16: Contract to Kill

Hello everyone. I'm Chris Dashing and I'm Trevor Gumble, and we are those of on Seagal once a month look at Steven Seagal's filmography. If we could call what we're talking about on this episode of the Show of Phil Or a movie or an experience that anyone would want to have other than watching it because they have to talk. And that's the only reason I watched this. I watched it twice just to make sure I didn't miss anything, because I'm going to tell a story out of school, folks.

I watch this film, but I was admittedly distracted, so I wasn't sure if I caught everything. So, like the dedicated host of the show that I am, that don't want to disappoint you're come on, you're a professional, I am, I restarted the film and watched it over again, and I realized I didn't miss a goddamn thing. Yeah. So on that note, we are here to talk about Contract to Kill Steven Seagal film that came out recently came out being an interesting phrase. He's a batter one John Cia train the Premier Airline longer I wanted took down the plane with two hundred and thirty eight innocent people on board.

Who is the target? So I guess you're back Islamic extremist. These guys are attempting to form on the holy alliance with the cartels that APPRENTI in to me, there's someone to be reckoned with the covered mission. I want to pick my own team. I want my own gear and don't need a jet an elite team you must be John Harmon might have a job for What do you propose we do?

We interview folks. If we like them, we give them a box of job. If we don't, we kill listen our cartown. So then a big meeting fits my job to stop that at the elevators eight four gotcha? Eight two six on my account two one game on a global threats on the move.

Most can look him down. I just can't let you come into America and activate themselves. Do you know that you've fed too much? Well, that's kind of how we do. Or maybe I just call your bluff when all spade, I'm supposed to play well to give my partner back a dome, I think you do siment a US city and seconds finish start Steven Seagal contract to kill the storm was coming.

It was limited release in the United States, but it was direct to vide the most part. And it is a new Steven Seagal film that came out in twenty sixteen. Yes, so it is directed by Keoni Waxman. If you have been a listener of ours, Keoni Waxman will be a name you have already heard and we'll hear again. Yeah, and well when we talked about cartels, and like Trevor said, it is a name you will hear many more times as we work our way back through Stephen Zeagal's filmography, because he has directed a large portion of these direct to streaming or video on demand films.

In this film, Stephen Zeagale plays John harmon Man, who is a ciage who's retired I believe who was retired, and they raid a compound in Mexico and they find that terrorists and cartel members are working together and things happen. I he convinces the terrorists that the terrorists people that they're people that the terrorists are working with, are actually trying to fuck the terrorists over. I guess yeah. They Basically there's three there's three people and they and I forgot their names. Because that's how less of a shit I give about this film Harmon played by Seagal, Matt Sharpe played by Russell Wong, and Zarahayak played by Gemma Dallander.

Yes, uh, well we'll get to her and Seagal's relationship in a a in a second. Oh, if that's what you want to call it, good god, Okay. So they what they do is they basically they find out that the drug lords and the terrorists are working with each other. The drugs ares are working to get a terrorist over the border into this as a sleeper cell. As sleeper cell I believe, into the state.

It's um so stick All and his team are hired to stop him. And what they do basically is they pit the terrorists and the drug leader against each other. So it's a real thing that like they've worried about, right, have you heard about this? Like this is a real thing that they were worried about in the mid two thousands about drug cartels helping terrorists over the border. Yeah, this was like I do you remember do you remember hearing about that in like the mid two thousands, Like, oh, the Mexican drug cartels are working with al Qaeda, you know, in their health.

It's like, man, like, what a fucking leap that is. I think they're still talking about it in various like ultra right ring like news outlets, which with given who's in this movie, kind of tracks. It was funny. There's there's a little diatribe at the end of the movie that when we get to it, we'll get to it. It's really something else.

But this movie feels a little um panicky, like it's it's fearmongering a little bit. It's it's it's placing. It's it's placing to us a problem that doesn't fucking exist. If it existed, we would know about it. I mean, let's face it, drug cartels are not the most secretive organizations.

No, they burn people in barrels and they hang dead bodies off the side of freeways with the regularity. You think they're gonna hide trying to sneak a terrorist over the border. Fuck now, Well, frankly, I think the reality is I don't think the drug cartels. The drug cartels don't want to bring terrorists into their midst because if they terrorists into their midst, that makes them now a target of the US government and the cartels aren't a target of the US government right now. What's kind of insane is if you think about the drug cartels, the drug cartels don't have a big presence in this country because if they did, they would become the problem of the US government, who would then have no reason not to make them a bigger problem everywhere.

