Stallone Crime Films Special

[00:00:00] This podcast is a production of Unfiltered Studios. If you would like to know more about joining Unfiltered Studios, please visit our website at unfpod.com for more information. Now we got crazy crime-y roles of Stallone. Oh God, there's so much more. Summary of it, but it's just so funny just when we look back at his career and how he has tried to do something different every time and yet...

[00:00:26] I've always wanted to play that kind of character. I really have, so this has been an opportunity. I've always wanted to play like a gangster type, but with more of a sense of humor, not a dark gangster. It's like a different kind of gangster. Thank you. And finally I got a chance to do it, and it seems to be working.

[00:00:53] And I don't know, you probably read this maybe, that in 1970 I went up as an extra in The Godfather There's 250 extras. For a wedding scene, I would be minuscule, be like a grain of sand. And they say, you don't look Italian enough. I go, what? I'm always getting mistaken for Dolph Lundgren. Yeah. Swedish. Really? Did you speak some Italian to them at the time?

[00:01:23] Yeah. Just throw in a few words.

[00:02:11] Looking at his crime movies, just let me lay it out for you. There's going to be some roles you guys are recognizing. There's going to be some lesser seen ones, and for good reason. But Gil and I were talking about how he did this movie where he was like an environmental terrorist. A way progressive role, considering that's not how Stallone is at all in real life. And he does this movie in 73 before Rocky called No Place to Hide. Oh my God. And it's also known as Rebel. And it was just so boring.

[00:02:36] These guys decided to re-dub it and change all the dialogue into some amusing dialogue called A Man Called Rainbow. Finally check out that because it's a very slow-moving movie. But it's interesting as a morbid curiosity. I just think of watching, I was watching The Lords of Flatbush. Oh my God. Like really the first movie he was in. Yeah. And I didn't realize that he got into a fight with Richard Gere. Yeah.

[00:03:02] On that set because they were eating a sandwich and Richard Gere had a chicken sandwich and mustard on it. And Stallone had these jeans on it. And Richard Gere was like biting the sandwich and having the mustard spill on Stallone's jeans. Stallone got pissed off. Yeah, you got a mustard on my jeans. I told you that you spilled mustard on my jeans, Richard. I didn't realize Gere was in that. Gere was supposed to be in it and they fired him. Okay. So then what happened was that they got Perry King in it. That's how they got the Fonz. Yeah. Okay.

[00:03:32] I thought it was, wait, oh no, he replaced, yeah, yeah. Henry Winkler replaced him, right? I thought it was. It's a Fonz origin story basically. Yeah. Exactly. But a lot of people don't realize he's in like, like a couple of other movies before that. He's in Take Them, He's in Take Them Money and Run. He plays one of the hoods. That's chasing Woody Allen in the subway. Yeah. He shoots a guy and you're like, what the hell? This is. No, he doesn't shoot anybody. He doesn't shoot anybody in that movie. They beat up an old woman. Okay. Maybe I'm thinking of Bananas.

[00:04:02] I thought he was in that or something. No, no. He's no, no. It's Bananas. I'm sorry. It is Bananas. Yeah. Bananas. He ruffs up the old woman on the subway and Woody Allen pushes him out. He thinks he gets him out and the doors open up again. And he's like, eat the crap out of Woody Allen. What are you doing here in my scene? Then he was in The Prisoner of Second Avenue where Jack Lemmon thinks he stole his wallet. So there you go. He gets time cast as all these hoods.

[00:04:31] He's in a Kojak episode as a guy who's part of a Dirty Vice squad and he accidentally shoots a kid. And Stallone has no shortage of being a trigger happy in a lot of his movies. Let's also not forget the porn he was in. Oh, yeah. Don't you love that? That was brilliant. It's like, I'm going to make that to make ends meet. I'm going to make money. Idiot studs. And it was known as, and then it got reworked as the Italian Stallion. Italian Stallion. Right. I've never seen the preview for that on a.

[00:05:01] You can't have a career after porn. Oh, right. Was it called Behind the Green Door or something? Oh, no, no. It was a different one. A different one. No. But he did. But hold up. He did buy the rights back to it. That's what's so funny in this pre-Rambo universe. Just think about that a moment. A guy goes into porn and one of his characters is named Rambo. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Hey. Rodbo. Would that be the parody man? Oh, that's what it is. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

[00:05:30] I am used by other actors and other pornos. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. But yeah. Then he does Fist, which is a weird protesting movie, you know? It's supposed to be based on Jimmy Hoffa, that movie. Yeah. It's like, it's kind of anticlimactic, but it's interesting seeing him do something different with future alums, like, who are later in his other movies. And I saw Capone finally, and it's watchable, but there's really not much meat on the bones despite him.

[00:05:59] It's just so interesting seeing him. He hadn't aged all that much at that time, but he's playing hitman Frank Nettie to Ben Gazzara's Capone. And it's just interesting seeing how it's like, yeah, he did so many of these Corman things before he does Rocky. He did Death Race 2000, too. Right, right. Machine Gun Joe. Machine Gun Joe. That has an Iowa Senator in it. Yep. Stallone was always, like, larger than life.

