Not more than twenty minutes ago. I was on my way here, yeah,
to record this very episode. I was in a car. Uh huh.
I just want everyone to know that Eric's face right now, I know
something good is coming. She almost can't like get the words out. I
was in a car on my way here and Brooklyn, Brooklyn, Brooklyn,
Brooklyn heard okay, Brooklyn got so Brooklyn. We kind of stopped at a
stoplight and there was a building next door that next to us that had a
had like little tiny, almost Juliette balconies. It's like a person could put
like a chair okay, and that's it kind of balcony and sit out there
and it's overlooking like a highways. It's not like so no one's on their
balconies because why except for one woman woman and the balconies. I forgot to
mention this is crucial. The balconies are like plexiglass. Okay, see through
right from underneath as well as from the side. Were now drawing a picture
in my head. Girlfriend was airing out her who like, no, so
wait, so paint me a picture. She's she's she's spread eagld with with
with with vulva to the son. She is on the chair, just sitting
on the chair kind of like like on a stool legs akimbo okay, wearing
a dress so like if you saw her from this, you know, from
like eye level, you wouldn't notice anything. But because I'm underneath her in
a car looking up, at first, I was like, she's wearing black
underwear. And then I just kept going and then I was like, nope,
no, no, no, that's a more natural covering. That is
I'm seeing her pubic hair. Girlfriend was airing it out on her balcony on
flat Bush Avenue in America, And this is that aged well, yesterday's pop
culture. Today we are. We're in the midst of action July Erica.
It's summer. It's time for big, fun, dumb movies and shove popcorn
in your face while you watch absolutely people blow things up and get a hot
dog with the works, yes, while someone screams at someone else. Get
down a cup with frankly too much soda. Go to one of those machines
where you can go to like you can get a soda, whatever soda you
want, and just go to fucking town. You make yourself a Long Island
iced tea. Of fantas. Absolutely, buy different flavors, buy the popcorn,
but bring your own eminems to shove in there, as you just really
you should feel sick, physically ill from the amount of sugar you've eaten after
you leave the cinema to the go to the the quote unquote butter dispenser and
just glop that splooge all over your popcorn. And when you say, as
you say full voice, I'll make you my bitch to the that's summer.
That's what that's summer is. Yeah, what summer means to me? A
poem by Paul and Erica. Erica, we have a five star Apple podcast
review. Would you like to read this one? Sure thing? Today's review
comes from AARs underscore sci Ours SI Our Science, Our Science, Funny and
nostalgic. Is the title. Ah, I'm a new listener as I recently
learned of this podcast from a date with Dateline. It's been a minute.
Yeah, thank you again, Kimberly and Katie. I've recently been going through
several of my eighties and nineties favorites. I also really enjoyed the Wizard of
Oz and Sunset Boulevard episodes. Yay, two of my favorites, two of
my favorites. Oh, ladies and gentlemen. Once again, it really needs
to be said a lot. If you haven't seen Sunset Boulevard, do yourself
a favor. Yeah, and you've all seen Wizard of Oz. So if
you haven't listened to our episode on it, it's a good one. I'm
just gonna say it is a solid episode. They on. The descriptions are
detailed, and I enjoy the rapport between the hosts. Oh, thank you
so much, our zi. Yes, I think you're funny and I'm nostalgic.
Right, No, I think I'm nostalgic and you're funny. This is
why this works. I think we both insist that the other one is funnier,
which is why it works. Right when I added, I'm always more
entertained by you than i'm by myself because you know the jokes ahead of time,
because it's your brain you're listening to. You're like, yeah, that's
all right, Yeah, but you you surprised me. Did see that one
coming? H it's a singer ours underscore. SI, thank you so much
for this review. We really appreciate it. If you would like a tope
bag that says no notes and that age. Well, all you have to
do is let us know this is you, and I will send it off
for you. Erica, what is the movie that we're talking about today on
this the the epicenter'day that's July. Today's film is the nineteen ninety eight buddy
cop action comedy Rush Hour. Rush Hour was requested by Reginia, by Shaw,
Nice, by Jan and by k. It was written by Jim Kufe
and Ross Lamana. It was directed by Brett Ratner. Boom. What was
funny is the minute that name propped across my screen, I was like,
oh, okay, it really does settle your expectations. It does for what
kind of film you're going to see The minute you see Brett Rattner hick Oh
okay, cool, okay, Oh the guy that ruined X Men three?
Got it? Okay, got it? Yep? Perfect. That is a
cursed trilogy when it comes to directors. I'm just thinking about that right now,
isn't it. Brian Singer? Yeah, for the first two and then
it followed up with Brett Ratner. All right, So the movie stars Jackie
Chan, Chris Tucker, Tom Wilkinson, Ken Leung, Chris Penn, and
Elizabeth Painya. Rush Hour allegedly inspired the creation of Rotten Tomatoes, as the
site founder was a Jackie Chan fan who originally built the site just to track
Jackie Chan movies as they were released in the States. This is incredible.
I'm so happy I'm learning this. Because rush Hour's release was delayed for a
month. The first movie whose reviews were aggregated on the site was the nineteen
ninety eight Neil Lebute comedy Your Friends and Neighbors Twist. Huh Twist, Because
I bet a Neil Abute comedy is a pretty far cry from this from this
film one hundred percent. More of a visceral gut punch. Yeah, something
that's gonna make you feel really bad about yourself, the world, humanity,
really, any choice you've ever made in your life. Neil Abute comedy.
Ha ha ha. Rush Hour has a sixty two percent critical rating on Rotten
Tomatoes and a seventy eight percent audience score. That's correct, you, I
think it's correct. I think the audience score should definitely higher than the critical
one hundred percent. Yeah, I mean it's not a bad movie. No,
it holds together, it's it goes by very quickly. It's a breezy
ninety minute film. There are some threads that are like, does that make
the most sense? No? No, but it's an action movie. A
little bit part of the buy in it follows in one of my favorite film
traditions of having an LAPD and a f that are uniformly terrible at their jobs,
just the most incompetent people on earth, just the pits. Stick them
in the LAPD and or FBI. Thank god that one Hong Kong cop came
over to fucking solve the case. Why is that in movies? I'm so
it's so funny every time there's no. I mean, that's not saying there's
no. There's plenty of movies where the cops come out looking good, but
there's so many where they don't. I agree. I think it's about I
think it's about right given what the movie is meant to be, it's not
aspiring to be anything other than a dumb buddy action flick. Exactly. Take
two big personalities, stick them together. See what you got. Yeah,
two flavors, Mix them together, make a new flavor. Chocolate peanut butter
exactly, delicious, Exactly, Paul, when did you first see rush Hour
first saw this this week, had a bit of a journey with it.
Oh good, So I start. We had been talking a little while ago.
We'd be like, you know, it's been a while on the podcast
since we've done a movie that like we hated, Like we don't we generally
try not to do too many of them because I think I can get that's
all we're here for. Yeah, it spread positivity and jos and dick jokes,
and we want it. We want to take the piss out of something
that we at least can see. Like our way around the first half of
this movie, I was in that I fucking hate this boat, like I
do not like this for various reasons that I will get into in the course
of the of our of our podcast. And then what basically happens is that
the Chris Tucker character and the Jackie Chan character just become friends. And after
that I was totally fine with it. Okay, great, I now understand
what's going on here. All of the vaguely racist things have gone away,
well not all of them, but all of them coming out of the mouth
of the hero have at least gone away, and all of the dumb lone
wolf cop trope stuffs has has receded at least a little bit, and we're
actually talking about like the case, and now I can get on board and
I can enjoy this. But for the first like thirty five minutes, it
was real touch and go for me, yea not having it. I would
watch Rush Hour two because presumptively that would start with the two of them already
friends, so I wouldn't have to go through the first half of this movie.
Oh for sure, Yeah, for sure. How about you, Erica,
when did you first see the movie? This is a very addicative of
how I feel about this film. If you had asked me this two days
ago, I would have said, never, I've seen this movie and I
plan on watching it tomorrow. Never have I ever seen Rush Hour? Never
ever have I seen Rush Hour. I would I would have not drunken the
bar, and I would have been wrong. I turned this film on yesterday
to watch it for what I thought was the first time, and realized,
oh, no, I've one hundred percent seen this movie. Yeah, it's
exactly that kind of movie. It's a kind of movie you will one hundred
percent have seen. Yeah, and then forget about it immediately. Yep.
So I saw it probably close to when it first came out, like on
TV from beginning to end, no less, and like I've watched the movie
for like as though I did not know anything that was gonna happen. The
first like ten twenty minutes and I was like, oh, wait, I've
seen this. Was there a moment that like triggered you, Well, there's
two things. One is is Tom Wilkinson shows up in the first thirty seconds
of the movie, and my and my lizard brain was like, well,
that's the villain. I know Hollywood, I know how Hollywood works. Of
course the villain's gonna be that guy. But then I was like, oh,
maybe I've just seen this movie and I already knew the villain was so
yeah. I saw it yesterday for the second time. I baseline enjoyed it,
like it's it's I don't love it, I don't hate it. I
baseline enjoyed it. I love Jackie Chan's the whole thing. I could watch
him for hours, agreed. Honestly, as soon as Jackie Chan comes on
screen, that's really when the movie kicks in for me. Just kind of
like the same with you. Yeah, like it's it's not so much that
I didn't like the tropes. It's that I was like, so on this
movie until this like super Star comes in and like starts doing his Superstar thing,
and I was like, ooh, this is fun. I can watch
you forever. And I also like, look, Chris Tucker seems to be
a perfectly nice human being. Like, I have nothing against Chris Tucker.
The stick doesn't really get me. It's a less charismatic Eddie Murphy is.
Yeah, he's like he's like totally doing an Eddie Murphy impression sometimes, Yeah,
the stick, and look, it may be your thing, it may
get you, which is totally fine, truly, Like I'm not again just
for me, I'm not saying I don't think he's uncharismatic. I think like
the stick, for me, I find it annoying, yeah, rather than
funny. So it just doesn't get under my skin. Once he's once they
are friends and they're bouncing off each other and it's less of a Chris Tucker
monologue all the time, then I get it. Then I can enjoy him
because he's bouncing off of someone and it's it's just less of like a pure
heart, uncut black tar Chris Tucker it's more like it's like, you know,
Chris Tucker cut in with a different flavor sometimes than I like it.
You know, I like comparing him to Heroin. Yeah, I I totally
agree, one hundred agree with you. I find him fine, charismatic,
and I like him in like the fifth element like in movies, which I
did not like in movies where he's in it for like five minutes and just
doing something crazy and weird. I'm like, I'm into that. Ye.
But yeah, when when he has to like anchor a movement a movie,
that's a that's a tougher sell. Yeah, all right, Erica. The
tagline for Rush Hour is the fastest hands in the East versus the biggest mouth
in the West. Are you ready to be shocked? Paul? I love
it? Oh my god, I love it. It's fast, it's fifty
you know exactly the fucking movie you're gonna see. If that, if that
level of humor is it hits you? This is it? You found it?
Yeah, kept digging, you hit oil. I have one I have
one big quibble with it. I don't love it, but I have one
big quibble with it. It's not versus it's meats. It should be meats
I concur Yeah, meets the biggest hands in the East meets the biggest mouth
in the West. That would be perfect. Yeah yeah, But I still
I like it very much. I don't usually like a tagline. I'm shocked
that this is the one I like. Well, look, I will give
you that it is. It is clever. It's telling you, like,
if you gave a a pop cultural, pop culturally savvy person this tagline and
be like, who is this about, they would be like Jackie Chan and
Chris Tucker like that that seems like rush hour. Yeah, I feel like
that's rush hour, So like that's what the tagline is supposed to do.
Tell you, give you a give you a taste of the movie. So
kudos. It could be big trouble in Little China, that's true, that's
I could be. Now I'm mad this isn't. This one just has like
buddy cop stuff and Jackie Chan, which for me, really does go a
long way. He does he really. I didn't even know how much I
liked Jackie Chan until I saw this movie. So if you got nothing else
from this, I got a deeper appreciation for Jackie Chan, who I always
like generally liked, but I didn't have like a strong opinion on Yeah,
all right, Erica, shall I read you the iTunes synopsis? Sure,
A Hong Kong detective Jackie Chan and a wise cracking lap detective Chris Tucker choose
to work together to find the missing daughter of a Chinese diplomat choose to work
together. Is the opposite of the plot of the film, the actual opposite
of the first forty five minutes of this ninety minute film. Just work together,
Just say work together and cut some words out, you know. Otherwise.
