Upstream - S2E17.5: A Few Good Men

Episode Date: February 2, 2023

This week we're joined by Komodo Dad from War_Takes to discuss the classic 1992 Legal Thriller that features Jack Nicholson yelling 'YOU CANT HANDLE THE TRUTH!'. Join us as we explain why Marines are a kind of Samurai, Why sexual harassment was actually a dischargeable offense in 1992, and just what it is that Aaron Sorkin actually believes... ------ THE WINTER OF CONTENT: THE FINAL MONTH If you do feel you have money to spare, please consider supporting your local food banks with money or time! donate to the Trussell Trust here: https://www.trusselltrust.org/make-a-donation/ or the Independent food aid network here: https://www.foodaidnetwork.org.uk/donate Additionally, please consider joining a renter's union like ACORN, as rising mortgage rates will surely result in rising rent, here: https://www.acorntheunion.org.uk/join ------ Consider supporting us on our reasonably-priced patreon! https://www.patreon.com/killjamesbond ------ *WEB DESIGN ALERT*  Tom Allen is a friend of the show (and the designer behind our website). If you need web design help, reach out to him here:  https://www.tomallen.media/   Kill James Bond is hosted by Alice Caldwell-Kelly, Abigail Thorn, and Devon. You can find us at https://killjamesbond.com and https://twitter.com/killjamesbond

10, hot! Alright, you f***ing maggots! A jack- You're a f***er! Ornite! Take it! Dicks out of your hands and listen up! I am Lieutenant General Major,

Abigail Thorn, United States Army Marine Corps, and you're listening to the Kill James podcast, which is the only podcast that stands on a wall between this glorious nation and gay boxed in Communism. And I weep for our great country when I see the sorry state of you pieces of garbage. You're the worst podcast audience ever to be sharded onto the underpants content. But never fear, we will appear in this shape joining me are the major Colonel Captain Devon Admiral. Hello, good evening.

And Judge Advocate, lawyer, prosecutor, Sir Keir Alice called Wokelly and see. And we also have a guest. Another day volunteering at the Betsy Ross Museum. Everyone keeps asking me if they can f**k or flag. But he may have already even let me fuck it come on we got it's us we got Komodo dad from war takes we did a few good men

who the fuck is Benziros? Ha ha ha! Oh my god. Cheers for the listener. We genuinely were like, oh Abbey, would you like to do the... like drill it? Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, like, oh Abbey, would you like to do the... Like Drill and T-Share, and she immediately said, we will have to bleed in both times. No, we won't.

Yes, we will. It's funny, we do. We do. All of us are. Apart from, I don't think, I don't think so much. I don't think it is. I'm bisexual. Oh, no, we all are.

Yeah, all of them are bisexual. I think we've got the first time, but not the second. It's YouTube rules, so you can't swear in the first 90 seconds. So smart. Okay. The worst, the worst to drill instructor thing, or maybe the best that I've ever heard of, was Canadian Navy women's basic training platoon sergeant, whose opening line was,

when I say attention, I want to hear 20-cunt snapping shut. I think about that occasionally. My job sergeant used to say that. The Canadian military is a special kind of, like, yeah, because you have those weird British traditions, because with American style sensibilities, like I got told by a guy I played armor with who'd been the Canadian and the army. He said thank you and the child line and the NCO that was giving him food. Don't thank me, thank the queen. Okay.

Okay. Okay. All right. Queen's very, so we saw... She's dead. A few good men. The best. The best.

A few good men. This was my opinion. If you're not familiar with a few good men the best Sorkin movie. This was my wife. You're not familiar with a few good men. It's a military legal drama, which is chiefly memorable for Jack Nicholson going, you can't handle the truth in like the big sort of like courtroom scene. That's like 10 minutes at the end of a two hour movie.

I find the rest of the two hour movie much more interesting than that. But this movie was the basis of everybody's jack Nicholson impression for the next 20 to 30 years. Yeah, it's a cultural touch in. Yeah. And it also, we were talking about this before we started recording, set off a bunch of like military legal dramas, like a whole subculture that culminated in the show Jag,

but like there was, there were others of these They did like hearts worth like a world or two and that's a really deep cut. What was the other one we were talking about? Courage under fire. I was in the way. Oh, yeah, I see. I yes No, so I've lost engagement. I'm not saying something like that. I'm not saying that at some point. Yeah, I think Yeah, but so we'd began in Guantanamo Bay before it was bad. I know it was still bad, but before it was as bad. Yeah, it doesn't quite mean the same thing as it does now.

In the house, your days of Guantanamo Bay. Remember what Guantanamo Bay wasn't hard, remember where it was, wasn't work. Yeah, pre-work Guantanamo Bay, we see a pair of Marines who do not have to state their pronouns. And a wearing woodland camouflage, because before the Marines had their special boy camouflage, go into one of their squad mates' room,

tie him up with duct tape, which doesn't work at twist stuff on it so, in any way. And then like gag him with a sponge, attempt to beat him, but then he dies like almost instantly. And that's our inciting incident. Yeah, it's the sponge that kills you instantly. Yeah. I don't know where they issue that. I really don't.

Where we go to the court over, you know, you know, it's just tradition at this point. It, you know, they tried to get rid of the sponge that kills you instantly and just some of the conservative members of Congress were not having it. It's tradition. Well, because, you know, the court doesn't change, right? Chesty Poole used to eat one of those sponges for breakfast every day. And, you know, because of that, it's just like it's a tradition. It's kind of like it's an anyway.

It's the quenny sponge. That's right. We go to the opening credits, which are... The Queen's. ...which are... ...the Javriday. Some nice, select, sort of, silent drill, or lots of spinning rifles around. Very cool. Yeah, it was interesting.

Did you have to talk to about the drill? This was worth it. Yeah, fine. Yeah, I took exactly one note during the course of this movie Which I which is which is just this shit fruity as hell And I put my phone down for two hours Because so it's fruity as hell you know, it's like the the quick marching in the fucking wind and lion Everyone who'd ever seen anything the literally was like well, that's very impressive Whereas I was sad they go what the fuck are they doing? What the hell is this shit?

Yeah, was it Sartre who said that like part of the point of goose stepping in such as that it looks ridiculous, but you're too scared to laugh at it? Yeah, that's true. That's true of a lot of drill. I'd be interested to know whether these actors, whether these people on screen are actors sporting artists or whether they are fact, real military people. Because I see that we take a lot of real training to train at the end, they thank the minicredits specifically. Yeah, they're not the Marine Corps silent dropletoon. They're like one of the weird military college dropletoon standards.

Well, they have their own continuing for doing silent drill. Yeah. I think it's easy to do drill at night when people are asleep. Yeah, you see them in London every so often. They're just walking down the street with a headphones on. So, well, this needs to be. We now, we now go to the laws factory, the place where they make all of the laws for the army where Demi Moore, a lieutenant commander in the US Navy, is walking and giving herself a little like

psyching herself up speech because she's gonna ask for her boss for the big promotion. I've made a curious note here which is Demi Moore is a Navy lawyer, Dash Alice. That's all it says. That's all it says. I don't know. I think that might be flattering me a bit,

but just because she has a voice, it sounds like she eats cigarettes and she looks good in the uniform. And she's a lawyer, I didn't. Yeah, I just imagine this is your threat. Thank you. But so she's nervous. She's like psyching herself up

because she wants to go and ask her boss for permission to represent these two Marines who are now on trial for murder. They're being flown up from Guantanamo Bay to Washington, Navy, yard where this is. And we get this sort of first conversation which is very sork and esk, right? And I feel it's important to talk about Aaron Sorkin's dialogue. If you don't know Aaron Sorkin is the guy who did the West Wing, along with the newsroom, a bunch of other sort of like- It's got to play on it in London at the moment, hasn't he? Yeah, yeah. And how would we describe Aaron Sorkin's sort of way of writing dialogue? It's very, I might have some thoughts here.

Please. Aaron Sorkin has a dial, and that dial has exactly three positions on it. The first position, position A, is a smarmy. Smarmy and smoke. Position B is angry, lots of shouting. The position C is sort of a modland and sappy. More often he will switch between position A and B rapidly and then occasionally take you over to position C and then come back again. Yeah.