And they don't want to do that because yeah, it's I mean, the war on drugs is the war on drugs gets tied into the cartels. Let's just put it that way. The war on drugs has not been a success. No, it's been a colossal, fucking failure exactly, which is why I was glad in this movie they weren't trying to stop drug dealers. They were trying to stop terrorists.

But the drug dealer in this film, oh dear God, the main bad guy was the most clichde unoriginal drug cartel leader that I've ever seen in my life. And it seemed like every time he entered the film it was in slow motion because they were trying to make him look dangerous and you know, evil and cool or some shit like that. Yeah, So the film, so Sigal gets recruited because he's retired In my opinion, the most interesting scene of the film is the guy explaining to Segal why he needs to do this and what the what he needs to do and why he needs to do it. The guy playing the recruiter who's recruiting him back into the famous was the most interesting part of the film. And as soon as he was gone, I didn't give a shit.

You mean all those Eastern European actors that they were trying to play off as Americans and Hispanish you could tell his accent was slipping like so many times. What about the guy who plays the main drug dealer, who's like clearly Eastern European, Like, well, I think they again, I think this is still in the Eastern Europe like filing in Romania like Cartel's was. I believe probably a lot of these Koni Waxman Seagal movies aren't look nothing wrong with filming in Romania, but not at all. Here's the thing. You're gonna use actors from Eastern Europe.

They don't make sound like actors from anywhere else. They sound like Eastern European actor and make them be from Eastern Europe exactly. Don't try to doesn't have to be set in the United States. No, I mean drug terrorism and drugs are are all over the world, so it's not like it's a problem native to this country. And to be fair, most of this movie isn't set in the United States.

Most of it is set in Istanbul, which well because not just Romania. Because the man, because the recruiter explains to Sagal that the FBI can't do it and the CIA can't take care of it. That leaves was it the DA I believe he said was like them. Wait, the DA is under the same administrations of the CIA and the FBI. Are why are they the only ones who could take care of the ship?

Because they're drug enforcement agencies? I don't know this movie is trying. In this movie, like the last two Present Days of Golf films that we've watched, it's doing the same thing that those movies did. It is using flashbacks to establish what the movie is going for. Flashbacks make no sense, and they're interchangeable too.

You could put the flashbacks from any of the other movies we've seen in here and they would make just as much sense. Here's the thing I had semiokay hopes for this film because Like we mentioned in the Cartel review, I enjoyed Cartels in a you know, I kind of enjoyed cart I kind of you know, like what I kind of like what they were doing. I thought, and I thought to myself, maybe Kyote Waxman has something that makes the films enjoyable. Maybe he has a certain style. And I was proven very wrong in this film because it's just so uninteresting, boring all over the place, and just it's very generic.

It is it is so, it is generic as hell. Yeah, it's unfortunate. This feels like I was talking about this with my lovely wife earlier this week. You know the term shovelware for software, right, Yeah, where they just throw it at a on a system and you can't get rid of it or something like that. Yeah, or it's like software that serves no purpose, like Steven Seagal's like these direct to video direct to streaming videos, they remind me of Big Rig Truckers, the computer game in movie form.

They are shovelware in film form. I was watching I was watching this film research for another project called American Sage Paints the Sky, an American group, and when I was watching that movie, it reminded me of these movies. It's like, who the hell is writing these movies? Who is financing this movie? These movies?

And who is watching these because I can't tell, for the life of me what who of any of these three groups the people are and I really don't know their motivation. And with something like this, is this like a tax write off? Is this like a tax break? Are they funneling money through a production company? Like I don't understand who's watching these movies?

Is Keoni Waxman trying to pad his resume? Like trying to pad his resume? That's what I can't tell because looking at this movie, there's nothing to offer anyone in this film. No, there isn't because nothing really happens. I don't feel any certain threat.

I don't feel any sense of danger or excitement. I was bored. I was really really bored. You know. It's interesting think about think about this with all these Seagal movie.

