Summary9 min read

"How Did This Get Made?" – Episode: The Big Hit

Hosts: Paul Scheer, June Diane Raphael, Jason Mantzoukas
Release Date: May 8, 2026
Movie Discussed: The Big Hit (1998)

Episode Overview

This episode dives into The Big Hit, a 1998 action comedy starring Mark Wahlberg as a mild-mannered hitman caught between crime, romance, and the expectations of everyone in his life. The hosts reflect on the movie as both a bizarre time capsule of late-90s film culture and a prime example of misguided genre mashup—where action, farce, and uncomfortable romance co-exist (sometimes awkwardly). The conversation is brimming with personal anecdotes, 90s nostalgia, and the trio’s trademark irreverence.

Key Discussion Points & Segments

1. Initial Impressions & the 1998 Context

[02:15] Paul sets up the plot: “Mark Wahlberg plays a mild mannered hitman... a people pleaser to a fault... He will never say no to anyone.”
[04:12] June: “Thank God, because a version of the movies that we watch that are true Dog shit can really color the whole day… I was like, okay, this is fine... I’m not, I don’t feel as though my day was ruined by this.”
[04:44] Jason: “If I could say, it did ruin my day... To watch it... these were formative years for me.”
[07:15] Paul on the late 90s: “…this is the year where the Clinton Lewinsky scandal is going on... Sex in the City premieres, Dawson Creek premieres… Furbies are like the number one toy.”
[08:06] Film context: Other films from 1998 cited include "Can’t Hardly Wait," "Very Bad Things," "54," "Half Baked."

2. Tone, Genre Mashup & Sketchy Content

[06:12] Paul on the main love interest: “...the original intention was for her to be in high school to... pair up with like much more of like a Japanese anime… But they felt like that wouldn’t actually play. So it is college, even though it’s a college that requires uniforms.”
[06:51] June: “Casual relationship to all of the sketchy, like everything that is hard edged. Kidnapping, murder, statutory rape—all of these things. This movie rounds all those edges away and tries to be like, isn’t this funny? Isn’t this a farce?”
[09:05] Paul: “It’s like a copy of a copy of a copy. It doesn’t feel earned like those other movies do…”

3. Plot Mechanics & Absurdities

[09:55] The logistics of body disposal: “...he brings it to his girlfriend’s house, and I don’t know what he’s... emptying the garbage bags in the bathtub.”
[10:56] Paul & June talk hitman economics: “He made $25,000 for that thing where they blew up a building."
[11:20] June on ridiculous romantic subplot: “Were you more upset when his girlfriend came in and they started making out and she accidentally put her toe in the human body trash bag and it went squish?”

4. Characterization & Odd Motivations

[14:22] Paul: “Melvin Smiley. His name kind of gives you a little hint about what kind of person he is...”
[15:33] June sarcastically: “…one of the very few men who is in multiple relationships against his will because he’s simply too much of a people pleaser. And what a rarity. Wow.”
[16:11] June: “Lou Diamond Phillips and Anthony Sabato Jr are like... They don’t even help him. They sit outside the firefight drinking espresso...”

5. Performances & Accents

[17:13] Paul: “I feel like for a couple days, [the cast] really committed to a hard accent... Is this racist or is this anti Semitic?”
[18:24] Jason on Elliot Gould: “I love this actor... It was very tough to see him have to do this.”

6. Farcical Set Pieces & 90s Aesthetic

[21:07] June: “I think that was so great to show us... Movies almost never show us men’s dick management.”
[25:25] Paul: “This movie is about asses and dicks. We see a lot of male ass in this movie.”
[25:32] June: “His training montage is literally on a pommel horse. And I was like, this is going to be instrumental to the movie.” (It isn't.)

Notable Exchange—Male Locker Room Scene:

[26:14] Jason: “The locker room scene to me was really... This is where the movie ruined my day when one of the guys... spends the whole movie... talking about jerking off since he was 10. Yeah, and that was also... something you used to hear in movies all the time...”

7. Plot Logic & Stunts

[29:23] The initial hit: “First hit, they blow up a fucking building. But they also come in to kill a guy... human trafficker, you know, trying to buy three women for $50,000 each.”
[31:01] June on action moves: “He does shooting while doing what is unquestionably breakdancing moves.”
[34:11] Paul: “When they say, let’s synchronize our watches, they just all put their watches together, like... They don’t look at the time.”

8. Team Dynamics & Vanishing Characters

[35:17] Jason: “Antonio Sabato Jr. just disappears for the rest of the movie, truly, we don’t see him at all... He was my favorite one.”
[36:02] June: “It makes no sense. I agree. Because what should happen is they should be hunting down every member of the team until they get to Mark Wahlberg…”

9. The (Convoluted) Kidnapping Plot

[37:01] Jason: “Well, okay, let me ask... Who arranged her kidnapping?”
[38:25] June: “I don’t mind that idea at all. I don’t think that’s what the movie’s trying to do.”

10. Comic Setpieces & Ska

[41:54] June: “...now Christina Applegate’s parents have arrived, the kidnapped victim has arrived, and bags full of body parts... The next 15 minutes of the movie are just a farce where Mark Wahlberg is Inspector Clouseau trying to keep everything in order.”
[42:00] Paul: “Well, Jason, you didn’t say my favorite part of that, which was set to ska music. So it’s a farce set to, I think, Real Big Fish.”

Hilarious Digression—Double-Entrance Bathroom

[42:22-45:34] The hosts spiral into a comedic discussion of bathrooms with two entrances, leading to personal stories of traumatic public restroom encounters.

11. Realism (or Lack Thereof)

[49:11] June on body disposal: "If I'm going to the length of chopping up a body, I'm not putting it in white kitchen bags."
[51:57] Jason challenges the “she’s in college” claim: “When did they say that, Paul? I do need to know. When did they say that? Yeah, I never heard that.”

12. “Romance” & Cooking Eroticism

[52:37] June: “I firmly believe that when two people make a kosher dinner together, they cannot help but fall in love.”
[53:26] June and Paul: The raw chicken scene is described as having the “erotic charge as the potter’s wheel in Ghost,” but is “dangerous” and “uncomfortable.”

13. Therapy Would Fix Everything

[57:36] June: “None of the action of the movie would be necessary if a man could admit he would have benefit from regular therapy.”

14. Uncomfortable Age Dynamics

[60:44] June: “The movie wants her to be a uniform high school girl. And it also wants you, the audience, to be invested in their love story... To have both be true means that he is a reprehensible human being.”

15. The Video Store Finale

[63:00] Paul beams: “I fucking loved it. I loved it... Whoever that guy was, like, they’re shooting him like with a fisheye lens...”
[64:46] June: “This is a part of our lives that was so ubiquitous... and it’s now just gone.”
[65:55] Paul reminisces: “...when I was working in the video store, there was no email. So you couldn't just like, pop an email or shoot a text. You did have to make that physical phone call, and we were chasing down a lot of new releases...”

16. Lou Diamond Phillips Tribute

[68:00] Paul: "I do need to talk about Lou Diamond Phillips... this character, like, I've never seen him in a way so free... he is wearing for the majority of the film something that looks like... a Vegas showgirl would wear... All these dudes are just buff as fuck."

17. Second Opinions (Fan Reviews)

[77:35] Notable 5-star Amazon reviews are read aloud, including:
- Reid VIP Brown: “Love Marky Mark doing breakdancing as he saves the day... Buy this and remember the late 90s as they were the best time for this country and for hip hop...”
- LJ: “This has to be the most fun and fatal frolic any group of hitmen could have in the course of a two hour movie... Mark is cute, Lou is crazy, Bo Keem's got soul and Antonio is so fine. Pass me the hot buttered popcorn. Five stars.”

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On 90s Tone:
June: “The movie wants to be a comedic farce... but everything’s tossed off with, like, glib, quippy jokes.” [08:17]
On Gendered Double-Standards:
Paul: “I think we need more movies that show us men’s dick management.” [21:18]
On Character Motivation:
June (sarcastic): “It profiles one of the very few men who is in multiple relationships against his will because he’s simply too much of a people pleaser.” [15:33]
On Unanswered Plot Questions:
Jason: “He does shooting while doing what is unquestionably breakdancing moves.” [31:01]
On Uncomfortable Erotic Cooking Scenes:
June: “The raw chicken that they’re manipulating with their hands was treated with the same erotic charge as the potter’s wheel in Ghost.” [53:03]
On Unapologetic Late-90s Style:
Paul: “This movie has the energy of rejected auditions from Mountain Dew commercials.” [58:56]
On the Video Store Nostalgia:
June: “...the idea that... he’s juggling all these life, you know, ending level catastrophic events while also having to constantly field calls from an increasingly annoyed video store clerk...” [64:04]

Additional Timestamps

[05:57] The “statutory rape” joke.
[11:43] Human body parts in the bathroom scene.
[36:02] Team dynamics and plotting confusion.
[40:19] Parody of Asian billionaire and gold-plated movie props.
[42:22–45:34] Double-entrance bathroom discussion and personal stories.
[63:00] The climactic video store shootout and overdue tape subplot.
[68:00] Lou Diamond Phillips wardrobe and performance.
[77:35] Second Opinions segment—Amazon reviews.

Overall Takeaways & Tone

The hosts delight in the film’s absurdities, especially the over-the-top set pieces, nonsensical plot turns, and misplaced attempts at both farce and romance. The episode is filled with callbacks to personal experiences (especially video store employment), classic HDTGM humor, and sharp observations on both film craft and 90s culture.

Despite lampooning The Big Hit mercilessly, the trio find some charm in its sheer weirdness and energetically baffling choices. They salute Lou Diamond Phillips for his bravura performance, enjoy the throwback video store finale, and recall—both fondly and with horror—the pre-streaming era.

For Listeners New to This Episode

If you want a spirited breakdown of why The Big Hit is a definitive "good-bad" movie—wildly entertaining, problematically dated, and joyously nonsensical—this episode delivers, punctuated by the hosts’ rapport, comic digressions, and a deep well of 90s pop culture knowledge. If you missed the episode, rest assured: the bonkers spirit of the movie and the HDTGM team’s signature comedic dissection are in full force here.

