MAYHEM! (aka Farang) (France, 2023) with Tom Levinge

We're back to start the new year with a bang/machete through the arm as we get into Xavier Gen's FARANG (internationally and perhaps not doing it any favours in terms of expectations titled 'Mayhem!') starring Nassim Lyes, Samir Barda, Loryn Nounay, Olivier Gourmet, Chananticha Tang-Kwa & Vithaya Pansringarm.
>>> FARANG TRAILER <<<

The Polygon article mentioned: https://www.polygon.com/24029877/mayhem-elevator-fight-scene-watch-interview-xavier-gens-jude-poyer-nassim-lyes-farang

Simon is joined by director, improvisor, artist and poop fan TOM LEVINGE. Plus an incredible appearance by our very own Matthew Highton and HRH Sco..... You'll see (hear).

It's been a while so we've seen a bunch of stuff including WONKA, PADDINGTON, BLACKBERRY, THE CURSE, FARGO and Too Many DTV Christmas Movies...

The show's got a Twitter: @dodgethispod
All the other good stuff is here:  simonfeilder.com and here tomlevinge.com &
BUY TOM'S ART (no poop)
Subscribe to Simon's newsletter thing: simonfeilder.substack.com

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This will help you watch all the international treats: nordVPN

If you're reading this far, perhaps as your New Years Resolution you could do a rate (and review) on Apple or Spotify plz&thx?

Chapters

• 0:00 Pre-INTRO
• 2:11 INTRO (and Tom's poops)
• 14:56 THINGS WE'VE SEEN
• 25:06 MAYHEM! (Farang)
• 1:05:33 OUTRO

Transcript

0:02

Oh, hi, Dodgers. Is that one already taken? Welcome to 2024. It's me, your old pal, Symes here. Thought I'd just drop in at the top to do one of those intros that all the big podcast gurus do. Hope you had a nice festive season. Mine was busy but delightful. And we are back. It's 2024. And it's a big year for Dodge This. Action movies unleashed. Just wanted to stress, I do know the actual title of my own podcast, that may or may not be reflected in the intro to this episode. Nonetheless, we got a lot to get through. If you're missing Matthew, you're not alone, but he has both figuratively and now literally got his hands so full that I will try to pin him down at some point in this season. TBC. However, the reason I bring it up is because during a aforementioned festive season, it was my birthday. Thanks so much for the gifts and cards. And Matthew delivered a voice note. for the ages that he had been sitting on since several months prior when he hosted Comic-Con in I believe Belgium. Please enjoy this voice note as much as I did. Go Simon, happy birthday. Just a quick message from someone for you. Alright Simon, happy birthday mate. No idea how old you are but I hear you've got an action podcast son. Yes, happy birthday. Keep flying the flags for action. Action. Well done mate. I know you're a little bit. Absolutely incredible work, Matthew. I can't thank you enough for that. If you know, you know. And if you don't, well, just ask me and I'll tell you. Let's do an episode, shall we? or the art of fighting without fighting. Stick around. Some motherfuckers are always trying to ice skate on me. Dodge this. It's nothing but good welcome to season three, episode seven of Dodge This! Action Movies Unplugged. It's our first episode in the year of our Lord 2024. It turns out that the Christmas break was a little bit longer than a lot of us were expecting. I was jet setting around Europe. Thankfully, during that jet setting, I ran into a good old friend of mine and remembered he likes films as such in order for us to kick off the new year and talk about the French international action extravaganza Ferang rebranded as Mayhem exclamation mark for its international release. I, I have, I welcome my good friend, Mr. Tom Levin. Hi Tom. Thank you so much for having me on your podcast, Simon. Why is it that Every time you say that, I think you're being sarcastic, even though you expressed a lot of enthusiasm when I saw you in the pub. So I'm cursed with a sarcastic voice. And often I've said something which is genuinely sincere to someone. They've been like, all right, all right, mate. But it's just, it's just, this is my voice and I can't control it. I'm afraid. Wow. I'm sorry for your loss. You know, for example. Radio is your medium in that regard. When you can't even see your face to, so you don't know it just, you've only got, it's like trying to do sarcasm in a text message. Yeah. Well, I mean, you know that I'm, I'm grinning. Yeah. Constantly. But the, um, but the audience at home, obviously, well, no idea. They just, they're just furious. I'm genuinely, um, you know, I'm genuinely buzzing to be discussing this French action movie with you. Can you hear me play? Can you hear me play with the button? What button is it? It's a button off a jacket. I thought you meant like it was a button on your keyboard. No, sorry. I'm so sorry if that's noisy. Do you know what? I'll just stop doing it. Yeah. Yeah, no, absolutely can. That's, I mean, you're a man who works in TV. I feel like I don't need to explain how sound works to you, but you know, there's, we've got a lot to get through. I would say any sort of distractionary noises. any background stuff. If you've got like a fidget spinner or anything there, just leave it till afterwards would be my shout. I'm 37. So I'm in my flat full of fidget spinners. And hover boards. Yeah. All cool stuff. Sorry. I just made, I made noise with the button again. It's gone back to the button straight away. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. It's an auspicious start. I'm going to put that in the, I'm going to put it in the, in the tray. Oh my God, the tray full of other noisy things. Anyway, Tom, for those of you who don't know, you are a Foley artist. Isn't that right? So sorry. I'm Simon. I'm so sorry. I feel like a profter. You know what? This is, this is mayhem. Exclamation mark. I think, Oh God, he's tied it in so, so poorly. Tom, I know you, uh, from, you're quite a mayhem-y performer. You're an improviser. Uh, you are a filmmaker. a television director? Is that a separate term? Or would you say that comes onto the banner of filmmaker? Hey, I'm an artist and I paint with many brushes. I forgot that as well. You're actually a bloody good painter as well. That wasn't even on my list of bullet points to chuck out. But yes, people should check out your artwork. Have you got any spare ones kicking around yet? Have you sold them all? They are. They're all in the loft. That's great news. Are you trying to shift them for the new year? Do you want to? Yeah, big time. Yeah. Big time. Great stuff. Great stuff. Where can people see them? Go on my Instagram DM me. They're very cheap. I've got to get rid of them. They're just taking up too much space. Hence going to loft. They're big units. I'm a huge fan of them and I do keep threatening to take one off your hands. But then I keep moving to other countries where it's probably prohibitively expensive to ship them. But thank anyway, thanks for joining and As I sort of mentioned you painting, I'm immediately put in mind of your exhibition of art that you did that I came along to once, made a very enthusiastic Instagram story about. Do you want to briefly explain that to the listener or, or shall I sort of summarize it for you? I can, if you like. I'd love you to. When I was 20 for a year, I took a picture of every meal that I had and every, I guess, poo that I did as well. And then when I was 30 for a year, I did the same thing. And in the exhibition that you're referring to, all of the pictures roll over one wall of this gallery. And there's about 400, 500 other pictures that didn't make it as well. Just didn't have the space for them. Of shits that you'd done. Well, yeah, the food and the excrement as well. Yeah. Well, I was just going to say if there was 400 in addition to this circa 365, that's, well, I mean, you know, I could talk about shit for a whole, that's for another podcast. Like people do two a day. I'm just a one a day man. It was an extraordinary site. I have to say there was some also some other more family friendly, delightful paintings in there. You're a man of many shades. Not, and