In any good action movie, the moment, the moment the villain and the hero are in the same room together should be a level of tension of like who's going to get the upper hand. In all of these Seagal movies, at least these later ones, when Seagal gets in the room with the person, it's the first time, it's the only time. And Steven Seagal often has the upper hand, even in the movies where he's the villain, like General Commander, he has the upper hand on the hero. What's funny is there's no tension in any of these action movies that we've seen with Segal, these later ones. There's no tension because the moment he fights the villain is the end of the movie.

They're never in the same room together, they're never interacting. It's insane. And the only scene he answered the villain less a few seconds because he just fucking shoots up. It's it's insane to me. There's no You can't have a movie with tension where the villain and the hero are separated the entire film and the only time they're ever face to face on screen one of them, yeah, one of them is dead within the first thirty seconds.

Because huck kuck kuck, Stephen Segal can never afford to be upstaged by anyone. Well, We've said to so many times on our podcast, there is no threat to Seal in a Segal film. Even if I'm being led to believe and told to believe there is I cannot be forced to believe that he is under threat. No, um, because at this point we know it will never be the case. I haven't seen the movie yet where he's been in threat for the most part.

What Tommy Lee Jones and under siege is that? It? I mean, come on, like, okay, Tommy Lee Jones and ever when we get to an undersea two, is that what it is like? No, he's never It's not a man. It's not like he's ever faced Dolph Lundgren level of physical imposing, at least with Jean Claude Van Damn.

There are hits that are getting to him. You know, he's fast, he's a fast guy. He's a fast, quick mark. But he's still he still takes hits, doesn't ask yes of course, so does Arnold, so does Silver. You can't you can't be an intriguing action hero if you're invincible.

Yeah, exactly. You can't be brave if you're indestructible. To quote the film Angus, remember that speech that Grampa gives Superman isn't brave. You can't be brave if you're indestructible. It's true.

You can't. And to be a to be an action hero that you that you connect with, there has to be some vulnerability there. And Seagal is too up his own ass to give him so any fucking vulnerability. Yeah, but I wonder if that's him or I wonder if that is just the sick of fans that he's surrounded him with himself with that just tell him, Oh, this role is great. Oh this is great.

Oh this is great. Because that's the thing. You don't keep making these movies if you think they're bad. No. I mean, obviously Seagal seems sees some merit in it.

Maybe he just sees the paycheck. Who knows. Um. I will tell you if I read this script and I was making a decision on whether or not I wanted to be part of this project, it would probably seem like a really, really easy paycheck. Becayeah, you just not kid ourselves.

Steven Seagal is not in this movie a whole lot. When he is, the major action sees of him or him shooting, not fighting or sitting. He has a couple fight scenes, but that's just about it. There's not much work for him to do. Most of the work is done by his teammates Russell Wong and Jimmy Dallinger.

And that's it. I mean, and by the way, can we talk about Russell Long the fucking why is he in this movie to be the guy who who controls the drones? No, that's that's what I'm asking. I'm asking, like, why is he in this movie? He's like a known quantity and this is twenty sixteen.

Yeah, I mean, I mean, Russell Wong has been in like some really good films. I mean, he was in fucking The Mummy, he was in New Jack City, he's been in West World. Uh, he's he's a he's a legit um action actor, action actor. What he's doing in this film maybe he wants to work with Seagal, who fucking knows the drone thing I just thought was more funny than anything. And he blows up a cart the thing barely Yeah, that's what I found funny.

Is like, no, no, just just stay here and lets him blow up whisper even lower because Steven Seagal is barely audible in this movie. On to everything else. He's just stay here, just stay here, let him blow up your car and the thing is barely gold. You see the thing barely holding onto the gun. Could you see the gun shaking?

Like? How did he even how did you even hit the fucking target? I don't know, man, this movie looks really cheap. It's it looks cheap for a movie made in twenty sixteen. And the scene where the terrorists and the drug dealers see the drone outside their fucking window, what's that like?

Was he trying to be found out or was he trying either way? It's so fucking stupid. Let me just let me just have this drone up forty story. He's sitting invisible to the terrorist fucking window. You know what, You and I are not fans of cinema sins.

I hate that kind of shit. Oh fucking I do too. Oh my god. I used to be a fan, but it got to like the same fu and it got nitpicky as fun, and I'm like, people, I'm not listening to this anymore. It's people that are not engaged films.

