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Speaker 1: the Ethical Pana dot com May the Force be with
Speaker 1: you now. This is podcasting. Hello, and welcome to this
Speaker 1: episode of Superhero Ethics. Today, myself and my co hosts
Speaker 1: Riggi are talking about the new Netflix movie Rebel. For
Speaker 1: a couple of months now, but if you're calling quite
Speaker 1: a stir, it is a very good movie with a
Speaker 1: lot of interesting issues that it raises, and Rieky and
Speaker 1: I are going to talk about it, and this, like
Speaker 1: a lot of things recently, has been one that Riky suggested.
Speaker 1: So Riky, let me just kind of start by get
Speaker 1: your chance to introduce yourself and then talking about why
Speaker 1: you want to talk about this movie.
Speaker 3: Hey, good morning, afternoon evening wherever you are. H Yeah,
Speaker 3: I just came across this on Netflix and wasn't really
Speaker 3: sure what it was. Read the description, I thought, okay,
Speaker 3: I'll give this a shot and really enjoyed it.
Speaker 4: And then started to do more.
Speaker 3: Research into some of the stuff going on in this
Speaker 3: movie and the people behind it, and I thought it
Speaker 3: would be good. It brings up a couple of issues
Speaker 3: that I think are very good in relation to what
Speaker 3: we talk about on the show and just very relevant
Speaker 3: to our society in general. For an action movie, I
Speaker 3: think that's perfect, right. Most action movies we think of
Speaker 3: as mindless, but this one just really makes you think.
Speaker 4: And I enjoyed that a lot about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it really does on a couple of levels. Because,
Speaker 1: first of all, I will say, as someone who's on
Speaker 1: record is not being a huge fan of fight scenes,
Speaker 1: the fight scenes in this are incredibly beautifully shot. I
Speaker 1: think I don't have the problem I often do of
Speaker 1: not being sure what's going on. I always know what's
Speaker 1: going on, but also there are times where the action
Speaker 1: scenes don't give you what you think you're gonna get.
Speaker 1: And there's a lot to do with how the like
Speaker 1: that visual storytelling is explaining that our our protagonist's perspective
Speaker 1: on violence, which is what we're gonna a part of
Speaker 1: what we're gonna be talking about. For those who haven't
Speaker 1: seen it, I would recommend hitting pause and then going
Speaker 1: to watch it, because we are gonna have to spoil
Speaker 1: a bunch of things. I'm trying to spoil the very end,
Speaker 1: but probably will eventually, but let me kind of give
Speaker 1: a plot rundown for those who aren't going to see it,
Speaker 1: or those who sat a little while ago and forgotten it.
Speaker 1: And again i'd recommend going to see it. But either way,
Speaker 1: here it is. So our protagonist is a guy named
Speaker 1: Terry Richmond, and he is his cousin. Mike is in
Speaker 1: jail and is about to get transferred to state prison
Speaker 1: while he is awaiting trial. The problem with all this
Speaker 1: is that Mike has you know, it is a legit bust.
Speaker 1: He was caught with drugs planning to distribute, but he
Speaker 1: had earlier been a witness to another crime. He's supposed
Speaker 1: to be getting some kind of witness protection or something.
Speaker 1: He's not, and he sent to state prison. He's going
Speaker 1: to be killed. So Terry, our protagonist, is riding his
Speaker 1: bike trying to bring the bail money to the courthouse
Speaker 1: in this small town of Silver Springs. I think it's called.
Speaker 1: It's never said that it's in Louisiana, but it's the
Speaker 1: accents are of that area, and they constantly are talking
Speaker 1: about parishes start of county, so I think this is Louisiana.
Speaker 1: But either way, it's definitely the Deep South. And Terry
Speaker 1: gets Terry has an altercation with the police while he's
Speaker 1: on his bike. They search him, they find the cash,
Speaker 1: and because he is connected to Mike, who is arrested
Speaker 1: for drug charges. They assume that well, they make the
Speaker 1: claim that the money is something that the police should
Speaker 1: be able to take under what is called civil forfeiture
Speaker 1: civil asset forfeiture. Some I think we're definitely gonna talk
Speaker 1: about it a lot and basically take the money. And
Speaker 1: then a lot of the rest of the movie is
Speaker 1: about Terry first trying legal avenue and then extra legal
Speaker 1: avenues to get that money back in order to protect
Speaker 1: his cousin Mike by bailing him out of jail. Eventually
Speaker 1: he fails in that Mike is taken to jail, and
Speaker 1: Mike dies in jail as was expected, and now the
Speaker 1: fight is about getting justice and about trying to bring
Speaker 1: light to the terrible corruption that's happening because they find
Speaker 1: out that there's actually been this, because they find out
Speaker 1: that this has been a pattern for some time that
Speaker 1: the sheriff, who is clearly racist, clearly corrupt, but they
Speaker 1: can't be, you know, as clearly upfront about that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff as they might have been twenty years ago,
Speaker 1: thirty years ago, and so now it has to be
Speaker 1: a lot more under the radar through these bureaucracies, through
Speaker 1: the civil asset forfeiture, and so Terry tries to deal
Speaker 1: with this. He gets into a couple of altercations where
Speaker 1: one thing we learn is that he is a former
Speaker 1: marine and he taught de escalation. He taught people how
Speaker 1: to not let fights escalate, but both verbally and also
Speaker 1: physical actions that are focused on ending a fight, not
Speaker 1: necessarily winning it in terms of knocking the guard eye
Speaker 1: out or shooting them. But it's a lot of like
Speaker 1: disarming people or knocking them down or incapacitating them without
Speaker 1: aiming to kill them. Although importantly the phrase that's used
Speaker 1: is less lethal violence. They don't talk about non lethal
Speaker 1: violence and will definitely get to that, and so a
Speaker 1: number of things happen through the course of the movie.
Speaker 1: He gets help from a couple of folks, including a
Speaker 1: court assistant named Summer and another police officer who turns
Speaker 1: out has kind of been a mole trying to feed
Speaker 1: information to people about what's happening in the police department.
Speaker 1: And then in the climactic scene, yep, I was wrong,
Speaker 1: watching can spoil the ending. Already he's in a chase.
Speaker 1: They're trying to get to the hospital, so because he
Speaker 1: needs a hospital, they're trying to get to a hospital
Speaker 1: because the cop will help them needs a hospital, but
Speaker 1: also because he needs to, you know, get the information
Speaker 1: that he's got on the secret drive to the right authorities.
Speaker 1: And one of the cops winds up helping them in
Speaker 1: large part because he's able to kind of make the
Speaker 1: case of look, you guys are all going to go
Speaker 1: to jail. This is all super corrupt, and so in
Speaker 1: the end, the cops all wind up helping him to
Speaker 1: take down their boss. But it's left pretty murky as
Speaker 1: to whether the cops had this, Oh he's in the
Speaker 1: moral right, we're in the moral wrong moment, or just
Speaker 1: oh wait, our boss is going down. We want to
Speaker 1: cover our own asses. In kind of one of my
Speaker 1: favorite parts of the movie that that's left intentionally vague,
Speaker 1: and the writer, director and editor has said they left
Speaker 1: that intentionally vague. So that's kind of our quick summary
Speaker 1: of the movie. Ricky, what did I leave out?
