507: Acquitted by Faith

2h 12m
This week, the hosts of the Too Many Tabs podcast join us for a movie about how surprisingly cool God is when it comes to texting and driving.

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Transcript

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And I was like, I've been to Nashville quite a few times in my life.

I don't think that's a fancy hotel.

But I looked it up.

And what was the Vanderbilt?

It's a Hampton Inn.

Fantastic.

He's like, I'm going to make up for everything by taking you to the Hampton Inn.

You're getting the red roof tonight, baby.

Hey, baby, you're getting a continental breakfast.

I'm going to eat you up and down.

If the waffle machine isn't broken, you can go buck wealth on that thing tomorrow morning.

We're going to go from wet sausage to cold eggs.

God-awful

movie.

Movie.

Movies.

Welcome back.

to God-Awful Movies, where each week we watch another terrible movie so you don't have to.

I'm your host, Heath Enright, and I'm joined by the arisful, skibbity Eli Bosnick.

Eli, how's it going?

We're not going to connect with the youth, Heath, no.

No matter what we talk about, it's not

a way to do it.

This is not the way to do it.

Ohio, something.

Shit.

No cap.

And we also have two brand new guest masochists, Mrs.

P.

and Alex from the Too Many Tabs podcast.

Mrs.

P.

Alex, welcome to the show.

We're here.

We did it.

We made it.

And we're happy to be here.

And it was super fun.

You guys are internet people.

Was that cool?

Our beginning?

Was it cool?

We feel pretty rizzed up, as the kids say.

Recently, I got found out what skibbity toilet is.

Pretty excited about it.

Not weird at all.

Yeah, because I explained it to you because we're in our early 40s and we have a toddler.

And

this is how we internet.

I hold up a different random streamer and I say, keep this man away from our son.

White supremacist or sex predator flashcard.

Yeah.

When she turned and told me, and she was like, we're going to have a baby.

I was like, Roblox or Minecraft.

And she was like, one, one tail.

You already failed the test.

He's already working in the mines.

He's already working in the mines.

Yearn for the mines.

Yeah.

But yeah, we have the podcast called Too Many Tabs.

It's a comedy history podcast.

Yeah, kind of a mix of everything.

Sort of kind of thing.

Yeah.

And then I'm known from the internet as Pearl Mania 500.

And Mrs.

P is Mrs.

Pearl Mania.

Yep.

She likes to keep her anonymity.

And we're excited to be here on the show.

We were really excited to be guests.

And then you guys made us watch this awful movie.

It's a universal experience.

Yeah.

It seems like it was a trick.

You want to be on this podcast?

You just have to watch this film.

And I said, yeah, sure.

How bad could it be?

And then, did we get divorced last night?

I slept in a different room.

I did actually sleep in a different room.

I get it.

I thought this was going to be a fun, bad movie watch.

I didn't read the name of your show.

I think that was the problem is that it's god awful movies and i was like oh because god's awful this is an atheist show got it understood you're like no no no the movies are so bad yeah that you actually wish god existed because then the people who

exactly yes yeah this one wasn't fun bad this was just watching a christian

that's what i was saying where's the camp I was expecting like the chaotic camp of like, yeah, we're watching a bad film like Blood Diner.

It's funny.

It's terrible.

And the whole time I was like, what is happening?

How did we get here?

Yeah.

No one's motivation makes sense.

Yeah.

All reasonable questions.

All right.

So let's get into it.

Mrs.

P, what are we going to be breaking down today?

Oh, we are going to be breaking down the horrors of allegedly texting while driving and facing no consequences

except a family vacation with your weird wife and terrible kids.

Your ass

film called Acquitted by Faith.

Yes.

Technically a movie film.

Where no one is acquitted, actually.

And faith is barely mentioned.

Barely mentioned.

It's barely.

It's mentioned a total of, I think, three times.

Someone says pray on it and then throws a Bible across the room.

Yep.

A Bible is thrown gently into the protagonist's lap.

That is the extent of the religion.

Okay.

And Alex, as I understand it, you chose this movie.

Yes.

Why?

Because you guys sent us a list of a couple of different movies to choose from.

And Mrs.

P is a paralegal.

And so I was, she's a trained paralegal and she has experience in that field.

And I was like, that sounds out of all the choices, I was like, this one sounds like the most we could probably relate to.

I don't remember what the other two were, but they just didn't grab me.

Like the title, Acquitted by Faith, it's a good title.

It's catchy.

It's catchy.

It's clear that they came up with it after the movie.

Okay.

Because they are, they are not, this title and this movie have nothing to do with each other.

No, they do not.

So Mrs.

P, as an expert on the law, did they get a lot of it right?

Did they mostly get it?

Is it perfect?

No,

oh my God.

There were parts where they just, they took out evidence from an evidence envelope, which, how did he get it?