I'm not talking about shit. Well, you say family friendly, but the, all the gallery goers who are most enthusiastic were children. Wow. Because a lot of people brought their kids to see it and the kids were going mad because the idea that a grownup had. taking pictures of their poo and put it on the wall and you could see it in an adult environment that wasn't medical. They were laughing, they were running around and then people found it really disgusting, obviously as well. And you know what? I can't even really tell you why I did it. I'm going to do it again when I'm 40 and then when I'm 50 and if I live longer than that. You do sound like a serial killer. Well, yeah, but I guess it's, you know. I couldn't tell you why I did it, but I will do it again. Well, how did it make you feel looking at it? That's a great question for Brat, I suppose, isn't it? Is how does it make you feel? I looked at it from quite a clinical perspective, I think. as someone who, in his later years, which I guess I'm in now, self-described later years, I think from the age of about late 30s, right? Still late 30s casting age, but real life late 30s. I've started being more aware, as I think most people are, of their guts and stomach. And I've had a few, like... just a bit of IBS type stuff. So I was looking at it from a very interested way. Like you don't get to see other people's shits. What do other people's shits look like? Very different. Very different. Yeah. Well, I think that's it. It's such an intimate portrait of a person. Intimate's the word, isn't it? Yeah. And you never, you never ever see that side of someone. And it's, why is it disgusting? I talk about it endlessly. Yeah. I mean, I mean, I understand, obviously I'm not naive. I understand why it's disgusting, but, but if, if it gives you the potential to have that conversation with someone, when you're looking at it, that's an interesting thing to make someone think. I'm not crazy about the fact that my name is so, and my identity is so connected with that as I get a bit older. But you do plan to continue it every 10 years. When I was 20, I thought, cause I used to be in a punk band, you know, and I was like, yeah, I should take pictures of my shit, man. And, um, and it'll be art. Uh, and now I'm like, Hmm, why am I still doing this? Wow. You know, I've got, I've, I, I spend my money on cushions and rugs nowadays instead of like Stella and hash. What am I doing taking pictures of my poo and showing it to strangers in a gallery? But I do think is, I, but I also think commit to it. If you're going to take a picture of every shit you have for a year, every decade of your life. What I think to look back on, because the other thing is you can see it's not just a picture of a plate of cereal. It's like the person that I'm with at the time. Right. So that changes, you know, obviously even the difference between 20 and 30 is a massive difference. That, well, you told me before that you had porridge for breakfast with banana and some granola sprinkled on it. I'm sure when you were 20, it was mainly Froot Loops and Stella. Yeah. And meth. No, no, no. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I would say with every decade, it becomes more art in a way, doesn't it? Because what is art if it's not commitment? Yeah. Put that on your bit of driftwood. But also you would, you would really get a very unique picture of what, how a person has chosen to live their life. Yeah. You know, over that time and how they've, how they've developed. If I'm silly, let's put it this way, if I'm seeing the same meals when I'm 40, or when I was 20, I'm a legend. You're right, you're either an incredible chef at a young age, or you've got the innards of steel that have not suffered from gastro reflux or any of that business. I suppose it's another Goodfellas frozen pizza for lunch on a Tuesday, is it? Tom, I would love to talk more about your poops for the whole podcast, but as I say, it's not making it in, is it? Is it making it in any of that? Of course it's all, it's all grist to the mill, isn't it? Literally and figuratively we're, we're painting the picture of the man. Let's not end with a sort of, you know, a shitty taste in our mouth. So, cause recently you've worked on some exciting TV shows. I make a lot of TV shows with Rosie Jones. And if you don't know who she is, she's a comedian from the North of England who's gay and she's got cerebral palsy. So she gets a lot of TV shows made because minorities are big business at the moment. But mainly, that was me doing a little funny joke because mainly she's like really, really hilarious. And I'm super lucky because she wants to work with me. So I get to direct her travel show for Channel Forward, a two series of it. is she got nominated for a BAFTA for her brilliant presenting in the second series. Didn't win, but I think you'll agree that we got a much more important award, which is the Edinburgh TV Festival Best Popular Factual Series Award. That's what I recognised it on the shelf behind you. That's it. And as a little boy, I dreamed of winning an Edinburgh TV Best Popular Factual Award. But, and then I've just made a series for Sky with two comedians, Josh Widdicombe and Nish Kumar called Hold the Front Page. Dead Lads. Lovely guys. Funny show. And we're just finishing that now. So you're a busy boy is what we're finding out. Yeah. Did a short film for Disney last year as well. This I did not know about. Yeah. Made a short film for Disney Corporation. Had its premiere at the London Film Festival. Is this because they'd heard about your exhibition of shit? Tom Disney on the line. They went to that tiny gallery that 30 people could get in East London in 2018. That's incredible. Can we watch your Disney film, please? Not yet. It's not out, but we hope it will be on Disney Plus pretty soon. Quick synopsis? Yeah. It's a short film about a group of disabled Dungeons and Dragons players, and half of it's in the real world and half of it's animated like eighties action, like He-Man style action. animation. I'm in. And what they have to, they get bullied by some kids in the real world and they're represented by dragons in the animated world and they've got to fight them. That's very fun. Yeah, it's cool. Rosie's in that. And I co-wrote it with a guy called Adam Pearson, who you may know from the Scarlett Hansen film Under the Skin. Oh, interesting. Okay. He's acting in that as well. So yeah, it's a nice little film. I'm excited to keep my eyes out for that. Speaking of films. Welcome to the party, pal! What a segue. I'm a professional, I don't know what to tell you. Have you seen any other films apart from Ferang aka Mayhem exclamation mark recently? Anything popped up on your radar? It can be TV as well. I saw Wonka in the cinema. Interesting. The new film from the director, the creative team behind Paddington 2. That's just reminded me that I watched Paddington over Christmas for the first time. Oh my god, what a film. Great movie. Paddington 1, not Paddington 2, is that what you're saying? Yeah, the first Paddington. Have you seen Paddington 2? No, I've heard it's even better. It's one of the best films I've made. It's faultless. I will have to watch it. Yeah, it's incredible. And actually, funny enough, you mentioned that... Don't want to keep going about this exhibition, but I was very, very tired when I was doing that exhibition. And on the last night of it, I went to go to the cinema by myself to watch Paddington 2. And from this very start of it until the very end, I was weeping, right? And there was a little girl next to me with her mum and the little girl turned to her mum and said, mummy, what's wrong with that man? And I couldn't turn around and say, I've been doing a very stressful exhibition about my feces. Yeah. It's tough. It's tough to get that across, isn't it? A sentence to a child. Exactly. You're telling me. You ready for some amazing foley by the way? Oh boy. Here we go. Oh my God. He's emptying out his. bucket of buttons. Thank you so much. Sorry, I derailed you. I was, my one was, I've just, I saw Paddington really