They're not active film viewers. They're passive film viewer. Don't look at the screen and be like, Oh, that's fucking dumb. Why is that like that? I'm pointing that out only because while you might think the thing that we're complaining about is a little ridiculous.

If you were to watch the movie not advocating you do. It is on two BTV, though, which I've used a lot more in the last couple of weeks than I ever have. So little happens in this film. It is so little. It's so disappointing because again, we've talked about this before, We talked about this with Verne.

We talked about this so many times at this point. Yeah, and I kept we know the Seagal can act and could act if he wanted to, and it's just no he even has he even has a little bit of charm if he tries, if he tries, if he tries. Throughout this film everything, the only thing going through my head was I don't care. I do not care. And it's not because they and it's because they don't give you a reason to care.

They don't. And can we briefly talk about the relationship between Jim and Dollener and Segal in this film that is forced as hell and they have a very unnecessary scene where they just do it to show her tits for a few minutes. It was so gratuitous, tit it actually tit. It was so gratuitous. It actually just piss me off, Like this feels like something Seagal asked for.

It felt, it really did feel. The problem is, like Seagal, because I will give okay, I will give his more recent fair this, they don't really try to put him with a younger female. And I actually kind of gave him props for that. But you know what the problem is, Trevor in the original movies, it's not like we were sitting saying, oh my god, his chemistry with Kelly LeBrock, Yeah, was so good. Like no, I remember when we listit.

When I remember because I just edited that episode recently, what we talked about that we were talking about how fucking weird that was. So. As far as I'm concerned, Steven Seagal's movies don't need love interest because anytime he has one, it's either ham fisted like this one, or it feels gross also like this one. It's just gross. Some about him is gross on a wine.

I can see why women found him attractive back in the early nighties. Now he's a sack of something. He just has no charisma whatsoever, and he can't get over the fact that his hair is turning gray. Either. He is his love interest in his films are always himself.

He's his own love interest because oh my god, and loves himself. He's he's like mastatory variation variations of loving. And it's wild, man, it's wild. How it's wild? How little like it's wild?

How gross that scene with him and Jemma Dallander feels like, I'm it's not even like explicit, No, it's just him like touching her. We've seen two characters, two actors who have no chemistry together, be forced into a love scene. We've seen that in other movies. And it's not like physically revolting. Watching Seagal and Jemma Dallander in this film for something, this was it's just gross, right, Like I mean him running his hands over her and it's just like, you know, I want to know what Jemma Dallander was thinking during that scene.

Doesn't matter, It doesn't matter. She was in that scene and it was awful, and it doesn't matter what she was thinking because it was not good. Okay, how about this? I edited my question? How many drinks did it take her to do that scene?

Must know it was it was an addition to her contractor that's the reason she's in it is because they paid her. That's sadness. Nobody would agree to be in that scene. There is no reason for that scene none, no reason for them to be in a relationship in the film. And then he starts fighting, gets into a scene at the beginning where she's being disrespected by some local Eastern European man.

That wasn't the same girl. That wasn't the same girl. Oh sure, I guess not. It doesn't It was a it was just a waitress. Sure.

The fact that the fact that I couldn't tell should be about the film. Yeah, and this guy's like a say, and it's like, oh god, it's clearly eighty yard hey say and yes, kicks the shit out of him, but he's like, come click, you need to see yourself the way we see you, which is like this guy who's just hanging on to the last, last last straw of not being a sixty eight year old man, sixty nine year old man. That's the I mean, that's the thing. At least Roger Moore had the wherewithal during view to a kill to say, Okay, it's not believable anymore that I'm with the twenty year old girls. It's not believable anymore that I'm doing the skiing and the jumping off of the Eiffel Tower, Like, it's not believable.

I'm taking myself out of the casting of this character. Stephen Tall needs to get to that point. It's the Woody Allen, it's the Woody Allen complex or the Harrison Ford thing. Man Like, look at Harrison Ford with the Dana Jones five. He's older than Seagal is and he is going to be doing way more in that movie.