And this is fully in the mode of position A, like Reparté is the way you would describe this. Flummy. He writes for the stage and this was originally a part. And this was a play. Yeah. And I should clarify there, like I'm going to give there and it's not going to hard time. But I watched every episode of the West Wing

at least once, most of them twice. It's part of the reason I ended up on the path I'm on. And there's still a lot of aspects of the West Wing's work. I genuinely still like, even as I've sort of evolved in my positions over time. But I am going to give him a real hard time, nonetheless. I have a list of sorghinisms in here, which are things he has reused between all of his series and properties, whole cloth, and I have a list of sorghinisms in here, which are things he has reused between all of his

series and properties, whole cloth, and I have a running tally throughout this. Yeah, he had one sort of like at the time, quite coaxed up liberal is still able to like reach for the sort of the highest ideals of American liberalism. And you know, a decent proportion of the time, I think he

gets there. Yeah. We'll talk about this film and like liberalism is the thing when we get to the end. Anyway, one thing I like is that she fucks up her speech. She like trips over herself, because she's sort of forced herself into like a sort of very grammatical phrasing of, I think that perhaps I should be the council

cumst is representing, and she like trips over it, which I like, she's very nervous, and her boss who's a captain, has this sort of like good line, which I use as an example of soar canisms. So they only work when they deliver completely dead pan, right, and this.

And again, I want you to get yourself cup of coffee. Thank you, sir, I'm fine. I'm glad you'd leave the room so we can talk about you behind your back. Certainly, sir. It's very funny. It's a good story. It's an organism number one. Yeah, but it like two things.

It requires that sort of like, you know, deadpan not winky at the camera thing. It also requires a sort of a certain amount of like stage like exaggeration, which in this case means requiring a woman to have made, we don't commander without knowing like being able to understand what that means and having to have it explained to her right. There's a lot of exposition in this movie that's handled that way where it's stuff that you should like these characters it does not make sense for them not to know. And you have to like you feel yourself being sort of like led along. Um, anyway, the vibe is that the official story is that these two Marines who we saw

the start, Dawson and Downey, they killed the third Marine Santiago, apparently, uh, to prevent Santiago from naming Dawson in a fence line shooting incident. Like he fired over the fence at Cuba. Um, and Santiago was going to tell on them and so they killed him, right? She thinks there is more to it than that and she specifically uses this phrase code red which we'll find out the meaning of later. And she's like, I think there's more to this story. I wanna be their lawyer.

And then there's the sign that fuck off. No, they don't take her seriously because she's the woman that's implied pretty heavily. Yeah. She's like not a trial lawyer, she's like too aggressive's implied pretty heavily. Yeah. She's like, not a trial lawyer, she's like too aggressive, all of these things. And so they go, okay, who do we have that we can give this to?

A dip-shit. Yeah, let's give it a base on. A dip-shit. And this is our favorite Scientologist in New York's Tom Cruise. A guy who woke up to be informed that he has been in the military for about a year that morning, has no memory of that. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, pretty much. He just sort of like shows up. He like saunters into meetings and stuff. He is remarkably casual, along with him is assigned he is remarkably casual, along with him is assigned his,

assigned, I'm Weinberg. Yeah, he's assigned. You're in charge of this and this guy's got to hang out if you would make wise cracks. He's like, all right, cool. So, Kevin Pollock has two times where he says, I have no responsibilities here whatsoever, where he might as well be looking directly

into the camera, but he's in the fourth wall. So, I'm here to bounce quips off of. Yeah. Yes. But I love him for it. Oh, absolutely. It's my favorite part of the fucking movie.

Tom Cruise has been assigned to be the lawyer. And like question mark, was this bunch that kills you instantly poisoned? Just like maybe that was the vibe. I do, I do really like Tom Cruise's performance in this. I think he does a really great job and makes interesting choices. He's just a really good actor.

He's currently working. He's a really good producer. He makes a lot of films in the genre that we might personally examine, quite soon. He's currently producing a lot of very good, very awkward films. So that's what make do the mission impossible series. Yeah, really good. Really, really good. He's sort of like this, um, this, Honestly, as a religious zone business, and like I just, that's not any of like this. Honestly, his religion is his own business,

and that's not any of my concern. It's not our responsibility to ask where David miscavige is. Like, she might have just gone all the way. It's not. Yeah, and for us to note that he said later that he based his performance on this film, on David miscavige, an insane man. And that's new to hear nor there.

However, he spends neither here nor there. However, he spends almost no time working. He spends most of his time playing softball, but not even really playing softball just like in a sort of batting cage situation. But he does go to meet. He's just sucking fingers. He's not even playing softball. He's just sucking fingers.

That's it. I see me practice flaw. Or do you want me to see me walk a few diggers? Yeah. And he goes to meet her in her office. And at this point, the flames start to appear on the side. Again, this guy has no idea that he's in the military

as far as I can tell. Yeah. He shows up. He sits down without being asked. He's chewing an apple in her face the whole time and she doesn't so much as frown at him and he he breaks it by two pay grades. He's a lieutenant junior grade and she's like a lieutenant commander and she just like at no point is she like more than like sort of a mild scolding like get your shit together. It's

disagree. I think I really like Demi most performance in this scene because she's already been told by her commanding officer, this is the guy who's got the job. There's fuck all she can do about it. And I think she does a great job of just be like silently quite contemptuous of this disrespect. That's a good point. I don't like that. I think she's more obliging than contempt. She even hands him a bit in for his apple core. And I'm just like, it's a little, I'm a small little thing, but I like the way he, like,

after he throws the apple away, he rubs his hands together to get the sticky shit off his face. Oh, gross. He's so gross. He is playing a spoiled brat and he's good at it. It's like compelling, whatever. But like, to me, this is just unbelievable. Like, I have to do a crumb of research. Like, what is this? Like, the cadet force or the Bundeswehr or something? Like, there's no semblance of military discipline.

You have to like, gesture to all, anyway. She informs him that Santiago, the kid who was killed, wanted to be transferred off the base. And Tom Cruise surprised at me and he said, oh, that's kind of weird. He was writing to everyone outside of his chain of command. He wrote to the commoner of the Marine Corps, the Secretary of the Navy, his senator, all of this. And so she suspects that this has gotten back to his chain of command and they have ordered him to be punished in a way that has resulted in his death, the sort of the code red that we still don't know what it means yet.

Also, because Sorkin loves WizKids, right? He loves an extremely annoying, but very competent young man. That's the whole vibe off of Tom Cruise in this. It's like, he's a great lawyer. He just doesn't want to be in the Navy. And she comes to confront him while he's sucking Dingas later on. And genuinely, she gives him the sort of, like, she finally chooses him out.

She's like, you're a piece of shit. You don't want to be in the Navy. You're in the Navy because your dad was in the Navy and you're just like sort of marking time. And he just fully goes, I'm sexually aroused, come here. There's like, that's, no. There is a small part of me that wants to put it like,

this is a movie about... Milletary Laws. Milletary Laws in Ding really, as well. Yeah, the cinema sense ding is what I'm thinking of because this is a movie about like military law. And it fails to understand that military law is like a thing that exists. It applies to a lot of things that, you know,

in ordinary circumstances would not be like enforceable law. Like not saluting an officer is in an extremely sort in ordinary circumstances would not be like enforceable law. Like not saluting an officer is in an extremely sort of prescribed way, a federal crime, right? And so you can't do that. Man, you can't just sexually harass a woman who is your superior officer, but being like, yo, this makes my deck hard. This is an Article 134 military sexual harassment charge, which will probably result in an article 15 non-judicial punishment. They'll probably plea bargain it down when

he just has to voluntarily separate without being charged, but it's going to be on his record. Good luck getting a job. We tend to capy. Yeah. Cinema sins ding. And the other thing is like, I think it's like a thank you. Thank you. Thank you for that at every point on what I will do. I think it's like a cultural misunderstanding too, right? Because there's a lot of people who don't want to be in the military. I have seen their TikToks, right? But it's different.