enjoyed it. I'll say, I enjoyed it so much that despite the fact that I couldn't turn off motion smoothing on my in-laws TV, I still enjoyed it. Wow. That is actually massive compliment genuinely. Why do they set what? No, genuine, genuine question. Well, it's for sport, isn't it? It is for sport. Well, I think it- works for sports best, right? But somehow it's seeped into the default settings. I think it would be quite a good idea to go around to everyone's mom and dad's house in the country and just that big government. If Keir Starmer came out and said, look, our big initiative, this is our big push. We're going to turn motion blurring off whatever the hell it's called. Yeah. I would vote for him. I mean, that would be the TV industry would vote for him, wouldn't it? But I don't think that would really sway. Farage said it. That would be the one. Get him back for more years. He's so offensive, isn't it? It's just ridiculous. And I don't know if you must have had this experience because I find it disgusting as well. If you turn it off on someone's TV, they're like, oh my God, that's much better. I get, I can't tell the difference all the time and it blows my mind. I'm surrounded by people who can't tell the difference. And that's fine. But I've had it where they've been where the person said, Oh my God, that's so much better. How long you had this TV? They're like eight years or something crazy. They've been watching, they've been watching, you know, let's say the Godfather, but it looks like Hollyoaks. Yeah. Dreadful business. The one thing I will say, at least it was Paddington, which it made it look like an afterschool ITV sitcom, which is, you know, it was not what you want a feature film to look like, but given the subject matter and it being Paddington and stuff, it was like almost bearable. it did sort of just look like Nicole Kidman had popped up on an episode of Fun House. Like it was weird. Please talk to me about Wonka. You're in for such a treat with Pankton too, by the way, because it is so beautiful. I heard that the poor King, the director, his two major influences are Wes Anderson and Jean-Pierre Genet. Okay, yeah, that checks out. And you can really tell, like, especially in two, it just has the most incredible sequence. It has also, I'm going to say, one of the best last lines in film history. Ooh. It's so beautiful. I get, if you, I think there should be, you know, when robots take over the world and you're like, which one is a robot and who's human? I think that the test should be, can you watch the end of Painted 2 without crying? If you can, you're a robot. Oh no. It's so gorgeous. I've got no chance then. I'm a weeper. I cried in Wonka. I thought you were going to say you cried during this movie. There are a couple of moments where I was a little bit like that little girl is doing quite good crying acting. We'll get into that. I think I might shed a tear in Wonka. I imagine it's a family film. There's probably, you know, the emotional highs and lows. Is it good though? I've heard sort of mixed things. Or did you enjoy it? I just loved the world a bit. and I thought it was really funny. And some of the performances were so broad. Like there's these, it's the chocolate cartel, right? They have the bad guys. It's Patterson Joseph Johnson from Peep Show, Matt Lucas, and one of the guys, I can't remember his name, but the guy from Ghosts who plays the kind of poet who's in love with the main girl, Charlotte Richie in it. Anyway, their performances are so unbelievably massive. They're like panto on like black Paul Pia playing to the back of the room the whole time. And it's so, I found it like just hilarious that they thought it was okay to do that. In a movie. Yeah. And also all the other actors, all the little actors like Olivia Coleman and Tom Davies are in it and just everyone is just, everyone's brilliant. It looks phenomenal. But Timothy Chalamet is totally wrong, I would say, as Wonka. And apparently it's given a whole generation of girls who were, who fancied him. the, the ick for Timothy Chalamet. Cause, cause Wonka, you have to really commit to that role. I mean, the guy's got screw loose. Sorry, spoiler. A kid died. But he's nice. He's don't know if that's reflected in the remake or not. No, no, no. He's nice. He's a sweet guy. He's not scary at all. But there's a there's a light a particular line which I'm getting which will probably end up being quite famous with Timothy Chalamet where he goes um, how do you want your chocolate? Delicious beautiful absolutely insane He does it in this way that's like Like there's no way that when they were filming that the whole room didn't just go he can't do it like that Absolutely insane it's like he's like how should he has no idea how to be Willy Wonka basically So he just, it's a complete mess. Wow. But anyway, Wonka, I would say I've really enjoyed Fargo season five. Have you seen it? Yeah, no, I've, I've only watched season one and with each season I'm like, Oh God, there's another season to watch. I've got to catch up. It's, it might be the best one. Really? Yeah. Fargo season five is great. The curse, the new Nathan feel that you're surely your brother, your dad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Related, related. Nathan Fielder spelt the other way. Oh, is it? Sorry. No, I just watched the rehearsal and, uh, I mean, not just, but like, yeah, last year, I suppose now. Well, it was just, yeah. I mean, it was, the first episode just blew my mind. I was just like, I don't know. How do you make, how do you make this? I just had no concept of how you can see the concept. It was just so, it was just so much. It was so much. It was incredible. HBO must have just signed a blank check for him to do whatever the hell he wanted and then giving him like a thousand people to make it with him. It's mad. But then it does go, it goes south though, doesn't it? It goes really wonky. It starts very, very strong and it's sort of, yeah, I don't know. I don't want to say it peters out, but it's sort of, I think it does kind of tie up all right at the end, doesn't it? But the, when you, it's not, it starts episodic and then it kind of has a, like a serial plot. if you want, over a few episodes, doesn't it? Which is just sort of meaningless, I felt. I said when it became about him, I just didn't care as much, you know? I watched, this is something you might quite like actually, because it's unexpectedly quirky. Blackberry. Have you seen this? I can't wait to see that film. I've not seen it. Glenn Howardton, isn't it? Correct. From It's Always Sunny. Yeah. Sporting an incredible It's like, you know, balding on top and hair around the sides. Like Cruz in Magnolia. Tropic Thunder. Magnolia has got a lovely head of hair. That's right. He's got too much hair in that, hasn't he? Tropic Thunder, he's got weird hands. Very hairy hands. Yeah, Howerton is great in it, actually. Everyone is great in it. It's the story of BlackBerry, the handheld email telephone device. but told through the lens of like a quirky Canadian indie comedy. Very enjoyable. I've been obsessed. I have been for many years, but recently my obsession's gone into the sort of even niche area of this genre, which is the Christmas rom-com. Oh my goodness. Now I'm not talking about the holiday. I'm talking about catering Christmas. I'm talking about baking all the way. Yeah. I'm talking about Christmas at the drive in. These films are, I'm convinced the funniest films ever made. I actually have seen one of them over the Christmas period. My girlfriend watched one and I was in the room. Was it B&B Merry? Christmas inheritance? The Christmas Prince? Princess Switch? The night before Christmas is actually genuinely good. When a night comes back from too many evil times to modern day. to the modern day and he falls in love with a girl. Sorry, I didn't hear the K. I didn't hear the K. Now, our feature presentation. Dodge this. I'm sure you know this fact about Farang that the, um, and you can tell, I think, when you watch it that, that the director directed, um, you say it best when you