[00:06:28] I saw him as, like, he was always the top of the pyramid, right? Yeah. He did it all himself. He could direct. He could write. He could hire all these invaluable character actors, and he would sneak them in there. I forget his name. He's Felix Leiter in License to Kill and the police captain in 48 Hours and Last Action Arrow. Frank McRae, I think is his name, and he would sneak them in and walk out and stick.

[00:06:56] Fist was one, and then a bunch of other ones. And he was just, you know, he always brought a bunch of various actors all together and just would always just say, I got to put you in this. And as full of shit as he has been, especially more recently, I just kind of got to applaud him because he does have an unusual, uncanny persona. He's like, you still want to sit down with him and just listen to him, even when he's full of it.

[00:07:21] He just has something about him that is different from a typical, say, athlete or music artist who's been troubled. Yeah, that's true. All righty. So as I'm going into a little more, yeah, Fist, it's a very well-intended movie. And yeah, Anthony Kalidus from Hot Chili Peppers has a brief role as Stallone's son. But man, this movie drags.

[00:07:47] So the only thing I could say that's interesting about it is I'd love the director behind it, Norman Jewishson, and it's certainly watchable. It's also rare to find Joe Esterhaus doing a rare, you know, other than Flashdance. This is like one of the few non-erotically charged movies he ever made. And it definitely has some of his anger, but unfortunately, Stallone working on the story makes it be just a little bit too much his thing.

[00:08:13] So despite being well-intended, it's just a matter of movie that just, it doesn't ever take off the way it should. It just leaves me looking at my watch when I should be like, yeah, just as angry as these characters, you know, it's almost, it's so wild how they cast Rod Steiger in here. This is almost a more modern, you know, on the waterfront, just talking about unions. And in this case, Fist stands for the Fictional Federation of Interstate Truckers.

[00:08:42] Loosely based on the Teamsters Union and Jimmy Hoffa. But I mean, it separates itself enough to stand on its own. But despite Bill Conti from Rocky doing the score and a good performance by Peter Boyle, that I'm only really engaged with this because Tony LoBianco is good in this. But it's just a very anticlimactic ending.

[00:09:07] And despite some other good names, you know, James Caron, Brian Dennehy. So there you go. It's future Stallone collaborators. Brian Dennehy's in here. And then, you know, Rod Steiger, who's the senator, you know, later is in the specialist with him. And then, lo and behold, there's a few other faces in there. But yeah, Frank McRae, to name one.

[00:09:35] He was a former professional football player who became an actor. You might know him as the buddy and, you know, his version of Felix Leiter and the James Bond film License to Kill. But he's later the meat foreman in Rocky 2. You might know him as the angry captain in both 48 Hours as well as the parody last action hero. But yeah, he played one of the prisoners in Stallone's lockup.

[00:10:04] As well as just, again, he was just the go-to character actor for a while. You probably have seen him in other stuff like The Teacher and Red Dawn and Batteries Not Included, as well as the first National Lampoon Vacation movie. But yeah, a common co-star in John Milius and Nick Nolte movies. And I mean, he's even in Shaft in Africa as his second role. So, I mean, yeah, that's the only thing I find interesting about Fist,

[00:10:33] is that a lot of future collaborators are with Stallone in this. Otherwise, it's a well-intended but very uninvolving movie, unfortunately. It's not preachy. I'll give it that. And I do think it's good to have movies like this. It definitely validated somebody and addressed the real-life stuff. But yeah, I only kind of knew it growing up because of the... I had the... It's not even that I had the tragic ending spoiled for me. I was like, you know, I like depressing dramas.

[00:11:01] I like stuff that thinks outside the box and is... But it's just not taught and doesn't ignite like a Norman Jewish in drama usually does. So, I don't know if Stallone misbehaved behind the scenes because he was just now becoming famous. I don't know what happened. I really don't. But yeah, we talked about Nighthawks. That's a fun, straightforward... Nighthawks is an amazing movie to watch. A buddy cop movie with Billy Dee Williams. And apparently Rutger and Howard had more scenes as the terrorist,

[00:11:31] but Stallone didn't want to be upstaged by him. So he asked the guys, can you cut out some of his scenes? Sounds like Kirk. That sound... That ending scene, though... Yeah. ...is amazing to watch. You know, because he just... You know, Howard... When Rutger and Howard comes in, pretending to kill, I think, Lindsay Wagner, and he turns around and there's Stallone in the wig with the gun going like... I forgot Lindsay Wagner was in there. Yeah. You know. Hamer Reinhardt, international terrorist.

[00:12:00] Deke De Silva, New York City cop. One man can bring the world to its knees. And only one man can stop him. Universal Pictures presents... Sylvester Stallone in Nighthawks. Wolfgar! Nighthawks. Rated R. Now playing at a theater near you. So as, you know, James was starting there, I knew we were going to talk about it. I had it on the docket. But, yeah.

[00:12:28] To add furthermore, Nighthawks is a very top movie. And it's interesting looking how... It's like, man, I think someone who wrote something like Speed or Die Hard probably stole from this. You know, because... It's a mad bomber movie. Then it turns into a hostage-taking movie. But it's also a buddy cop movie. Pre-Lethal Weapon. Even a year before... Wow. Just a year before 48 hours. Can't believe it. But, yeah. It's pretty well liked.