Yeah, yeah, I've seen them say. This is different. This whole scene is, is Sokranism number two, which Sokranism number three being normally it takes hours until someone blah, blah, blah. Yeah. And like, there's an idea of what someone sort of like just marking time being in the military, not wanting to be looks like. And it's, they have had a certain amount of this shit bullied into them by force that

you don't just say, you know, am I dick hard as hell right now. But speaking of people being bullied into things, we go into an extended flashback sequence where when Santiago is still alive, we see that he's not really very good at being a Marine. He's kind of like a fuck up. Yeah, he's like full of behind. He's like a learn, people don't like him,

he's a bit of a dick. And we also see this flashback sequence where we meet the commander of Gitmo, which is Jack Nicholson. And he's chattel. At this point, I write down in all caps. Yo, that's drill. Yeah, I love his performance in this. In particular, his physical performance, because he's, if you notice, he's like moving

around a lot, like within the frame and like he paces around and like crosses his arms and uncross them, he's a shifty bastard. It's a great physical performance. Again, very theater. Yeah. Yeah, and we get sort of a conference of offices here. We have Colonel Drill. His ex-so, Lieutenant Colonel Markinson,

who is wearing the period accurate 90s dad glasses that everyone in the US military wore at that point. And a Yara Feige for Sutherland. Hey! GeForSutherland here, looking like a face-up younger version of Keith Asutherland. It's weird to me, man. That's what happened. I got him the only one who picked up on that, compared to older Keith, he almost looks

like he's been digitally altered. I don't know what happened between them in 24, but he grew into his own face. He looks about 60, He's still got like, poppy-pot in this. It's like, it looks like a second lieutenant. It's like, FFS three months ago, still got some swelling, he facetilage.

Like, he does a great job in this though. He's so good. He's just a weird guy. I really like this scene because this scene is, Jack Nicholson dominates this room and you get the sort of, the lethal, lethal

feeling of a senior officer deploying sarcasm against you. And he just, he turns to them that because what Markinson wants to do is to transfer him off the base, make him someone else's problem. It's the easiest thing to do. There's like, it's a big Marine Corps. There's lots of niches. They'll find something for him. And he goes, maybe we as officers have a responsibility to this country to see that the men and women charge with its security are trained professionals.

Yes, I'm certain that I read that somewhere once. And it really feels like he's good. He's good. He's good. He's good. He's good. He's good. He's good. He's good. He's good. He's good. He's good. He's good. He's good. He's good. He's good. He's good. He's good. He's good. He's good. He's good. He's good. He's good.'s so good. He's good. He's good. He's good. He's good. He's good. He's good. He's good.

He's good. He's good. He's good. He's good. He's good. He's good. He's good. He's good.

He's good. He's good. He's good. He's good. He's good. He's good. He's good. He's good. He's good. He's good. He's good. in this field, which is, Markinson represents the sort of a root diet, sort of, I'm doing scare quotes here, warrior scholar type, where he's like,

got a master's degree probably, from like Georgetown or Johns Hopkins or something, he writes articles, he probably publishes and war on the rocks and all stuff, gets to a staff position in Washington. And then Kendrick represents the type of professional marine, where he eats crayons three meals a day, and then Kendrick represents the type of professional marine where he eats crayons three meals a day.

Every other word that comes out of his mouth is a slur. He will probably be forced to retire under sketchy circumstances for misconduct and he will immediately shift into a right winged grift and make kick-tocks in his truck wearing sunglasses. One of these guys has a big marine course like Eagle Globe and Anker sticker on his truck and it's not Markinson. Exactly. We learned something

really important about Jack Nicholson in the scene Colonel Drill because Markinson's like we need to get rid of Santiago Colonel Drill is like no keep him and then dismiss his keeper Sutherland and then he's just like don't ever fucking question my authority in front of the men again. Ever. We learn the important thing about his character, which is that he does not like being questioned. Yes, and he is a big believer in chain of command in the most rigid sense. I do want to shout out Keith Ossethaland because he does a great job in a scene where all

he has to do is look scared and tense, but like there's this great line that just bounces off him where he is essentially ordered to get Santiago in line. Santiago doesn't make 4, 6, 4, 6 on his next proficiency in conduct report, and I'm going to blame you, and I'm going to kill you. Yes, sir. That's perfect. That's, that's a picture. Perfect. It's great.

And so obviously they come out of this meeting with the implicit order to punish him until he is a functional member of his platoon. Right? So meanwhile, back in Washington. Back in the present, we need. Yes. Oh, there was one other thing.

I keep coming back to this thing because it's like it's the best one in the movie for me, I think. There's like, there's a bit where sort of like a sork and ideology leaks out, which is Colonel Dreyl, Colonel Jack Neckwist, and he justifies himself a bit by saying the reason why we have to be, you know, a hard ass about this is because we're in the business of saving lives. And I think that's, that's a Soak and thing to think that the Marines think of themselves as saving lives.

I think the most liberal Marine officer, including this sort of like dad glasses, we're on the rocks thing, would say that they're on the business of taking lives, but it's, anyway, back in Washington, they are sending Tom Cruise down to Guantanamo Bay, but Demi Moore invagals herself on the trip as well by appealing to one of the men's aunts, aren't they, Jeremy? Yeah, it's his, it's, it's,

it's a downies, because he has no other living relatives. And basically she, she sort of talks to him because she doesn't think Tom Cruise is going to do them justice. He's already, the moment he gets in her office earlier, he's already talking about, oh, I can plea bargain this down. They'll get like, you know, be out in like six months or something like that. And she wants to do more. So she kind of van angles herself into being his particular lawyers. So it gives her a reason to be on the defense team and have to basically

shadow Tom Cruise and make sure he's actually doing something. And Cruise meets Dawson and Downey. And he says, first of all, was the sponge that kills you instantly poisoned? They go, no, it wasn't. He just died. We didn't go. No, it wasn't. They go, sir, no, sir. Yeah. And they're like fully at attention or parade rest the whole time. And it's like, you know, at Simpson's joke, the US Army, but a more alarmist to name for it would be the killbot factory. These Navy officers go in there and they're sort of like unable to make headway with these these enlisted Marines because they're fully sort of like roboticized, right? They've been thrown aside. It's, it's the big sort of trope of people being like, well,

all I know about the military is boot camp, so everything in the military must just always be boot camp. Yeah, also the idea that like, the Marine Corps has military discipline, like to a fault. The Navy doesn't, because the Navy is where the smart and urban Wiz kids go. And I'm not sure that's an accurate characterization of the US. It's the Navy. I could definitely say the Navy is the most aristocratic of the US military services.

In that sense, I think I jokingly say because it is culturally the most British. It lends its own most from like the Royal Navy and stuff because it's like it's hard to have a Navy that isn't influenced by the Royal Navy Mm-hmm. You asked Navy really transparently and also True says what's the code red and they go it's like an unofficial internal discipline It's where you like you beat the shit out of somebody or you you, the, the Marines like discipline each other in an unofficial way. So it's a sort of like, this was a cultural case. It's a sort of like a motocorrect, wrong.

Yeah. Yes. Not much. And yes, and that they were ordered to do it. And he is unable to get through to them, Tom Crosis, he's like, I'm the only friend you've got, but they're sort of like, they don't respect him. They don't even really believe him. Tom, we meet Tom Cruise's opposite number

in the prosecution, who is a terrifyingly young Kevin Bacon. Yes. With a sort of weird flat top. Like, look at like Gile, very odd strange things here. Just, what, there's sort of a flat top. Like, look at like, Gile, very odd, strange, strange things. Yeah. What, there's sort of a very stark divide here of whether or not the actor did any, like, research or like, nose anything about the moment.

So I, Kevin Bacon passes that test because step, like, scene one, he gets the weird walk right. And also, he literally points like with the edge of his hand. He does knife hands. And so this is Captain Ross, who is a marine officer, and he's gonna be representing the government. He's gonna be prosecuting. And Tom Cruise is like, well, they say they were ordered to do a curd red and Kevin Bacon's like,

no, keep a Sutherland specifically ordered them not to do that. And everyone saw the challenge. Which Tom Cruise goes, who the fuck is Keep a Sutherland? I've never even, I've never been to a Sutherland. I never mentioned this fucking guy. He's doing like trading plus. That means that he's not. That's when the four hasn't come out yet.