say nothing at all. The Ronan Keating music video. Did you have that in your locker to bring that up? I didn't think there was going to be a better seg into our feature presentation than that. You must have looked that up and found that out. I, I. Gimed is I am DB and that did stand out to me, but I didn't make a mental note of it. So thank you so much for bringing that up. Because it's very interesting to note. This is the director of this movie, Xavier Rennes. I don't know how you pronounce that. G-E-N-S. I want to say Rennes, but Rennes? Maybe French. I did study French. Never come across that. My dad would just call him Gens. Yeah. Xavier Gens. Xavier Gens. If we're going to anglicise it. Who is a French director who's directed a whole bunch of stuff, but I'm often intrigued, he directed the American video game adaptation of Hitman. And so scrolling back, I was like, what is, what launched him into Hitman? You know, what, what was the movie or what got, what joined the dots that led to Hitman? And obviously it was. Ronan Keating's, you say best when you say nothing at all. That goes without saying, doesn't it? Yeah. It's, there's just some, um, some violence bubbling under in the whole, the whole video. I've actually never seen that music video, but I'm sure there are some very vicious stabbings in that. So Hitman was in 2007. Um, and since then there's been TBH, nothing I've seen until Gangs of London. Did you watch Gangs of London? I did not watch Gangs of London. Okay. He directed three episodes of that, which again, the final three episodes of the first season, and this is, it's very interesting to, for, if you've seen the first season of Gangs of London, it peaks at episode five and then six, seven and eight for me just sort of petered out, which, which is unfortunate when I, when I noticed that he had directed those three episodes. Also he's directed three episodes of Lupin recently on Netflix. I don't know if you saw that. I watched the first episode and thought it was fine. Let's just sort of set out the store of the movie. I imagine if you're coming to this podcast, you've probably seen the movie or have some interest in the movie. But nonetheless, I like to force my guests to kind of sum up the plot of this movie. It's from France. It's Xavier Hens-Jeans, who is the director of Hitman and some episodes of Gangs of London. It's called Ferang. in its native country, France. However, for its international release, it has been rebranded as Mayhem! I feel like there's a talking point on the titling or rebranding of movies internationally Tom that we could absolutely get into. Would love to. I was also put in mind of the TV show that you made with Joel Domet and Nish Kumar about them going around the world and you were trying to come up with the titles for that. We were pitching titles and I think we landed on International Sports Challenge. That title did not make it to air. This is a TV show that I worked on as a producer and cameraman in 2016. It was on Netflix for a while as Joel and Nish versus the World. Joel Domit and Nish Kumar testing Joel Domit's strength against tribes around the world. But internationally it was sold as Tribal Bootcamp. Was it? Yeah. Well that is an interesting turn of events. But do you know a very, very fun search, Google search for you, business, and indeed Simon, is translating Chinese titles of films back, which I'm sure you've done before, and the best one is of course the Sixth Sense, which the Chinese translation translates back to English as, he's a ghost! Saves two hours. Give us a little plot summary, if you will. You don't have to do any big spoilers, but I think you can get the sort of synopsis out. I got it. So the sexiest man who's ever walked God's green earth is in prison. He's gone straight for it. Well, there's no, it's the main point I have to make about this film is the guy is too gorgeous to be an action star. I didn't want to get to his abs. already. Well, that's it. It's just basically, it's like, the guy has perfect abs. And the problem is that just before I started watching it, I ate, well, I'll tell you that I'll go back another step in Sainsbury's. There was a punnet of, don't pick up the button, restrain yourself from picking up the button. That would be a good name for a TV show actually. Yeah. Restrain yourself from picking up the buttons too long. Don't pick up the button. You're not good at titles. International sports challenge? Come on. So yeah, before I watched the film, I was in Sainsbury's and I went to the reduced baked goods section. And there was mini, you know, millionaires shortbreads and I ate the whole box, 79 in the history of cinema, just smashing people's brains out. And I just thought, God, I'm, I'm going to stop eating those reduced baked goods if I'm going to turn up like my hero. That's, that's what's holding you back. Yeah. But anyway, the plot is that there's, um, as a guy, he's, he's clearly very hard and tough and silent and, um, he gets released from prison and, uh, and he's trying to be a good boy. trying to do the right thing. It's clear that some kind of criminal gang, he's been involved with some kind of criminal gang in the past. They try and get him back into the crime world. He goes, no, thank you. I'm happy doing my job on the building site. Thank you very much. But they're having none of it. And then they chase him down. He gets into a fight. He does something regrettable. No spoilers. Five years later, he's in Thailand. Just popped to Thailand. He's got a criminal past. We know that he's running away from something, something terrible. And he's got an absolutely lovely wife who's half Thai, half French. He's got a stepdaughter. He has a baby that you never see, question mark. Was that clear to you? I was like, what is going on with that? Or when he says the baby, does he mean the stepdaughter? I don't know. No, his girlfriend is, slash wife is pregnant, I believe. Oh my God. That makes the whole film much sadder, me realising that piece of information. Oh yeah. He's trying to earn money because his wife classic story, his wife wants to buy a beach. Classic stuff. If it isn't a beach, it's a Christmas farm. We've, we've, we've all been there. You know, it's your girlfriend's birthday. She wants a Thai beach. What are you going to do? I suppose enter the criminal underworld in Thailand. Um, so, so this, um, so he's, he's doing three jobs actually. Bless him. He's, he's efficient. Yeah. He's, he works at a hotel. And he's brilliant at Thai boxing and seems to be way better at it than any Thai person. Anyway, he's throwing matches to earn money. And then basically, it's not enough money. It's not enough money to buy the beach. So he has to do a criminal activity. It goes horribly wrong. And then he takes revenge on the people that made it go horribly wrong. And that's, I've told you everything up until the inciting incident of the film. everything else would be a spoiler. But it's basically, it's an exciting, very, very violent revenge movie. It becomes that. The spoiler-ific nature is, I don't think we're going to ruin anything by sort of comparing it to other classic revenge movies, or I think the obvious touchpoint to some degree is taken. Which, which doesn't, I mean, it's not a huge spoiler. People die, or... get taken away and he's mad about it. And he wants to, he wants to take the, it's his daughter. His daughter gets taken away. I think it's okay. It'll make you want to watch it basically. It probably says it on IMDb. Yeah, it says it. It says it. Um, and, and he wants to get his, um, his stepdaughter, he wants to get his stepdaughter back and he'd go, let me tell you, he goes to great lengths to do so. I'll tell you what it says on IMDb. He starts over in Thailand until a local criminal coerces him back into crime. After this man attacks his family, he vows revenge. Why'd you make me do that whole thing? Yeah, I should have just read it out. You should have just read that out. Sorry about that. I'm exhausted from the effort of explaining the plot. You did a great job, actually. And you did it in