[00:12:58] It's a slow-moving movie. And it often wasn't available when it first came to home video due to music rides. But this has since been resolved. Please, check it out. Definitely one of his top 80s movies. Do you guys find Lockup pretty underrated? Yeah. Definitely. That was a TVS favorite growing up. Like, they would put that in the bin for a while. And I would be like, I don't really believe this prison. But it's bringing up some interesting social commentary. Yeah. And then you look at the writers.

[00:13:27] Jeb Stewart of Die Hard rewrote it. And you're like, ah, same kind of deal. He's gonna get out of prison. Oh, I forgot Escape Plan was a... Yeah. So there you go. Another franchise. That was kind of his throwback to Lockup meets The Running Man. Yeah. And then he made it into a franchise. And same kind of deal. But Lockup is just interesting because Donald Sutherland is just having so much fun being the bad guy in that. They set him up. Get the run, man! I can't do that.

[00:13:57] They put him away. Welcome to Gateway, Leonie. You have no rights here on us. I give them to you. You feel no pleasure unless I tell you you can. This is hell. I'm going to give you the guided tour. But if a man has the will, no lock can hold him. Stallone. Lockup. Rated R. Now playing at a theater near you. Lockup. The guy at Lockup. When Escape Plan came out, I was like, this is a lockup love letter. I just know it.

[00:14:29] Lockup guy doesn't escape at the end of it, does he? He, like, shows the... He electrocutes the warden. But he doesn't escape. So he's still in prison at the end of the film, right? Kind of, sort of. I mean... All right. So, yeah. What I meant to say was, yeah. Lockup is really a solid movie. It was probably the first thing I saw by director John Flynn, who's done everything. Out for Justice. Brain Scan. The Outfit.

[00:14:58] Best Seller. Director Paul Schrader's scripted Rolling Thunder. He knows how to make slam-bang awesome action movies. And, yeah. I don't know why it's not better known. It was cliche. I think the problem was, I didn't... It was one of those you had to take a lot of, you know... Just suspend belief.

[00:15:26] But this is before I truly developed my own persona on how I approach a movie. It's like, I can accept something unrealistic, but it's a very underrated prison movie. And I like how, again, just an ex-con caught at the worst time. And, basically, a warden with a grudge. And it could have used some better buildup to explain why Donald Sutherland's, you know, rest in peace, warden was so crooked.

[00:15:54] But I like how they imply that, hey, you know... And the main intrigue in this movie is seeing Sonny Lanham as one of the prisoners. That's right. Mr. Future Governor guy who was in Predator. Darlon Flugel is really good as the girlfriend who's visiting, but being harassed by the guards each time she enters.

[00:16:20] So, you know, you might know her best from To Live and Die in L.A. and Running Scared, but she was another big part 80s actress who came from Roger Corman's school. Rest in peace, also. So, even though the on-the-nose name Frank Leon, that sounds like Stallone's brother Frank Stallone, yeah. But it's got a good soundtrack, and it's actually not as intrusive or over-the-top as you'd expect from his other post-Rocky movies.

[00:16:50] But Tom Sizemore has a good take as a prisoner who basically has to be a snitch for the warden, but he has to choose his loyalty. But yeah, Frank Murray steals the show as one of the prisoners. Danny Trejo is briefly on screen post-ex-con days, one of his first acting roles, so that's cool. But the heart of it is definitely John Amos from Roots and Die Hard 2 fame playing the captain of the prison who knows the warden's up to no good, but he's like the peacekeeper.

[00:17:19] He's like, hey, let it go, play on. And he basically is telling the prison guards, hey, get in line. Don't instigate this any further than it has to. So yeah, this was a TVS TNT favorite. And despite being mocked at the time, it's definitely better regarded, especially by his fans, because it didn't... You know, it also was cool to see how they play football in the prison to make up for lost time

[00:17:47] and how they have to try and avoid being killed by other prisoners who've been sent, especially him. And so, solid escape movie. It's cliche and all, but it's got some heart, because that's what makes it stand out better than the others.

[00:18:01] Get her near you.

[00:18:42] Tango. Tango 100%. I'm doing tango as well. Okay, very nice. He's got that intelligence, which I don't think any other Stallone characters had before. That is very true. He's like a muscly Egon from Ghostbusters. I'm more of a John Spartan guy. John Spartan? I don't know. I think Robert Rath from Assassins could help him out. If we're bringing in Ray from The Specialist, then this thing really gets even more messy. John Spartan, which one? Oh, Demolition. Demolition. Right, Demolition Man. So, I mean...

[00:19:13] Don't get me wrong. Tango is an essential Stallone role. As awesome as Tango is, I kind of feel like Cash kind of saves his ass one too many times in the prison alone. Bring up Tango and Cash. Tango and Cash rules. Yeah. Too many movies. Can we forget about Rhinestone, please? I've already forgotten. I've already forgotten. I told you it wasn't going to be on the list. It wasn't going to be on the list. Anyway. So, that's Stallone. Sally's part.

[00:19:42] In a knockout comedy of the summer, Rhinestone. Coming soon. Somebody just fucking said, Hey, I got a great idea. Let's put Dolly Parton and Sly Stallone together and we'll make Sly Stallone a country singer. And it's like, Yeah. That looks really good. You know? He's really good. I haven't actually seen Rhinestone. You make him arm wrestling champion. Oh my God.