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Transcript577 lines

[00:00]
Paul Scheer
In a food system this big, Feeding America races to make sure good food reaches neighbors facing hunger. That's why they work in real time, using technology to connect food to people fast. Together with supporters like you, they partner with local organizations to rescue food quickly, safely, and at scale so it reaches a home while it still can. Hunger doesn't wait. Food rescue can't wait either. I love Feeding America so much. If you don't know that much about them, I implore you to look them up. And you know what? You can help out right now. You can give now to help rescue good food for neighbors@feedingamerica.org RescueFood Give now to help rescue good food for neighbors@feedingamerica.org RescueFood Let me tell you something, people. When you have a bad hire at your job, it wrecks everything, okay? It costs you time, it costs you money, it costs you momentum. And when you're a small business, you. You can't afford that. You need a good hire, and you need it right away. But finding great talent isn't easy. So that's where LinkedIn's new hiring pro can screen candidates for you. So instead of sorting through applicants, you spend time talking to the right ones. Get started by posting your job for free@LinkedIn.com valuable terms and conditions apply.
[01:24]
Jason Mantzoukas
Tech changed the world, but so did the bubonic plague.
[01:27]
June Diane Raphael
Sundays exclusively on AMC and amc. The highly anticipated new drama series, the
[01:32]
Paul Scheer
Audacity Genius is about being unhinged enough
[01:34]
June Diane Raphael
to do something outrageous. The show that Mashable says tears Silicon
[01:38]
Jason Mantzoukas
Valley a new one, people who have no integrity. Did you leak the acquisition, Ribeye?
[01:42]
June Diane Raphael
No. Maybe from one of the minds behind Succession and Better Call Saul. We want to save the world or control it?
[01:48]
Paul Scheer
Most of us go Dr. Evil. The audacity.
[01:50]
June Diane Raphael
All new Sundays exclusively on AMC and amc.
[01:54]
Paul Scheer
Pour some milk all over yourself because we're about to bust some caps. We saw the big hit, so you know what that means.
[02:16]
June Diane Raphael
Perhaps we'll find the answer to the
[02:18]
Paul Scheer
question, how did this get made? Hello, people of Earth, and welcome to how did this Get Made? I am Paul Scheer. Today we are Talking about the 1998 classic the Big Hit, where Mark Wahlberg plays a mild mannered hitman who works for Avery Brooks. You might know him as Hawk from Spencer for Hire or Cisco from Deep Space Nine. He's this very powerful crime boss and Melvin is a people pleaser to a fault, actually. He will never say no to anyone. Not his fiance or his girlfriend, who he is supporting. And when his crew Run by Lou Diamond Phillips. Bo Keem Woodbine. And Antonio Sabato Jr. Talks him into kidnapping for some quick cash. It seems simple enough. However, the catch is that the girl that they kidnap is the daughter of a wealthy businessman, but also the girl's godfather is their own boss. So they've essentially kidnapped their employer's goddaughter without knowing it. Now, everything spirals from here. Mark Wahlberg is on the run for kidnapping he didn't even conceive. And Lou Diamond Phillips is trying to place the blame on him, all while his girlfriend's parents are in town. And we'll get into it all, ladies and gentlemen.
[03:35]
June Diane Raphael
And please don't forget that he's also busily falling in love.
[03:40]
Paul Scheer
Oh, right. This is a romance.
[03:41]
June Diane Raphael
That. This is a romance.
[03:44]
Paul Scheer
Let me introduce my co host, please welcome Jason Van Zukas and June Diane Rayfield.
[03:51]
June Diane Raphael
Wow.
[03:51]
Paul Scheer
Wow, you two. Wow.
[03:55]
June Diane Raphael
Every once in a while we, you know, we're recording, you know, mid morning and so we will be, we will have an earlier recording. And so I will watch one of these movies at like 8am oh, wow. And I know you guys, June does that even earlier still.
[04:10]
Jason Mantzoukas
Top of the morning. Yeah.
[04:12]
June Diane Raphael
But to watch this movie, thank God, because a version of the movies that we watch that are true, Dog shit can really color the whole day, you know, and this was like, I was like, okay, this is fine. This is, I have plenty to say about it. Sure. But I, I, I'm not, I don't feel as though my day was ruined by this.
[04:34]
Paul Scheer
No, it's not a, it's not a wrecker of days. But what I will say is it's a time capsule of a moment that I would like to erase from my memory. Right.
[04:44]
Jason Mantzoukas
This is where it gets. Yeah. If I could say it did ruin my day. And I watched it yesterday in the afternoon and it did ruin my day. And I thought this came out in 1998, like I was 18 years old. There's formative, these were formative years for me.
[05:01]
Paul Scheer
It's a weird moment.
[05:02]
Jason Mantzoukas
So to watch it. Yeah. And that's why, you know what, I know that a lot of people can get really down on the moment of time we're in. And I don't for not one second mean to minimize what we're going through collectively as a, as a, you know, region, as a culture, as a community. Like, these are serious times with serious things happening.
[05:27]
June Diane Raphael
Yeah.
[05:28]
Jason Mantzoukas
And, and, and, but all this, you
[05:30]
June Diane Raphael
can hold two truths at the same time.
[05:32]
Jason Mantzoukas
Yes. If we could expand, if we could expand our sort of points of view and remember that. Yeah. There was a time in history where, you know, babies didn't live. Most babies didn't live past two. And there was a time in history where this movie was written, made, and, you know, on screens for people to see.
[05:57]
June Diane Raphael
And not only that, but it was a movie. Go ahead. I'm sorry, Go ahead.
[06:00]
Jason Mantzoukas
No, no. Again you say rom com and I say statutory rape. So I. June.
[06:06]
Paul Scheer
She's in college.
[06:08]
June Diane Raphael
Is she in college?
[06:09]
Paul Scheer
Is she?
[06:10]
June Diane Raphael
She's wearing a high school uniform.
[06:11]
Jason Mantzoukas
Why is she in a uniform?
[06:13]
Paul Scheer
Well, the original intention was for her to be in high school to kind of pair up with like much more of like a Japanese anime kind of character, of like a young girl hero. But they felt like that wouldn't actually play. So it is college, even though it's a college that requires uniforms.
[06:29]
June Diane Raphael
I mean, that's not a rural college that requires uniforms. I was like, this is. That makes no sense.
[06:38]
Jason Mantzoukas
Well, it just doesn't exist. She's a high school student. She's played as a high school student. Her friends seem like high school students. I mean, maybe the actual school they said was college, but that's not what they're presenting to us.
[06:52]
June Diane Raphael
Casual relationship to all of the sketchy, like everything that is hard edged. Kidnapping, murder, statutory rape, all of these things. This movie rounds all of those edges away and tries to be like, isn't this funny? Isn't this a farce? And you're like, no, well, this is the thing.
[07:15]
Paul Scheer
And I very rarely do this, but when I was watching it, there was a moment in me looking at the fonts and hearing the music and I was like, what was going on in this year? Because it does seem odd. And if you look at 97, like 97's kind of normal. But 98 goes off the rails and 99 is still like in that zone. But this is what's happening here. This is the year where, you know, the Clinton Lewinsky scandal is going on. NSYNC and Britney Spears are like exploding. TRL is like a must see show. Sex in the City premieres, Dawson Creek premieres, Will and Grace comes on. IMAX are first release. Like the candy ones and Furbies are like the number one toy.
[08:00]
June Diane Raphael
And what do you have by any chance? I'm curious, like, what other movies?
[08:04]
Paul Scheer
Well, this is what I got right here.
[08:06]
June Diane Raphael
Thank you. Thank you.
[08:07]
Paul Scheer
Can't hardly wait. Very bad things. Sour Grapes 54, that movie about Studio 54, half baked basketball, you know, so this is.
[08:18]
June Diane Raphael
I feel like it's an era cuz I saw also that John Woo's a producer on this. So it's got like that big, huge, stylized action stuff. But it also is a place. It's a time when there was a real glib attitude towards murder. You know, like a real. Like the people that are being murdered either deserve it or like when they blow up the. The. When they blow up the entire floor of the hotel or the apartment building, whatever it is, or for that matter, the video store. They completely blow up these places that I'm like dozens, if not hundreds of people. Collateral damage must be dying throughout this movie. The number of casualties has to be enormous. But we're meant to. But everything's tossed off with, like, glib quippy jokes.
[09:06]
Paul Scheer
Well, I think this is like, kind of what's going on in the culture in a sense where we've had great success with movies like face off in 97. Right. And gross Point Blank and even Something About Mary. And these are kind of like the rip off. It's like a copy of a copy of a copy. It doesn't feel earned like those other movies do. But you can tell that people are like, this is what people want. They want it raw. They want it this way. And so much so that the movie opens with, you know, with Mark Wahlberg picking up garbage bags full of a human. And he's then bringing it to his. A second house, not his main house. Cause he has a girlfriend house and he has a fiance house. He brings it to his girlfriend's house, and I don't know what he's. He's emptying the garbage bags in the bathtub.
[09:55]
June Diane Raphael
Yeah.
[09:56]
Paul Scheer
And he's also wearing an apron, but, like, not like a butcher apron. He's wearing like a. I'm making cookies.
[10:04]
June Diane Raphael
Well, I feel like the movie wants to do a. These are the hitmen that you might recognize from, you know, mafia movies or murder movies. But these guys, they live in the suburbs. They're doing suburban living, which is fine.
[10:19]
Jason Mantzoukas
But what was his plan with those body parts?
[10:23]
June Diane Raphael
I assumed he was going to put, like, lie in there and melt them away or something like that.
[10:28]
Paul Scheer
Well, that's what I thought, too. But then he started bringing.
[10:30]
Jason Mantzoukas
Melt an entire body away.
[10:32]
June Diane Raphael
You got to chop it up.
[10:33]
Jason Mantzoukas
You got to chop it up.
[10:35]
Paul Scheer
It looks like it was chopped up. It was multiple bags. It was. Well, he definitely was in different bags. But then he seemed like he was bringing some stuff into the shower.
[10:42]
Jason Mantzoukas
And that's what I'm saying. The plan for these body parts was just utterly baffling.
[10:48]
June Diane Raphael
Well, okay.
[10:49]
Jason Mantzoukas
Same with the plan for the kidnapping, it's like, fully agree if these are. If they're making hundreds of thousands of dollars. Okay.
[10:56]
Paul Scheer
Seems like they're not making that much. Like he made $25,000 for that thing where they blew up a building. 25,000.
[11:03]
Jason Mantzoukas
I think that was just. The bonus was.
[11:05]
Paul Scheer
Okay, got it. Okay.
[11:06]
June Diane Raphael
The bonus.
[11:07]
Paul Scheer
Yes. Okay.
[11:07]
Jason Mantzoukas
I mean, listen, I think the main problem. I had so many problems. I was really upset by that hand overhead by this. I just wasn't in the right place for it.
[11:21]
June Diane Raphael
Were you more upset when his girlfriend came in and they started making out and she accidentally put her toe in the human body trash bag and it went squish. Oh, but by the way, she doesn't get, like, crazy or angry. She knows it's a human body and she says he's cute. Who is that? The head in the bag, which is that.
[11:43]
Jason Mantzoukas
By the way. What a. Is that a compliment? And is that a threesome? Is it a threesome?
[11:48]
June Diane Raphael
I'll say.
[11:48]
Paul Scheer
Yes.
[11:49]
Jason Mantzoukas
What a compliment.
[11:50]
June Diane Raphael
She's like, let's keep going, but I'm going to dip my toes in and out of this. This dead guy's mouth. What's up?
[11:57]
Paul Scheer
Okay, again. Can we just. This is the moment that I really took, like, a beat to wrestle with. Can you imagine the smell in that bathroom? You have a. Like a still bleeding out man in.
[12:11]
Jason Mantzoukas
Like, the smell would be the smells right away. I think that's when decomp starts.
[12:16]
Paul Scheer
Oh, so you think there's no smell? You don't think that the hot garbage bags that have been sitting in the back of one person's trunk, then going to another person's trunk and then being dumped out like.
