'Sicario' With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey

Summary

The Rewatchables: 'Sicario'

With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Date: March 3, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode brings together Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey for a comprehensive deep-dive into Denis Villeneuve's 2015 thriller Sicario. The conversation—lively, irreverent, and thoughtful—explores the film’s relentless tension, political undertones, iconic performances, and rewatchability through the signature Rewatchables categories. The hosts also reflect on where Sicario stands in the modern action canon, its place in the filmographies of its cast and crew, and the broader cultural moment of its release.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Sicario Resonates (MM:16–08:00)

• Chris Ryan’s Obsession:
  “Every frame of every shot of every scene is interesting to look at. The story, the dialogue, the themes are deeply fascinating… it’s just like a perfect movie to me.” (03:16 - Chris Ryan)
• Complex Moral Terrain:
  The hosts agree that Sicario’s adult, “morally complicated” storytelling sets it apart, making it less about black-and-white heroes and more about shades of gray in the drug war ("...there's no right, only degrees of wrong." —Bill Simmons, 09:02).

2. Villeneuve’s Direction and Vibe (MM:03:45–05:30)

• Distinctive Style:
  Sean: "He’s a little bit Ridley Scott, a little bit Stanley Kubrick… It’s really nice little mixture." (04:02)
• Cinematography:
  High praise for Roger Deakins: "Some of the best cinematography I’ve ever seen in my life.” (27:50 - Chris Ryan); the dusk/tunnel scenes are called out as visually iconic.

3. Rewatchable Entry Points (04:15–04:52)

• The movie is packed with set pieces that work as standalone watches:
  • Opening raid
  • Border crossing
  • Tunnel operation
  • The climactic home invasion

4. Apocalypse Now Comparison & Story Structure (04:55–07:53)

• Chris sees Sicario as a modern Apocalypse Now, exploring a "seemingly never-ending war" with a peak in visceral action ("31st minute of the movie…like the Flight of the Valkyries scene in Apocalypse Now.") and descending into something “much deeper and more contemplative.”
• "You have the Kurtz character" (Del Toro/Alejandro), and Emily Blunt’s protagonist is likened to "a shivering puddle" by the end, paralleling Martin Sheen’s arc.

5. Character Analysis & Writing (10:11–11:14; 16:13–19:38)

• Is Kate a Great Character?
  “She’s not a deep character.” (11:17 - Chris Ryan)
• Taylor Sheridan’s Writing:
  The emergence of Sheridan’s voice is pivotal—Sicario marked his debut as a screenwriter, leading to Yellowstone and an entire television empire. The hosts reflect on how the film cut much of Del Toro’s dialogue, making Alejandro more mysterious and effective.

6. Casting & Performance Highlights (14:05–15:06)

• Unique Ensemble:
  • Emily Blunt is praised for her credibility and physicality.
  • Del Toro’s minimalism: “He elevates every movie he’s in. It’s a very, very good stare.” (21:46)
  • Josh Brolin: "Seems like he’s having an unusually great time for the circumstances.” (31:49)
• Best Decade “Banger” Game:
  A fun tangent about actors who delivered memorable roles across decades—De Niro, Cruise, Streep, Pacino, Brolin, and Del Toro all assessed.

7. Socio-Political Subtext (53:46–56:36)

• Drug War Depiction:
  Sean: “Drug cartels running entire countries and subverting power structures has aged well. It's still happening right now.” (55:19)
• The film doesn’t glamorize, but instead complicates, the American role and policy ambivalence in the drug war.

8. Most Rewatchable Scenes (38:11–51:11)

• Unanimous choice: The Juarez border crossing sequence (51:05–51:11), for its tension and military precision, compared in quality to the bank heist from Heat.
• Also cited: Opening raid, bar sequence with Kate and Reggie, tunnel infiltration, climactic dinner assassination scene.

9. "A Movie for Adults" (06:55–07:11)

• “It's a movie for adults…morally complicated…it’s about history. It’s about actual contemporary conflict.”—Sean Fennessey (06:57)

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Timestamps for Notable Segments

• Opening Theme & Introduction: 00:00–02:29
• Chris Explains His Love for Sicario: 02:29–03:45
• Villeneuve/Kubrick/Scott Comparison: 04:02–04:12
• Apocalypse Now vs Sicario: 04:55–07:53
• Core Quotes on Moral Gray Areas: 09:02–09:59
• Kate Character Debate: 10:11–11:14
• Taylor Sheridan’s Screenwriting Influence: 15:35–19:38
• Casting Talk & Actor “Decade Banger” Game: 21:22–25:58
• Rewatchable Scene Deep-Dive (Juarez Border): 38:11–51:11
• Cinematography and Deakins: 27:40–28:49
• Sheridan’s Sociopolitical Themes: 53:46–56:36
• Best/Worst Aging Aspects: 54:05–57:22

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Chris Ryan:

  • “The structure of this movie is pretty fascinating…Sicario to Apocalypse Now…our lifetime's ‘war that can’t be understood.’” (04:55)
  • “Every line [Del Toro] says is memorable…I'm going to remember that for the rest of my life.” (24:20)

• Bill Simmons:

  • “There’s no right, only degrees of wrong.” (09:02)
  • “Don’t expect your movie hero to end up the hero all the time in a movie.” (09:29)
  • “I like this guy—oh, no, I don’t like this guy.” (58:46, about Bernthal’s character)
  • “Most rewatchable scene?...The 21-minute border crossing sequence.” (51:11)

• Sean Fennessey:

  • “He’s a little bit Ridley Scott, a little bit Stanley Kubrick.” (04:02)
  • “Del Toro’s character…he is the titular character.” (18:24)
  • “I would also take it one step further and say that the movie is not really very interested in psychologizing any of its characters.” (17:59)
  • “The success of Yellowstone is the biggest loss for movies of the last decade.” (77:48, Hottest Take)

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Deep-Dive: Most Rewatchable Scenes

• Opening Raid ([38:11]):
  Features the grisly discovery of bodies in the wall and sets the film's grim tone.
• Juarez Convoy / Border Crossing ([41:35–51:11]):
  Universally cited for its gripping tension, clarity of action, and immersive editing.
• Bar Hookup Scene ([45:15–47:16]):
  Kate’s near-strangulation punctuates her loss of innocence and trust.
• Tunnel Sequence ([47:58–48:19]):
  The film’s darkness—literal and figurative—culminates here.
• Dinner Scene Assassination ([48:19–50:39]):
  “Time to meet God.” Possibly the darkest, most hard-hitting climactic moment.

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Awards & Categories Debated

• Best Performance:
  Unanimous acclaim for Benicio Del Toro, with Chris Ryan noting, “This is one of the reasons this movie is so rewatchable and so good—he's a little more mysterious.” (19:19)
• Biggest Nitpick/Weak Link:
  The film’s density and ambiguity around FBI/CIA operations make it hard to follow on first watch (66:43–67:09).
• Aging the Best/Worst:
  • Moral ambiguity, the depiction of the drug war, and info-card intros praised.
  • Kate’s continued insistence on process/protocol critiqued.
  • Portrayal of Juarez as “scariest city on earth” hasn’t aged perfectly.

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Fun Tangents & In-Jokes

• Actor “Decade Banger” Game:
  Playfully ranking actors (De Niro, Cruise, Streep, Pacino, Brolin, Del Toro) with signature roles each decade (25:00).
• Bill’s “Floyd Gondoli” Award:
  Enjoyment of any “there’s rumors of a tunnel” line in a drug movie (62:55).
• Franchise Tag Idea:
  Craig proposes a “no sequel” committee to prevent unnecessary follow-ups to great films (87:27).

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Quickfire: Additional Insights

• Script Changes:
  Big deviations from Sheridan’s original script, including major cuts to dialogue, especially for Alejandro (16:19–16:31).
• Emily Blunt’s Run:
  Noted transition from comedic/romantic roles (Devil Wears Prada) to action (Looper, Edge of Tomorrow, Sicario).
• Casting What-ifs:
  Blunt considered irreplaceable, but Kate Winslet (time-shifted) is floated as a hypothetical.
• Sequels and Prestige TV:
  Soldado is “a cable movie,” with some intrigue in a possible TV adaptation.

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Concluding Thoughts and Episode Tone

• The conversation is fast, witty, and digressive—jumping from serious thematic analysis to playful rankings and inside movie/baseball jokes.
• The hosts agree that Sicario is a rare film for adults: tightly constructed, technically brilliant, and narratively challenging.
• The border convoy scene is celebrated as one of the greatest action set pieces of the century.
• Despite its darkness, the movie’s “rewatchability” is confirmed by the hosts’ repeated viewing and unpacking of new detail each time.

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Final Takeaway & Who Won the Movie

• Winner: Taylor Sheridan—his debut script launched arguably the must influential American screenwriting/TV career of the past decade (“It sends him on this incredible trajectory where he’s arguably one of the most powerful people in entertainment right now.” —Chris Ryan, 113:28)
• Honorable mentions: Benicio Del Toro for an all-timer in enigmatic anti-hero acting; Denis Villeneuve & Roger Deakins for style and craft.

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For Your Next Watch

• Double Feature Suggestions:
  • Sicario 2: Soldado
  • Heat
  • King of New York
  • Fast Five (for tunnel action)

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(For a complete breakdown of Rewatchables categories and more movie deep-dives, find The Rewatchables at The Ringer or on YouTube.)

Transcript

[Bill Simmons]

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[Chris Ryan]

You just love me.

[Bill Simmons]

You're healthy. You're here. You've been pushing for these movies for a long time. That's Chris Ryan. You can find him on the watch. That is Sean Fennessy from the Big Picture. We've been doing the Rewatchables since 2017. This is our first live podcast, right?

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah, I think so.

[Chris Ryan]

On Netflix. Yeah, for sure.

[Bill Simmons]

Here's the part where I awkwardly throw the break and then we'll be back in one second. This episode of the Rewatchables is presented by TikTok. The online world moves fast. That's why TikTok approaches teen safety with families in mind from the start. On TikTok, teens get over 50 built in protections right? When they join, their accounts are private by default. For those under 16, direct messages are turned off. Only friends can comment on their videos. When safety comes first, discovery can follow. Learn [e-mail] guardiansguide. Sicario is a 2015American action crime thriller film directed by Denis Villeneuve.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes.

[Bill Simmons]

Written by Taylor Sheridan in his screenwriting debut and starring Emily Blunt, Vanisa Del Toro and Josh Brolin. I got that off of Wikipedia. Cr. You love this movie.

[Chris Ryan]

I adore this movie.

[Bill Simmons]

You blogged about it for dearly departed Grantland in September of 2015. One of your best pieces of work.

[Chris Ryan]

Thanks.

[Bill Simmons]

You have been advocating for this for the Rewatchables for some time. It finished 41st on my most rewatchable movies of the 21st centuries. Ranking which caused you to jostle angrily in your seat and wonder if it was a bit. Yeah, I've watched it three times since. I probably would move it up now.

[Chris Ryan]

Top 30.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah. Maybe higher or lower than 16A.

[Bill Simmons]

Limitless is higher. I've watched it.

[Chris Ryan]

You think Limitless is better than Sequoia?

[Bill Simmons]

Limitless probably is top 12 at best point. What is it? What is it about this movie?

[Chris Ryan]

Sierra, this movie just engages every part of my movie watching brain. Every frame of every shot of every scene is interesting to look at. The story, the dialogue, the themes are deeply fascinating to watch play out. And all of the performances are unique and wonderful. But, you know, even though they are expressing like an individual performance, they are all like in sync and in tune with each other. It's just like a perfect movie to me.

[Bill Simmons]

And you're a big fan of Delis Villanova, the director?

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah, yeah. Jimmy Vils, one of my favorite filmmakers. Yeah, he's got a name like an islanders forward circa 1983.

[Bill Simmons]

He knew Guy Lafleur muck it up in the corner.

[Sean Fennessey]

But he's got, you know, he's like a little bit Ridley Scott, a little bit Stanley Kubrick. He's like really nice little mixture of a filmmaker for me. So I really love his movies. This is by far my favorite of his movies.

[Chris Ryan]

This is his best movie.

[Bill Simmons]

It feels more timely than ever. Wrote that one down. Things have been happening in Mexico and anytime anything happens in Mexico, it's hard not to send your brain back. From a rewatchability standpoint, which is the whole point of this podcast, this movie has a few different entry points. You can just start from the beginning and you're just off from for five minutes. You can wait a little later until we're doing the drop off or whatever we're trying to do. When we're going through border patrol, we could go to the guys descending into darkness as we go into the night goggles in the tunnel. Or you could just watch the end as Del Toro takes out an entire crime lord and his family.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes.

[Bill Simmons]

Four entry points.

[Chris Ryan]

CR yeah, you know what? The structure of this movie is pretty fascinating. When I wrote that Grantland piece, I compared it. I compared Sicario to Apocalypse now and I still feel like I liked it. It's our Apocalypse Now. Like it is a movie of our lifetime about a war that is seemingly never ending, that very few people truly understand and maybe can't be understood. But one of the reasons why I think that that comp holds is the way that it kind of peaks viscerally in The, I think, 31st minute of the movie. And that's not unlike the Flight of the Valkyries scene in Apocalypse Now. And then the rest of the film is much deeper and more contemplative than the rest of the film is just way more contemplative than the beginning of the film. It's way more about this woman learning about the morality and the sense of justice that she's exploring. But, like, do you think that that comparison holds?

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah, I mean, it's not as epic as Apocalypse now, but I think it's really smart. I mean, I think it's also. I wrote down that I really like a movie with a debrief where there's, like, men go into a room and some men have important information and other men don't have that information, and they're being brought into the scheme. And there's a very famous one in Apocalypse now where Harrison Ford is sitting there quietly as, like, a menacing officer, and Martin Sheen's character is brought in and his mission is explained to him. And it's almost like, duplicated perfectly in this movie with the setup where we see Kate sitting outside of the glass room where Graver and the FBI and the DOD and the CIA people. Yes. And, like, it's a movie for adults. And I don't mean that in a sexual way. Like, it's a movie for, like. You wouldn't be 9 years old and interested in this movie. Really. Yeah, exactly. It's morally complicated. It's about history. It's about actual contemporary conflict. To your point, the very serious. I don't know if it has quite the same level of, like, mysticism, like opera.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

That is an Apocalypse Now.

[Bill Simmons]

You know, it wasn't made by people who were doing drugs and having a heart attack as they were making.

[Chris Ryan]

Dennis Hopper is not in it.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah. It's more controlled. Right. And it's tighter. It's two hours. But I. But thematically, the big idea, this, like, going to the scary place.

[Chris Ryan]

Just going. It's going up the river, it's going through the tunnel, it's arriving on some other side where your. Your view of the world has been completely changed.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, you left out also, you have the Kurtz character. You did this in your blog.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Call it a blog or an essay.

[Sean Fennessey]

What do you think?

[Chris Ryan]

I was just a blog post.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Just jamming it out.

[Bill Simmons]

I would have given you essay.

[Sean Fennessey]

What about Think Piece.

[Bill Simmons]

Think Piece. But the Kurtz Del Toro is Kurtz. Right. And then Emily Blunt's character just descending into. By the end of the movie. She's just a shivering puddle of just what the hell is going to happen in the rest of her life. That's basically Barton Sheen. An apocalypse. What's gonna happen? He's seen too much. Too much has happened. He's lost his mind.

[Chris Ryan]

And Brolin is a pretty functional Kilgore character, which is the Robert Duvall character in Apocalypse now, which is a person who seems to almost get a sensory high from being in this incredibly chaotic, incredibly violent world.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah. Reveling in the mania.

[Bill Simmons]

One of the things I like about this movie is I probably had to see it multiple times before I fully understood what was happening, because it's really complicated. And even when you get to the FBI, CIA, part of it all, what they're trying to do with her, the chess game of bringing her in and the reasons behind that, you're just not going to really get that on the first airing of that.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

You know what you're going to get, though? Probably a lawnmower in the background on our live rewatchables. I'd have to send a text about that one. Good time.

[Craig Horlbeck]

What a savampa.

[Bill Simmons]

We knew anything could happen.

[Chris Ryan]

This is live.

[Bill Simmons]

How about a lawnmower? I had lessons for from Sicario. Did this for a couple movies. One lesson is to tell the lawnmower guy not to be outside the window. I should do a lap pod.

[Chris Ryan]

If you want to send a text, Sean and I could keep talking about.

[Sean Fennessey]

Is that Benicio del Toro on the lawnmower?

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

It might not be my house. Lessons from Sicario. There's no right, only degrees of wrong.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Right.

[Bill Simmons]

Sometimes the ends justify the means. Allegedly. Sometimes it's not personal. It's business. I'm sorry. Sometimes it's not business. It's personal. Isn't working. When it's really, really personal for the other side, the personal's gonna trump the business.

[Chris Ryan]

Sure.

[Bill Simmons]

Don't expect your movie hero to end up the hero all the time in a movie. This movie sets up the Emily Blunt. Oh, it's gonna be her movie, and it's just not. By the end of the movie, America is a little more responsible for the drug war than we want to admit. And then finally, you will doubt everything we do, but in the end, you'll understand. Which is an actual quote from Alejandro. He says it early in the movie. And that's the key quote from the movie. You will doubt everything we do, but in the end, you will understand. Do you think she understood by the end?

[Chris Ryan]

I think she accepted.

[Craig Horlbeck]

I don't know.

[Chris Ryan]

If she understood. But I think she accepted what. What was going on around her and how she was told to play a part in all of this.

[Sean Fennessey]

Can we talk about Kate?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, let's do it.

[Sean Fennessey]

Is Kate a good character? Kate Mercer?

[Chris Ryan]

The SBI is a bit of a cipher, I think. You know, I think that I was thinking about the comparison. I've seen some other folks make it. The relationship between Kate and Alejandro, like the same as Clarice and Hannibal Lecter. And this idea of like a novice, innocent, idealistic person going and meeting with someone whose experiences will shape her and are the key to unlocking all of the truth of the world. And what happens to that person when you get on the other side. Clarice obviously has the backstory of her father. There's a little bit more stuff in there about the sexism of the FBI. And Kate kind of moves through this movie more or less like a guy. You know what I mean? Like, I think Taylor Sheridan has talked a lot about, like, everybody's like, how did you write such a powerful female character? And, you know, it's a little bit of a back pat for him. But I think that she's a good character. She's not a deep character.

