Joseph Roberts because there were 20, maybe even 30 Joe Roberts's. Good Lord. And you don't want to be like Joe Roberts brackets. Roman numeral seven. Yeah. Um, so I'm Joseph Roberts, brackets Roman numeral two. There's already a Joseph. Joseph Roberts. Mother. But don't go via our MDB. No, never go via our MDB. I am joeroberts.com. Love it. If you want to find the podcast, and now I'm going to list all the different places, having just said that, you can, well, no, just, you can go to my website, SimonFielder.com, that's the best place to start, but if you want to interact with specific. pod things or action movie tropes, you can find us on Twitter at dodge this pod. Find me at SimonFielder.com and go through that conduit to all of the other social media channels. Please, if you've enjoyed the pod, rate and review us on your favorite pod place. If you love the pod so much, also you can support us with real earth money. That's a link in the show notes. I'll see you on the next one. Joe, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you. Let's do a joint goodbye in the big Echoey office. Goodbye!