[12:27]
June Diane Raphael
Like we say hot and we don't know what the temp is.
[12:30]
Paul Scheer
Okay.
[12:31]
June Diane Raphael
We never know what the Tempest.
[12:33]
Paul Scheer
Barely wearing shirts in this movie. No, they never wear shirts. So I'm assuming it's very.
[12:37]
June Diane Raphael
Wear shirts. It is a zero shirts movie.
[12:40]
Jason Mantzoukas
So much so that that. By the way, when his girlfriend comes upstairs, comes into that apartment, which I guess is his apartment, her apartment, who knows? She's wearing a dress that's just inexplicably opened.
[12:53]
Paul Scheer
Oh, yeah.
[12:53]
Jason Mantzoukas
To her bra. There's no. It's like you can't. It feels like once you go into a home there, you can't have your shirt buttons.
[12:59]
Paul Scheer
You got it? You got to have got to be
[13:01]
Jason Mantzoukas
in a certain state of disrobe. I will say I. I wasn't caught up on the smell of that bathroom. I was just caught up in the parts of it all and the bags of it all. And also the why of it all.
[13:14]
Paul Scheer
Okay, well, then maybe I am more of a smell person. But I will say the opening moment when we meet Mark Wahlberg, he does greet, you know, the. The person giving him the bags. He goes, oh, who is this big Johnny? And he go. He sniffs. It goes, oof. Now, also, why would you ever sniff a. Like, why would you sniff a dead body?
[13:34]
Jason Mantzoukas
You know, maybe to identify.
[13:36]
June Diane Raphael
Maybe to identify it. He's a dog. His cologne or, you know, something like that.
[13:41]
Paul Scheer
It seems like his head isn't very. Like, if he. If we're saying that this is an attractive man, we can see that it's clearly this person goes, oof, Oof. I mean, that's. And that's like. And I think you were supposed to be like, ah, it's an. Oh, yeah. Being a hitman isn't as glamorous as you think it. Like, it's like, I don't think anyone has been thinking that it's glamorous.
[13:59]
Jason Mantzoukas
Right.
[14:00]
Paul Scheer
Yeah.
[14:00]
June Diane Raphael
And he's just to go back to.
[14:02]
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh, man. Sorry, Jason. But just to go back. It's so light. And to go back to the premise of it all, the why the sort of, like, what is it? What are we following here? You know, the character. The character of Melvin Smiley, of course.
[14:23]
Paul Scheer
Melvin Smiley. It's just his name kind of gives you a little hint about what kind of person he is.
[14:27]
Jason Mantzoukas
But, boy, is it hard to root for him because.
[14:31]
Paul Scheer
Is it just because he has red hair, June?
[14:34]
Jason Mantzoukas
No. And in fact, like, I didn't think he had red hair until certain shots.
[14:38]
Paul Scheer
Right? Certain shots. Yeah. There.
[14:40]
Jason Mantzoukas
Certain shots. He does have red hair. He's the hair. We know.
[14:43]
Paul Scheer
It's certain shots. There are moments where, like, did you go to David Caruso's trailer and grab his wig? Like, because it is Caruso. NYPD Blue hair. And I'm like, oh, wow, I didn't notice that. And it's weird for me to notice that your hair has changed color mid movie.
[14:58]
Jason Mantzoukas
Mid movie. But the other thing is, like, he. It's so hard to sympathize with this man who is cheating on his fiance with another woman. And the reason we are told that, like, the why of that is because he can't. He cannot take people not liking him.
[15:19]
June Diane Raphael
He's a people pleaser. He says he's a.
[15:21]
Jason Mantzoukas
He's a people. But men who cheat and have multiple partners. The reason is never because I'm a people pleaser.
[15:33]
June Diane Raphael
I agree. I agree. And that's why this movie is so interesting because it profiles one of the very few men who is in multiple relationships against his will because he's simply too much of a people pleaser. And what a rarity. Wow.
[15:50]
Paul Scheer
He's such a people pleaser that he single handedly, raid style, takes down a building, you know, murders everyone, blows up the building, saves the day, gets all the money. And then Lou Diamond Phillips simply says, no, I did that. And he goes, all right, yeah, he gives him the money. Like it's. It's actually.
[16:12]
June Diane Raphael
And also, Lou Diamond Phillips and Anthony Sabato Jr are like. They don't even help him. They sit outside the firefight drinking espresso, coffee or espresso while Mark Wahlberg does literally all of the work. So he is inexplicably a beta. Alpha. Right? He is a beta presenting alpha. And that he's an expert at the killing. Meaning, you know.
[16:39]
Paul Scheer
Right. He's very, very good. He's never like, he's on top of it. He's. He's kind. He's working out like he is a guy by the book. Like at one point when they're like, hey, do you want to do this side gig? He's like, I don't know. I don't want to get in trouble. He doesn't. He's nice to Elliot Gould, who plays his fiance's father, which.
[16:56]
June Diane Raphael
His fiance. You mean Christina Applegate? Yes. Let's just not forget that this movie attracted Mark Wahlberg, Christina Applegate, Bo Keen Woodbine. Like, this is a lot of people. This is a great cast for a movie that is very unsuccessful and also
[17:14]
Paul Scheer
a movie where everyone, I feel like for a couple days, really committed to a hard accent. And there are moments where I'm like, is this racist or is this anti Semitic? Because I'm like, there are stereotypes. I'm like, I don't even know what stereotype I'm offended by. But these are stereotypes. Like, these are. I thought Christina Applegate was Italian, and then I found out that she was Jewish. And, uh, and then I was like, okay, she's doing like a married to the mob thing. But then he, like.
[17:41]
Jason Mantzoukas
But then, yeah, I love her and everything. She's just not the first person I would cast. Christine Applegate, a Jewish woman, like, Like
[17:52]
June Diane Raphael
a practicing Jewish woman.
[17:53]
Jason Mantzoukas
Practicing.
[17:55]
June Diane Raphael
Like they are so much.
[17:55]
Jason Mantzoukas
So they appear to be kosher. Yes. She ends up wanting, you know, to end the relationship because he's a goya.
[18:02]
Paul Scheer
Lainey Kazan and Elliot Gould are her friends. Parents.
[18:09]
Jason Mantzoukas
I mean, it is okay, so I love him. So much. It was very tough to see him have to do this. That's where, like, when I say it ruined my day, it was like, I love this actor. I love this. I love everything.
[18:25]
Paul Scheer
I thought he. He held it together pretty good.
[18:28]
Jason Mantzoukas
Of course he did, Paul. That's not my. That he did the best he could do, but I'm like, watching him put puke.
[18:34]
Paul Scheer
Well, that's tough.
[18:36]
June Diane Raphael
Over.
[18:37]
Jason Mantzoukas
Yeah. I just don't want to see him do that.
[18:41]
June Diane Raphael
I felt bad that his whole character driving engine was he needs a drink and no one will let him have one.
[18:49]
Paul Scheer
Well, this is the question I was going to ask you both. Right. They say you can't give him a drink because something weird happens. And in my mind, I'm like, oh, well, that's interesting.
[19:02]
June Diane Raphael
Right?
[19:03]
Paul Scheer
What could it be? Like, does he become violent? Does he become this other person? Like, it would be very funny for the third act climax to be that he does drink and then he be, you know, whatever.
[19:14]
June Diane Raphael
He has to join in and. And he. Guess what, he's an adept hitman 100 something.
[19:22]
Paul Scheer
But no, it's just that he gets a little nauseous.
[19:26]
June Diane Raphael
Like, I think it's that he tells the truth.
[19:29]
Paul Scheer
I think it's okay.
[19:29]
June Diane Raphael
Yes.
[19:30]
Paul Scheer
Okay.
[19:30]
June Diane Raphael
I think it's that he speaks his truth.
[19:32]
Jason Mantzoukas
It's truth serum. But what you're right about is it doesn't get us anywhere. Plot.
[19:36]
Paul Scheer
Yeah, it does not. It doesn't help us because the movie doesn't need a truth teller at that point, because we don't really, at that point in the movie, care about any relationship that Mark Wahlberg's in, because at that point, he's in three relationships. He is in the relationship with the kidnapped girl. He's in. He's in the relationship with the girl who is using him, and he's in the relationship with his fiance.
[19:59]
June Diane Raphael
And at that point, so open to love. And that's what I will say. Mark Wahlberg and my co star in Infinite, of course, yes. Is not a character that oftentimes feels open to love in movies. He's not a. I would not say Mark Wahlberg has convincingly played a romantic lead, necessarily.
[20:18]
Paul Scheer
I. I would. I would. Yeah.
[20:20]
June Diane Raphael
But, boy, somehow he's got three going relationships in this movie. Maybe this was it. Maybe they used it all up in this one movie.
[20:28]
Paul Scheer
I mean, and one of the arcs of the character, which I don't think they fully pay off, is that this is a character who's always getting blue balls. He's always getting like, there's that Opening sequence, when the girl, before she puts her toe in the dead man's torso or wherever. It was like when they separate because she's like, oh, you brought your work home. He is grabbing and massaging his dick like, ah, I fucking gotta deal with this hard on now. In the bathroom to a point that I was like, I'm uncomfortable with this. Like, there's some things I don't need to be. Yeah. I don't need to see him, like, fixing his hard dick in his pants for that long.
[21:07]
June Diane Raphael
See, that's the thing. I think that was so great to show us movies almost never show us men's dick management. You that you have to be managing this thing, right? This is not just over here, it's over there. It's bigger, it's smaller. You. You really. And movies shy away from showing us those truth.
[21:27]
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh, and we're seeing it's not fixed. It's not like it's broken.
[21:37]
Paul Scheer
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[25:26]
June Diane Raphael
His training montage is literally on a pommel horse. And I was like, this is going to be instrumental to the movie.
[25:33]
Jason Mantzoukas
No, it doesn't.
[25:34]
Paul Scheer
Doesn't even. Nothing.
[25:37]
Jason Mantzoukas
I. That, that locker scene, yo, you just
[25:40]
June Diane Raphael
stand there and tell me you ain't never jerked your dick in your whole life until last week? That's bullshit, man.
[25:48]
Paul Scheer
I never needed to. I've been fucking since I was 10, yo. I can't relate to that. What? What?
[25:55]
June Diane Raphael
What? Cisco, Cisco, Yo, I can't wear green, baby.
[25:58]
Paul Scheer
Catch my eyes, you know what I'm saying? It's gonna look good on you, though.
[26:00]
June Diane Raphael
Bust the move, man.
[26:02]
Paul Scheer
We're gonna be late. Shit. Hey, yo, Vinny, you hear the news? What's up?
[26:06]
June Diane Raphael
This fool claim he don't bone females
[26:07]
Paul Scheer
no more since he just now discovered
[26:09]
June Diane Raphael
a ring in his rag.
[26:10]
Paul Scheer
Is that true? No doubt.
[26:12]
June Diane Raphael
It's a lot of maintenance. Ass.
[26:15]
Jason Mantzoukas
The locker room scene to me was really. Again, this is where I had a tough time. This is where the movie ruined my day when one of the guys, the guy who's like, just found out how to masturbate and then spends the whole movie. And this is. This is very. There's something about Mary. Like, I could see that. 90s sort of like every scene you have a new, like, way into this joke. Kind of the payoff of.
[26:42]
Paul Scheer
Pretty great. The payoff was probably one of the best.
[26:45]
Jason Mantzoukas
What was the payoff?
[26:46]
Paul Scheer
That when they're fighting in the video store and then these. The poster on the wall is. Number one customer of our adult section is Bokim Woodbine. Like for the thumbs.
[26:55]
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh, that's. That's true. Okay, fine.
[26:58]
Paul Scheer
He's been in this video. There's so much to jerk off that he's.
[27:01]
June Diane Raphael
They made a poster of what a prolific jerk off guy he is to
[27:06]
Paul Scheer
say the number renter of adult videos in the store.
[27:11]
Jason Mantzoukas
But there was. But the. Here's the thing. I just felt like, okay, that's where it felt very Austin Powers, you know, that kind of 90s comedy. But that scene, that scene where they're all speaking to each other the way that they are and he's talking about jerking off and then he says he's been since he was 10. Yeah, and that was also. That was something that you used to hear in movies all the time about men and boys. And, you know, it's just tough because it's like, well, you were. Well, well, sir, you were raped. You know you were raised like, I don't know what you think happened. There was someone.