It's trading with a plus. What does that mean now? What the fuck? A Tom Cruise does Chris Pratchit, my note say. He does. He's kind of like slightly goofy and like, shlobby and like funny and, and quickie. I'm like, oh, you know, this is like,

I was like, I was like, I was like, I know what the, I know what the highest rating on the scum score is going to be. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Um, he goes, he goes to a new stand where he and the propris logistics James sort of nonsense, which is in a way that's almost postmodern,

like kind of like has no semantic content whatsoever. And he goes and like talks things over with Weinberg and he begins to feel that like things like there's a cover up in motion. And so he is going to go to Guantanamo Bay. He is told to wear his navy whites and he says, I don't like the whites, I don't like the lights. The white. To to useful drops for future. I mean, it is half a white.

And it's it's a wild. What would it get to you? Yes. This whole conversation they have where he meets with Kevin Pollock and he's like taking his kid around the block. I think you mentioned this in the group chat, but like this whole, this is a very sign-failed-esque. Kevin Pollock's bordering on Costanza, like, Kevin Pollock, number of times gets really close to being extremely castanza in his delivery.

And there's one in particular I'm going to tease out later on where he just hits pitch perfect. Nobody likes the white Sherry. But so, he finds out that Demi was like invagal to self on his co-counsel. They go to Guantanamo Bay wearing the whites, where they are immediately told. Careful white, see. Because Keefer Sutherland is going to have to drive them past the fence line with Cuba and if the Cubans see an officer wearing dress whites, they might decide to start World War III by shooting them. So they have to wear

camouflage. This is where the flames start, start coming out of the side of my head the whole time when they first get to get mo. I think I scrolled in my notes here in all caps. It's like, why do they think Cuba is like going to like the Korean DMZ? I was getting very annoyed. It kind of works in the film's favor if that is a ridiculous position though. Yeah, it really does. That's why I actually keep jumping back between.

I got to remind myself, is he trying to make it seem like they're being ridiculous? Or does he actually believe it's like that? And I keep battling with myself and like, well, no, maybe he's trying to point out how ridiculous this seems. So I keep jumping back and forth with that. Big flashing sign at the point of his like, this is what they actually believe.

They actually believe the Cuban military is gonna make a run on Guantanamo Bay in the US. And they can try it. They just see how I worry. How I worry. I'm like, yeah, fucking. It's like, huh? Go, go, go, go, go.

So it's just, I. Go over and off first. So, I just, I don't like the white stuff. They investigate his barracks with Keefer Sutherland, who now remembers to become Southern and start talking like Falcone, Leicone. Yeah. And... It's Benoit Blanc, shit. Yeah, exactly.

And Benoit Blanc, second one's time, Benoit Blanc, goes, well, he was a substandard marine and therefore he was probably killed because Jesus, I will mention Jesus every sentence. He was sorry, he was talked and they say, you know, did you order the code red on him and he goes, absolutely not. I specifically ordered the men not to touch him. They did it on their own. For reasons it would have nothing to do with me. So they then go and have dinner or lunch with Colonel Drill, Colonel Jack Nicholson. And we know that he's lying here, because he says, yes, as soon as I heard Santiago was, you know, a substandard, I ordered him to be transferred off the base on the next available flight, which is six o'clock the next morning, which we know that's a lie, because we've

seen him in flashback, being like, no, keep him here. Mm hmm. And Demi Moore has some more questions for him than Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise is kind of like over-ord by him, and is, you know, he's still running. Well, EC over-ord or is he kind of being careful not to push him? Not sure. I think it's. It's left ambiguous. But Demi Moore pushes him, and she goes,, do you have a copy of the transfer order? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, Tom Cruise, Tom Request, that, be fair. That comes after we get our second incident of even our military sexual harassment.

She asks him a question, I forget what the question is, but it annoys him. And Tom Cruise tries to overrule her and Colonel Drill says the thing that I had been thinking for the first, you know, 20 minutes of the movie. You know, it just hit me. She outranked you, Danny. She just noticed that. Just like I wasn't sure anyone else would notice that. Oh, she would notice that. That's it. That would make it.

And then he deploys this kind of like insane misogynist thing about how... There is nothing on this earth sexier belief in me gentlemen than a woman that you have to salute in the morning. And... yeah, okay, he's right. Yes, he should have been true. But she has a argument here, however. And she has a argument here, however. The fact that he is like saying this in front of her is like, there's a couple of things here, right? Yeah, cinema seems ding.

First of all, with witnesses, in front of witnesses, even in 1992, that is a career-ending conversation. It has to be, Teilhook was the year before this, and even they had the sense to do that in like semi-ending conversation. It has to be, tail hook was the year before this, and even they had the sense to do that in like semi-private. Like, you can't. Well, that part was like bad, but if you had ended it there,

you know, maybe it might have been recoverable, but then he says the second half of it. He keeps going. Which I had to sucked off about that, huh? He considered getting sucked off. Twitch Tom Cruise is like, we should probably keep, we should leave this location now, let's do it. And so the movie has this sort of like insane double standard

where it gives Tom Cruise ports, right? It makes him reflect on his own previous actions. However, him doing the same thing to the same woman wasn't as bad because it wasn't like as crude. And it's like acceptably gross when he does it. It's gross in a charming way. I think that's the real double stands for the scene is that this misogynist is supposed to be bad, but it's also the same stuff that Tom Karoo's was doing. The stuff about

like, oh, you couldn't do this because it would end your career. I actually think that works in the scenes favor because I think Colonel Drill knows that they're not going to end his career over this. He's also thinking, yeah, exactly, that's the point. And underlines his character, he doesn't like being questioned. To me, to me, it undermines a different aspect of his character, which is if his deal is chain of command, and if his deal is not being undermined by another officer in front of a junior officer, he is like talking about a senior officer getting sucked off by her subordinate or vice versa. No, you've got missed the whole point of the character.

I was like, it's not that he cares about the chain of command. It's that he cares about the chain of command when it has him at the top. He also disparages the office of the president. It's just like, though, I like some gal president and I'll have to do whatever she says. Like, he doesn't really care about the chain of command on the military. He cares disparages the office of the president. It's just like, though, I like some gal president and I'll have to do whatever she says. He doesn't really care about the chain of command on the military. He cares about being in charge. He's just a bully. I suppose he's got on that base and he just wants everyone to treat him as such.

He cares about the chain of command in so far that if he's at the top, everyone does exactly what he says. And on the way out, the cruises like we're done here, we're out of here. There is one other thing he gets up and he does the fucking is one other thing. He gets up and he does the fucking Colombo thing. He gets up and he's like, Yeah, one more question. But before that, there's one more thing, which is that he gets to do the sort of like combat hardass thing in a way that's really funny because it's about being stationed in Guantano by in 1992, where he's like, I breakfast from 300 yards away from 4000

Cubans who are trained to kill me. You have no idea what it's like in a forward area. And it's not forward area. You haven't lunch at a beach. Like, come on. The whole time you say, like, oh, 4,000 Cubans trained to kill me. Do you do it? It's a cartoon.

You bitch. Shut the fuck up. There's a fucking mackers down the road from you, man. Like, come on, it's fine. Don't watch. I don't think that works in the film's favor. Because we are also, as he's saying, this was shown that they're being waited on by a botler.

Essentially, it's in the film's favor that he's exaggerating this and that he's run realistic. Anyway, on the way out, Tom Cruise is like, oh, sorry, one more thing. You said that you were gonna have Santiago transfer off the base. Can I just get a copy of the transfer order? And Colonel Jessup's, we see him visibly be like, oh, fuck.

And then he gets really upset and he uses the F-slur, which he should never ever say, listless, he should never have a... That's right. Never say that. He calls his uniform like gay and soy, and says you've got a half million nicely. Yeah, the white uniform he calls it f***ingity. And he talks about his Harvard mouth. And the directs.

With the intervened to make sure none of us gets bleeps. And I have this joke that I like to wheel out, which is that kernel is probably as high as you can get with any of the truly oppositional personality disorders. But that's not the traditional. really oppositional personality disorders, but. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, like Michael Flynn, who somehow manages to flip the politics his way up to general. But most of the deranged officers you see seem to be retired colonels. And this guy's absolutely going to end up on Fox News. From motion to general office, I have to go through Congress. And although it's kind of like a full malacy, there are plenty of times where it's easier to just go, yeah, we don't think Congress is going to do it. Stay a colonel forever, get fucked. And that's like a sort of non-confrontational way of getting the angriest man in the world to not be mad at you anymore.