[00:20:11] I got to ask you the magic question. Whose movie is Tango and Cash really for? Is it Kurt Russell's movie or is it Stallone's movie? Because they are hogging it. The whole movie. It's the fans. Like, they work really well together. I'd love to see a scene. Anyone that's a fan of homoeroticism, it's their film. Yeah. Doesn't he actually say in Tango and Cash that Rambo's a pussy? Yeah, he does. Yeah. They do that a lot in, what is it, Escape Plan? Where there's a lot of like little

[00:20:40] kind of meta humor jokes. Escape Plan. So yeah, as we were getting into the thick of it, yeah, Tango and Cash is a pretty fun movie. It's just interesting seeing Robert Zadar rush off the Maniac Cut movies and playing a derogatory role based off his unusual medical condition. He's like, my name is Face. Because get it? I got a big jaw and transformed face. But it's a fun movie. There's a lot of big part actors in it. Jeffrey Lewis,

[00:21:11] Glenn Morshauer. The main thing that drags it down, like we were hinting at, is near the end, because of the reshoots, it becomes a whole different movie. It becomes 80s cheese, which it was not before. It was being a straight, you know, outgoing 80s movie, you know, by the director Runaway Train, who has gone on to do, that Russian director has done so many utter, very well, very underseen Russian war dramas and history biopics.

[00:21:40] And it's a shame that he and Stallone, just after a while, just got sick of each other. And Stallone basically was like, I'm going to finish this movie on my own terms. I'm going to hire the, you know, director of various Prince music videos and movies. Yeah, yeah, I got that growing up. I was like, I'm having fun. But even as a teen and young adult, I knew something was off about it. I was like, it's wild how it was hated at the time as well as got

[00:22:10] just as many good reviews. So like, most TV guys would list it as being a good movie, but they would also say, well, it's also kind of a bad movie, but it's awesomely good. And I was like, no, it's a good movie, but it's, it's not foolproof. So it is interesting seeing other podcasts who have come around on it saying I liked it growing up, but it sucks now. And other people saying I thought it was dumb, but I miss movies like this. It's like, no, it's, it's a good, but not, you know, flawless movie.

[00:22:40] It's just, I wouldn't ever put it in my top buddy movies, but I would have seen a sequel. And unfortunately, it's on, it's not going to happen. Kurt Russell and Stallone, they appreciate each other from afar, but they did not get along because they, they wanted more screen time than the other. Their egos were off the charts. They were, and so it is a shame that it barely got done by the editing crew before it even hit cinema. So it's a miracle. Anything was usable. There is some bad stuff.

[00:23:10] There are some improvised, ad-lib insults that make no sense on any reality, not even movie reality. The only reason we looked past it is we dug the charisma. The charisma was great. Both actors glued us to the screen. And Stallone was, much like he does in Demolition Man, he was challenging himself. He, Terry Hatcher was actually pretty good as his sister. And, this is before she hit it big in the 90s

[00:23:39] doing TV stuff, but, yeah, despite the gratuitous nudity and some occasional toxic masculinity, it's wild how it goes from being a fugitives on the run, from prison movie to a buddy movie to, once again, a vigilante cop movie. The main issue is Brian James is one of the supporting bad guys. You know him from every Walter Hill movie. You've seen him. He's one of the replicants of Blade Runner and a bunch of other B-movies throughout the 90s.

[00:24:09] He has unfortunately left us, but he is not convincing. He just put down a British accent. It's like, he could have just said, I'm an international criminal. You know, it's like, he could have been some other Euro-trash villain and he could have just spoken in just some random English tone, but no, he went full-blown British and it is not convincing. I didn't think of it back then before I was skeptical, but I still thought growing up watching it on cable TV that that scene

[00:24:39] was just kind of felt like a different movie. Back before I had little proper words to describe it, I was like, yeah, this movie is fun and badass, but something's a little off about that. But yeah, I can see now one of the common complaints now is the music soundtrack just feels tacked on and I can understand that. I'm sure the composers were working against the clock just trying to get it done as opposed to making sure it was good. But we didn't have the digital technology we have now where we can speed stuff up. They probably had

[00:25:08] just had to put whatever they had in the can at that point, which is a shame because it could be a way better movie than it is. It's a fun movie. It's technically an enjoyable, good, objectively, I won't say it's a good movie, but also objectively, I will say it's got some stupid stuff in there that sneaks in from time to time, especially on a rewatch. So be warned. But if you grew up with it or want to introduce new people to it, go for it.