I love it because it's short and it gets straight to the fucking point.
And look, this is not a complex movie. We have already told
you who the villain is, because when we both saw the person appear on
screen, we were like, that's it. If there's a British person,
yeah, and it takes place in in or around Hong Kong, that's the
villain. That's the villain. That's gonna be the villain. I guarantee it
one percent of the time, Paul, what's the actual synopsis for Rush Hour?
Actual synopsis for Rush Hour is rush Hour a film predicated on the idea
that children are driven to school during rush hour. You're right, that doesn't
make any sense. I am been to school in a while, but I'm
pretretty sure that go They leave before rush hour generally six and the goddamn morning.
Yeah it's two fucking early early. Yeah. Yeah, all right,
So everybody stick around. We're gonna play a few advertisements, some advertisements,
as they would say, as a British villain would say, perhaps yeah and
uh, then we're gonna come back. I'm gonna take you through rush hour.
If you don't want to listen to those advertisements, you do have options.
You can go join our Patreon at patreon dot com, slash that age
Well podcast at the three, five or ten dollars level, and then you
will get this episode ad free. Can you say ad free with with like
the world R? It sounds better when you say it ad free, see
now, don't Doesn't that make you want to go to the Patreon? I
sound like the owl from the old little Tipsy pop commercials. Wow, two,
three, three licks and we're back. All right? So Rush Hour
opens at a dock in Hong Kong. All of the music he is like
the vaguely Asian music. Yeah, ever ever been to a spa run exclusively
by white people. That's the music you're hearing. Yeah, this goes through.
This is this is the thing the whole movie. If we are in
a scene with with with primarily an Asian cast, this is the score.
This is the score. Yeah. I don't think it's I don't think it's
like offensive or anyway. It's just it's very like cheesy and I rolly,
super cheesy. I think there's some like gong sound effects. Sometimes there is
it When, yes, there is, it's when it's when Jackie Chan exits
the plane and his face appears on screen and they actually hit a gong,
which is like very long duck dung. It is like, wow, I
thought we got better from that point, but I guess we didn't. I
was like, isn't Jackie Chan a big enough star? Does he have any
say in any of this? Yeah? Could he just be like? Could
you not do that? Could please? That's that's a bit much, guys.
It's not even that it's racist and offensive, although it's sort of his.
It's just dumb and cheesy and embarrassing. Yeah, it was embarrassing when
John Hughes did it Checks Watch ten years ago. Yeah, so imagine what
it is now Brett. All right. So, so we're at this stock
in Hong Kong and we are seeing various art pieces being loaded into like crates
and loaded onto ships. Detective Inspector Lee played by Jackie Chan, we will
not learn his first name in this movie. It is not listed anywhere.
You're right. The only thing the first That's fine, Like, we don't
learn a bunch of people's first names because they're all cops. So that like,
I think the only persons whose full name we know is we know the
console's full name, we know the British guy's full name, and we know
Chris Tucker's full name. Everyone else is just last names. But I had
to look at the Wikipedia for rush Hour because there's eighteen rush Hour movies that
has a whole like rush Hour Wikipedia, and they he does have a first
name in the series. And I was like, you know what, I'm
not gonna tempt that because I'm going to murder it. I'm just gonna call
him Lee. It's fine, that's what the movie does. Yeah, all
right, So Lee leads a raid against the anonymous crime lord Juntao. Unfortunately,
he only finds Juntao's right hand man, Sang played by Ken Leung.
Excellent excellent performance from this guy. People sleep on Ken Leung. He's good
the villain energy from the first second, but also like a fun villain,
like a psychopathic He could do anything in any moment. I love those in
vieviees. It's giving, it's giving Hans Kruber. Yeah, it's that.
It's giving, like I'm smarter than you and I know it, and I'm
also crazy. Yeah. They told Ken Leong, we're gonna we're gonna give
you a crew cut and we're gonna dye your hair bleach blonde. He was
like, got it, no problem, I know what you're asking me for
here. Yeah, it's so good. So Lee demands to know where Juntao
is and sang scoffs everywhere. Answer yeah, He flees, and Lee gives
chase through the wharf. There's lots of great Jackie Chant action moments. There's
one point where allegedly allegedly I could not I found one per one thing,
claiming this on the internet. He almost died doing a stunt where they're pushing
two shipping crates together to like crush him, and allegedly he almost got caught
in it and I'm like, there's no safety here. Yeah, there should
be like a like a moment where they're like, oh two hard a crunch
where to stop? Like I fucked. That's funny because they have definitely been
running this exact same like gag since Star Wars. You think they would have
figured out how to do it by now, what do you think Jackie chan
safe word is on set? It's just the sound of crunching. It's yeah,
if you don't hear bones crunching, I'm fine, You're fine. I'm
fine. If you hear bones crunching, call my wife, yeah and apologize
for murdering me. There were no stunts in this movie. I guess the
height ones are pretty high, but there were no sense in this particular movie
where I was like, shit, he could have died doing that. But
there I've seen other Jackie Chan movies and I'm like, why, why would
you do this for my benefit? I don't deserve this, You don't no
one, no one should be doing this. Some people should be doing this,
all right. So unfortunately Sang manages to escape on a speed boat.
By the way, I'm saying, Sang, I don't know if I'm horribly
anglicizing that name. But it's only said once in the movie, I think,
and it's said by Jackie Chan, and I'm like, I don't know
if that's how I should be trying to say the name, or if that's
Jackie Chan's accent. I'm just going with Sang. So my apologies if I
sound super white right now, you do, I usually do boiler alert you.
I just usually don't feel bad about it, you know. So Sang
manages to escape on a speedboat. However, Lee does manage to recover the
Chinese cultural treasures and artifacts that Jintao had stolen that were being loaded onto the
ship, right, so he disrupted this crime lord's taking of all of his
artifacts and treasures. Yep. Also we should mention crucially, this is the
last day of or the day before the last day. I can't remember British
rule of Hong Kong. British rule of Hong Kong, right, It's so
funny. I kind of remember when that was in the news. In my
mind, it happened like in the eighties, I don't know why, and
not in the nineties. So when the movie was like it's the last day
of rule in Hong Kong, I was like, really, wait, what
are we in the eighties? It sent me down like a rabbit hole of
like Wikipedia, and I was like, oh shit, that happened a lot
later than I thought it did. Yeah. We cut to a dinner celebrating
console solon Ha played by Sema, who had been assigned as a diplomat to
the US British commander Thomas Griffin played by definitely the villain of the film,
Tom Wilkinson. You know it was gonna be great if we get to the
end of this, We're like, surprise, Tom Wilkinson wasn't the villain.
It was a long con all along. Jackie Chan is the villain. Something
about Tom Wilkinson he is either the best person in the movie or the worst
one. I don't think he's ever played a middle guy. Yeah. Ever,
he's a great actor in both those roles, to be clear. You're
just talking about like, like the character he always plays like he's either the
best person, yeah, like the nicest person or the worst person. Yeah,
it's never it's never in between. And when he when he's that best
person, he's got big hal Holbrook energy, yes, as that person.
And when he's worst person, he's got big Jeremy Iron Dinnergey. Yes.
Yeah, Like they went to Jeremy Iron's first for this and he couldn't do
it, and they were like, all right, we'll get Tom Wilkinson.
We got to do that movie where he plays Sonny Sonny van Buloh yeah,
I've never seen it. Oh no, he doesn't play Sonny. That's that's
Glenn Close. He plays class. Yeah. It's so good. It's so
good. Let's stop talking about this and go watch Go watch that film instead.
What was it called? Oh man, I was That's what I was
trying. I was trying to avoid saying the name reversal Fortune. That's fortune.
Wait is that reversal of fortune? I think it's reversal of Fortune.
I'm going to look it up, can you and the hero warning The hero
in Reversal Door of Fortune is Tom Wilkinson is Alan Dershowitz. Oh, real
life, talk about a reversal of fortune? Real life? Like lawyer Alan
Dershowitz is the hero of the film. It is reversal of Fortune. So
when you if you were like me and you saw that film in the nineties,
you had absolutely no context for any of it. You were like Alan
Dershowitz seems like a really cool guy. Whoops. Fast forward later and you're
like, damn it, this is why I can't have nice things anyway,
this crap back to this film? Can everyone listening tell we were it?
Like riveted by this film? Like why isn't Glenn Close in this? She
should be in this? So Thomas Griffin Tom Wilkinson toasts Han, who will
be moving to Los Angeles, and they're celebrating the fifteen years they spent working
together in Hong Kong. Since the British are being kicked the fuck out.
Yeah, Tom Wilkinson's English. I don't know if I don't know if you
made that clear. He's British, He's British. It's not Michae Cocaine though.
Here's more of like this kind of British. He's more of the Crown.
Yeah, a crown British. I don't know why I'm doing it really
high pitched. He's one of those Oh no, I'm locked in. I'm
locked in and I can't stop. Hello, Govna. I thought smacking her
in the face would do it, but it just sent her to a different
one. Oh no, now I'm stuck in this accent at me again,
guvna, I'm Scottish. There you go, there it is okay, now
I'm back. This is my Scottish accent. Yea. So Thomas is also
leaving and this is his last day, right like I said before, a
British rule in Hong Kong. Lee arrives and whispers, whisper, whispers,
whispers something in Hansier right in the middle of his toasts. Oh yeah,
Han excitedly announces that Juntao has been crushed and the artifacts recovered, to the
excitement of all gathered. Hurrah, We've defeated the big bed on the last
day in Hong Kong. How lucky is that? What a relief? Woof?
Lee So that's Jackie Chan's character leaves the room because she's just there to
deliver the good news and piece the fuck out. He's a humble servant,
Yes, guy, he is. He knows his place. He runs into
Hans's daughter, Sue Young, played by Julia Chu, best character in the
movie. She's not even fucking close. This kid is as most children are.
She's not like a great actress, but she's charming, charming and also
the character. Yeah, this is not a damsel in distress. No,
they're gonna have a little girl who's a fucking badass. I really appreciated that,
like, because look, she's gonna be if you're paying attention to the
synopsis, she's gonna be kidnapped. Yeah, going kidnapped, but she's not
going to go down quietly. That's right. She's gonna get some good shots
in report before they get her. And now we know where she learned how
to do that. That's right. So Sue Young is upset that Lee,
who she clearly adores, won't be coming with him to La right, and
Lee makes her promise that she'll keep practicing her her punches and eye gouges just
like he taught her. That is a good paternal figure. That's a good
friend to have. Ye. Yeah, he's like, listen, I taught
you. It's like when Aria Stark was learning how to sword fight. Yeah,
it's that guy. That guy for this girl. So when Sue Young
lamentsas she won't have any friends in America, Lee gives her a necklace and
assures her that America is a very very friendly place. We all know where
this is going. Smash cut to Los Angeles two months later, as James
Carter, played by Chris Tucker, speeds through the streets and he and the
other drivers are yelling at each other. He is in a sting ray,
the top is down, has a leather coat on. Very cool, right,
makes a lot of money for an lapd cop. Yeah, well,
we don't, Erica spoilers. We don't know that he's an laped cop.
Oh, fair enough, you could ruin the twist. You're right, I'm
sorry. Uh. He is meeting with a contact in the parking lot of
a roadside diner, like you do. The contact whose name for some reason
is Clive Cod. No, no notes. You know what. I'm giving
this movie a ten, Giving this movie a ten. Clive Cod and his
partner Thomas Trout and their partner Barry Bass, and his wife Sally Salmon.
That's right. Yeah, Clive Cod is played by Chris Penn, So you
know exactly what you're get. Yeah. I do love a Chris pen He's
very charming. Yeah, he's so fun. Yeah, all right. So
Cod shows Carter at the back of his car, and in the back of
his car is a bunch of C four like a C four bomb. Carter
is delighted and he's like, wow, where could you even have gotten this
C four right? Two police pull up and the situation escalates a very quickly.
