203. Target (1985) - Guest: Scott McCrea, author of Targets West

[00:00:37] Welcome to SpyHards Podcast, the best spy movie podcast this side of the Berlin Wall. I'm Agent Scott. And I'm Cam the Provocateur and Scott, if you love Jesus, blow your horn. Honk honk. That's right. I don't have a horn, I just make that noise randomly at times. Well you do carry around one of those like boat horns just to like surprise people randomly and it's really obnoxious but in this case you're just making that noise.

[00:01:07] I also use it to distract cyclists. Awooga! And they go aah! And they spiral off into a, safely into a grassy area. They don't fall into oncoming traffic thankfully. And the reign of terror you have wrought against the libraries of your community. They'll never know what hit them. I'm the nighttime honker. I just spoiled it for everyone in West London. Now I've unveiled myself.

[00:01:36] And when they catch you, they're gonna throw the book at you. God. Very nice. Very nice. Very nice. Uh, we have a great film for you this week. I always say that but it's positivity baby. And we have a very good guest actually which we'll get to and we'll introduce them in a minute. But it's been a beat since we've had a SpyHards DieHard introduced to the ranks of the famous

[00:02:03] SpyHards DieHards throughout the years. And if this is your first time hearing SpyHards DieHard before, it could be because you haven't heard us talk about it or you've forgotten. But Cam, why don't you educate everyone? What is a SpyHards DieHard? Yes, a SpyHards DieHard. It's an individual who leaves a five-star review on Apple Podcasts telling the world what they appreciate about the SpyHards podcast. We then read that review on the air

[00:02:28] and give that individual a very unique and cool SpyHards DieHards codename. I mean, we say it's cool and frankly, we're the benchmark for cool. So I guess it is. Right? Yeah. If we can't decide who can. I mean, we're two guys that have spent over an hour talking to Jacqueline Bissette. It can't get much cooler. Right? And we've had some great entries over the years, including a very infamous one where Cam had to

[00:02:56] do it entirely in a Scottish accent. Yes, we will read anything you write as long as it's five stars and on Apple Podcasts. And speaking of reading one out, we have had quite a few. It's been a while since we've actually done this. We've been saving some up. So over the next few months, we'll be reading out some new ones and try and get some more info. You know, if you're hearing this for the first time, you haven't left us a five-star review, make sure it's written as well. You know, five stars is great. But if you actually type out a review, this is how we see it and it pops up and

[00:03:23] we can actually read it out to you all. So here's the next one we're going to bring up and it comes all the way from the land down under from a person named Alastario. Alastario? Alastario? Thanks for leaving me high and dry there, Cam. And they say, love the interviews. When listening to the podcast on a bike ride, I begin hearing interviews with writers and stars of long-ago films,

[00:03:49] which in turn reignites my interest in them and gives them a fresh life for me to watch the films again. The bike rides of late have begun piquing my interest in unknown spy movies. Unknown to me. This leap into Cold War espionage and 1940s spy jinx. This connects me with a world of a or a time previously unknown, or at least uncommon to me, five stars. I think we couldn't have picked a better

[00:04:14] film to connect this review to. Right, exactly. It's tied to the Cold War. Although I love that this individual says they love the interview episodes and then we have their review read on a normal review episode. But yes, this is still nonetheless an appropriate matching of review and film. Hopefully this will entice them to come on over to the review section. I mean, to be fair, we've got almost 100 interviews, so I can understand why a lot of people just listen to those 100 on

[00:04:41] repeat and keep spinning it. I get it, but there are 200 plus reviews at this point as well. So plenty more spy jinx where that came from. And Alistairio, thank you for the review. Always great to hear from our fans in Australia, a wonderful country and a wonderful part of the world. And it's nice to know that you're sort of learning about these other films you didn't know about, the 1940s Spy Hard special Spy Jinx and some Cold War films you haven't seen before. I'm glad Spy

[00:05:10] Hard and we are introducing you to some new films, which is definitely something that we were talking about in about five minutes time. Yes, yes indeed, for sure. And now I guess it's time to get to the top secret code name. It is, it is. Alistairio has like a real nice ring to it, but I've decided for the code name we're going to go simple. Like us. Like us. One syllable. And I am going to use the

[00:05:37] code name for Gene Hackman's character in the movie we're about to review. And that is very simply Duke. It doesn't get much better than Duke. It really doesn't. Oh, the Duke's here. Well, it's not the Duke because I feel like the Duke is referred to like, that's John Wayne. Oh, I suppose. So it's Duke's here. Just Duke. Not to be confused with GI Joe's Duke.

[00:06:01] Of course. So you just say like, it's just Duke. That's right. Duke from Australia. Oh, I bet they carry a knife. And what a knife. What a knife. Yeah. They'll know that that's a knife. They will. And they'll never forget. They'll never forget. Well, Alistairio, Duke, enjoy your secret code name. It can be used among all spy circles around the world. Now you will be revered

[00:06:27] by the name Duke. And if you mutter it near us, we might just know who we're talking to. It's sort of sort of secret spy parlance. We hope you've enjoyed the nickname. Thank you for the review. Become a spy hards, die hards folk. Leave us a five star review. But without further ado, let's get to the review. Hong Kong. Cam, the film we have to deal with this week is quite

[00:06:56] a sort of circle. And in that middle of the circle is what you, I mean, some people would maybe call it the target. I suppose. Target, I guess, you know, like, you don't want to miss the mark, right? The bullseye. Uh huh. Uh huh. Uh, it's in the crosshairs. The dot in the circles. Great military parlance there, Cam. I love the insight. Good stuff. Yeah. And to clearly get us

[00:07:24] on track here, we need to bring in an expert because we're fumbling for words at the beginning of the show. Imagine what it's like at the end. So we sought out an expert to help us talk about this week's film. He is an author. He's a man about town. And most importantly, he's a spy film lover. Joining us on the show, it's Mr. Scott McRae. So how are you? I think that Fratistan is in the Maktis practice and the Maktis practice is three feet deep.

[00:07:53] Well, on that note, uh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was a show folks. We'll see you next week. No, that was, that was, you were doing all through the night. That's, that's double talk from all through the night. Oh my God. Yeah. Maktis practice. The Maktis practice is three feet deep. You are pulling one out of like the spy house vaults there. I love it. Oh, well, all through the night's a great movie. It is. Yeah. But I feel like I had a moment where I hear the Simpsons writers talk about when,

[00:08:23] uh, people come up and acknowledge lines they wrote like 15 years ago. And they're just like, I don't know. And all through the night, I mean, we did that episode a long time ago. It's like a year and a half ago. Yeah. Yeah. I just remember, uh, Peter Laurie burying someone in like a grain of, uh, like, uh, no, a silo of grain or something in the bottom of a bakery somewhere. There was a bakery. Yes. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. That's the one where, where Bogart

[00:08:49] gets lost in the woods in the middle of New York because he's in central. Yes. In the Nazis. Yeah. That's a great picture. Having, having been to central park, I don't know how you'd get lost. It might've been easier in the forties. I don't know. That's true. Maybe there was more central park. Yes. To be had. More park, less city. Yeah. It was still central though. It was very central. Yes. Now we'll get to the film. That's that. That's coming up in a minute, but let's get to know

[00:09:19] you, Scott. This is your first time on spy hearts. I mean, I already like you because you've got a good name. Oh, I mean, thank you so much. It's the best. I mean, no one wants to be called cam. Well, clearly when you look at the list of guests we've had named Scott versus the list of guests named cam. Well, have we had a cam before? No, no, not even close. Well, that means that my sign saying no cams allowed is working. Clearly. I don't think I've met a cam before. It's for the best.

[00:09:48] You don't want to. Okay. Yeah. Take him. No, please take him. I mean, uh, so I'm Scott McRae and I'm a writer and, and I'm here not only just to say hello to you two guys, but more importantly, to plug my new book, a spy novel called Tarbis West. Yes. We'll do it. You've set it up. Talk about it. It is a terrific book. It's a, it's, it's a terrific book. If I do say so myself, uh, I've written a lot of Westerns in the past and I was wondering what would I do if

[00:10:18] I wanted to somehow mash up the Western and the spy novel. So this is a contemporary novel about a cattleman named Lucas Wheeler, who's just trying to sell some Arabian horses to an Arabian sheep. When the state department says, you know, there's something funny going on there. Would you just keep your eyes and ears open for us? And the next thing you know, poor Lucas is involved in an international plot, which takes him from New York to London, to Saudi Arabia,

[00:10:44] and then back to London for a, uh, for a thrilling climax in the O2, uh, auditorium. So, and it's, it's, it's, I appreciate you called it the O2 and not the Millennium Dome. Well, well done for being current. Thank you, sir. And, uh, it's gotten a lot of really great advance, um, notices. Um, and I'm really happy with it. Buy this book. Buy it. Do it. I have a question because you clearly love

[00:11:10] spy films. If you're referencing all through the night, I mean, it's hard to go much better than that. Um, but, uh, why did it take you so long to write a spy novel? You know, when you've written so many other books, that's a good question. Um, so thrillers were always my sweet spot and I just sort of, and I love Westerns also. Um, and the, uh, I had, I had written a book about Buffalo Bill Cody.

[00:11:37] It was one of my first novels and I was shopping that around and a publisher said, I'm passing on the Buffalo Bill book, but do you have anything else? And I said, well, no, but I could come up with something else. And the next thing I knew, you know, I'd written 25 Westerns and I took a breath and I said, well, now it's time to get back to thrillers. So, um, I'm happy to say targets West is doing so well that they've already contracted me for a sequel, uh, which is going to be called prosecution league. Oh, okay. Yeah. You see, if it was someone unimaginative, like me, it would be

[00:12:06] called targets East targets East. Yes. That's why we don't invite can. That's right. And then you targets North target South, and then that's it. Uh, at least, well, at least, um, there's a synergy between the book title and this week's film too. I like that. That's the first thing I thought when you said, you want to do, uh, uh, target. I said, well, I'm writing targets West. This part. Yeah. Uh, I I'd like to think that the book is a sequel

[00:12:33] to the film. Well, actually. So the great thing about the movie is that you have no idea that Gene Hackman is this, uh, accomplished and smart and, you know, poor Lucas Wheeler is just your average American cattleman who rises the occasion. So it's kind of like that. Yeah. I'm, I'm also now curious to see what other London landmarks you can, you can get into the next book. Cause you've had the O2. That's a pretty big place to go. Like what, what's, what's the next

[00:13:01] landmark you're looking to work in? Uh, well, Trafalgar Square actually, uh, plays a big part in the book too. Um, but in the, well, the next book actually, um, takes place just in the U S I'm sorry guys. Um, it's okay. It's okay. But the, the, the conceit of the book is that the three major action

[00:13:19] sequences of this book take place, um, in Bunker Hill, then Fort Sumter and then the Alamo. So we'll talk about it a little bit at the end, but I also kind of want to get a sense of, on your spy movie pedigree, Scott, you've mentioned all through the night. Sure. But what tend, what do

[00:13:48] you tend to go for when you reach for a spy movie? Cause it's such a broad sort of genre and different subtypes in that genre. What's your go-to as an action film? Is it like a John the Carre adaptation? What are you reaching for? So I think the best spy movie ever made is, um, or, uh, probably the best spy movie released to theaters would be, uh, the third man, which is, I think it's a great movie. Um, and you could carp as to whether or not that's a spy movie or not, but I think it's a spy movie. Um, and then