[Bill Simmons]

He back patted himself on that.

[Chris Ryan]

No, but he was just like. I think that he was saying that the creator of Lioness first was pitching this script. A lot of producers or some producers were like, great, can you make Kate a man? And we'll cast this person as Kate.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah, this can be Chris Pine. We're good to go.

[Chris Ryan]

If you call him Cade, it just

[Bill Simmons]

sounds a little Trump esque where he's like, a lot of people are saying this is a really powerful character. Yeah, they flipped the Clarice Starling thing on us, which makes me think Silence of the Lambs actually weirdly helps this movie because you're watching, you're like, oh, this is the Clarice. She's gonna come in here and it's actually not that. And she's just gonna get broken down and be questioning all of her professional decisions by the end of it. I have a bunch of stuff to go through here. The first one is that it was released on September 19, 2015, same weekend as the Martian. Yep. We really knew what we were doing 10 years ago, guys.

[Sean Fennessey]

I mean, you're in my. What's age the worst right now that the Martian and Robert Zemeckis the Walk were released on the same day, which means three original adult dramas opened wide against one another in 2015. That would never happen.

[Bill Simmons]

I forgot about the walk. I don't even think I ended up

[Sean Fennessey]

seeing it out to be a dud. But that was like. It's a big movie, you know, It's a remake of a documentary about a famous event that happened, you know?

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. The Martian and Sicario are really good comparisons, too, of my favorite kind of movie, which is basically. It's like Heat. It's like Training Day. It's like Primal Fear or the Firm, where you go in expecting a baseline, like, floor of an experience, because it's a genre that you like. And then if you get somebody like Ridley Scott or Denis Villeneuve or Christopher Nolan or Michael Mann directing one of those movies like that, pop. That you feel when you're like, oh, shit, this is gonna be even better than just, okay, like, this could be great. And you're watching it, like, I think I saw Sicario, like, immediately twice in the theater, which I only do with movies like this.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, you doubled up?

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. I think it was like a real. Like, I have to go back, like, in a day or two.

[Bill Simmons]

Craig, you were 20, 19, 2015.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

So did you. Sakari or Martian? Martian, yeah. I think Martian kind of blew it

[Chris Ryan]

out of the theaters. I did.

[Craig Horlbeck]

I saw them both. But Martian was the one to go out and see first. It was a more commercial movie.

[Sean Fennessey]

He was a much bigger hit.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. Also, like, at the time, nobody really knew the director. We just knew him from prisoners. Like, for actual mainstream movies.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Matt Damon in Space versus a gritty movie about the drug cartel. In the moment, it was easy to choose Martian.

[Bill Simmons]

Also, it was a movie with stars, but they weren't stars. They were like, that next level down. It's almost like putting together a really good basketball team without a franchise. Guy was Emily Blunt. Josh Brolin, Del Toro.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Daniel Kaluuya. Nobody know who he was at that point, but it's all Bernthal, who was like the Walking Dead guy at that point. But this is how very smartly cast

[Sean Fennessey]

the kind of movie that makes stars in a way, you know, like, obviously, Del Toro was extremely well known, had already won an Oscar, but was a perfect use of him. Brolin had been a part of big movies to that point. He never would be, like, a movie star.

[Chris Ryan]

But this is like Brolin going to another level right here, which is this Everest. And he does the cameo at the end of Avengers this year.

[Sean Fennessey]

Right.

[Chris Ryan]

And so he becomes Thanos and a giant movie star. Whereas I think from no country on, it had been like, wow, Josh Brolin's, like, really good. And like you should have, like he should be in your movie and he's an American gangster and, and Milk and stuff like that. But like this is when he starts just going to another level.

[Bill Simmons]

This movie did not get nominated for best Picture.

[Sean Fennessey]

I don't think it was even ever really under consideration.

[Bill Simmons]

Spotlight won it Big Short, Bridge of Spies, Brooklyn, Mad Max, Fury Road, the Martian, the Revenant and Room. Good movie here.

[Sean Fennessey]

Famously a pretty interesting slate in the Spotlight won that year. But like, maybe everybody feels like Mad Max Fury Road was kind of the way to go.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

This year, that year, ultimately, what a great movie year. It was a good year.

[Bill Simmons]

You know why? Spotlight one, this is what I heard, because they do Taylor Sheridan, first screenplay ever. He's a frustrated actor. Kicks off one of the most impactful and lucrative 11 plus year screenwriting runs.

[Chris Ryan]

There's an ever had. Amazing what if here. Because, you know, Sheridan famously, like kind of frustrated character actor, had been on like Sons of Anarchy and stuff and wanted to write his own material. This is an amazing first script. I read the script. It's pretty different. Not so much in tone. The story and the dialogue is all in the script. They cut so much. And that is something that I imagine would not happen today if Taylor Sheridan was writing a feature film. Yeah, I would imagine that he would be like, the condition is you shoot this script as is.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, we should talk about that because this is the key thing that happened.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Or it turns into a 10 episode

[Bill Simmons]

season or there's more dialogue.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, it just turns into lioness.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, they just. Even for Del Toro's character, The director cut 90% of the dialogue he was supposed to say. Because they decided as they're making the movie, it's actually better if he's a little more mysterious. And it's the best decision they made.

[Chris Ryan]

Incredible decision.

[Bill Simmons]

His character, all the little stuff. I think this is one of the reasons this movie is so rewatchable and so good. All the little things they do to set you up. There's a lot of like show, don't tell stuff that you could teach in screenwriting classes like that. That nightmare that he has in the plane is so important. That could also have been a scene where he's like, yeah, 20 years ago. And he just tells.

[Chris Ryan]

In the screenplay, you see the dream. In the screenplay, he. His dream is shown.

[Bill Simmons]

Really?

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. In the screenplay, the movie opens with like a CEO of Alejandro talking about Mexico. Like there's so much more stuff in the script. It's an interesting document to read. It's pretty widely Available on Google Online.

[Bill Simmons]

So you like this movie? Cr?

[Chris Ryan]

I do. This is a really good bit from Del New Villeneuve about the screenplay and working with Del Toro and is, like Vilnius said, dialogue for me is theater an art for the stage. Cinema is not about dialogue. It's about images and moments and present tense. Benicio can convey way more by the way he breathes in front of a camera than any line. The way he portrays tension, the way you feel when you see him. So, so much of this movie that's successful. And parts that I remember are all, like, a gesture Brolin will make. Like, when he's just, like, to dramatically overreact. And he just kind of, like, puts his hands out a little bit. And it's like the hands make it. The paring it back is what makes it.

[Sean Fennessey]

I would also take it one step further and say that the movie is not really very interested in psychologizing any of its characters. It is not really about explaining backstory, but it's also not even about saying what could have happened to this person that made them this way. We know specifically that Del Toro's character has that, and that's the motivating thing. But the first time you watch the movie, the. You're not. Like, where I land on the movie, which is that this is Benicio del Toro's movie. Like, that he is the titular character. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

That there's any character.

[Sean Fennessey]

It is about him. And even though Emily Blunt is our perspective character, it's not about her.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

She's just caught.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. It's pretty rare to have a POV character that's not the hero, I think, you know.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

There's.

[Bill Simmons]

You could say there's a theory with this that she's kind of the audience of the movie, and you're introduced to all this stuff through her, but ultimately, like, she can't do anything in the audience.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah, I think that's right.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't mind that theory.

[Sean Fennessey]

It's a really good structure for the movie and really smart. And I feel like carving away a lot of Alejandro's dialogue makes that actually more coherent as an idea. Because if he's talking a lot and is doing VO and stuff, then you're like, okay, so we're watching a Benicio del Toro movie where this woman gets involved in his world as opposed to, like, a third or two thirds of the way through the movie. You're like, oh, so we're like, on Alejandro's mission. He is like the change agent inside the movie. I remember watching it the first time Being very confused.

[Chris Ryan]

Sure.

[Sean Fennessey]

Maybe like a halfway point. And now when you watch it again, you see all the intention. But it's one of those things where you're right. Sheridan didn't have the power back then to say, do my movie the way that you want. You know, I'm not as big a fan of Sheridan's TV shows in part because I feel like he kind of can't get out of his own way sometimes with explaining what he thinks about something.

[Chris Ryan]

Well, he's gotten to the point that very few writers ever have where it's just like he runs the show. I mean, moviemaking is not a screenwriter's business. TV is. But even TV writers don't have the kind of carte blanche that he seems to when it comes to dictating. Like, yeah, we're going to do 10 hours. We're going to have, like. If you watch Lioness, Linus has set pieces that are as expensive as the ones that are in, that are in Sicario.

[Bill Simmons]

Once Sheridan figured out how to microdose the limitless drug, it was fucking off for that dude. He's running out of pills.

[Chris Ryan]

Do you think his limitless higher than 16?

[Bill Simmons]

There's no question. I think one. So you think it's Kate's movie because Kate's in the first scene and we're with her the whole time. We're following her and the structure of that. Goldman had a thing about this when he did the Saving Private Ryan. The movie starts with Matt Damon's character going to the cemetery, and then the flashback and it flashes back to things he couldn't have known because he wasn't there. Yeah, and it's like the Die Hard screenwriters, some of them are like, you can't bend the rules like that because if you're telling the movie through the eyes of somebody, you can't then just shift it the other way. That's basically what they do with this.

[Chris Ryan]

This is also like a rule within mystery storytelling where you have to make a decision whether or not you want the audience to know as much as a character or more than a character. And so Sicario kind of plays with that a little bit because midway through the movie, pretty much when Kate goes to the bar with Reg, and that's when the Bernvall scene, we sort of start watching Kate the way that Kate was watching Alejandro earlier in the movie. And there's even camera moves that kind of suggest that, where it kind of shifts POV to Alejandro and it becomes his mission. And the second half of the movie is really about getting Alejandro to Fausto and all the things that they're going to do to get him through that tunnel and into that car and into that house.

[Bill Simmons]

What's your Del Toro relationship?

[Craig Horlbeck]

It's a good question. Usual suspects, I guess.

[Bill Simmons]

He really slides under the radar. He's. I know, like two levels below a famous star.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Definitely. You're never upset to see him in a movie. He elevates every movie he's in.

[Chris Ryan]

He won for Traffic. I mean, right? Like, he's, he's a. He's. He's a face and an acting style that is not. Not really in vogue. You know, it's like a weathered older face, a very kind of minimal acting style that's a lot about being quiet and a lot about looks and a

[Bill Simmons]

lot about gestures, staring. It's a very, very good stare.

[Chris Ryan]

And, you know, like, a lot of our big actors now are like kind of glib one liner machines. And he's not like that.

[Bill Simmons]

He doesn't want to do that. I actually have a little Del Toro game for you.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay. Did you name anything?

[Bill Simmons]

We've never done this on Rewatchables. Yeah, every decade, if you have at least four straight decades with a banger. So he's got usual suspects of the 90s, traffic, 2000s sicario 2010s and then one battle this decade, four in a row. And it's like, oh, a lot of people had that. You'd be surprised. No, like, even if you go to Denzel, where it's like Crimson Tide 90s, we'll give them that. Man on Fire or Training day in the 2000s, 2010s, flight equalizer now we get to the 20s and it's like, all right, equalizer three kind of out.

[Sean Fennessey]

He's just not really a movie star. He's like a grade A movie actor,

[Bill Simmons]

but crucial to all of those movies, even though he wasn't the quarterback of the movie.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah. I mean, I worship him. I think he is one of the most interesting and daring actors. And he is a rare case where you hear a lot of stories about movie stars who get on set and are like, I'm not doing that. And they seem like assholes. And Benicio is very famous for reading scripts, calling filmmakers and saying, like, here's what I think this is. This is what my gut tells me. And Paul Thomas Anderson and Leonardo DiCaprio have been very open in promoting one battle after another about how much Benicio changed what they intended to do with that movie. That the whole Underground Railroad period, back

[Chris Ryan]

to the Cross Stuff that.

[Sean Fennessey]

All that stuff is the stuff that he came up with and worked out with pta, basically, when he arrived on set, because he had no time to prepare, because he came right from the Phoenician scheme, and they just kind of improvised it in a period of days. And it's the absolute heartbeat of the movie. And if that stuff isn't in the movie, the movie isn't nearly what we feel like it is. And that is literally him kind of acting as a writer and coming up with all those ideas for his character. And the Sicario stuff is clearly very similar, where he and Denis were like, this guy shouldn't talk. And by him not talking, but then he gets, like, seven lines of dialogue that are the most memorable lines of dialogue in the movie. And he gets to do the coolest shit.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. Every line he says is memorable. And even every line he says that's memorable is like, what he says. The last line he has to Kate. The last line he says to Fausto. You're like, I'm gonna remember that for the rest of rest of my life. Like, when he's Craig.

[Bill Simmons]

You remind me of my son. He drops that twice on her. It's like his only way to really have a human interaction with the movie.

[Sean Fennessey]

You're asking me how a watch works. You know, like, that stuff is just so. Because he doesn't talk that much in

[Chris Ryan]

the movie, to find him would be to find a vaccine. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Five decaders. This is the finals. De Niro, Godfather 2, Midnight Run, Heat, Meet the Parents, and Limitless.

[Chris Ryan]

Sure. Limitless counts.

[Bill Simmons]

Limitless counts for me.

[Sean Fennessey]

Not the Irishman.

[Bill Simmons]

I'll give you the Irishman if you want to do the Irishman.

[Sean Fennessey]

Kill us. The Flower Moon.

[Bill Simmons]

Fine.

[Chris Ryan]

Cruz.

[Bill Simmons]

Top Gun. Jerry Maguire. Collateral Edge of Tomorrow. Maverick. Pretty tough to beat.

[Sean Fennessey]

That's good. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

It's a five banger. Five decades of bangers for Cruz. We'll see if he can get to six.

[Chris Ryan]

Anybody else? Merrill?

[Bill Simmons]

You know, Pacino. The 2000s are rough for Pacino. You really have to squeeze two for the money in there.

[Sean Fennessey]

What's his 80s pick?

[Bill Simmons]

Scarface.

[Sean Fennessey]

Oh, right. Zadie. Okay. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And then Stallone has Rocky. First blood. Cliffhanger. 2000s are dicey. And then creed. But 2000s falls apart.

[Sean Fennessey]

2000s. What is it like? Daylight?

[Bill Simmons]

It's sad.

[Chris Ryan]

Before Meryl, though.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, Meryl would have Kramer versus Kramer.

[Chris Ryan]

70s, right?

[Bill Simmons]

Pick a movie in the 80s. There's, like, seven of them.

[Chris Ryan]

Sure. So.

[Bill Simmons]

Nice choice.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

90s. Rivers wild.

[Chris Ryan]

Missy's Leg. River Wild.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah. That's Pretty good Bridges in Madison County.

[Chris Ryan]

Sure, yeah, good.

[Bill Simmons]

Prada in 2000s. I don't know. What's 2010s?

[Sean Fennessey]

Iron lady post.

[Bill Simmons]

Iron Lady August.

[Chris Ryan]

Osage County. Right.

[Sean Fennessey]

No.

[Chris Ryan]

When's that?

[Sean Fennessey]

No, but it's 2017. But I wouldn't put it up there.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

We didn't talk about our director. Third line center on the 1978 HABS. Denis Villeneuve. Those power plays he was killing with Pierre Bouchard and Mario Trombo.

[Sean Fennessey]

He's number 13 all time points scored for the Edmondson Oilers.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, great job.

[Chris Ryan]

Full time hockey.

[Bill Simmons]

Are you an incendes guy on Sundis on Sundays? Never saw it.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah, I mean it's extreme. It's extremely gnarly. It is a really raw gnarly.

[Chris Ryan]

His first few movies are fucking disturbing prisoners.

[Bill Simmons]

Enemy is not a.

[Sean Fennessey]

No, Enemy is amazing. Please don't.

[Bill Simmons]

Liz loves Jake Gyllenhaal. Did you sit through Enemy with her?

[Craig Horlbeck]

No.

[Bill Simmons]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessey]

Enemy is about Jenna. About the two. Two halves of us.

[Chris Ryan]

And a giant tarantula lives inside of us.

[Sean Fennessey]

Two wolves. Yes.

[Bill Simmons]

That was a one timer club for me. I saw that once. Not going back.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessey]

That was the way.

[Bill Simmons]

I do like prisoners though. And that will be on the.

[Chris Ryan]

I have some bad news for you about CR month. We're ending with any.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, no, you tell me. So then as Sicario, then he does arrival, Blade Runner, 2049, two dude movies and now he's going to do. What's his next thing?

[Chris Ryan]

Bond. Dune three and then Bond.

[Sean Fennessey]

I mean he's on the mountaintop right now. He's in the top five dudes I wrote down.

[Bill Simmons]

Style, feel, mood, substance.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, pretty much Roger Deakins worth mentioning.

[Bill Simmons]

Big shout, Rog.

[Chris Ryan]

Which is our. This will be this one. And then next week we are doing another Roger Deakins movie. He's out of his fucking mind in this movie.

[Sean Fennessey]

It's amazing.

[Chris Ryan]

Some of the best cinematography I've ever seen in my life.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't know how he gets the soldiers to disappear like that. It doesn't seem like it's CGI when they just kind of walk into the darkness together. And then they just kind of.

[Chris Ryan]

They just waited for the absolute last second of sunlight.

[Sean Fennessey]

It's dusk and they were like dusk.

[Chris Ryan]

He also just has that sense of composition that if you watch scenes that in any other director of photography or any other director for Villeneuve, not. You know, I think they're both equally responsible for the visual look of this film. Like even if it's just Kate looking at Graver or actually there's a good example. The scene that I love, which is like, when Graver is talking to all the FBI guys about recruiting Kate, they shoot from behind Matt's head and they hold it there the whole time where they're like, hey. Then this other guy, Daniel Kaluuya character, he went to Maryland and he's a lawyer from unc goes, no lawyers on this train. And they never cut to his face or anything. And the way they shoot it is like, that's the fucking wizard.

[Sean Fennessey]

It's like, God, yeah, exactly.

[Chris Ryan]

They're like, what is about to happen? You don't want a lawyer to come. Like, that tells you everything about this character and about what's going to happen. And it's their choice to frame it. And you can see all the guys in the frame and they're all like, oh, shit. They're just like, we're about to send this girl to her death probably.