But so, yeah, he sort of makes him show more courtesy to him and ask him nicely, which he does, and he gets the thing. He learns something about his reaction from that. At this point, he goes back to do some more baseball dipshit stuff. Back in DC, Colonel Markinson has disappeared, which is not good. And also, Tom Cruise goes to Kevin Bacon, is that, look, they say they were ordered to do this by Keefer Sutherland, star of phone booth. And Kevin Bacon's like, well, that's great, but there's no way in hell you're going to

prove it, because I've got like 20 Marines who were all in the meeting working for Sutherland said, don't do it. Yeah, he explicitly ordered, don't do it. Yeah, he explicitly ordered them not to do it. So he's like, take a plea bargain and Danny more is like, no, we're gonna take it to court, we think they're innocent. And the plea bargain is like remarkably good. Yeah, so there's like 15 days.

And you even comment on this as well, that it was kind of weird. Yeah, time's served, they'll be home in six months. And he even pitches that to them, like you guys will be home in six months, but the Marines themselves don't want to take it because they're so convinced that they did the right thing by aggressively and violently hazing their fellow Marines. But if they go to court and lose, then Kevin Bacon's going to be like, I'm going to charge him with murder and

like conspiracy. They're going to be in prison for life. So like take the deal. Mm-hmm. They don't wanna do it. They don't wanna do it because they have a code, right? And the other thing that I wanna draw out here is, if the movie thinks that, you know, the Navy doesn't have a military discipline, but the Marines do, this movie also thinks that the Marines are samurai, right? I was about to see the same thing.

I have my notes here, Marie, that the, again, and this might be a thing where now, now I'm second guessing myself through the ad, he said that like, whether or not Aaron Sorkin actually believes this or he does. He does. He's following up. So this is what Aaron Sorkin actually believes. And it's like he thinks the Marine code is basically like Bushito that they have to follow it every day of their lives for the utmost. And if they don't, they have to commit ritual suicide. This will be important later.

The true Marine contemplates death every day of his life. And in fact, thanks to himself as death. Yeah, so because of this code they have, which is unit core God country, they refused like the idea of getting a dishonorable discharge is like unacceptable to them. This will be important later. All these things in your mind, audience.

So might as say, Topruz reflects on the themes of the film. She does, yeah. She's in shots of him like sitting at thinking. Yeah, she just goes out on monuments in the background. She goes out on the tower and just thinks about it. We see the fucking EoGema statue for the second time, this movie. Yeah. And he's like, now why would they give it to me

when I've only ever settled out of court? Could it be you that they don't want it to go to court? Why would they give this case to me? To give the baseball dipshit. Why would they give the case to the baseball dipshit? And so he gets his big moment when they... Why would they give the case to the baseball dipshit? So they go to the plea hearing where he is expected to come in and plead guilty.

He comes in as classised, and I don't know if the Navy calls classised. And he pleads not guilty and he activates lawyer mode. He gives him this big speech. He does act like lawyer mode. Now he is now fully in charge because he's just the better lawyer on both of them except this. And so Demi Moore and Kevin Pollock are now shifted to the role of his mum and dad, but also his interns.

So he just, he just goes, before you come over and pick up a couple legal pants, half a dozen boxes, a red pen, half a dozen boxes black. How many pens come in those fucking boxes? It's like 200 fucking pens. How much document reviewing you doing, you're killing two hundred and a half rows. These pens around the house, and you just use the sink, excuse to get them the biome form.

Yeah. And Tom Cruise also says to Debbie, well, please don't wear that perfume in court, it'll break my concentration. And she's like, oh, cool, sexy. Actually, it's got like, faramans in it. I got it for someone I don't know the date, it's got like, Faramans in it. I got up and I'm having another date with and yeah. And I'm doing too.

Yeah, we get like five the Yamantage of what did we get like five hundred scenes of dumb doing dog montage. It's like, yeah. The two and self-crumb cruises that we're gonna fucking lose. Like, I'm gonna prove it to you some number three.

Yeah, he independently reproduces the sort of the hell dude thing which is that you know a judge cares less about the law and more about going into the court I'm deciding which one of you is the asshole and making the law fit accordingly. And so yeah, probably he's like yet we're gonna do it gonna do great privately. He's like with fucked with so fuck boys. It's over. It's over. fuck boys. It's over. It's over. And I should say at this point, the legal argument that they construct is nonsense. And it's nonsense in a way that a wine boat Kevin Pollock actually identifies, right? Which is they're not responsible for their actions. it's not murder because they didn't intend the killin

They didn't intend to do anything wrong because they were following an order. Now we're at Boshido. I was following orders That's called the Neuronberg defense Yeah, and to which you get the response. No, it's not to which you get the response. No, it's not. Kimberpoll, this is this whole thing where it's like, this is jump ahead a bit, where Demi Moore asks, and you know, like, you know, why do you hate them so much?

And he's just like, they tortured a weaker guy because they didn't like him because he couldn't run any fast as they could. And that's fucked up. And the whole time I'm like, yes, he's right. And he should say he's spitting. This man is, he's right. To which her response is, would he ask her,

like, he has her, you know, why do you like him so much? He's like, oh, because they stand on a wall and say, yeah, I have this. Cause they stand on a wall and they say, nothing's gonna hurt you tonight. And this is the thing. Oh, this is the thing. I, they make this sort of like,

I think this is one of the things where we can give the movie too much credit because later on, Jack Nicholson will do that. I'm standing on a wall. Like, I suppose to be ridiculous and fashions, but you hear it first from her in a sympathetic way. And so this thing, which is not at all an unclear point of law, the idea that you are legally responsible if you follow an illegal order.

Like, it doesn't, they mention Sam mentions, we've said at William Callie, who was convicted of war crimes at MeLi. And their argument, their moral argument is, that doctrine, that doesn't count if you're in enough danger and someone yelling at you. Because if someone yells at you, you just do the thing. If that's the same as dying.

The ladies were coming out of my head so hard at this point because he's trying, the concrete is a whole monologue in court. I'm pitching like I got ahead in my hands here when he's trying to explain like, oh, there's some orders that you, you know, you know, you shouldn't obey, you know, I'm just screaming. The phrase you're looking for is called unlawful order that's in the UCMJ not only do you not have to follow an unlawful order which includes cruel and ununishable punishment of someone else. You are legally obligated to not follow it and if you do you are liable to be punished for it. I don't really know what the movie does not really.

be punished for it. It just, just a real, I don't know, I'm not quite as a movie, doesn't it, really? Yeah. As a moral argument, too, it requires you to believe, and this is why I think that the movie takes the 300 yards and 4,000 Cubans at Ernest, right? It requires you to believe that being in Guantanamo Bay

in 1992 as a Marine is more personally dangerous than being in fucking Vietnam Yeah, the Vietnam war. Yeah, it's no, it's absolutely bad for like it's it's nonsense And so the way that they construct this is a little it will swing the jury and the jury care less about like face It doesn't matter to legal argument as a point of law the judge can and in fact must throw it out It's it so they go to trial. Yeah, anyway, so so The basic point is just like well, you know Keepers Sutherland ordered them to do this and you have to obey orders when you're a marine samurai and then that like

Keepers Sutherland gave no such order in fact He deliberately ordered them not to we get Cuba good in junior has a quick Comes it is like young keepers Sutherland. He was the star of Metal Gear Solid. He told me not, he told me not to do it. And Tom Cruise is like, hi, yes. Like that was David Hater. Tom Cruise is like, hi, yes. Um, you know, yes, he ordered them to do that at like four o'clock. But then I like four or five Kiefer Sutherland secretly went into Dawson and Downey's room and ordered them to do it. Actually, he did a take back.

These but no one else saw it. And that that's our whole argument. It's like in order. It's Cool. No, he didn't. Yeah. Um, it's like cool. Thanks. The base doctor is called as a witness and he's just like, yeah, it was poison. Um, and then, uh, Tom Cruise is like, what if actually you're shit? The base of the world's sweatiest and most nervous man. Yeah. Yeah. It's really funny. Yes. It's great. It's great cross examination because he's like, oh, well, could he have had an undiagnosed heart condition that just made him die from having sponge in his mouth? What if he's allergic to it? It's sponge at his mouth, kill you disease.