a very thoughtful, not spoilery way. So thank you for that. I was thinking, I was thinking, what would entice me to see the film, but be enough context to listen to a conversation about it? Well, when I talked to you last, you said, I mean, I love action movies. And so I thought... Okay. I'm going to drop him in with a movie that was on my radar because I'd seen the trailer. And I didn't mention this as we skipped straight to the feature presentation, but keen listeners might've noticed that we didn't talk about any trailers. And that's just something that I'm going to try out for a while on the pod. We're getting straight into the meat of it. I feel like trailers go out of date quite quickly, whereas a good chat about a movie will last a bit longer in the podcast, Aether. And maybe, God forbid, shave these episodes down to the under an hour that I've constantly threatened and rarely delivered. So Tom, I thought this is a great one to drop you in. It's probably a movie you wouldn't have necessarily seen yourself. Yeah, I was going to say that. I don't think, were it not for this podcast, I don't think I would have sought it out. No, that's very much my MO in a way. Yeah. I like to serve these little treats up. Yeah. How have we landed with the old, I still haven't quite got a read on your thoughts and feelings about it. Let's open up the little Levin Pandora's box. I am like, I give you an example of an action movie that I could watch every single day of my entire life. And I'm absolutely in love with. I love Die Hard, but the film that I like really connect to is a film like Gre- Frank. Yes. Gre- but the one that I'm like, this is my kind of action film is Green Room. Oh, okay. Yeah. Gosh, that's a, that's a, is that even an action movie? It's almost like a horror. It's a horror and a thriller, I suppose. Maybe I'm, you know, maybe I just don't know what I'm talking about, but- No, it's a great movie. Don't get me wrong. Yeah. But it's, I guess that sort of darkness and real, when someone gets sliced their arm, when someone's arm is sliced open with a Stanley knife in that film. Horrible. You really believe it's happening? Yes. And you really think the kids might die in it and it's not like versus something like crank, which I adore. Indeed, of course crank too high voltage. How could we forget? How can we do a sequel? He's just jumped out of a helicopter or a plane or whatever and he's dead on the ground. We'll just have him wake up. Amazing. Is that the most genius piece of creative problem solving you've ever seen in a film? And also do you remember when they operate, they were operating on him? And someone ashes their cigarette on his heart in Crank T High Voltage. No respect for any sort of physics or some, some might argue the audience, but you know, it did well enough to want a sequel. No, that, that film is a perfect example. Well, it just illustrates that there is no such thing as rules. No, it's don't give a fuck filmmaking, isn't it? Yeah. And it's so exciting to see something like that. And I suppose I wanted to mention like the two ends of the spectrum for me is like Greenroom and Crank, like so fun or so scary and dark and violent and real. And then this just sits in the sort of netherworld, I think, in between. So I didn't feel like I really was able to connect with it loads. Like I don't think for me, the hero was iconic enough. Okay. Yeah. Like, so I couldn't hang on to that. Like a like a John Wick or John McClane or other Johns? Loads of other Johns. Yeah. John, um, John Reacher is a John Reacher. It's closest Jack Reacher. Yeah. But I think Jack is, Jack is a kind of a John. It's kind of a John, isn't it? But I, but, but you know what? I'd say, so what was I looking for when I was watching it? I was like, okay, so how violent is the action? Yeah. Cause that's always incredibly exciting. Well, if you like that sort of horrific brutality of Green Room, there is, this does to some degree delivers some quite, I don't know how to describe it, visceral. A sort of post-The Raid graphic, full-on, impactful level of action. Well, it's funny you mention The Raid, because it feels like, basically, the whole film is a build-up to an amazing climactic action sequence. Yes. Yeah. It does take a while, doesn't it? It takes its time. And I think that there were a lot of films, there were a lot of action, especially a lot of contemporary action movies that do that. That are like, it feels like, do you know what I'm going to say? It's very French. I feel like the director's like, no, I am to, am I going to do an impression of them? Feels like it. Sounds like it. Yeah. Um, no, it's all about the emotion. You know, this kind of, they don't look at me like that. That was good. No, I liked it. It wasn't, it wasn't xenophobic. That's probably what he sounds like. For once it didn't sound sarcastic either. It was great. I meant it. I meant every word of it. Jen's. But he, but he, I just feel like we're, you languish in the hero's emotional state too much. And I, what I, what I was right. I was thinking about it when I, when I first watching it, I was like, Oh my God, this is really cool. Cause this could be like, if you see the film, the driver, Ryan O'Neill eighties action movie directed by Walter Hill. I'm sorry I have not seen that movie. You would love it. It's amazing. It's him, Bruce Dern and someone else, I forget who and Ryan O'Neill says like maybe three words in the whole film. He's the main character. Nice. And he's a getaway driver. And he just, there's amazing sequence in that film. If anyone who's listening to this has seen it, you'll know the one I'm talking about. It's like someone challenges him. They're like, you're not that good a driver. And so he gets in their car in a... car park and just smashes the car to bits. Like he'll open the door and then reverse out and smash the doors off and smash it in. It's just amazing to watch. Walter Hill, of course, director of the Warriors. Sure. Big fan of Walter Hill, yeah. But he's in that camp that I mentioned earlier of Green Ring where it's like when someone gets punched, it's like in the Warriors, you're like, they're really going to die, Like, and I care about him so much. And like, when there's someone that gets a knife out or when that baseball, the baseball Furies fight, you're like, this is so, I feel like, I feel like I'm, I feel like I'm there. You know what I mean? Like you never feel like you're there at crank too high voltage. Or I don't think in this film. Okay. Yeah. Well, I mean, that is a stylistic choice, isn't it? But you know, this is more of a, I don't know, for me, this feels above your sort of DTV straight to streaming. Yeah, for sure. It feels like more of a movie and maybe that also speaks to the Frenchness of it. And, you know, there's a huge movie industry in France and so everything is just great quality, like it looks great. It's... I don't know. I don't think I'm describing it very well. I mean, it's shot in Thailand as well. So like the scenery is beautiful. You're describing it perfectly. It doesn't look cheap, I think is a great way to describe it. It's canal plus, isn't it? It starts with the canal plus. So you're like, Oh my God, it's like Amelie. Yeah. You know, and it does, it does. It's definitely like a high quality. The production value is super high. Yeah. And, and like the acting across the board is, is definitely decent. Yeah. But it feels like, I guess if, yes, it feels like they've got a classy team to make a schlocky script. Interesting. Yeah. That's how I felt. That's not unfair. I think. Yeah. You, you're right. It's not a, it's not an out of the box plot. You know, no, we've seen a lot of this before. I think it is quite well executed in terms of action. I think. your sort of Frenchness of it in that they are like, we're making a movie, you know, we're getting performances out of people, we're letting it breathe. So it doesn't have to it, maybe to its benefit on the one hand and to its detriment, it doesn't have the pressure of, this is a movie that we're selling internationally to get the budget. So