[Bill Simmons]

Do you think Deacon should have done one movie like, that's My Boy with Adam Sandler, like, just. Just like to test himself.

[Sean Fennessey]

I mean, this is a running gag on the big picture. But, you know, he comes in as a. As a cinematography consultant on animated movies. And so he has worked on My beloved Rango and he was like, worked as a kind of ad hoc cinematographer on. On movies that have that tone. So he has done that. Actually.

[Bill Simmons]

There is like, he dabbles.

[Chris Ryan]

If you go back to like the 80s and early 90s, some of the great cinematographers, because they were just working way more. It'll be like a run of movies where it's like a camera operator on the Exorcist and like this, this and this. And it'll be like sorority boob fever. You know what I mean? It's just like, all right, I guess it was time to pay tuition.

[Bill Simmons]

Hey, man, three kids, I gotta be working. The Emily Blunt run was Devil wears Prada in 06. That puts her on the map. And then she has a bunch of misses and near misses and it's just not really going. But then from 12 to 15, five year engagement, Looper, Edge of Tomorrow and Sicario. Yep, she's kind of cemented. That was the run. I have some casting thoughts on her for a later category.

[Sean Fennessey]

Okay, Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

I think I've landed on. I think she was the right person for this because in my head, I think it was more probably Kate Winslet in the early 2000s would have been like the all timer for me for this. But I think she was good.

[Sean Fennessey]

I think she's very credible as an FBI Agent and a person who's like, I'm trained to hold a gun. I can go into these spaces. I think there's some flaw in the writing of her morality, especially in the final third of the movie.

[Chris Ryan]

I can't wait to talk about that.

[Bill Simmons]

Okay, save that. And then our guy Josh Brolin, comes on the map. 1985 Goonies, which had been floated around for the fourth spot in cigar months.

[Chris Ryan]

I know I'm mentioned.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Bounced around for 20 solid years. Just. His IMDb is all over the place. Never quite made it. He was a kid actor. 2005 into the blue. I don't know if you guys know this movie. Paul Walker and Jessica Alba.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Basically a ripoff of the Deep. Brolin's the bad guy, and he's fucking great in it. And I actually like this movie. But Brolin's great. And it's like all the seeds of the Sicario guy. 10 years later is into the blue, but then no. Country 06 gangster W in the valley of Ela Milk. All of a sudden, he's Josh Brolin. And I think this is my favorite Brolin. His attitude and just charisma, and you don't know what he's doing. You know, he's dangerous. He seems like he's having an unusually great time for the circumstances.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Yes.

[Bill Simmons]

And I just really enjoy every minute that he's in this.

[Chris Ryan]

His character's ability to sleep anywhere is very troubling, and it's very indicative of how comfortable he is with everything that's going on. That he's, like, always, like, I'm just gonna steal 15 minutes of a nap. And it's a great little tick. A lot of the hand gestures are awesome. The flip flops or the, you know, the Crocs that he's basically wearing. But he's still a guy who can just go into the tunnel with the Delta dudes and is basically, like, fine. Fine. Going up against him.

[Bill Simmons]

That's you guys. His demeanor has been my professional goal since 2017.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Just want to be like him at all times.

[Sean Fennessey]

It's like, I used to be a roughneck. If I have to get it on, I will. But I'm wearing flip flops today.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. I almost wore slippers on the live rewatchables just to lay it down like Josh Brolin does in this movie.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah. He's an actor who just, like, always should have been 40, you know, and when he was 25, you're, like. You're, like, kind of obnoxious a little bit. And he plays that really well in Goonies, you know, where he's like the overcompensating older brother who's like, doesn't really get on board with the guys.

[Bill Simmons]

He's also had a famous dad.

[Sean Fennessey]

He did.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And his dad's not famous to the Craig generation, but James Brolin was like a real dude for a long time, big star. So when his son was coming up, it was like, oh, that's. There was a little Nepo, I think then that was against him for a while.

[Chris Ryan]

And I think that it took him a while and it took Hollywood a while to realize like how to use him. I mean, like, in some ways I think no country will probably be the movie I associate him with the most. But like, this is my favorite performance by him, I think.

[Sean Fennessey]

I think also you can't really imagine. Matt Graver's pretty fucking funny, you know, and he's like, maybe Satan.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

Or at least one of Satan's overlords. But he's so charismatic and whenever he's talking you're like, that's the truth. There's something really powerful about that. They like imbue that character with the idea that like he's. He's the only one who really knows how it works.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

I mean, he's got to be charming enough to like entice Kate to join them, but also is the guy who will be like, I'm going to put your ex wife's name on the Internet to Jon Bernthal.

[Bill Simmons]

I almost did this for hottest take, but it's not quite a hot take. Josh Brolin's second best career of any 80s child actor

[Sean Fennessey]

behind Leo.

[Bill Simmons]

Leo's doesn't count because he's really a 90s child actor.

[Sean Fennessey]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

I had runners up. Fred Savage, Kiefer Sutherland, River Phoenix, C. Thomas Howell, Bateman, Jason Patrick, the Coreys, Charlie Sheen, Christian Slater. I think the only one that beats him is Christian Bale, who counts.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Z starts in 87.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, because of Empire of the Sun.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

The point is it's very hard to go from River Phoenix, I may work a child actor to I've avoided all the pitfalls that come with younger fans.

[Chris Ryan]

There's like a 15 minute. Yeah, he had a 15 year wilderness run for him.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And then he landed in the arms of my queen Diane Lane and everything was fine.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

But yeah, I think Christine, Christian Bale is the only one who's I think, done better. IMDb standpoint.

[Sean Fennessey]

We were just talking about he too the other day though it's been a little Bit of a rocky road for Bale in the last six years.

[Chris Ryan]

He hasn't worked that much recently.

[Bill Simmons]

I mean, how much money does he have, though?

[Chris Ryan]

I think he likes driving, like, a Toyota pickup and being chill. You know, Bale. Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

Just like you. Yeah, it really is Sierra month.

[Bill Simmons]

Zoe had a soccer game once in, like, fourth grade at Brentwood, and he was on the opposite side on the parents, and we won, like, six nothing. I was like, fuck you, Batman.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Suck on that, motherfucker. Oscar nominations, daughter. You said no. Okay, I was. Yeah. I was talking the whole team. Oscar nominations for cinematography, score, sound editing.

[Chris Ryan]

How did they not get Del Toro in this?

[Bill Simmons]

I have no idea. Let's talk about it.

[Sean Fennessey]

So goofy.

[Bill Simmons]

The Bridge of Spies. Guys wins. I don't think he's winning that.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Bale for Big Short, Hardy for the Revenant, Mark Ruffalo for Spotlight Slice. The loan for Creed. It was just a really good category. He still should have got nominated. Who are you bumping?

[Sean Fennessey]

Well, I have a real hot take about this.

[Chris Ryan]

Sly.

[Sean Fennessey]

I want Sly out, and I want Harrison Ford in for the Force Awakens, and I also want Benicio in, and I want Tom Hardy out for the Revenant, which I think is, like, such a weird, odd nomination.

[Chris Ryan]

I know that this is kind of weird, but I would almost. I'm more of a fan of the Tom Hardy in Fury Road than I am in Revenant.

[Sean Fennessey]

I feel like he's partially nominated for Fury Road in that spot.

[Bill Simmons]

Do you like Tom Hardy in the

[Craig Horlbeck]

Revenant versus Benicio in this? Yeah, I would much rather have Benicio.

[Sean Fennessey]

What's your favorite line? Reading from the Revenant by Tom Hardy.

[Chris Ryan]

There's four lines in the Renaissance.

[Craig Horlbeck]

I can't think of a single line in the movie.

[Sean Fennessey]

Probably if I.

[Chris Ryan]

It's like, oh, no, a bear.

[Bill Simmons]

I've been scouting it for the rewatchables.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Revenant.

[Bill Simmons]

It's a rough watch.

[Sean Fennessey]

Not a fan.

[Bill Simmons]

Long, long stretches of not a lot going on. Wait, I have a couple more things here. $30 million budget made. $84.9 million. Spawned a sequel, which we'll talk about. Sadly, no Roger Ebert review because he died two years earlier.

[Chris Ryan]

Did you ask AI to recreate it? Yeah, God damn it, Bill,

[Bill Simmons]

I did. Sorry, Sean. I know you hate this. ChatGPT said he would probably have given it three and a half to four stars.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Well, you.

[Chris Ryan]

You should start asking. Chat GPT. What would Matt Graver do in, like, professional management? Like, Chris's contract is coming up. What would Mac reaver do.

[Bill Simmons]

He would take it for a ride. Yes.

[Chris Ryan]

We could take him to Tijuana.

[Bill Simmons]

Chat gbt.

[Sean Fennessey]

Keep going down that tunnel.

[Bill Simmons]

Ebert valued films that wrestled with ethical complexity. And he loved intelligent thrillers with political weight.

[Sean Fennessey]

He did

[Bill Simmons]

somebody who is alive right now. Wesley Boris, who you just saw.

[Sean Fennessey]

I did.

[Bill Simmons]

You just podcast.

[Chris Ryan]

We did.

[Sean Fennessey]

We had a wonderful pod together. He was in my home last night.

[Bill Simmons]

He did a kind of a thumbs up. Thumbs down.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

He called it as much a gym selfie as a movie.

[Sean Fennessey]

Wesley is so good. That's very funny.

[Bill Simmons]

His style demands that Michael Manns and Kathleen Bigelows of the world take notice, and they should. And he said every shootout raid in detonated Bob is a dumbbell thrown to the floor and amped up fatigue.

[Craig Horlbeck]

What does that mean, a gym selfie? Like a. Look what I can do.

[Sean Fennessey]

The movie is like a real flex.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, it's very muscular.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

CR's gone to the gym and watched people lift time to time. He loves it.

[Sean Fennessey]

I think I watched like as a peeping Tom or.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. We don't have to break, right? Can I keep going? Great. We're live on Netflix. Most rewatchable scene, the opening scene. Big music, big car crash. We have a near Emily Blunt murder. We have multiple bodies in the wall.

[Chris Ryan]

God.

[Bill Simmons]

We have people throwing up. And then we have another explosion. We have a crawling guy walking toward two arms.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And then we have her taking the Silkwood shower at the end of it. And we're off. The movie has begun.

[Chris Ryan]

It's one of my favorite shots in the movie is her getting all the blood out of her hair. I think the functionality of this scene is just to make it feel like this is a level of depravity and violence that even these FBI agents and cops are not versed in.

[Sean Fennessey]

They're just.

[Chris Ryan]

This is beyond it. And like, all the shots of the bodies in that plastic are just supposed to be like, this is a nightmare come to life.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah. Yeah. It's like you're in the Mummy or something. It's a horror movie. And also that it's a war movie. I think it's really important to frame the movie as a war movie. Like, Chris's Apocalypse now comparison makes the most sense because it is very much about an enemy that you can't see. And the only way you can go get them is to go where they are, which is a very dangerous place.

[Chris Ryan]

And it's. They're. They're already. They're already conducting a war. I mean, like, they knocked down that wall. Like, I remember that sound the first time I saw this movie and like the sound of the truck hitting the wall and that guy's living room coming down and just like, whoa, what the fuck is this? Like, it's. It is a.

[Bill Simmons]

It's reminiscent of the heat truck in the beginning of Absolutely hitting the. Absolutely hitting the Bank Armor thing. I'll do this now. It's just some questions about the odor of the 42 bodies in the wall and just people hanging out in the house. Probably like 90 degrees in Arizona. I don't know if there's enough room freshener.

[Chris Ryan]

I'm not sure.

[Sean Fennessey]

Were they vacuum sealed?

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, like, I think.

[Sean Fennessey]

What was that? What kind of bag are they?

[Chris Ryan]

They're drywalled in. Like, I don't know, like what drywall can. Can prevent scent wise.

[Bill Simmons]

Do you have thoughts on this, Craig?

[Chris Ryan]

It's kind of moisture.

[Bill Simmons]

I should have had you research this.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Yeah, I think that they're bagged pretty tightly. And so I have to imagine that was a part of their calculus when they. When they were thinking of where to stuff these bodies.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't know. Ben left some chicken in the fridge last week in a Ziploc bag and it still smelled after like eight days. These are 170 pound bodies behind a wall. Just. I don't know. I think it would have smelled.

[Chris Ryan]

We have these conversations all the time, like with the guys, like the different people in seven. It's like, how are we not calling.

[Bill Simmons]

Getting used to the odor. Maybe your nasal.

[Sean Fennessey]

Do you think we should end the episode right now? Like such a flaw that maybe we just throw the baby with the bathw.

[Bill Simmons]

Next scene I have is the ride through Juarez, which includes Del Toro saying, welcome to Juarez. It was like, thank you. I think Sheridan's borrowed from that in other places.

[Sean Fennessey]

So you would not have the meeting Graver scene.

[Chris Ryan]

Matt recruiting her.

[Bill Simmons]

So I had that. In what stage? The best. But I'm happy to have it here too.

[Chris Ryan]

It's among. It is not the best. It is not the most rewatchable scene, but it is up there for me.

[Bill Simmons]

I love it. There's so much information in it. Fine, put it in.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay. You got your way.

[Bill Simmons]

Our guy Jeffrey Donovan preparing for his shot. Collar roll two years later.

[Chris Ryan]

Bottles.

[Bill Simmons]

It's brilliant what they do.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yellow with red dots.

[Bill Simmons]

Next scene is when they're in traffic. Red and Paul two lanes over. Donovan said, I'm getting a boner. We have two foursome car shootings plus the ninth guy.

[Chris Ryan]

That's right.

[Bill Simmons]

Who tries to kill Kate.

[Chris Ryan]

The federal police.

[Bill Simmons]

This scene's awesome. Del Toro, the way he snaps into action. Also just get your guns out. And then he's just like, it's just great stuff.

[Chris Ryan]

Let's talk about it, man. I mean, the thing about this scene, I don't even know if I really realized this until I was watching it for this pod, is how you know exactly where they are in relation to where the. The toll is, where the other two cars are. They're really clear about it. But it also, like, there's just very few directors who put you in a space, and you are feeling the tension because you're like, I can see how slowly the traffic is moving. The dog is barking. It's hot. People are staring out their car windows. And now these guys are over here. And this guy's got a full face tattoo and is, like, looking itchy. And all these guys are like, what's the rules of engagement? Like, what's the. Am I allowed to get out and set a perimeter? You can feel every single part of the elements of that scene. It's remarkable.

[Sean Fennessey]

It's really, really well edited. I don't remember. I can't remember a single time when I felt more tense in a movie theater. It's kind of on par with watching Jaws in my house, where you're like, what the hell is going to happen here? Even though you kind of know what's going to happen. Like, there's. There's going to be a shootout.

[Chris Ryan]

But even still, Kate doesn't know, I think, because Kate's like, I. We're not supposed to be in Juarez. We're supposed to be in El Paso. Like, I don't really know what I'm doing here. And then this guy's telling me to take my gun out. And it's like she says at the end, where she's just like, I'm not authorized to follow. Like, he's a spook. You're a spook. I'm like, I am not a soldier. And they're asking her to participate. And then she's complicit. Like, she does something in that shootout that essentially seals her fate with these guys for most of the movie. And it's just, I think, because she doesn't know what's going to happen, we don't know what's going to happen.

[Bill Simmons]

I almost feel like this could be a new rewatchables category. But the guy you mentioned, face tattoo guy. I mean, a profile, but I don't know if you could put a scarier guy in the passenger seat. He's just covered Shaved head, itchy, as you said. And he's also holding a gun. It's like, I'm positive this guy's up to no good. This guy's like, not headed to a soccer game. Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

I think if you were going to pick a knit, the cartel could have sent a guy, like, named Neil, who was, like, working for a salesman.

[Bill Simmons]

Told him to wear a hat.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

So in that sequence specifically, that those guys are attempting to just get Guillermo back, that they're like, we know that you've taken Guillermo and we have arrived at this place.

[Bill Simmons]

But this is the whole point of why they took Guillermo. Because they're trying to lure these guys to cause the ruckus.

[Chris Ryan]

I think that they are also. I wonder whether or not it's in play where it's like, if Guillermo doesn't make it back alive, better that then he goes to.

[Sean Fennessey]

Right.

[Chris Ryan]

To provides information and provides information. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm always rooting for Guillermo's because that was my name in Spanish class. Yeah, that was Guillermo. 8th grade. 9th grade.

[Sean Fennessey]

How come you didn't stick with it?

[Bill Simmons]

Como Sigma Guillermo. I didn't stick with. I did seven years of Spanish. Never took.

[Sean Fennessey]

It's not too late to change it.

[Bill Simmons]

Couldn't. Just couldn't get over the hump. They always said you had to go abroad and speak it for, like, two months. I was just like, I'm going to miss sports for two months.

[Chris Ryan]

So you're still like that Speak.

[Sean Fennessey]

You could say at the top of every episode, Bienvenidos, Guillermo Simmons podcast.

[Bill Simmons]

Guillermo. A couple of my college roommates still call me Guillermo, actually.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

There you go. Inside info.

[Sean Fennessey]

Incredible. Iarez cred.

[Bill Simmons]

Next rewatchable scene.

[Chris Ryan]

You would do great there.

[Bill Simmons]

That's it. That's all I got. I'd be very comfortable. Kate and Reggie at the bar into the fight scene. It's hard not to think about CR when you see big bars like this. People drinking bottles and smoking and playing

[Sean Fennessey]

pool and dancing to country music. That's what I think of when I think of cr.

[Bill Simmons]

Kind of wish CR was in the background.

[Chris Ryan]

It's a great bar. It's a great part. I don't tell you.

[Bill Simmons]

Reggie busting on Kate. Yeah, that has. She's letting herself go. It's just really good. Really good scene. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

It's true.

[Bill Simmons]

He's not get out guy yet. We don't really have a history with him.

[Sean Fennessey]

No. You can see, though, in the movie now when you watch, you're like, oh, yeah, he's fucking cool. He's Charismatic.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

He's got a lot.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. It's a nothing part, and he's got a lot to him.

[Bill Simmons]

That Bertha comes in. God damn, Reggie.