[27:49]
June Diane Raphael
Well, I mean, perhaps not if something. If the partner was similarly aged.
[27:54]
Jason Mantzoukas
So it's just so hard to watch. And that was my experience, the whole movie, which is like, things being presented lightly and feeling so bereft.
[28:07]
June Diane Raphael
It does. It feels, being Said wrote a movie that was for Goodfellas style acting.
[28:16]
Paul Scheer
Yes.
[28:17]
June Diane Raphael
And then somebody did a joke pass on it, and they cast people and told them it's light, you know, these,
[28:24]
Jason Mantzoukas
like, keep it light. Give it a light touch. Yeah.
[28:27]
June Diane Raphael
Keep gliding right by it. Because if in. If in Goodfellas, Joe Pesci said, I've been fucking since I was 10, I'd be like, yeah, yeah, that tracks.
[28:36]
Paul Scheer
Right?
[28:36]
June Diane Raphael
These are. These are monsters. These are monster people who behave. Monster, please. Okay, great. But when it's. When people are saying that in this movie, you're like. It's a real head scratcher. Because you're like, okay, now, actually, let's interrogate. Who are these guys?
[28:49]
Paul Scheer
Well, this.
[28:50]
Jason Mantzoukas
Because so many bad things have happened to them.
[28:52]
June Diane Raphael
If I'm Boki Mudbang, I wouldn't allow my video store to put that poster up. I'm a murderer. Like that already is a problem.
[29:01]
Paul Scheer
Well, I mean, he seems like he's lost track of everything. What? The masturbation has really set him on a path where he is not good at his job anymore. Because even the first hit. Is it a hit? Yeah, I guess it is. The first hit is. First of all, they're not subtle or smooth about anything. The first hit, they blow up a fucking building. Yeah. But they also come in to kill a guy.
[29:23]
June Diane Raphael
Like, to kill a guy who appears to be like a human trafficker, you know, trying to buy three women for $50,000 each, while three blondes under 20. Yes. Three blondes under 20. Midwestern. No tattoos.
[29:39]
Paul Scheer
And then when the price is 50,000 each, one of the women goes, hey,
[29:46]
June Diane Raphael
you know what's crazy? And this is in, like, a hotel, or I think it's a hotel, and there's like a big giant, like, hot tub in the middle of the floor of the hotel room. And surrounding the hot tub, I've never seen this. Are glass screens. Like, the whole room is covered in glass screens. So that when the shootout starts, there can just be exploding glass everywhere. But the look of it before that is so strange and odd because you're like, why would you surround this tub with a weird. You know, the kind of screens you might get dressed behind, except their glass? You know, it was really weird.
[30:25]
Paul Scheer
Well, it's 97.
[30:26]
Jason Mantzoukas
I. It is. Who knows what's happening design wise? But I. I did laugh when one of the bad guys, like, appeared out of the hot tub.
[30:34]
Paul Scheer
Oh, yeah.
[30:34]
June Diane Raphael
Incredible.
[30:35]
Jason Mantzoukas
Like he had been hiding in there.
[30:36]
June Diane Raphael
Yeah.
[30:36]
Paul Scheer
For a long time.
[30:37]
Jason Mantzoukas
Lol. A very long time. He was underwater for a very long time.
[30:41]
Paul Scheer
And then his machine gun worked flawlessly.
[30:44]
June Diane Raphael
This is the one where Mark Wahlberg does shooting while doing what is unquestionably breakdancing moves. So I wanted to ask you, June, how did you feel about combining breakdancing with pin perfect assassinations?
[31:01]
Jason Mantzoukas
I didn't mind it. I got it.
[31:03]
June Diane Raphael
Okay.
[31:03]
Paul Scheer
I like it.
[31:04]
Jason Mantzoukas
I think maybe that's the best use of it.
[31:06]
Paul Scheer
Well, it felt very John Woo coded. Like this movie. Right. And there's something about it. This is also, just in case you were wondering, this is the end of Marky Mark. The single that is over the credits is the. This is the death of Marky Mark. So this is the end of this era. Maybe the end of the rom com, you know, Mark Wahlberg or the romance. And then we go into Mark Wahlberg or Marky Mark may have been more of the rom com guy. But what's so interesting about that sequence is the plan is we're gonna shut off the power. He's gonna go into the room and he's got the night vision goggles so he can see everybody. And they're gonna be in the dark. I get that. I like that. And then, you know, and so he gets, you know, he gets a foot up on them and then. Or a leg up on them. I like foot. And then he takes off the night vision goggles because he knows that they're gonna be blasting light in, but. So he's wearing sunglasses. But his. And then there's just a lot of manipulation of light. And he doesn't seem to be affected by any change of light, but yet he is.
[32:11]
June Diane Raphael
Well, I think his team is making all those light changes. So he thinks he knows when to use what.
[32:18]
Paul Scheer
Okay.
[32:18]
June Diane Raphael
Because he's still opening the curtain.
[32:20]
Jason Mantzoukas
Opens the curtains. Yeah, because there's a lot made of him opening.
[32:23]
June Diane Raphael
Well, because what you have to realize is when the light gets cut, he comes in with his night vision goggles. But the other guys, the bad guys, put on their night vision goggles. Right.
[32:34]
Paul Scheer
They had just had them just engaged.
[32:35]
June Diane Raphael
So when he's opening the windows, he's flooding their night vision goggles with light, which makes them blind.
[32:42]
Paul Scheer
But he also.
[32:43]
Jason Mantzoukas
I didn't.
[32:43]
June Diane Raphael
He's not wearing sunglasses.
[32:45]
Paul Scheer
No, he Takes he. At the first entry into the room, he's wearing sunglasses. But then by that point, that's the
[32:50]
June Diane Raphael
next one when he throws in the flashbang.
[32:53]
Paul Scheer
Oh, right.
[32:54]
June Diane Raphael
He throws in a flash grenade.
[32:56]
Paul Scheer
Also. I thought he ran across those curtains.
[32:59]
June Diane Raphael
I mean, you're right.
[33:00]
Paul Scheer
No, no, you're right.
[33:01]
June Diane Raphael
On and off.
[33:02]
Paul Scheer
Yes. There's a lot of.
[33:03]
Jason Mantzoukas
There's a lot of light play. It's a lot of light play.
[33:06]
June Diane Raphael
A lot of. A lot of erotic light play to
[33:09]
Paul Scheer
just watch guys get shot. Like, they are attached to the. The fender of a car that is furiously pulling out of a parking lot.
[33:17]
Jason Mantzoukas
Like, there's a question I had. They are blown back.
[33:22]
June Diane Raphael
Yes.
[33:22]
Paul Scheer
Style, baby feet.
[33:24]
June Diane Raphael
Oh, easily. They are. They are. The impact of a bullet hitting their body sends them backwards in motion. I'm gonna say 15 miles an hour.
[33:36]
Paul Scheer
You should watch out. They should almost feel other people like bowling balls.
[33:40]
June Diane Raphael
Because also, Mark Wahlberg to this is a pre parkour kind of dominating action movie style. So he's doing the thing that used to happen, which is he's jumping around, but clearly launching himself off of trampolines because he's getting length and height of these jumps that are enormous, but he's really just crossing a hotel room. But it's. It's clearly he's being launched off of trampoline.
[34:11]
Paul Scheer
And my favorite moment. And I know I shouldn't get down to this kind of nitty gritty because I'm gonna go down my same rabbit hole with the glasses and the night vision goggles. But when they say, let's synchronize our watches, they just all put their watches together, like. But they don't look at the time.
[34:28]
June Diane Raphael
They don't. They don't. Nobody has to adjust. Nobody has to be like, oh, I'm a minute ahead or I'm a minute behind. They don't. They just. It's as if they think from the movies. Synchronizing your watches just means putting them all in one shot. And, like, somehow the. The watches will sync themselves.
[34:44]
Paul Scheer
It was like. It was like magnets or something. Like, I love that moment.
[34:47]
June Diane Raphael
And. And by the way, that. And I also loved the. There's an audible record scratch in this.
[34:52]
Paul Scheer
Oh, yes, I know.
[34:54]
June Diane Raphael
I was like, what the fuck are they up to, man?
[34:57]
Jason Mantzoukas
Well, here's the thing. We never get a sense of the team. Really? No, because, you know, he's a sort of a bad guy. You know, he's like an asshole, but he's also the leader. But then, like, Antonio Sabato Jr. Just disappears for the rest of the movie, truly, we don't see him at all. And then. So it's like I was kind of attached to him.
[35:17]
June Diane Raphael
Yeah.
[35:18]
Jason Mantzoukas
He was my favorite one.
[35:19]
Paul Scheer
You loved when he came to those girls and said, I want to pour milk all over you because you're part of my balanced breakfast.
[35:25]
Jason Mantzoukas
Yeah, he was my favorite one.
[35:27]
June Diane Raphael
Yeah.
[35:28]
Jason Mantzoukas
And then he disappeared. And then we're introduced to this, like, young tech guy, like, the computer nerd, weird. Who has a stutter. And I guess that's something we all saw and was very.
[35:40]
June Diane Raphael
Well, they also call him Gump in the movie, which is.
[35:44]
Jason Mantzoukas
That was strange.
[35:45]
Paul Scheer
Wow.
[35:46]
Jason Mantzoukas
Very, very upsetting. And then. But then.
[35:50]
Paul Scheer
Could have been a coincidence.
[35:50]
Jason Mantzoukas
Now we're.
[35:51]
Paul Scheer
Could have been a coincidence.
[35:52]
Jason Mantzoukas
And now we're with him for most of the movie, really. And then Antonio Sabaro Jr. We see again at the very, very end. And I was like, well, what's the team here?
[36:02]
June Diane Raphael
It makes no sense. I agree. Because what should happen is they should be hunting down every member of the team until they get to Mark Wahlberg. That's it. Like, the. The good guy. The bad guys should be hunting down the team that is responsible for kidnapping the girl and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But they don't. And so everybody. You're right. Anthony Sabato Jr. I, at some point, was like, where is Vince? We need Vince.
[36:27]
Paul Scheer
I love that you remember names. I mean, are you.
[36:30]
June Diane Raphael
Are you kidding me?
[36:31]
Jason Mantzoukas
He's electric on screen. I'm sorry. He's great. Now, the other thing is, like, you guys might be. I hate to ask, putting a little
[36:40]
Paul Scheer
bit too much spin on that one,
[36:41]
June Diane Raphael
but he's the best actor of our generation.
[36:44]
Jason Mantzoukas
I thought he was wonderful. I thought it was great acting. Really wonderful acting. Um, but the other thing is, like. I guess so. I guess her dad kidnapped her.
[36:56]
Paul Scheer
What do you mean?
[36:57]
Jason Mantzoukas
Purpose?
[36:58]
June Diane Raphael
What? Wait, how do you mean?
[37:01]
Jason Mantzoukas
Well, well, okay, let me ask. Let me put this to both of you. Who arranged her kidnapping?
[37:07]
Paul Scheer
They just. They. Lou Diamond Phillips. Lou Diamond Phillips, like, just did a little. The most minimal research on the richest person in town. And he was like, oh, it's this, like, this Chinese millionaire. And then was like, let's kidnap his daughter and we'll get a lot of money. And then what the. The issue with the movie is, you fucking idiot, you didn't do any research on this.
[37:31]
Jason Mantzoukas
I thought he was yours.
[37:33]
June Diane Raphael
Makes better sense, June. But go ahead, because.
[37:35]
Jason Mantzoukas
Let me just pitch. Are you sure about that? Because Paul, I thought he was hired, and that's why. When? When?
[37:41]
Paul Scheer
Oh, no, I don't think Smiley was
[37:43]
Jason Mantzoukas
like, well, we're moonlighting with this other job. I thought they've been hired to kidnap someone. They don't. We don't know who hired them, but Lou Diamond Phillips does. And then they realize, oh, that's their actual boss's goddaughter. Because then at the end, at the very end, when her college friend, quote unquote, is walking out of school with her, she says, I hear your dad's in LA making the kidnapping a big movie. And then I thought, oh, her dad arranged this so he could get out of financial debt.
[38:16]
Paul Scheer
I like that idea.
[38:19]
June Diane Raphael
I really. I don't mind that idea at all. I don't think that's what the movie's trying to do. I think, but I got it.
[38:25]
Jason Mantzoukas
So Lou Diamond Phillips is just. Is not a hired contractor. He's completely going rogue.
[38:31]
June Diane Raphael
He's going rogue and trying to make side money. And that's why in the beginning, I
[38:35]
Jason Mantzoukas
thought he was hired to kidnap her.
[38:37]
June Diane Raphael