I don't understand logically, like why these two police aren't bothered. So
it's like one guy showing another guy something in the trunk of his car.
No one seems to be in any kind of like danger, no one seems
to be coercing anyone. They're not fighting, and the other guy's like,
wow, that's really cool. And these two cops pull up and they're like,
freeze, put your hands up, and I'm like, that doesn't make
any sense. It's not even proper racism. Yeah, because if I thought
it was racism, I'd be like, oh, well, that's a racism
thing. But I don't actually even think that's where the movie is going.
I think the movie posits that it's suspicious what they're doing, but you're right,
they're just not doing a single goddamn suspicious thing. Yeah, And honestly,
like, because Chris Tucker is a cop spoiler, he should have been
like, close the trunk. We don't have to show you dick until you
get a warrant. So we'll sit here until you get a warrant. Yeah,
fucking play the game. MANA sorry, I shouldn't be pulling strings.
It's too early to start pulling a threads here, and I'm sorry, but
this annoyed me. I also would like to point out that the hotter of
those two cops is an actor named Larry Sullivan. He is an openly gay
man, and that is the entirety of the gay representation that you will receive
in this movie. Nice some total, but also no gay slurs, so
kudos. So all right. So the situation escalates very quickly and Cod winds
up holding Carter at gunpoint. So Cod is Chris pen Carter is Chris Tucker.
Uh. Carter is trying to fast talk his way out of the situation.
Ultimately, Carter manages to throw Cod to the ground and tries to insist
that everything's cool, and he tries to gesture to the police, just go
away, just go away, you don't need to be here. Shockingly,
this doesn't work, and Cod has the chance to open fire on the two
police. Both of them are injured. He runs to his car and he
attempts an escape. Carter opens fire on Cod's car. Remember he's in a
roadside diner in Los Angeles. There are people about. Yeah, Cod,
realizing what's about to happen, shouts what are you doing? There're C four
in my trunk and then bails out. Luckily, the car just happens to
speed onto a completely empty highway, which are so common to every movie that
we have ever done that takes place in Los Angeles. Just shows you wide
fucking open highways, yes, at all hours. Yeah, Finally Carter hits
the C four, the car explodes, and you know, fireball in the
middle of the highway. Carter does a little dance in victory and then runs
up to Con and arrests him. Hah, he's lapd twist twist. It's
so funny because zero people watch this movie without knowing the premise going in.
This is not a surprise to anyone watching this. No one is coming in
cold and being like, here's a cop who knew. I think the poster
for the movie is him holding his badge. We should say, like,
if you haven't seen this movie, Chris Tucker is it is a deluge of
improvisation at all times, Like, I'm sure there was a script that he
was going off of, but he's a fast talker and he just goes goes,
goes, goes, goes. So it is just constant, constant talking.
Yeah, it's a lot, it's kind of a lot. We cut
to the Chinese consolate. The next day, Han is getting ready to take
Sue Young, his daughter, to school, but he has called away for
a phone call. There's a moment like where she's like, but you promise,
He's like, I will pick you up from school. I promise I'll
be there when you get out, right, like very very sweet father daughter.
Yes, her mother, by the way, they establish has passed,
so but he's a good dad and like they have a good relationship. Yeah.
So she heads out in wait for it, rush out, rush hour.
She's in the backseat of the car. She serenades the bodyguards with her
rendition of Mariah Carey's Fantasy, which I never really listened to before, like
really really, and I was like, in the mouth of a seven year
old, I'm not so sure a seven year old should know every lyric to
the song Fantasy. Props to the two actors playing the security guards, because
they're just like, they look so deeply uncomfortable and it's very very funny.
So the car gets sent on a detour because it's stopped by a cop car.
Sang appears, the villain from Hong Kong Leech, blonde villain. He's
in an LAPD uniform and he shoots both of the bodyguards. Sue Young,
the girl that does well for herself. She starts to defend herself. She's
kicking, she's screaming, she's doing everything you're supposed to do. But unfortunately,
when she tries to flee, a motorcycle appears and scoops her up and
deposits her in a white van like it's a very coordinated effort. We cut
to FBI agent Warren Russ played by Mark Ralston. This guy gives a good
performance. Is there something about like he has blonde hair and he has blonde
eyebrows yep, yep, yep. And there's something about light colored eyebrows that
is it? Because we've all been like naz pilled from like the sound of
music that like they look people look like villains in films like automatically. This
guy just screams cop to me. Yeah, it just screams dickhead cop.
Yeah yeah. And looky, Lena, he did exactly the right thing.
This is what I look like. This is what the jobs. I'm gonna
get good for you, man, kudos truly, But like I was looking,
I'm like my god, I get villain vibes. He hasn't opened his
mouth like this is not his fault. So so Russ finds Han, who
is preparing for an upcoming Chinese art expo at the La Convention Center, and
he informs him of what happened with Sue Young. Han demands that one of
his people be put on the case as well. To Russ's annoyance, uh
more cops on this case boom boo. Russ decides to call on someone to
keep Hans's man out of their way. The FBI are the best equipped to
handle this. He's only going to get in the way. Doesn't know anything
about this person. He just knows he's a joker, doesn't know his name.
All he knows is the man whose daughter was kidnapped is especially requesting one
of the best cops he's ever worked with in his old country to come and
help. And this guy's like, h he's gonna suck. He needs someone
to babysit this guy, but doesn't want to waste FBI resources on it.
And he thinks, well, I might as well use the lapd. Right,
we cut to the police station and Carter is regaling his colleagues with the
tail of the night before Johnson. One of his colleagues played by Elizabeth Pania,
is pissed because she was supposed to go on the bust with him,
as he was supposed to bring a bomb squad ex with him and she is
a bomb squad expert that will come back. Yeah, but he did it
without her and now they both got screwed. And Carter insists that he doesn't
need a partner, he'll never have one, even one as fine as Elizabeth
Panya. There's a little misogyny thrown her way. But I have to credit
the movie because the movie makes it very clear that Carter knows he's joking.
It's inappropriate, don't get me wrong, But she's not taking it in.
She's not like, yeah, oh no, he said something awful to me
at work. She's like fuck you, yeah, Like she gives it back.
She enjoys telling him that the rumor is he's going to be suspended for
all his shenanigans, so fuck you dude. Yeah. So this is the
beginning of when we like he becomes this lone wolf cop trope, like he
knows better than everyone else, doesn't want to pay him to the rules.
He's better, he knows more. Blah blah blah blah blah. That really
grates on me. Now, this is terrible to say. I just don't
believe Chris Tucker is a cop. Sure, that's the other thing too.
It's like, I just I'm sorry, I don't believe you. I don't
believe you. How did you become a detective? If this is who you
are? You're yeah, you're you're clinically stupid, like you're bad at your
job. You're you're reckless. And I think there's also a Chris tuckerness of
it all where and this could just be a preconceived thing because I know he's
a comedian that I'm just like. It's like when they try to put like
like Jerry Seinfeld in a movie and be like he's an actor, and I'm
like, no, he's not. Yeah, I know, like, I
don't believe him. And I will give Chris Tucker a credit. There's a
few times in the movie where he is asked to actually act and he actually
isn't terrible. Well, he's not a bad actor. Can do it.
He is to me not believable as a cop. He just isn't you want
to know what? It reminded me of a little bit the problem I had
with Mike Myers in so I married an ex murderer. Yes, where it's
like you, I've seen you do this, you can actually do it.
Just stop for a second. You don't need to be Chris Tucker right now.
You need to be James Carter or whatever his first name is. Yeah,
and you're just being Chris Tucker. And Chris Tucker is not a cop.
So this there's a there's a discordance. One hundred percent, Yeah,
one hundred percent. All right. So we cut to Captain deal in Philip
Baker Hall and what is essentially a cameo. But I was so happy to
see him, I know, I was like, Wow, you're too good
for this. But congratulations, I'm glad you're here collect your paychecks checks.
Yeah, he's on the phone in his office and he's utterly appalled because he's
hearing about the request that he sends someone to babysit for the FBI, and
he's like, absolutely not. And then he sees Carter walking into his office
and He's like, never mind, I have the perfect person for the job.
He tells Carter what Carter wants to hear, Ie, You're totally right.
You're being complete loose canon is exactly what the police work should be.
My god, I wish I had more cops like you, willing to break
the rules. And he sells the FBI assignment as one that Carter was specifically
requested for. Carter is thrilled. I have a question. Yeah, because
he's about to leave the head offers assignment and get into his Stingray. Uh.
I don't know much about cars, but I know what cars look like,
and the Stingray looks expansive. Should I google it? Yeah? Google
stingray cost. You google Stingray cost. I'll google. Average LAPD detectives a
salary well. In twenty twenty three, the Corvette Stingrays MSRP is ninety four
thousand, three hundred and seventy Okay. As of May fifteenth, twenty twenty
four, the average annual pay for an LAPD detective is fifty eight thousand dollars
a year. Yeah, yep, yeh uh huh yeah, okay, cool
cool cool cool cool. So he owns one hundred thousand dollars car on his
fifty eight thousand dollars salary. And this guy is not giving off I have
good credit. I don't know if anyone else gets that from him, but
he's just not so Carter believes this bullshit. He's been sold right, like,
not only are you are you a terrible cop an LAPD detective, but
we're gonna make you FBI congratulations. He heads into the consulate and he goes
in with his obnoxious meter turned all the way up. He's being a real
douchebag about that. Given orders, Rus, the FBI guy clocks what's happening
immediately like, oh okay, they sent this guy in for us to like
humiliate, let's really amp it up. So he pulls an and he's like,
your assignment is G fourteen classified, and he's like, oh, G
fourteen classified, yes, And like all the other agents are amused. They're
all snickering behind their backs, and then Russ explains that he has to go
take care of Lee. Carter assumes that he's being given a partner, right,
He's like right away, and the new job his dream job ever that
he finally got. The first thing they say is you're gonna work with someone,
He goes, no, yeah, he's no ending them. It's not
a jumping off point. There's not a negotiation. He's just like, oh,
I don't work with partners. Yeah, end of discussion. Of discussion.
Yeah, I'm in charge here. Yeah yeah. Russ informs him that
Lee is not his partner. Lee is his assignment, and Carter is like,
what the fuck? And now he realizes the extent of what's going on,
and he's pissed that he's being put on essentially babysitting duty. Yeah for
this random terrible cop from Hong Kong. So, by the way, hit
the suit in this is so nineties, and like Chris Tucker actually has the
correct build to pull it off because he's tall and very lanky. But the
suit is so long. There's like three buttons on it and there's I don't
know four to five feet in between each buttons. Shoulder pads for days the
nineties loved a big shoulder, broad shoulder. So Carter heads to Lax and
he picks up Lee. This is where Jackie Chan exits the plane and there's
a gong. Sounds like, boy, did I laugh? Hilarious? What
would be the sounds. If you and I exited a plane in a movie,
I feel like for me, it would be she gets off the plane
and the whole movie just goes, ah, this again. You felt that
so deeply, what's your plane getting getting off? My brain was like,
hey, mombo, but yours was so real. Mine's not based on life.
I feel like I biffed it with that answer. Mine's not based on
some sort of like ethnic no thing or racial thing. It's just my It's
just who I am on the inside and other people's reactions to it, and
it's just like, this is so much. Yeah, this is so much.
That's so funny because if I answered in the spirit of what you were
doing, mine'd be like whoa. I generally think people enjoy having me around.
I think I think when police detective work is required, you are on
hand. Absolutely. I feel like you'd get off the plane and the movie
would go, hey, it's just the sound of like ice cubes clinking in
a glass. Yeah, we would be We would make a great buddy cop
team in a movie. Yeah. Yeah. I mean I don't do any
physical activity, but other than that, i'd be an amazing cop. Yeah.
And I I didn't have to run. Yeah, I'm not running.
Let's be very clear about something. If a suspect is even the tiniest chase,
they're gonna get away. I am a detective. I figure out who
the suspect is. Is it not someone else's job to then act upon it?