[Chris Ryan]

Bertha puts a lot of Texas barbecue on that accent, considering it's taking place in Arizona. He's like, God damn. You saw me at the softball game,

[Bill Simmons]

his chest out. He's peacocking big time. Yeah. We get pool on country music. We get dancing. And then we get a pretty. Pretty heated hookup scene.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Followed by her noticing that, wait, this guy has the money clip and his pants. That's probably not a good sign.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah. Rubber bands.

[Bill Simmons]

And then she almost gets strangled to death. And it turns out that Del Toro's been peeping. He's been doing the. How's the peeping Tom? Yeah, Tommy. Alejandro. How's the peeping?

[Chris Ryan]

He.

[Sean Fennessey]

You think this was, like, a binocular situation or was he just right outside the door?

[Chris Ryan]

I think he's the biggest question.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Did they.

[Bill Simmons]

Did they also hope this was going to happen?

[Chris Ryan]

I think once she goes in the bank, like Graver says, like, she's like, you used me as bait. And Graver's like, you made yourself bait. You went, I told you I was going to the bank. They're going to be watching you.

[Bill Simmons]

I put torturing Berthol in the car just because I could have watched it for 20 more minutes. one point, Del Toro just sticks his entire finger in Berthal's ear. I don't know how they did it.

[Chris Ryan]

I have Apex Mountain for willies. I don't know that it's ever been more powerful. He's like, ah, God damn.

[Sean Fennessey]

I think Bernthal sells it very well. Like, he's really working hard.

[Bill Simmons]

I think he did, like, he bent the finger this way, so when he put it in, it seemed really. Seemed like it was in there.

[Chris Ryan]

Also, Graver's line about, like, I get to decide whether you go to a work camp in Missouri or kill house. Like Corcoran. I was like, holy,

[Bill Simmons]

it's great. I could have watched that for five more minutes.

[Sean Fennessey]

He has a very soft tinge of evil. Like, every 20 minutes. It's like, here's a up thing.

[Bill Simmons]

The infrared tunnel sneak attack. We talked about it. Alejandro goes rogue, grabs a guy, shoots our. Shoots our girl Kate twice.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, my God, dude.

[Bill Simmons]

One of the great Dan Campbells shot her. But I forgot you're wearing a bulletproof vest and you're not dead. But whatever. Brolin. Telling Kate who Alejandro is really good. And then she's like, I'm just gonna go. And he's like, that would be a major mistake. And then I got the dinner scene.

[Chris Ryan]

It's the dinner scene. Is that what you're calling it?

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah. Swung by Houstons. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm awarding this the big Kahuna burger award.

[Chris Ryan]

Mo Green's death, like, the massage scene,

[Bill Simmons]

the big Kona burger, were for best use of food and drink. Keep eating. Go ahead and finish your meal.

[Sean Fennessey]

What were they, like, lamb shank or

[Chris Ryan]

something on the meal or, like, a pork roast or something?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, it looked like the chef had really put some time in there.

[Sean Fennessey]

I agree.

[Bill Simmons]

Worst dinner guest of all time. Cr.

[Chris Ryan]

Well,

[Bill Simmons]

you know, they're going to give

[Chris Ryan]

him a Yelp review, so I don't

[Craig Horlbeck]

know what to say.

[Sean Fennessey]

Good conversationalist, you know?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

Had a lot of questions.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Just. Just. They're just hanging out, talking about the

[Chris Ryan]

equal opportunity avenging angel, you know?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

In any other movie. This is the best scene in the movie, and this is somehow the second best scene, maybe the third best scene in the movie.

[Bill Simmons]

That's kind of amazing, the boom, boom, boom shooting. I don't know how you do that.

[Sean Fennessey]

They, like, were killing the kid. We're killing both kids. That's also something that 99% of movies just do not do.

[Chris Ryan]

And this is the biggest difference between the movie and the script. Script is pretty wonky. He's, like, tells the wife to take the kids and, like, hope that they become doctors. And, like, they. They go run off, and then he kills Fausto. And it's like the. You have to. You have to have Alejandro completely lose himself in that scene to become, like, what it is that he's avenging. You know, he has to take from this guy what he took from him.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Do you think he could have gone a little harder? So Fausto dumped Alejandro's daughter in a. In a vat of acid.

[Sean Fennessey]

Correct.

[Bill Simmons]

And beheaded his wife.

[Craig Horlbeck]

And beheaded his wife. And he just gets a bullet to the head.

[Chris Ryan]

I think that for Alejandro, he's like, you watching your family die is the punishment.

[Craig Horlbeck]

But even then, he gave him, like, five seconds to grapple with that. Maybe let it sit for a minute.

[Chris Ryan]

Falso also not. Doesn't really make a compelling argument. You know what I mean? He's just sort of like, well, I

[Sean Fennessey]

think he knows what's coming, so he's just trying to get a shot up right before the end there. It's just one last shot on the sicario's life. I think it's just because he's in a hurry. Alejandro's worried that somebody's gonna Come. So he's gotta make quick work.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Could have been a little bit more sadistic.

[Chris Ryan]

The shot, the cut to the wife. When Alejandro's like, don't forget about my daughter. And it cuts the wife and she's like, you fucking killed his daughter. I can't believe this. Like, you're gonna get me killed here.

[Bill Simmons]

I like Craig didn't think it was sadistic enough. He shot two kids.

[Sean Fennessey]

I brought a vat of acid with me. Can you guys step in here?

[Bill Simmons]

Last one is Alejandro comes to get Kate's confession. You are not a wolf. And this is the land of wolves now. Yeah, great. Stare down. So what do you have?

[Chris Ryan]

For most rewatchable, I have the 2122 minute sequence of the border crossing.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah, same the Juarez. And especially on the way back.

[Bill Simmons]

Me as well. Yeah. Okay.

[Sean Fennessey]

It is one of the great movie scenes of this century. It is so captivating.

[Chris Ryan]

It's my hottest take.

[Bill Simmons]

That's it. We just did your hottest steak.

[Chris Ryan]

No, my hottest take is that this is as good of an action set piece as the bank robbery from Heat with maybe the truck chase from Dark Knight of the last of pretty much my lifetime. But the last 30, 40 years.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm not gonna fight it.

[Sean Fennessey]

Did we see. We didn't see this together, did we?

[Chris Ryan]

It would been in la. I don't know.

[Sean Fennessey]

It was Grantland.

[Bill Simmons]

We saw the Revenant together.

[Sean Fennessey]

We did see the Revenant together.

[Chris Ryan]

We saw a lot of movies together.

[Bill Simmons]

That was your last month at Grantland, though.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, that's right.

[Sean Fennessey]

But did we see Sicario together? I can't even remember.

[Bill Simmons]

I didn't see Sicario in the theater.

[Sean Fennessey]

Oh, interesting.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, we had fucking. All hell was breaking loose.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah. Yeah. That was a crazy time.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm not an astronaut.

[Chris Ryan]

I don't need an astronaut.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Audiences have spoken.

[Sean Fennessey]

Project Hail Mary is an awe inspiring masterpiece.

[Bill Simmons]

So I met an alien.

[Sean Fennessey]

If you've fallen out of love with

[Bill Simmons]

going to the movies, this one will bring you back.

[Sean Fennessey]

Ryan Gosling in the first must see movie of 2026. Project Hail Mary, rated PG13, may be

[Bill Simmons]

inappropriate for children under 13 only. Peter's March 20 this episode is brought to you by TaxAct. Like an expert coach, TaxAct offers step by step guidance and guaranteed accuracy when filing taxes. Get tips along the way. Add expert assist to talk to tax experts and let our experts do your taxes for you. With Expert full service, TaxAct helps you find the deductions and credits you deserve so you can get them over with. Visit taxact.com to learn more conditions apply. See taxact.com for details. What's the most 2015 thing about this movie? It's a tough one.

[Chris Ryan]

It's funny to think about all hell breaking loose in comparison to the action of cigars. Like, yeah, man, I've had a pretty crazy month starting a new media company. I started a war trying to figure out health insurance. You go Aetna, you go Cigna. It's really hard.

[Sean Fennessey]

You think you and Graver would get along?

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. I would hire him.

[Chris Ryan]

Did you?

[Bill Simmons]

What? I don't know. Just get done.

[Chris Ryan]

Be the third chair on Game Over.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. I have younger Bernthal. It's the most 2015 thing about this.

[Sean Fennessey]

That's a good one.

[Bill Simmons]

I got some specific Walking Dead era

[Chris Ryan]

Bernthal, Pre Yellowstone, Sheridan, where the screen are tighter.

[Bill Simmons]

What do you have, Sean?

[Sean Fennessey]

I have rooting for border crossing, non jurisdictional pirate soldier squads attempting to end narco terrorism with excessive force.

[Bill Simmons]

Very 2005.

[Sean Fennessey]

Doesn't really feel like something I would root for this year.

[Bill Simmons]

No. Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

I also, I mean, of 2015, I had the capacity to be scandalized by the behavior of shadowy elements of the United States government.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, God. Knowing that for Craig pretty much even

[Craig Horlbeck]

like being surprised that the CIA is

[Sean Fennessey]

involved, this movie is almost as close to 911 as we are to the release of this movie. Isn't that crazy, really? That, like it's. It's 14 years and 11 years. Like it's really close now.

[Bill Simmons]

God. What stage? The best. I have a couple. What do you have?

[Chris Ryan]

Movie starts in brilliant sunlight with the bombing at the drug house. Moves to unrelenting darkness throughout the tunnel, culminating with the tunnel. And then that last shot is just. Or the last scene with Kaden. Alejandro is all gray. She's wearing gray. The wall is gray. What's happening is gray. It's just a great arc of like cinematography matching story. I think the character introductions in this movie are amazing. Kate in the truck following orders and being a soldier, even though she claims she's not one. Matt kind of directing everything intellectually. And then Alejandro, I think we see him first as she's pulling up in the jeep and he's like, that's my bird dog, Alejandro. And he's kind of standing behind the plane a little bit obscured. Just awesome. I love a great character introduction.

[Bill Simmons]

What do you have?

[Sean Fennessey]

I mean, drug cartels running entire countries and subverting power structures. Has aged well. It's still obviously something that is happening right now.

[Chris Ryan]

You brought Mr. Happy.

[Sean Fennessey]

I know the movie is weirdly way out of fashion, but Also very accurate. Like very accurate at the present times. There's certain things about it we can talk about what stage the worst that don't work as well. But then there are a lot of things that are. I think Sheridan's a really interesting cat because he is very, very smart about the way that things are. But he often tries to explain why they are the way that things are in a way that I find a little bit frustrating. But he's really good at being like, nobody else is talking to you about this right now. And I think it's important that we do talk about it. So, you know, it's like it's in Landman, it's in Lioness, it's in Yellowstone, it's in this, it's in Wind river, it's in hell or high water. Like, especially in his movies, though, he's really good at being like, there's a problem in the country, whether it be on a Native American reservation or in the way that banks take advantage of small town people, or the way that the drug war has kind of like subsumed the American military. They're really, really incisive. And he's really, really smart about that stuff. Sometimes he gilds the lily like five times. But all those movies hold up really well because whatever he was after at the time is on point.

[Chris Ryan]

I think that the easy thing to think is that Taylor Sheridan thinks what these guys are doing is cool. And I think that part of that is because of the weird, ugly beauty that Villeneuve and Deacons ascribe to the characters. I mean, definitely romanticizes to some extent the guys wearing bulletproof vests and these dudes who know everything and take private jets. But I don't think it's that simple. And I think that this was definitely a time period where he was a little bit more in tune with what was really happening in the world. And maybe now it's kind of drifted a little bit more to where he's like, yeah, it's like pronouns and oil rigs. That's what's really important. But it's like this was a little bit more like he had his finger on something.

[Sean Fennessey]

I agree.

[Bill Simmons]

And then he just wrote scripts for nine years in a row without leaving an office.

[Chris Ryan]

That's right.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

I have the title for Age the Best. Sakario is a great title.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah. And he like put it in the lexicon now. Right.

[Bill Simmons]

Combined with that, movies that begin with info cards, you're usually in good hands. In Mexico, sicaria means hitman. But the multiple cards you Always know you're in good shape. If I ever make an action movie, I'm gonna have info cards. They called him cr. We talked about the little touches in this movie, like Brolin wearing sandals. The crooked cop when he pours the liquor in his morning coffee. It's just a lot of stuff like that. A lot of stuff like that.

[Chris Ryan]

There's a moment where, when they're driving into Juarez, she's looking at his. At Alejandro's hands and notices he has a wedding band on. And, like, it doesn't get remarked upon, but she's. She just has this great little look at him. Like, I wonder who this guy is.

[Bill Simmons]

The long payoff with the Mexican cop, I like.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes.

[Bill Simmons]

My wife picked that up yesterday. I've been. Never seen the movie.

[Chris Ryan]

Kind of the.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, no.

[Chris Ryan]

The Haysbert.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

He told her, like, why are we here? What are we doing with this guy? And then it hits at the end.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yes.

[Bill Simmons]

And then Bertha. Just in general. He's done this in multiple movies where he's a good guy and a bad guy in the same movie, and he can swing. And he also did it in Walking Dead. He's kind of like, this is his move.

[Chris Ryan]

Sure.

[Bill Simmons]

It's like, I like this guy. Oh, no, I don't like this guy.

[Chris Ryan]

Exactly who he is in Wind river, right? Like, where you're like, oh, he's going to be the bad guy. Right.

[Sean Fennessey]

He's like it in a lot of things. I think it's because he has, like, a very, like, good old boy, hey, man, I'm here with my buddy kind of energy. But there's something very malevolent about him that, like, it pops out really fast.

[Chris Ryan]

The way that fight plays out is really good because it's unclear whether he's supposed to, you know, like, Alejandro does not think that. That. That Ted is an assassin. He thinks he's just there to, like, kind of see what Kate knows and see if he can get anything out of her. But it's definitely in play that he's gonna kill her. And when he's choking her out, he seems to be like, I didn't want this to happen. You know, I wanted just to, like, find out what you were working on. And now we've gotten this. It feels like a character out of control. It's just a great performance.

[Bill Simmons]

I had this later for picking nits with that strangle scene. What's the move after? All right. I had to kill her. How's he getting out of that one?

[Chris Ryan]

He's Phoenix pd. I mean, presumably he can figure some stuff out.

[Bill Simmons]

She's an FBI agent, though.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

I think part of the reason why he was a flawed hire on the cartel's part is that he's not really in control.

[Bill Simmons]

This leads to my larger point.

[Chris Ryan]

Cartel hr.

[Bill Simmons]

Poor judgment.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Because that's the other picking it of this is. Why are you fucking walking around with the cartel money band as your. As like your wallet maybe like get another wallet.

[Chris Ryan]

Ted, come on. Striking out at slow pitch softball, maybe not like a brain genius.

[Sean Fennessey]

Good sign.

[Bill Simmons]

Jesus, Ted.

[Chris Ryan]

Maybe not Brad Stevens.

[Bill Simmons]

Why'd you trade Jared McCain? Ted, you just got a non moderate pick. What are you doing? Great shot. Go to where Most cinematic shot. We covered it.

[Chris Ryan]

I got a couple here. It's soldiers disappearing into the setting sun.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Or Kate walking across the rooftop to see the fireworks.

[Sean Fennessey]

I like that one too.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, that's good. Chess Rock World Brocklanders award for best character name. Fausto Alarcorn.

[Sean Fennessey]

No. No.

[Bill Simmons]

Other corn. Alarcon.

[Chris Ryan]

I gotta say though.

[Bill Simmons]

Did I call him corn?

[Chris Ryan]

You dig faster.

[Bill Simmons]

Alicorn. I think I ordered that last night.

[Chris Ryan]

I would say that if your nickname is Medellin, you win the Chess Rockwell award.

[Bill Simmons]

True.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Kid Cudi Pursuit of Happiness award for best needle drop. So every time the evil Jaws score kicks in, which we didn't talk about, but. But our guy Denny was basically like, hey, can you make a really scary score like in Jaws? And the guy who did the score is like, I'll try. And then it's just fucking awesome. It fills.

[Sean Fennessey]

It's your guy.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. I mean, this is an amazing piece of music. Just because you cannot imagine this movie without this.

[Bill Simmons]

No. It almost wins the movie.

[Chris Ryan]

Like, if they're listening to Slow Ride, you're just like, well, this isn't working. You know, like, there's no pop music really in this. Except for diegetic stuff. It's great.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, this is a big moment because we have a new rewatchables category that I didn't even clear with you guys.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, okay.

[Bill Simmons]

And I think it's a keeper. It comes from a listener named Abby Soul who writes. Sometimes movies we love carry subtle details or moments that speak to the individual viewer. Especially, my category idea allows for the rewatchables crew to share one moment or aspect of a movie that speaks to them more than 99% of the viewers. For example, Bill loves Sonny Corleone biting his knuckle when he's mad. Cr can't get enough of the Eric Stoltz drug dealer lifestyle. And Pulp.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

So here's my suggestion. The Floyd Gondoli Butter in my ass and Lollipops in my Mouth award for something I just enjoy. Wow, what a great award. How did we not have this from this film? So for this, my answer for this, for the Floyd Gondoli award is Gondoli, Gondoli, Gondoli. Anytime a movie with drug stuff and somebody says in the movie there's rumors of a tunnel, I'm in. Yeah, I just fucking love knowing that there might be a tunnel because that means we might be going in the tunnel. And that's my Floyd Gondoli.

[Chris Ryan]

Do you have one, Sean?

[Bill Simmons]

You don't need to have one. I didn't prep you for this.

[Sean Fennessey]

Is this all one game that you've been building over the last?

[Chris Ryan]

Is it really an abbey?

[Bill Simmons]

I thought you guys would like the Floyd Gundog.

[Sean Fennessey]

I do. I'm trying to think of a really good answer to this.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, we'll know for the next one when we get movie.

[Craig Horlbeck]

So is there something you like? You really, really personally liked?

[Bill Simmons]

Something that it just resonates with you?

[Chris Ryan]

Only I honestly a dude wearing a bulletproof vest who has big horn rim glasses. Yeah, I kind of did glasses frames.

[Sean Fennessey]

I, I, I said a movie with a debrief. When there's a debrief in a movie and it's like all these important people are in a room and they're like, this is how it is and this is how we're gonna get.