[00:25:37] It's probably one of the more agreeable Stallone movies because that's just it. He wasn't doing what he had done in his franchise character roles and it definitely wasn't as overblown and silly and cheesy as Cobra. So do with that what you will. Check it out. But definitely one of the strongest ones that we mentioned in this whole episode. I'm going to say this. There's two movies I think that

[00:26:06] he meant to do well but it didn't. Stop or My Mom Will Shoot. I love that movie. Oh, God. Yeah. He was tricked into that. That's true. Is that the mom from Goonies? I forget the name of that. No, that was a Snow Giddy. That was a Snow Giddy. That's right. Anyway, anyway. One of the Golden Girls. But he did a movie where he was kind of like playing like it was kind of a wacky comedy that you know you're watching now

[00:26:36] it's funny to watch. It's Oscar. I remember sharing about it. It's a good movie to watch. I think it's funny to watch. It's a remake of one from earlier but I can't remember when the early one came out. It's very weird seeing Marissa tell me any other actor in history. This is incredible. I'm starting all these movies now. I enjoyed Oscar but it's not exactly one of his best movies. No, no. It's not. It's not. And so yeah

[00:27:05] I'm with James here. Oscar's a decent comedy. It just came out at an awkward time and I have been pleasantly surprised by it especially Marissa Tomei doing some more comedy a year before My Cousin Vinny. So surprising. I wonder if this is what her got her that gig on that movie. Maybe I'm giving it too much credit but it's almost at the level of a Zucker Brothers movie it's not at the same spoof level as say Gremlins 2 or Last Action Hero but

[00:27:35] it's a good project for John Badham and it just shows how good he is with comedy. In fact fun fact I used to have some people in high school who were John Badham fans and I'm like wow nice I thought I was the only weirdo who knew all the other B-listed people besides him Joe Dante and the Zuckers the people who aren't Scorsese or Spielberg but are still pretty prolific comedy filmmakers you know they're not Mel Brooks but they're they're still pretty damn funny it's not sluggish it's not organized

[00:28:05] or annoyingly bad like say a spoof like Hudson Hawk trust me that's huge freaking praise to say it is not like Hudson Hawk yeah no check out Oscar it's it's pretty underrated and so yeah as we were saying Stopper My Mom Will Shoot is unwatchable it's not as unwatchable as Rhinestone but it is up there it's a close second I've seen enough of it

[00:28:34] early mornings on TNT to swear to myself I will never finish it it sucks there's no redeeming it it's the kind of movie where it's just everyone had a shrill voice it was tone was out of balance and despite being having some respectable cast and crew behind it it just did not show it was one of those I'm like yeah this is where Stallone finally became a punching bag for the Razzies this movie is trash and again

[00:29:04] or he was defending it but I'm sorry dude it's see it again it's not watchable it's not feasible it's not funny it's not clever and it sure as hell just makes me want to just gouge my eyes out every time I see a frame from that movie that's how triggering it is avoid I gotta say I hated this one particular movie he did growing up but I've kind of come around on it even though it still has some problems and that'd probably be the specialist he is just having fun

[00:29:34] I'm a bomb maker I'm gonna help you get revenge it's so wild though the specialist should work but yet both James Woods and Eric Roberts are chewing the scenery they are just like let's just be our do our best Scarface Al Pacino and Scarface and so yeah the specialist I think the biggest issue is it was mismarketed people thought they were getting a sexy movie because Sharon Stone was in it trying to break out of it and this is wild how

[00:30:04] this is a year before both she and the now infamous James Woods are later in casino together way better movie not denying that but this this was one I saw it on TVS and I hated it but it's grown on me as it's been on the movie channels in recent years the biggest success with it was the Gloria Estefan turned the beat around cover she and her group and husband at the time are actually cameo in the movie but yeah it was also

[00:30:33] produced by Jerry Weintraub who was a pretty well liked movie producer but I would see it advertised on VHS and video trailers and I was like yeah that looks like a fun movie too bad it's got abysmal ratings everywhere wow so it has since grown on me it's interesting also looking at it from Louis Yosa who's you know had just was fresh off not only just doing some Roger Corman military thrillers and spy movies but then did the military spy

[00:31:03] movie Sniper which inspired a whole franchise the Tom Berenger Billy Zane special ops movie that's also a cable TV hit and it's wild he's doing some of that same stuff but even though Stallone kind of would take a fight scene from this and allegedly reuse it in a fight scene also on a bus on assassins a year later I didn't feel as much ego with this it definitely has shades of not only a Punisher type movie but even

[00:31:33] the James Bond film License to Kill that whole these guys are going to play dirty whatever it takes you know one's a mercenary who's you know unexpectedly fallen in love with this other gal I'll try and turning vigilante against the gangsters who wronged her but yeah as we were briefly pointing out yes Eric Roberts Rod Steiger it's wrong they are a brown face but they're basically this is one of those like okay it was fun when Pacino did it I can have fun here I really don't think Steiger's

[00:32:02] accent is uninspired and Roberts does ham it up but he really is a pretty memorable bad guy in it and ironically both him and the cinematographer of this would appear in the first Expendables together so that it may not be a top 10 role for everybody involved but it's definitely a better than it has any right to be it's definitely one of my favorite 90s Stallone movies now just because it is just badass it's just it had a lot of competition everyone was thinking hey you know Stallone hey

[00:32:33] he's he's a joke now you know even though Cliffhanger was successful eh Sharon Stone we like making fun of her why is it Michael Douglas in this and it's really there's only two quick sex scenes but that's just it all it took was people saw nudity and violence was in this so they thought we're gonna serial killer movie we're not getting that it's Stallone we like seeing his bad movies but hey it made money it was made many bad movie lists

[00:33:02] but it's okay they're wrong it's a lot of fun check it out he has a 20 year vendetta against an organized crime family