Speaker 3: Well, let's talk about the creator. It's Jeremy Salnier. I'm
Speaker 3: giving it a little French twist. Who is I believe
Speaker 3: most famous for the movie Green Room, which was a
Speaker 3: twenty fifteen movie about a punk band who plays a
Speaker 3: show at a Nazi bar and then gets into an
Speaker 3: altercation and then they have to fight their way out
Speaker 3: of the titular green room against a bunch of Nazis,
Speaker 3: including Patrick Stewart.
Speaker 4: So it's pretty pretty.
Speaker 3: Well known for that, for that kind of cameo or
Speaker 3: stunt casting, and is well regarded as like another movie
Speaker 3: in this department of an action movie with some interesting
Speaker 3: things to say about society. And this was twenty fifteen,
Speaker 3: when you know, the idea of a Nazi bar was
Speaker 3: like an underground place and not just that place down
Speaker 3: the streets, right. So I really like his work, Jeremy Solnier,
Speaker 3: and I'm curious to explore more after this and learning
Speaker 3: that he did Green Room.
Speaker 4: As for the story, I think you covered it well.
Speaker 3: My biggest thing about this was that it's obvious that
Speaker 3: Terry is the protagonist, the hero of this action movie,
Speaker 3: and the cops and especially the sheriff played by Don Johnson,
Speaker 3: the delightful casting. It's clear that they are bad, like
Speaker 3: they're doing bad things, but it is never done in
Speaker 3: a way that is, you know, like we would say
Speaker 3: mustache twirling like comic book villain. They're definitely bad they're
Speaker 3: doing and sometimes even evil, like I might say, but
Speaker 3: you can always kind of see the humanity, yeah, and
Speaker 3: go like I understand what they're doing, and it's not
Speaker 3: out of the realm of reality, Like I know, like
Speaker 3: I read that this is not based on a true story,
Speaker 3: but it is based on facts and situations that have
Speaker 3: happened to people, not to the action movie degree, but
Speaker 3: the civil asset forfeiture, which we'll talk about more later.
Speaker 3: It's like definitely something that happens.
Speaker 1: I think that's so true. And I think the fact
Speaker 1: that fairly early on Terry admits Mike did commit the
Speaker 1: crime for which he was arrested is really important in
Speaker 1: that because, like to be clear, there are people in jail,
Speaker 1: especially people of color, men of color, black men, who
Speaker 1: did nothing, who were completely framed. But a lot of
Speaker 1: these things happen because someone makes a dumb mistake and
Speaker 1: then things escalate and get much worse because of this,
Speaker 1: or because their family members are trying to navigate the
Speaker 1: system of Okay, my family members going to jail, I
Speaker 1: get it, But how do I help them? How do
Speaker 1: I get money to them in the commissary? How do
Speaker 1: I help keep them in you know, witness protection or
Speaker 1: something like that, and yeah, I totally agree, it becomes
Speaker 1: it keeps it very human. You understand the pressure that's
Speaker 1: under the cops are under that party issue is that
Speaker 1: there's a consent decree in place because of former aspect.
Speaker 1: Like basically, this is a police department that did commit
Speaker 1: acts of race violence or something like that in the past,
Speaker 1: and I think there's a wrongful death suit against them,
Speaker 1: and so they're out of money, and so they need
Speaker 1: more money to do this. And again it's not like
Speaker 1: making them heroes by any means. It's because of their own,
Speaker 1: you know, awful practices. This has happened. But that makes
Speaker 1: the Don Johnson character feel a lot more, you know,
Speaker 1: like a person, like a real character who I could
Speaker 1: see in real life, rather than like, moahaha, I just
Speaker 1: want to have you know, diamond plated you know everything
Speaker 1: in my cop mansion kind of a thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The comical thing that he corruptly spent money on was
Speaker 3: a Margarito machine.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And they are also stockpiling weapons, which I would argue,
Speaker 3: like the amount of weapons that they have are not
Speaker 3: necessary for this size police force, like for this jurisdiction.
Speaker 3: But I can understand, like the mentality of the police
Speaker 3: force saying like we want more stuff.
Speaker 1: Right, well, and the fact of the fact is that
Speaker 1: most police departments now have far more. I mean you
Speaker 1: could argue, like do any police departments need tanks or
Speaker 1: you know which level, but like, yeah, just like the
Speaker 1: level of weaponry that this police armer has is way
Speaker 1: out of proportion what you think they'd need, but it's
Speaker 1: also not unrealistic to what's happening in our own world.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like when they first show the armory and pan
Speaker 3: to it, I was like, that's a lot for like
Speaker 3: I don't like a dozen people, but I do like,
Speaker 3: like there's a theme. You know, you mentioned less lethal,
Speaker 3: and I think it was actually Don Johnson's character who's
Speaker 3: commenting on the weapons they have and said, well, we've
Speaker 3: had to like shift to buying non lethal weapons or
Speaker 3: as they want us to call it less lethal because
Speaker 3: of like legal issues.
Speaker 4: So I think that's that was a really.
Speaker 3: Good line for a like developing the plot and showing
Speaker 3: what's happening and why later on Terry uses a bunch.
Speaker 4: Of these weapons and you know, does not kill people.
Speaker 3: But also like the idea of rubber bullets or they
Speaker 3: have a shotgun that shoots sandbags, right right, And there
Speaker 3: have been deaths that have occurred in situations where people
Speaker 3: have used these you know, police forces have used these
Speaker 3: weapons on civilians tasers as well, Like there have been
Speaker 3: deaths from tasers. So I think the acknowledgment that they
Speaker 3: are not universally non lethal, but they are less lethal
Speaker 3: is good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, honestly, this is this is the language that I've
Speaker 1: been wanting every time we talk about Daredevil or Batman
Speaker 1: or any kind of hero who you know makes a
Speaker 1: claim of I won't kill and I'll save a lot
Speaker 1: of that for We're gonna do a whole episode on
Speaker 1: non violence and non lethal violence and things like that.
Speaker 1: But part of it is because I you know, there's
Speaker 1: a you can kick a person in the head and
Speaker 1: kill them. You can punch a person in the stomach,
Speaker 1: and just because of a freak thing, you can kill them.
Speaker 1: Like the idea that there is a clear line of
Speaker 1: this violence is lethal and this violence absolutely is not
Speaker 1: is nonsense. And I just love that they both they
Speaker 1: show him doing everything he can to avoid lethal violence,
Speaker 1: but I think he's going into it knowing that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like there's a couple of times where he knocks people
Speaker 1: down and they hit their heads.