[Chris Ryan]

But when you see, but when you see a geek and he's got like an AR15 and a bulletproof vest on, and he's like, I'm, I'm just hanging out this Air Force base that's like, we're about to get.

[Sean Fennessey]

But I, I love, maybe you have this in half assed Internet research, but who the Jeffrey Donovan character is like, based on visually is a former ranger who is in Norman Schwarzkopf's security detail, who is like a bespectacled dude who is like yoked and very scary, but also a big dork. And that fusing those two ideas together to make a character is really interesting.

[Bill Simmons]

You're up with the Sean Fennesee word for stealth homage that gives every movie nerd a criteria. Orgasm.

[Sean Fennessey]

Okay, I don't want to overdo it, but there's three. There's one that's very obvious, which is Del Toro says keep an eye out for the state police. They are not always the good guys. Of course, Del Toro was state police in traffic, for which he won his Academy Award in Thief. There is a moment where. Well, in the movie, Alejandro ignores the maid as he continues clearing the house, which is an homage to Thief, which is something that Frank does in that movie, but the one that I like the most, and I think this is on purpose, and I don't know is the scene that you just talked about with the Mexican cop pouring booze into his coffee in the morning, and his son has his face down on the table, and the father winks at him, and then the kid winks back, which I think is a direct match to Jaws, where Scheider's at the table with his son. Oh, wow. You know, and they have that moment where they're connected. Just give us a kiss. And I feel like that's a nod to that.

[Chris Ryan]

I have one more, which is just when Blunt and Coolio show up at the motel before the tunnel raid. Brolin says, can I interest you in his tasty beverage?

[Sean Fennessey]

Oh.

[Chris Ryan]

And I was like, here we go.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, yeah, you have a flex category cr.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay. I have a special. Okay, motherfucker. For the last. The exact moment this movie jumps up a level, and it's seven levels of okay, motherfucker around. We're a plus seven around the Juarez border crossing. Level one is when Alejandro tells Kate he goes where he sent. And she says, where were you sent from? And he said, cartagena. Like, okay, what? Okay, level two is Alejandro neatly folding his linen jacket before the op. Okay, motherfucker, are you folding your jacket? Okay, level three, the federal. The Mexican Federal Police pickup trucks going over speed bumps. And we're in the pickup truck.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay, we're doing this.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Level four, Steve saying, spotter, vehicle, left lane. I'm getting a boner.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay, level five, take your service weapon out.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Okay.

[Chris Ryan]

Level six, Steve going, gun, gun. And level seven is just the shootout after. After. Alejandro goes, do you want to die? And they do.

[Sean Fennessey]

You didn't hit us with the loudest.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay, motherfucker.

[Bill Simmons]

That was great. Now we're up to the Butch's Girlfriend award for weak link of the film. This is a pretty strong film.

[Sean Fennessey]

It is a strong.

[Bill Simmons]

I'd volunteer this. I think you really need to understand the CIA, FBI mechanics of what's really going on here to fully understand this movie. And I'm not possible sitting in the theater in September 19, 2015, for the first time watching this. You can comprehend everything that's happening. I do think it's a multiple watch before you really get it moving.

[Sean Fennessey]

They do give you the one scene where Victor Garber explains what is going on, which is very helpful.

[Chris Ryan]

It's like, I can't. I didn't dream this up.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yes. They're like, this is above my pay grade aspect of that speech where people

[Craig Horlbeck]

who are elected, not appointed.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yes. I think is very well written. I think Victor Garber is the perfect actor for it.

[Chris Ryan]

So good in this.

[Sean Fennessey]

I do think that it's like it comes a little late in the movie and maybe that's on purpose.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes.

[Sean Fennessey]

But it takes a long time for us to kind of figure out those relationships.

[Bill Simmons]

So basically, CIA can't do assassinations.

[Chris Ryan]

They can't operate within the domestic United States.

[Bill Simmons]

FBI gives Brolin's team cover because now it's a cross department. It's a task, semi legal task force. And everything went great until Kate went the wrong way in the tunnel.

[Chris Ryan]

I wouldn't say it was great, but. Yeah, well.

[Bill Simmons]

But you know what I mean? Like, they were about to pull off what they wanted to without Kate being

[Chris Ryan]

like, wait, what's happening before she goes into the tunnel that she has been used. Because in the motel, if she takes

[Bill Simmons]

a left, we're probably. She's not as distracted.

[Chris Ryan]

She'd just be like, where's Alejandro?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, like he had to run a fantasy draft before they go on.

[Sean Fennessey]

The

[Bill Simmons]

Premier League starts Thursday.

[Chris Ryan]

Is it Drake May or what? In that first. That motel scene, she's like. He's like, we're going on this op. You guys stay behind. And she's like, yeah, well, we can't fudgeing go because we didn't bring our stuff because you didn't tell us that this is what was happening. So. But all he basically needs is her sign off. And that's when he reveals that the CIA can't operate domestically without FBI attached.

[Bill Simmons]

But I think that would be the weak link. Just that this is a pretty dense movie that. With a lot of themes that are hard to just embrace the way you would embrace some other. When you're watching Heat. You know what's happening in Heat the first time you watch it. Heat right there.

[Sean Fennessey]

I think to me the weak link of the movie is always. And I think this is a five star movie, so it's kind of not a big deal. But her still being insistent on doing things the right way even after she's been in the tunnel. And she's like, I'm going to tell on you.

[Bill Simmons]

I had that in my biggest nitpick.

[Sean Fennessey]

I'm a little like, yeah, okay.

[Chris Ryan]

He just doesn't let her go, like walk away from. You know what I mean? Like, it's It's. It is. It is a nitpick of mine as well.

[Bill Simmons]

What stage the worst. I'll do one quick. And it's weird because she smokes in real life. I didn't like Kate smoking in this movie.

[Chris Ryan]

I thought she was pretty good, but maybe British.

[Bill Simmons]

I put a Tom Cruise which End do I Light award for terrible on screen smoking. I just didn't think.

[Chris Ryan]

Have you ever smoked an Indian Creek?

[Bill Simmons]

No. What are those?

[Chris Ryan]

I think they're bigger in the Southwest. I'm not. I haven't.

[Bill Simmons]

Are they longer, fatter, shorter?

[Chris Ryan]

No, they're just. They're just like a gas station cigarette, you know, it's like, go get them.

[Sean Fennessey]

What's your policy on smoking mid pod?

[Chris Ryan]

Well, they can't see our doing. We're live, brother.

[Bill Simmons]

We do whatever.

[Sean Fennessey]

Like, have I pulled out some Indian Creeks?

[Bill Simmons]

I don't know. There's just something. But it's weird because I researched it and she does smoke in real life. But I didn't like three puffs. I didn't like the way she threw it. Probably not still. She's got kids now, but I think back in the day. Plus she's English. Smoke.

[Chris Ryan]

The only time I'm ever like reminded that Emily Blunt is probably much more delicate than Kate is when she lights a cigarette for some reason.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

It's like a very cool way of lighting a cigarette.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. I had the handball game that they show as they're driving in. No, I could have used like 10 more seconds.

[Chris Ryan]

Ed Norton.

[Bill Simmons]

I was really enjoying it. I was like, this is great. These guys are going at it.

[Chris Ryan]

That'd be funny if that was what Benicio was like.

[Bill Simmons]

Welcome to more. Hold on. I just want to see who wins this point.

[Chris Ryan]

Not the hanging guys, just the banball game.

[Bill Simmons]

We mentioned crooked cop Ted wandering around with a suspicious cartel money band as his wallet. And then Sakaria to Soldado. It's fine. Don't have the same director or screenwriter.

[Sean Fennessey]

Got it. It does have the same screenwriter, doesn't it? Isn't it Sherlor? Yeah, it's sure.

[Bill Simmons]

He wrote it.

[Chris Ryan]

Stefano Selima directed it.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, it's fine. It's a cable movie.

[Chris Ryan]

It's a pretty good movie.

[Sean Fennessey]

Chris is a big.

[Chris Ryan]

It just. It deepens the graver side a lot, which is. Which is fascinating to me.

[Bill Simmons]

That's fine.

[Sean Fennessey]

It's one of the most evil movies ever made.

[Chris Ryan]

It's fucking diabolical.

[Sean Fennessey]

It is crazy.

[Bill Simmons]

I had one more. But what did you have for what Sigilors?

[Chris Ryan]

Well, when you're watching it. And I know it's supposed to be a joke between the two co workers, but, like, the idea that 2015 Emily Blunt is supposed to be this, like, ratty piece of shit that no one wants to date is pretty wild. He's like, yeah, your fucking eyebrows are all out of control. You're like, all right, man. That's my Emily Blunt.

[Bill Simmons]

It's tough.

[Chris Ryan]

They kind of skirt past the, like, Alejandro's Cartagena cartel connections.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Like, they.

[Chris Ryan]

I know that he says, like, he works for anybody who will put him in the. Like, point him in the direction of the people who made him, but it. I think it would have been a little bit helpful to, like, learn a little bit more about, like. So the United States government is working in concert with the remnants of the Colombian cartels to reestablish their control of the co. That is what we're doing. Okay.

[Sean Fennessey]

I do think that that is ultimately what the movie is saying. I think that that's Graver's point of view, that that is the approach that the CIA is taking to keep order, which sounds horrible, but there is a significant amount of evidence that suggests that these kinds of things have been done in American history. Sure. So it's not that crazy. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if it's aged the worst so much as it's like, you gotta get on board with that idea for the movie to seem credible.

[Chris Ryan]

The only other thing I would say is aged the worst is that in the screenplay, Reggie, the Daniel Kaluuya character, his last name is Wayne, which just feels like Taylor Sheridan was watching a Colts game. It was, like, good name, Reggie.

[Bill Simmons]

Or didn't like the Colts.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, exactly.

[Sean Fennessey]

Could be.

[Bill Simmons]

Do you have any.

[Sean Fennessey]

Well, Juarez, which is portrayed as the scariest city on earth. Yeah. Was not really happy with the movie.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

And, you know, Sheridan has said that it was, like, 2010, 2011, when he was writing the screenplay, which is when the city was really in very, very dire straits with the drug war. And in 2015, it was, like, starting to improve, and its crime rates were changing. And then now I just read that it has now fallen out of the top 15 most dangerous cities in the world.

[Bill Simmons]

Wow.

[Sean Fennessey]

It has fewer than 1,000 murders per year.

[Chris Ryan]

Pretty significant if it was number three for a while.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah. I mean, it was one of the five most dangerous places to live for, like, 30 years. And the city has changed a lot. And so because of that. And you can, like, read all about this in all the El Paso newspapers and stuff. The movie has like, it does feel like more of an artifact of a time for that city. It doesn't mean that the drug wars, maybe that's happening.

[Bill Simmons]

Maybe that's 2015 thing.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Although broadly speaking, El Mencho recently making some headlines like, I think that the violence is still.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah. The Mexican drug trade is still very much happening. I think just in general, the drug war itself is like as the eternal quagmire of American life is still going on. And then we mentioned the Martian and the walk thing, which is so fascinating.

[Bill Simmons]

My last thing, and it might be a possible new award. But I was thinking about Emily Blunt, the hookup scene with Bernthal. They're really going at it. And anytime I watch something like this, I always think about what it's like for the husband or the wife of the person in the scene.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And in this case I was thinking about Krasinski. Just like Sakaria premiere. So just to warn you, there is a kissing scene with Bernthal and then you're watching that on a 55 foot screen. What are your next, like three minutes?

[Chris Ryan]

I think it's why he became Jack Ryan and got fully yoked because he couldn't handle seeing that.

[Sean Fennessey]

There's probably something to that.

[Bill Simmons]

What are your thoughts, Craig? I mean, this is why you're here, for pork.

[Craig Horlbeck]

I've never understood how you could get over this as the husband of him.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't understand it either.

[Craig Horlbeck]

No, you can't come home.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm not like a crazy jealous person. I just think to watch somebody. Well, it's why I really go at it with your way.

[Chris Ryan]

This was also supposed to be a nude scene which they got out of the movie.

[Bill Simmons]

That's even worse.

[Craig Horlbeck]

It's why actors date actors. You know, it's like I can understand because I've been in these scenarios. If you get to hook up with Bernthal, I get to hook up with somebody else.

[Chris Ryan]

She's not even hooking up too. It's also then he chokes her out. Can you imagine being at the post premiere party and just being like, hey man, you know what I mean?

[Craig Horlbeck]

Like doctors date doctors because they're the only ones who really knows what it's like. Actors have to date actors.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, I don't know what the award would be, but maybe it's the movie theater cuck award goes to John Krasinski. Just watching this going, why?

[Sean Fennessey]

Why?

[Bill Simmons]

You didn't tell me this was in here. Why?

[Sean Fennessey]

The only good use of AI would be putting Krasinski in the George C. Scott in hardcore scene that actually that I would enjoy.

[Bill Simmons]

Then I was trying to think what would be the worst one to be the husband in the theater for. And there's just a lot of candidates, so let's move on. Okay. The Ruffalo handed Rubenick Partridge over acting award.

[Chris Ryan]

Pretty. Pretty understated.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. I was going to say this is a pretty mellow movie.

[Sean Fennessey]

Like, let's.

[Bill Simmons]

What?

[Craig Horlbeck]

Are you kidding? Bert called a finger in his ear.

[Chris Ryan]

I'm even over my head.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah,

[Bill Simmons]

you have a flex category, Sean.

[Sean Fennessey]

I chose when would I have died? And I wrote down the first scene, the second scene, the third scene, the fourth scene.

[Chris Ryan]

You die when Matt Graver was just asking guys.

[Sean Fennessey]

It would have been tough. I don't think I would have been able to hang in in this movie.

[Bill Simmons]

I think I would have bought it in the tunnel.

[Craig Horlbeck]

How bad do you think two shots to the chest wearing a bulletproof vest hurts?

[Bill Simmons]

That would kind of go Dorfler's door category.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Yeah, that was what I was thinking about.

[Sean Fennessey]

You want to try it?

[Craig Horlbeck]

Is that like something that anybody can do and like an hour later you're fine, or is it like you're out for a wee?

[Chris Ryan]

She's still wheezing when she's talking to y. To grave her.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Are we talking like broken ribs?

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, I definitely think so. She hasn't. When we see her in her apartment after he's come back, I don't think she's like, been on the job since.

[Bill Simmons]

It could be a new ringer. Maybe a new ringer Video series.

[Craig Horlbeck]

The new intern.

[Bill Simmons]

Shoot, people.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

Two in the chest. Yeah, Two in the chest. Is Craig hall back?

[Craig Horlbeck]

Truth or Dare? Truth or Two in the Chest.

[Bill Simmons]

The CR Thinks Luke Wilson could have been Harrison Ford. How does. Take a word. I have a really. You did rears?

[Chris Ryan]

I kind of did mine. The other one I had was just that this movie is like an excellent allegory for American foreign policy since the Cold War, that it's like you take

[Bill Simmons]

advantage of a strong use of the word allegory.

[Chris Ryan]

Thanks, brother.

[Bill Simmons]

It's great.

[Chris Ryan]

I gotta bring it CR Month. Break it up. You take advantage of a crisis or a tragedy and you prey on the personal or collective desire for justice among the population, or in this case, and Kate. And use overwhelming military force to bring an end to the chaos and violence only to be exposed for having ulterior motives. Not that I'm saying the United States does that.

[Sean Fennessey]

No, you would never. Not on Netflix. You wouldn't say that.

[Chris Ryan]

No.

[Bill Simmons]

Do you have a hottest take yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

The success of Yellowstone is the biggest loss for movies of the last decade.

[Chris Ryan]

There you go.

[Bill Simmons]

That's a great. Hottest take.

[Chris Ryan]

You've been circling this.

[Sean Fennessey]

It's the most emblematic thing. This is like. This guy was like, maybe I'll be William Goldman. And he's like, just kidding. I want to be David E. Kelly. And it's like, that's fucking boring.

[Craig Horlbeck]

There are any other examples of that, starting at prestige and premium and kind of like going the other direction. Not that Yellow sun is not prestige,

[Chris Ryan]

but, you know, a movie screenwriter who then just becomes like a TV writer. I mean, pizzolatto, I think writes. Is he write a few.

[Sean Fennessey]

I'll tell you who's an interesting example is Mike White.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, Mike White.

[Sean Fennessey]

Now, the White Lotus is still very prestigious.

[Bill Simmons]

Survivor 50s.

[Sean Fennessey]

Mike White jacked Jack.

[Chris Ryan]

Unreal.

[Bill Simmons]

So proud of himself.

[Sean Fennessey]

Crazy. I would be ripping my shirt off, too.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Did you think that that was related to going on Survivor, or was he just like, I'm gonna get yoked?

[Bill Simmons]

I think he's. I think he got yoked up because he's a wealthy guy who was gonna be in Survivor and was like, I didn't like.

[Chris Ryan]

Would you do that if you were going on Survivor?

[Bill Simmons]

I wouldn't go because I have contact lenses.

[Sean Fennessey]

I noticed in Survivor 50 there was a. Was it Stephanie who has glasses on sometimes, but not all the time, which leads me to believe that she does have contact lenses there.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, I was. I think. Are you reacting to the not being allowed to have contact lenses or.

[Bill Simmons]

I just don't feel like that. I feel like I'd have an eye infection the first week.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Most of the allergies, I would just

[Chris Ryan]

flip out because the nicotine thing.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. I'd be chuffed.

[Sean Fennessey]

If you could bring Zen. You would go on Survivor.

[Chris Ryan]

I would just give it out first because by, like, hour nine, I would be, like, motherfucking people, like, throwing.

[Bill Simmons]

You can't find out what's going on in sports on the island either, right?

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, but I think I would be a Survivor. Would have to take a little bit

[Bill Simmons]

of Tatum's coming back on Friday night.

[Chris Ryan]

So. Wait, you.

[Sean Fennessey]

You can't take 35 days off from this.

[Craig Horlbeck]

You can have a stage or find out who won.

[Chris Ryan]

Sell Sixers.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. I would be trying to win the challenges.

[Chris Ryan]

What if that was your letter?

[Bill Simmons]

Sports tidbits.

[Chris Ryan]

Your letter from home was just. Thursday, February 9th. Celtics 104, nets 89.

[Bill Simmons]

I said I would have told my. Yeah, definitely 5%.