it needs an action scene in the first 10 minutes, then it needs an action scene 30 minutes after that. And then it needs a big finale. You know, they're happy to just kind of let it go for almost, almost an hour. There's a couple of little bursts, but it doesn't really kick off until the latter half, the last 40 minutes. But that's why I think that for most people, it'll be a three star film. Because if there was just two more big action set pieces. Yeah. I think it could earn its place as the film that's called Mayhem! Yeah. It's bold calling it that. Yeah, because it's like John Wick, for example, you're just being led from one amazing set piece to another by some sort of flimsy, who knows what the fucking story is of a John Wick film. At this point. It's like, who cares? It doesn't matter. You're just like, wow. blow me away with another sort of like vicious nonstop slaughter of people who probably have families. There's definitely one point in the John Wick, whatever it was, the most recent one where I was like, you need to, dude, is it worth it? You're killing a lot of people here man. Too many now. It's a lot. I mean, surely at least one of those people, do you know what, just law of average, I know they're henchmen, but law of averages, at least one of them is really nice. prison he had to take the job for the money because he wanted to buy a Thai beach for his family. Exactly. He kisses his little stepdaughter goodbye and says, I'm doing all of this for you. And then he gets his head beaten in with nunchucks. Yeah, and thrown down the Champs-Elysees, or whatever those steps are called. I know they're not called that. I know they're not called that. No. I don't know what they're called either. The Sacre Coeur. People forget that the first John Wick movie was a lot less mental than the other ones. since now we're four in and it's become this kind of like fest carnival of carnage. The first one was, while it did have plenty of those great, great action scenes, was a little bit more, I think it took a while to get going and just to bring it back to this. It certainly, I don't think took an hour to get going. No. Well, there's quite a lot of films, sorry, I know we want to bring it back to my head, but there's quite a lot of films where the first one is radically different to the rest of it. Rambo is a great example of that. Yes. As is Mad Max actually. Mad Max, everyone from the second one on, it's Dystopian Future. Yeah. First one's kind of, I guess it's like kind of now, isn't it? I can't remember. I don't remember. Maybe it's not. But anyway, it's brutal and it's down to earth and it's real and there's no one with like a hockey mask and bondage gear. You know, seizing. Yeah, exactly. Oh my God. Not as bad as you remember it being Thunderdome, can I say? What's your recently? It's pretty good. Master Blaster. It's all right. But you can tell that it was written as a film that wasn't a Mad Max film. And he was like, what about his Mad Max? That's an interesting twist. Didn't know that. Going back to, um, uh, Ferang slash mayhem exclamation mark. Um, yeah, I do think the fundamental problem that most people have with it and that I have, I'll be honest, I was so engaged with it at the start. And then it's about halfway through. Do I look at my phone for a bit? Yes, I did. Did you? Even though, even though I had, of course I was totally committed to your podcast, whatever it's called, dodge this. But I knew I was going to talk about it. So I had to be engaged with it, but I still like, God, but did I finish that wordle? And it's not a good sign. Is it really? That speaks to it needing, if it's going to be an action movie, it needing a good action scene in the first half an hour to make you go, all right, here we go. I would say, oh, personally, I would say so. Also, Do you think, were you irked by the fact that you never discovered, or maybe you did discover it but it was in the time when I was playing Wordle, why he's such a hard bastard? Or is it just that he's just really good at fighting? Yeah, no. I think that's sort of something that I can only assume is a choice, is a script choice, because it kind of skims over stuff that you would argue you don't really need to know. Why is he in prison? Does it really matter? Why is he so good at fighting? Does it really matter? How did he actually get to Thailand? It doesn't really matter, does it? That definitely doesn't matter, yeah. So, we don't, no, there's no explanation as to why he's so good at fighting. And there's a sort of bit where he, when it all really kicks off at the end, he kills someone. The first person he kills. Yeah, he doesn't like it. Which is a lady, actually, which is another point I wanted to address. He has a moment where he's sort of his eyes are like, oh shit. And then like you see his face reflected in the bloody knife. And I don't know if that's like, I've unleashed who I used to be. Yeah, maybe. Like what that is saying. But do you know what it's interesting? Maybe I'm completely wrong. And it's almost pointless saying like what I wish they'd put this in because they didn't, you know, but like, have you seen, um, what you said is make me, makes me think of a few things. Um, have you seen the. Director's cut of Leon otherwise known as the professional in America I don't know if I have and if I have it was a very long time ago. So this so He kisses her Yeah, well she kisses him they do hit some people together heard about this don't think I have seen it you hear his whole backstory Hmm. He says exactly why he came from France what happened blah and Does it make it better? All the things that make that film great are the mystery. Obviously him never having contact with her, as soon as that happens, you're like, oh my God, this is explicitly a romantic storyline. You fail to connect with him at that point, right? Yeah. Because then you're like, well, why does he like her so much? And the mystery is completely necessary in my view for that film to work. And actually, I was furious when I saw the director's cut because I love that film. I love that film so much and I was like, this ruins it. And I just thought I can't. And it was actually quite a good lesson in filmmaking. You know, they should teach us to film students. Like the guy wrote and directed this script. He filmed a scene where Leon's like, oh, I'm like, I'm fast because blah, blah. I loved doing that voice. Lot of French accents from you today. So much range. Like, so what, but it's amazing how wrong it is. It's amazing how wrong it is. And also there's a film called Unbreakdown, Kurt Russell film. I think from the nineties, I want to say, might be like eighties. Great film. But I was reading about that because that film is so tight. Lean. It's so unbelievably lean. And you don't know anything about any of the characters. You don't know, there's no backstory. The baddie is just a baddie. He just wants money. There's no, apparently he said that, he said, I was, I read an interview with him, I think, or maybe it's signed to be trivia, but But the baddie looked at the script and he was like, can I say like 10% of this dialogue? And the director was like, yeah, sure. And I think there was more stuff like that from that film that I can't remember. But basically loads of the script, the exposition was stripped out. Yeah. And it's just pure, like this dramatic situation is just explored. Yeah. You know, through action. And um, and, and uh. Why am I saying this? Oh yeah, because I sort of felt in this case, like I would love even just like for him to look at like his army dog tags or something once or something like that. So I'm like, oh, that's why he can kill 20 people in a room. Because I was like, what, is it just because he's like so good looking that he can do anything? Is it the abs? Is it the abs? is pretty solid. Putting aside, whoever is getting kicked or punched. The action and the stunts are incredible. I was actually blown away by two of the stunts, one very early one, when the guy is pushed off the building site. Yes, and you watch him fall onto what looks like