[00:14:16] there's another great movie called pack of lies, uh, which was a made for TV movie in the eighties, oddly enough. Oh, um, so, which is brilliant. I saw it on Broadway with Patrick McGowan pack of lies. You say, I guess we should add that to the Patreon list. I'm doing it now. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, it's a, it's a, it was an American TV movie with Terry Garr and Alan Bates, um, and Ellen Bernstein. And on Broadway, the Alan Bates part was Patrick McGowan. I was lucky enough to see it

[00:14:45] because I was a kid and I was obsessed with spy movies and I wanted to see Patrick McGowan on Broadway. I had no idea I was going to see a play that that was that good. Um, so my, my, my taste is all over the place. Like I think one of the great spy movies is Octopussy. Um, mainly just so I can hear Louisa dance. Um, so yeah, I'm a big bond fan. I'm enormous. In fact,

[00:15:10] um, I was telling someone else just recently that the whole Genesis of targets West is I was so obsessed with the in Fleming when I was growing up, but I wondered what kind of book would Ian Fleming write if he was an American? So the whole, uh, uh, conceit behind targets West is that it sounds kind of like Fleming, but through an American idiom. So, uh, so it's a very Fleming-esque

[00:15:34] book. So yeah, my taste is all, I do like, I think, I think spy movies kind of lost the plot after the eighties, but you know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm open to be told that I'm wrong on that. Well, let's, let's dive into that a little bit. Let's, let's pick that apart. That's an interesting sort of jumping off point. Yeah. What, why do you feel that way? I suppose it's

[00:15:59] the first question. What, what's turned you off post 1980s? So not turn me off. Um, the villain changed. So, I mean, the, the wall went down with the end of the, the cold war, you know, so then what is the connection between spying and say terrorism? And that's a much more nebulous, difficult thing to get your hands around. And then also, you know, the identifiable villain

[00:16:28] is hard because, um, you know, our, our, our takes on who is and is not the bad guy, uh, seems to change regularly now. And, and from the forties with the Nazis, um, all the way through 89 with the cold war, it was very easy to tell, you know, these are the bad guys and we are the good guys. Or even if you wanted to be more complex, like, like Le Carre, you could say, well,

[00:16:54] it's more nuanced than that, but we do know who the enemy is. And I think the enemy is kind of harder to nail today. So, right. Well, it became more of like the enemy within because you had the Bourne series. Um, you have, you know, with, uh, GoldenEye right off the bat, the villain is someone from MI6. Uh, you know, Elliot Carver is like a British, you know, broadcaster and journalist. It's,

[00:17:21] it's people that are very much from the country. The spies are coming from too. Yeah. Yeah. And the other thing also is, is I think the advent of the action movie, um, which is different from an adventure movie. Uh, and the only thing that made me think of this is you had just mentioned Bourne is that the, the Bourne movies cut so fast. They're cut so fast

[00:17:42] that, um, it's really, I think it's just a question of, uh, uh, central overload as a sensory overload as opposed to, uh, nuance and plot and interest. I mean, I, so for example, I, I don't think the Richard Chamberlain, the Bourne identity is very good, but I like it more than the Matt Damon, which I think is terrible. Um, simply because I just think it's, it's all of these,

[00:18:09] you know, jump cuts and images and punches. And after a while, you know, you've seen a million movies like this and I'd rather see an interesting bad movie than a good bad movie. I just think the Bourne movies are not particularly, but that's me. So you're in safe territory here. You can, you can espouse your opinion. Not everyone listening will agree, but that's fine. That's, that's what a discourse is for. Well, I was going to ask, what are your thoughts on the Craig Bond

[00:18:34] films? Cause you, you know, you mentioned Octopussy and being big into Bond. So I love Casino Royale. I love Casino Royale. Right. Okay. Gotcha. So I think another unpopular opinion, I think he's part of the reason that Bond is dead. Um, because I think that's true. I can't, I can't imagine Cubby Rockley turning to Roger and saying, you know, Roger, what do you think we should do?

[00:19:00] I mean, you know, I love that. Cubby said, you're doing this and you know, you're lucky to get it. And I think any, any, but any actor in the world who gets Bond is blessed because your life is made. And you know, he treated it like a poison chalice and I, I'm, I'm, I'm underwhelmed by Craig and I'm, I'm underwhelmed by his movies. So, so there, those are fighting words, but I, I, I, I couldn't stand,

[00:19:29] uh, what was the second one? I can't even remember the name of it. Quantum of Solace. Oh, first off, that's a perfect example of all of this junk cutting. Like I couldn't even tell what was going on with the, uh, the car chase in the beginning. Like what the hell is going on? Yeah. And then the villain, I mean, you know, it was a movie of the week villain. I was, I just, and then I, I, I think Spectre and, uh, what was it after Spectre? No time to die. No time to die. I'm like, I, they're interchangeable movies to me.

[00:20:02] If, if Roger Moore died in his tenure of Bond, you know, in the films, it would have meant something because you were invested in, but I didn't, I don't think anyone was really invested in Craig. I think, I mean, just to be the contrarian in this conversation, I think there is a, and I know we're not talking about the film folks, but hey, you're tuning into here a discussion about spy movies and that's what this is. Um, it's a generational thing as well. I think, you know, like,

[00:20:27] I'm sure there are people whose first Bond movie was Casino or Quantum or Skyfall, and they saw the end of no time to die and had an emotional response. And that's, I think that's great. I think there's, it caters for so many different generations of people. Uh, me myself, I wasn't all that moved by it, but I was, I like Daniel Craig. I'm a Daniel Craig supporter. If you have to pick a side in some sort of battle, but, um, I mean, should you have killed Bond? I think that's a bigger

[00:20:55] question. Well, I think like, if you look at Daniel Craig's five film run and you take it away from the 22 other films, I think it works like in that. That's fine, but it doesn't connect to Roger. It doesn't connect to Sean. It doesn't connect to Tim or George or hell even Peter Sellers. It doesn't connect to any of them. Barry Nelson. Barry Nelson. No, no connection. But I think that's also fine. I think it's fine to have its own continuity. And I think now because I think one

[00:21:23] of the benefits of blowing Bond up is now they can start again. When none of this like Judi Dench hangover stuff that confuses everyone, um, you know, the Aston Martin turning up or the Vantage from living daylights for some reason is in his garage. I don't really know why. Um, you just go, nope, start again. No connection, just new Bond. And I think that's a really great way of being able to launch this Amazon era is by saying there, there is nothing to start from. And that's

[00:21:51] probably why you can't do a Pierce Brosnan callback film. Yeah, I agree. Oh, so like part of me would love that. But, but the same part of me says, yeah, it would never work. I'm sure people would watch it. Yeah. Older people. Um, would it be good? Yeah. I don't know. I think Pierce Brosnan could probably still get some people in. I think the nostalgia, like, you know, you can't discount. Okay. Okay. You think Amazon is looking to pull in the older Bond audience? Do you think this is going to pull

[00:22:18] in the 20 year olds they would want? Is that what they want? Yes. I think that they want, they want Bond to be popular. I think, well, okay. Yes, of course they wanted to be, they want a new generation of Bond fans. I think there is something to be said about getting the other generations on board. One thing you'd seem to see on all these online, on the, on these, on the discourse around franchises, Star Wars seems to be going for it. Doctor Who seems to be going

[00:22:43] through it. You're, there's an alienation of, of, of years and years and years of fans. And they're showing that displeasure because they've been left behind for the newer generations. Um, by saying online, this is trash or whatever. And, and, and so it breeds a hostility within a fandom. Whereas if you get, try and get the, like all the fans on board, I think you might have a more harmonious way of launching a new Bond. I don't know. Why did you guys think of Dial of

[00:23:09] Destiny? Didn't like it. I think it was a bad film. I think that's the problem really. I don't mind there being a fifth Indiana Jones film. I just think it wasn't a very good film. What about you? Uh, uh, it was, I was delighted to see him again. Um, I, and I, and I loved the idea that it was set in 1969 and that he was a man out of time. I don't think they really did enough with that. And, um, I,

[00:23:36] I would have given him a different sidekick. So I think it's, I think, I think ultimately it's a failure, but it's an interesting failure. I have of the opinion, you can't make an Indiana Jones film that doesn't have a single good action sequence. Yeah. It's like, that's just, I'm sorry. You can't like that's when you do, you failed. Yeah. I can't think of a single good action sequence in a film unless you go to the, the, you know, opening and most of that CGI. So I'm not even sure that counts. It's pretty, yeah. CG and a lot of, uh, CG artifacts in front of the,

[00:24:06] uh, you know, blocking you between the actors, a lot of, uh, mist, uh, dust, uh, you know, water droplets, anything to disguise the CG throughout that entire movie. Yeah. So yeah, it's ultimately a disappointment. Glad to see him, but the disappointment. So what you're saying is it missed the target. It missed the target. Bringing it around. We're back on track. Cam, what are we talking about this week? We're talking about 1985's Target starring Gene Hackman.

[00:24:33] And that's why the joke worked everyone. And Matt Dillon. And Matt Dillon as well. Yeah. And directed by Arthur Penn. If you haven't been on this adventure with Gene Hackman and co, here is your synopsis and it might actually win the award for the shortest synopsis I've ever read. Really? Okay. Target. The threat. The search. The truth. Oh, get out of here. That's so generic.

[00:25:00] I know. A Texan with a secret past searches Europe with his son after the KGB kidnap his wife. I mean, yeah, that ain't bad. That is it. Yeah. That's the plot. Sounds like a blurb. Oh, it definitely is. I mean, the one on, um, on IMDB is even shorter. When American Donna Lloyd is kidnapped during a trip to Europe, her son, Chris and her husband,

[00:25:29] Walter start searching for her. Kind of everything you need to know, right? It's kind of the first 10 minutes done. Yeah. Um, okay. Well, let's, uh, let's go back a little bit. Now, this is a first watch for me as they often are on the show. Uh, Cam, first watch for you. First watch. And we should note this is recorded, you know, not too long after the passing of Gene Hackman in fairly tragic circumstances. And,

[00:25:55] you know, this wasn't initially planned for that reason. It is interesting that now we're looking at it more from the point of view of looking back at Gene Hackman's work, but this was one, uh, I was going through the list of, you know, Gene Hackman's filmography, uh, before we started watching this. Cause I was thinking like, why had I not really heard of target? And you see that like post seventies, Gene Hackman was doing a lot of these thrillers, a lot of action films, and a lot of them are forgotten. There's the ones that are remembered, you know, narrow margin will pop out

[00:26:24] to people uncommon valor. There's a few of them that I think still have name value, but a lot of them, I feel like have kind of evaporated this being one of them. Um, so yeah, I just never come across it. It's an interesting decade for Gene Hackman. It's something I was trying to chart just how many spy films the guy did because I've, I've watched this week alone, um, recording the two episodes, two episodes I'm about to talk about it. They'll be released very

[00:26:49] different times, but I've watched two different Gene Hackman spy films, one in the middle of the decade and one at the end. And they are very different performances. Yeah. Yeah. And I remember when we covered the package, um, I, in that one was talking about an interview Gene Hackman gave on the press tour for the package and another film. I can't remember which one it was. Uh, but he was basically just like burnt out and was just like, I'm fed up with directors. I just don't,

[00:27:16] don't really enjoy this at this point. So it does seem like Gene Hackman, you know, going through the seventies, huge mega star that was beloved. You know, a lot of, he'd won an Oscar for the French connection in the eighties. He goes really prolific. He's just cranking out these movies like crazy, but I think it kind of burnt him out. And then the nineties, you see kind of the rebirth with like unforgiven. He wins an Oscar for, and he becomes