[Craig Horlbeck]

You would have told Carrie fit. As many scores as you can onto one.

[Bill Simmons]

Dear dad, patriots find Alex Pierce. Oh, my God. You finally have a big play receiver

[Chris Ryan]

and you're just sobbing. I knew Tatum was coming back. Everybody else is like a dude. That's from my mom.

[Bill Simmons]

You should.

[Sean Fennessey]

If you. If you go on Survivor and sports. No, the episode where like family could visit.

[Bill Simmons]

You should have Chris just what the

[Sean Fennessey]

update you on everything.

[Chris Ryan]

You guys traded a purse for A.J.

[Sean Fennessey]

brown.

[Chris Ryan]

He's like, no, you're not going to believe what Yasmine did on the season finale of Industry.

[Sean Fennessey]

I've been circling the five feet.

[Chris Ryan]

Remember that scene.

[Bill Simmons]

Yasmin is now Jalane Maxwell.

[Chris Ryan]

I think you just spoiled Industry for.

[Bill Simmons]

Sorry, guys. My hottest take. Benicio Del Toro doesn't get enough credit for being a legendary stick man. Oh, yeah. Never mentioned when they talk about. Is that a thing known about him? The big celebrity ladies man. Seriously dated Valerie Galina in the late 80s. The lady from Rain Man.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

Oh, yeah, yeah. The lady from Hodges.

[Bill Simmons]

Claire forlanti in the mid-90s. Chiara Mastroni, late 90s. Daughter of Catherine Deneuve. Sophie Doll in the early 2000s. Dated Kathryn Keener, Sarah Foster and Kimberly Stewart. Also dated Heather Graham in the late 90s. Had flings with Alicia Silverstone in the mid 90s, Lindsay Lohan in the mid 2000s, and Scarlett Johansson in 2004. Benicio just keeps it quiet like in Sicario. Just takes care of business.

[Chris Ryan]

I hope they saved this for his lifetime achievement award.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, Lindsay Lohan, it just. Just solved. You can find all of it on Google.

[Sean Fennessey]

Do they do a film together?

[Bill Simmons]

I just think he was in the circle.

[Sean Fennessey]

He was hanging out. Yeah, he starred with Alicia Silverstone. Excess baggage, you may recall.

[Bill Simmons]

Once you get vetted by a couple, it's just you're off.

[Chris Ryan]

When she's in Alligator right with him. Isn't she the wife and alligator?

[Sean Fennessey]

Reptile.

[Chris Ryan]

Reptile. Sorry.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yes, Reptile. Have you seen Reptile on Netflix?

[Chris Ryan]

Really good.

[Sean Fennessey]

Very, very like. I think you would like it if you haven't seen it. Benicio is a. Is a murder cop.

[Bill Simmons]

I haven't seen it.

[Chris Ryan]

Timberland. Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah. It was like, kind of critically reviled. Chris and I had a text message when I was like, you see Reptile? Yeah, bro. We were like, yeah, it's pretty fucking good.

[Chris Ryan]

And it's like sneaky look. It's like two and a half hours long.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah, it's very long.

[Bill Simmons]

There might be another reason I didn't see it. This episode is brought to you by Hotels.com Save your way is a new feature on Hotels.com and it's as simple as it sounds. When you book a trip as a Hotels.com member, you decide how to use your savings. Take the instant savings now or bank the savings as rewards for later. It's your call [e-mail] Save your way is available to loyalty members in the US and UK and hotels with member prices. Other terms apply. See site for details. Casting what ifs. Josh Brolin turned that in the film because he had just done Everest and then big shot Raj Roger Deakins sent him an email imploring him to join

[Chris Ryan]

and Brolin changed his mind, said stop being an.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, come on, mate. That's all I have for casting. What ifs?

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, there wasn't. It seems like this was kind of.

[Bill Simmons]

We need 10 more years. Then it'll be like Leo DiCaprio.

[Chris Ryan]

Do you have or do you want to wait? But I was curious whether you had some alternatives for Blunt.

[Bill Simmons]

I really didn't. And I looked hard and I looked at all the best actress, best supporting actress nominations, tried to figure out the ages and all that and could have come up with a better one because you go like Anne Hathaway. I don't see it. Amy Adams. No, you go on through.

[Sean Fennessey]

Well, there's a big sliding door here which is that she doesn't do Black Widow for Marvel and Scarlett Johansson does it.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

And is there a world where that's reversed? And could Scarlett Johansson be.

[Bill Simmons]

I just think Scarlett Johansson by 2015 has built up so much leading actress sexy cred that I don't think you could just buy her in this movie out of nowhere.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Also, Emily Blunt benefits from Edge of Tomorrow coming out a year and a half before action script, you buy her physicality.

[Sean Fennessey]

Totally.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

I do think though, if you time machine Kate Winslet in like 2005 and put her forward 10 years, that's the perfect one. I think this would have been. And it's a little like the Mera Beastown character, a tiny bit like the beaten down. I think she would have been great, but I think she's a little older at this point because this character needs to be what? Like I think she's 29. 30.

[Sean Fennessey]

30. Yeah, it feels like 30.

[Bill Simmons]

So she's been married and divorced in

[Chris Ryan]

this movie, but yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. Best that Guy award. Jeffrey Donovan is not eligible and neither

[Sean Fennessey]

is Victor Garber Maximiliano Hernandez.

[Bill Simmons]

So what else is he?

[Sean Fennessey]

The Mexican cop? He's in the Marvel films. He's in Hydra.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, see, I didn't.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, is that the guy who talks to Alejandro and is like, I'm sorry about your kid.

[Sean Fennessey]

Wait, no, no, the cop.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, Silvio.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, the bald cop.

[Craig Horlbeck]

You guys do realize that 99% of society could not name Victor Garber, right?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, I think. I think the real answer is Victor Garber.

[Sean Fennessey]

We're at a kind of a famous stage actor who was on alias for,

[Chris Ryan]

like, 10 years, but could they say that's Victor Garber?

[Craig Horlbeck]

I think that's the guy from Alias.

[Chris Ryan]

Right? I think it's.

[Bill Simmons]

I think it, sadly is Sidney Bristow's dad. Dion Waiter's award is Bernthal. I think

[Chris Ryan]

I got Donovan.

[Sean Fennessey]

I have Donovan, too, over Bernthal.

[Chris Ryan]

Donovan's like, I have gonorrhea. And I'm like, the world's greatest killer. Like, and he's in three scenes.

[Sean Fennessey]

I'm with CR when voted for Bernthal,

[Bill Simmons]

but I get upvoted when they.

[Chris Ryan]

When they're about to waterboard Guillermo and he's like, I'm going to step out of the room. Turns the camera off. It's like, the most chilling shit.

[Craig Horlbeck]

What's going on in that scene. There's, like, questioning about what he's actually doing, what Alejandro is doing when he gets up close to him.

[Chris Ryan]

I think it's supposed to emasculate.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Is it intimidation, or does something actually happen?

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, no, he's not gonna do anything.

[Sean Fennessey]

He's just taunting him.

[Chris Ryan]

Sexual to him. Is that what you're talking about?

[Craig Horlbeck]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

No. Yeah, I think he's gonna want.

[Sean Fennessey]

He just, like, drops balls on his head. What do you mean?

[Craig Horlbeck]

Like, if you read the Sicario Reddit thread, a lot of people think he, like, sexually assaults him.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, I didn't know that.

[Craig Horlbeck]

No. I think he thought he was, like,

[Chris Ryan]

putting his crotch in his mouth sexually emasculating.

[Sean Fennessey]

You think that would be crossing the line for Alejandro, not the waterboarding or mass murder?

[Craig Horlbeck]

Well, now, the idea was that child

[Chris Ryan]

execution Reddit was spending.

[Bill Simmons]

People really think that.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Well, that he brought in the water jug to pretend as though he's gonna go waterboard him, and that's what the cameras see. And then when they turn the cameras off, he does something else because there's no water going down. There's no water going down the drain. Oh, okay. Yeah, I show the drain deliberately.

[Chris Ryan]

I don't know.

[Sean Fennessey]

I guess that's fair.

[Chris Ryan]

I didn't think that. I didn't think that's why they were.

[Sean Fennessey]

It's all in play with Alejandro, you know?

[Chris Ryan]

Sure. That's interesting, though, Craig. Thanks for bringing that to our attention.

[Craig Horlbeck]

It might be Sexual assault.

[Bill Simmons]

I think he would have brought the sisters in, though, from Shawshank. Yeah, I think he would have come in and said, I could be a real friend to you.

[Sean Fennessey]

He should be able to jump from movie to movie.

[Craig Horlbeck]

I don't know.

[Chris Ryan]

This is. Does it. I. In my mind, I thought. I guess I thought.

[Bill Simmons]

I. I heard CR is done for the podcast. It's like. I don't know if I like Alejandro as much.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

Now I'm.

[Chris Ryan]

Now he's really, like, just now I'm disappointed in him.

[Bill Simmons]

Recast the couch. Director City instead of Juarez. Can I float Philadelphia Real nice. You're trying to get Embiid out of Philly.

[Chris Ryan]

Really classic CR Month, and you're already taking shots at me.

[Bill Simmons]

Philadelphia trying to get AJ Brown to an AFC east team. Craig, you have a flex category? Do we have Craig's special camera or no.

[Chris Ryan]

Jerk off

[Craig Horlbeck]

cr.

[Bill Simmons]

He could just yell at me.

[Craig Horlbeck]

I want to implement a new tool for the show. And, you know, you guys are the preeminent counsel for Hollywood from the producers of A.I.

[Chris Ryan]

roger Ebert.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah.

[Craig Horlbeck]

As the Hollywood czars, I think, you know, tomorrow, March 3rd is the NFL franchise tag deadline. Franchise tag. You can prevent a player from getting a second contract somewhere else, and they have to stay on your team. I think there should be a movie franchise tag. And for Sicario, the movie comes out. You guys get to vote. Oh, they want to make Sicario 2. I'm sorry. There is literally a franchise tag on this movie.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, so it's like a committee. Almost like in College football. There's 10 people on it.

[Craig Horlbeck]

When I heard about the sequel, I was so disappointed.

[Sean Fennessey]

I'm like, ugh.

[Craig Horlbeck]

And it's like, oh, you want to make Devil Wears Prada too? Sorry, it's been franchise tagged. Five movies a year that you actually get to put the stamp on no sequels.

[Sean Fennessey]

Wow.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Well, a literal movie franchise tag.

[Sean Fennessey]

You are the real full throated sicario2.

[Chris Ryan]

I would say I'm closer to the guy on the Jags who was like, I'm getting. I'm moving up to get Traverse Hunter and that we didn't go far enough. Like, we should already be on Sicario. Colon Capos, which is what the third one's supposed to be called. We should be. There's no reason that we have not gotten a third Sicario movie yet. If you're going to break the seal, like, we should be on Sicario 4 by now.

[Bill Simmons]

Why. Why aren't we just on the best version of a prestige TV series with Sicario? Like, why aren't we in like season?

[Chris Ryan]

Benito del toro's not going to do that, is it?

[Bill Simmons]

He's not.

[Chris Ryan]

I don't think so.

[Sean Fennessey]

He's in one battle.

[Bill Simmons]

Billy Bob Thornton would be in three TV shows at this point.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, I think he likes hanging out and playing music and making some money

[Bill Simmons]

and I think we could have gotten del Toro.

[Chris Ryan]

Del toro's not doing t mobile.

[Sean Fennessey]

I'll do it. I'll play Alejandro. I can do it.

[Chris Ryan]

Now that you found out that he's a sexual deviant as well as a child murderer.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

It seems more approachable. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

So what else would you have franchise tagged from this year? It's also. It's like a franchise crossover.

[Sean Fennessey]

I mean, sinners two is coming. That's gonna happen.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Come on.

[Sean Fennessey]

That's gonna happen.

[Bill Simmons]

That's a tag.

[Sean Fennessey]

I mean, there's not next it's gonna be twilight zone and Black Panther 3, but I mean, there's just way too much money there.

[Chris Ryan]

So you think they said it in the 90s where they're hanging out?

[Sean Fennessey]

I think they should.

[Craig Horlbeck]

That's pretty cool. Like Barbie, you franchise tag. I don't wanna see another Barbie.

[Sean Fennessey]

They only made Barbie. To make more Barbies, you have to

[Craig Horlbeck]

to franchise tag centers.

[Chris Ryan]

Franchise tag. Oppenheimer.

[Craig Horlbeck]

No, I want Oppenheimer, dude.

[Sean Fennessey]

What's Opie 2 about?

[Chris Ryan]

He's just like teaching after that, right?

[Sean Fennessey]

That be a great movie. It's like dead poet society screaming.

[Chris Ryan]

But with oppenheimer.

[Bill Simmons]

I wouldn't franchise tag. Limitless. I could do like three more.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

Did you watch the show?

[Bill Simmons]

No, the show, it wasn't.

[Sean Fennessey]

Who was the star of the show?

[Bill Simmons]

I don't know.

[Chris Ryan]

But coops is like in it briefly, right?

[Bill Simmons]

Half ass Internet research. The border crossing scene. They had to build a full scale replica of the Juarez border because they couldn't figure out how to pull it off. With all the days they would have to stop traffic.

[Sean Fennessey]

They asked for permission, right?

[Bill Simmons]

And they were like, nope, can do it.

[Sean Fennessey]

Thanks.

[Bill Simmons]

Anyway.

[Chris Ryan]

Can we close the u. S. Mexico border for multiple.

[Bill Simmons]

They're like, actually, you can. The thermal vision shots were filmed with an F FLIRSC 8300 thermal vision camera.

[Chris Ryan]

That's what gahau is using for us today.

[Bill Simmons]

Not added in post production.

[Sean Fennessey]

That would have been sick if this was infrared.

[Bill Simmons]

They only had it for one day.

[Craig Horlbeck]

That's a good gondoli award. Night vision. There's night vision. I'm in.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. A props man heated the soles of his shoes to see the footprints.

[Sean Fennessey]

I love that.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. Great stuff. The word sicario derives from the Latin word sicarius, meaning dagger man. And then Emily Blunt got so sick from food poisoning in Mexico, she required IV fluids between takes to make it through scenes. And then there's a part in the tunnel scene. After the tunnel scene, Brolin's telling Kate about Alejandro, and he pauses for a second or two and talking about her going up the wrong tunnel. And he said in an interview, he paused because he forgot his lines and he literally froze for like two seconds. But then in the cut, it actually worked so great.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

For their fight scene, Bernthal assured Blunt that he was an experienced boxer and she could hit him at full strength, which she did.

[Chris Ryan]

She does really take a shot at him. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

The Wild Pony bar was in Los lunas, New Mexico, 29 miles south of Albuquerque, 425 miles from Tucson, where it was supposed to be closed down in 2015 after a fatal gang shooting occurred between the bandidos and the poor boys.

[Chris Ryan]

Can't have nice things now.

[Bill Simmons]

It's called the Horseshoe. It's a public meeting place. I don't know what a public meeting place is.

[Chris Ryan]

I don't know either. I saw that and I was just like, do we have to go investigate this? What's happening?

[Sean Fennessey]

A lot of rewatchables there.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Public meeting. Like.

[Chris Ryan]

Like smoke into the creek, drink beers. Or is like, let's have a.

[Bill Simmons]

You just kind of meet folk dancing festival. Like a fantasy baseball draft there.

[Sean Fennessey]

Should we do fantasy baseball this year?

[Bill Simmons]

Please, no.

[Sean Fennessey]

Oh, for the ringer. Yeah, I'm thinking about it.

[Bill Simmons]

You know, I'm in the crazy elf humidity.

[Craig Horlbeck]

I got dead last. Why am I not invited?

[Sean Fennessey]

High Fritz is not invited.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, you just want to leave those guys out because you get screwed.

[Bill Simmons]

Can't have High Fritz.

[Chris Ryan]

No. Like, for the sake of the narrative, Apex Mountain.

[Bill Simmons]

Would you say blunt hair or would you go quiet place?

[Craig Horlbeck]

I.

[Bill Simmons]

Or would you go day after tomorrow? Or edge. Edge of.

[Sean Fennessey]

I would say quiet place.

[Chris Ryan]

It's probably quiet place.

[Bill Simmons]

I think Quiet place.

[Chris Ryan]

This is a more interesting. I know that she's an incredible actress.

[Sean Fennessey]

I love her. It's kind of sad, I think, what's been going on the last five years. I don't really like the choices she's made.

[Chris Ryan]

So you don't like Oppenheimer in Smashing Machine?

[Sean Fennessey]

I think she's the worst thing in Smashing Machine. Straight up. Oppenheimer.

[Bill Simmons]

Fun in movies. I really like Five Year Engagement. I think she's good in it.

[Chris Ryan]

But I don't want her to make

[Bill Simmons]

three more of those in Jungle Cruise.

[Sean Fennessey]

That's. I don't. That's. Yeah. I have not enjoyed that stuff.

[Craig Horlbeck]

She's good in Fall Guy. I like that movie.

[Sean Fennessey]

She is. They tried. They like. That's a swing and a miss. And I like that they tried.

[Bill Simmons]

Did you see Project Hail Mary yet?

[Sean Fennessey]

I did. I liked it quite a bit.

[Bill Simmons]

Heard it was good.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

The Goss is back, man. Fucking Gus.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah, it's really good.

[Bill Simmons]

Juarez. Apex Mountain. Probably not.

[Chris Ryan]

I mean, represented on film. I think it, you know, put it on the quote unquote as a movie location.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. Brolin. I think it's that run after no country when he was w. And he was in, like.

[Chris Ryan]

I would make the argument that this is Apex is that.

[Bill Simmons]

What if it made 200 million, but

[Chris Ryan]

it made 80 this year? Or whenever that. Whenever Ultron comes out and he does the cameo at the end of the year?

[Sean Fennessey]

I think it's Infinity War.

[Chris Ryan]

You do? Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

I think that the. What years of 2018, the level of success of that Avengers movie and him being the Big Bad that the whole thing is centered around and every character says his name. Now, granted, he's CGI in the movie, but it is unmistakably Brolin, even though he's like a giant purple alien. I don't know.

[Chris Ryan]

Can I tell you a story? Really?

[Bill Simmons]

Is that a Marvel movie?

[Sean Fennessey]

It is, yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

It's, you know, Thanos. And he puts the glove on. Do you know the glove with the gems in it?