scaffold poles. Yeah, but the shot... It's one shot. Yeah. And I don't know how the hell they did it. Really good stuff. It's brilliantly done because you can see him. I literally was staggered by that stunt. Yeah. And and also the other one similar. Are you going to pooch your action replay moment here? Have you got some more in the tank? OK, I'll stop. Oh, no, I thought you were going to. These are going to be the prelude to it. No, no, because that was one of them. Gosh. Okay. Let's save the other one for once. I've played in the jingle and we're fully into action reframing. Fine. I just, I think basically I was, there were just a few stunts that were mind bending because they were so well done. That's a great way to describe it. Yeah. And I will say the, the action coordinator or the action design on this movie was done by a guy called Jude Poyer, who is a British guy who's worked in stunts for years and years and years. And I think started out in Hong Kong. worked on Gangs of London in the first season when I would argue it was better than the second season. And some of the episodes were directed by Gareth Evans of The Raid. It's like his baby, basically. So there is a sort of connection there. Gareth Evans was also thanked in the credits for this, which is interesting. I don't know, maybe he introduced Xavier Hens to Jude sort of stamp of that, which is like that stunt, for example, of the guy falling and you seeing him land and being like, whoa, that looked like a guy just fell down there. And in that same sort of, I'd say it's the first kind of flurry of action in the movie, there's this very distinctive camera shot where someone kind of is thrown to the ground and the camera like tilts and moves with them, almost like the camera's sort of fallen over. I don't know how you would describe that shot, but it feels very, I think, I don't want to say Gareth Evans invented it, but definitely between Gareth Evans and Jude Poirot, that is something is very recognisably their style. Yeah. Well, you could be forgiven for thinking this was one of his movies or certainly that final action sequence. It literally, it looks like... There are nods for sure. Yeah. Also, I don't know if you've seen The Night Comes For Us. No, what's that? I've never heard of it. Yes, that is another Indonesian movie that came out maybe four or five years ago, directed by a guy called Timo Tentento. I don't know how to pronounce his surname, but it is incredibly gory, bloody, stabby, just squirting blood, stabby, stabberson. It has Iko Ues from The Raid in it. And this sort of finale action scene of this that happens in a lift very much put me in mind of that. Cause it just, it goes from, there's a few, you know, snappy bits, people's heads going in glass that you're a bit like, Whoa, it's, you know, it's, it's sort of brutal. It's visceral. Yeah. If it's like one out of three brutal, it suddenly just cranks it up to like three out of three on the just invented brutality scale. Yeah. I mean, there's um. There's, yeah, there's, I can't talk about this moment or talk about it in a bit. Let's hear your action replay moment. Well, there are some films that like you watch them for one moment. Okay. And I feel like this is the film that you would watch for this one moment, basically. I can't wait for this. Which is when he's been stabbed through the arm with a big knife. Yep. And he's, he's like bearing down another guy in this lift and he uses the knife that's in his arm to stab the guy to death beneath him, plunging it through his own arm. That is the moment I think that is unforgettable from this film, that you would just be like, I can't believe someone thought of that. Oh, if they've done that. Yeah. And then they did it. Better play actually. Well, what do you think? You're not in agreement that that's the moment? Yeah, I mean, that is certainly a standout. I will say, if you like the sound of this movie and you want to sit through it, I think it's a good movie. I think it's not sort of a... bad DTV movie that you have to sit through waiting to get to the action. It's not like... It's like, it's an absolutely solid movie. There's not like gaping plot holes, awful performances, janky CG, like whatever pulls you out of a movie. I think largely everyone's done a great job on the movie. But if you're like, I haven't got the patience for that. Just the sort of end scene. Just in the lift, really, there's an article on, oh, Polygon website, I want to say. I don't know if you had a chance to look at it, but it's sort of an article that's like one of the, one of the best elevator fights of all time or something. And whenever it appears on YouTube, which invariably some 12 year old has already uploaded it, that, that's worth watching. I think that is a standout scene. Your action replay of the knife through the arm. into someone's leg. Features in that scene. There's just, in that scene alone, there are several moments. Even rewatching it, like an hour ago before we did this, I was sort of skimming through just to get the plot points in my head. And then I rewatched that bit and I was like, you know, like sort of biting my fist, like, oh, I forgot. Oh, but I suppose this is what I mean about like how I would have liked more background to him because crazy thing to do or to be able to do. There's a guy, have you ever read a book called To the White Sea by James Dickey? I have not. It's notable because the Coen brothers have written a script based on the book and it's one of their unmade movies. Oh. And it's in the book, there's no dialogue in the whole book and it's about a, it's set in the Second World War and there's a guy who just lived by himself in the woods. And then, and then he, and he joins the war effort and then his plane crashes in Japan and he, but he, his whole life is like taking bears apart and not, not bears, taking, taking like, like skinning bears and like, and just butchering deer and his bears, his bears, sorry, his bears, like, and just skinning things and taking their bones out. And that's what he's like. That's what he knows. And he just like brutally kills his way to the sea. get to, to safety basically. And there's bits where he like makes weapons out of human bones from people he's killed. And what, but the thing is, I guess my point is when you know that that's his background, that's who he is. Like when he does stuff like that, you're not like, well, that's weird. You're like, that's what he does. Yeah. When it gets to that level of inventive brutality, yes, exactly. You kind of, it would be nice. Maybe it would be nice if there was a was a flashback of him being held in a POW camp and having to gnaw through his own ankle to escape, or getting a window into why he has even the ability in his head to think, well if I just continue pushing this knife through my arm, I probably can take this guy out. You're right. You're right. I mean, you're overthinking it, but I think you're also right. But the other action replay moment actually is one that may seem minor, but like I was like, how the hell did they do that? Oh yeah. Is when they, I can't remember where it is. Maybe it's in the, oh, it's in the other prostitute place. Not the first prostitute place, not the cowboy bar, but the, but the sort of Epstein-y house. Oh gosh. Yeah. And he- It's quite murky, isn't it? There's a lot of- It's murky. say that sex work is murky, but then it gets to the kind of like illegal side of it that's a little murky. I only bring it up because there's been several movies that I've watched in maybe this season or the end of the previous one that delve into that topic of sort of like, it's child trafficking, isn't it? That's the term I'm after. Yeah. Well, it's a good topic, I think, for action. Yeah, it's a good topic for action movies though, because you earn the revenge. Yes. It's sort of unforgivable, isn't it? Yeah. It's totally unforgivable. It's the one thing I think that we can all agree, when you see it, it's so unacceptable that if he was to kill everyone involved in it, obviously and save the victims, you'd be like, yeah, cool. I'm