And again, it's to this point where it's like there, I know that the industry is notorious for having a hard time with casting older act but an actresses and actress I'm talking actors, gender nonspecific. For me sitting here watching these Seagal movies, I realize now that is the problem. And that's the problem that neither one of us have really talked about. We've never brought Steven Seagal's age, but watching this movie for whatever reason, and look, this movie is not as old as even I guess this movie is more. He was sixty four when he made the felt he was sixty four older in Attrition.

He's older in Cartels, and while Cartels has some of the same problems that this movie does. I believed that he could do the things that he was doing in Attrition because it was a lot less that he was being asked to do. Yeah. I mean, Seagal right now is sixty nine years old. Yeah, and one of the odds we get another movie like this, Yeah, if not getting one in the next six months, I mean, the likelihood is he's already worked on one and gotten one done.

Are they still? Is he still trying to get out for Justice two made? I'm not sure if that was real. Well, still in his IMDb page, so sure go look at Guierromo del Toro's I AMDB page just above the law too, I apologize above the laws Stephen King's IMDb page that has a film called Project Kujo Canine Justice Unit or I'm not making I know, you're not. I know.

I think the stevens Agal age thing is something that needs to needs to really have a pin put in it, because yo, dude, he has fighting skills. But no one's question in that. But the fact is, you can't fake time, you can't beat it. You're gonna show your age. Man, it happens believably.

We can't. I can't believe you anymore, that you can't do the things that you are claiming and expecting us to believe you can do. You cannot fake that you're younger than you are at all. Just fucking go with it. And a sixty year old guy with like an eighteen year old girl says, I'm nothing nothing wrong with that, So I'm not going to sit here and be an agist.

But no, no, no, not at all in this movie with this actor, these two actors together, it is it is so, it is so just kind of unpleasant a scene as one could imagine a pseudo sex scene was Steven Seagal in twenty sixteen. And here's the thing. I'm not saying that older May December romances can't work in reality. No, it's possible. I mean, look at you know, fucking look at Harrison Ford is dating.

I think he's still didating close to Flockhart if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, they're married, but they're like twenty thirty years apart. I think, yeah, it is literally just in the context of this movie. And fucking look at what was her name from Twin Peaks, Laura Flynn Boyle. Wasn't she dating Jack Nicholson for a while.

So I'm not saying it can't work in terms of the film. We go to films to escape, you know, we don't. We go to films because we don't want to see in reality, especially Seagal making love to a woman who's like forty years his junior. I don't want to see Steven Seagal making love to anyone. I don't care who it is, I don't care what age it was.

Here's the thing. At this point, it's pretty clear to both of us that it doesn't matter the age of Seagal. He is the problem. He is not a believable love interest for anyone. Exudes no sexual charisma.

He's a good guy in the nineties. He's a good no, he's he's he's a fine looking dude in the nineties. I mean he like, you know, he was in good shape. He had a decent looking face. He you know, it wasn't bad looking.

He I could see why they you know, he had well. Of course, in action films, you had to have a female love interest, even if it served no purpose to the plot whatsoever. It's like the Bechdel test. Basically they failed it miserably. And even one of the best action movies ever made has a love interest in it, and it feels she will which one Commando?

That love interest in Commando's completely oh rd On Sean about one. Yeah, she's completely unnecessary. That movie is amazing with or without her. She helps none. She helps a little bit during the car chase, but like, she's got a present for us.

But but you don't see her until after he's obliterated that fucking island of terrorists. So look, I understand and appreciate the need for a love interest in film, but that only first off, love interests are only import if you make them important. I have never heard anyone say, well, he could have used a love interest. Most of the time it's the love interest isn't needed. So if that seems to be the conversation, then maybe don't feel committed to put a love interest in the film.

Maybe we're past the age of love interest for characters. Maybe there are stories worth telling that don't rely on love interests. I get that sometimes that they need stakes for the hero, but give the love interest at least something like a personality or a plot device to put her in the film and make her a reason to be in the film, not just a set dressing. Yeah, like, look at Diehard. Die Heart did it perfectly.

I don't. Can you technically call Holly his love interests because they were kind of in the middle of a divorce. Yeah, it love interest enough that they're that they're on screen time, as brief as it is in the film, is believable. And they're back together in the second film just where the story goes. Yes, she's his love it, but she contributed to the plot of the film.