How did he gain access to it?

And he takes it out.

And then he makes a, like, I don't want to give it away.

I don't want to spoil, but he makes a call on the evidence phone.

Yeah.

What are we talking about?

I was, everything that forgot legal procedure, I was screaming into the night.

Alex was taking notes.

I couldn't.

I was too busy yelling yeah yeah that's fair yeah there was there was quite a few times where because the main character is a lawyer and then other lawyers are telling him very blatant like lawyer things yeah and being like yeah don't talk to the press it's like no shit why do you pay this man

how has he been working in a law firm for 10 years it's a boss and he's a lawyer that makes a million dollars but he's gonna go visit someone in the hospital who has a claim against him get out of here yeah so many times there's so many he will will spend most of the last two-thirds of this movie being like, I gotta go say I'm sorry for hitting that little girl on recording camera.

Yeah.

Larry's in there and he's watching that kid.

You better not fuck with Larry.

Yeah, there's no cursing.

Sorry.

Yeah.

Oh, no, please, please.

Good.

Good.

Because this is a fucking Larry house.

Yeah.

It's a fucking Larry house.

This is.

We'll get into it more.

We got to save it.

The people who haven't watched the movie, who are listening to this podcast, have no idea about how cool Larry is.

Awesome.

There's a very sweet lawyer called Larry the lawyer.

So, Eli, just in general, how bad was this movie film?

Well, if you want to write a Christian film dependent on your truly terrible ideas, but you're a little distracted by that texting a driving ticket you got outside the Wendy's down the street from your studio, you will love this movie.

Look, we've watched 507 Christian movies.

I've seen a lot of personal agendas displayed across the silver screen, but it has never been more apparent to me that I could do an LA records lookup for texting and driving tickets and find the writer's name than I have with this film right here.

I had a thought during the movie.

In the one frame, there's an older lady who's being questioned by cops.

And she's like, if they weren't on their darn phones, and I decided that this whole movie is that woman's hallucination of kids on their phone these days.

Yes, this is hers.

She's having a stay.

She's doing a stay.

I get it.

When the movie finished, Mrs.

P turned to me and she's like, this is just some boomer's metaphor.

Because they looked around while driving on the highway.

I was like, why are we going so slow?

And saw somebody probably watching one of my TikToks, honestly,

while in a Prius with too many bumper stickers on the back.

Yeah.

Kids with their fuel injections.

We had carburetors.

Yeah.

It's a lot of things.

We had lead in the air like God intended.

All right.

Is there anything y'all would like to nominate this one for being the best at being the worst at?

Well, I know you had a lot of thoughts, Mrs.

P, about set design.

Oh, that's that design.

Oh, yeah.

Okay, listen.

In the opening scene, the wife is drinking from a cup of coffee.

And as she sips it, there's still a HomeGoods sticker on the top of it.

And then I store the bottom of it.

And then I'm looking around.

Everything still has tags.

Yeah.

What?

Everything on the walls is clearly bought from the beach section at HomeGoods or actually furniture.

I was so mad about set design the whole time.

I like to think that she's got a mug from somewhere else, but she's an enthusiast of home goods, the brand.

Yeah, and puts a sticker on it.

She just wants, she's just shown her

loyalty there.

I would like to nominate this movie for having the best cameo by sitting United States Senator Marsha Blackburn.

Wait, is that for real?

Did you guys notice?

You guys didn't notice that.

I didn't notice that.

You know, she's in the movie.

She's the payroll manager.

Yeah, no, Tennessee senator, U.S.

GOP senator Marsha Blackburn, who is about to run for governor of Tennessee, a huge bag of shit, terrible person.

We're watching it.

And at the evil corporation, that I don't think it's supposed to be evil.

The guys get spied.

The manager is like, says something about China.

She's like, yeah, China's coming to my job next.

There's something along those lines.

Oh, she's Janet from HR.

Yeah, no, she,

her name actually in the credits, because I actually sat through the credits just to see her name pop up.

I also Googled to make sure that it's really her because there was a moment where I'm like, am I racist does every old white woman right yeah exactly yeah and no it actually is her it is marsha blackburn for some reason is in this movie wow what an insane poll once you realize that there's so many points throughout the movie where they're complaining about welfare how much welfare pays out that the u.s healthcare system legal jurisprudence all these different things i'm like yo you mean all the things that marsha blackburn spends all of her time blocking

this makes so much sense the movie gets distracted by its own grievances like 19 times.

That makes so much more sense that Marsha Blackburn was on the set naming grievances.

She's in like the first seven minutes.

I was shocked, and Mrs.

P was yelling at me because I was writing my notes into the central dock.

And she was like, they'll notice that you've noticed Marsha Blackburn.

And I was like, I don't, I feel like there's so many notes in here.

No one will see it.