No. When he says, hey, you should do this job with us tomorrow, Mark Wahlberg is like, no, I'm not doing that. Our. Our boss would get mad at us because we're not supposed to be freelancing or moonlighting or whatever they call whatever he says.
[38:51]
Jason Mantzoukas
Right. But I thought moonlighting was someone else who had hired.
[38:55]
June Diane Raphael
Right. No, no. So, so. And yes. And then you're right, Paul. The coincidence that somehow the crime lord that they work for is involved with so much so that he's the godfather of the businessman's daughter. That makes. I don't know that really now this all seems so small world that I'm like, I don't understand.
[39:14]
Paul Scheer
I mean, it seems like they could be doing. They could be hitmen in a very small. I don't know what town they're in. Canada.
[39:22]
June Diane Raphael
Oh, that's so funny. If this was an entire group of hitmen that were all in Cincinnati, that's what.
[39:28]
Paul Scheer
That's what it kind of felt like to me. It felt like a very small group. Now, I will say that that storyline was my favorite storyline. That the Jiro Nishi was this, like, enormously wealthy person who was so wealthy he made the most expensive movie of all time, cast himself in it. The jokes of that were great. And then the fact that, like, he only printed posters on gold leaf paper. He made, like a movie theater standy out of gold. Like, he.
[39:57]
June Diane Raphael
The idea that you are a multi, multi, multi millionaire, so, so business successful millionaire, but you could bankrupt yourself on one movie is. Was very funny.
[40:08]
Paul Scheer
But it Was also. And the fact that he had his shirt off and was, like, kissing this girl was like the taste of my juice or whatever the name of that movie was. I loved every moment of whatever that was.
[40:19]
June Diane Raphael
Wait till when he's gonna commit ritual suicide because of the shame. And he keeps being interrupted by, like,
[40:26]
Paul Scheer
that's a joke phone call to me.
[40:28]
June Diane Raphael
But again, some of those jokes worked.
[40:31]
Paul Scheer
Also, did not know at certain points if I should be offended by this, because it was every. Every stereotype in this movie is being played. I mean, we are doing it. And I guess maybe if. If we're just saying every character is up to a 10, then maybe you can't say anything about any of them because everyone. Everyone is playing something aggressive.
[40:51]
June Diane Raphael
Oh, big time. Yeah. Like. Right. And this, like, what we then get into, because the movie, I want to be clear, like, it has all of the hallmarks of a John Woo action, operatic, kind of big explosions movie, but it thinks it's a comedic farce. So, like, when Marky, Mark's girlfriend drops. She's leaving him for her side piece, and she drops off the bagged body parts that have not yet been destroyed and the very living kidnapped girl, all of which have been at her apartment, the. The girlfriend's apartment. She drops them at Christina Applegate and Mark Wahlberg's house. So now Christina Applegate's parents have arrived, the kidnapped victim has arrived, and bags full of body parts are arrived that the dog becomes obsessed with. And the next 15 minutes of the movie are just a farce where Mark Wahlberg is Inspector Clouseau trying to keep everything in order. And that also was funny to me.
[41:55]
Paul Scheer
Well, Jason, you didn't say my favorite part of that, which was set to ska music.
[42:00]
June Diane Raphael
Oh, yes.
[42:02]
Paul Scheer
So it's a farce set to, I think, real, Real big fish. I'm gonna bet it's real big fish. And. And. And that was, to me, I was like, this. This should be the whole movie. Because whatever this was. And that's. This movie does aggressively put you in a moment that you're like, oh, right, this is all cool. This is very cool.
[42:22]
Jason Mantzoukas
And the best part of that sequence was that there is in. In Mark Wahlberg's house, which was set up to be, you know, very suburban house, suburban living, regular guy. There's a bathroom, and I'll never forget this as long as I live. That has two doors and two entrances. I've just never. Have you ever been in a bathroom in a residential home that has two ways in June.
[42:46]
June Diane Raphael
Never.
[42:46]
Paul Scheer
June. Hold on. One Second, uh. Oh, think about our house. Wait a minute. We have a bathroom that has two entrances.
[42:54]
June Diane Raphael
Your own house.
[42:55]
Paul Scheer
Yes.
[42:56]
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh, okay. But that's a Jack and Jill situation. Okay, That's. That's two connecting bedrooms you're just talking about. That I can accept.
[43:03]
June Diane Raphael
Wait, does that mean that it's at the top of the hill?
[43:07]
Paul Scheer
Every time you go there, you have to roll over.
[43:09]
Jason Mantzoukas
It's a Jack and Jill situation where, by the way, one of my favorite movies. But like, that's. That's totally different. This is two entrances from a hallway.
[43:18]
Paul Scheer
Okay, got. All right, so that's your issue.
[43:21]
Jason Mantzoukas
Connecting bedrooms.
[43:22]
June Diane Raphael
Yeah.
[43:23]
Jason Mantzoukas
That was pretty wild.
[43:24]
June Diane Raphael
Yeah, that's pretty crazy.
[43:26]
Paul Scheer
I mean, that's such a.
[43:27]
June Diane Raphael
What is the anticipation. What are you built. Why are you building it like that? What are you thinking? Oh, my use case is that I want two people to be able to enter and. Or leave at the same time.
[43:38]
Jason Mantzoukas
And can you imagine having to go to the bathroom in there and, like, sitting down on a toilet and just like the terror of knowing there's two ways in.
[43:47]
June Diane Raphael
How are you always when you're on the toilet, clocking how many possible points
[43:56]
Jason Mantzoukas
of entrance are there? I'll never forget, I had a very traumatic experience at a friendly's when I was like, in fifth grade.
[44:03]
June Diane Raphael
Not as friendly as you'd think, where
[44:06]
Jason Mantzoukas
I had to go to the bathroom. And there was one. It was a single stall type situation. Just, you know, you open the door, there's the toilet. And I went into the bathroom, sat down, you know, got everything ready, and a woman walked in on me. And, you know, sometimes you're close enough that you can say, oh, oh, oh, excuse me. And. But it. She was too far. The door was too far away, and she stood there for too long. I was completely vulnerable, and I was like, racing to try to get over. She couldn't understand what was happening. It was. Was absolutely horrified.
[44:40]
June Diane Raphael
She couldn't understand.
[44:41]
Paul Scheer
Wait a minute. I mean, she should understand.
[44:43]
June Diane Raphael
I think if I walked in and saw, I would be like, I understand every. I don't like that I'm here for this.
[44:48]
Jason Mantzoukas
But picture her walking in kind of with her back to me, like she's still kind of restaurant. So she got too far in.
[44:56]
June Diane Raphael
Wait, she doesn't get all the way to be. She doesn't sit on your lap, does she? She doesn't get that far.
[45:01]
Jason Mantzoukas
It. Traumatized.
[45:02]
June Diane Raphael
Yeah. For life to you the whole time.
[45:05]
Jason Mantzoukas
And since that moment, I've never felt safe in a public restroom.
[45:11]
Paul Scheer
Now I will say this, June, I was that woman. And as a little boy, the first time I ever saw a woman naked from the bottom down was on an airplane. Because I just boldly opened a door to a woman on a toilet and airplane. It's burned in my memory. And I stood there frozen. There was nothing erotic about it. There was nothing.
[45:34]
June Diane Raphael
But I was like.
[45:35]
Paul Scheer
And I didn't know what to do. And then I didn't know how to close the door because it's like one of those, like, it's not like a open close. It's like a collapsible, like a folding, folding door. And then she was trying to close and she yelled at me. And I was like, I didn't know what to do. And I was. And I was shook. Shook.
[45:52]
Jason Mantzoukas
Okay, so you get it.
[45:54]
June Diane Raphael
I agree. I don't think like, like bathroom stuff is. You're just too vulnerable. It's just too. It's one of. Especially as a child. It's one of the great unknowns.
[46:04]
Paul Scheer
That's why we never see Kiefer Sutherland take a pee or a poop in 24. Because it's too vulnerable for him.
[46:11]
June Diane Raphael
It's also, what a stressful day. Your body just shuts down, right?
[46:14]
Jason Mantzoukas
Yeah.
[46:14]
Paul Scheer
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[49:11]
June Diane Raphael
You know what I didn't like if I'm a hitman, if I'm like a hitman team, if I'm a really good hitman team, here's my reality. I'm not putting body parts. If I'm going to the length of chopping up a body, I'm not putting it in white kitchen bags. I'm putting it in the double black heavy duty yard bags. Because that kitchen, when I, I mean when I try and empty my kitchen, the bag rips. Coffee grounds leak out. They are fragile. Now these are body parts with I'm assuming sharp edged bones that have been cut in there like these should be leaking every the dog bites into the bag. No leaking. Come on. Either get better Garbage bags for body parts or get a black bag.
[49:59]
Jason Mantzoukas
Stop this nonsense.
[50:00]
June Diane Raphael
What are we doing?
[50:01]
Paul Scheer
Why are. And why are we bringing by? Why are we doing so much work with this? At least bring it to the basement. Like, give me some.
[50:09]
Jason Mantzoukas
By the way, there was a lot of transporting of things and people like that for no good as far as I could understand. No good reason.
[50:18]
June Diane Raphael
Yes.
[50:19]
Jason Mantzoukas
Other than just like, I don't want it right now. I don't want it in my house right now.
[50:23]
Paul Scheer
I mean, she was leaving town to go to Hollywood to make her fortune. This is Mark Wahlberg's side piece. And with her side piece, or I guess maybe her main piece. And so they're going off to Hollywood. She's like, but before we leave the house, I'm gonna go bring this girl to you and this body. Yeah, like, why not just call and just be like, go get it. But no, they have to be in the room. She has to drop it off.
[50:47]
June Diane Raphael
Well, also, they then go and drive for hours, four hours, But. But somehow wind up back where they started.
[50:54]
Paul Scheer
Because he knew a shortcut.
[50:56]
June Diane Raphael
Yeah, he knew a shortcut that got them nowhere.
[50:59]
Paul Scheer
Well, that was the thing. She's like, you know how long it's gonna take? Like four days to get to la? And then he says, don't worry, I know a shortcut. Which to me is one of the most insane things to say when you are driving four days away. Like, well, there's no short. There's no real.
[51:15]
June Diane Raphael
Because so they are not in la. They are four days drive from la. So that's. I mean, that I do think that they're Cincinnati West.
[51:24]
Jason Mantzoukas
Yeah. Because first of all, they're also asking the. The. Our first crime boss is asking for Midwestern women. Now, I assumed when he said that that he wasn't from the Midwest, but now I'm like, oh, I guess they were right there. Yeah, he wanted a local flavor.
[51:41]
Paul Scheer
I mean, or maybe he's visiting. That's maybe why they did the hit. He. Because he's at the hotel and he's like, get me some. Get me some of these Midwestern girls. And I do like that. This is a movie that I do think skates on this line of. It was supposed to be a high school student. They just say, chiefs college. Although they don't change anything else about it.
[51:58]
Jason Mantzoukas
When did they say that, Paul? I do need to know. When did they say that? Yeah, I never heard that. And I felt I was listening pretty good.
[52:05]
Paul Scheer
All right. I mean, you know, look, I will double check, but I know that that was in the production notes I have about the movie.
[52:11]
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh, so you're relying on your production notes.
[52:13]
Paul Scheer
I'm reading. Yes.
[52:14]
June Diane Raphael
Production, not. I see. Production, production. And why do you keep putting that in quotes? I think that one of the things that is absolutely true, though, is whether she's in high school or whether she's in college, I do understand and firmly believe that when two people make a kosher dinner together, they cannot help but fall in love.
[52:38]
Jason Mantzoukas
The sexiest.
[52:39]
Paul Scheer
It was so gross.
[52:41]
Jason Mantzoukas
You can take part in.
[52:42]
June Diane Raphael
There's so much handling of the. Of the raw chicken. They're both of their hands.
[52:48]
Jason Mantzoukas
Chicken was so disgusting. It really actually had to turn away. It was disgusting.
[52:53]
June Diane Raphael