Oh, no. What if he had that instead of it being the sponge that kills you instantly? And the base doctor is like, no, because I staked my entire reputation on it being no, which is sort of an unforced error. The base star shows I'm, look, if gender dysphoria isn't a real diagnosis, then all the committee reports are like, you're telling me this entire data set, the American Psychiatric Committee like basis, that you're telling me that's all completely unreliable. But then we're going to have to turn all of medicine upside down, this is ridiculous. And Tom Curtis, I want it for is actually, is I not fuck off?

So at this point, they have to give Joe something to do and because she's a woman, the only thing they can think of is to have her fuck up. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, we fuck it. Oh, there we go. She objects and the judge goes, okay, overall that's late and she goes,

no, no, check this out. I'm objecting a second time harder and the judge goes, interesting, no, check this out. I'm objecting a second time harder. And the judge goes, yeah, interesting. No, still. Can I speak to your manager here on order? She tries a third one. And she's like, no, we must most

strenuously object. And the judge is like, I've made a note of this. Shhh. And it's like, yeah, yeah. So at this point, we get the argument between her and Sam about like, why do you like them, why do you dislike them and so on. We get some more cross examination.

We get like, we get the goofball marine on the stand and, and, um, cap was, yeah, I was hazed and it was good actually. Yeah, it was based, it made me good. They haze the shit out of me for dropping my rifle, never dropped my rifle after that. We get a fund about Kevin Bacon. It's just like, you know, can you tell me where it says, this is what a code red is in the marine manual. It's like, no, it doesn't say it. And so Kevin, it's the thing. Then Tom, he's like, you tell me where the mess hall is in the marine manual. He's like, oh, it's not in

there. Just follow everyone else. He's like, yeah, exactly. See, this is the thing. Right. I think this is, this is, this is civilian writing because I think Kevin Bacon's argument makes more sense to a military audience because the military, the US military in particular, exactly the type of motherfucker's that would be writing down where the mess hall is. It's going to be in something. It's going to be in the, it's going to be on your onboarding packet when you report. Yeah, exactly. And so his, his argument is, if everything that you do as a marine is like, uh, is like prescribed is written down somewhere, why would you then do this thing that no one

has written down? Um, it's like, so it would be foreign to you as a samurai. It would be against your code of Bushita. Um, and I guess that like a lot of the problems with the military at the end of days, because you could have the most well-written military just to code in the world. We don't, but it doesn't really matter if the culture is one in which you either consciously or subconsciously or actively or passively permit you

to circumvent it in certain ways, because it's like, well, it's okay if you do it because it's for the unit or it's for the lethality or this, that and the other and if you permit a culture that allows you to flout those rules in certain places, it doesn't matter if it's written down or not, you just have a cancer at the heart of the organization. Yeah. So at this point, Tom Cruise gets off work, he's like disheveled, He's got his like top button under. He's still wearing his class A's. He's like got like his tie down to his like his sternum. His got his jacket all open, big cinemasins, ding there. You can't, you can't, you're not just like off work

at the laws factory, this is anyway. But so he gets, he goes to get his magazine and Markinson appears in the back of his car. He does the classic like backseat strangle or thing of just getting in the back. Jason Borginson. That's not quite funny because he says, Jesus, how'd you do that?

And he goes, you left the door unlocked. Did you establish this earlier that Markinson, like the reason he was able to disappear was he was like, oh, he spent like the first half of his career or like doing counterintelligence. He's basically Marine Jason Borg. He'll blend in, he'll disappear, you will never fight it. You'll never see it. We also set up Tom Cruise not locking his fucking doors because when he pulls up the magazine

tell the first time the window's wide open he just gets out leaves it and I was like, imagine being able to do that. So Markincen says, yo, Keith is Sutherland is lying. He did order the code red. Colonel Drill fucking knows about it. He was never gonna be transferred off the base, the orders that you were given showing that he was a fucking fake. And yes, I'll, by the way, I'm gonna be a witness.

And there was an earlier flight. They said they were gonna get him on the next flight. There was an earlier flight that he wasn't on. If you can prove that exists, that's like the smoking gun. And Kevin Bacon comes by and is just like, yo, if you if you fucking accuse Colonel Drill of committing a crime of like ordering this illegal shit, that'll be your career if you're wrong. And if you just agree, you'll be caught marshals. Yeah, it's a crime to accuse an officer with that evidence. So you know know the stakes are rising, you know, we've been presented with a conflict an opportunity

But you know now we're in the middle of act two Tom Cruise and so we're seeing what the consequences of the opportunity might be So you know escalating to rush rush rush has a really fun line here, which is don't you dare love me with Jessup with Kendrick just because we were at the same uniform Like wearing the same uniform a really good reason to love you point wearing the uniform I was a lot of shaking my head the entire time so people know I just yeah Ross is like the good marine so they tried to shit they get a keeper Southern on the sand and they're like, did you order the curd red and he goes, nope. And keep a song. It's like, I did not because of Jesus. No. What did you? And he goes, no, so it's kind of not really working. And also they get the flight

logs from the Apple and they're like, the flight logs just say Colonel drill is right and telling the truth and it's good actually. Signed not. They're gonna have to call Mark Ensign, but Mark Ensign, he's been composing his death poem. He's sitting cross-legged on us to Tommy. He's got his fucking blockers out. She ready to go. And he commits Marine Cypacoo.

He shoots himself in a fucking mouth. He puts his fucking dick all the way to the red line. Yeah, very, very nice weapon that. On the basis that like he has dishonored himself by failing to protect. Is it a barren? right? Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right.

Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right.

Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. death poem is actually addressed to Santiago's parents, basically saying like, your son is dead because I wasn't strong enough. As I've said on the podcast before,

I once tried to put something from Beretta in my mouth as well, but said- I'm just trying to be funny. She's an old chef. I'm like, can't you wait up saying it earlier? But I was like, you know what, I'm not gonna be the first. God.

Nobody likes it. There you go, boys. All right. Listen, if this is your first time listening to the podcast, I once unsuccessfully tried to date the RS to Beretta. So this throws Tom Cruise into a tailspin, right? He gets drunk, he hangs out in the rain, he comes back to the sort of like his apartment where they've been working on it and he is like a gigantic aggressive piece of shit to both of them.

Because they get downy. They get downy on the stand and they're like, oh, did you, do you know, did Kiefer Sutherland order you to give the code red? And he's like, oh, yes, he did. And it's like, what time was this? Anyway, Kevin Bacon through some like clever maneuvering, establishes that actually downy wasn't even in the room when Kiefer Sutherland allegedly gave the sort of he heard it second hand from Dawson.

Using the really cool writing and core in method of something that we didn't know. It's like cool, man. Yeah, it's like, it would have been nice if we had the opportunity to figure that one out ourselves, but that's fine, it doesn't matter. So Demi more with her cigarette voice goes, listen, what you got to do is you get to figure that one out ourselves, but that's fine, it doesn't matter. So, so, so Demi more with her cigarette voice goes, listen, what you got to do is you got to put Jessup, Colonel Drill on the stand. And Tom Cruise is drunk and he's yelling, he's wearing an entirely like soaked overcoat the whole time. And he's like, no, fuck you. He's genuinely aggressive in a way that I don't think would keep stays like, keep the audience

as sympathy now. He does. Jim Carrey shit. Actually, it's it's remarkably Jim Carrey. It's like Joker Pilled. This is about I think the most this is the most yelling sorkin we get in this thing. This is P.K.L. Sorkin. Mm hmm. Uh, and I write down here dead dad because his dad just like the attorney general was the attorney general.

Yeah. He died before he went to law school and that's been kind of it hangs over him this whole movie because everyone keeps fucking in reminding him Hey, how about your dad dad? He was pretty great, huh? Yeah, but he said look It's it's act three of the film when you know where are our lowest point in order to get out of this You need to do something risky and also complete your character out of Tom Cruise and he's like I don't want to. We've got to accuse Colonel Drill of doing a crime and like, hope he just goes, yes, I did actually.