Yeah, there's another cop who can do that part. Can I not
do my job from my seat? Bring me the information I shall cogitate upon
it. Are we, Hitchcock and Scully? So happy? All right?
So Carter picks Lee up. All the expected quote unquote jokes happen. He
assumes that Lee doesn't speak English. She yells his words slowly to help him
understand. He is generally a complete asshole. He is angry at his assignment,
and he is taking it out on Lee, who has done quite literally
nothing. At this point, he has not even spoken a word. It's
such a trope in movies that you think it's like, no one really does
this. And have you ever seen it though, when someone is speaking to
someone, oh yeah, in a language they don't understand, and they actually
get slow and loud and be like that's not helping, it's not helping.
It's so funny, like people aren't trying to be dicks. Necessarily, it
just is your natural human instinct, but you want to I have a question
though, because I speak very rudimentary Spanish, and I have multiple times gone
to someone and and been like you ablo poquito Espanol, like poquito, poquito,
and they their face lights up and it is a delusis and I'm like,
whoa, yeah, and I'm like, I'm actually the person that if
you speak slowly and loudly too, that might actually help me because I will
be able to pick out individual words. Yeah. I used to be a
tour guide like a million years ago, and I would see people of different
countries try to interact and talk to each other. Yeah, And it's always
so funny because it's like it really does happen, Like it's it's funny where
someone's like, do you understand and you're making it worse. They don't.
They do not, all right. So Lee is somewhat bewildered as to why
this shrieking dervish has been sent to pick him up. But they get in
the sting ray and off they go. In the car. Carter calls the
station to complain of his assignment, while Captain deal Johnson. Johnson's Elizabeth Pania
and the others sit around the phone and they openly laugh at him, which
I was glad the movie had this. Like the other members of the LAPD
are actually portrayed as we don't know, they don't really do much, but
like they might be competent. She is competent. She is, she is
certainly competent. We get more of Elizabethaniel later and she knows how to do
her job. Yeah, and like, so this wild card is being mocked,
not honored by the LAPD. Unfortunately, the movie is going to honor
him and he is our hero, so whatever. But you know, Lee
asked to be taken to the Chinese consulate by pointing to the address on a
business card, but Carter is like, no, I can't take you there.
That's basically my whole assignment is to not take you there. He instead
takes Lead to Chinatown leaves him at John Wayne's. Starr says, maybe you'll
see a cousin or something. Yeah, look around, maybe you'll as I'm
trying to like this guy, really am, and he heads to talk to
one of his uh criminal informants. He's played by John Hawks, great character
actor. John Hawks. Yeah. The contact tells Carter that he doesn't know
anything about a kidnapping, but someone in town is buying up weapons like they
want to start a war, like something in the underworld is happening. Before
Carter can get anything else, he looks up and notices that Lee has not
stayed in his spot looking for a cousin as instructed. He has disappeared.
This is the guy, The guy who's giving him the information right now is
the star Maps guy. Right, Yeah, there's a line here that is
super creepy. The Starmaps guy who's very very intense. He's trying to go
quote unquote straight, like this is his job now? Is he just sells
maps to the stars homes. That's all he sells. But the way he
hawks them on the street is he goes find them and stalk them the star
Maps maps in the stars homes. And I'm like, I don't think he
should be selling those, man, I don't care for this at all.
I've never bought one of those stars Maps homes like things when I was in
LA Because obviously that sounds terrible, that sounds like just the grossest thing ever.
But it would be very funny if you made star maps and they were
like the wrong celebrities completely are actually stars homes. But it's like, if
you think you're gonna go to Miley Cyrus's house, you're gonna love showing up
on Jack Nicholson's door. If you think you're going to Sabrina Carpenter's bungalow,
you're gonna adore Huey Lewis's apartment building. Come if you think you're gonna see
where the Jonas brothers live, You're gonna really enjoy Walter Mathow's great. It
would be funny to create one that's totally like totally flicked up. Yeah,
send the wrong people to the wrong thing. Did you hear the story recently
about the real person not a celebrity, who lives in the house that was
the facade for Breaking Bad had to put up like a wall of hedges to
stop people from throwing pizzas on their roof. But I totally see it.
It's like a real thing, and it's like, leave this person alone,
Like din'd you know, not to put pizzas on someone's room. Come on,
get a life. That's really f That's like the people in the West
Village who are like Carrie Bradshaw. Yeah, doesn't live here. Stop sitting
on my stoop. Weirdos. Okay, So back to the movie. Back
to the movie, Lee has disappeared. Remember Carter got the information Lee has
disappeared. So now a chase occurs. Lee has hopped on a tour bus.
Carter manages to follow him, to climb to the back of the bus
and then, in a stunning move of judgment, holds his gun to Lee's
forehead. You know, the man you're supposed to watch and look after and
like take care of while he's in your city. He immediately, like Chris
Tucker, like Carter, he immediately starts posing for pictures because the tourists and
the bar it's like ooh an lapd cop theay like wo they start taking pictures.
So Lee grabs onto a road sign and drops onto a passing truck because
again Jackie Chan. He climbs through a camper and hops into a cab via
another window inside of a cab and drives away. Genius. Like all of
it is great. Carter waves his gun around commandeer is a motorcycle and follows,
eventually managing to cut the cab off. He holds Lee at gunpoint again.
Uh huh boy, we were really cavalier with those guns back then,
weren't we. We sure were. Lee steals the gun and it is truly
one of those great Jackie Chan moments where he just like, before you know
what's happened. The gun is out of his hand. Carter pulls out another
gun, escalating quickly, they're facing off, and then the Cabby holds them
both at gunpoint. The Cabby's like, put your guns down. This is
a funny, like commentary on America. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna ding
the movie on this. Oh sure, I think this is pretty funny.
Carter identifies himself as FBI, and Lee in English says he's a cop teaching
the other guy how to take a gun, right like I speak English,
And now another gong sounds. We cut to them a few minutes later.
Carter is quite offended at Lee's quote unquote lie, but Lee calmly tells him
that he is not responsible for Carter's assumptions. Lee again asked to be taken
to the consulate, but Carter goes into a whole aria about how no one
likes Lee or even wants his help. So I want you to shut up.
Basically, he's telling Lee that everyone feels about him the way everyone actually
feels about Carter. They feel it that way about Lee too, but Carter's
projecting a little bit. Every think Carter's earned it. He has not.
Lee finally puts on the radio to shut Carter up, and Carter is even
more offended that he likes Surfing USA by the Beach Boys, and he switches
it to Can I Get A by Jay Z and starts to dance in the
driver's seat to show Lee how to dance do his little shoulder action. Yeah,
I'm staring at Erica while I do it. Yeah, you are like
such extended you know you like it? Baby, I don't like it.
I don't like it. I remember this is the commercial for the movie.
So Carter takes Lee to a pool hall and tells him to follow his lead.
Carter greets a couple of barflies with what's up my and bomb? Right?
Yeah, everyone in the pool hall is black, as is Carter.
I don't know. For those of you who don't know who Chris Tuner is,
he's black. Yeah, I guess that's germane to the plot here,
So he heads into the back. He's interrupting a poker game like it looks
like an illicit underground like underworld poker game, right immediately getting into a guns
out stand off with everybody. He demands to know what happened to the little
Chinese girl, but the leader of the group, Luke played by Clifton Powell,
denies any knowledge. Carter tells Lee to step outside. Lee does,
and as soon as he does, Carter and Luke the other guy start to
laugh and hug. Yeah cousins an bootsy. Yeah. He asks Luke who's
buying up all the weapons because his cousin genuinely is in the underworld, but
like, yeah, they're family, and Luke says someone out of Hong Kong
has been the one buying up all the weapons. He doesn't know who,
couldn't give a description or anything, but he does know that there's a connection
to the Hong Kong underworld. Meanwhile, Lee sits at the bar and greets
the bartender with what's up my end bomb? Who careful the things you say?
Children will listen? So this is like the first really extended like fight
scene martial arts scene that Jackie Chan has in the movie. I really loved
watching it, there's something about he has his own stunt team that does all
of his stuff and everything. There's something about it that's really dance like yeah,
like you can almost count the eight count with them. And it has
this effect of just slightly taking the violence away from reality a little bit more
than I would say a movie that's going for really like hyperrealism does, and
it just makes the violence. Hey, this is very minor violent, Like
there's no blood. Like people are getting smacked in the face with pool cues
and flipping over four tables and like they're fine, right, Like there's always
like a punch sound effect. It's like way bigger than the actual punch exactly.
Yeah, So like it's all not meant to be realistic or anything,
but like I really enjoyed watching all of this choreography, yeah, because it
seemed it just seemed like dancing. Well, there's no special effects. It's
happening in real time. The quickness of the movements are Jackie Chan it's not
generated by like, you know, speeding up the camera in any way.
Like he's so good. It's it is. It's watching like it's watching a
dancer at the top of his game. Yeah, what do we think about
this N bomb joke had been I kind of left. I think it works.
I think it works. I think that the movie knows exactly what it's
doing, the audience knows exactly what it's doing. And also it's we should
mention Jackie Chan. The part of the like the genius of Jackie Chan is
his comic timing. Yeah, is fucking perfect, and you know exactly why
the character is doing that, and you know the character does not know what
he is saying, so it is it all works fine for me. Yeah,
me too. I just wanted to call that out. So Carter and
Lee head to a deli for some food. Lee is very frustrated with his
time being wasted. He's like, look, this little girl is missing.
I care about her. This is we've got to get We've got to get
going. Carter says he's just gonna go get something to eat and then he'll
take Lee wherever he wants to go, and Lee agrees, and when they
go to shake on it, Carter handcuffs him to the steering wheel of the
sting ray. Carter heads in and when he gets back from the diner ors
of the Delhi or whatever, Lee is gone. As is the steering wheel.
Well, shit could have seen that come in here. Yeah. Lee
takes a cab to the consulate and winds up essentially having to mount a full
scale assault in order to get in because all of the FBI are just trying
to keep him out. He takes out multiple FBI agents on the way,
not killing them, just knocking them out basically. It's not until Han finally
sees him that everything is worked out and everyone just takes a breath. Yeah.
That night, Carter finally arrives at the consulate in a tow truck.
I don't know how much time is actually meant to have passed here, because
it seems like not much time has passed in the consulate, but we do
go from full daylight to full night time, so I'm not sure exactly.
That may have just been a vagary of filming schedules or something. Carter goes
inside, Russ is about to give him the what four because of everything that's
happened, and then Han arrives with Lee, and Lee for some reason pretends
that the two of them have been working together to find too Young. He
helps Carter out. He's like, no, like we were good, and
he because Han is the authority here, he is even above Russ has to
get Carter alone. He still wants to chew him out and everything. And
Carter just keeps talking, and he says he's gonna go to the phone to
call the police station, and the phone rings just as he picks it up,
and Sang is on the line. Sang again, Ken Leung bleach,
blonde villain, after Carter misidentifies himself as FBI. I don't think that's legal.
I don't think you should do that, sir, Hi, I'm the
president. Yeah, why not to answer the phone like that? Not good?
Yeah, not good. I'm the Empress of New York yep, Sang
tells Carter at the drop of fifty million dollars we made at eleven pm that
night, he wants twenty million in fifties, twenty million in twenties, and
ten million in fives. I thought that was really funny, the specificity of
it, because it does not come back, well, it does come back
in a small way because you see the cases and cases and cases of money
that they have to get. Yeah, yeah, which I really appreciated because
I always laugh and they're like, I want fourteen billion, dollars and they
come out and there's like one like one brief one briefcase full of like million
dollar bill well, bick of those bills. So I thought the visual gag
of all the money was pretty funny. Can you break a million? So
Sang tells him that further instructions will be given at ten thirty that night.
If all goes well, he'll see Sue Young alive. That doesn't sound reassuring.