She wasn't just a helpless damsel in distress. She was not to say that there's anything wrong with damsels in distress. I think the way they did it was very well done in die Hard, I agree, you know, and let's you know, it's well, that's why it makes it one of the greatest action films ever made. Well that and that in the writing and a lot of other things. But to your point, utilizing a character in that way is something that action movies would attempt to copy.

And I mean, look, it's not like die Hard was the first movie ever to do it, No so, but it made its mark. Yeah. Well, and that's the thing. I mean, a lot of the early Steven Seagal movies made their mark on the action industry too. Under Siege, you know, created its own subgenre.

Well basically under Siege was die hard on a on a on a boat or about a boat on an aircraft carrier. Yeah, and that on a vehicle thing opened up the world a little bit more for people to get a little bit more creative with Under Siege two Speed you know, Speed Speed two. But at the end of the day, Sagal has an impact on the industry now in twenty sixteen, with this film twenty twenty one, so five years later, it's it's just really it's sad because again, there are roles that you can do as an older action star. Oh, absolutely, Pagers do it. But this kind of stuff is this is not believable.

And not only is this not believable, it is so off putting that this is the worst thing I think I've watched on this podcast so far. I agree. I am going to give you an example of how you can do this. Um Semester stallone, Um doing all these Rambo and Rocky films, but you know what he does with the character in these more recent films. He ages them and they actually age and they take a backseat to everything else going exactly.

They are they are broken down. They are old, not like old, like senior, but they have they have had experiences. They you know, they have gone through shit. They are very world warn and he shows it. He doesn't pretend that Rambo is still this you know, unbeatable, you know, invincible god.

And when he made Rocky, Rocky's never been, uh, the invincible, He's always been the underdog, your root for Rocky doesn't win in the first movie exactly, and that's what myself is impressive and isn't. But you know, have you seen Rambo the latest, the last two Rambo films. I saw the one where he's in Cambodia. I did not see the one where he's but didn't. Didn't you think it was well done?

How they made the character world warn and just didn't want to deal with this shiit anymore, who wants to just live in peace and is forced back into it and is not an invincible. You see the bruises, you see the scars, and he gets hit a couple of times. I mean, look at look at something like Wolverine. I don't even like that move. You're one of the few.

Yeah, that's okay, that's fine. I saw The Man with No Name movies before that movie. I mean, it's a Western in everything, but nay, you want to hear something weird. I still haven't seen Wolverine. It's okay, it's okay.

It's kind of like Joker. It's okay. Joker is so fucking overrated. I just gotta say it. It's okay.

It's just okay, Like it's okay. Yeah, Like in Wolverine, you can show a character with vulnerability that is invincible, mind you, that character is, like you said, like Superman, he's invincible. So you can show a character have vulnerabilities. But again, like you've said, and one percent agree, and I think that is the thing that needs to be impressed upon over and over again when you have conversations about things like this. It's not that we have an issue with actors who are old in action.

It's that the movie refuses to acknowledge that they are old. And that is just insane because, like you said, cannot convince us that father time isn't always ticking forward, and we know that Steven Seagal is older we know that he's getting older. He dyes his hair so that it doesn't look gray. It's okay, but you gotta be okay with it being okay first before you're even going to attempt thinking about doing the kinds of things that you're talking about. That Silvester Stallone is do you have to get out of your own way?

That's what you have to do. Yeah, And I mean Seagal for you know, the shift he's made is very is actually a very good screenwriter. Yeah. I mean he wrote the first Rocky And you know, you can say what you want it. You can make fun of Stallone all you want with it, you know, the impressions.

But the fact remains the dude is a talented writer, a talented actor, and he still makes good films. Hey, suicide Squad movie is better for having him in it. Oh is the Shark's Big? Yeah it kind of, but oh of course is it endearing? Yeah, it's very it's stag.

Is Stallone the only one of the big four that would do it? Yeah? Yeah, because Stallone has a self sense of humor about himself. You know how I know that he wrote The Expendable. You don't write those movies if you don't have a sense of humor about yourself.

He wrote The Expendables knowing that there was a nostalgia for the eighties and nineties action films. And I think sometimes people don't get that, they don't get the they don't get the joke. Well, you have to. You have to know that there's a joke to begin with, to be able to understand, to be able to get the joke to be that. I mean, come on, there's a joke of The Expendables too where Bruce Wilson and Arnod Schwarzenegger switch lines.