The raw chicken that they're manipulating with their hands was treated with the same erotic charge as the potter's wheel in Ghost.
[53:04]
Paul Scheer
And I will say this, it wasn't done over the top enough for it to be funny. And it was done too realistically that it made me uncomfortable and again, sick to my stomach because it was like, it was neither here nor there. And I think the middle ground was worse than either side of it. Right? Because if it was sexy and it's a chicken, it's like Naked Gun style. Like, I'd be like, oh, that's funny. But it was like, too sexually charged.
[53:27]
June Diane Raphael
They get, like, so sexually charged. But their hands, again, salmonella wise, their hands are covered with raw chicken grease. You know, like, this is dangerous. They don't show them cleaning the prep areas. They don't show them switching cutting boards. Like, this is a dangerous meal. I'm gonna be honest.
[53:45]
Paul Scheer
I mean. And then. And they really seem that they're into each other, but that is just a ruse by her because she, like, she's actually in charge. Because he then spills some sauce on her leg. So he has to, like, take off her bondage gear. Not sexual bondage gear, but, like, just her tied feet. So he could clean her legs, but
[54:06]
June Diane Raphael
he does that by putting her entire physical body laying down on the countertop. I was like, why would you do this? This is a very strange way to just clean a spill off someone's leg. Just lean down and wipe it with a towel. But it makes it such that they can do, like, romance stuff.
[54:24]
Paul Scheer
But he's. But he's into her. I mean, that's the whole thing. I mean, you know. You know, this is the thing.
[54:29]
June Diane Raphael
Remember when in. During the farce period where the dog is dragging the body and this and that, he at one point places the kidnap victim in the trunk of the car in the garage. And then the Christina Applegate and her parents load into that truck and leave. The. The kidnap victim is in the. The trunk, but it's not a trunk because it's an open trunk. So they have gotten into and are driving around with just a person visibly in the back of the car.
[55:00]
Jason Mantzoukas
That's right.
[55:00]
June Diane Raphael
And that I was like, that's this. If I'm the kidnap victim, I just make one noise and they know.
[55:09]
Jason Mantzoukas
I think she was knocked out at that point. I think.
[55:12]
June Diane Raphael
Okay, okay.
[55:13]
Jason Mantzoukas
Yeah, but. But yeah, I had the same question because there's also, like, a lot of different sort of configurations of how that family was sitting in the car. Like, big time. Christine Applegate's driving. Mom's in the passenger seat, Dad's in the back. Okay. Now both parents are in the back. Now there's the shopping bag in the front. With like, there were many. They were using that car in many different ways to get to temple.
[55:39]
June Diane Raphael
I mean, and.
[55:40]
Paul Scheer
And the. And. And they're trying to get to temple. And I will say that, but I don't know what I'm supposed to think about in this plot line, because we know that their relationship is over. Right. It's not like a meet the parents situation, because it seems like Christine, we're
[55:57]
June Diane Raphael
not rooting for that.
[55:58]
Paul Scheer
We're not rooting for them so hard.
[56:00]
Jason Mantzoukas
Here's the thing. Here's my big question about him. Was he a hitman before he met these women, or did he meet these women and get so sort of lost and his, you know, romantic issues, which is he could never say no that he got into financial debt with both of them and then had to become a hitman to pay for the. Interesting.
[56:24]
June Diane Raphael
Maybe. I mean, it certainly seems like he is, like, adept at all of this. So, like. Yeah. How did he get drawn into being part of this, like, hit squad? This Cleveland based hit squad, or.
[56:40]
Jason Mantzoukas
Yeah, or it's such a good question, too. It's like, how much work is there?
[56:44]
Paul Scheer
Yeah, well, it seems like they're working, like, constantly non stop.
[56:48]
June Diane Raphael
His. His girlfriend knows exactly what he does, there's dead bodies in the house, et cetera. But Christina Applegate doesn't seem to know that he's a hitman. Right?
[56:58]
Paul Scheer
No, she doesn't know at all.
[56:59]
Jason Mantzoukas
I don't think so now.
[57:00]
June Diane Raphael
Right. Okay. Okay. Okay, good.
[57:01]
Paul Scheer
Well, now I will say this, that in case we're just, you know, just to put it in perspective, in the original script, Melvin did have more of a backstory to explain why he was afraid of people disliking him. And it dealt with the fact that his parents were both dead. But due to budgetary restrictions, this element was cut before shooting began. I don't understand how the budget could have cut in there. So really, all we get from Mark Wahlberg about backstory is a line where he goes, I need the people, please. And then he goes, there, I said it. And we're like. So we're like, yeah, yeah, we know. We know that.
[57:35]
June Diane Raphael
Actually, we've said it.
[57:36]
Paul Scheer
Yeah.
[57:37]
June Diane Raphael
None. This is another movie in the pantheon of movies that we've done where none of the action of the movie would be necessary. If a man could admit he would have benefit from regular therapy.
[57:52]
Jason Mantzoukas
Yeah.
[57:53]
June Diane Raphael
If he could just go to therapy, he would not need to engage in any of the. The bad behaviors in this movie.
[58:00]
Paul Scheer
Well, I think he actually. I think that. I think that he likes. I think that he likes his job. He makes a killing.
[58:07]
June Diane Raphael
Oh, boy.
[58:08]
Paul Scheer
Which is what he says in the movie. And I think that he is a He. He is not apologetic for what he does, but what he's. What he's learning is that he's gotta make his own path. He's gotta stand up for his own self. And that's what we're following. That's the part that's inspirational.
[58:23]
Jason Mantzoukas
It's like, yeah, there's. I'm sorry.
[58:25]
Paul Scheer
I identify with this character.
[58:27]
June Diane Raphael
Sure.
[58:28]
Jason Mantzoukas
Okay. Because I know that. I know that she was. When she was first kidnapped by him and he's the driver. I know that she was being sexually assaulted.
[58:40]
June Diane Raphael
Sure.
[58:40]
Jason Mantzoukas
By that young man. Thought he was a high school student.
[58:43]
Paul Scheer
College.
[58:44]
Jason Mantzoukas
Who inexplicably has crystal in his suitcase. But. Or his bag, but don't know why. Thought that was going to come back.
[58:53]
June Diane Raphael
I thought that was going to come back.
[58:54]
Paul Scheer
That would be the money.
[58:56]
June Diane Raphael
Something.
[58:56]
Paul Scheer
I said that. This movie has the energy of rejected auditions from Mountain Dew commercials.
[59:05]
Jason Mantzoukas
Very much so. But. But I thought, okay, he is going to stop this. And he did. But he stops it and then executes that very young man.
[59:17]
Paul Scheer
Yeah. He does shoot him dead in front of her.
[59:20]
June Diane Raphael
In front of her. And she is. She, like, is alarmed, but then totally normal. And then, like, repeatedly, people point guns right in her face. And she is. Her look is like.
[59:33]
Paul Scheer
Well, the idea is like, she's also really tough, too, at points. Like she can hold her own with him. Like, you would want it to be like, oh, yeah. This is the daughter of a guy who trained his daughter, like, never get kidnapped. And she had all these skills. And that's a funnier. Like, I mean, Not Taming the Shrew, but it's like, but this idea that they kidnapped somebody that, that they can't even handle.
[59:56]
Jason Mantzoukas
Well, it would have been great if her, you know, skills with biology or whatever came back and inserted whatever college
[60:05]
June Diane Raphael
level courses she's taking.
[60:06]
Jason Mantzoukas
Well, she brings it up while they're cooking kosher, but like, that never returns. That never plays into anything that happens at the end.
[60:14]
June Diane Raphael
Yeah. When she says I'm in AP English,
[60:20]
Jason Mantzoukas
she doesn't again, I just, she might as well just have to ask. I just never. And this is the issue I have with them saying that she's in college. If there was a line, which I didn't hear, Paul, despite your production notes.
[60:33]
Paul Scheer
Sure.
[60:33]
Jason Mantzoukas
Like, I just like, even if there was a line, like, everything you're showing us tells me high school every.
[60:44]
Paul Scheer
Correct.
[60:44]
June Diane Raphael
The movie wants it both ways. The movie wants her to be a uniform high school girl. And it also wants you, the audience, to be invested in their love story as, as an opportunity to show that he's choosing a better partner. She's a better partner to him, you know, or something like that is like, that's what I think the movie's trying to do is like, he's breaking his bad habits because he's fallen for her and she sees him for who he really is, you know, blah, blah, blah, you know, whatever. But to have both be true means that he is a reprehensible human being.
[61:25]
Paul Scheer
Well, I, I, before, I mean, we've
[61:27]
Jason Mantzoukas
talked about a lot criminal, you know.
[61:29]
Paul Scheer
Yeah.
[61:31]
June Diane Raphael
And, and also, like, like, no, there's no mention of like Stockholm syndrome. Is she really falling in love with him or is it just because, I don't know, he's kidnapped her and she's,
[61:41]
Jason Mantzoukas
she seems to have her own issues because she, she says to him, like, he, because he's like, I'm a hitman. Like, you have to be okay with this lifestyle. Like, it's constant, you know, Are, are you okay with this? Like, this is what I do. And she's like, you're asking me if I, like, want this kind of adrenaline rush every day for the rest of my life. Yes. Yes. A million times, yes.
[62:02]
Paul Scheer
No, that is not what is happening.
[62:04]
Jason Mantzoukas
What? I also, you know, they started handling that meat and she, I think she'd been up at that point for like 24 hours. And I was like, what if you haven't showered, you've got to wash your hands or.
[62:19]
Paul Scheer
Well, she's not going to eat it.
[62:21]
June Diane Raphael
She's been in and out of trunks.
[62:23]
Paul Scheer
I mean, and those Trunks are literally always carrying garbage bags full of leaky dead bodies. I mean, we know that to be true.
[62:30]
June Diane Raphael
Paul, a few moments ago you said that you really identified.
[62:34]
Jason Mantzoukas
Yeah, I want to go back to. Thank you, Jason. I want to go back to that as well.
[62:38]
Paul Scheer
I think.
[62:38]
June Diane Raphael
Paul, I want to go back to. There might be another character in this movie that you might identify.
[62:48]
Jason Mantzoukas
Be kind. Rewind.
[62:52]
June Diane Raphael
I was like, paul, how did you feel that the final set piece of this movie was set in a video store?
[63:00]
Paul Scheer
I fucking loved it. I loved it. I loved the. Again, this is like going back to the rejected mountain do ads. Like, the. Whoever that guy was, like, they're shooting him like with a fisheye lens, like. And he is. He is the nemesis of Mark Wahlberg throughout the entire movie. Like, hey, man, you gotta. Like, we just play a clip of that now.
[63:21]
Jason Mantzoukas
Melvin Smiley, please.
[63:22]
Paul Scheer
This is he.
[63:24]
Jason Mantzoukas
Mr. Smiley, big top Video, we're calling to inform you that you had our copy of King's Kong Lives out for
[63:31]
June Diane Raphael
over two weeks now.
[63:32]
Jason Mantzoukas
Return it immediately or we will have you killed.
[63:37]
Paul Scheer
Like, that character, to me is amazing because he's trying to chase down King Kong lives, which is at this point an old movie. And what I love about Mark Wahlberg, and this is where I feel like Mark Wahlberg's like, yeah, I gotta save this girl. I gotta kill my friend. But I also have to rewind that VHS tape. And June and I have gotten into many a disagreement. We're like, I gotta. I get that. I'm like, gotta get that videotape back. Gotta. I gotta make it make sense.
[64:04]
June Diane Raphael
It really is. It's. It inserts again all of the elements of suburban life into the narrative of a crime hitman story. Like the idea that. You're right, Paul, he's juggling all these life, you know, ending level catastrophic events while also having to constantly field calls from an increasingly annoyed video store clerk. You know, and then when they go and have to do the final shootout explosion, everything at the video store, I was like, this is incredible. Like, this is a part of our lives that was so ubiquitous. It could be the final movie set piece. And it's now just gone.
[64:46]
Paul Scheer