No, So the FBI runs a trace on the calls. I guess
that is one good thing because Carter is such a like blubberer, right,
he keeps him on the line. Yeah, he keeps saying on the line
long enough that they were able to trace the call. I don't The movie
doesn't make it quite clear if that's intentional or not, but it is a
good result of his posturing. Sure, So we smash cut to the location
they find on the trace, and despite Lee's warnings, it's like an empty,
abandoned warehouse in the middle of Los Angeles. And Lee is like,
if you were asking for fifty million dollars and you had to hide it somewhere,
would you pick this place? This is a trap, you idiots?
Can you read the sign on the door that says, hey, this is
a trap. Russ, of course doesn't listen. He sends his team in
and they are promptly killed in an enormous EXE. In the aftermath, Lee
spots Sang and remember they saw each other in Hong Kong back in the day,
so they know each other, and he takes off after him. Carter
follows Lee. Sang leads Lee on a merry chase, eventually winding up in
another abandoned building. Who lives in Los Angeles? Yeah, for God's sake,
is he a much empty space? Yeah? Because is it free to
live there? I'll buy a building. So the two of them are fighting
in this abandoned building. I have to give ken Leeung and or ken Leeung's
stunt double credit. He gets a fire axe. He is swinging the fuck
out of that fire axe at Jackie Cham like he is winding up. Yeah.
Carter arrives and Sang flees running across a scaffolding that apparely holds him right,
It's like, but you know what, that's what you get for being
a loose cannon. You take risks. It unfortunately doesn't hold Lee, whose
foot goes through right and when Carter ignores Lee telling him to stop, he's
like, stops up, stuck, don't come on. The bridge ignores him.
It completely collapses, sending the two plummeting to the ground. Sang Is
gabes but Lee, uh does manage to recover the detonation device from him or
a debtonation device? Yeah, we smashed. Cut to Johnson. That's Elizabeth
Paanya. She's got a face on her. I love her face. She's
got like an incredible actor's face, like you see it for four seconds and
you remember and the silkiest sexiest voice you've done ever heard. What is the
Is that? Is that a specific accent that she has? Or is yes,
she's from She's from a Cuban family. Ah, it's a Cuban American
accent. No wonder, no wonder. We both respond to it so well.
Okay, So Johnson is training in a simulation for the Bottom Squad,
right, She's she's doing her work, she's figuring out which wire to cut.
She's nervous and second guessing herself, and then Carter arrives and intentionally startles
her and she fails the test. He then immediately asks for her help,
which she's not interested in giving because fuck off. Fuck all the way off,
all the way off, all the fuck's off to you. But she
he shows her the debtonator and and she says it could be used to open
up a garage door, or it could be used to blow up C four.
And he's like C four and she's like, yes, you four.
Funk off doesn't look like it open a garage door. It really does.
I don't think she's right on that. I think she's I don't know she's
ever seen a garage. It looks like it might control an inserted vibrator four
rooms away. Yeah, it's gotta it's got a weird shape to it.
It's like garage, George. They look like remote controls. They're very,
very square, very small, very black. Yeah. Yeah, this thing
has has bells and whistles. Yeah. Carter and Lee head to the prison
to talk to Clive Cod. Remember Clive Cod played by Chris Penn and his
distant cousin Carl Clownfish. Hah, so Cod is immune to Carter's charms.
He's like, fuck all the way off, just like Elizabeth Panya. But
then Lee offers genuine plea for help. He shows him a picture of the
little girl, and he's like, this little girl is missing. I don't
care about anything but finding this little girl. Please help me save her life.
Clive Cod, even though he has an arms dealer, Yeah, he's
got a heart, particle heart under all that seafore part of at least breast.
Yeah. And Cod's like, Okay, the man I bought the sea
four from was named June Toowoo. Sorry I forgot I forgot about that twist
startled me. He's like, I've never seen the guy, don't know what
he looks like, but I know his name is Junete. He definitely does
it look like Tom Wilkinson. He's not a white guy named Tom Wilkinson.
And he can be found at Fu Chow restaurant. And I'm presuming Chinatown,
Yeah, I would presume. Uh. And then he also tells Lee you
should get rid of Carter A s A P. He's going to get you
killed. Yeah. I mean, good advice all around, great advice.
Clive Cod coming through in a pinch. Yeah. Yeah, much like his
much like his cousin Prudence Piranha, Yes, and his and his aunt Tony
Tuna that you want to call Prudence and Tony in a pinch, that's what
you need. We cut to Fu Chow restaurant and Carter tells Lee that they
have to stake out the place before going in. He puts on War Dude,
what is it good? Absolutely nothing? Say it again? By Edwin
Starr or by us Lane from seinfeldt. Yeah. The meaning He's like,
we got to do a stakeout, and I'm like, does this takeout usually
mean keeping a low profile? Nothing that we are about to describe is low
profile. It also, I think involves watching the thing that you're watching.
Watching it. They're in the open air, in a in a in a
car with no top, openly loudly singing War. Yeah. So Carter is
surprised to find out that Lee knows the song, and they start to bond.
He teaches Lee how to say y'all, He shows him some dance moves.
Lee shows him some martial arts moves and how to disarm someone holding you
at gun point. And this is what the turning point in the movie for
me. Yeah, because now after after this point, they're gonna be basically
the best of friends, are going to get along. All of the weird
racist comments are going to stop from Carter and they're gonna be like a team
trying to trying to save too young. Yeah, and that is something that
I can root for as opposed to someone just like grandstanding and thinking he deserves
the world when he appears to be a complete asshole. Yeah. I also
just the like mechanics of taking the gun away, like that whole bit.
I could have watched it for a while more. Oh yeah, like they
kind of go buy it quickly, and because he shows him how to do
it, and I'm like, wait, but really, how do you do
it? What if I'm ever held a gun point I need to do this.
They're also back in the sting ray. Do they just screw the steering
wheel back on? Like? Is that? Is it that easy? I
think? So okay, I'm gonna say yes, Wait, you've never unscrewed
a steering wheel from a car in years? Have you even lived? I
came to New York so I had I could stop unscrewing steering wheels and screwing
the back on from cars because I was doing it too much, too much
too Yeah, it was becoming a habit. Yeah. So back at the
consoleate, the FBI prepares the drop of the fifty million dollars in impossibly small
small bills. Just the cases and cases of money is very funny dollars.
That's a million ten dollars dollars, right, because he has for ten million
and tens. Yeah, that's a million ten dollars. If you really stop
to think about it, it's hilarious. Sang calls and instructs them to take
the money to the alley behind. You will never fucking guess, Paul,
where the food chow, where our other two heroes are in the front.
FBI is gonna work it from the back there. Our two guys are gonna
work it from the front. Because you always want to work from both ends.
Yes, spit roast this restaurant. You want to, you want to.
You want to make sure you get You want to get all the zones
and then you can high five and Eiffel Tower. Yeah, exactly exactly.
If you're gonna order some Chinese food, you don't want to do it from
both sides. I think I've lost I went too far, gone too far.
We've got to bring it back. I don't know what ordering Chinese it
means in this analogy. I'm gonna move back. I'm gonna move back.
So meanwhile, Carter and Lee are getting some street food I guess across the
street from the restaurant. Carter of course bitches about it, but then discovers
it's good. He's eating eel. I have to give him props, the
character props, because he's like, what is this? The other guy goes
eel and he's like, looks gross, and then he eats it. He's
like, oh no, it's good, and I'm like wow. I most
most characters in movies would be written to be like, ew eel, I'm
not eating that. So this is a man who lives in Los Angeles who
has never had Chinese food. Huh. I never really thought about that.
I assumed he never had like, quote unquote authentic Chinese food. I'm sure
he's had, like sure, sweet and sour chicken maybe, but he doesn't
go up to the he doesn't go up to the stand. It's like,
do you have any sweet and sour chicken or sesame chicken or jerrial SaaS chicken,
or sweet and sour pork or beef and broccoli. He's like, do
you have any burgers and fries? Could you keep naming Chinese food please?
Or egg rolls or dumplings or bow or dim some or egg Foo young chicken
and garlic sauce low Maine Chow Maine chow fun cash you chicken, honey chicken.
I like Chinese food, is what I'm saying. Lee tells Carter that
Juntao killed his partner, right yeah. Carter says that that's why I don't
have a partner, not because I'm an idiot it doesn't work well with others,
but because I don't want my partner to get killed. I don't.
I've lost the thread here a little bit. The both of them realize that
both their fathers were cops, and they immediately get into a very, I
think, kind of adorable one upmanship argument about whose great and famous father was
the best of the great and famous cop fathers. My cop arrested ten men
in one day. Well, my dad arrested fifty men by it himself.
It only ends when they see Sang heading into the restaurant PSA for this episode.
If you are going to be like a Captain of the Underworld, if
you're going to be someone who perhaps the police might be looking for or following,
I wouldn't put a highlighter on my head. Would I wouldn't dye my
hair the yellowest shade of yellow that ever yellow, the thing that's going to
reflect all light because it is very clear. They look across the street and
there's one man with basically a tennis ball in his head, and they're like,
well, it's that. That's that's what we're looking for. We're looking
for, saying that's what that's who we're looking for. He knows. I
mean it looks cool, don't get me wrong, but it's not inconspicuous.
Yeah. Two more small points about the food before we go on. One.
Jackie Chan says he's eating camel's hump. So I tried to look this
up. Everything about like does is camel's hump a delicacy in China or everything
just yields question people asking the same question about this movie. So I don't
know what the answer is. There. They have camels. I looked it
up. They do have a like in northern China, there are some like
there's a specific type of count. China is enormous, so they have every
type of probably climate. So because I imagine when I think China, I
don't think like desert, and when I think camel I think desert. To
me, the then diagram doesn't quite work. I agree. Yeah. And
the other thing is, I don't know if you noticed this. Do you
notice that Chris Tucker definitely does not know how to use chopsticks? Aha?
No, He's holding the two chopsticks like just like right next to each other
in his hand. Paul's showing me like perfectly parallel. Yeah, perfectly parallel.
There's no way for him to move it. And then when he has
to like try the eel and say, oh it's good, he just like
moves the container up to his mouth and then brings it back down and then
his like fake choose like two. But it's like, oh it's good.
Like I don't care, it's not a big deal. It was just very
funny that I was like, I did know. I didn't you know,
I didn't notice the chopsticks. I noticed that the container was empty. My
thing is when actors are holding food or drinks in their hands and it's so
clear that there's nothing in it, they're just waving it around all willy nilly.
Yeah yeah, all right. So, uh, Lee and Carter decide
that Carter should go into the restaurant first, hoping that no one will recognize
him. He goes in. He tells the hostess he needs to speak with
mister Juntao. I'm I'm dying to know what the plan is here, what
the thought process was behind that? Yeah, because oh, we forgot to
mention he gives He gives Lee his badge and his gun outside in case Lee
should need them. He's like, if I'm in there for long, too
long, come in and say you're lapd. Yeah. This is actually my
favorite joke in the movie, and it made me laugh because they do a
close up on Chris Tucker's badge, and it's this very silly picture of Chris
Tucker, like when he's clearly much younger, doesn't know what he's doing,
and they added like a mustache and post, Yeah, he looks hilarious.
He looks ridiculous, Right, it looks ridiculous. And Jackie Chan looks at
the picture and then looks at Chris Tucker and goes, this will never work.
I'm not six' one excellent jock, excellent, excellent Joe. Yeah.
So the hostess protests that she doesn't know anyone by the name by the name
Juntao, but he insists that she go upstairs and tell mister Juntoo that he's
there to speak with him. So finally she does, and Carter takes his
seat at the table. Meanwhile, upstairs, we see Sang speaking with Junetao,
who remains out of frame. We don't know who Juntao is. We
must remember, huge surprise coming, huge shocker when you find out. My
god, my god. Should we tell them now that it's Judy Dench?
No, no, no, no, like savor the moment. Okay,
it's not Judy Dench, you guys, it's not. They start watching the
closed circuit cameras and we see Lee come in and take a seat inside.