Speaker 3: Some of the action sequences, especially from Terry's actions, are
Speaker 3: very brutal. Yeah, and so like I would caution people,
Speaker 3: like if you're gonna watch it, be aware of that.
Speaker 3: You know, we're talking about less lethal. But at one
Speaker 3: point he breaks a man's arm and another man he
Speaker 3: like punches, He's got him on the ground and he
Speaker 3: punches him in the face multiple times. Yeah, and it's clear,
Speaker 3: like from the narrative, like his training, like he knows
Speaker 3: how to apply force in a way to incapacitate people
Speaker 3: and that's what he's trying to do. But I agree,
Speaker 3: like it's very possible, like from those face punches that
Speaker 3: like person could have could die in that situation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, And I really appreciate that. Let's talk
Speaker 1: about this less lethal violence. That's a hard thing to
Speaker 1: say kind of philosophy he has because clear that he
Speaker 1: is not only in how he fights, but just everything
Speaker 1: he does his goals de escalation. How did that strike
Speaker 1: you because it's not what you normally see from heroes. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I enjoyed watching, Like when the action sequences start, he
Speaker 3: is always doing things like very deliberately in the very
Speaker 3: first like physical confrontation, he takes the sheriff's pistol, like
Speaker 3: the sheriff like unholsters his pistol and is getting ready
Speaker 3: to use it or at least threatened Terry with it,
Speaker 3: and Terry, you know, disarms him and then very quickly
Speaker 3: empties the magazine. Yeah, and then turns the sheriff because
Speaker 3: like his deputies are coming out with their weapons, and
Speaker 3: he turns the saraff around, uses him as a shield
Speaker 3: and walks him forward and is talking to the deputy
Speaker 3: saying like, hey, you don't want to do this, Like
Speaker 3: you don't want to do this, Let's talk about this.
Speaker 3: Like the language he uses, right, is part of the
Speaker 3: de escalation. He's disarmed the sheriff. He's eliminated that as
Speaker 3: a lethal weapon in this situation, and throughout the action
Speaker 3: sequences he's constantly doing that. Like in a later action sequence,
Speaker 3: he picks up a shotgun and empties all the shells,
Speaker 3: and one of the police officers later picks up that
Speaker 3: shotgun in the conflict in the confusion and tries to
Speaker 3: shoot Terry and it's empty because he had taken care
Speaker 3: of that issue.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, it's so well done. And I was reading
Speaker 1: an article about the movie about how some folks had
Speaker 1: said that they were kind of disappointed that he doesn't
Speaker 1: kill the cops, the corrupt cops at the end of
Speaker 1: the movie, and the director talked about this, and the writer,
Speaker 1: Jeremy was first name, right, Yeah, son Sonier talked about
Speaker 1: this and said that he wanted this movie to feel
Speaker 1: realistic and that the chance of him killing a cop,
Speaker 1: no matter how corrupt that cop might have been, and
Speaker 1: getting away with it in this world is just not
Speaker 1: a believable thing right now. And he also wanted to
Speaker 1: focus on how a large part of this guy's goal
Speaker 1: wasn't just like getting justice in this pure sense, it
Speaker 1: was survival. It was getting to a place that he
Speaker 1: could walk away and get back to some semblance of
Speaker 1: his life. First, could he survive and save his cousin,
Speaker 1: and then could he just survive? And I really like that,
Speaker 1: and it felt like it fit this idea of the
Speaker 1: non lethality, because you know, and this is kind of
Speaker 1: the unspoken part, but an essential part of understanding the
Speaker 1: interactions between police and men of color, but especially black men,
Speaker 1: is this assumption of lethality. And it feels like to me,
Speaker 1: part of what's happening with his character is that he
Speaker 1: is going he is especially eager to show the cops
Speaker 1: he is not going to try and use lethal violence,
Speaker 1: because the fact is that like black men, doing almost
Speaker 1: anything can be assumed to be a source of lethal
Speaker 1: violence by the cops, which is then turned into violence
Speaker 1: against them in racist way. It's like, I'm not saying
Speaker 1: anything that's justified and saying that's what happens. And even
Speaker 1: from the very start when he's on his bicycle, he's
Speaker 1: just trying to explain the situation, but very quickly the
Speaker 1: cops go into a you know, we're going to treat
Speaker 1: you as an adversary, We're gonna treat you as a
Speaker 1: possible threat. And I think that's the that's the motivation,
Speaker 1: that that's the world in which he is living this
Speaker 1: whole movie, and why he's non violent. His less lethal
Speaker 1: violence than his de escalation becomes so vitable to who
Speaker 1: he is.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's a scene where he's driving.
Speaker 3: A truck and they pull him over and the officer
Speaker 3: you know, comes to the window and I think Terry
Speaker 3: says something like, are my hands okay?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: Do you remember that scene? And the officer says, yep,
Speaker 3: like ten and two, and that that spoke volumes to me, right,
Speaker 3: Like that is the understanding between those two characters of
Speaker 3: like a negotiation. Yeah, because in those situations and of course,
Speaker 3: like they know who this guy is already, but in
Speaker 3: a situation where a police officer pulls over a black man,
Speaker 3: like so often we hear these terrible tragedies of a
Speaker 3: shooting in that situation because like of these assumptions and
Speaker 3: like the feeling of threat. Yeah, it's like, all right,
Speaker 3: I got my hands on the wheel and ten and
Speaker 3: two you can see them, I'm not going for a weapon,
Speaker 3: you know, don't shoot me, because in so many tragic
Speaker 3: situations that happens.
Speaker 4: Yeah, even like.
Speaker 3: Someone reaching for you know, their ID and insurance and
Speaker 3: registration in the glove compartment. It's like the officers like
Speaker 3: I thought he was going for a gun, right, But
Speaker 3: that's a normal thing, and like I don't think about
Speaker 3: like I think about it now, but when I've been
Speaker 3: pulled over, I haven't worried. I haven't ever worried about that.
Speaker 3: And that's like the tragedy of society today, yeah, of
Speaker 3: racism in society and just the way that they showed
Speaker 3: that so subtly in that situation without ever I think,
Speaker 3: like saying anything specifically about it, but like, once you
Speaker 3: know about it, it's like, oh yeah, Like I can
Speaker 3: feel this tension for.
Speaker 1: Sure, and I'm the same way. It was. One thing
Speaker 1: watching this movie, it occurred to me that about a
Speaker 1: month ago I had gotten pulled over my cop. My
Speaker 1: car's in really bad shape. I've talked about this, and
Speaker 1: cop wanted I think I had a headlight out or something,
Speaker 1: and literally, as he's walking up to the window, I,
Speaker 1: you know, reach over to my coat on the other
Speaker 1: side of the of the in the passenger seat to
Speaker 1: grab my wallet to show him my ID. And then later,
Speaker 1: like watching this movie, I was thinking about that again
Speaker 1: and thinking, huh, I probably looked like I was darting
Speaker 1: into the passenger seat right in the moment that a
Speaker 1: cop came up to my window. Yeah, maybe this cop
Speaker 1: was just not worried the way a lot of others are.