[00:33:38] he's not playing a superhero he's playing a human being you know that was a return to form for him for definitely for sure I think there's a couple movies I think that were really good that he did outside of Rocky like yeah you gotta watch Paradise Alley that's a great one that is a good one Night Hawks yep is phenomenal well that was it's a pitch perfect high noon you know tribute mixed in corruption there's also Hans made this point

[00:34:07] earlier that a lot of actors get to a point they're like okay I'm known for this I've got to do a serious film and Copland was very much I took my mom to see that in the theater and she hated it because he was slubby he was slubby he was slubby I love the movie but every time I bring it up my mom just wants me to shut the hell up yes I mean Copland I think answers Hans question of why Stallone

[00:34:37] goes back and forth because that's one of his best movies he admits it's one of his best movies but he hated working on it because not just because of the weight he gained but because he and James Mangold just didn't see eye to eye on everything and it was just one of those having to politely disagree on where you were in the character also it's way harder to act for real into Rambo 3 like yeah where you just fire blanks at nothing I think that's his I think he was just

[00:35:07] insecure but De Niro has a wonderful line when he's like the internal affairs you know cases isn't working you blew it and you blew it you blew it and he just almost froze his food in his face what are you doing here and then careless whisper play I just remembered in Copland he's a Springsteen fan he plays the river quite a bit in the movie you see him actually putting the needle on the vinyl that was a good scene again Copland is one of those where

[00:35:37] you're like I wish he would do more roles like that I can deal with Get Carter as well I'm actually I'm cheating a little bit because I'm definitely interesting because it sounded like it could have been interesting and he casted Michael Caine in it but I think what drew me out of it was the subplots not making sense and the music video editing but it's funny that director is working on all the Yellowstone and Tulsa King shows so I guess something good came out of it so Get Carter

[00:36:06] that character Jack Carter makes an appearance gentleman the one that was set in London in 1969 I'm sure it's 69 remember that I've read it but it's been a while based on the Alan Moore comic that's a whole thing is you do public domain type so that character that Get Carter is based on a novel that so Jack Carter basically Stallone's character appears in a Alan Moore graphic novel

[00:36:37] yes that's why that's yeah that's all referencing back the old novel I love Alan Moore just like living in a cave in England and doing magic and somehow between him and Neil Gaiman he was the non-pervert he was the good guy I was like I love you Alan Moore thank you please don't be what's going on here yeah I mean he couldn't be he lives in a fucking hole in the ground so he couldn't he couldn't do anything problematic Alan Moore two women

[00:37:07] all right so as we were jumping back and forth there with Kit Carter yeah Oreo really loves it he loves just atypical unusual stuff and sometimes I just have to politely disagree with him because we all have movies that many people don't like but I secretly just aren't all that great and I can't defend that one that movie is trash I think it didn't help

[00:37:36] too that in the world of YouTube when people would take their favorite movies and make music videos of them I would see them do unusual remixes of this it's like all everyone really liked about this was this one lifeless car chase at the end it's just I have other podcaster friends who love this movie too and think it's stolen's best and I'm sorry they're not wrong they're just inaccurate it embraced so many annoying thug movie cliches offered zero surprises don't get me wrong Rachel Lee Cook was fine as the

[00:38:06] you know victim and but overall it was just an excuse for Stallone to help out his buddies Mickey Roark and Tom Sizemore even put John C McGinley in here in a nothing role and it's like ah no that's Dr. Cox on Scrubs he deserves better and it's just overall just undone by being obsessed with showing off stupid slow motion edits and montages of what you know hey it's that one character

[00:38:36] actor from the 80s he's still working and the loud music is just really intrusive it does not serve anything it's just the producers you know especially at franchise pictures were trying to do every other Warner Brothers release it's gotta look like you know this and that every other Matrix type movie and it's like here's the thing the Matrix had a point of using all that music for that scene it knew how to break the rules you made a movie that just had no soul and the only good thing I can say about it

[00:39:06] is it did introduce me to the original movie and I have seen that movie I liked it better in a second rewatch but man to its credit it tried being different but it wasn't for the better it was just bad just very overblown editing that really distracts it like it just really honestly is there to just cover up how there's not much there to begin with and don't get me wrong I get it the filmmakers were asked to do all kinds of things

[00:39:36] apparently and they're working with Stallone post you know career revival attempt and it wasn't working out too well I can't defend it but it has its fans unfortunately and we did talk about the 2000s being interesting with films and shit so there's that too his first direct-to-video movie Avenging Angelo might be just one of the worst comedy no no he's a gangster in this

[00:40:05] he's acting opposite Anthony Quinn and Madeline Stowe this is just where he's like I'm your bodyguard and like it's a movie just so out of tone it doesn't know if it wants to be darkly humorous there's farting corpses it's bad oh my god he follows up with a gambling thriller that's like an all-star cast called Shade and that's one movie that was almost always on Spike TV at two in the morning and I'd be like what the hell is this movie

[00:40:34] it's an all-star cast Michael Dorn Jamie Foxx and you're like what's going on here this is very confusing but Bullet to the Head was kind of a fun yes it was but yeah Bullet to the Head is like his throwback to Tango and Cash and Sun King appears in Joel Silver's Bullet to the Head yes oh my god and see I dug that as a Tango and Quest type movie but I liked