[00:27:41] like the prestige go-to, you know, a great actor. You want these types of movies, even if you're doing something like Crimson Tide, it's like Gene Hackman is above the line in a big, exciting way. Unforgiven is one of his best performances. Yeah. It's just, it's magnificent in that. It's incredible when you think back, because I'm older than you guys by a lot. Um, that when you think of Hackman in the seventies,

[00:28:06] he was like just incredible box office and, and the Poseidon adventure is one of the biggest movies of the seventies. Uh, and he almost carries that thing on his back all by himself. And when the Salkins were trying to get financing for Superman, he did that on the back of Brando and Hackman. He signed them. He knew he'd be able to get the money for it. So, I mean, his name carried a lot

[00:28:31] of weight. Yeah. Uh, and in the eighties, less so, I mean, I, I go back to target for a minute. I, I, I, I think a lot of people forget what a huge star, um, Matt Dillon was. Yeah. He was just an enormous star. And I would say probably in 1985, he's probably as famous as Gene Hackman. Yeah. That's actually something I wanted to get into because I'm not all that familiar with Matt Dillon's work. I've seen a few of his films and I, I was looking at his IMDB and he's done a few

[00:28:57] films before this, but not many. Yeah. Like this is, I think it's like six or seven feature films. Yeah. It was the fact it was like this run where he'd done Tex, The Outsiders, Rumblefish, Rumblefish, and Flamingo Kid. This was basically an ascent of like the next, you know, like kind of Tom Cruise level superstar, but also someone who's a brilliant actor. Yeah. And so it really was this sense of like, this guy is going to be enormous. And then he does target, which, you know, we'll talk about kind of the, uh, you know, the response to the movie later,

[00:29:27] but like it was not a box office hit and it seems like it kind of was a little bit of a bump for him on kind of a path towards what seemed at the time, like here's the next movie star and the biggest movie star in the world kind of thing. Yeah. I think the last time I saw him was something about Mary and that's the early nineties. Yeah. That actually might be it for me too. I saw him in like, he was in the movie armored, the action film, um, from a few years ago. He also

[00:29:54] popped up in a smaller role relatively recently in asteroid city, but, uh, he's not the Matt Dillon promise. I think was always bumpy. Like it's like upfront. It was like, this guy's going to be one of the best and be James Dean. Yeah, exactly. And it's like, he kind of ebbs and flows. He'll pop back up, do something about Mary and a couple other things where he gets a lot of acclaim. Uh, he got a lot of acclaim for crash, you know, back in the two thousands. And then it's kind of like,

[00:30:21] he goes, you know, kind of away for a bit and then comes back and people are reminded. He's kind of one of those great towns that people have to be reminded that he's gone for a while. Well, he did like, um, crash. And then the next film is Herbie fully loaded, which was also a crash. Yeah. I think the problem with him actually is that, you know, he started out, um, you know, he was on the cover of tiger beat and things like that. So he was, you know, a teeny bopper idol.

[00:30:47] And it's hard to get past that. I mean, no matter how terrific you are, you know, you're sort of, oh, you know, he, he was sort of like, um, Oh, help me. The guy from the blue lagoon. Christopher, he's like, he's like the brunette Christopher Atkins. And so nobody expects it in from him. So they're always shocked when he delivers, um, you know, and then they forget about him again. So it's, it's rough business. What can I say? There's a question left hanging in the air. And I asked Cam about his connection to the film,

[00:31:18] a little bit of behind the scenes of how Spy Hearts is made. When we talking to people coming on the show, we'll often pitch a couple of films we've got coming up and, you know, see if there's like someone who, who like, who knows the film and there's an interest. And we go from there. Um, when I pitched target to you along with a different film, but target, I wasn't expecting for you to actually know what the film was. So when you were like, Oh target. Sure. I was like, Oh,

[00:31:45] cool. Like someone who knows this film, this is wonderful because we have a lot of these films where we talk about them and it feels like it falls on deaf ears sometimes. Um, so great to have that. So what's your connection Scott to target? Did you see it, you know, around release or home video or anything like that? So when I was a kid, when I was a kid, um, I was in my, I was in my, good God, it's 1985. So I'm like 1920, something like that when this came out. And I was one of the

[00:32:13] youngest members of the Mr. Writers of America at the time. Um, and a good friend of mine, uh, lived nearby me. His name was Chris Steinbrenner. He was the, uh, vice president of the Mr. Writers of America. And he had a press pass to this. And he said, you want to go see this movie? I have a press pass. And you're like, all you have to do is dangle a movie in front of me. I'm sort of, it's like, I'm a donkey with a carrot. I'm like, all right. I mean, and I, I actually liked it a

[00:32:38] great deal and I, I hadn't forgotten it. And when I rewatched it for this podcast, I was shocked at how much of it I remembered. So I actually think it's a good movie. And I remember the cultural moment that it happened in. So when you said, do you want, you know, what are these movies? Oh, I'm going to do target. Cause I remember, you know, the year that that came out very well. And I remember what was going on when it came out. So, uh, and here I am. I like this picture a lot.

[00:33:04] Well, I think, I think that can help synthesize with what Cam's about to talk us through, which is the, the, how we got target is you can talk about contemporaneously and what was going on. Sure. But Cam, why don't you sort of lead us off? How did we get target? So, uh, it may not surprise you at all, but the, uh, behind the scenes details on this one are rather sparse. There is not a lot written about the production of target. So that is odd considering

[00:33:28] like the director and stuff like there is some pedigree here. I know. Um, so the story credit for the movie is Leonard Stern. Um, and that's, I'm going to assume the genesis of this movie. Um, and he was in York born, uh, screenwriter and producer and got his start with the uncredited work on 1949's Africa screams, the Abbott and Costello film that I'm sure has aged very well. Um, got Frank Buck. Yeah. And then in 1950, he had his first real credit on

[00:33:57] Ma and Pa Kettle go to town, which was a spinoff of the egg and I film and Ma and Pa Kettle go to town was like this ongoing series of movies. Marjorie Maine and Percy Kilbride. Yes. And they're very good in the egg and I. So, you know what, it makes sense to launch them in their own series. And at that point, Stern is bouncing between Ma and Pa films, Abbott and Costello, Bowery boys, a lot of these comedy acts of the time. He does the 1952 jazz singer remake

[00:34:24] with Michael Curtiz directing it. That was box office flop, but it was a kind of an effort to take a very, very, very, very problematic movie from 1928, make a technicolor musical out of it. Uh, did not succeed. It's Danny Thomas, right? Yeah, that's right. Yes. Yes. Uh, and then he basically just goes to TV and he's doing shows like the honeymooners, the Jackie Gleason show. He does a bunch of episodes of get smart,

[00:34:48] a Macmillan and wife. And this movie was actually his film follow up to the nude bomb, the attempt to bring Maxwell smart to the big screen in 1980. Hmm. Yeah. And so, uh, actually Stern also wrote the get smart again, uh, TV movie, which we covered on the Patreon. I didn't think there'd be a get smart connection in this episode. There is a weird amount of TV crossover with this movie, which I wouldn't have expected with an

[00:35:16] Arthur Penn film, but it's like all the writers were people who were primarily working in TV. So yeah, the screenplay, uh, you know, was then handled by Don Peterson, who was an Iowa born writer who'd done the 1975 vigilante thriller deadly hero, which was about a police officer who, um, did a lot of bad things and became a folk hero. And it was the seventies folks. And, uh, then he did the showbiz romance called an almost perfect affair in 79. And then this,

[00:35:46] and that's it. That's his entire filmography was those three films. And the other writer was Howard Burke, who was born in Massachusetts and started off in TV in the mid fifties and got his first film credit with the 1970 world war two exploitation thriller, the last day of the war. And then he mostly head into TV. He worked on mission impossible, uh, he worked with Leonard Stern, the story credit writer on Macmillan and wife. So that's where that

[00:36:14] relationship starts. And I wonder if that's where the connection for the screenplay actually happens is these two knowing each other. Um, and then did shows like Columbo, Mrs. Columbo, a bunch of other random TV shows, and then did target. So it was interesting to me how all of the people that worked on this movie are, you know, the two primary big writers who had big careers were all from TV at that point, moving into this movie.

[00:36:40] I think the only thing I can sort of say to synthesize that is one of my notes on this film, which I'll expand on later is there is a certain sense that it feels like a TV movie. It looks like one. It does look like one. It has that, it has that flat photography that you, that you, that you would, you know, connote with television rather than sort of the deep focus of a movie. It's almost like a lack of scope. Yeah. Um, interesting. Okay. Yeah.

[00:37:07] And the Hollywood Reporter posted a notice about this movie, uh, and its production at a certain point. And they mentioned there was another writer named Ron Bass attached who may have done some work and departed and wasn't credited. I'm not sure. Uh, but he got his start the same year, actually in 85, he was probably working on a couple of things, but in 1985, he did a movie called Codename Emerald, which is a spy film with Ed Harris, which I've added to our list

[00:37:34] and did a lot of movies in the future, like Rain Man, Joy Luck Club, Dangerous Minds, Entrapment. He was like a go-to Hollywood screenwriter for a long time. So it wouldn't surprise me if he would have been involved at some point, but, um, yeah. Maybe it's just like touching up the, like punching up the words or something like dialogue past or something. He was mentioned early. So he may have been attached to work on the screenplay and departed. I'm not sure.

[00:38:03] Didn't hit the, didn't hit the mark. Boom. Boom. Yeah. That was a weak one. That was, that was mid, that was a mid five out of 10. I wasn't too happy with that. Yeah. Uh, and at the time of Hollywood Reporter and Variety reporting on this movie, uh, it was being referred to as On Target. On Target? Huh. I mean, I, I still, I'm not quite sure how Target ties into the film. Uh.

[00:38:31] Well, he's the, he's, Hackman is the Target, but they're, they're getting everybody else. I guess. I guess. I guess. Uh, it, it, it feels like generic spy movie title here. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it is a little generic, you know, there's a pretty good hook to the movie of your father being a spy. Like, that's something, why not call it Papa Spy? Papa Spy. I mean, there is like a, there is a world where it's a comedy and it's like, wait, my parents

[00:38:58] are spies or like, oh, my dad's a spy or oops, my dad's a spy or something like that. Like a real teen comedy. Sure. Uh. Well, so if I could just interject a tiny bit of, um. No. All right. Well, I have to go. Please, please. Easy come, easy come, easy go. So, um, 1985. Let's say, when was it shot? Uh, probably 84. Okay.

[00:39:22] So, so it's not that long after the 70s and, and of course, the early 80s. You have to remember in the, in the late 70s, there was this huge sort of, uh, populist revival in like interest in the everyman. So you had truckers were heroes and farmers were heroes. And, and, and I think the, the fact that he's this guy who is in the American Midwest and he has a factory, um, calls back to that.

[00:39:50] It's like, you know, it was right after the era of, you know, ordinary heroes that we saw in the 70s. Um, and I think that's what, you know, where they were trying to go with that. It's like, oh, well, you know, you don't know the untapped potential of the average American for all, you know, they're probably ex-secret agents or, or hired assassins or, or, or at least, you know, inherently a wonderfully capable. And, and I'm sure that that's what they were going for, even with sort of the way it was

[00:40:19] so flatly recorded and shot in, in the opening sequences where he's in his home. I mean, it's, it's a quintessential bland American home with the bland American bedroom. The, the factory is not particularly interesting looking, but the focal point is that the guy is interesting because he is not only sort of this American archetype, but he's an American hero the way Americans are in general.

[00:40:48] And, and I think that's part of its historical moment. It probably just missed it. I think if this movie had opened in like 1981 or 1979, it would have been bigger because I think it would have hit that note at the right moment. I think it's missing it by just a couple of years. Yeah. It's like, you know, you think of like, of that kind of time period. There's so many movies where they are showing kind of the seedy side of corporate life or the business world or financial world.