I mean, and what I love about it too is that it is, as somebody who loves a video store, a two story video store is really just, I mean, a relic of you could spend a day. It was exciting. I mean, although it seemed like they only trafficked in trauma films, which I also really loved. It was only trauma movies that they had there.
[65:06]
June Diane Raphael
I didn't notice.
[65:07]
Jason Mantzoukas
And I guess you're right. I can see some similarities where it's like everything to you. Well, and I don't say this as a. Well, I guess it is a critique of both you and Melvin Smiley, which is like, not being able to necessarily prioritize what's really important.
[65:25]
Paul Scheer
Well, what we're saying.
[65:26]
Jason Mantzoukas
Time management.
[65:27]
Paul Scheer
Well, what we're saying is that it is important. I have to get that VHS date back. I gotta get my name off that wall. That. That's. That is priority number one for that gentleman. That's not maybe my priority.
[65:37]
Jason Mantzoukas
Like, but. But video stores are never sending you into collection. Like, there's no. Are they. Did they. There's no. Really.
[65:45]
June Diane Raphael
Would you have to call people.
[65:47]
Paul Scheer
Oh, I did call people like that. The time.
[65:49]
Jason Mantzoukas
Take that kind of attitude with them.
[65:51]
Paul Scheer
I mean, he seemed like he had memorized the number and the name. I was always looking at his screen.
[65:56]
Jason Mantzoukas
Mr. Blockbuster. Like some sort of, like, investment in this.
[66:00]
Paul Scheer
Well, because back when I was working in the video store, there was no email. So you couldn't just like, pop an email or shoot a text. You did have to make that physical phone call, and we were chasing down a lot of new releases, but you had to make that call. And the thing that was really hard and one of the hardest parts of the job is charging people because they would return it really late and then you'd. Then they'd rent their next movie. And you say, hey, it's gonna be. It's $57. And I'd wait. $57 to rent one movie. It's like, no, you didn't. You didn't return the River Wild. So for over a week, so. And then they're like, I'm not paying that. And you're like, well, I. I have, like. And then you have to call for your manager.
[66:39]
Jason Mantzoukas
The late charges were pretty astronomical, though. That seems like they were a little bit predatory.
[66:43]
June Diane Raphael
Well, but you.
[66:44]
Paul Scheer
Supply and demand, too. Like.
[66:45]
June Diane Raphael
Like an individual copy of a VHS movie to buy it cost like 120,
[66:52]
Paul Scheer
which is 120 back in the day. I mean, I just want.
[66:54]
June Diane Raphael
Not that that's what always blew my mind is that they were so expensive to purchase.
[66:58]
Paul Scheer
And so, you know, you had. But also it's supply and demand, June. It's like I am working at a video store where I am telling you we are going to have it in. And if we don't have it in now, we're going to have it in tomorrow. And the audience.
[67:10]
June Diane Raphael
Audience, Paul, is. And the minute we brought it up, the, the joy that existed while we were talking about the movie has evaporated. He is, he's in a full body.
[67:23]
Paul Scheer
I am ready to. And look in this. I'm saying this as someone, Paul, we
[67:27]
June Diane Raphael
don't have any of your movies.
[67:30]
Jason Mantzoukas
But I always had late charges. You know, my family always had late charges.
[67:34]
Paul Scheer
And I took such pride in getting that money out of those people. I loved it. I loved it.
[67:40]
June Diane Raphael
I think my Brooklyn video store closed because I did not pay my.
[67:44]
Paul Scheer
I would now now if it's me, what I'm doing is. And I think I've talked about this maybe on here on the show. I would go early in the week when I was just a renter, before I was a seller. I would go early in the week and I would hide like I go on a Wednesday.
[67:59]
Jason Mantzoukas
We all know that hack.
[68:00]
Paul Scheer
Yeah. And I would hide it in the store. So then when I came in on Friday, it would be perfect, ready for good. You know, that's the way you got to go before. I know we are. We're getting close to the end here. I just want to, I do need to talk about Lou Diamond Phillips because please, honestly, I've loved Blue Diamond Phillips on the Chair company. I've loved him in Young Guns. I am a Lou Diamond Phillips fan. Even Renegade, when we did Renegade, this
[68:26]
June Diane Raphael
performance, he was great. On a recent season of Goliath, the Billy Bob Thornton show.
[68:31]
Paul Scheer
Nothing bad to say about him, but wow, this character, like, I've never seen him in a way so free and like he is wearing for the majority of the film something that looks like that a Vegas showgirl would wear. Like he is wearing some sort of sequin patterned shirt. I mean, he is in the. All these dudes are just buff as fuck.
[68:55]
June Diane Raphael
Everybody's jacked. And it's always funny to let dramatic actors play larger than life comedic characters.
[69:03]
Paul Scheer
Yes.
[69:04]
June Diane Raphael
You know, and that. And for the most part, everybody's struggling a little bit. But Lou Diamond Phillips, I thought was the one who was genuinely got it, got what his guy was about and was able to be both funny and scared.
[69:21]
Jason Mantzoukas
Now I didn't know why he deserved to be stabbed at the end. I thought, geez, Mark Wahlberg, like he was your friend. Give him a, a quicker death, you know, he's gotta die.
[69:34]
Paul Scheer
No, but he was putting him through the ringer though.
[69:38]
June Diane Raphael
Oh yeah. He's been hunting him down. He's trying to kill him. He activated the. What was that bomb that Mark Wahlberg carries?
[69:44]
Paul Scheer
A maglock bomb. It was like. Yeah.
[69:47]
June Diane Raphael
Weird device.
[69:48]
Jason Mantzoukas
We don't know what that was. I just felt like it was a big jump for Melvin Smiley to.
[69:53]
June Diane Raphael
I agree.
[69:54]
Jason Mantzoukas
Stab him in the heart and watch him bleed out.
[69:57]
June Diane Raphael
Yeah.
[69:57]
Jason Mantzoukas
You know, and. And, like, gently sent him off into the afterlife was so bizarre.
[70:03]
June Diane Raphael
Not. I don't. I would say not very well.
[70:04]
Jason Mantzoukas
I guess not so gently, but he was sort of talking through it.
[70:08]
June Diane Raphael
Oh, oh, oh, sorry. Yes.
[70:09]
Jason Mantzoukas
He was sort of side coaching him.
[70:11]
June Diane Raphael
You're doing great. Just if you see the light. Yes. And it.
[70:16]
Paul Scheer
Well, he. To me, what's so fun about him is I feel like I understand the bravado and the dumbness, and he crosses that line where. I think you're saying Jason, like, where he gets really evil and he was going to sacrifice Mark Wahlberg in a way. So I didn't have a problem with him being stabbed in such a way because he left him for dead first. And it didn't work. He jumped into the water. So now he's like, I gotta get the job done. I tried to do it this simple way, which is just get his head decapitated from a car falling from a tree. That didn't work. Now I must. I must take matters into my own hands because I can't trust it. I can't trust this guy.
[70:52]
June Diane Raphael
Yeah. Because he's only out for himself and
[70:55]
Paul Scheer
his boat, which is called Big. I mean, in Spanish. Yeah, that's the. The name. I will double check what it was written for.
[71:06]
June Diane Raphael
Yeah, it's hard because it's like, he's clearly the biggest bad guy of the movie in terms of, like, you know, antagonist, but he is, over the course of the movie, the person who I come to like the most. You know, who I. It's not that I'm rooting for him. I'm just enjoying him most.
[71:27]
Jason Mantzoukas
Same.
[71:28]
Paul Scheer
I also need to just call out Avery Brooks, who Jason, I know that you love Censor for hire. I love From Deep Space Nine, Cisco. He, to me, is such an untapped talent because I actually think, and I say this with so much love, that he is a little bit insane. And. And I feel like he's improvising within this character. He's like, paris must have House of Paris. Play that clip.
[71:52]
June Diane Raphael
When the rules are broken in the house of Paris, the machine breaks down. Discipline must be enforced. Order must be restored. In my house, there has been a transgression, an unauthorized kidnapping in my house. Who could be that stupid? It gets worse. In this particular case, the transgression is personal. In this case, the kidnappee happens to be my goddaughter.
[72:28]
Paul Scheer
Oh, no.
[72:29]
June Diane Raphael
Some rock, some dolt, some less than senseless thing has decided to come to my house and kidnap my goddaughter. And I am looking, I am searching for a motherfucker stupid enough to fuck with me. Hey, yo boss, what's this got to do with me? I want to know what you would do to that son of a jackal. Me? I. I would.
[73:02]
Paul Scheer
You know I would. What would you do to someone who
[73:08]
June Diane Raphael
decided to fuck with you in your own house? I bust some caps.
[73:15]
Paul Scheer
Bust some caps. Give this man a gold star and the two of them together. Like when he pulls Lou Diamond Phillips in and Lou Diamond Phillips thinks that he's going down for this kidnapping. The energy between this man, who is borderline insane and then Lou Diamond Phillips playing like this big character is so much fun to watch. I always think about this clip of Avery Brooks from a Star Trek documentary where he starts talking and then just starts playing the piano and singing a song. Like in the middle of his answer. Like, I'm like, this is what I want. Like, I just feel like that kind of scenery chewing I am all in for.
[73:51]
June Diane Raphael
And I would have liked. And one of the things that's hard about the movie is even though this is a unit of guys who do these hits and stuff, after that first hit, they're never together again. I mean, when Lou Diamond Phillips is hunting down Mark Wahlberg, he's not with Anthony Sabato Jr. And Bo Woodbine. They're not. It's not his team is hunting him. It's that everybody is like scattered to the wind and now has to talk to each other on phone calls, which makes no sense.
[74:21]
Paul Scheer
Also when they hang up the phone in this movie, you get, you do get a dial tone and they are using cell phone headphones.
[74:27]
June Diane Raphael
I love it.
[74:28]
Jason Mantzoukas
Well, we also didn't discuss the tracing technology.
[74:32]
Paul Scheer
They took everything from this man except his patented call tracer which when effectively works, it dials up a face image of the person that is calling you.
[74:44]
June Diane Raphael
That, that whole thing made me laugh.
[74:48]
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh God. And like the Trace Buster couldn't where. I mean, it was so.
[74:52]
June Diane Raphael
The Trace Buster Buster. Wasn't that what he had? Because they had a Trace Buster. And doesn't he have a Trace Buster Buster Buster?
[75:00]
Jason Mantzoukas
Yes, that's right.
[75:01]
June Diane Raphael
And that's where I felt like this movie had jokes that were written by non comedians. These movies jokes were written by like uncles.
[75:12]
Paul Scheer
I mean it is. I mean that hitman joke, I make a killing like that. Is it like there and the straight jacking and all that kind of Stuff. It just feels like. It does feel like we want to be bad, but we don't know exactly how to be bad.
[75:25]
June Diane Raphael
There's another way to identify when this movie was made, and it's during peak. Every kitchen has a hanging pot rack. Do you remember this? This was a real moment where hanging pot racks became a thing. And then every kitchen.
[75:42]
Jason Mantzoukas
Pot rack. Yeah. Over an island.
[75:44]
June Diane Raphael
And so there's a scene in this movie where there's a fight that happens in a kitchen and then there's a hanging pot rack that is just swaying in and out of the. It's so funny. And I was like, that's what this movie lives in the time of pot racks.
[75:58]
Jason Mantzoukas
You know what? Bring him back. Because I hate searching through a drawer for me, too.
[76:02]
Paul Scheer
I want to hang that up.
[76:03]
June Diane Raphael
Hang that rack.
[76:05]
Jason Mantzoukas
Pot. Hang that pot.
[76:07]
Paul Scheer
I do want to just, you know, say that this movie brought love into our world because China Chow, that is the actress's name, who is kidnapped by Mark Wahlberg. This is her first film ever, and her. Mark Wahlberg did date for four years after this film.
[76:23]
June Diane Raphael
Oh, wow.
[76:23]
Jason Mantzoukas
They did have chemistry.
[76:24]
Paul Scheer
Yeah, they were good. That's why I actually think it's the
[76:27]
Jason Mantzoukas
best part of the movie in many ways.
[76:29]
June Diane Raphael
I know.
[76:30]
Jason Mantzoukas
Because she just seems like a real person.