[00:41:04] it yeah JJ Perry did good with the fight scenes and Walter Hill was just having fun so yeah we meant to say more of this but we're going back and forth in chat and I had to cut this up again my thoughts on Bullet to the Head are pretty stellar I gotta

[00:41:53] lies and it's not going to ever make my top 10 but if I were to go with best Stallone movies of the 2010s oh this is number one this this movie kicks ass everything I want this is what get Carter should have been and wasn't but that's okay J.J. Perry who's best known for choreographing the fight since Jason Statham movies like Safe getting most of the cast and

[00:42:19] crew in shape and choreographing their stuff in 300 as well as some of the fights in X-Men Origins Wolverine you know he's been some of the done some of the best fights for some lesser blockbusters but yeah he his stunt work includes you know Walker Texas Ranger 24 and he's done some other direction and backup stuff on everything from Olympus has fallen to the Expendables Free and

[00:42:49] he's a delight in interviews because he could have been a decent standalone actor too and he's just one of those he was did his time in the military and then he just came to all around the globe to do all kinds of blockbuster movies and he he is a joy to see in interviews because he's always like I want you to feel every punch it means I did my job I'm like touche so this is more his movie than

[00:43:14] Walter Hill's movie is what I'm getting at but that's okay Walter's overall voice is there even though he's just doing it because Stallone and him are you know two old school guys I get it but yeah Sir Saehee I really dug as the kidnapped daughter and it was cool also seeing just Sung Kang who you know has been some questionable indie films as well as the Fast and Furious films he

[00:43:43] actually got to stretch himself here I was like you know what he actually can act it's just I just don't often see that from him often I see him in very stupid lowbrow movies or just generic roles he gets overcasted if you will but yeah this was a this should be brought up more it really is Stallone's take in man on fire and he does his best I still got it brag without compromising the movie's

[00:44:09] integrity like he has with some of his other like it or hate it non-franchise movies he really he pretty much just wanted to do just his whole I'm gonna be heavily tattooed and get in shape and deliver something from my fans I'm gonna be a likable douche where I leave you know I'm a hitman you know who's got a coat of honor so it is wild seeing this in a pre-John Wick world but I think

[00:44:34] this is ripe for rediscovery so for those who didn't see stuff like that if you like other just assassin underworld movies and you know like if you like a serious drama like Ray Donovan you'll probably dig this too if you like over the top movies with assassins with codes of honor like the replacement killers this might also appeal so definitely fun 80s leftovers in 2010 skin that's what it is but

[00:45:01] it really delivered he did a movie recently with an all-star cast called reach me which I actually

[00:45:26] thought was pretty decent but no one fucking saw it was basically like it was one of those multi movies trying to be like magnolia and crash all these people in one setting it was an all-star cast thomas jane plays a narc in one episode tom berenger's a self-help author and kyra sedwick and pete terry cruz are also in it rammers in it yeah nelly isn't it net fucking nelly evan conley

[00:45:53] e lauren cohen danny trio jesus what the fuck is going on here and so yeah my final thoughts on reach me the reason it's an inspiring gym and not a dud is just it just hits some inner truce it was poetic at times and i just loved how all kind of like all these other full ensemble movies were

[00:46:18] you know just in a post crash magnolia world where we let's have a bunch of strangers who all it kind of is almost like a john styles movie at times all these people who have nothing in common all cross each other's paths and it's all because they've been listening to the self-help author and played in a scene-stilling role by tom berenger and it's how cool that he's also trying to get recognition from his work you know he just feels like he's been preaching to the choir so it's like

[00:46:45] it just shows as a mentally healing movie it's also just surprising for a guy especially for stallone to do something like this for a man who's done the whole i am god you know i am invincible persona most of his career he made a living out doing it it's wild seeing him do a very heartfelt movie and it's like okay i don't have to be a dumb you know slowly evolving boxer who gets a heart now i can just be

[00:47:12] a guy who's just working in the world of celebrities and it was cool seeing him actually sneak in some other actors that he's worked with like terry cruz also into the narrative so the trailer i thought was awesome and did not misrepresent it at all and i was like i need to see this so when i did see it

[00:47:30] i was happy i did i wish it had more love because it's pretty underrated did you guys see backtrace that was like a crazy crazy usual suspects movie he did and so this is where he starts working for the irishman uh direct video guys who are doing all those crappy bruce willis movies the geezer geezers

[00:47:56] yeah the geezer movies yeah and which is what statham's doing now like a working man and like the the one he did right before that they're big project geezer teasers yeah i call them dad films like if you if you like the novels with jack reacher in them you're gonna love this yeah but at least they have some kind of premise and some teams are gonna want to see they're well made they're just

[00:48:23] nonsense but but that's just it these movies with stallone really aren't very well made so it's just so funny how backtrace it's trying to be like usual suspects matthew modine has amnesia and is trying to find out where a safe is stallone is the detective who believes him and the entire time stallone looks very annoyed i'm not the star damn it and it's surprisingly watchable but it's just so distracting seeing him in it because he just you can tell this is paycheck day but the the original superhero movie

[00:48:51] that gill was talking about that was surprisingly worth a watch that he did recently was a samaritan for that's yeah okay that that wasn't half bad because he was letting everybody breathe in the movie instead of me i heard that was we didn't see the twist ending on that though or he's not you remember the twist ending i really don't actually it was fun but it was a sunday night movie not a friday well it was long enough ago if you want i'll tell you what the twist ending