[00:41:16] Two years later, you're getting at wall street with Gordon Gekko and having Gene Hackman play, you know, the guy who works in like the lumber yard that just like screams trustworthy, which is a good setup for someone who comes from a world of double crosses and espionage. Yeah. Yeah. And I think the, the, the way they set up his son. So, you know, Matt Dillon is, you know, the loser kid. He's a great disappointment to his dad. He's playing with cars.

[00:41:42] Um, and he doesn't realize that, you know, dad has it all over him in every way you could possibly imagine. And he's actually something of a dupus no matter how much, no matter how slick Matt thinks he is. He's, he's actually not all that capable. He does shine at the end, but. So I, I, I, I think the setup is really good and I think it works well in its historical context. And also 1985 was quite a year for generational clashes because you've got back to the future the same year.

[00:42:09] And I kept thinking about that movie when I was watching this, the idea of like, you can't understand your parents until you can kind of walk in their shoes a little bit. Yeah. I, I, I, I didn't make that connection myself. Yeah. Back to the future. Yeah. So overseeing this movie, Arthur Penn, we referenced him born in Pennsylvania and one of the big directors of the late sixties and seventies and started off in TV in the fifties.

[00:42:36] His first major movie was the Paul Newman Western, The Left-Handed Gun in 1958. Have you seen that movie, Scott? Of course it's a Western. Okay. How is it? It's surprisingly good. Um, uh, I, I, I think he's actually a somewhat underrated director. Left-Handed Gun is a, is another one of those Billy the Kid movies and it's, um, surprisingly deft. Uh, I don't think it's his best movie, but it's really good. I'm going to check that one out because I hadn't really heard of it.

[00:43:04] Uh, and it intrigues me because Paul Newman, of course, uh, that's a draw right there. But the movie that puts Arthur Penn on the map is 1962's The Miracle Worker, which is the story of Helen Keller and Ann Sullivan. And it was a, um, big Oscar movie. It won Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress for Ann Bancroft and Patty Duke for that movie. He was nominated for Best Director and that sort of sets him up. And, you know, a few years later, he's going to do Bonnie and Clyde and completely revolutionize

[00:43:34] the film industry with its depictions of violence. Gene Hackman is a supporting character in that movie. Gets an Oscar nomination. So Arthur Penn also kind of launches Gene Hackman, uh, from the world of theater and, you know, TV and smaller parts into a movie star status. And Arthur Penn goes on and does movies like Little Big Man with Dustin Hoffman in 1970. I hate that movie. I hate that movie. God, I hate that movie. Yeah, it's, uh, it's a, it's an interesting take on a Western. I'll say that.

[00:44:02] Uh, I, I, I, oh, if I could, if I could grab every existing print of Little Big Man. And throw it into a fiery pit and erase everybody's memory of it, the world would be a better fit. So I don't know if you could tell. I don't like that movie. I think that comes across. Yeah. Um, Arthur Penn also re-teamed with Gene Hackman for 1975's Night Moves, which is a really fantastic neo-noir. Uh, very gritty stuff.

[00:44:30] And I recommend people check that one out if they're looking for Gene Hackman movies they haven't seen in the wake of his passing. It's worth visiting or revisiting. Um, and then in 1981, Arthur Penn did a movie called Four Friends, uh, which was basically an examination of the 60s. And sort of a character piece of a group of friends going through school and then the periods of the 60s of, you know, kind of tumultuous change. And it was a real flop, like a big flop.

[00:44:56] And that movie sort of led to him doing Target a couple years later. That was what the, you know, previous film was. Okay. Like safer ground, basically. Yeah. Yeah. I think we underestimate how important Bonnie and Clyde was. Yeah. Because a lot of people think that, that violence in movies really started with Psycho. But almost everything is Psycho, even though you see her murdered in the shower, is, is more suggested than actually seen.

[00:45:24] Um, but, uh, the Wild Bunch, which is a Western and Bonnie and Clyde, which if you wanted to make the argument was also a Western, um, uh, really pushed the envelope for violence. And I, and I think changed movies forever for good or bad, you know, depending on how you see it. Bonnie and Clyde also has Gene Wilder. It's, it's such a remarkable picture. It's probably Warren Beatty's best movie. Yeah. And I, I actually got to see it in the, on the big screen a few years ago. Um, I'd seen it. How did it hit you?

[00:45:52] Well, I'd seen it on VHS when I was probably a teenager. And, you know, when I was 18, the idea of like Bonnie and Clyde, this is going to be exciting. And then seeing the movie and being like, oh, oh, this is like a meditative character piece. I didn't really expect that. So it, I enjoyed it, but it kind of caught me off guard. And so revisiting it many years later, it was kind of like a, yeah, this is a incredible movie. And I wasn't quite ready for it at 18. Did you see it? I'm still not ready for it at 37.

[00:46:23] But we can do that one on the Patreon because it's a Gene Hackman film. So fine. One day. There you go. Cam will get us ready for it. And when it happens, folks, you'll know I'm ready. Yeah, that's right. Uh, and, uh, so, um, when it comes to the two actors, uh, Matt Dillon was drawn to this movie by the father-son stuff. And just the chance to work with Gene Hackman, that was the draw for him. And I saw an interview with him. It's amazing. There's actually online. If you look on YouTube, there are interviews with both of them from the Target press tour.

[00:46:53] I was, is it the five minute one with Dylan? Yes. Isn't it incredible? It's awkward as hell. Yeah. It's awful. Yeah. I thought we were bad. Like, no, this guy's terrible. It's like monosyllabic. All of his answers. He's like. Oh, he's, the guy asking questions was terrible. But also, yeah, Dylan did not have any idea how to do like a media interview. No. Which is fascinating because he had done multiple movies. He looked pretty sleepy, didn't he? Yeah. Or something. Or something.

[00:47:23] No comment on that. I was being polite. He looked pretty sleepy. I had a rough night. Yeah. Yeah. My favorite part is at the end when the interviewer turns to the audience. To the camera. To basically sign out. And Dylan just stares blankly at the camera with the most dead eyes. Well, it's the first question where he's like. He wants to go back into Dylan's career about a film he did before that I don't recognize. And he asked the question and Dylan says like. So what do you want from me? Yeah.

[00:47:51] And then I also watched a Gene Hackman one from the time. So jovial. Yeah. He was so happy to be there. And he was just fawning over the experience of doing Uncommon Valor. And it was actually really interesting because I'd done obviously that research for the package where Gene Hackman seemed burnt out on any sort of press stuff. Yeah. And then watching that interview, he was just like. And company business as well the other day. Yeah. And company business. And watching him talk about this movie, he was like Santa Claus. He was all a twinkle.

[00:48:20] It's like target, target, target. Yeah. Not just burn out, but kind of embittered in some way. I always found that interesting. He seemed to have these mood swings that lasted quite a long time. And I often wondered why. I mean, was he unhappy with what he was doing or unhappy with the movies? Or I mean, he's never less than wonderful himself. And that's kind of what matters, right? Well, yeah. And in that interview, they ask him about doing all these action films. Do you enjoy them?

[00:48:50] And he said, yeah, I do because it doesn't depend entirely on dramatic acting to carry the movie. So it's almost like he's able to relax a little after probably being, you know, feeling very much like he has to deliver a thousand percent in all of these, you know, character pieces in the 70s. He can bring the character work, but also have support from the technical side. He seemed to enjoy that in 1985 press tour terms. Yeah.

[00:49:19] Well, also, I mean, you know, think about it. He's kind of like the Liam Neeson of the 80s. Yeah. He was just established leading man slash character actor. The next thing you know, he's making action pictures. He's not working that hard. It's interesting. You mentioned Liam Neeson. Okay. I won't say any more for now. Okay. Okay. Is he going to be on the show? Yes. Surprise guest. Joining us now. Sorry, Scott. We only have room for one. Bye. Liam. Yes.

[00:49:49] He has a special set of skills and he's about to deliver them on the podcast. Yes. So the budget for this movie was 12.9 million. Domestically, it did 9 million. Did not seem to have a worldwide release, like an international release. It would have had one, I'm sure. I don't know. In those days, not necessarily. If it underperforms in America, it's a pretty American film. I've thrown out there. Brits listening. I know there are dozens of you.

[00:50:17] Did you see Target in the cinemas? Let us know. Yeah. So ultimately, it lands at the worldwide box office at number 91 for the year. Yeah. It was actually beaten in its first box office week by Death Wish 3. Wow. So that kind of tells you it was not a hit at all. One of the worst movies ever made. Until the crackdown. Crackdown's pretty bad too. The fourth one.

[00:50:43] But yeah, it was at number 91 between the Patsy Cline biopic Sweet Dreams with Jessica Lang and Ed Harris, which is completely forgotten. And Mischief, the sex comedy with co-starring Kelly Preston. That's a rough duo. And if you look at the two posters for both those movies, they both feature intimate activity in cars. What was that second film? Mischief. Yeah. From 1985.

[00:51:11] I'm looking it up for research purposes, folks. Sure you are. Let's have a look. Oh. Oh, she seems to have fallen and can't get up. Yeah. Chris Nash is picking her up from behind somehow. Yes. Yes. Right. Let me help you, my fair lady. So the top three for the year. Number one was Out of Africa. Number two was Back to the Future. And number three was Rambo 2.

[00:51:39] And this was actually the final collaboration for Gene Hackman and Arthur Penn. So that's kind of noteworthy. You've got the trilogy, but I think the first two films are kind of like these landmark films. And then this one's more of a curiosity. And then the final note I had, which maybe explains the box office a little bit, was this was made by CBS Theatrical Films. They collapsed the year this movie was released. This was one of the final films they put out.

[00:52:06] So I don't know how much marketing muscle they really had at this point in time. Oh, OK. Wow. I'm shocked that Out of Africa outperformed Back to the Future. But it's mind boggling to me. It's a pretty snoozy Best Picture winner. Most Best Picture winners are pretty snoozy. Well, not compared to Out of Africa. I mean, a lot of them seem pretty exciting compared to that one. Oh, OK.

[00:52:32] Yeah, it's interesting, the whole CBS thing, though, because that would lead into Cam's theory that maybe it didn't get a worldwide release because they weren't willing to pay for it or didn't want to find someone to do international distribution. Yeah. It's kind of like, you know, now there's that shingle, Ketchup Studios, that's putting movies out. And they've basically taken these movies that are abandoned. Like there was the Ben Affleck one, Hypnotic, and there was the recent, very, very recent at the time of recording, Looney Tunes animated movie.

[00:53:01] I don't remember the name of it. Yeah, I just saw that twice. The Day the Earth Blew Up. I actually saw it twice. I loved it. Is it good? It's wonderful. They're in talks now to buy the rights to Acme versus whatever it is. Coyote. That's it. The WB one that they were going to just throw in the bin. Yeah. So Ketchup Entertainment is basically putting movies out. But with no muscle whatsoever. So the movies they're putting out are making no money. Oh. And so it's kind of like a curious situation. I wonder if that's...

[00:53:31] Do they have like a streaming service or it's all about just getting it on there? Or... I mean, at a certain point, these movies will go to streaming. Well, The Day the Earth Blew Up was supposed to actually be pulled from theaters today, this Wednesday. Right. But it has been performing so well that they're keeping it for at least another week. Yeah. So it's doing something. All right, folks. Let's talk about it. Target time. Did it hit the mark? Scott, you're our guest. Guests always go first.