I know, but again, if you if you cannot get out of your own way, it doesn't matter. And I mean, didn't they try to get Si Golf for an Expendables film? I believe. I believe they did. And I think he said something to the effect of like, I don't work with funny people.

And it's like, well, that's okay, you're not You're not funny, You're not funny anyways. Nobody thinks you're funny, and they wouldn't ask you to be funny if they had a gun to their fucking head. So even fucking right wing psycho Dick Wad Chuck Norris had had, you know, sense of humor enough to appear in The Expendables too. Didn't know, Oh you didn't know that? Oh he is?

Am I acting surprised though he's an evangelical Mike Huckabee. No, no, no, I'm not saying that. I'm saying he's one of those right wing evangelical nut jobs that make us Christians look terrible. Sure, okay, the prascolatas in type. He is like Kevin Sorbo Cool, my favorite actor, my favorite hercules.

I can see that. I can, I can. I know what you're doing there, and he's poking the bear over there. At least Sugar, at least Chuck Norris, you know, new to make fun of himself and The Expendables too. I mean again, having a having a sense of humor about yourself kind of eliminates all problems in a lot.

I mean, if you can joke about yourself, everybody, if you can joke with people, you're you're taking the you're taking the wind out. You're not saying they even get an opportunity. And I'm not saying make your self parody, don't parody or anything. Just have a just take yourself, not too seriously and enjoy and take some enjoyment in the fact that you're making some times ridiculous films. Take it from me, a fat man.

The easiest way to take the piss out of someone, take the piss out of yourself, is to take the bed. Take the piss out of yourself. The easiest person to take the piss out of is yourself. Exactly if you do it, other people can. So there you go.

That's how you beat people that don't think you have anything to offer, is you just hang a lantern on it and move forward, and then they can't say it because you've already acknowledged so. And that's again, that's this whole thing about you know, acting your age, or also you know, having the wherewithal to joke about yourself and laugh at yourself and understand that action movies are ridiculous if you think about what they actually are. It's a movie about someone killing thousands of people for our entertainment. That is fucking insane that that could be your job. But yet people have done it for a living and that's wild and crazy And isn't that funny?

No, isn't that serious? Like, no, come on, dude, come and the kills well, going back to the sum the kills in the silm are just not that interesting. It's typical two hits from sigal and the guy is dapting bullshit. And can we talk about the villains with the most clichde name for a Mexican drug lord, Jose Rivera played by an Eastern European white man. Yeah, I was looking at the guys who've played him and Jose Rivera played by Marcia dram And And by the way, the guy who played the terrorist was just a terrible actor.

He was bad. He was really bad. Look, there's nothing good about this movie. There's nothing. An absolute waste of time.

And it was a waste of five million dollars. It was five million dollars for this fucking thing. I hope somebody made a good chunk of change. I hope stevens are all paid whoever off with it, because there's there's no way that this movie wasn't a money laundering scheme for something I don't know. I hope Sall made his car payments.

Yeah, they were like six different fucking production companies before the movie even started. Action House Pictures, Dress Film Distribution, and yet it's on to be so yeah, to be home of home of things like this, that's what to be is right. Yeah, but Tobi also has good like quality films eyes. Yeah, but I'm not talking about those movies. We're talking about the shit films, right, I'm talking about I'm not gonna say shit.

I'm gonna say shovel where it's like, we gotta fill our app with yeah, yeah, we gotta fire a lapp with something. Yeah, let's see what's cheap? Those movies in those bins at Walmart have to be streaming somewhere. Well, I mean, streaming services have to pay to put a film on their service, and it was probably cheap enough their like, and they're probably cheap enough. They're like, yeah, I put it on there.

I bet there's gonna be something. You know what I bet it is. I bet they just owned the rights to it. They probably do. It's not like the film.

It's not like the film is going through like rights, different issues. I bet you know you know what I bet it is. I bet if not for something like to be, there would be nowhere to see them. And you know what, as bad as this movie is, I am perfectly okay, with you having the ability to watch it. As far as I'm concerned, if you didn't have the ability to watch it, the world would be a little bit of a less bright place because we're able to have access to stuff like this is good for a laugh, This isn't particularly so bad.