She leaves in the rain. He goes after her drunk driving because cinema's still getting at this point. I get sick. No, it's cool actually. You get to Pep Talk from Kevin Pollock where I get Sorkonism number six any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's like, it doesn't matter what your dad would do, it doesn't matter what I would do, it's what you would do. And so he's my favorite dad reference is earlier on during the scene where he meets Colonel Drill for the first time. Oh, by the way, this guy's dad

desegregated a few schools or something. He specifically says to Kendrick, he the way, this guy's dad desegregated a few schools or something Kendrick is like oh yeah, yeah, I'm a good school's in your part of the country you piece of shit No, how you racist? So they get they get back to the thing he soaps up and he's like I need my stemming back Right, I need my baseball bat because I'm the baseball dipshit. I need to fucking stay on the shit. Makes me a better lawyer. Yeah. And it does because as soon as he gets his bat, he's like, when I asked for the transfer order, it provoked him and it made him mad because he doesn't like being questioned. And he wants to admit that he doesn't think he did anything wrong. He

thinks he made a command decision and I can get him to say it. He also sees all of his clothes hanging in his own wardrobe and has a bit of a brain wave. Which is what about that. We don't figure out then he elaborates later. Is this something we have been given the opportunity to figure out for ourselves? Yes.

This is true. That's why I like this one so much. Colonel Julek comes in and they put him on the stand and he's like, yeah, I ordered the transfer and I also said, you know, don't touch him, don't code red in. And Tom Cruise is like, this is my favorite part of the movie because the big gotcha stuff that happens after this, that's less good. What I like is the sort of like the building cross examination of like boxing out things

where this cannot possibly have happened where you're laying little traps. Reminds me of why I wanted to be a lawyer. Yeah, same. And it's just fully like all of your orders are obeyed constantly, right? And he goes, yeah, of course, it wouldn't be like meet for another marine to question one of your orders or like ignore one of your orders or decide that it didn't apply to him. He goes, no, yeah, because he says, is there any chance you know you ordered K key for Sutherland, tell the men not to touch Santiago, any chance to keep a Sutherland went, I'm key for Sutherland, I don't need to listen to this, because I do

trading plus adverts, you know, I'm going to order it and Colonel Jessup said, no, when I give orders, they're followed absolutely. And then Tom Cruise is like, okay, if you gave an order for Santiago, not to be touched, and your orders always followed, why did he try and transfer him off the base? And Jack, because he says earlier, he's just like, I ordered Santiago to be transferred because I thought his life was in danger and Tom Cruise is like, well, brave danger and

he's like, is early of a card. And he makes like a mass amount of hay about it. He's like, well, if you wanted him to be fucking transferred, like, why would he be in danger if you ordered him not to touch it? He like calls in the stuff he has like, built up, which is like, why would he be in danger if you ordered them not to touch it? He calls in the stuff he has built up, which is like, if he was leaving in the morning, when he packed any of his clothes, where did he call anyone?

He does this really funny thing as well, which is, when he mentions the flight logs being doctored, he brings into like... Basically, two airmen from Andrew's Air Force Base where the flights with land, which sort of inferring that like, oh, after I'm done with you, I'm gonna get these guys on and they're going to fucking, they're going to have your number, buddy. Yeah, it's really, really funny. He raffles Jack Nicholson, he like goes for it. And like Jack looks, since really, really upset.

Cruz is deliberately rude to him and just respects him. We get the you can't handle the truth. And then he gives the thing about the you can't handle the truth. And then it gives the thing. There's this thing about the you can't handle the truth, which is he gives the big speech, which is you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall. I provide the freedom and the security that allows you to like, smar-mat me.

And this is like, explicitly not sympathetic now. Now that we're not hearing it from Demi Moore. But. But Colonel Drill's basically going, there's actually zero difference between good and bad things you in the style. You're looking more like. And so he pushes him and he asks him the question, did you order the code red? But before that, because he's like arguing with him, because he's shouting at him, the judge says, I will hold you in contempt. And before a second before he asks him, did you order the code red? The judge says, you are in contempt. Now, you're in contempt, of course. Not only does Colonel Drill not have to answer the question,

did you order the code red? But whether he chooses to answer it or not, his answer is inadmissible. This is a best-of-miss trial, but it doesn't matter because it's a legal confection, it's fiction, but it bothered me, right? He says, did you order any, and he says, you got down right, I did. The judge says, you don't have to answer that, and then Colonel Drill responds, I'm about to win the Brian Cox Memorial Award in the television. Yes, yes. It was a top secret hazing ritual. And he admits to it, uh, thus incriminating himself. And the thing is right, again, legally, this bothers me.

This doesn't make this, this like, uh, Tom Cruise's clients, not guilty of murder. It just doesn't. That there is no, just because they were ordered to do it, it just makes him guilty of murder as well, conspiracy murder. It just doesn't. There is no, just because they were ordered to do it, it just makes him guilty of murder as well, conspiracy murder. It doesn't, but it doesn't be good. I'll be guilty, but like it doesn't mean those guys are something off the hook. Yeah. And so what we get is like a sort of a readily comprehensible to the layman, jury verdict, which is the jury, the jury come back, they find the two Marines,

not guilty of murder and conspiracy murder, but they do find them guilty of conduct unbecoming, which you can't charge an enlisted Marine with because it's conduct unbecoming and office. Any officer, thank you. It's not conduct unbecoming of a Marine, it's. Yeah. Just this is this erud's again, and again, I love a lot of things about Aaron Sorkin. I'm being hard on him because there's a lot of things I love about him,

but he's definitely the type of creator who cares more about vibes and if whether or not something feels like it's coming off good versus whether or not it's actually right or possible or correct in any way. What's interesting is that Ross arrests Colonel Drill, which he doesn't have the authority to do. He's a lawyer. There are MPs there, but he arrests him. Yeah, well, because he needs to complete his character. Yeah, and then I'm writing fiction because it's a movie we're watching really. Yeah, I know. But you will never get me to not be autistic.

I understand a special law, like thing, especially law and military. I'm not ex-girlfriend. Yeah, this is not a bad knit for me. Yeah, my notes just say Alice. So, kind of, that's arrested. Dawson and Dali get dishonorably discharged. And then... Yeah, this is another thing, right?

I don't think that Aaron Sorkin knows what a dishonorable discharge is, right? I think it's something the movie presents as, this is bad because it offends the Marines sort of like sense of honor, right? But it it's something the movie presents as this is bad because it offends the marine sort of like sense of honor, right? But it's not so bad now. And in fact, Tom Cruz gets his sort of arc completed when he says to Downey, you don't need to wear a patch on your arm to have honor. And he gets like a salute return because he's not. Daly Salute, Simmons says the theme of the film, which is lawyers are like troops.

Yeah, straight into your troops. Yeah. Just to just to sort of like through a bit of cold water on this, this honorable discharge, you are retrospectively not a veteran. You don't get VA healthcare, you don't get the GI bill. It's like analogous to like a felony conviction. Yeah, you're a house. This is still really bad. And the movie can't decide whether that's good or not.

It can't decide whether murdering a guy in a hazing ritual and then feeling bad about it is like, forgivably bad or not, and where the responsibility comes down on the side of yes it is. I think the movie the responsibility is down on the side of yes it is. I think the movie very strongly comes down on the side of that. Downing even actually kind of says that and he kind of says something that I agree with and I'm kind of like, yeah, you should have thought about that. Because I'm forgetting the name of the other guy, Private Twink. You're also the two guys.

Dawson is the massive guy. Yeah, Dawson is the one who says basically, because other guys having a hard time understanding why this is happening. And it's just like, well, we were supposed to, we got punished because we were supposed to look out for people like Willie. We weren't supposed to be hazing and torturing

and whatever then we were supposed to be looking out and protecting people like that. And it's like, yeah, should have thought of that. Earlier, before literally all of this, you fucking dipshit. I think it's definitely, when you're on trial for murdering someone, a lot of the time you're gonna be thinking things like I shouldn't have done that.

It's not really a potheosis to your character. I never thought that. You still killed someone. Well, I know we've heard your thoughts about this in Saloon, revenge is fine, it's good, it's cool. But yeah, I thought it was really good when Dawson looked directly down the barrel of the lens and said in a liberal democracy, the military had to be commended, but it must be under the democratic command of the people of the rule of law.