Speaker 1: But probably if I had not been a clearly white person,
Speaker 1: I don't know if that situation would have gone the
Speaker 1: way it did. So yeah, So just there's so many
Speaker 1: things about this movie that make you kind of just
Speaker 1: think about what, what are the things you don't have
Speaker 1: to deal with on a daily basis or do or sure.
Speaker 3: And I thought like, as a as an Asian man,
Speaker 3: like Japanese person, I was really intrigued by the Asian
Speaker 3: characters in this movie. So Terry gets part of his
Speaker 3: money from like he had an investment in a Chinese
Speaker 3: restaurant in his hometown run by mister Liu, and he
Speaker 3: got like bought out of his investment and got the
Speaker 3: cash from mister Leu. As you know, he also sold
Speaker 3: his car to go bail out his cousin, right, And
Speaker 3: mister Leu is kind of like a background character. He
Speaker 3: calls him a couple of times. The first time he
Speaker 3: calls him and it's like I got I need, I
Speaker 3: need more money unfortunately, and it's like, yeah, sure, whatever
Speaker 3: you need, like I'll send it. So like that relationship
Speaker 3: like right there, you immediately get like how close.
Speaker 4: They are, right, because it's not like what do you like?
Speaker 3: He he does sound a little surprised, but it's like, yeah,
Speaker 3: whatever you need, Terry, right, like ten thousand dollars sure.
Speaker 3: But I also found it funny that the first time
Speaker 3: he calls, mister Leu puts on like a more like
Speaker 3: a stronger Asian accent, and then the second time Terry calls,
Speaker 3: he's speaking like still has a bit of an accent,
Speaker 3: as you know you you do, but it's speaking more normally,
Speaker 3: I would say, without the exaggerated accent, and Terry comments
Speaker 3: on it and he's like, oh, like, you're dropping the
Speaker 3: accent now. But then later on he when Terry is injured,
Speaker 3: he goes to get his wound fixed up because mister Liu,
Speaker 3: it turns out, was like a field medic in the
Speaker 3: Korean War. Yeah, and the character of Summer when she
Speaker 3: hears that, says thank you for your service, and they,
Speaker 3: like all of them look at each other. Terry says,
Speaker 3: mister Liu is Chinese. He was fighting for the other side.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's such a beautiful moment, and everything about that
Speaker 1: relationship I love because Summer is part of the Summer's
Speaker 1: character is that she is very much kind of like
Speaker 1: the she's younger, she's white, and I think there's supposed
Speaker 1: to be kind of an She both knows a lot
Speaker 1: more about the legal system than Terry does, but she's
Speaker 1: also pretty nic eve about the world in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways. And I think that moment is a big
Speaker 1: part of illustrating it. And there's another part of the
Speaker 1: mister the U story.
Speaker 4: That if I can finish the finish this thought.
Speaker 3: On that scene, her reaction is also, I thought, very good,
Speaker 3: says well, I guess it's good that we can like
Speaker 3: meet in the middle or some something along those lines,
Speaker 3: like we're all on the same page now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, very much so, because yeah, he he whatever,
Speaker 1: he was doing it, you know, he you know, conscript
Speaker 1: in that, you know, he fought for his country in
Speaker 1: that war and then eventually he came to this country
Speaker 1: and it's working here. And it's not like this movie
Speaker 1: is primarily about you know, anti black racism. But if
Speaker 1: you want to get reminded that, uh, anti Sino and
Speaker 1: anti Asian racism in general, but specifically anti Sino racism,
Speaker 1: anti Chinese racism is such a big thing. Just listen
Speaker 1: to the conversations about TikTok and all of you like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, the big bad evil Chinese or coming
Speaker 1: to get TikTok. Like, there's an awful lot of racism
Speaker 1: tied into a lot of how that's discussed, and I
Speaker 1: just love the way that it's so subtly pointed at.
Speaker 1: But is a part of this movie as well as
Speaker 1: because there's one other interaction they have where I think
Speaker 1: the second time or maybe the third time, that he
Speaker 1: calls mister Leu, and mister Leu's upset at him, but
Speaker 1: quickly he realizes he's just upset and Terry's kind of
Speaker 1: there because again, because these cops are just anybody who
Speaker 1: is connected to somebody, Like if you get one person
Speaker 1: who they can arrest as being suspicious of drugs, now
Speaker 1: they can draw this network and that anyone who is
Speaker 1: in any way passing money back and forth will that
Speaker 1: money might be drug money because they find out that
Speaker 1: mister Leu had wired money to Terry, and so now
Speaker 1: there's a police rate on mister Leu's restaurant and some
Speaker 1: of his assets may get seized. And I think that
Speaker 1: gets cleared up eventually. But I just thought it was
Speaker 1: such another brilliant way of saying, oh, yeah, the cops
Speaker 1: recognize here's another vulnerable person. Here's an immigrant, a Chinese person,
Speaker 1: an Asian person who doesn't really understand these things. So
Speaker 1: maybe we can seize their assets too, or at least
Speaker 1: throw the fear of God into them so they stop helping.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it, Liu is an ally to Terry, like in
Speaker 3: the most literal sense in this movie, and he is
Speaker 3: punished for it, right, And then that's what you're saying,
Speaker 3: is that the racism here isn't just white cops going
Speaker 3: after a black man, but to break down this network
Speaker 3: of allyship, to break down people who want to help
Speaker 3: each other even though they're not the same, and say no,
Speaker 3: like don't help him. Like if you help him, you're
Speaker 3: gonna get in trouble too, and you don't want that.
Speaker 4: And this is kind of it plays.
Speaker 3: Into the the idea of gosh, I'm blanking on the
Speaker 3: term like the good immigrant.
Speaker 1: Oh, the model minority, yes.
Speaker 3: Thank you, the model minority, like Asians in America. There's
Speaker 3: this myth of the model minority, that Asians are the
Speaker 3: good ones and that if only everyone were more like Asians,
Speaker 3: like look at how well they do in school and
Speaker 3: businesses and such.
Speaker 4: And that is part of.
Speaker 3: This trap, I guess, to stop Asians from identifying as
Speaker 3: minorities and helping black people or you know, Muslims, you
Speaker 3: know in this country.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so much of the attempts to get rid of
Speaker 1: DEI and any kind of affirmative action or anything like
Speaker 1: that in universities in high school specifically, they often aim
Speaker 1: a lot of it at, like at Asian parents, trying
Speaker 1: to frame it as like, oh, but your kids are
Speaker 1: getting punished the same way white kids are.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a whole action case with Harvard. Yeah, the
Speaker 3: case was brought forth by Asian families, but it was
Speaker 3: it was like white lawyers and white like interest groups
Speaker 3: that funded.