The camera spins around and reveals that Juntao is actually hanging under your butts,
Melanie Griffith. Now it's Thomas Griffin aka Tom Wilkinson. It's him. Surprise,
surprise. He tells them to move Sue Young and make sure that Carter
and Lee don't leave. So the hostess brings Lee some tea, and she
attempts to drug him by putting some powder in his tea, and he's about
to drink it, but stops short of drinking it when he notices that she's
wearing Sue Young's necklace, the one that he gave her at the beginning of
the movie. Yeah, and he's like, oh shit, so he stops
drinking, Thank goodness. Meanwhile, Carter is escorted upstairs and he enters just
in time to see Griffin to Tom Wilkinson on the CCTV outside. He doesn't
know who that is, Yeah, but he's seen him right. Sang and
the other men surround him. But when Sang pulls a gun, Carter demands
he fight like a man, put your gun down, mano a mano.
Sang drops the gun. I really didn't think he was gonna drop the gun.
That seems dumb. Just kill him, you're a businessman. Also,
what was the plan? There was no plan? What was You were just
gonna walk in and Carter is the worst. There was no He's just walking
in shouting, like out openly shouting the name of the villain of the movie
that no one has ever seen, and like demanding to see him. Yeah,
Like, what did you think was going to happen? Yep? So
Sang drops the gun and they actually do fight. A fight breaks out outside.
We see Lee swap outfits with a waiter, and when we cut back
inside, Carter is being held hostage. Shockingly, he lost the fight.
Sang leaves and tells the other men to kill Carter. Lee enters just in
time to help him, and after a brief fight, the two flee back
down into the restaurant, which has been cleared of customers because they hear the
fight going on upstairs. All the customers leave. Lee pauses just to take
Sue Young's necklace from the server, and the two barely flee ahead of the
restaurant exploding. I think because a bullet goes into the air fryer, which
starts a fire, which causes the oven to explode. I think that's what
happens, because I could not figure out why the restaurant exploded, but I
think it's because of that. I was like maybe in my brain, like
the bad guys were like, all the evidence is in here, We've got
to just explode the place, including all those waitresses and hostesses and a couple
of their men. Well that's what makes some bad guys. Paul exactly,
I don't care. How did that hostess get that necklace? Is this is
this? Is this a sister ac situation where like Sang took her from the
girl and then it gave it terms like hey, sweetheart, I brought you
this necklace. Yeah, yeah, what a piece of shit? What a
you know what? I was on your side saying I was rooting for you.
We're all rooting for you. What if you were just a random person.
And like I always think about the extras in these scenes and movies,
like, hey, honey, you know it's a Tuesday night. Let's treat
ourselves to some Chinese food. Let's go down to Foo Young or whatever the
name of this dress Trug Foo Chow and get some of that delicious you know,
pork fry whatever. I have run out of Chinese food because we name
them all. That's a new one. Pork fread, rice and soup.
And then like you know, you're in noodles and you're just sitting in the
restaurant having your delicious meal. I really like Chinese food. It's so good.
This is making me want it so bad. Just egg rolls. You
could eat eggrolls all day every day. My new Chinese place doesn't do egg
rolls, which is very disappointing to me. Yeah, oh no, because
that's the best part. I know that's barely food, but I love it.
So much. Give me an egg roll in a wanton soup. It's
a good night. That's a great night. Yeah, that's a night.
Delicious egg drop soup, sweet and sour soup. Again, I'm on a
spiral, so yeah, sorry, I just like, what if you're like,
so, let's have a nice, delicious meal together and those fucking gunfire
breaks out, You're like, this is why we don't leave the house,
Harold. So our two heroes are immediately gathered up outside of the explosion by
a none too please Russ and the rest of the FBI, who are on
the scene to make the drop as scheduled. Ye, the enormous enormous drop.
Yeah, Carter and Lee are Now that's what I do after that's just
a joke. Chinese who doesn't upset my tummy. I'm fine, well,
but if you need enough of anything, you're gonna have an enormous drop.
Carter and Lee are now persona non grata. Fuck off. You both mess
up too much. Russ throws Carter off the case, and Han tells Lee
that he's being sent back to Hong Kong. But he's doing it. He
does it in that way where he's like, I'm not mad, I'm just
disappointed. That actually makes it so much work. It does, particularly from
Simah, who is paternal energy. He gives off that like dad energy.
You're like, oh no, I've disappointed him. I'm so sorry. Absolutely,
Carter rushes in and takes full responsibility. This is a real turning point
for the character. Yeah, because he goes in and he knows that that
Lee is upset and like he it wasn't Lee, it was him. Yeah,
it like really when the went in, they're half cocked. Yeah,
fucked everything up and fucked everything up and all of that, and and so
he actually tries to take responsibility and say it was it was my fault.
The character needs a couple of these moments, so I'm glad they're giving it
to him. So uh Han says, look, it's too late for it's
too late for your apologies. This is this is all ruined. Now.
I need you both gone, and then Sang calls again, upping the ransom
to seventy million. He wants the extra twenty million now in rolls of quarters.
He wants it. Yeah, I was gonna say he wants he wants
four million one dollar bills, four million in rolls of quarters. Twelve million
rolls of quarters. That's four million dollars, right, I don't know.
I lost strack. I'm not good at math. I'm good at naming Chinese
food dishes that I want to eat. And that's it. He wants.
He wants the rest in in bitcoin. Set you on Chicken Sasha, Chicken
A. He tells them the new drop will be arranged for the following night.
Yeah. The next day, Lee is driven to Lax and Carter heads
home. Meanwhile, Griffin arrives at the Consulate to comfort Han. That is
that's Tom Wilkinson aka Adrian Tao aka Griffin. He's gonna and remember he and
Han are friends, they work together fifteen years. So he arrives to comfort
him, and we see another phone call where Han is directed to be at
the Chinese Art Expo that night to make the drop. We cut to Johnson
making herself breakfast, absolutely having the best time. Making your If I could
ever have this much fun making myself breakfast a win? Did you watch the
film with subtitles on? Yeah? I always watch everything when we're with close
captioning on if I can when we're doing the show, The closed captioning person
wrote listening to soul music. You a little days to Sunshine Vans get down
tonight, and I'm like, that is not soul music at all. What
are you talking about? The close captioning person does not understand music all at
all at all. So Carter calls her and he apologizes for being himself essentially,
and he asks for her help in saving Sue Young, and she agrees
to find out where the console will be to make the drop that night because
she still has an in at the LAPD. All right, I have to
I have to say this now. Carter and Lee are currently in possession of
zero pieces of information that the FBI does not have. Technically, Carter knows
that Griffin is Jentao, but he does not know who Griffin is, so
he doesn't know that he knows that connect. So it's not like I don't
know why they wouldn't have them find something out at the restaurant. Then when
he's trying to do the right thing and tell them, they're refusing to listen
to him, and that requires him to go rogue again in order to So,
Oh, they're going to tell you it's at the Chinese Art Expo,
but the girl is actually going to be at you know, I don't know,
the parking garage four blocks away. Yeah, it's something like that.
And they're not listening to him. I don't know why, because he will
now go on to be like we're the only two who can save her,
and it's like why. He really genuinely does have a piece of information that
literally no one else in the movie has, and the movie does not even
try to try. It doesn't even go there, right, it's so dumb.
So Carter heads to Lax. He gets a service uniform from someone at
the airport. He boards the plane. Oh, pre nine to eleven,
and anyone can just board a plane. He boards the plane headed for Hong
Kong. He finds Lee and he tells them we've got to get back on
the case. And Lee is like, no, you are a disgrace to
your father. Ouch, yeah, way harshhy. This conversation is going to
strain to make a point. It does not succeed, but it does try.
Carter tells Lee that his father was killed making a routine stop because his
partner didn't get out of the car to back him. That's why he doesn't
like to work with a partner. But earlier in the movie, it certainly
seemed like he didn't want to have a partner because he didn't want to be
responsible for someone else's life. Yeah, and potentially get that person killed.
Now is the opposite of that. Yeah. So Lee's like, do you
think your father wasted his life and died for nothing? And Carter's like,
well, prove me wrong. Yeah, you're right. Makes no sense,
It makes no sense. None of this is important. None of it is
important. None of it matters. It should matter because it's the crux of
the of the character, but the character. It's an action movie. The
character doesn't really matter. Only the great action movies are where the character matters.
Yeah. Again, this conversation would be so much easier if they were
in possession of a piece of information that no one else had and knew they
were in possession of it. Just saying what if he came to the plane
and Lee was looking through photos as soon Young and he saw in the background
he saw Thomas Griffin. He was like, I know that guy. That
guy was and then yeah, activated what if Thomas Griffin was on the news
being interviewed about the Chinese art expo. Yeah, and He's like, wait
a minute, that's June too. Yeah, should we move to La and
B script doctors. I really think we should. I really think we should.
We cut to the Chinese art expo, which sadly does not have any
Chinese food, and the artifacts that were recovered from Juntao in the original raid
from when the movie started are all on display. Russ and and Han or
there. Russ is like, look, I'm gonna go make the drop and
he leaves Han with Griffin and another agent. We see Sang. He's masquerading
as a waiter. Now, no one has ever looked less like a cater
waiter he's got in this movie. We talked about it. He also has
like a scar going down his cheek because he's the villain of the movie.
It's just again if I saw that person at a caterwaiter event and I was
like, excuse me, can you pass me a crab pum? You know
what? Never mind? No, No, I don't need anything. I'm
I'm good. Sorry, my apologies. Do you want me to hold the
tray. I'll hold the tray for you. Yeah, do you have any
scallion pancakes? So Carter, Lee and Johnson arrive just as Han begins his
welcome address. He starts out well, then he gets choked up because he
mentions that now that they have recovered all this art, in all of this
history, they can pass it on to their children, and he can't get
children out because he's so worried about his daughter. Griffin stands up to take
his place, and Carter finally recognizes him. It finally gets a chance to
see this guy that he saw on the CCTV at Fuchow restaurant. So Carter
decides it needs to clear everyone out of the expo, reasoning that anyone who
stays behind must have a reason for it. Right. That's actually pretty good.
That's the best bit of police where he does the entire movie. So
he stands on a pedestal in the middle of Tom Wilka's in speech and shouts
to everyone that there's a bomb. Everyone be calm, be cautious, leave
the building, and everyone's kind of standing there and he's like, bitious move.
At one point he says, titty, titty, titty, get them
titties out of here. He does, did I have a blackout while I
was watching this? I did not remember that? Lee watches his gryffin heads
to sang and takes a detonator just like the one he recovered from the restaurant
from Fuchau and realizes that Gryffin is Junetao Yep. Lee rushes towards Griffin,
but Griffin realizes the jig is up and he holds the detonator out and he
announces that six blocks of C four are wired to Sue Young right outside.
Everyone freezes. He villain splains how all the art on display was once in
his possession, but tonight he will be paid in full, so he has
decided to wreak this revenge because Lee messed up his shipment of all of this
art that he had stolen, and he wants to get paid for the art
that he originally stole. Sang holds Lee at gunpoint, but Carter manages to
sneak away Outside. Carter takes out the man guarding the white band and finds
Sue Young tied up and hooded in the back. He tells her he's going
to take the best off, and she tells him through tears that no,
no, no, you can't. I heard them say it's wired to explode
if anyone tries to remove it. This kid is bright. Yeah, love
this kid. Yeah. A helicopter approaches and Gryffin announces that he's ready to
call it an evening, right. He's like, well, thank you,
folks, has been fun. Gotta go. It's been fun extorting everyone for
seventy million dollars and impossibly small bills. This will become a problem for him
because he's not gonna be able to carry all of it. Why why do
you ask for the small bills? Why do you have the small bills.
There's a reason they asked for big bills. There's a reason people have Swiss
bank accounts. That's what this shit is for. Yeah. At that moment,
Carter drives a van through the front window, giving Lee a chance to
dive behind some of the displays. Carter shouts that he's got something for Junetao
and appears with Sue Young So the little girl, who's like basically a walking
bomb at this point. I love this scene because he's like, go ahead,
pull the trigger, kill us all, and it's like, what are
you doing? And he and the little girl kind of catches on to what
he's doing, and she's like, yeah, do it, pull the fucking
drink. She doesn't say fucking, but like it's that that tenor and I'm
like, I love this kid. She's like, he isn't gonna do it.
He's you're right, yeah, because he's in the blast radius now exactly.