This doesn't go into so bad it's good territory. Much as I lament the death of the video store, streaming services have made it possible for more little known films to get fighter audience viewership. I know how many people have watched this film this year on Toby Trevor, but it may be we may be in a small handful of people who have seen this film in the last year. Let alone fights, Well, there are still people who will see a film with the name Segal alone by just names. You know his name alone?

How many times you have to get burned before you stop doing I don't know, man, people who watch these films because do people who watch these films because they like Stephen Seagal actually feel satisfied at the conclusion of these films? Because I can't imagine that they do. But maybe I'm wrong. I'm gonna need it on this a lot, but this has also been China Salesman level of just in name bullshit. It is not as bad as Child Salesman, but it's right below it.

It is right below it's the worst thing we've watched. It has to be worse than China sales I don't know if it's worse than China Salesman because I didn't really find it. It didn't make me if we're saying that this is the worst thing we've watched, it has if it's not, it's if it's not a little below it, it's on par it is bad. Yeah, Chin Salman at least kept me interested with how bad it was. It.

This one didn't even do that. Yeah, but at least this movie is not three hours long. No, it isn't. It's ninety minutes and it but it doesn't feel like it feels like a slog. Dude, it is a slog.

Honestly, I didn't like. I didn't find the length of this movie to be the issue. While it is boring and very little happens, I didn't walk away from this movie going and it was too long. I just said, nothing happens and it kind of is just a general waste of time. Can I posit a question to you, if you had switched the character from Cartels and the character from this would have made it a difference.

Trevor, You're gonna ask this every time we watch a new new Sagal movie because I feel like you're have to if I answer it now, Yes, it wouldn't have mattered, And I don't think it would have mattered if it had been General the character from General Commander either or frankly, I don't think it could have. I don't think it would have been any different if it had been Louder from China Salesman or even you could even go as far as to say that the character in this movie, you know, he retires and becomes the character from Attrition. Didn't he do that in the last film Retiring come Back? Yeah? Some shit, Well he retired in this movie and then came back because he's Yeah, but didn't he retire and come back in Cartels?

Probably? No, No, in Cartels he was well, yeah, I get no. Man doesn't matter, No, not really. It's it's a disappointing movie, but at least it's only an hour and a half, so maybe China Salesman is worse, just based on the fact that there's an hour more of it. But something about this movie just rubs me the wrong.

Oh god, it just it's at sexy. I think it's the amount of bad Cigal in this movie. Like China Salesman's bad, but he's China Salesman because of Steven Seagal. No, No, because he's barely fucking in it. He's probably the better part of that movie.

I think if you listen to our episode, you would probably come to the same conclusion. Well, yeah, this one, he wasn't even he's the reason this movie's bad. He's one of the reasons he's out. There's a difference between being passively bad and actively bad. He is actively bad in this movie and actively lazy sitting in a car.

There's body doubles a bunch of times. I don't know if you noticed all the body doubles they use for Steven Seagal. I, like I said, I wasn't paying enough attention or caring to even see it. It's a lot of like shots of people walking out of locations. It's a dude that's much taller and much more well kempt from the back than Seagal.

So much fucking ad r I mean no ponytail. Huh, ponytail pail minus one ponytail, no pail, it is five ponytail minus fives. I mean the Stay Away. If you see it on two by, maybe look for another one of these movies, because you know what, I get a sinking feeling, Trevor. There's probably more on t B, TB or not to Be.

We will be finding out very quickly. Yeah, where can people find you? Well, you can find me on Twitter at bad Vertigo, Instagram at mad Vero, and occasionally you can find me once a month on the Culture Cast hosted by my friend and yours, Chris stash You Chris, Where can people find you? C stacchiw dot com. That's the link the link tree to all the things that I work on, which it's a lot of podcasts.

So yeah, that's where you can find the shows that I work on, and the links to socials. Ask for this show on sigal dot com is where you can find the show, like us on iTunes. Favorable review either way would be helpful. But hey, you know what, this is a niche podcast for a very niche audience, and if and we love this niche audience, and we love this niche audience. We're part of this niche audience.

But I totally get it if you don't want to interact with us, but if you do, you know how to find us. And as always, Trevor Simby. Tail is sent to one end buyer of Sisson Steven single arm radio m