[Bill Simmons]

Sure.

[Chris Ryan]

The Infinity Stones. The Infinity Gauntlet.

[Bill Simmons]

Totally.

[Chris Ryan]

I was driving down Santa Monica yesterday, and I was at a red light, and a gentleman who'd probably seen better times in his life was riding a bicycle past me, and he stopped on the sidewalk and reached down for something, and I was like, wonder what this guy's up to. And he picked up the glove from the Infinity Gauntlet. Yeah, the Infinity Gauntlet. And he was, like, looking at it, and I was like, what if it's the real Gauntlet? What if this guy just found.

[Sean Fennessey]

Did he snap?

[Chris Ryan]

No, but there was something in it. Like, I think he was doing a drug deal, but, like, it was pretty amazing.

[Sean Fennessey]

Was he hiding heroin in it?

[Chris Ryan]

Whatever he found in there, he was excited.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Yes.

[Sean Fennessey]

And it was Brolin.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, it was Brolin.

[Sean Fennessey]

It was Brolin.

[Bill Simmons]

Cartel movies. Yes. Trying to think, what's the competition?

[Sean Fennessey]

I mean, Scarface, of course, it had been largely narcos.

[Chris Ryan]

You know what I mean? I can't remember when narcos debuted. I think after this, I would have

[Bill Simmons]

Scarface over Scario just because it has A longer tale. It's 43 years of people watching Scarface versus 10 for Sicario. Okay, but 10 years from now, I'm willing to look at it.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah. I mean, do you consider Carlito's Way a cartel movie?

[Chris Ryan]

Not really. More of a New York crime movie.

[Sean Fennessey]

There's not a lot of great movies, a firm movie in this. I mean, obviously. Vincent Chase's masterpiece, Medellin.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, that's true.

[Bill Simmons]

Forgot about that. Who could forget vats of acid as a plot device?

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, God.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't know if we've topped it.

[Sean Fennessey]

I'll say Tim Burton's Batman.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Oh, yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

And the Joker goes in.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, good point.

[Craig Horlbeck]

That's right.

[Bill Simmons]

Del Toro.

[Chris Ryan]

I guess traffic is his Apex Mountain

[Bill Simmons]

because he was asking the one they

[Chris Ryan]

asked for that traffic made more money than this? Probably, I would imagine.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah, probably. Traffic. He's been pretty much dope for 20 years now, though. Like, every time he shows on the story, they're like, oh, hey, Benicio movie Kaluuya.

[Bill Simmons]

No dead people buried in walls. Probably can't think it's more effective. I really like when the bullet. And he's looking through, he's like, what the fuck, Bernthal? No tunnels.

[Chris Ryan]

Great escape.

[Bill Simmons]

It's either this or Fast five.

[Chris Ryan]

You don't think the Great Escape is more significant than Fast five? Or the tunnel in Shawshank Mount?

[Bill Simmons]

Tunnel more. Oh, Shawshank.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Fast five. Great escape, huh, Sakaria? We're done. One battle more.

[Sean Fennessey]

Leo crawls through the tunnel under his house. Some good tunnels.

[Bill Simmons]

Dinner scene executions.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah, I mean, the menu, right. I think it's a lot of executions there.

[Bill Simmons]

And then Jeff Donovan. I still have shot caller.

[Chris Ryan]

Since you mentioned Jeff, you mentioned the dinner scene execution. And it is your month. Can I just throw one more flex category in there? Yeah, I did want to talk about this a little bit, which is the I used to fuck guys like you in prison award for craziest quote. Telling a guy time to meet God before you kill his family is, like, as hard as it gets.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

You want to say Apex Mountain for hardness at the dinner table? Like, about, like. Can you imagine?

[Sean Fennessey]

I'll tell a quick true story that just happened two hours ago. I pulled up to your house and I was shoveling a salad into my face so that I could get some food in me before this recording. And parked right outside the place. And car rolls up next to me, drops its window. It's Chris. He turns to me and says, time to be God. And then he drives.

[Chris Ryan]

There's also a really good I used to fuck guys like you in prison. Quote, when the Delta guy holds Reg down when Graver and Kate are going at it and he just goes, just lay back and let it happen, baby. You're just like, what,

[Bill Simmons]

Cruise or Hanks?

[Chris Ryan]

I don't know.

[Sean Fennessey]

Hanks as Graver. Cruz as Alejandro.

[Chris Ryan]

Cruise as Alejandro.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, doing like the Collateral Cruise.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah, doing Vincent.

[Chris Ryan]

I'm trying to imagine him saying, you were in the land of wolves now.

[Sean Fennessey]

I think he could do it.

[Chris Ryan]

You're in the land of wolves now.

[Sean Fennessey]

He couldn't sell the South American aspect of it. Obviously.

[Bill Simmons]

Cruz is the Bernthal part.

[Sean Fennessey]

Wow.

[Bill Simmons]

Cocktail Cruise.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah. But T.J. mackie.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, yeah, that'd be pretty good.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't think there's place in this movie.

[Craig Horlbeck]

You don't think Cruise could be brolin.

[Sean Fennessey]

He could.

[Chris Ryan]

He could.

[Bill Simmons]

This is more Cruz than Hanks. Scorsese or Spielberg? Scorsese.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Best hang. Worst hang. Brolin. Best hang.

[Sean Fennessey]

Hey, Graver seems kind of fun.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, Graver. I would definitely get beers with Graver.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, I almost had Kate for worst hang, but she's pretty fun at the bar.

[Chris Ryan]

Kate would be like, let's creak, man.

[Bill Simmons]

Let's go. She just needs to be in her element.

[Sean Fennessey]

You just don't want to get into like an argument with her about like Jersey Prudence, you know, like, she definitely has got some hang ups about who

[Chris Ryan]

gets to do Broncos smoke cigs.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah, yeah. She thinks she's a Broncos fan.

[Chris Ryan]

That area in, you know, you know,

[Bill Simmons]

one of those, like, definitely seemed uptight, but the bar, you just saw a different side.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, those are.

[Bill Simmons]

Those are some of my favorites back in the day.

[Sean Fennessey]

It's like, oh, favorite what?

[Bill Simmons]

Really? Home, Just. Just to hang out with like those pool tables. Picking it. How did the Mexican guy miss Emily Blunt in the beginning in Arizona? Oh, she opens the door and he's where Craig is and just completely misses her. It's like you have one job. You're an infected cartel with a gun.

[Chris Ryan]

The federal guy, the guy when she

[Bill Simmons]

opens the door and he shoots at her and she kills him.

[Sean Fennessey]

You'll find out soon. With two shots with Craig Horbeck coming up next.

[Chris Ryan]

I thought that he might be aiming for the Delta guys. Oh, I guess he was shooting because he shoots out the window. Yeah, he's a bad shot.

[Bill Simmons]

At the Wild Pony. Kate orders two beers. It's a pet peeve of mine for all movies and tv when people don't say the beer. Which Big Globe Ultra would have been great? Because we love Big Globe Ultra. But I'm always like, when they're protecting the integrity of. We can't have spot. Like you're doing all this other stuff in a movie and it's like you have to draw the line and integrity. Just have her say two beers. Nobody's ever ordered two beers.

[Sean Fennessey]

What was the primal fear fight that we had, though, where it was like, was it the usual? What was the order that he does at the bar? And you guys were like, this is not correct. I was on the opposite side of you guys.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

You were like, I would love to be able to say the usual. And I get like a nice cold martini or something.

[Bill Simmons]

But we were like, we make up names. All these things in movies just make up a name of beer. So, like, give me the Amarillo. Amarillo light. Great. Okay. Just give her the Amarillo lights and we're ready to go.

[Sean Fennessey]

So this is really more like you have an issue with the prop master. Like, you should have been working a little harder.

[Bill Simmons]

Thanks.

[Chris Ryan]

Fan of the movie. I feel like I'm watching is so authentic. Except for somebody being like, two beers.

[Sean Fennessey]

What do you think she likes to drink in real life?

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, she's definitely pounding. Light beers.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

With shots.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Tequila, couple shots.

[Sean Fennessey]

Michal bul. Boilermaker.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. 90 calorie light beers, but with shots. And she definitely didn't eat.

[Sean Fennessey]

That's very attractive.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes.

[Bill Simmons]

Didn't.

[Chris Ryan]

Probably didn't eat the entire day after she is. Had a near death experience with Bernthal. She's so haggard.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Dark circles under her eyes. Her hair is all oily, and she's smoking a cig in the bathroom. I'm still like, let's go, Dana Wheeler Nicholson Award. I'm just like. Like all the draft picks for that.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

At the end of the day, she looks like Emily Blunt.

[Craig Horlbeck]

That's what I'm saying.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. They can't. They can't change it. Well, that leads to another nitpick I had. Would you really have a cigarette right after you've almost been strangled? I feel like I'd wait six hours.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, but when you really smoke, the cigarette comes after everything. Like when you're really about it.

[Bill Simmons]

I almost had the life choked out of me. Do you guys have another. What were the.

[Chris Ryan]

I would have a cigarette after the Heimlich maneuver if I could, you know, like.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, I don't know. I think she would have waited.

[Sean Fennessey]

I'm not going to. I'm not going to make the inappropriate

[Bill Simmons]

comment about trying to arrest Alejandro in the tunnel is ridiculous. It's the worst part of the movie. And then Alejandro forced Kate to sign the document, saying it was all legal. Just sign it and then tell them after he put a gun to my head and forced me to sign it. And I didn't really mean to sign it. And here's what happened.

[Chris Ryan]

Also, just strange that after the Victor Garber character has said they have the authority to do whatever they want, basically that they're like, this entire thing rests on Kate signing a piece of paper. Now, that whole piece of paper might incriminate Kate, which also may be why she's like, I don't want to sign this because I didn't do anything wrong.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

But, yeah, there's like, a weird end of this movie where Matt allows her to leave the tunnel area despite saying, I'm gonna expose this entire operation. And also, Alejandro is like, I have to kill you if you don't sign a piece of paper. That we could easily. Just like doctor.

[Bill Simmons]

She's calling him Al by that point. What do you have for nitpicks?

[Sean Fennessey]

Well, what's Ted's plan? Ted has been following Kate so that he can seduce her, so that he can get the information that the cartel wants about what she knows because they spotted her going into the bank. Right. That's the setup there. But she. Did he know that she was going to go with Reggie, who was a pal of Kate's and who could serve as an intro? Is that just good luck?

[Bill Simmons]

It's the kind of mistake you make when you write a movie, not realizing people are gonna watch it 35 times.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah, it's just a little strange credulity

[Bill Simmons]

trying to get in with her and get closer to her. I don't think he's trying to solve everything in one night, but maybe become, like, a steady hookup, and then he can get information.

[Sean Fennessey]

Okay.

[Chris Ryan]

The same thing happens with what's Alejandro's plan? So he's following them, or did they know Silvio is going to be at the end of the tunnel? Like, what happens if Silvio's not there and there are no cars there? Like, how does he catch up?

[Bill Simmons]

Well, they know once. Well, once they kidnap Guillermo, they know they have, like, two days. Right. Before they destroyed the tunnel.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes.

[Bill Simmons]

So they're like, immediately, it's go time.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah. But then once you get there, how do you find Manuel?

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

Like, if I guess you just. There you have. You have to assume you can get a car. Sure. Right. And you're going somewhere because they're tracking Manuel.

[Chris Ryan]

Right. Once he crosses in Mexico.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah, but having a A police cruiser is like the ultimate hack for nailing Manuel.

[Chris Ryan]

Right.

[Bill Simmons]

How did he know it was dinner time? Could have come, like, right after when they were playing video games.

[Sean Fennessey]

Great note.

[Bill Simmons]

Just really, really fortunate.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

What if he shows up?

[Chris Ryan]

He walks up, the kids are playing Madden, he's like, oh, fine, I'll let them finish. It's the fourth quarter. Are you running the spread?

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah. Time to meet. God. I was gonna say time to meet Bill Parcells.

[Bill Simmons]

Any other nitpicks? We covered a lot.

[Chris Ryan]

I think we've hit all of them. Sometimes it feels like Graver will be candid with Kate when it's convenient for the movie. But why would he be like that?

[Sean Fennessey]

Agree with that. He explains a lot of stuff he doesn't have to explain.

[Bill Simmons]

Do we cover everything?

[Craig Horlbeck]

Yeah, I think so.

[Bill Simmons]

All right, sequel, prequel, Prestige tv, all black cast or untouchable. Prestige TV would work for this.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, I would say.

[Bill Simmons]

And I actually think it could evolve with the news and kind of what, what should have happened with Homeland, and they just kind of fucked it up. But Homeland, I, I, they got so Brody was so popular that it kind of fucked up the show.

[Sean Fennessey]

Every season could have been a different kind of conflict.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, it just should have been new. New season, new everything. Yeah, that's like 24. 24 would be sure very realistic. The,

[Chris Ryan]

the sequel. There is a sequel. I take a third. But I would also watch, albeit I think I would go to hell for watching it. Alejandro, Mexican prosecutor and Colombian cartel assassin. Like the prequel to how he gets hooked up with them.

[Bill Simmons]

And also I think that's that Patrick Dempsey show. I think that's the premise.

[Chris Ryan]

What's that called?

[Bill Simmons]

Memories of a Murderer.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, and he's like a hitman.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

I would also watch Kate, small town sheriff after she, like, moves out of Arizona, and he's like, go to a small town where the rule of law still exists.

[Sean Fennessey]

I want the Jeffrey Donovan show.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. Well, that's essentially two.

[Bill Simmons]

Him just getting boners.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah. Cracking wise.

[Bill Simmons]

Is this movie better with Wayne Jenkins, Fergie, the Florist, Zane Lowe or somebody else? C.R. it is C.R. month.

[Chris Ryan]

I'm getting too seduced by Zane, but I gotta do it. Zayn talking to Ted before he goes into the bar. Ted, man, here we are. You've been low, man. You struck out in slow pitch softball in front of the entire Phoenix law enforcement community. But you're ready to rise again like a Phoenix, brother. And here you are, you got Kate in there. Just make sure you don't use the rubber bands of The Sonoran cartel brother. That, now that I hear it out loud in my head, sounds a little like Danny Archer in Blood Diamonds. Like I'm saying tia

[Sean Fennessey]

diplomatic.

[Bill Simmons]

We gotta add Danny Archer today.

[Chris Ryan]

I'm sorry, Zane, you're not sat down for you. But yeah, that was what I had. Tell me about your Jenny 10.

[Sean Fennessey]

Oh my God.

[Bill Simmons]

I thought for sure we're getting Wayne. Wayne must be officially retired.

[Sean Fennessey]

It sounds like it.

[Chris Ryan]

I think Wayne's got to take a minute. Wayne's got to. We got to put Wayne in the bullpen. I mean, I would use Fergie, but there's a lot of chemical way in this movie.

[Bill Simmons]

So does he.

[Sean Fennessey]

When they've got. When Benicio's finger goes in his ear, does he say God damn?

[Bill Simmons]

He kind of does. He does go weird for a second. Just want to ask her who gets it. I would go Del Toro, personally.

[Chris Ryan]

Del Toro or Deakins.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

Johan Johansson for the score.

[Chris Ryan]

I don't know if there is enough music, but it's such a distinctive.

[Sean Fennessey]

It's very effective.

[Bill Simmons]

Probably unanswerable questions. Is this a better movie if Kate shoots Alejandro in the head at the end?

[Chris Ryan]

No.

[Sean Fennessey]

No.

[Chris Ryan]

But is it a better movie if the last shot is Alejandro walking away from the apartment building and not going to Mexico one more time? Did you think that the soccer game was a little too.

[Bill Simmons]

I almost had nitpick for this. I didn't like the soccer game. I thought the quality of the play was low. These kids are in Mexico, they start out, they start from the middle. It does the kick. Not the best fucking defender misses it completely. It's like you guys just your national sport. You couldn't have even controlled one pass. You guys are 11 year olds.

[Craig Horlbeck]

They're playing on dirt.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah.

[Craig Horlbeck]

So probably a little bit.

[Bill Simmons]

I didn't like the quality of the game. I thought I would have done a second take.

[Sean Fennessey]

You going to the World Cup?

[Bill Simmons]

It's very possible. I will. Why?

[Sean Fennessey]

Just curious.

[Bill Simmons]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessey]

Are you going to.

[Chris Ryan]

Maybe we have it.

[Sean Fennessey]

I think we won't have it,

[Bill Simmons]

Probably. And it's so you think not a better movie if she shoots Alejandra?

[Sean Fennessey]

No. For the record, I like the ending of Mexico because I do think that the movie is ultimately like nothing has changed, nothing has been fixed.

[Bill Simmons]

I like the ending.

[Sean Fennessey]

I think it's a very strong point and I love that.

[Chris Ryan]

And these are the real people. This is impacting.

[Sean Fennessey]

And the haysburg. No, you point about Heat where it's like you have to have these threads in the movie that show other worlds. It can't just be like two trains on a track ready to hit each other. There's other stuff that is affected by this. I think it's actually a very graceful thing that isn't in the other Sheridan movies that Villeneuve brings to it. Yeah.

[Craig Horlbeck]

I mean, weirdly, the only character you really care about in the movie is Silvio and his son. Like, that's the one you actually have the most connection to emotionally.

[Chris Ryan]

I care about Griever.

[Sean Fennessey]

We know that.

[Bill Simmons]

Unanswerable questions. Is there a worse Halloween costume than dressing up like the body bags in the wall from Sicaria?

[Chris Ryan]

Just showing up in a. Now that I've never thought about.

[Bill Simmons]

Who are you guys? I'm one of the body bags from Sicario. Cool. Want a beer? It's gotta be number one, right? I guess being the little girls from the Shining would be bad.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, that would be pretty tough.

[Sean Fennessey]

That's a pretty common one. You'll see that out and about.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, Burnt to a crisp. Gabriel Byrne from Hereditary.

[Bill Simmons]

Did Kate remarry? Did Kate ever date again? Does the Watney Award. What happened the next day? What happened with Kate?

[Sean Fennessey]

I think maybe.

[Bill Simmons]

Let's really talk about this.

[Sean Fennessey]

I think maybe she and Ted got back together. I think they worked it out. Yeah, they figured it out.