[00:54:00] You know, you visited the film when it came out. You're revisiting it now. What do you think of Target in 2025? I'll give you a short answer and a long-winded answer. My short answer is I like it a lot. Sure. My long-winded answer is G.K. Chesterton wrote a book about Dickens. And he said, you know, Dickens wrote a lot of great books. He wrote a lot of turkeys. But if you want to read the book where you get an idea of who he is the most, like the

[00:54:30] most Dickensian book of all of Dickens' work, there's a book called Master Humphrey's Clock, which I like a lot. And I kind of think Target is like, it's certainly not Pack of Lies or The Whistleblower or The Fourth Protocol or any of the great thrillers of the 80s. But it's probably the most typical. I mean, if you want to say, well, this is a typical 80s spy thriller, sort of like the model for that.

[00:54:58] So I think if you're, depending on what you're looking for, it's certainly a good and viable spy movie. It's a good thriller. It's not great, but it's probably the most typical of its genre for that decade. And if you want to know, you know, what's a spy movie from the 80s like, I'd say see Target. Yeah. Yeah. Not Remo Williams? From the same year? No! It's fine.

[00:55:26] So I used to be really good friends with Warren Murphy, who wrote the books that's based on. And he loved Joel Grey. It's the only thing he liked about the movie. Otherwise, he thought it was a turkey. We've had it from several reliable sources that most people thought it was a turkey, as you put it. So I think they're in good company there. And much as I would love to see a Remo come back, I'm not too sure that we're ever going to see the destroyer again, unfortunately.

[00:55:55] But going back to Target, I think that's a very succinct way of putting it. It was a quite interesting way of looking at it as sort of a typical thriller of the 80s. This is the benchmark. Like the blueprint. I'm not saying this is Goldfinger, but it is kind of like, they say Goldfinger is the That's got a hot take. Yeah. Hot take. Target is the blueprint. Not Goldfinger. It's the Goldfinger of thrillers.

[00:56:24] Please don't print that anywhere, folks. I didn't say it. No, but I like that because I don't think this ever raises above the mark of three out of five. But it's a solid three out of five. It's a solid three. It's really deftly played. Everybody in it is terrific. I forget who plays the man who's responsible for the abduction. It's okay. Everyone does because he's barely in it. Okay. I mean, that should have been Herbert Lone, right? Oh, yeah.

[00:56:52] Because he was everywhere in the 80s. And Gail Honeycuts in it. And she, I mean, she's tied up to a chair at the end, which is a total waste. I'll get back to the wife. Yeah. That's a... Yeah. And then you have, then you have the, you know, the coquette that seduces Matt Dillon, who he smacks in the face. And then you never see her again. So you're never quite sure. So that's a completely underdone piece of... It was a hell of a punch. She was dead. She died. That was it. That's why you didn't see her again.

[00:57:22] He killed her. I wouldn't be surprised. I think she was there just so they could, you know, justify a scene with him with no shirt on. Oh, for sure. Or her. Her as well. And her. Oh, yeah. You see a bit of that. Her as well. But it's... So, you know, so much of it is underdone, but so much of it is well done. It's just sort of the perfect, typical movie. I think, yeah, I like that. I like that outlook.

[00:57:49] I think bouncing to my side of it, it's an interesting one because I don't think there's ever... I don't think there's any highs. But I don't think there's much in terms of lows. It is really like a bold it straight down the middle thriller. There's some good bits and bad bits that we'll talk about. But what I couldn't shake the entire time is this just felt like a proto version of Taken. Right. Yeah. Okay. Ah! Like, it's not... I think Taken is a step above this film.

[00:58:18] It's probably four or three and a half out of five. But, you know, you've got the dad trying to get the... You know, someone's been Taken trying to get them back, going to Europe to find them. The dad that can do no wrong. Everyone thinks he's lame and turns out he's really cool. Gene Hackman. And that was the Liam Neeson connection you sort of mentioned earlier. That's where I popped into my head. It's all over my notes. And I don't think that's a bad comparison to draw. Because I think a stripped down 80s version of Taken sounds quite interesting. Yeah.

[00:58:46] And Taken never really, like, strives to be one of the all-time greats. It has a couple of moments you'll remember and you move on. And I think there's a couple of moments here that, like, maybe will stick in my head. But I don't think this will ever change my life. But again, I was... Like, I was mostly pulled in. There's a couple of bits where it drags. Like, it is really, really just a three out of five. And I just think, like, it's both good that that happened and a shame. Because, you know, Gene Hackman's here. And Gene Hackman's done some wonderful work.

[00:59:15] And he's doing okay in this. And Dylan has done some good stuff. And he's doing okay in this. And there's a good chemistry between them. Yeah. But I suppose I just sort of sat there going, like, uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Okay, yep. And we're done. Right. Cool. You know, I would think Target's better. Okay. Um, because the way the Neeson character is written, he's so predicated on being a badass after all of this happens.

[00:59:44] He's like, I will hunt you down and I will kill you. And Gene Hackman really just cares about getting his wife back. I mean, this is never, I'm here proving my chops the way Neeson is. And I just think it's more human and better realized in Target. I think, I do get your point there. And I think what Taken maybe gets a couple of bonus points for me is the fact that the action's better in Taken than it is here.

[01:00:12] Like, there is a pretty pedestrian scenes in this film. There's a car chase that I think might actually be going less than the speed limit. I think like you also have Arthur Penn here. And that's a crucial factor in why there's a little more given to like Gene Hackman's performance and Matt Dillon's performance than say Liam Neeson's performance. I just don't know that Pierre Morel is known to be one of the great actor directors. Or directors.

[01:00:41] But better at shooting action. So, yeah, I think we can all agree there. So that's my take. So kind of the Scots are somewhat in agreement. But Cam, what are you saying? So I guess I'm somewhat in the same boat as you, Scott. Wait, which one? Yeah, who's Scott? Scott one and Scott two. I could be Scott two. No, I could be Scott two.

[01:01:04] I felt like this movie was trying to do a few things and not really like hitting any of them out of the park. So it wants to be this kind of father-son bonding drama, which is actually, I think, set up really well. I like the way it felt very naturalistic. The way the two of them were kind of awkward with each other. It wasn't like pumped up soap opera dynamics. It wasn't the, you'll never understand me. You don't know what love is. Things like that. You know what I mean?

[01:01:32] It was just like two guys who kind of couldn't connect. So that felt like very much like an Arthur Penn massaging that kind of material to make it feel real. And I was like pulled in. I'm like, oh, this is actually cool. I've never seen a movie, a spy movie like this where it's the father is a spy and you have kind of a relationship that needs to be mended in that kind of way. You can look at something like True Lies, but that's like a comic book, you know, where Arnie is a kind of family man who has to bring his family back together.

[01:02:00] But he does it in ways that are really over the top and ridiculous, right? I mean, he flies a fighter jet and like shoot someone out of a rocket and stuff like that. It's a little bit larger than life. Yeah. You got the daughter hanging from a Harrier. It doesn't happen every day. Whereas like Matt Dillon is just walking around a warehouse, like just kind of doing nothing. But I felt like they set up this father son stuff, but the movie kind of loses it because ultimately they just keep sidelining Matt Dillon throughout the film.

[01:02:29] And so I was like, okay, well, it sets that up. Doesn't quite deliver that in a way I found particularly satisfying. The action stuff, Scott, you referenced. It wants to be that kind of spy thriller. Don't know if I found the thriller aspects particularly thrilling. And then also it has... I'll just hold your point. I think just to add to your point. Some people would jump on us and say like, oh, but we're comparing it to Taken and stuff like that. That's like 30 years later. Sure. Okay.

[01:02:59] Day of the Jackal came out in 1975. Yeah. And that does as lo-fi action as this is trying to do with actual tension. Yeah. 1973. I'm sorry. It's even more old. Yeah. Yeah. And so, and then it was also like, it has this kind of undercurrent of the life of a spy. You know, he's reading Len Dayton at one point. That jumped out to me. But in game. Yeah. It's kind of like how this impacts kind of the life.

[01:03:29] And you have Gene Hackman with his former love interest, Lise. And she's talking about, you know, her regrets. There's a lot of this idea of just like the lives they've left behind and how they were corrupted by espionage and became lunatics. That's the word that's used at a certain point in the movie. Whereas it used to be about just kind of more of a civil trading of information. That stuff's all really interesting, but it also felt kind of surface level. It didn't feel like it was digging into it.

[01:03:53] It was kind of going in three different directions without kind of picking one thing and being like, let's just do this one to the fullest. Yeah. Well, like the family dynamic. I think Hackman and Dylan do have good chemistry together. I think in a different film they could have played a really good like fighting father and son unit. Yeah. But it never really commits to doing that. Like the whole idea of having this mildly rebellious son who can't quite live up to what his father's done and is like in his shadow a little bit.

[01:04:21] And also that whole teenage angst against your parents that also just always exists. That is a thing. That's never really like played with. There is no real point where like Dylan would do something against Hackman and it would like progress the story. There's a couple of times where maybe he didn't stay in the hotel room. Yeah. But that's around about it. There's no like using that antagonism between the two of them to help flesh out the story or push the story forward. Yeah.

[01:04:49] Even in the car chase, you know, Dylan is there, but he doesn't do anything. I mean, he chases, he chases, he chases. He ends up against, you know, the edge of the escarpment and then like, well, all right, I'm done. I'm out. And they also like become best mate, I think, by the end of the first hour. Like there is no real tension between them anymore. You know, like they're doing like bait and switches and stuff together and all sorts of stuff. I mean, yeah, he does.

[01:05:17] He does miss his connection to Frankfurt and go to Berlin just to have sex with someone, which, you know, he's 18. I mean, I get it. It's yeah, that happens. That's why I'm heading off to Europe now. Bye, Cam. But I'm out. Well, actually, I have to say that that really stretched. I mean, like I'm my willing suspension of disbelief is huge. I will.

[01:05:43] If you give me even the faintest justification, I will buy it. But his mother is missing and he decides, well, she's pretty hot. I think I'll just go over here and shack up with her and then I'll get back on this chase. And I just I didn't believe that for a nanosecond. And I which is surprising because, you know, the the best character moment in the whole movie is Dylan's where he's outside and they're going to kill Hackman.

[01:06:10] And the woman that he shacked up with, you know, meets him in the cafe and presses a gun against his spine. I'm like, oh, well, you know, this is actually something's really happening here. This is pretty good. But it's unearned because the justification for him having slept with her to begin with doesn't really make any sense, given the condition of the story. I mean, you're searching for your mother here. He's clearly closer to his mother than he is to his father.

[01:06:39] So he decides to go to another town because she's cute. It just never for a minute does it feel real. I did wonder, though, I couldn't help but like notice that like Gene Hackman's character had a type. Yeah. Like the wife and lease. There is a similar kind of look to them. And the hitchhiker girl also had that kind of look. Oh, no.

[01:07:03] And I was going like, you know, like I couldn't help but also look at the lease versus the hitchhiker girl comparison. I was going like these two look a lot alike, separated by some years, obviously. But I don't know. I felt like maybe Arthur Penn was trying to say something with casting there. And what would you say that is, Cam? There's a reason maybe he was drawn in by this hitchhiker specifically. Like there was something there. Like an Oedipus thing, right?

[01:07:33] Maybe. Like Arthur Penn was an interesting director. So like it wouldn't shock me if he was trying to like not play necessarily by the safe and sanitized studio rules. Like he's just like, hey, let's just like work in some odd subtext that might be there. Well, Scott, I was going to say, did you think the relationship between Dylan and the mother in their first scene together was normal? I thought it was pretty strange. I mean, like he put her underwear on his head, which I don't think I've ever done with my mother before. That she knows about what? Yeah.