Speaker 1: Close exactly exactly. Yeah, And I think we're left to
Speaker 1: wonder like if Terry had worked for a white businessman
Speaker 1: and it like co owned a diner or something like
Speaker 1: that with a white businessman, and then that businessman had
Speaker 1: helped support him and sent him money. I don't think
Speaker 1: the cops go after him in the same way they
Speaker 1: do mister with you. You know, they might depending on
Speaker 1: who he was.
Speaker 3: But but I think like it's it's the I believe
Speaker 3: it's a deliberate part of the storytelling very much that
Speaker 3: it's a Chinese.
Speaker 1: Restaurant very much. So yeah, yeah, I think so well.
Speaker 1: And so let's talk more about this idea of civil
Speaker 1: asset forfeiture because you know, if you watched movies about
Speaker 1: racist cops in you know, especially the eighties, nineties, two thousands,
Speaker 1: but even pretty recently, Like often the cops would just
Speaker 1: be like, oh, you got a lot of money, I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna put it in the back in my back
Speaker 1: pocket and just write up that you didn't have any
Speaker 1: money and call you a liar. Here, though, they're using
Speaker 1: this bureaucracy of civil asset forfeiture. Tell us more about that.
Speaker 3: So there's a couple of things going on here. There's
Speaker 3: the concept of criminal asset forfeiture, which is that if
Speaker 3: you are convicted of a crime, the police or the
Speaker 3: Department of Justice or whoever can seize your assets, right,
Speaker 3: and I especially if they are related to the crime. Right,
Speaker 3: And I think that makes sense. I'm sure there are
Speaker 3: ways that that can be fudged and misused, but I
Speaker 3: think we all understand the concept like, Okay, like you
Speaker 3: committed a crime, and like these things were used for
Speaker 3: the crime where we're gained from crime, then we're going
Speaker 3: to take them from you. That makes sense civil asset forfiture,
Speaker 3: which is what happens in this movie. Right, Terry is
Speaker 3: not convicted of a crime. They let him go. He's
Speaker 3: not even really accused of a crime. They just say like, oh, well,
Speaker 3: like you mentioned drugs, like you mentioned your cousins geting drugs,
Speaker 3: so this could be drug money.
Speaker 4: So we're gonna take it, and that's it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's all I need.
Speaker 3: And like, yeah, we can say, like part of it
Speaker 3: is that he's black, right, that he's a black man,
Speaker 3: so like that's that's part of the big picture.
Speaker 4: But it's it's just like this can happen to anyone.
Speaker 3: And when Terry is talking to Summer, the legal clerk,
Speaker 3: he says, is this legal? And she says, well, it's
Speaker 3: the law, which is a clever phrasing. And when I
Speaker 3: was looking it up, a lot of states have eliminated
Speaker 3: civil asset forfiture as a law, and.
Speaker 4: I think more and more are doing so.
Speaker 3: And this movie, bringing this issue to light in this
Speaker 3: way in a popular Netflix movie I think is going
Speaker 3: hopefully will help, right, you know, bring it to light
Speaker 3: have discussions like this one where people go, what the
Speaker 3: heck they can just do this?
Speaker 1: And understanding is it was originally designed, as you know,
Speaker 1: because if you've ever seen a mob movie or something
Speaker 1: like that, where there's the like, oh, well, we have
Speaker 1: to get married now, because then I can sign over
Speaker 1: my assets to you as my wife, and then they
Speaker 1: can't go after them, and there were folks who were
Speaker 1: using methods like that to get around criminal asset forfeiture.
Speaker 1: And I'm my understanding is there may have been some
Speaker 1: like good intentions behind creating civil asset forfeiture, but it
Speaker 1: is just so easily abused and so easily because there
Speaker 1: is no you don't have to go through any trial process.
Speaker 1: All you have to do is say I suspect this,
Speaker 1: and particularly when it comes to drugs, anything that is
Speaker 1: touched by that in any way. You know, there have
Speaker 1: been so many cases for example of you know, people
Speaker 1: who live with their parents or often their grandparents, and
Speaker 1: you know, your grandchild is caught with a very low
Speaker 1: level drug offense, not anything violent, not anything like, you know,
Speaker 1: beyond just like a little bit of like dealing at
Speaker 1: their school or something like that, you know, as a
Speaker 1: fellow student, or you know, dealing on the street, and
Speaker 1: grandma can lose your house, like and that happens all
Speaker 1: the time. And yeah, I just if I told you
Speaker 1: this is a movie about civil ascid forfeiture and fighting
Speaker 1: that process, you sounds like the boring bureaucratic thing in
Speaker 1: the world. But he manages to make this really exciting
Speaker 1: movie that also highlights how, you know, instead of it
Speaker 1: being just purely illegal, but where the cops doesn't care.
Speaker 1: It's like, okay, well the cops are now looking at us,
Speaker 1: we are under some degree of scrutiny, so we have
Speaker 1: to use these legal loopholes and bureaucracy. And I just
Speaker 1: I thought that was such a powerful part of the movie.
Speaker 3: And then negotiations that happen kind of in the early
Speaker 3: the first half of the movie between Terry and the
Speaker 3: sheriff about the assets and like, well, can I get
Speaker 3: you know this much back? Those are real things that
Speaker 3: happen that the police forces will negotiate and be like
Speaker 3: you can have some of it back, like half of it,
Speaker 3: let's say, for example, and basically like you feel lucky
Speaker 3: to get that back, right, because in order the problem
Speaker 3: here is like once they have it, in order for
Speaker 3: you to get it back through legal means, you have
Speaker 3: to go through the entire process of the court process,
Speaker 3: like hire a lawyer. And meanwhile, like you don't have
Speaker 3: those assets for like if you're a business owner or something, right,
Speaker 3: So that's how they get you is they say, well,
Speaker 3: like it could take you know, twelve months and x
Speaker 3: legal fees for you to get it back fully, which
Speaker 3: you know, we fully believe that you you would win
Speaker 3: in a court case. But how about instead like we
Speaker 3: just fifty to fifty right?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: And again a lot of people don't have the means
Speaker 3: or the time and they're just like, okay, yeah, I'll
Speaker 3: take that deal.
Speaker 1: And part of where that also gets confusing is like
Speaker 1: I think there is some legal justification in for a
Speaker 1: deal like that, but if you think about it, like
Speaker 1: I watched that first negotiation scene and they were planning
Speaker 1: it and the cop winds up double crossing him anyway,
Speaker 1: But I thought that the minute the guy said okay,
Speaker 1: how about if you get to keep this amount and
Speaker 1: I get to keep this amount, that the cop was
Speaker 1: then going to stand, well, then going to turn around
Speaker 1: and say, oh, well you just tried to bribe an
Speaker 1: officer of the law. Son. Now I have to rescue you.