totally on board with it. I understand why they use it as a narrative point, but there's a bit where he smashes this guy's head through this glass cabinet, but it goes right through. Yeah. Like you see it. It's the same sort of- Psychology is the stunt where he pushes him off the building. You're like, how the hell? You see it from the inside of the cabinet, right? Yeah. It's like, it's so well done. And the acting is brilliant from the guy getting his head smashed in. He's just like, and I think he might be bleeding. I don't know. I just thought that is- Not enough credit for the stuntman. Really. Yeah. And also the stuntman, like if someone pushed my head in, like in a pretend fight, which is what it is, I'd be like, ah, stop it. I understand that I'm not a professional stuntman. Tom, why didn't you become a stunt person? Now! What's doing that? Come here! But, um, I just thought that was a great moment. That again is another sort of signature, I would say, of... Well I'm going to have to say it's a sort of Jude Poyer signature, but I don't know, between him and Gareth Evans and whoever, the other, the sort of Uwe's team that worked on the raid and started the... ball rolling, or at least put it more into our kind of, perif of this level of like, martial arts violence that is bone crunchingly graphic at times. And shots like that, yeah, where people's... It's like the sort of, what I think Gareth Evans calls them, like punchlines, where in a fight scene, it's sort of, it's punctuated by a memorable moment. I guess like Jackie Chan would do it with comedy beats. And in these, in a lot of more of the sort of post-raid movies, it's those almost horror level sort of kills. The bit in the raid where he yanks the guy over the door and the broken door sort of lands on his neck. That sort of stuff. It feels like we're moving into the wrapping up. Wrap it up, Tom. Let's go. million times before. I think I've even seen the world of Thailand explored, like in this where only God forgives springs to mind as like a similar sort of way we're having horrible fights in Thailand. But it is filmed with style and like care to the emotion of the characters for sure. I think it's worth watching. There should be more action in it, but it's worth watching just for the final 15 minutes of the film because it's so brutal and creative. Although I do think it's very similar to the raid. Well, maybe it's just paying homage or maybe it's just the similar team. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I think we live in a post-raid world and yes, there are people who are all tangentially related to that. I don't disagree with anything you said. I think it's a nicely made movie. Could it? But could it have had a little bit more action sort of sprinkled throughout the first hour? Without doubt, I think, if you're setting out to make a balls out action movie, which the title mayhem exclamation mark maybe puts a bit too much pressure on that, I think. It is called Ferang, which, which I should have typed it into Google Translate, but I can only assume from the dialogue in the movie it means foreigner or outsider. Foreigner, yeah. Seems to. Have you seen the 2007, speaking of French action movies, it's maybe a bit more of a thriller than action movie I would say actually, but have you seen Revenge, 2017 movie, Revenge? I have not, no. I've heard that's quite unpleasant in parts as well. Very unpleasant, very unpleasant. We're sort of building a picture of the type of violence that you like to see on screen, I think. Tom. But the, but no, but that's what I'm saying is, but I like both. I see. And when it's in the middle, I'm not so keen. When it's like cartoonishly over the top, when it's like Robocop, you know, falling in the fat of radioactive sludge. Great. Or, you know, someone's cutting you with a razor blade. Breaking bad at the end of a drive gets his, gets cut by razor blade. So horrible. That lives rent free in my head because it horrific. Exactly. Have you seen a prophet? Yes, I have. There's some razorblades in that as well, aren't they? Yeah. Famous. It's just that that's the unforgettable scene. Has a wild animal loosed in your house? No, I'm just really hungry and that's my tummy rumbling. Yes, there's a dog. Yeah, there's a dog's come home. Feels as good a time as any to wrap up when there's a loose dog running a mock through your house. I think, I feel like we're largely on the same page with this one. I think maybe I enjoyed it a tiny bit more than you, because I sit through a lot of straight to video action movies. So when one is packaged as a sort of nicely full formed feature, that also has really high quality action. That for me is kind of the, that's the special source. You know, that's the rare John Wicks of this world. Also, it's the first action movie I've watched with a solid one. And there's already a couple of great looking ones in the Tank January shaping up to be pretty exciting. Well, I'd say there's quite a lot of action in Christmas at the drive in. They've got to get the hot chocolate machine working before the open for the first movie. God, that's a lot. Christmas themed action movies is a whole genre unto itself. Have you watched, we can't talk about it for 20 minutes, but have you watched Silent Night? from this Christmas just gone. I haven't. John Woo's Return to Hollywood. You watch that and you get back to me. Oh man, I was just thinking about John Woo the other day. Apparently on his first film, he gave his shot list to the DOP and there was like 50 setups. Just so you know, if you don't know, the average is like 10 a day. That would be actually ambitious. Enormous fan. enormous fan of Jon Rea. Not a fan of Silent Night. I will leave it at that. Have a peep of it and we'll talk off pod about it. I covered it in the last episode. Do you know what, with the button and what with the chihuahua, this really has been, I feel like I've brought some mayhem exclamation marks to the podcast Simon and I can just I can apologize. I just must apologize. He's a storyteller and he knows how to wrap things up. You've literally put a button on this scene and that's an improv term for anyone who is nerdy and, and interested. Could be alienating as you could say. Tommo before you go, if people wanted to find you, find your work, find your art, which you would love to shift. from your loft, I imagine. And I don't mean to undersell it. I'm a huge fan of it. And I think if people have a look at it, we will, the amount of people that are listening to this podcast, the overlap of people whose walls have got space for a huge canvas, we're gonna empty your loft minutes after this drops. Yeah, just follow, I guess follow me on Instagram if you want a painting, have a look at them and send me a message. Why not? Fair play. I'll put the link down below because Levin is spelt in a sort of, it's Levinj, isn't it? If we were going to mispronounce it like we did the French. Do you want to say your own name in a French accent to sort of send us away? That seems like a fitting sort of close brackets. Sort of like Thomas Levinj. I love that. Hey, if you want to follow the podcast on all the social medias, you can find the pod itself as a concept on Twitter at dodge this pod. You can find me at Simon Fielder on all the places of note, just go to my website, SimonFielder.com and all the links will be there. If you want to support the pod with actual real earth money, because somebody gave you a fat envelope for Christmas, there's a link below and good Lord, I must plug this. I'm relaunching my once a year newsletter in the coming weeks and I'm New Year's resolutioning to try and get it out every few weeks. It'll be me talking about things like movies, stuff I've made, probably talking a bit about India, where I live, because it's quite different to where I'm from. So I'll have a right point of view. Who knows? We'll see. It will be what it will be. Thanks so much for listening. We will see you in a couple of weeks time for another episode of Dodge This. Tom, join me in making as much noise as you can as I say, goodbye!