[01:08:03] And he's like talking about his mom, like hooking up on vacation. I was really confused about the dynamic in the family when he first turned up at the house. I got the impression that they'd like divorced the parents and he was going to see his mom and she was off to shag herself around Europe. That obviously wasn't the case. But yeah, I don't think I mean, I'm quite close to my parents, but I don't think I've ever done anything quite like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:08:29] I also wouldn't want to be in the room where like the director's walking into Matt Dillon and saying, so you're going to have a sex scene now. And I want you to like think about passion, like intensity that she's your mom and really go in and kiss. What? Sorry? What? Where's my agent? Someone get my agent. Yeah. Yeah. That's probably why he was so pissed off in that interview. Just to shot that scene. Yeah. I'm so confused. No, but that's a really good point.

[01:09:00] The relationship there is questionable at best. It's very bizarre. So I was very close to both of my parents and I don't think I would ever have a conversation like that. So mom, you're going to hook up in Europe? Especially when she was married to my dad. Hey mom, wear protection. Wear protection. Yeah. Huh? Mom, no. My mother actually had four children and I'm sure she was convinced that I didn't know she ever had sex. Right.

[01:09:31] That's a very parental thing, isn't it? Although, to be fair, I'm quite happy pretending that that never happened. Right. We're miraculous births, both of us. We're all immaculate births. That's what host Scott and I bonded over. Our parents have the genitals of dogma. That's right. Yeah.

[01:09:56] And the other thing is that the mother was, I mean, you know, Hackman looked like your average middle-aged guy and she was a glamour puss. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Um, and... Yeah, but like she knew him when he was the Duke. Yeah. That's a sex stud Gene Hackman kind of shagging around Europe in the 60s. That's a whole other thing. Well, no, I got that, but I, I mean, they, they aged irregularly between the two of them. Sure. Well, he's working in a yumbelard. That's going to take it out of here.

[01:10:25] Well, when you were talking about Mark Kettle before, I mean, this movie wouldn't work if, if his mother looked like Marjorie Maine. No, that's true. I mean, I guess... He'd be like, take her. I'm staying here. Take her, take her. I'm here, isn't it? To be fair, did Gene Hackman ever really look young? I feel like he's kind of like Tommy Lee Jones. Like Tommy Lee Jones. Yeah, I was going to say. Whereas the girl that played the hitchhiker was 35 in this movie. What? You could have told me she was 20 and I would have believed you. You could have told me she was 17 and I would have believed you. Yeah. That's crazy. Okay. That's good genes right there.

[01:10:57] As opposed to the other gene. Yeah, bad. Bad gene. Yeah. What you're up first, something you want to focus on about the film, character, act, scene that you liked. So because when you offered me Target, I saw it, of course, and I said, well, you know, I kind of remember Matt Dillon from the 80s. So I watched a lot of Matt Dillon movies because of this afterwards.

[01:11:25] You know, like Rumble Fish, which is an awful picture, but he's really good. Yeah. And The Outsiders and things like that. And I'm surprised at what a deft performer Matt Dillon is. And I'm kind of shocked that he's gone. So I really liked Matt Dillon in this movie. I thought he sort of carried it more so than Hackman. And I also thought, you know, it was of a piece of the time. So I really, it was, you know, if you write series fiction, I write a lot of series books.

[01:11:53] If you write series fiction, you do that, you read series fiction because you want to revisit old friends and, and slipping into a movie like Target is really comfortable. And so it was kind of like visiting old friends. I remember the cold war. I remember what spy movies were like. I remember what movies in the middle of the 80s are like. So I, I, what I liked about it was just how well it fit. It sort of fit like, you know, your favorite sports coat that you've had for 40 years.

[01:12:19] Well, it felt like it was taking like all of the elements of the cold war storytelling, you know, the spy fiction of that time. And just making it feel normal and just natural. Whereas like, if you watch a movie made now set in this time period, they are like slapping you upside the head of like, here are the mark posts for what a cold war story is. Right. Whereas here it's just like comfortable pajamas being put on. You're like, okay, we can relax.

[01:12:49] You know, obviously all this stuff is happening concurrently with this movie being produced, you know, all the checkpoint Charlie and East West Berlin, all that stuff. But it just feels so natural versus recreated. Yeah. It's a meat and potatoes movie. You know, it's one of those movies that you like. It's a, it's a rainy Sunday. I want to be entertained. I don't want to, and I, and that's what I like about it. It's such a comfortable picture. It's like, you remember, you ever seen North Sea hijacker folks? You've been watching more pictures. I've seen it. All right.

[01:13:18] Many moons ago. Not by any stretch of the imagination, a great movie. An incredibly comfortable movie. You just slip into that, like, you know, it's your favorite pair of PJs. And that's what I like about this movie. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's offering you time with friends. And I like it. It's not a cold war. It's a cozy war. It's a cozy, it's a cozy war. Yes. I think the people in East Berlin would probably disagree with me right now. I'm going to get some letters, but I dare you. I had to eat turnips for eight years.

[01:13:48] That's all I had. Sorry, guys. You're here now. It's great. I think for me, I was going to talk about Hackman and Dylan because I think both put in good performances. And having seen a bad performance of Gene Hackman recently, it was nice to see him in this way. He, he was giving a little bit more. What was the bad performance? I recently watched Company Business, which came out in 91. Ah, okay. Another forgotten spy film, which we'll talk about in the future.

[01:14:17] I'll leave that there as a little tease. But I wanted to say that there actually are some decent set pieces in this film. I did, I did take the Mickey and say there's a very slow driving sequence, which there is. Which one? There was two of them. The driving sequences or the good set pieces? The driving sequences. You're talking about the first or the second? The first one. Okay. Yeah. The one where they're being tailed by the protection guy? When they're in traffic and it's kind of like they are basically going the speed limit. Right. Yeah. Okay. Riveting.

[01:14:47] No. The one that, I mean, there's, there's a couple of fun moments. I mean, there's a moment in the airport where like you sort of see that the, the, the Liam Neeson taken training or the, the, the Jason Bourne training in, in Gene Hackman, where he like just sort of basically concludes the guy gets, shoots the other guy, takes the guy's gun, whatnot. And just like ninjas his way through something. And it just subtly walks out with a gun in an airport. Like, that's quite nice to see. But the thing for me is, is that whole set piece, I think it was in Hamburg where, you

[01:15:15] know, they're running over bridges, driving bridges, jumping in the water. Like it's a very involved sequence. Now I don't at any point think Gene Hackman was particularly in that water, but. Well, I don't know. When the interview I watched. I think there is a shot of him in it. Oh, go on. In the interview I watched, they asked him about that and he's like, oh yeah, that was me. That was, I think he was taking credit for a stunt man's diving into the water personally. But the interviewer says, oh, you know, do you do that? Just, you know, authenticity or ego. And Gene Hackman's like, oh, it's ego. You know, you want to think you can still do it.

[01:15:46] I appreciate that. But like, I think that was a good, like I've not seen that set piece before. I've seen someone dropping off of a bridge onto a boat. I think I've seen it in a couple of films, I think including a Taken film and a Jason Bourne film. But I think this is an interesting way, interesting thing put together. And it was also done on location in Hamburg, I think. And it looked pretty good. It was where some of the money had been spent in this film. Right. Yeah. I mean, you could definitely tell that there was an effort to create set pieces and using their locations.

[01:16:16] Like there's the one where, yeah, it's like Gene Hackman just, it's in that water, you know, section where he winds up in the water later. But with him just like jumping off the lookout onto the boat. Yeah. And it felt like a stuntman jumping from a lookout onto a boat. It didn't feel, you know, synthetic. It felt like they were working in a real location to make it feel cool and interesting. Something tangible, which we lose a lot now through doubling and CGI and all that sort of stuff. Whereas at some point that was Gene Hackman.

[01:16:46] And then there was a body double that looked a lot like Gene Hackman. And it was tangible about that. Yeah. It was a real person. I always go back to Timothy Dalton talking about the sequence at the end of Living Daylights where the guy's dangling off the back of the airplane on the, on the, like the ropes or whatever it is. Yeah. Yeah. Like a lot of that. Oh no, actually I'll take it back. I think it's another scene in, in License to Kill where he's like hanging in, is he like hanging off of a helicopter at the start or something like that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:17:15] And he insisted that that was him. Right. Because people need to see him to believe. And I just think that there is something tangible about it that we have lost. And, and, and despite this film's flaws, which we'll talk about, it does have that tangible feel. Like there is, I do think Gene Hackman was in the water at some point. I do think Matt Dillon was driving that car. So Scott, you were mentioning, you know, your likes being Hackman and Dillon. I think something to me that was noteworthy was like Gene Hackman, we've seen in the package,

[01:17:41] we're going to see in more things like company business and then some like really great stuff like conversation or enemy of the state. He's going to be someone we come back to. But to me, there was an actual novelty to Matt Dillon being here because he's giving a type of performance that we're not going to see very much. And he's not someone known for making spy movies. And I'm always kind of interested when we see a spy movie that features someone who's

[01:18:06] just not really of that world and operating within it for a movie or maybe at most two. And I thought of like Timothy Hutton in Falcon and the Snowman, who was really good in that movie. And around the same time period, might have even been the same year. And that's, again, an actor who's not known for spy films. And so like to me, that was where the interesting energy came from. Because Hackman, we know he can do this in his sleep. We've seen him do it in his sleep in a different movie.

[01:18:35] But, you know, here it was actually the draw of Matt Dillon. That's why I was a little frustrated that he kept being sidelined as opposed to kind of being organically worked into what Hackman was doing throughout the movie. And I think quite refreshingly, Dillon's character never becomes a good spy. Yeah, which I liked. Yeah. Yeah. Because you see it. It's like a dime a dozen in spy movies. It's a trope at this point of like a new person in the spy world. And within half an hour becomes James Bond.

[01:19:03] It's what the Manful Muggle is all about. I mean, sheesh. Right. Yeah. Every episode, a new person sort of gets roped into it. And they're a good spy by the end. Yeah. It can be interesting. It can be fun. But a lot of the times it's like, should they be doing this as accurately as they are? And in this, they don't. He's still a bumbling teenager. That's great. Yeah. Well, Maggie Grayson, Taken 2, was like doing a lot more action based stuff. Throwing grenades around and stuff like, OK. If someone gave me a grenade, I'd be like, oh, boy.

[01:19:35] Hope I don't drop it. Oh, no. Yeah. No, I think they're all great likes. The only other thing to really bring up, I think it's good that they shot a lot of this on location. Oh, looks great. Yeah. Yeah. I think there is a problem here with the money spent. I think it does look a bit flat sometimes. It's all quite beige. There's not a lot of like, it doesn't pop a lot, but it's nice. That tangible feel I was talking about before. Like they are in Western East Berlin at some point. They are in Hamburg.

[01:20:04] They are in Paris. They're like the Eiffel. Is the Eiffel Tower in it? Or am I confusing it with company business? No, it's not. No, I was just thinking that. That's what I liked was they actually worked around not going to all the famous landmarks. Yeah. Because that can feel tired. And you know what? This is 85. This is the year of view to a kill. Bond is already at the Eiffel Tower. You know, Mayday is parachuting off of it.

[01:20:27] So it's kind of fun that they kind of work more in like back alleys and hotels and stuff like that into this movie and not make it feel like they're trying to go big over the top spy movie. Just trying to go more grounded. I think that works for it. I did have to think though as I was watching this. You know, this and view to a kill, 85. Is 85 the year of like the elderly gentleman spy film? I have to go and look that up. I wonder if it is. Like who else?