I was like, oh, okay. Yeah, it's sort of, it's very, it's very, you sort of warmed over Frank Capro. It's liberal, it's like, this, okay, so let's fucking do an analysis soon before we go on this. Yes, please let's fucking do the analysis soon before we go on Yes, please let's do this. It's like clear and present danger because it's a movie about liberalism And it's like yes to the rule of law yes to democracy like lawyers are the real troops the troops are good But also like lawyers are better because you know, it's about obeying the rules And I'm like, okay on the one hand like you know, we live in in 2023. Well, like liberalism is collapsing because it's a dying ideology We all know this.

But also... The reason why I stopped wanting to be a lawyer. Yeah, you know, at the same time, I understand why movies like this are popular or why they were popular. I am saddened that they don't make movies that really defend liberalism anymore, or at least the values of it. It's a shame that this kind of thing isn't made anymore. It's kind of a lost art, and that's why I chose this, because I think it's an artifact of a very different culture that existed not that long ago. I agree with you, and I wish not only that. They would at least try and make movies like this that defend or advocate for something else,

even if liberalism is a dying algae,, just something that encouraged like, hey, maybe we can aspire to something better than just either saying everything is fine while everything's on fire around us or saying actually everything is shit and it's going to be shit forever. Just give me something. I think they do make movies that advocate for something. I just think that when it's becoming increasingly fascist, like I think look at like, I think that Jason Bourne is advocating for something that isn't fascism, like advocating for something, I just think that it's becoming increasingly fascist. Like, I think, look at, like, I think that Jason Bourne's is advocating for something that isn't fascism,

like advocating for something just like that has hope and the idea that the world can be better in a way that's not fascistic. Somebody out there needs to make a YouTube video essay about the evolution of Jack Ryan as a character over the entire Jack Ryan series. I'm not gonna make it because it's not on brand, but like, you know, write it and I'll like retweet it or something. Yeah Sorry, I won't I won't even watch it

Cannot promise that at all. I won't but make it a little bit good for your career I feel similarly to the West Wing right and the West Wing occasionally managed to get me sometimes and sometimes watching Aaron Sorkin I would feel myself be like, oh man, maybe I am an American patriot, that's fucking weird considering I've only been there once. It's like, in order to, there's so little of this kind of like idealistic, optimistic nationalism that even a crum of it

is like potentially quite powerful. And I think this movie is like, probably as good as Sorkin gets. I think it's legally incoherent, morally naive, profoundly misogynistic. However, yeah, I mean, I don't think it would be still compelling. Yeah, I can tell you enjoyed watching it. It can help me though. Probably like you put like a, don't scumbunus movies.

Yeah, you probably, yeah, what it's gonna be based on. Yeah, absolutely. You put a soft focus of an American national monument and you play some mournful strings over the back of it. I'm standing up and I'm saluting from my game. Yeah, I mean, they show up the fucking E.O. Gima shit, four or five times. It's not gonna become a joke by the end.

Contrast that to the moment in no time to die when Ray Fine says, I believe in in this. Something, in this. Like, gestures around at South Bank and it's like, you believe in fucking what? Like, what? We don't make movies like this in this country because we don't have fucking,

what do we have like, shit? We don't have anything, man. Like, that's, like, you can make it if it's set in World War II, but other than that, it's like, no, we're fucking done. I just can't wait. And then we don't make it anymore in this country, just because everyone's just kinda like, I don't know, not to the degree of Britain,

but just like, I don't know, this post 9-11, just everything is gray, nothing can be good and hopeful. And I know movies like this and the West Wing, these Sork and S things, they remind me where I came from and that I used to be a very sort of milk toast progressive liberal and even though my politics have changed,

they sort of remind me of so, I mean, I know there are aspects of this that I think I will never totally get out of my system even as my politics have changed. I mean, I'm the guy who goes on the internet and says, hey, even if you elect president leftist and get a DSA, super majority in Congress, you'll probably still need a military, but like for different reasons. And I know this is, I think it, I, this is part of why this still appeals to me in a way, even if I can rip it

apart in a million different nitpicky ways. I think we should make movies of this again. I'd be interested to see someone try and make like a pro liberalism movie now, just even if it fails. I think it'll fail in an interesting way. You know, the Gandhi joke about like Western civilization or something. They could be a good idea. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. That's how I feel about like a liberal rules based international order. It's like, you know, great, when do we start? Like, it's a nice, it's a nice,

comforting idea and it's very appealing and it's, it's something that, for me at least, didn't survive contact with even the sort of attenuated version of reality you get in the second year of law school. But it's a nice idea, it's a beautiful idea to be like, man, everyone should be subject to the law and it should be equal and there should be sort of like a... Even Captain America, the character. Captain America, who is a character in movies currently being made does not act in a way that defends these values at all. In fact, he's starkly like apolitical.

Yeah, it's it's great. We've sort of retreated from the far-conerate stories. Yeah, no. Yeah, well, that was that was a few good men. And I think we've all learned is the about sort of the current geopolitical settlement is that truly we cannot handle the truth. Big rounds of applause. Hey, yeah, we're all lips now. We're all voting, Kirsta, the strengthening to the institutions. That's right. That's right. I do have a statement to enter into the record for please so it please the court Does a warning to the listener that if you go into this movie expecting in any capacity for John Goodman to appear You are going to be sorely disappointed. I know it's called a few good men

But he does not appear Renewously object. This is the lack of John Goodman. Oh, yes, oh, yes, oh, okay Oh, yes, you're right. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes.

Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes.

Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes.

Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. national relations and defense stuff, you can find me at at war underscore takes on the twitter.com and if you just want to see me ship post post dumb furry stuff, you can find me at at commoto dad and I just wanted to say to the three you thank you very much for having me on. This is one of the few podcasts where I can say I've been listening since the first episode and I loved it all and I was very flattered and humbled and extremely nervous you asked me. I don't know it's a

pleasure that your reward is every time we do a sort of military courtroom trial movie, we will get you back on for this. You have a tight cast. I hope you like the movie, Hearts War. You have a guy at Sigmund, but it's point I'll definitely come back and I say you have to do another movie would involves yelling and Tom Cruise and Navy uniforms. You have to do Top of Gun at some point. Oh my God. We do have to to do top again at some point. Oh my god.

We do have to do top again at some point. Alright, well that's on the docket now and the meantime, called as a journey, we'll take a one week recess and then reconvene to do the helicopter spies. Thank you. We'll see you soon. Thank you for listening to yet another episode of Kill James Bond. Out was a fun one I always like to get to do some analytical ones in between the ridiculous ones.

It's nice to get to do more serious bonus episodes while the mainline series is so inherently ridiculous. We may swap forms soon to a more serious mainline series in ridiculous bonuses, but it's nice to have the mixed speaking of ridiculous mainline episodes next week on the free feed. The helicopter spies. When nearing... ee... Oh God, we're not even nearing the end of Uncle. Oh God, there are weeks left. Okay, well, um, in that case.

Oh god, they're all weeks left. Okay, well, in that case. Pffft. Apparently, you don't have to give us any money in order to continue getting all of these benefits, but this is the final month starting on the first of March. You will have to pay for these again, because it's the winter of content, not the forever of content. But, even though you don't have to pay for it right now, some people still choose to, and I would be remiss if I did not read out the names of our 15 pounds of both patrons, and those

are. Candy Fox, Amanda Comet, Frey, Alicious, Starvo Lyra, Jack Holmes, Mike Burg, Thomas Oberhardt, Nick Boris, Kentucky Fried, Comet, Yarrick, Neta Mori, Cohen Enright, Harriet DeCoc. Labour Dylenderest, Commissar Ozymandius, A of Them's, Library Hitman, Beefcrime, Jack Drummond, Jonathan Good is Callan Bernie, Max Gamer, Hart J. Martin Del, Kit Divine, Hell, Lysame, Jonathan Seagull, Harrison Fuller, Big to the Goth Girl, Mothman, Pop O, George Rohack, Trip, Lara, Alex, Violet Cyber, up oh George Rohack, Trip. Flora. Alex. Violet Cybra, Liz and Ash in Florida, a trans robot, Men's Room Louie.

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