[Chris Ryan]

But he's in the kill house at Corcoran. She's visiting him.

[Bill Simmons]

Did Kate move to a desk job? What are her next two years look like? Cr.

[Chris Ryan]

Other?

[Bill Simmons]

Other than a lot of nicotine, That's a. I just.

[Chris Ryan]

I would like to believe that she still believes in the power of law enforcement. So, like, you know, maybe she's a cop somewhere.

[Sean Fennessey]

No, she works at a post office. Come on.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Or she's like, got a desk job

[Chris Ryan]

selling knitting on Etsy or something.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah, knitting.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

She knits bras.

[Bill Simmons]

Unanswerable question. It's the land of wolves. Are you a wolf seer?

[Chris Ryan]

I don't think you can answer that about yourself. It's like giving yourself a nickname somebody

[Bill Simmons]

else has to do.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, you guys would have to tell

[Bill Simmons]

me, do you have any unanswerables?

[Sean Fennessey]

You got them all.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

Anything. What piece of memorabilia would you want or not want from this movie?

[Chris Ryan]

I would want the rubber band from the bankroll and just like, leave it on tables and see if you notice.

[Bill Simmons]

I think it's the Bernthal rubber band. That's my head, too. The fake cocaine bricks in the car when Alejandro kidnaps the cop. And there's all those bricks. You could talk me into that.

[Chris Ryan]

It would be pretty cool if that was My backdrop for this month, Fake cocaine.

[Sean Fennessey]

Bricks.

[Chris Ryan]

Tees of cocaine behind me.

[Bill Simmons]

Coach Finstock, Mr. Miyagi.

[Chris Ryan]

Word.

[Bill Simmons]

Best, worst life lesson. You will doubt everything we do, but in the end, you'll understand. I think that's got to be the answer, right?

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

It's been how I feel working for you.

[Bill Simmons]

Thanks. Best double feature choice, Sicario 2.

[Chris Ryan]

Soldado. If you want to just keep the Graver and Alejandro Train rolling, I chose

[Sean Fennessey]

Abel Ferrar's King of New York. Oh, another, like, vicious movie about the way things are.

[Bill Simmons]

I have Fast five.

[Sean Fennessey]

Okay. Brazil

[Bill Simmons]

Tunnel. It's the happier, entertaining version of Sicario.

[Sean Fennessey]

Oh, shit.

[Bill Simmons]

And I would start with Fast five. And then I would go to Sicario.

[Sean Fennessey]

Where would you.

[Bill Simmons]

I would go.

[Chris Ryan]

Happy triple feature. No, double feature.

[Bill Simmons]

You want to start Fast five.

[Chris Ryan]

Great idea. Yeah, that's good.

[Sean Fennessey]

And then Furious six. After that.

[Bill Simmons]

No. Okay, just us two. What do you have for double feature?

[Craig Horlbeck]

Probably Happy Gilmore.

[Bill Simmons]

It's a really fun. Who won the movie? I actually think there's an obvious choice for this.

[Chris Ryan]

I'm going to make a case for Taylor Sheridan. I don't think I have that written down here. I had Benicio written down. But the more that we talked about it, first of all, it sends him on this incredible trajectory where he's arguably one of the most powerful people in entertainment right now.

[Bill Simmons]

That was who I had. And I think it's the obvious winner because he literally won the movie. It jumpstarts 11 year and counting career that Sean now detests.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yes. Well, I know. I wouldn't say detest.

[Chris Ryan]

He just thinks it's a.

[Sean Fennessey]

It's a. I think it's a. It's a waste of skill.

[Chris Ryan]

Screenwriting talent.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Should you do the Chaz Palminteri speech to him? Wasted talent. There's nothing worse than wasted, talented filmmaking

[Chris Ryan]

experiences like making without remorse and having that get chopped up and stuff. I mean, I think he's probably like, I want control over my script.

[Sean Fennessey]

I totally understand.

[Bill Simmons]

Is that my camera? Taylor Sheridan. Don't stop what you're doing, man. I love your work.

[Sean Fennessey]

You think he listens?

[Bill Simmons]

No.

[Chris Ryan]

Do you think he listens to pods?

[Bill Simmons]

No, he's. You know why? Because he's writing like 10 pages a day for seven shows.

[Sean Fennessey]

I had him on the big picture in 2017 for Wind river, but he's the only guest who's ever called in by cell phone.

[Chris Ryan]

Was he cool?

[Sean Fennessey]

Wow. He was pretty cool, actually.

[Chris Ryan]

He did all the video. When you watch him on the videos, he it for Sicario for the featurettes. He seems a little bit chiller than he does now.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

That was your only cell phone. I had Alton from the Real world call in once on a cell phone in year one of the BS report 07. And at one point he bought cigarettes.

[Sean Fennessey]

I remember.

[Bill Simmons]

Hold on one second. And then he's like, can I get a pack of Camels?

[Sean Fennessey]

Alton, who is of course the greatest athlete of the 20th century.

[Chris Ryan]

Didn't Bucher and Steiny Moe used to call in on cell phones while that we're walking around Dallas and stuff?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, yeah. That's. That's why we had to eventually stop that combo.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Was.

[Bill Simmons]

Wasn't great from a. So far.

[Sean Fennessey]

Three man weave.

[Chris Ryan]

Dude, how do you do a three

[Sean Fennessey]

man weave with a cell phone?

[Bill Simmons]

That's the thing. But that was. We didn't know any better. He was.

[Chris Ryan]

He was Amadeus dude. He was just.

[Craig Horlbeck]

I know.

[Sean Fennessey]

He was just figuring it out in real time. Masterful. Those were. Those were also. Me and CR Would text about those pods. Be like, did you hear the three man weave today? Pretty awesome.

[Chris Ryan]

It would be the three man weaves. Chad Ford.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

God. Obviously, Sal. Who are some of the others that. I was just like this.

[Sean Fennessey]

Jacko, Jacko, Jacko. Elite guys.

[Bill Simmons]

Jacko had a great run the Yankees.

[Chris Ryan]

I remember the first time I heard Lombardi talk about blue chips. I was like, this is blowing my mind. Like, I'd never considered this.

[Bill Simmons]

You know, who'd you have for who in the movie?

[Sean Fennessey]

I wrote Benicio down, but I thought that was a very compelling Taylor Sheridan case.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, it's clearly Sheridan. Craig, your thoughts on Sicaria?

[Craig Horlbeck]

I'm surprised no one said Denis or not even with the just one Oscar.

[Chris Ryan]

I guess I feel like we talked about it.

[Sean Fennessey]

This is the lowest grossing of his Hollywood movies. This is not like a movie that like put him on the map. Like prisoners put him on the map. And then I think Arrival is where he elevates.

[Craig Horlbeck]

But what all what you guys talked about with how much longer the script was, how much they cut out of it, how they kind of.

[Chris Ryan]

It's actually that much longer. Like pretty much all the plot beats and a lot of the dialogue is in this screenplay. They cut lines. So, like a lot of Alejandro's lines were given to Graver or they get cut from the movie.

[Craig Horlbeck]

And the opening scene, you said, is initially of Alejandro killing somebody. Right.

[Chris Ryan]

And doing a voiceover about like, cut the dream that.

[Craig Horlbeck]

I don't know.

[Chris Ryan]

I feel like there's even a part

[Craig Horlbeck]

you need to tighten the screws on this in a way that Makes this borderline a perfect movie. And it takes it from a pretty good movie to a perfect movie.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. Like, a good example is like at the end of the screenplay, Alejandro actually says the last title card about like Sicario's were. Go back to like ancient Jerusalem, like expelling the Romans. He says all that. And it's like, this is really awkward.

[Sean Fennessey]

Soldado has more of that energy.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes.

[Sean Fennessey]

It's a little. You can kind of feel Sheridan's words more in the screenplay. It's a very good point. I think he was already on the train to becoming who he was going to become. This movie becoming. You know, like I said, it's still my favorite. But I think a lot of people would say Arrival is his best movie. I think the Dune movies are beloved now. He's had a really cool.

[Chris Ryan]

I go back and forth between this and Arrival.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't think this movie is nearly as big as the Dune movies have been for him.

[Sean Fennessey]

Definitely not. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And especially with 25 and under, it's like my son had never seen Sicario and I don't think any of his friends. I think it's in that perfect sweet spot of beloved, but not. It's also like, you can discover it, which is the best thing about it. Totally.

[Chris Ryan]

Are you a Prisoners fan?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Also, I was wrong. Thinking back, I did not see this in the theater.

[Chris Ryan]

Cause I saw.

[Craig Horlbeck]

I remember seeing the Martian. Did not see this. Watched it on my laptop and I think I was 19 or 20. And I remember leaving it kind of underwhelmed because I think I went in thinking it was a bigger action movie, fast paced, and it's a little bit slower than that. Yeah. Upon rewatch last night on the tv, blasting the speakers, lights off. This is like the best movie ever made. It's so fucking good. I mean, he can make. No one's better at aerial shots right now than Denis.

[Chris Ryan]

Those shots of Juarez is there a.

[Bill Simmons]

Affleck has given up. He's like, I thought I had the helicopter corner for a while.

[Craig Horlbeck]

You can watch a car on the freeway from above for like a minute.

[Chris Ryan]

And it's interesting. All those shots have ideas too, man.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Yes.

[Chris Ryan]

Like, so many of those drone shots that people will do now are just transition shots. And they'll be like, all right, here's a cityscape.

[Sean Fennessey]

And it's like, it's usually one lonely car on a lonely road going over a forest space. But. But just giving you. It's not really Chandler, Arizona, but the very beginning of the movie, when you see the Kind of like pueblo town, almost this, like, suburban kind of. It's kind of like the inlet in the rip, you know, where it's like almost like an abandoned suburb that exists

[Chris Ryan]

only to house Sicario vibes.

[Sean Fennessey]

It does. Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

The shot. There's a shot when they're in the private jet that they've requisitioned to go to the air force base. The shot of the shadow of the jet kind of rippling over the landscape. It's just fucking crazy, dude.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah.

[Craig Horlbeck]

You hold your breath this entire movie. Also, we didn't do the category of what's the perfect age?

[Bill Simmons]

I know. I was gonna. I forgot to set you up for it.

[Craig Horlbeck]

The perfect age to see this movie is not 19. You can't grasp what they're trying to say. And even now, it's like I'm now just being like, oh, this movie means so much and you understand the subtext so much more. Because nothing is very deliberate in this film. It's all kind of something you have to read into. So that also probably played a factor in why as a 20 year old, I was like, pretty good.

[Bill Simmons]

I forgot to set you up at the top about. It's 200.

[Chris Ryan]

It's two hours flat.

[Bill Simmons]

Two hours flat.

[Craig Horlbeck]

I was shocked. I would have bet my life this movie was 2 hours and 25 minutes. This type of movie is always 2 hours and 25 minutes. Now, remarkable that it's too flat.

[Bill Simmons]

2 hours. So was it on the Horlbach scale, where you think every movie has to be 100 minutes? There's almost plus 20.

[Sean Fennessey]

There's not a lot to cut out.

[Bill Simmons]

Like, what would you cut out?

[Craig Horlbeck]

Well, the only thing you could cut out is the Bernthal stuff, which has. Probably saves you $10.

[Sean Fennessey]

I like it.

[Chris Ryan]

It's also like, that binds her to Alejandro. It's like almost why she follows him down the tunnels, because she's like, I need to know what this guy is about.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't think there's anything to cut.

[Craig Horlbeck]

There's kind of two different categories of movie. There's like the 100 minute types of movie and then there's the two hour kind of movie where I think most two and a half hour dramas now could be two hours. And then there's a lot of comedies and rom coms that are two hours. That should be an hour 40.

[Bill Simmons]

I will say this. If you were forced to cut, the studio's like, we're not releasing unless you cut five minutes. I would cut all the stuff with the cop in the beginning and the end and the soccer Sylvia. I just think that would you need everything else for the plot?

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. I don't.

[Bill Simmons]

That's like a luxury that you could still have. Mostly the same movie, but I really like having it.

[Sean Fennessey]

I think it's so grounding for the story.

[Chris Ryan]

You know, it makes the scene, which I don't even think we talked about, when Benicio is sitting in the backseat of Silvio's car and making him go to Manuel and he's like, you know, run your lights and tell him to get out of the car.

[Sean Fennessey]

You're a very good person.

[Chris Ryan]

It makes that way more tense because you're like, we've spent this whole movie with this guy.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, that's it for the first round of CR month. We have five movies this month. Next week we're doing Fargo.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Week after, just announced we're doing To Live and Die in la. Sean's going to be in, even though he's in, like, full Oscars thing. We're trying to kill Sean this month.

[Sean Fennessey]

I can do it. I just rewatched it. I'm very excited.

[Chris Ryan]

We were saying outside, we could probably start To Live and Die in LA

[Bill Simmons]

rewatchables, like right now, like, just do it blind.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Do you want to announce the other project?

[Bill Simmons]

No, because I'm not positive that's this month. We're going to do a sixth thing, but it's either going to be a mailbag or the mystery project. Then we have two more, which we haven't decided on yet.

[Chris Ryan]

Constant negotiations. We have the last one.

[Bill Simmons]

LA Confidential is the fifth one.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes.

[Bill Simmons]

I guess we didn't announce that one.

[Sean Fennessey]

We just did.

[Craig Horlbeck]

How does it work? Is Chris pitching you on the movies?

[Bill Simmons]

Does he have you buying control? He can ultimately decide. Oh, wow.

[Chris Ryan]

Thank you. I don't think I've ever gotten you to say that.

[Bill Simmons]

So the fourth one. Well, I still have to prove it.

[Chris Ryan]

I do.

[Bill Simmons]

Not the fourth one. So the third one delivered. Does that count as. Does that count as a one for us or do people want that one one?

[Chris Ryan]

People were very pumped out.

[Bill Simmons]

So we still have a One for Us card for the fourth one, surely.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Or we could just go nuts.

[Chris Ryan]

Well, I mean, the streets really want a couple of big titles, but I think we, We. We. We have to hold Hunt for October. For October. There's nothing like doing Hunt for October in the.

[Sean Fennessey]

For the Phillies playoff.

[Chris Ryan]

Exactly. So we're, We're. We're scouting a couple.

[Sean Fennessey]

I'm really honored to be a part

[Bill Simmons]

of this cigar month. Yeah, well, every. Every month of your life has Been Cigar month since, like, 2006.

[Sean Fennessey]

What a joy. And the gift that keeps on getting.

[Bill Simmons]

Greenwald said it' month for him since 1986.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. So we're getting GR for the last,

[Sean Fennessey]

you know, the universal approval rating. Like, that's. That's should be his other nickname.

[Chris Ryan]

Right before the fall, we're gonna do I peak here, and then everything goes down.

[Sean Fennessey]

But I'm getting you redacted, unredacted out of Epstein. So now it's all gonna come.

[Chris Ryan]

Come to light, and it's just Epstein being like, this guy. Cr loves Heat.

[Sean Fennessey]

Chris wrote that scene in Sicario where Alejandro sexually assaulted me, you know?

[Bill Simmons]

Well, we have Heat in the background. What language is that? Unepico Decrem.

[Chris Ryan]

Dude, didn't you. Didn't you take Spanish?

[Sean Fennessey]

Decrimin y obsessed.

[Bill Simmons]

That could be a bunch of languages. I don't know. You can tell me. That's Italian.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Spanish to me.

[Bill Simmons]

I think it's probably Spanish.

[Sean Fennessey]

The why is. I think the giveaway.

[Bill Simmons]

We're not doing Heat.

[Chris Ryan]

Way to go, Guillermo.

[Bill Simmons]

We're not doing Hunt of Red October.

[Chris Ryan]

No.

[Bill Simmons]

And we're not doing aliens.

[Chris Ryan]

We're not doing aliens.

[Bill Simmons]

Is Heat because we're going to do aliens this summer.

[Sean Fennessey]

Summer.

[Bill Simmons]

Yes. Because it's the anniversary.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes.

[Sean Fennessey]

Okay. Okay. So no Hunt for October, no aliens off.

[Bill Simmons]

And the fourth one is going to be one for us. Ish.

[Chris Ryan]

But we don't.

[Craig Horlbeck]

But.

[Chris Ryan]

But people have asked for the revice. But I think we're going to hold on to that.

[Bill Simmons]

No, because I think we. Yeah, we're going to hold on to

[Chris Ryan]

that one in case Jamie Foxx wants to do it.

[Sean Fennessey]

Is Ted Sarandos watching right now, do you think?

[Bill Simmons]

Probably not. Okay. He probably can't believe he just got $2.8 billion to. To back out of a deal. The ultimate.

[Chris Ryan]

He's like, you're telling me I get $2.8 billion and these three guys.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yes. Is Heat's tagline an epic of crime and obsession? Does it say that on the American poster?

[Chris Ryan]

It's an LA crime saga. Is the tagline interesting?

[Sean Fennessey]

There you go.

[Bill Simmons]

All right. Thanks to Craig Korlbeck. Thanks to Gahao and Eduardo as well. Thanks to Jack Wilson, everybody. Behind the scenes. It was very fun doing a Netflix live.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. We had no real thanks to your gardener.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, thanks. Almost ruined the beginning of the pod. And we'll see you next week with Fargo on CRM. Thanks for watching.

[Chris Ryan]

2 Good Co Coffee creamers are made

[Bill Simmons]

with farm fresh cream, real milk, and contain 3 grams of sugar per serving.

[Chris Ryan]

That's 40% less than the 5 grams per serving in leading traditional coffee creamers

[Bill Simmons]

for a rich, delicious experience. Whether you enjoy your coffee hot, cold, bold, or frothy, two good coffee creamers make every sip a good one. Two good coffee creamers.

[Chris Ryan]

Real goodness in every sip. Find them at your local Kroger in the creamer aisle.

[Bill Simmons]

Close your eyes, exhale, feel your body

[Sean Fennessey]

relax, and let go of whatever you're carrying.

[Chris Ryan]

Well, I'm letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class. I got them delivered free from 1-800-contacts. Oh my gosh, they're so fast. And breathe. Oh, sorry. I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order. Oh, sorry.

[Bill Simmons]

Namaste.

[Chris Ryan]

Visit 1-800-contacts.com today to save on your first order.

[Sean Fennessey]

1-800-contacts.