[01:20:56] Wait, what year was the return of the man from Uncle? Is that 83? Is that 83? I think it may have been 86 maybe? I think it's 83 because I think it might be the same year as Octopussy and Never's Never Again. Okay. Well, while you look that up because I couldn't help but notice it's like every operative that he goes up against is about, you know, 50, 60 years old. There are no young people involved in this espionage.

[01:21:22] And it's such a contrast to nowadays where as soon as you see CAA like hitmen going out on the field, they're like, you know, 25, 30 years old and like built to the nines. 1983. Yeah, it was 1983. I just to add to your point though, I just looked up some of the other spy movies in 85. And one that connects well to this is Gotcha, by the way. Sure. Yeah, yeah. Same year as this. And you've got another guy. Is that the Tom Holland picture?

[01:21:53] Anthony Edwards. Okay. Yeah, Cloak and Dagger was Tom Holland. Tom Holland. That's the year before. Yeah. But there are some old man movies this year. I mean, Spies Like Us. Sure. You've got The Holcroft Covenant, which is Michael Caine. Yeah. I'm trying to think. Invasion USA is not quite that. No. KGB The Secret War, which stars, I think one of the guys who plays M off the top of my head. Robert Brown? Bernard Lee. Oh, it doesn't play M.

[01:22:22] He plays the Russian version that is in every single film. Oh, the Gogol character. Walter Kotel. Kotel. That's right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So he's like the lead in that one. So there are quite a few old man spy movies going around this year. Yeah. Yeah. Though Viotr Kyo and this one really felt like they stood out. Because, yeah. Not a lot of... Maybe that's the reason the action is not particularly hyperkinetic. Maybe. Maybe.

[01:22:50] And also, like, action was still kind of going through an evolution. We'd had, like, French connection and stuff, I think, by this point. But, you know, we hadn't had the Schwarzeneggers turn up particularly. I guess he's around. But, like, have we had, like, those big action films really at this point? No. And actually, this is the same year. I mentioned it earlier. Death Wish 3. So, like, Charles Bronson stuff is still really popular. And Arnold is around. I think it's Red Sonja comes out in 85. But he's not... When's, like, Predator and all that?

[01:23:20] Those are a little later. 87. 87. Right. 87 is the big Arnold year with Running Man and Predator. But he does do Terminator in 84. So, we're kind of at that point where... Starting to diverge. Yeah. But he's a villain there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you were talking about European locations. Even though it's not stellar, that's a vanished Europe. Mm-hmm. And when we're looking at the Europe of Target,

[01:23:48] there's as much distance between us now and Target as there would have been between Target and a spy movie in the 30s. Right. And that was a vanished Europe in the 80s. And I just... You know, I think you would be hard-pressed to go around Hamburg and find parts that look like that. Oh, for sure. Like, the whole place has evolved. It's been 40 years since that film? Yeah. Is this the anniversary year for this film? I didn't even think of that.

[01:24:17] It is, actually. Yeah. Celebrating 40 years of Target, everyone. Lock them aboard. Hitting the mark after all these years. Yeah. We finally got something right. Cam, I don't think you've given us a like. Why don't you? It was when the movie tried to go a little deeper. It was like the least character talking to Matt Dillon about her regrets. It was those moments where Gene Hackman is, you know, encountering the guy that was hunting him, Schroeder, played by Herbert Burghoff,

[01:24:45] and just talking about, like, the nature of changing espionage. And, you know, the regrets because, you know, the Schroeder character, his entire family was killed in Operation Clean Sweep and how that's haunted him. The idea of characters talking about the past and how it had changed them as people, I was like, that felt like Arthur Penn, like, really pushing the writers to, like, deepen that stuff because it interested him. And that's where, to me, I was like, this is what the movie could be.

[01:25:13] Like, because I don't think this is a top-tier action movie, but when it tries to push organic character work, it really clicks with me and it just felt like it wasn't quite doing it enough. It feels like bits like that is it's trying to take a bigger... It's trying to paint a bigger picture with it. Like, there's something deeper to the story, whereas it doesn't necessarily actually want to commit to that the rest of the time. Yeah, because the relationship with the mom does not feel like anything that would exist within, like, the relationships in the rest of the movie. No.

[01:25:43] And, like, you know, rarely do we see someone escape the world of espionage so successfully. People always wanted to get out. Yeah. And they never seemed to be able to, whereas Gene Hackman basically got away for 20 years and then got pulled back into it just because someone wanted to go shagging around Europe. Yeah. Yeah. And there's that great scene where it's Gene Hackman just talking to, you know, the Lease character about, like, their past. If I could have had another go at it, you know, we would have been together and stuff like that. And, like, your son has to hear that,

[01:26:13] which is the weirdest thing. Yeah. Yeah. I wish I hadn't had you! It does make you wonder about their marriage, doesn't it? No. Yeah. Well, it probably doesn't bode well for the future for them. No. To be fair, I think she was buggering off to Europe anyway. So there's, like, a scene right at the beginning where she's saying he should have come with her and he's saying, no, he's got to do work or whatever. But I felt there was a tiny bit more to that. Like, he wasn't ready to let go of whatever it was and she was sort of done with where they were.

[01:26:43] Oh. See, I interpreted that as he thought it was too dangerous because he had too many enemies there. I didn't get that until, like, obviously learning about his connections later. You can fill that blank. But in that moment, you don't know about his European escapades. So you have to just kind of take it on the what's presented to you, which I would take as, you know... He stole. I like our life here. Why do we need to change?

[01:27:13] Last like. And that is, I've seen a bunch of films about Europe at this point. And the ones I'm specifically reaching for are this, Gotcha, and Euro Trip. So I think now I have the perfect summer holiday planned. I may come back with your venereal disease. Oh my. We interrupt this program to bring you a special report.

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[01:28:12] and your strife because we are kicking off Animated April with 1967's The Jungle Book. Is Walt Disney's adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's beloved novel one of the bare necessities? We're gonna find out. So deactivate Ghost Protocol and visit patreon.com slash spyhards to truly do things angel style. But before we close, Channel D, on with the spy jinx. Okay, dislikes and there's probably a few to talk about

[01:28:41] but I think we've kind of covered a couple of them but Scott, is there something you'd like to critique about the film that you haven't already? So the climax where they're getting her out of the chair just seemed a little flaccid to me. I mean, and they just essentially walk outside and the place blows up and even though it's not an action film in the sense of action films today or even action films in the 80s, it did seem that the ending needed just a little extra push,

[01:29:11] I thought. I think it was choreographed badly. Yeah. I think you don't know why there's a guy in the corner and you don't know why Dylan and the other spy who turns out to be the turncoat, the big bad of it all is walking around doing circles and then you've also got like the most tensionless bomb defusal I've ever seen in my life. Yeah. That doesn't help and then when they go to walk away from this, you've got Dylan and Hackman both trying to carry one woman and by the fact that they're both trying to carry her

[01:29:41] it's actually harder? Right. It's really awkward looking. I just wish Dylan had just picked her up and ran with her because he certainly could. He's a fit young man and that bugged the hell out of me but yeah, overall I think it's a really weak ending. Yeah, it's like, you know, I shouldn't be watching the movie going like, man, Octopussy made a bomb defusing so much more tense. And in a circus tent. Yeah, in a circus tent where you know Bond's not getting blown up. Yeah, dressed as a clown and it's like, you know, like John Glenn, I like a lot, really love a lot of his Bond movies

[01:30:10] but I don't think he's at the tier of like Arthur Penn as a director and yet somehow he's far better at staging a sequence like that than Arthur Penn is here. Well, I think what Penn's going for here is something a bit deeper but really what you needed in that scene was the whole like sweat dripping down the brow as you're trying to defuse the bomb as there's another ticking bomb walking behind you as your son's about to get killed. That's what you're meant to be getting from it but I don't think they really sell A, that Gene Hackman is potentially

[01:30:39] not going to be able to defuse the bomb. Like you believe immediately that he's got it so it's just a matter of watching him do it and you also don't know why Dylan is walking around the back because you don't know the turncoat is the turncoat. Oh, if you don't know the turncoat is a turncoat you've been asleep since real one. I will argue against you. I think this film does a really bad job of getting a point across about who the villains are. I think there is 30 minutes until there's any mention of a villain particularly

[01:31:10] and yes, you can pick up on cues that this guy knows too much about him and doesn't know the names and stuff like that. There is bits there. There are the tiniest of crumbs but there is no major antagonist in this film. No, there's no antagonist the way there is in a Bond film certainly. No. Did you pick up that the hitchhiker was an enemy agent, Scott? Either Scott. Oh, no. Until she pulled out the knife or whatever I was just like I just thought she liked to have sex.

[01:31:40] Really? Oh, wait, are you talking about the woman who held the gun on Dylan? The one who he met in the airport. Oh, the second I Yeah. She's in it. Oh, well, okay, I guess this is why I'm going to end up with venereal diseases because I'm going to get quite easily bamboozled by people because I trust too easily. I think me and Scott McRae are going to do quite well in the field. Yeah. yeah. Trust. People shake my hand. I count my fingers. I mean,

[01:32:10] I trust nobody. I just end up with gonorrhea. Well, I guess I'll jump in with my dislike and it kind of builds off of that a little bit that end scene and that is throughout this the whole point is that Gene Hackman's wife has been kidnapped. Yeah. So I counted the amount of minutes she's in this film. Okay. And it's six. Yeah.

[01:32:40] So I was actually going to guess nine but okay, yeah. Yeah. I mean, there are a couple of seconds change so you can maybe argue for seven but basically she's in a scene at the beginning and they drop her off at the airport and then they awkwardly carry her out of a building that explodes. That's it. And that is your like person you're trying to go back and fight for. That's like what the protagonists are fighting for. Their mother, their wife, their life. And I don't want to keep comparing it to Taken but at least Taken had the

[01:33:09] wherewithal. Peter Morrell and all of his I don't know who the hell this guy is the director would cut in shots of Maggie Grace being sold into prostitution being like bid on by shady blokes and being given drugs and being captured and all that sort of stuff. You don't even see the woman get captured. Right. She just off screen is captured. I just think I understand you want this to be sort of a buddy thing between father and son. I do get that. But for goodness sake give me a little bit about

[01:33:39] what happened to the woman and also maybe like a phone call throughout where she's on the phone like I'm okay. They've got me. I'm here. Oh. And then they grab her and wheel her away and you have a little bit of that ramping up of and also twisting the guts of Gene Hackman like I've got your wife. Here she is. No. Fuck you. I'm going to take her away again. It just adds a little bit to it. But also not having a villain for the most part doesn't help that either because you can't have that phone call with a villain saying I have your wife if you don't know who the villain is. Yeah. She's the MacGuffin really.