[76:33]
June Diane Raphael
I agree. Yeah. Yes. She seems like. She seems like the movie she's in is the closest movie to reality.
[76:40]
Jason Mantzoukas
Yes.
[76:40]
June Diane Raphael
And everybody else is in a cartoon movie, including all their clothes. Everything they're doing looks like they are cartoon characters.
[76:47]
Paul Scheer
I, I, she. I like this character. I like her in this movie. I feel like they, if they gave her more to do even, it would be great to see that she had some skills. I think I would have liked to see some skills. But obviously we had opinions about this movie, but there are other people out there who might have thought differently. It is now time for second opinions.
[77:06]
June Diane Raphael
Paul and Jason and June talk a lot about what makes a movie good or not, but everyone knows they're actually full of sh. We need a second opinion. Someone that knows what they're talking about. We need a second opinion. We need a second. Oh, give me a second.
[77:35]
Paul Scheer
We need a second get opinion. Thank you, wolves of Glendale. All right. This movie has an average rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars on Amazon. There's over a thousand reviews and 74% of them are 5 stars. And this one, written in 2015 by Reid VIP Brown, starts with my favorite movie to date. Just note that this was written in 2015. This review was written in 2015. My favorite movie to date. Love Marky Mark doing breakdancing as he saves the day and shooting up those bad guy mobsters. Buy this and remember the late 90s as they were the best time for this country and for hip hop. You can hear and see Marky Mark in my music album called Speed Kills Power Corrupt which can be downloaded on DAT pift. If you like this movie, you will love my album which represents the 90s and great hip hop. Rock on Mark. And kudos to read VIP Brown, which is him. So he. He also thanks himself at the end of his own review for the big hit and he is not in the big hit.
[78:53]
June Diane Raphael
Wow.
[78:55]
Paul Scheer
This one from Shane in 2022 just says so great. What could happen when you get a whole bunch of bad guys together to do some bad like a kidnapping? Everything can go wrong. Five stars. Title full of excitement. And then LJ writes, this has to be the most fun and fatal frolic any group of hitmen could have in the course of a two hour movie. It's a great ride from start to finish and I hope the guys had fun making the flick. Mark is cute, Lou is crazy, Bo Keem's got soul and Antonio is so fine. Pass me the hot buttered popcorn. Five stars. This one's a keeper. Oh, wow.
[79:49]
June Diane Raphael
Well, I mean, I mean it is hunks on parade. That's very true.
[79:53]
Paul Scheer
I mean we didn't talk about the fact when they do their first hit, I would say they are conspicuous. They are not incorrect. They are dressed as. I didn't even know what workmen, workers that are not wearing shirts or sleeveless shirts.
[80:05]
June Diane Raphael
They're all wearing a boiled up.
[80:09]
Paul Scheer
Oh my God.
[80:11]
June Diane Raphael
And they didn't need to enter the
[80:12]
Paul Scheer
building through the front door. That's the other thing. They didn't need to enter the.
[80:16]
June Diane Raphael
And why would front door and guest elevators. I would love to know. I would love to know like from our audience, are you guys all doing like, like a lot of hangout time naked in the locker room, chit chatting? Is that part of normal life?
[80:36]
Paul Scheer
I mean when Lou Diamond Phelps came in and dropped that towel and had to. I mean every guy is trying not to show their dick, but they're also trying to show off their ass. They're all happy about their ass and they are. They're getting those underwear on quick. Even though Marky Mark is wearing like very baggy like boxer briefs. Everyone else is in the tightest.
[80:53]
June Diane Raphael
Well, this is his Calvin Klein era.
[80:55]
Paul Scheer
Yeah, right.
[80:57]
June Diane Raphael
Or maybe it's not, but when I
[80:59]
Paul Scheer
watched him put those Pants over the boxer briefs. It reminded me so much of the trouble that I had as a child to tuck those in because they were so loose. You had to, like. You're basically wearing shorts under pants. Oh, yeah. But I think that these guys work.
[81:14]
June Diane Raphael
And by tuck those in, you mean the boxer brief. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[81:19]
Paul Scheer
Not my balls. Not my numbers. Not my numbers.
[81:23]
June Diane Raphael
Tuck these fucking balls in.
[81:26]
Paul Scheer
Oh, my God. I mean, they also. That locker room was in a. All windows. Locker room was in a. Was completely in a glass. Not that anyone could see that high up. But it still was funny to me that it was all Windows Movie was made for $13 million and made $27 million. It was a modest hit. And. And, of course, the tagline was hit happens.
[81:55]
June Diane Raphael
Okay.
[81:56]
Jason Mantzoukas
And it does.
[81:57]
June Diane Raphael
Okay. And I'll say this is. This was one of the very few instances of a movie where I had that kind of itchy brain of, like, how much time is left? I feel like I'm gonna click the thing, and it's gonna be like 40 minutes is still left. I clicked the thing, and it was only 10 minutes, and I was like, I did it.
[82:15]
Paul Scheer
They did it.
[82:16]
June Diane Raphael
This movie has just flown by. It's basically, like, four set pieces, most of which kind of don't make sense. So it went down pretty smooth this morning over my morning coffee.
[82:27]
Paul Scheer
I will say I enjoyed the watch, but it also gave me that thing where I want to forget 97 and 98. I didn't like being back in that time. It felt unsafe to me or just felt cringy to me in a way that. I don't know.
[82:46]
June Diane Raphael
It feels like this could have had an entire soundtrack that was rap rock, you know, but thank God it didn't.
[82:54]
Jason Mantzoukas
Yeah. And I mean, for me, it really, like, it made me kind of reframe the timeline we're currently in and, like, just take a second to, you know, appreciate some of the. Some of the advances we have made.
[83:10]
Paul Scheer
Wow.
[83:12]
June Diane Raphael
Meaning stream. We can stream movies now, not have to go to the video store.
[83:19]
Jason Mantzoukas
Yeah. And, like, numbers pop up on your phone. You don't need the trace.
[83:25]
Paul Scheer
You got a blocker, you got a burner. Very easy. Look, this. This is trying to be all things, and I think. Think that I always put these kind of movies in the camp of we're trying to be Quentin Tarantino, and we don't quite know exactly what that means at this point. Yes.
[83:43]
June Diane Raphael
Yes. There's a lot of, like, eight heads in a duffel bag.
[83:47]
Paul Scheer
Very bad things. That movie with Christian Slater where they kill A stripper.
[83:50]
June Diane Raphael
Yeah, yep. The other one, that Two Days in the Valley. Yes, whatever. These are all movies that are, that are trying to crib off of Quentin Tarantino's ability to be funny and light inside of horrific violence.
[84:03]
Paul Scheer
And I think the difference what you said earlier about like, oh, it's like uncles writing jokes. I think what that is is a pass on a serious script. I think that they have this script and they go, okay, we'll make it Quentin Tarantino, we'll make it funny. And that's what's gonna get people involved. And then people look at it and they go, oh, that we gotta be in the next verse of our dogs. Like us talking about jerking off is like us jerking about tipping. It's like you can see, I think you're those little machinations going on.
[84:29]
June Diane Raphael
I wouldn't be surprised at all to find out if that this was written first as like a straight ahead action movie and then somebody did a joke pass. Yeah.
[84:38]
Paul Scheer
Cuz I did not know that this was a comedy until.
[84:41]
June Diane Raphael
No, until maybe I didn't know it was a romance. I didn't know that there would be a love story between him, the assassin and the high school student.
[84:49]
Paul Scheer
College. Now I will say, June, there are no colleges that require uniforms besides medical school.
[84:57]
Jason Mantzoukas
Play the clip. You keep on saying we're playing clips.
[84:59]
Paul Scheer
Play the clip. Molly Cody. If we have a clip, we should play that clip.
[85:05]
Jason Mantzoukas
Play the clip.
[85:07]
Paul Scheer
I need to pick up my daughter cottage.
[85:10]
June Diane Raphael
Here's what I'm gonna say. If you enjoyed the component of this movie that took place in the video store and they have nostalgia for movies and watching movies at home or just video stores in general, this movie is on Criterion right now. It's on other things too. But this movie on Criterion and one of the other things that's on Criterion right now is the new documentary that Alex Ross Perry made called Video Haven. And it's a documentary about video stores inside of movies and what it, what it was to have access to video stores and all this stuff. And it's all about the video store. So. And it's a fantastic documentary. It's worth watching. And then another thing that I'm going to plug that I think is related just as a person who loves movies is Amy Lou Wood's BBC series called Film Club. This is an absolutely hilarious and heartbreaking sitcom. Six episodes, there's only one season about a young woman and her friend who every Friday night watch movies together. But it's really about what is going on in their lives and what are the struggles that they're kind of going through in their friendship, their relationship, but it's all tied to the movies they're watching. So every week, whatever movie they're watching, Aliens, the Wizard of Oz, infects their dynamic and their relationship. And it's really incredible and beautiful and devastating and a wonderful watch.
[86:43]
Jason Mantzoukas
Oh, okay.
[86:44]
June Diane Raphael
Film club.
[86:45]
Jason Mantzoukas
Film club. Got it.
[86:46]
June Diane Raphael
Yeah. I think people would absolutely love it. It is beautiful. And she is fantastic. Everybody's great in it, but. And she wrote it. It's like her show. It's very. It's really great.
[86:56]
Jason Mantzoukas
Cool.
[86:57]
June Diane Raphael
Amy. Lou would from White Lotus and sex Education.
[87:01]
Paul Scheer
All right, so I think we like this movie. It rectunes day. Jason and I are a little bit easier in it. We all agree Antonio Zimbato Jr. Is the star or the untapped star of this. And it could have been a better
[87:15]
June Diane Raphael
movie with more Vince. Give me more Vince.
[87:17]
Jason Mantzoukas
1000%.
[87:19]
Paul Scheer
I will say this, that I know Jason just recommended a bunch of things, but Columbia Pictures, I think, did put together a box set of Lou Diamond Phillips movies. And it is La Bamba, the big hit. And that movie that we did with the bats. So those are. And Lou Diamond Phelps did a lot of press for it and said this is a great box set because it shows off my range. And I gotta say, he's right.
[87:41]
June Diane Raphael
Yeah. Oh, he's great. I think he's fantastic. And that's the thing, is the movie has great actors in it. It's just unsuccessful.
[87:49]
Paul Scheer
All right, thanks so much for listening to how did this get made? If you have a correction or omission from this episode that you want us to hear, well, just go to speakpipe.com hdtgm to leave us a voice message. Okay. You can use your phone or a computer. The link is in the show notes. But if you don't want to leave messages and just go to our discord at Discord GG hdtgm. Tune in next week to listen to our Last Looks episode where we to all of the best messages that you have left for us. And we'll announce next week's movie that we'll be covering on the show. Plus, Jason is always joining me on Last Looks to chat about our favorite TV shows, movies, music, books, whatever is on our mind. Sometimes we just hang out. And if you need even more. How did this get made Before Friday's new episode, know that we re release classic episodes from the Vault every single Tuesday. If you listen on Apple podcasts or Spotify, please make sure you are subscribed to our feed and you have automatic downloads turned on in the show settings that really help us and we appreciate it. So make sure you got those automatic downloads turned on. And lastly, I gotta give a huge thanks to our behind the scenes team. I'm talking about our producers, Scott Sonneg, Molly Reynolds, our engineer Casey Holford and our social media manager, Zoe Applebaum. We will forever be thankful to the one and only Avril Halley. That's all I got, people. See you next week on Last Looks. Bye for now.
[89:12]
June Diane Raphael
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[89:33]
Paul Scheer
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