[00:49:18] was yeah anyone who doesn't want to hear the spoiler skim forward 25 seconds five seconds yeah anyway he's actually yeah let's say it again sorry i said he's actually a villain he was really villain oh that's right i'm a long level twist wow like like no way out you lived long enough to see yourself become yeah like no way out it's good one it is kind of like that the kids and it was really

[00:49:45] cool and yeah nemesis too and or starship troopers for it's in a certain way like doody hauser's a nazi yeah you can kind of see stallone's progression towards tv because he started making those direct to streaming movies yeah you know and his success is sort of dwindling down to like okay i guess now i gotta do tv oh man dude he does toxic thing and paul's also aged yeah no

[00:50:13] there's also no shame in tv these that's true it used to be a thing where it's like if you're a movie star and you did tv occurs that was way better and that is true that that has shifted over the years but yeah now not even a little bit well that's you can tell really fucking interesting stories and he's already got a five season order from it so he'll be on that for a while definitely probably doing some of his best work but man i've watched it yeah what's your takes i enjoyed it

[00:50:40] i thought it was very uh i thought it was very throwback it felt very early 90s 80s action it did kind of from what i was seeing kind of people kind of i didn't go in any reviews because i didn't want spoilers but i was kind of getting a mild kind of heroes unbreakable kind of vibe from it i was like okay so it's just that's kind of what they're going for with that i would say watchable one-time

[00:51:04] watch okay watch mediocre watch i'll say one time watch for that one time okay yeah i'll probably go back and watch it again i think i i you know i'm i really did enjoy it i thought i thought the fight sequences and stuff in it although they were you know very stallone very punchy very beefcake that's a good way but yeah beefcake fight scenes i i yeah it was it was definitely a

[00:51:30] throwback i yeah i'd recommend it well especially if you have to allow him do you think it's just uh more on candy kind of role for him compared to some of his other vanity projects that kind of flopped hard or were great but we didn't see enough of i could say that yeah all right so on the subject of samaritan yes it's really cool to see stallone do something new and be part of an ensemble

[00:51:56] again but even though the story is singular and it did just kind of leave me thinking about it a bit afterwards so that's a sign of a good movie unfortunately it is so happy that it's also kind of a once you see it there's no revisiting it it's like it's been there done that but it's in a good way it's just it's not a rewatchable movie but it is better than usual because it's just

[00:52:23] you know it was interesting seeing stallone say hey i'm gonna let a bunch of these other semi-known actors be the star my character will transform himself and it's a more realistic gritty superhero movie so for those just wanting something new and different they like original superhero stuff like robocop and unbreakable even heroes saddle up have fun it is pg-13 so that's also what's cool

[00:52:49] too it's still pretty gritty and intense it's gonna appeal as much to the rambo and expendables crowd as it is the rocket crowd but also just standalone people like you don't have to be a stallone guy to like this movie it really is its own bread and butter so i can applaud that him stepping out of his shell instead of just doing fan service or another vanity project with these two reason direct-to-video

[00:53:13] movies he did uh both armor and alarm man i had to force myself to finish those those words why would you do that to yourself because just to say i did it as a fan but he's hardly not that no he's hardly in this no i like bad movie night anyway he's hardly in this junk and it's just so funny he the first one is a convoluted crooked cops and robbers movie with jason patrick and jason

[00:53:40] patrick is like what am i doing here and alarm is interesting because you got both luke cage actor mike colter and scott eastwood and again stallone is showing up on the cover even though he filmed the scenes all in one day and he's not in much of the movie you're like man i just had my picture with my culture that's why these movies keep getting made because people like you will watch them yeah stop it stop it i didn't pay anything for them i have no i have no fault in them doing

[00:54:08] them it's like you want to give me a million dollars to show up for half an hour on a day cool man no problem with that but you don't have to watch them and so yeah once again don't bother with armor or alarm how do you even say that name alarm and it's just they had just filled heist and cops under criminals but you just won't remember an inch of the plot because regardless of what it says on

[00:54:34] the box regardless of what it says on the imdb plot synopsis it is not anywhere what it claims to be it's frankly pretty dumb it's pretty pedestrian for the most part so yeah avoid it we'll return after these messages we got a 90 minute weekly shack stop it's growing all over the world find it at 2 p.m and 10 p.m eastern

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[00:56:24] so if you're looking for a show that's safe for the family but funny enough to help you escape everyday life then listen to the florida men on florida man podcast that's florida men plural on florida man podcast do you ever find yourself thinking about who would win in a fight between goku and superman hi i'm james gavsey and on the who would win show me and my co-host ray ignore anything important happening in the outside world and debate fictional battles between characters from

[00:56:49] comics movies and video games we got a new show every week and almost always am i the winner yeah not true ray in the past we've discussed such matches as captain america versus darth vader solid snake versus the iron giant classic matchups like robocop versus terminator and even the muppets versus sesame street that one was crazy so if you're a fan of geek culture and love a spirited debate check out the who would win show wherever you get your podcasts or check us out at who would win

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[00:57:46] it's a jacked up review show