Speaker 1: And I say son, because the officer uses that exact
Speaker 1: language many times, you know, because that's again a thing
Speaker 1: of like are you saying are you not saying that
Speaker 1: you'll let the cops keep this amount of money? Is
Speaker 1: that a bribe to a police officer? Like there's just
Speaker 1: so many legal hurdles that you have to go through
Speaker 1: that of course people have no understanding of and so
Speaker 1: they get tripped up on so easily. And I also
Speaker 1: want to talk about this idea of negotiation because one
Speaker 1: thing that I really love is he's really trying. Terry
Speaker 1: is really trying to again and again use the system
Speaker 1: in his favor if he can. He wants to exhaust
Speaker 1: every legal option, and so one of my favorite parts
Speaker 1: of the movie is like he goes back into the
Speaker 1: police office and they're all like, what's going on? And
Speaker 1: he sits down to report a crime. I don't know,
Speaker 1: they're all kind of playing along. I'm like, okay, let's
Speaker 1: see what happens here. And he says, I want to
Speaker 1: report that, you know, this much money, forty thousand dollars
Speaker 1: was stolen from me, And eventually the cops realize he's
Speaker 1: accusing the cops who took the money through this process
Speaker 1: of robbing him, which I think he's got a legitimate
Speaker 1: thing to do. But of course the cops realize this,
Speaker 1: and then the chief is like, no, if you continue this,
Speaker 1: I'm going to rest you for harassing an officer, which
Speaker 1: is just one more way of like he is filing
Speaker 1: a completely legitimate complaint, and he has a claim that
Speaker 1: he was robbed, and maybe a court would say, no,
Speaker 1: you weren't robbed, it was civil asset forfeiture. But he
Speaker 1: should be able to have that day in court. And
Speaker 1: again they're they're saying, no, we're not going to even
Speaker 1: allow you to go forward to this. You can't report
Speaker 1: this is a crime. You've got to get out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think he says, they're gonna charge him with
Speaker 3: filing a false police report. Yeah, which it's a true
Speaker 3: thing like that, it's a true incident, but they can
Speaker 3: claim it's false. And then again, like you have to
Speaker 3: go through all the legal hurdles, and I want to.
Speaker 1: Say one more thing about I want to say one
Speaker 1: more thing about these legal hurdles and the way that
Speaker 1: this movie the cops are using any connection to drugs
Speaker 1: and the fact that they might have like something over
Speaker 1: you to shut down your protest, which because they also
Speaker 1: give Summer a plotline involving this Summer, as they said,
Speaker 1: is the young woman who's a court clerk who's kind
Speaker 1: of helping Terry. And one thing that we get revealed,
Speaker 1: one thing we learned during the movie is that she
Speaker 1: has a child. I think it's a son, and she
Speaker 1: doesn't get to see that child, in part because and
Speaker 1: again it's never spelled out, it's just kind of hinted at.
Speaker 1: But we we understand that she had a drug problem
Speaker 1: at some point in time, and there's this kind of
Speaker 1: recurring fear of if she gets caught with anything relating
Speaker 1: to drugs. In the same way, they're able to say, Terry,
Speaker 1: you're kind of like gently you're kind of like loosely
Speaker 1: affiliated with drugs. Therefore we're gonna take your money. In
Speaker 1: her case, they could say you're loosely affiliated with drugs. Again,
Speaker 1: that's gonna be justification for permanently losing custody and fight
Speaker 1: terminating your ability to get back custody now that you're
Speaker 1: off drugs for a while, now that she's been sober
Speaker 1: for a while, and at one point that ops go
Speaker 1: so far as to like physically like hold her down
Speaker 1: and inject heroin into her as a way because now
Speaker 1: she can't pass a drug test, and you know, and
Speaker 1: social and ands again that's used as the threat to
Speaker 1: hold over her is you're caught in this drug system
Speaker 1: and no one will listen when you say it. Wasn't
Speaker 1: your fault. All they have to say is summer and
Speaker 1: heroin and congratulations, you've lost custody.
Speaker 4: And her job and her job.
Speaker 3: Yeah, her boss, the judge, I think, played by James Cromwell.
Speaker 3: Some delightful casting in this movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The summer heroin thing was kind of my least favorite
Speaker 3: part or storyline in this because it felt a little
Speaker 3: damsel in distress when she calls Terry up, I'm in
Speaker 3: trouble because he was. He was gonna leave, right, he
Speaker 3: was done with this. And this is like pretty much
Speaker 3: the halfway point of the movie. His cousin unfortunately dies
Speaker 3: from like a beating he receives in prison from the
Speaker 3: drugs people. They fly him in a chopper to the hospital.
Speaker 3: He dies in the hospital or on the way, and
Speaker 3: the sheriff actually I don't know if he says I'm sorry,
Speaker 3: probably does, but gives Terry his money back. It's like
Speaker 3: a you know, I hope this makes us square, like
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, your cousin died, right, we should have listened
Speaker 3: to you.
Speaker 4: Here's your money.
Speaker 3: Let's just call it even, which is terrible, right, Like
Speaker 3: that's not the human life is not worth forty thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: But I found that to be a very compelling scene
Speaker 3: for the sheriff character, for Don Johnson, and the acting
Speaker 3: in that scene is superb because I really felt like
Speaker 3: he this is not what he wanted, right, Like he's
Speaker 3: he's just looking to make a buck. He didn't he
Speaker 3: didn't want anyone to die.
Speaker 1: And I think what makes the scene so compelling is
Speaker 1: that he has two conflicting motivations, but he feels them both,
Speaker 1: and that's it's a reminder that people can do this,
Speaker 1: which is that I agree with you. I think he
Speaker 1: is genuinely sorry that this guy got killed and genuinely
Speaker 1: sorry that he didn't pay attention when the guy said
Speaker 1: that his cousin was in danger. But I also think
Speaker 1: that another instance of someone who was in the custody
Speaker 1: of this police department dying through neglect on their part,
Speaker 1: Like that's the whole reason that he's under the supervision
Speaker 1: to begin with. And he does say to Terry, we're square,
Speaker 1: which means you're never going to bring this up again.
Speaker 3: Yes, And he's dodging accountability for sure.
Speaker 1: He's dodging accountability. He's trying to buy Terry's silence. But
Speaker 1: he also does genuinely feel bad. Yeah, in a way
Speaker 1: that doesn't justify him, but again, like you said, it
Speaker 1: makes them a lot more.
Speaker 4: Human, Yeah, And I.
Speaker 3: Found that really compelling because I think a lot of
Speaker 3: people of our political affiliation spectrum have certain feelings about police,
Speaker 3: right and the way that they use the system and
Speaker 3: the violence in it, and we often there are statements
Speaker 3: that get made that generalize police in a very negative light,
Speaker 3: and this, like, this character is definitely a negative, but
Speaker 3: I think they did a good job of balancing his
Speaker 3: humanity in a way that you know, he's still the
Speaker 3: villain and we still hate him in this movie, but
Speaker 3: it's like, yeah, like you're still a human being. And
Speaker 3: I think that is that that was an important piece
Speaker 3: of this puzzle in making this a complete picture.