So Griffin tel saying, just you know what, you fucking deal with
this, and he bitches out, what is the deal with Henchman? At
what point when your boss is like you deal with this and leaves, are
you like, I'm good, I'm good. No, Actually, this is
more of a U problem. This is outside my pay grade. Things appear
to be shifting. The wind appears to be going against you at the moment,
so bullets start flying everywhere. Lee grabs Sue Young and puts her in
the back of the van with Johnson there. Remember she is a bomb expert
diffusing bombs, so she is there to get the safety vest off, which
she does, but the remote could still set it off. So the girl
is safe, But there is still a bomb in this building that will explode
like the whole block, yeah, if it goes off. The firefight continues
as Griffin appears behind Russ. Remember Russ went upstairs to do the drop,
so he's with all of the money and there's a couple other FBI agents in
the room. Griffin shoots all of them and takes one one thing of cash.
I'm guessing maybe like four million dollars at most. At most, it
sends only if he got the twenty dollars box. Yeah, if he got
the suitcase with the fives or the rolls of quarters. Tough draw. He's
walking out of there with like twenty seven grand tops at the most, and
maybe a peaking duck. I wouldn't say no to a peaking duck. Meanwhile,
Lee has the bomb vest and spots Griffin making his escape. So the
Expost Center, the La Spot Center is obviously you've ever been in an expo
center, it's high, high, high ceilings, all glass, and there's
these exposed rafters up there. So he sees Griffin making his escape, he
heads to stop him. He's interrupted by various physical fights where he not only
defeats multiple attackers but struggles to save the art pieces as well. It's a
very funny moment where he goes through this incredibly long thing of trying to save
this one vase and he does save it and he turns around someone shoots it
immediately. It's funny. That was my second biggest laughing. Yeah yeah.
He eventually puts the vest on an interesting choice, yeah yeah, and he
starts to climb up into the exposed rafters where he spotted Griffin heading for the
hell So Griffin is on like this balcony platform thing. Lee is trying to
get to him by taking a short cut by walking through all these rafters.
Yeah. So Sang heads for the money room and starts to gather some of
the leftover cash, the thousands and thousands of thousands of bills of leftover cash.
Russ moans on the ground and Sang spins around, but Carter arrives and
Sang trains his gun on Russ and threatens to kill him, and Carter's like,
I don't like him anyway, go ahead. Yeah, Sang like calls
his bluff and is like, put down the gun and fight like a man
like we did before, And they negotiate placing the weapons down. At the
same time. I really, really really thought one of them was going to
keep their gun. Yeah, the way they do. They do drop the
guns at a certain point though, like the loaded gun. Just don't do
that. One of which is like an automatic, yeah, like an UZI
And I'm like I don't think that should hit the floor. I prefer it
didn't, frankly. Yeah. So they drop their loaded guns and Sang immediately
draws another one from like his boot and takes a shot, but Carter throws
him himself backward and shoots Sang dead from his ankle. Hoster, so they
both had backup guns. Backup guns. Yeah, gotta have a backup gun.
Yeah. After after he kills Saying, he says, wipe yourself off,
man, you're dead, because earlier in the movie when he Sang beat
him up and he had blood on his face, he sang through like something
like a napkin or whatever and was like, wipe yourself off. Oh I
missed that. You've got blood on your face. I see. But this
is not a direct like this, This is not a good comeback. Yeah,
okay, because I was like, I don't get it. Yeah,
I know it's a singer, but I don't get it. Yeah, it's
it's a callback, but it's not a good one. It's it's not it's
not a proper one. Yeah. Yeah, all right, So we cut
back to the rafters. Griffin is shooting it Lee until he's out of bullets.
While Lee crawls across the rafters to cut him off. Just as he
gets the platform, Griffin winds up and hits him with this suitcase full of
money, but Lee manages to hold onto the railing. Griffin winds up and
hits him again, but this time the suitcase opens and all the money falls
out, causing Griffin to overbalance and pitch over the ledge. They wind up
with Lee holding onto one of the rafters. It's a circle, so there's
not even like a grip that he need. He's just holding onto the circular
pipe thing. Griffin is holding on to him. Griffin tries to climb up
and he grabs onto the Sea four vest. They're both over a death drop.
He hooks his hands into the seafoar vest, which is unfortunately not well
made. You know, you never think about that, you know, you
don't think about the the structural integrity, the craftsmanship. Yeah, in the
in the garment itself, that's right, that's right. Yeah, you want
to get an ll bean vest for this kind of thing. Ll Bean takes
a looking keeps on ticking. Yeah, yeah, craps a Patagonia why not,
yeah, yeah, it rips and Griffin falls to his death. Holding
the sea four that C four goes through a fair I don't know that C
four can be set off by contact, but it goes through a lot of
jostling, way more than I would feel comfortable with. So Lee is now
still clinging to this like rafter this pipe, and he's like slipping, and
he begs Carter to help. Carter grabs an enormous banner and like holds it
underneath Lee, like he pivots it so that when Lee falls, it acts
like a slide. It's a cool effect. I don't know if it works.
It'd be funny if he did it well, because that's what I was
like, also, like, there's no way Carter is strong enough to hold
it while after Lee falls on it, like he would immediately drop it.
It would go it would go straight, it would go vertical, and Lee
would fall to his death. Anyway, I'm like, you know what,
it's a movie. Let it go, whatever, let it go. This
wasn't written by physic by bysists. Imagine if they made an action movie actually
made like written by physicists who were like no, no, no, this
wouldn't work because of X, Y and Z. It was like seventeen years
to get anything done. So Lee winds up crashing into Carter, which Carter,
of course has a gay panic moment about why come on. Although I'm
gonna give it the movie a very slight pass, Lee crashes into Carter.
Carter's like, get off me, and then he kisses him on the cheek
and says thank you, and that seems okay, yes, but then he
has to go to the point of wiping his cheek off. Oh well,
you know what. To be fair, Jackie Chan is very slobberary. He's
a wet kiss if you ever noticed, he's a very wet kisser. I
know. Every time I've made out with Jackie Chan, Frank, I found
it a bit dry, a bit oh on the dry side. Really anytime
I've never made out with Jackie Chan, but anytime I've just spoken to him
and I'm not at least six feet apart, it feels like I'm getting rained
on. Oh wow, yeah, interesting, interesting, different, different.
Maybe maybe he speaks to you right before he makes out with me. He's
out of expectorate by the time. That's probably it. He usually double book
Jackie back to back, back to back with us. Yeah, yeah,
totally. So in the aftermath Hans thanks Lee and Sue Young the fucking cutest
kid in the world. It like punches him in the gut and it's like,
what took you so long? I love this kid. He gives her
back her necklace and then she hugs him. It's extremely sweet. Yeah,
we cut to Lax A couple of days. A couple of weeks later something
like that. Carter is hitting on an airline worker and Russ appears and offers
him a place of the FBI. Hey he did good. Carter tells them
to shove their offer up their asses, which is pretty satisfying, and he
heads onto the plane. He is in first class. He sits down next
to his best friendly. They are on their way to a vacation in Hong
Kong that Han is sending them on as a thank you for their work and
saving his daughter. They are simpatico for about thirty seconds before they start getting
on each other's nerves. There is a moment here where the airline attendant comes
up and offers them something in Chinese, peanuts or whatever, and Carter responds
in Chinese and Lee's like, you didn't tell me you spoke Chinese, and
they do the flip of the joke of like, well, you just assumed
I didn't speak Chinese, and I am just forced to remind everyone that this
is a man who has never had Chinese food before, but he speaks Chinese.
He's just because he's never had camel home. There's also a line here
where he's like, how long is this news? Fifteen hours? Fifteen hours?
Yeah, what are we gonna do it for? Fifteen hours? And
I realized, oh, this is before planes had like individual movie screens.
Man flying every book, fly us to be roof Yeah, real roof stoof.
Yeah. The credits role as a genuinely charming blooper reel place. This
is a Jackie Chan special. All of his films have blooper reels at the
end to show you the mistakes. Yeah, and there. It's always fantastic.
If you want to just go on YouTube google Jackie Chan blooper reel,
it is probably hours worth of content. Yeah, it's excellent, great way
to spend a Tuesday night. This one's very charming. My favorite part of
this blooper reel was that moment where Chris Tucker has to speak Chinese or Mandarin
and he keeps fucking it up. Jackie Chan looks so satisfied. He's like,
see, it's not so hard learning a second language, is it.
My favorite moment is where Chris Tucker proved that he genuinely does not know who
Bill Clinton's Daughter's name is. By the way, in nineteen ninety eight,
Chelsea Clinton had been in the White House with her family for six years.
What's her name? Kelsey, Kelsey, Kelsey Grammar. He calls her like
and he's not choking, genuinely doesn't know Chelsea Clinton's name. So that is
the end of Rush Hour. Stick around. We will be right back after
a couple of messages to give you our random observations and final rankings. And
we're back, Paul, give me some random observations on Rush Hour. Okay,
So there is one moment near the end that we just need to just
need to mention y who knows that we noticed it. They're going to Hong
Kong, and Chris Tucker of course has to say, I want to get
me one of them special massages. Yeah, yeah, sir. First of
all, you can get one of those here, like, let's be honest,
Yeah, you don't need to go to Hong Kong for one. But
also Ross. Yeah, no, yeah, that wasd Yeah, he's like,
I'm gonna get a massage, and like the way he said it,
that's I know, that's not what I felt it. I know what you
meant, sir. Since we're gonna start there with the with the racism,
there's a lot of like slur is not even really quite the word I would
use. There's a lot of like dumb racist things said toward Jackie Chan by
other characters in the movie, specifically by uh like harder by like the beginning
of the movie, but because the movie doesn't want to go hard on it,
it's not hard slurs. Yeah, like silly ones. And my favorite
of the silly ones is he calls him mister ras Roney the San Francisco treat.
Yeah, he's out of San Francisco. But I don't know why.
I'm like, I mean, if you're gonna if you're gonna be racist to
someone, at least do it in a way that's kind of that's kind of
silly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I think I
mean, I think the movie did that intentionally. Yeah, right, Like
it would have been very easy to hear hard slurs. They clearly did not
want that, so Yeah, kudos today for that, mister. That just
doesn't make sense. So I've been somewhat hard on Chris Tucker in this.
So there was a couple of lines to his that did make me laugh.
One of them was he's stuck with the LAPD and he's like, LAPD,
everyone hates us. My mama tells people I'm a drug dealer. That was
funny. I laughed at that. That's okay, I love that line.
Yeah, my mom tells people I'm a drug dealer. I just have one
more. And again it's another weird bit of like close caption. Whoever did
the close caption for this movie is interesting, maybe went to sleep on the
job just a little bit. When Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan walk into the
bar and Chris Tucker's like greeting everyone with the N word, and then the
joke is later it comes back. The N word is spelled out in the
close captions with the hard R oh. And to be clear, Chris Tucker
is not saying the hard R version. Yeah, He's saying the like the
A version, the one that ends with an A, the soft the soft
ending, the soft landing exactly, And Jackie Chan is being very specific about
the way he's saying it as well. Yeah, for the closed cash person
is like spelling the word out and I'm like, whoa, you are screwing
these two for no good reason. That is not fair. There was one
other joke in the movie that I really liked that we didn't talk about.
In the beginning, when the captain is giving Chris Tucker his assignment and he's
thrilled. He's like, oh, thank you so much. I'm gonna remember
you. I'm gonna make you mayor as he's leaving, and Philip Baker Hall
just says, I wish you wouldn't, which is excellent. It's very funny
because, from what I've heard, being the la mayor not a great gig.
Yeah, not fun though, the way he delivered that joke, just
kind of under his breath was fucking excellent. Yeah, yeah, Paul,
How shall we rank Rush Hour one to ten? Relatives of Clive Cod,
Terry Telapia, Terry Mallory, Mahi mahi. Oh god, see if I
have another one in me? Candy carp Candy carp now is carps? Is
candy? Spell the sea? Okay, Candy spell with the sea. Obviously,
Ye, you need you need both to get the alliteration. It should
be the same letter. One to ten. Uh fake star maps? Ah,
so for when for when you want to see lies in Manelli's house,
but they take you to Vanessa Hudgens, that's roof. That's a down grade.