[01:34:10] Yeah. Yeah. Maybe like I'm trying to look at it from the point of view of maybe what they were trying. Were they trying for something more realistic where you wouldn't be getting those phone calls and they wanted to strip away the cliches? Maybe. Maybe. But like at least show the kidnapping. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. It just feels weird to cast someone give her a line and then just remove her from the film entirely. Like have a flashback where he dreams about her and like or where she gets killed or

[01:34:39] something like give me something so I care more about the wife because apart from the fact that it is my protagonist's husband wife and mother I don't know this woman. And you don't at the end either because she doesn't really get a chance to speak. No. No I think that is a major failing of this film. Well that's me Cam what about you? Um well kind of the pace and lack of tension were my numero unos but honestly like I thought that um Joseph Sommer as

[01:35:09] Tabor the guy who's behind it all the secret you know um double agent just did not work. I thought he was like a complete milquetoast performance and I don't really know this actor very well like uh maybe he's popped up in some things I like I don't really know um he wasn't witness witness is a good movie nobody's fool with uh Paul Newman really good movie so maybe he's been very good elsewhere but in this movie he just doesn't have the presence

[01:35:39] to really work and I felt like every time they were putting him in a room with Gene Hackman it was like Gene Hackman was just blowing him off the screen and it just you want to feel something like you want to feel like this guy may not be as formidable as Gene Hackman but you want to feel like there's something whether it's an intellect whether it's I don't know something like a sense of power none of it came across and I just was left with like one of the more generic villains we've run into on this show

[01:36:08] oh I this is gonna sound ridiculous but when I was watching it I kept on thinking about hopscotch which I haven't seen um oh okay which is a terrific Walter Matthau spy comedy and you know he's a spy who's you know kind of past his prime and his opposite number is Herbert Lone and you actually have the feeling that they knew each other and they were spies against each other but there was this sense that there was this camaraderie

[01:36:36] and and that's entirely missing here in taken uh target right and uh uh and I to your point I think you know if if there was a sense that you know like we're frenemies or you know you did this to me so I'm getting back at you but it's sort of like this this you know um anonymous german accent comes out of nowhere it says I evacuate myself on you and you're like there's no there's no real

[01:37:05] payoff no I felt like the actor who played schroeder had so much more presence and that's a crucial role and you want someone with presence for that big reveal in the greenhouse but like if that guy had been the villain it probably would have clicked a little more and then there's the other guy that's set up as the red herring um who's kind of the uh I guess second in command to uh Tabor and like that guy also cannot really deliver no he just falls into the background of the film he's basically barely there yeah

[01:37:34] yeah I I think that the whole the whole villain thing just fails for me like I I think it would have been better if we'd known maybe a little bit before I know you're saying you had an inkling both guys maybe I'm just behind the eight ball here but I I think it wasn't that overt as it should be it yeah yeah exactly um well let's just go to any final notes we've got I've only got the one maybe two cam have you got anything um I had a couple and they were both

[01:38:04] really right off the top of the movie uh number one was the um true value lumber place look like the police station from twin peaks when they showed that counter I was like oh my god it looks exactly like twin peaks the police station uh uh you know the receptionist desk keep your eye on the donut and also connected to that it's like seconds later Gene Hackman's out driving and there is a sign for a business called I

[01:38:34] think what about which I wasn't familiar with it's what a burger what a burger it's what a burger the logo is exactly like the wonder woman logo well and also the weezer logo yeah I was like I didn't realize that how close the similarity was between those things uh I'm sure what a burger has had to fight litigation on that at some point in their life but they've been around for a very long time wonder woman's been around since uh I think the very early 40s so well who's coming out on top weezer what a burger or wonder

[01:39:04] woman um on top of what yeah on top of what Scott wonder woman on that note yeah uh I I was just uh I was blown away by a scene in this film where Gene Hackman has to go into a phone booth which is something that doesn't exist anymore if you're young and you don't know what that is it's where you have a phone and you have to go into a box to use it uh and he talks in french only he doesn't because the guy doing the

[01:39:33] dubbing sounds nothing like Gene Hackman yeah it's painfully obvious it's not Gene Hackman so in fact they have to shoot him from the back and him just sort of like nodding his head as if he's talking on a phone um but he he does turn around and you do hear him say wee wee right thanks Gene master of languages and diving into water I don't know if you should be in a small booth and say wee wee but that's true you might end up with one of those uh

[01:40:02] venereal diseases we keep getting scared about but uh I I just also wrote down uh because their original names were the Potters yes I wrote down Derek Potter and the middling spy movie sure you're welcome everyone I do have one thing though um oh you do go Scott go so at least for the 20th century at least if you look at movies from every decade in the 20th century people people look different people

[01:40:31] in the 70s look different from people in the 80s yeah who look different from people in the 90s a lot less so now for whatever reason I don't know but it's it's impossible to look at a frame of that movie and go oh and not go oh the 80s like you would never mistake that for the 70s or the 90s or even the 60s if you take away things like the car and I I always found it fascinating that that each decade people look different and I and I don't know you know where I'm even going with

[01:41:01] that but you know it's impossible to see if you take you know an actress from a movie from the 30s and you separate her from her milieu and you're just looking at the figure you go the 1930s or the 1940s and the 80s and the 90s are really I think the last decade where you could do that yeah no that's true and I mean nowadays uh Gene Hackman probably age-wise in this movie would be like Ben Affleck yeah which is fascinating I think wow yeah yeah

[01:41:30] you're right yeah so this is 40 years ago he was 96 so he's 55 56 when he made this so Ben Affleck's a little younger than that but not by a ton no no no I'd buy Ben Affleck in that role right yeah yeah um okay knock list time the reason why we assemble every week we're not Avengers Cam for those tuning in for the first time why don't you just explain what the knock list is

[01:42:00] yes the knock list is our acronym for need to see official classics of the spy arts podcast where every week after we talked about a movie we debate whether it belongs on the list of the all-time great spy films the list of films you could give any person new to the genre that are the essentials so we have to vote now whether this makes that sacred list only a few films have made it over our 200 reviews and Scott you get a vote your vote is first guests always go first it's your first time up on the knock list so

[01:42:29] yes or no should target hit the target can I say no with a caveat yeah no no with a caveat but um again if you just want to get an idea of what spy movies in the 80s are like you can't go wrong but is this certainly the third man or octopussy or from Russia with love or five fingers no not even close it does have a tuck tuck though does have a tuck tuck you mentioned five fingers in this review you're a man of many talents and great taste oh it's

[01:42:59] great though it just it and that made an orc list yeah oh James Mason movie made the knock list amazing shocker shocker yeah okay one no also to play for Cameron you're up no it's a no for me as well and I you know would like to put a Gene Hackman film on the knock list I think we will one day most likely certainly a couple of chances I'm sure we'll have a conversation about it yes yes and uh you

[01:43:28] know the package did not and I don't think this one does either I would actually put this a hair below the package yeah um so but you know what there are gonna be worse ones coming up too yes yes maybe not in the in the not so distant future maybe a ways away but there is more Gene Hackman of many different flavors to come two no's my turn and it's a no um if you want to watch taken go watch taken sure there are nuances to this there

[01:43:57] is perhaps a bit more uh depth to this film than there is taken but I think it's let down by bad action a lot of the time I think it's let down by a lack of a villain uh and it's let down by a pacing issue we should we haven't spoken about too much but like it in the mid the second act is basically a lot of sleepiness um and you know I've only seen it the once but I couldn't bring I don't think I would want to track this one down again so for me it's a no and as such three no's target is

[01:44:27] not making the knock list the dossier on the film is complete and filed as classified and there we go boom boom um before we sign off scott this is your first time on spy hearts podcast I hope you've had a good time on spy hearts podcast it's been great having you here I hope it's the first of many for sure um well I think now is an opportune time we spoke about it at the start but you know where can people find your books I mean there

[01:44:56] will be a link in the show notes below but where do you recommend people to go where do you recommend people to go find out more about you where can people find you on the social media well they can find me on x or whatever it's called these days at scott mccrae west uh they can find me at scott mccrae dot net and they can find me on instagram at scott mccrae west and they could buy targets west my new spy thriller uh at amazon and or it can be ordered through barnes and noble or whatever so anywhere you

[01:45:26] want but if you're thinking of building a new addition to your house by multiple copies of targets west and build it with that like peewee's playhouse it's i'll start replacing my copies of little drummer girl that are holding up this place oh god so i hate that movie with a passion and the book is not much better so oh okay you and nicholas mayer would have to go head to head on that one i think because he is a big fan oh really okay of the book of the book not the film he's very specific

[01:45:55] about that scott it's been a pleasure i recommend everyone goes and checks out the book there will be a link in the show notes below make it happen go follow scott online plenty of spy jinx to be had but we'll be talking online all week so if you find our post you'll find scott too as well we'll post about the book as well not a problem scott it's been great thank you so much thank you so much there you go folks that was our chat about

[01:46:24] target i want to thank scott mccrae for making the journey onto spy hearts podcast it was amazing to have you on you're a cracking guest and you join the hall of fame of scott that have been on the show over the years we seem to have had quite a few yeah that's definitely a much more popular name for spy aficionados than cam yeah we have we encountered a cam not yet only cam and what a time that was charlie's angels one and

[01:46:54] two we're just forgetting about back in action i assume charlie's angels one and two i knew you'd say that well yeah it was great talking target and also great to just talk about gene hackman obviously in the light of his passing recently just i mean i know it wasn't the best film to sort of hold up as a gene hackman film but he did good in the film it was nice to talk about it we'll have some bigger gene hackman films down the road i'm sure yes and also the uh the most notable spy movie would be the conversation

[01:47:24] and i saw a lot of other podcasts doing that movie in the wake of his passing so we were actually doing something a little different focusing on a movie that maybe people haven't seen a thousand times and one that maybe we could shine some light on yeah that's that's kind of the spy hards way going all the way back to our you know spy hards die hard review at the start talking about some of the films we drudged up over the years that's exactly what we like doing here is maybe not looking at the obvious ones but you know our mission is to watch all spy movies of all time i'm not sure we'll ever do it

[01:47:53] but we'll try and uh you know we're talking about films that aren't popular and target is not a popular film i don't think anyone's made a podcast about this or maybe maybe one or two podcasts over the years have but certainly not the amount of people that are talked about the conversation or enemy of the state yeah sure both of which we've never spoken about that's right coming soon and speaking of coming soon what a segue cameron the question goes to

[01:48:23] you what are we talking about next week well this movie we tackled was uh released in 1985 and next week we're gonna look at an adaptation of a tv show that was probably running in 1985 and that is the equalizer we are gonna kick start this franchise with the 2014 original starring denzel washington yeah we've been waiting to do this one for quite a while a lot of you you've asked about the equalizer i think it's about time denzel did wonderful

[01:48:52] work in gladiator 2 and he's been on everyone's lips recently there's been talk of the being an equalizer 4 and 5 so we thought hey let's kick off a new franchise let's talk about the equalizer and we've also got a spy master interview for you next week as well to go alongside it we do indeed yeah but i'll save that till next week's episode so you can tune in and find out more about that so your mission folks should you choose to accept it is to join us next week as we take

[01:49:20] a look at 2014's the equalizer and if you like what you heard on this episode please consider joining us over on our patreon i know you hear me say it from time to time there's always a cheeky ad in the middle of the show but genuinely anyone who can spare a dime spare a nickel spare a pound spare a dollar to come and join us over there help support spy hearts you're genuinely helping the show helping us keep the lights on me and cam aren't in this to make profit we're not in this

[01:49:48] to start a new business all of your money goes back into the show and it costs a lot to run a podcast more than you'd think and we wanted to give you the best version of the show possible so every person who gets involved just helps the show get better yes so and of course as well as supporting the show financially you're unlocking a ton of bonus episodes over 100 bonus episodes available on patreon find out more about that patreon.com slash spy hearts

[01:50:18] there'll be a link in the show notes below and frankly we'd love to see you plus there's more gene hackman coverage there we've talked about the french connection we've talked about superman one and two and there'll be more hackman content i'm sure in the future couldn't think of a better way of selling it cam well said hopefully we'll see you all over there soon and speaking of seeing us you can see us on social media at spy hearts wherever you might social your medias x facebook instagram

[01:50:47] tick tock blue sky threads we're basically everywhere like good spies should be but until next week folks cam and i are desperately heading back to spy hearts hq to do some research and see if we can find a film to finally finish our 80s tuck tuck trilogy you