Speaker 1: I wanted to add to that. There are two other
Speaker 1: cops who kind of get to play kind of important roles,
Speaker 1: one of whom, as I said, is the one of
Speaker 1: whom is a cop who Terry thinks is going to
Speaker 1: be on his side, a black woman and who is
Speaker 1: said a kind of like they've had a couple of
Speaker 1: exchanges that indicate that she kind of is not happy
Speaker 1: with the chiefs racism either. But when he thinks that
Speaker 1: that cop is on his side, she shows that no,
Speaker 1: she is still a cop. And while at the very
Speaker 1: end of the movie she does turn on her boss, uh,
Speaker 1: for a lot of the movies, she's not the sympathetic
Speaker 1: character to Terry that we thought she would be. Mm hm.
Speaker 1: And the cop who is the cop who turns out
Speaker 1: has been kind of the mole, feeding summer information about
Speaker 1: what's happening and helping them and getting shot in the
Speaker 1: process is a white guy. And again, I just thought
Speaker 1: that was a nice way of.
Speaker 3: Not just that, but one of the two officers that
Speaker 3: confronted him initially Oh yeah, that's right, that's right, and
Speaker 3: took his money, right.
Speaker 4: And it's just like a completely like.
Speaker 3: Fascinating complex situation, yeah to think about, and the fact
Speaker 3: that he was already kind of.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's like, I feel like we could do
Speaker 1: a whole episode just on that one cop, because I don't.
Speaker 3: Know, he did a bad thing at the beginning, right, right,
Speaker 3: Like he stole Terry's money. Be a civil ascid for
Speaker 3: for sure, it's the law, but he stole his money.
Speaker 3: But then like you look back on it and say, okay,
Speaker 3: but he was not he wasn't the other guy, Like
Speaker 3: there's another cop who is with him who is like
Speaker 3: a big asshole, right, And like you can once you know,
Speaker 3: you can see how he's like trying to control this
Speaker 3: situation and maybe in his own way de escalating right
Speaker 3: to just quote unquote just steal his money.
Speaker 1: Right, And the phrase I was just following orders, I
Speaker 1: think very correctly gets laughed out all the time because like, no,
Speaker 1: you're supposed to know the difference between right and wrong.
Speaker 1: You're supposed to know, like you don't go along with
Speaker 1: the Nazi orders. But if I'm a cop whose only
Speaker 1: information about the law has come from whatever cop school
Speaker 1: I went to, and my sheriff and my sheriff and
Speaker 1: my partner are telling me this thing is this thing
Speaker 1: called civil asset forfeiture is fully legal, I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: In my head, I think about the fact that I'm
Speaker 1: robbing Terry in this moment, and again, it's not to
Speaker 1: justify him, it's to make him an angel by any means,
Speaker 1: but it just it further complicates complicates his character in.
Speaker 3: A good way, yeah, in an enjoyable way, Like it
Speaker 3: would be so it would have been so easy for
Speaker 3: this movie to just be like comically simple and it's not,
Speaker 3: and that that's one of the reasons I love this movie.
Speaker 1: Agreed, And I'll just say on the Summer plot line,
Speaker 1: I agree with you that I don't like the damsel
Speaker 1: in distress place that it goes to, though I am
Speaker 1: relieved that there's never a hint of romance between these
Speaker 1: two characters. And again, there's nothing wrong with romance.
Speaker 3: Is that that was certainly something that could.
Speaker 1: Have happened, definitely, and it's just but it's just refreshing
Speaker 1: that that it didn't happen, in part because Summer, to me,
Speaker 1: feels kind of queer coded. Although she has she has
Speaker 1: an ex husband. Those two things don't negat each other
Speaker 1: by any means. But more importantly, just yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: like the damsel and distressed plot line, but I it's
Speaker 1: just for me, it was just it was just it's
Speaker 1: nice seeing here's one more person who because they have
Speaker 1: been touched by this thing, you know, called drugs, that
Speaker 1: is just like this big flashing light that she is
Speaker 1: therefore also implicated and therefore the police feel like they
Speaker 1: have this control over her, Like there's definitely an extent
Speaker 1: to which this happens with all crime, but I do
Speaker 1: think in that regard, you know, the movie is also
Speaker 1: commenting on, you know how drugs specifically with like mandatory
Speaker 1: minimums and all this kind of stuff, you know, their
Speaker 1: extent to which if if you're a young person of
Speaker 1: color who gets caught having done something with drugs, the
Speaker 1: penalty is in many ways and the way you get
Speaker 1: stuck in the system can be a lot worse than
Speaker 1: if you steal a car or something like that. Not
Speaker 1: always by any means, but but just that there is
Speaker 1: that drugs adds an additional layer of horror to everything
Speaker 1: that can happen.
Speaker 3: So, Matthew, you touched on this earlier, and I wanted
Speaker 3: to come back to it because you on this podcast
Speaker 3: have often said, you know that you don't like action sequences,
Speaker 3: whether it's live action or animated, when they, you know,
Speaker 3: when when the action is confusing, and you said that
Speaker 3: this movie did a really good job of.
Speaker 4: Making it clear what was going on. So I kind
Speaker 4: of wanted to.
Speaker 3: Talk about that because it it also kind of ties
Speaker 3: into the less lethal violence from this character. And in
Speaker 3: that final confrontation, Terry goes up against I think like
Speaker 3: maybe half a dozen officers in front of the police station.
Speaker 3: There's a bunch of parked cars, and he uses the
Speaker 3: cars as like obstacles and shields and has like shot
Speaker 3: a couple of smoke grenades to obscure vision.
Speaker 4: What what like? How did you feel in that mode?
Speaker 4: Like you enjoyed it right?
Speaker 3: Like as an action sequence, because I, like, I love
Speaker 3: that scene and it's one of the one of the
Speaker 3: best action sequences I've seen in recent memory. And I
Speaker 3: just wanted to talk about that real quick.
Speaker 1: Yeah I did, because like, yeah, in that scene, I
Speaker 1: didn't know exactly what was happening, but it felt like
Speaker 1: that was the point. You know, there's one thing to
Speaker 1: have two people fighting and the director make it not
Speaker 1: clear what's happening, because that's the artistry they're going for,
Speaker 1: versus in this scene where Terry is very intentionally not
Speaker 1: letting the cops know what is happening, and so the
Speaker 1: scene winds up giving the viewer that same experience. M Okay,
Speaker 1: So it felt like that that there was a cause
Speaker 1: for my not understanding in a way that really fit
Speaker 1: the narrative instead of it just looking cool.
Speaker 3: So you yeah, okay, So your confusion is mirroring the
Speaker 3: confusion of the cops right exactly where are where are
Speaker 3: are we?
Speaker 4: Like? Where where's Terry?
Speaker 3: But I do think like it was shot well in
Speaker 3: a way, like at one point he takes one guy
Speaker 3: out and then like rolls under a car and the
Speaker 3: camera like pans and follows him under the car to
Speaker 3: the other side, or he like takes another guy out,
Speaker 3: like stuff like that I thought was shot so well.