That's a roof. That's a down grade. I like Vanessa Hudgins.
Nothing against Vanessa Hudgins. Don't come for us hudge and times Hudgeons, I'm
not interested. When you want to see the house where Marlon Brando lived and
they send you to Scott Steps, Oh, that's a tough that's a tough
pill to swallow. Who even is that knocked on the door. Yeah,
it's like I'm on a star map. Scott's Stap is excited. He's like,
my career is going back up. I'm on the uprides. All everything's
coming up. Roses World, Scott's staff. One to ten types of Chinese
food. Yeah, Paul, can you name seven more soup dumplings? Uh?
Uh, chili, crisp, pepper, steak, mushu pork. Well,
he really is going to do it. I'm so impressed. Go go
go, go long beans. There are a lot of Chinese cruisy and I'm
out more. Might come? Did we do dumplings? We did? We
did dumplings? Did we do dumplings? He looks disappointed. Cheese one.
Okay, there you go, there you go. Yeah, that's one.
Crab rangoon, there you go. I think it's the same things. Okay,
maybe yes, basically crab rangoon, cheese wong. Let's do this one,
this one. Do you want to go first? Or shall I go
first? You go first? Okay, let's starting to hear. I don't
think anything in this movie really rises to the level of like offensive. I
think the the we've been calling it racism, I don't even want to call
it racism. The the the I rolly jokes, the cheesy, corny jokes
about like the Chinese stuff for stuff like that is I don't think it's offensive.
I am not a Chinese person, so perhaps if you are, you
might think differently. And that's fine. First draft, Yeah, it's like
and just lazy, because it does feel like the movie is not trying to
be offensive. They are trying to get just the right amount of pepper on
the joke so that like everyone can laugh, but they're not actually being offensive
to anybody, right, I didn't find them funny, but I also didn't
find them offensive. I found them stupid. That that's where I would come
down on that. Two leads of color, that's great, very rarely get
that. Yeah, a lot of people of color in the movie. The
two female roles are both people of color as well. The only white person
who's a big role in this Tom Wilkinson. Yeah. Really, so that's
cool. That's very, very very diverse. Juneaw, I mean June Tao,
excuse me, excuse me. That's great. Like we look for diversity
in movies, this one definitely has it. Obviously. We talked about the
the again very minor gay panic joke. Again does not rise to the level
offensive made me roll my eyes, not didn't make me go fuck off.
It obviously doesn't pass the Beachdel test. Actually, I was thinking about this
and I think it does. Do they actually speak to each other? Yes,
because she she tells her something about the vest it is it is a
squeaker. They're squeaking by Elizabeth hit Pannia is like, Okay, we're gonna
get this best off of you and the little girls like it'll explode, and
she's like, don't worry. I'm trained. Yeah, like it's it's a
little it's a squeaker, yeah, but they do make it. Yeah,
okay for me. The thing that really doesn't age well in it is like
this idea of like the lone Wolf cop in this one, it's it's not
even just by the way, we got a comment after our LA Confidential episode
that our clear hatred of law enforcement was coming through. I would just like
to say that I don't. I don't hate law enforcement. It depends for
me. Yeah, are we talking LA PD well because they're terrible at their
job? Yeah. I think we have to admit that the law enforcement has
coming for some come upances over the last few years, and there are some
sustain issues. But I have had very lovely interactions with police who I've been
treating me very kindly in the past. I'm mostly ignored by cops. But
I just wanted to put that out there that I was like, we're talking
about LA Confidential. Yeah, we're gonna we're gonna make fun of the cops
and LA Confidential because that is about police corruption in any case. This one
is, you know, like you have like the loan the Lone Wolf Cop
in die Hard, but in that situation, he has no other choice.
He has put alone. Right, this one is this guy that is constantly
like flouting the rules and going going against the grain and putting people in danger.
Because he's doing that and he is not really facing consequences for it.
It doesn't like learn the lesson of like, no you have like going rogue
is no better than like constantly protecting everyone in the LAPD. There has to
be some middle ground here, and it kind of it bothered me. It
did because I was like, this guy's being lionized for terrible behavior and he's
a cop and he's a detective, And now I don't think this person should
have access to guns really based on his general demeanor and stuff like that.
And am I like overthinking a very silly action movie. Yes, I one
hundred percent am. But that's what I think of when I see things like
this now, like the fact that he's supposed to be protecting this guy and
he climbs out the back of the seat, pulls out an enormous gun and
shoves it in the guy's neck. It's like, don't love that. I
just don't love it. That for me is what does really doesn't age well
in the movie and the I don't think there's really room for like a gay
storyline. I don't really care about their not being a gay storyline. I
think we could have had more female characters in it. I think that's the
other place where it really falls down. There are plenty of characters that could
very easily have been women. And I'm not gonna get annoyed that Johnson doesn't
have a backstory, because really, Carter and Lee don't have backstories, so
like whatever, that's not a big deal. But they could have been more
in corporate. I get that it's a movie with two male leads. That's
fine, that's not a big deal. But literally, I think women maybe
have a collective ten minutes of screen time in the movie. I don't even
think it's that much. Yeah, so it's it's it's quite striking. I
would say, when the evil hostess who stole a little girl's necklace is the
third largest role in your movie, in your movie something to look at.
All that being said, I don't think it ages horribly. I think it
has some things that like look a little different. Now I'm gonna give it
a six. I'm gonna give it a six. It falls down on the
female representation and the lone wolf cop trope I don't like, but lots of
diversity, and once they figure out the central relationship, it actually was fun
to watch. And it's a silly, stupid action movie and it doesn't need
to be like, you know, flogged or anything. So I'm gonna give
it a six out of ten Chinese food dishes for Russia, including including eggfou
young. Have you done that one? I don't know, maybe we did,
but I'm gonna give it to you because I think I really think I'm
pushing your buttons at this point. Just a real quick for anyone who was
annoyed by our discussion of law enforcement in LA Confidential, I would just say
check out our Law and Order SVU episode for a very different perspective on police
work in that episode in that show. So I like the movie fine.
Honestly, I like the movie fine. I don't think it's particularly good.
I could watch Jackie Chan forever. Yeah, and that like, if he
were not in this movie, I wouldn't. I would be like, this
is lame. I don't know why we're watching it, but Jackie Chan makes
everything watchable for me, So I pretty much agree. With everything you said.
The one thing that also kind of dinged me a little bit is the
John Carter's character, his misogyny towards his It is John, right as I
said it is. It felt wrong, And it's Carter Carter. Yeah,
I think we said his first name in the beginning, but I remember what
it was, Jason. It's a j It's a j named John Jordan ju
Jonathan. Jackie's Jackie is Jackie Jim Jamiqui, James James. God damn it.
So he does have like a lot of casual misogyny towards Elizabeth Pannia's character,
that it's very similar to the way he treats Jackie Chan's character, and
that like she's not taking it. And therefore the movie, the movie posits
that Carter is in the wrong for being such a dick to his colleagues,
his female coworker. But it's like why even put it in then, Like,
yeah, just don't put it in. Just make him cocky and like
kind of a dick because he's cocky and kind of a dick, not because
he's also low key like calling his coworker and being like what are you wearing?
Girl? Yeah, or like or like shake that ass as she walks
past, and I'm like, bitch, don't say that. What are you
doing? So there's little things like that that I'm like, it's more irritating
right now than it is like truly grading. It doesn't really get under my
skin, but I'm like, it's it's a little unfortunate because it feels extremely
lazy. Again Brett Rattner, Yeah, I think it ages pretty well.
Actually, I wish You're right. I wish there were more women in it,
but the women we do have are all uniformly badasses, which pretty fucking
cool. The lone cop stuff didn't bother me as much because I just can't
take the character seriously enough to really care. Yeah that he's acting, he's
going rogue. If you were played by like a more like intense actor or
a more serious actor who took it more seriously, I'd be like, well,
this is annoying, this is I don't like this. But because it's
Chris Tucker, who's just like so surfacy on every level. And I mean
that in a I mean that as a compliment actually, because he is he's
a stand up comedian, so he's just he is here to bring the comedy.
That's all he is here to do. I'm gonna give it a five.
I'm a five five, five out of ten Chinese food dishes like cold
sesame noodles. Cold like cold sesame noodles. What if I just started going
off menu and just being like, like French fries like that literally has the
word French in it, and I'm like, yeah, but they serve it.
They serve it at a lot of Chinese restaurants. Now, you'll find
it on the menu. It's very popular. It's usually for kids, and
it's served with chicken fingers. But it's there, it's there, it's there.
Yeah, I'm gonna get a five out of ten Chinese foods. Glorious
Chinese foods. Yeah, it's it's it's okay, it's an okay movie.
It's fine, Spaceline fine. My palate cleanser is just go online google Jackie
Chan Bloopers, Yeah, and enjoy that. Enjoy that glorious blooper. Real
that you're gonna get of all of Jackie Chan's movies, because they're they're fucking
amazing. He is as an acrobat, as a as a movement artist,
I mean truly one of the greatest of all times. Yeah. Yeah,
My my palate cleanser for this is Brooklyn nine nine because that show is an
actual like takedown of the lone Wolf Cop trope. It is. It is
about, over eight seasons about Jake Peralta, who wants to be the lone
wolf cop, learning that that's actually not the way to get things done.
Yeah, and it's it's just I actually just rewatched it after it because Andre
Brower sadly passed away, but I rewatched it. It all ages pretty well.
There's very little problems with it, and Andre Brower gives jet I truly
believe this when I say this one of the greatest comedic performances of all time.
Yeah, as Captain Hall, I mean the fact that he never won
an Emmy for that performance is insane. He is hilariously funny. Yah,
even in the worst episodes of the show, he delivers. So I love
Brooklyn nine nine. So that's mine and that means Erica that we're at the
end of our show. Oh so sad. Everyone listening can follow us on
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If you're a Spotify user, were we can get a tea public t
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If you're a Spotify user, keep a lookout for questions about our episodes,
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that aged Well podcast to find out more. Speaking of the Patreon, which
is fantastic, by the way, just to delight all the time, some
tears on it come with thanks from a podcast character. And today we are
hearing from Oh it's it's a new guest, the star of stage and screen.
She was in Colombo, she was the titular Eve and all about Eve.
She was nefer Tari in Ten Commandments. It is miss and Baxter.
Hello everyone, it's me and Baxter. I'm so delighted to be here today
to talk to Stephanie about that hagedwell. Stephanie, thank you so much for
listening to that Hagedwell. A lot of people have said in my career,
Anne, you've played Cleopatra, you've played NEFFERTERII. Why do you keep playing
Egyptians? That seems a little and the word they use now is sus I
would just like to say it was a different time, a time when an
actress never really had to take a full breath when she spoke, and yet
they've reigned hoscars on her. So Thank you to all my fans for loving
me, for being there, for watching all about Eve with that harpy Bennie
Davis, I feel lightheaded all of a sudden. I'm going to step away
now and find a chaise long to fall into. Greetings and goodbye love had
Backstone. Should we get her an oxygen tank? I'm concerned she smokes too
much. I think I think I feel like the camel lights were not light
enough back in the forties. Yeah, the camel lights are now. Yeah,
there's too much. She did constantly play Egyptians. I don't know what
that was about. Do you think I know she's she's lying down the shes
long? Do you think she could? Could she just call out for Moses?
I think everyone would love to hear her rendition of that line. And
I'm gonna put the microphone right up to your face. Are you okay?
Anne? You see one? Are you okay? Anne? I'm fine.
I was just thinking of calling my driver to pick me up. His name
is Moses, Moses, Moses. Okay. Her driver came and picked up.
Yeah, that's great. I feel like there's something inappropriate happening between those
two. Very possibly, But did you notice that when it came time to
perform, her voice came to her. Yeah. Yeah, when she's calling
out for Moses, She's gonna die on stage, that one. That's what
I think there. Yeah, all right, Erica. Any final thoughts on
Rush Hour, Paul, thank you for listening to me talk in English about
this movie in a language you would understand. Meatball Sub Kung Pau Chicken.
Okay, this goes like this. Say this goes like this. It runs this Sleep