Speaker 3: I think what you're you're talking about like when action
Speaker 3: sequences do quick cuts and shaky cam.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you don't even know energy, Yeah.
Speaker 4: When you don't even know like who's throwing the punch.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that is often deliver it because they
Speaker 3: are trying to hide the fact that their actors are not,
Speaker 3: you know, stunt people. Yeah, because like they are, they
Speaker 3: are trying to keep the faces in shot. But then
Speaker 3: like maybe the actor is not as adept as the
Speaker 3: stunt person, like they're stunt double, so they can't do
Speaker 3: like the complicated sequences, so they kind of have to
Speaker 3: cut away to like a backshot, so now it's the
Speaker 3: stunt person and they do the fancy stuff and then
Speaker 3: they cut back to the face, et cetera.
Speaker 1: So I think that's part of it. But I also
Speaker 1: I do think because I hear that style praised a lot,
Speaker 1: and I think it.
Speaker 3: Becomes stylist, who's doing that?
Speaker 4: Get out of here?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think it is like not to
Speaker 1: open this can of worms. But I think Zack Snyder
Speaker 1: is someone who does it all the time. And I'm
Speaker 1: currently getting inundated with a whole bunch of Zack Snyder
Speaker 1: fans because of the stuff we said about the Superman movie.
Speaker 1: And you know, so that is often praised, but also
Speaker 1: it happens in anime. So I agree with you that
Speaker 1: it is probably a stylistic choice that happens to cover
Speaker 1: up what you're doing with actors and stunt doubles. But
Speaker 1: I do also think it happened, like my confusion, does
Speaker 1: happen in anime a lot, or even things like martial
Speaker 1: arts movies where clearly that people don't need some people,
Speaker 1: they're doing it mostly themselves.
Speaker 3: But like this, this sequence I felt was similar to
Speaker 3: like John Wick movies where it's like long shots, like
Speaker 3: wide shots, and this is like Keanu Reeves has been
Speaker 3: praised for doing a lot of his own stunts and
Speaker 3: for the way that he carries himself and like carries
Speaker 3: a weapon like I've seen a lot of people who
Speaker 3: are gun experts say like, yes, like this is actually
Speaker 3: how you're supposed to hold and shoot a firearm, not
Speaker 3: like these ridiculous like one handed you know shots where
Speaker 3: you don't have any control of the weapon, right, And
Speaker 3: I felt the same thing out of Terry Richmond. Aaron
Speaker 3: Pierre is the actor who we're going to talk about
Speaker 3: a little more in the bonus section, but I felt
Speaker 3: like he was carrying a lot of this load. Yeah,
Speaker 3: in the action sequences, probably doing a lot of his
Speaker 3: own stunts and stuff like that pays off, I think
Speaker 3: in a very realistic.
Speaker 4: Way for this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree with that.
Speaker 4: Do more of that please?
Speaker 1: Yeah? No, I just thought the action stuff was great.
Speaker 1: Any have the last thoughts you WoT have on this
Speaker 1: movie before we go into that member section. I loved it.
Speaker 3: I'll just say again, I personally am not too big
Speaker 3: of a fan of action movies these days, especially the
Speaker 3: ones that are like gun heavy and go over the
Speaker 3: top with explosions and all that. So from that perspective,
Speaker 3: I enjoyed this a lot. If you're similar to me,
Speaker 3: give this movie a try, because I think it is
Speaker 3: an enjoyable action movie.
Speaker 4: That restrains itself in the best ways.
Speaker 1: I mean, in some ways, I would say that this
Speaker 1: movie is to action movies, as I saw the TV
Speaker 1: Glow is to horror, and I think both of them
Speaker 1: fit technically into that slot, but do so many things
Speaker 1: that you don't really expect in those genres, or maybe
Speaker 1: for me as a non hohole person with that one,
Speaker 1: because to me, I kind of was thrown a bit
Speaker 1: when you first called this movie an action movie, because
Speaker 1: I don't think about it that way. I think of
Speaker 1: it as a cop corruption movie where there are a
Speaker 1: couple of fight scenes. Yeah, but you're right, there is
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot more action than you might
Speaker 1: expect in that kind of genre. So yeah, it's just
Speaker 1: it just it's a nice thing to check out, and
Speaker 1: I definitely would suggest it.
Speaker 3: If I were going to give it like two genres,
Speaker 3: I'd say, like action thriller.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, thriller. I think is action thriller and make
Speaker 1: a lot of sense. A couple of other quick housekeeping
Speaker 1: things before we move on to the bonus section. First
Speaker 1: of all, First of all, as you probably have heard
Speaker 1: by now, we did our first episode of the new
Speaker 1: Bonus Member section. That's gonna be happening where we're talking
Speaker 1: about core questions of superhero ethics. That first one was
Speaker 1: available for everyone. Going forward, they are only available for members,
Speaker 1: but it's easy to become a member, only five dollars
Speaker 1: a month, fifty five dollars a year. All the informations
Speaker 1: in the show notes, but one thing we also want
Speaker 1: to let people know is if you're trying to record
Speaker 1: at the same time every week, which is noon Central
Speaker 1: Time on Thursdays and then five thirty pm Central Time
Speaker 1: on Wednesdays for the Star Wars podcast, and whether we're
Speaker 1: doing regular episodes or bonus member episodes, those recording sessions
Speaker 1: are always live streamed on YouTube. Again, it's just live
Speaker 1: stream YouTube and slash or backslash whatever it is. The
Speaker 1: Ethical Panda Podcasts, you'll find it link is also on
Speaker 1: our show notes. Check that out, and next week we'll
Speaker 1: be recording what will be our members only episode, but
Speaker 1: it is live stream for everyone. We're talking about a
Speaker 1: simple issue that I've never brought up before, the question
Speaker 1: of who are superheroes accountable to? And we will of
Speaker 1: course be using Marvel's Civil War as somewhat of a
Speaker 1: jumping off point. We're talking about a lot of other
Speaker 1: stories which this question comes up of who watches the
Speaker 1: watchers if you want to think about it that way,
Speaker 1: or you know our superheroes cops and do they should
Speaker 1: they need the oversight that cops have or are they individual?
Speaker 1: You know, whatever it is, we're gonna be talking about that.
Speaker 1: If you want to be in the live stream, come
Speaker 1: join us. If you want to just send us in
Speaker 1: questions or thoughts so we're gonna be talking about Send
Speaker 1: those in Matthew at Thethethical, Pana dot com or any
Speaker 1: of our social media networks. Send that in. We'll talk
Speaker 1: about it on air and be happy to answer your
Speaker 1: questions and discuss your thoughts. So please become a member.
Speaker 1: Please think about getting an audible membership or buying a
Speaker 1: lightsaber through our sponsors. Most importantly, though we have spoken