Oh, we know.

We are so glad to see Marsha Blackburn.

Have her named in shame.

Yeah.

Well, I was going to go with best worst naming stuff in the movie.

So, first of all, our main character's name is Ben.

Ben Stills.

Very clearly, they were like, Ben Stills, don't say still or

main character.

And then also, there's a company that is supposed to be solving cancer somehow.

And the name of that company is Lancer.

They just rhymed it.

And the full name of that company, because they wanted to make it evil, is Lancer Multinational Corporation LLC.

That's the full name of the company.

Interesting.

Because it has to be multinational.

Because I pinged the Marsha Blackburn thing immediately because she blamed China, even though we know it's the law firm that's embezzling.

Yeah, right.

She's like, well, China's coming for my job next.

And I'm like, what is she talking about?

Yeah.

Also, Lancer is fighting cancer, but I think they're also causing it because it's clearly a mill.

Yeah.

Like it's not a

medical place at all.

None of it, like they have all the parts, and then they just labeled everything wrong.

I think exactly what happened.

They're not even like they didn't invent like a lancing device that lances a tumor.

It's supposed to be like a shitty medical company that's doing fraud, and they're called rhymes with cancer.

I think they heard Lance it in relation to medicine, and they were like, Well, we can't take that one, Lancer.

There we go.

Free, and I'm going to go with best worst switch of plotline so this movie is 47 seconds long and the first 46 seconds of it are about trunk down dennis leary who's that actor oh casper van dien yes casper van di trunk down dennis leary is working main character too hard at his job and then about two seconds before the end of the movie he hits a child with his car and it's about that now yep yeah yeah they don't know they don't know it's so bad this movie makes no sense.

It was the longest 85 minutes of my life.

It's rough.

All right.

We're going to take a quick break to think about what the movie might be about that we're going to talk about.

And then we'll be back to tell you all about acquitted by faith.

Hey, Eli, have you seen the muffin pan?

Oh, you mean this muffin pan?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Why is it taped to your stomach?

It's called Ab SculptiKeith.

48 hours of this, and I'm going to look just like I have an eight pack.

From a Muffintin?

Uh, yeah.

Right.

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All right, Heath.

Guess I won't need this anymore.

Yeah.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, this look good.

You look like a recently pregnant possum.

Ah, I was afraid of that.

In a bad way.

Yeah, no, I got it.

Hey, podcast listener.

I'm Heath Enright.

And I'm Eli Bosnick.

As some of you already know, it's Matreon, that time of year when we beg you extra hard for money.

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Lots of folks ask us to have some nice goals for Matreon this year.

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New and upgrading patrons can also get a song from Anna or a month of secular God Awful Movies episodes over here for me.

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And remember, any new and upgrading patron to the show helps the cause.

Matreon, because Noah and Lucinda will be super psyched about the spacelights.

They really will.

They love those spacelights.

And we're back.

And we're going to open up with some ominous, amazing satellite technology.

And what uses satellites?

Cell phones.

Yeah, it wasn't until I watched this movie for a second time.

Yes, I watched this movie for a second time.

Uh-huh.

Rough.

And it wasn't until I watched it for a second time that I realized that this entire opening science montage is to make us afraid of the cellular phone.

When I saw the opening montage, I thought it was like, oh, this is a X-File Sense 8 knockoff.

That's what it looks like.

It does have a little bit of a Sense 8 rip to it.

I just was, I wondered what their budget was for stock footage.

I was like, this is just stock footage that's just running on loops over and over and over again.

Yeah, it felt real.

We got the big packagey.

Yeah.

Right.

And then they set up the thing with the cell phones we get a car crash we get like an austin powers vehicular homicide in crazy slow motion but it's supposed to be a full-on car crash yes and the one thing i do want to say before we get started is we watched this on amazon prime

which caught us off guard because it's been a long time i use my dad's amazon prime logged in i forgot that amazon prime has ads now yeah And so we sat through so many ads.

Oh, it's an hour and a half of ads.

It's an hour and a half of ads.

And then on top of that, though, every time I could pause to like discuss, another ad would pop up on the screen.

Yep.

So this was like brought to us by Tide and Vanguard.

Vanguard.

Yeah.

So many different things.

So as I was pausing during this little weird part, it is like, to me, it's also interstitial accidentally with like insane consumerism.

100%.

Yeah.

I always get crazy like Midwest versions of that for like the Republicans who are going to be watching this Christian movie.

So it's like roofing and like tactical work boots and shit like that.

Oh, gotcha.

Yeah.

Get your ice patches here.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Yeah.

No, the car crashes was weird because I thought going into it, obviously we read the promo where it's like, hey, this is about a car crash and something and Jesus.

So when we're seeing a car crash, Baby, I'm like, oh, cool.

We're getting right into the car crash because this should be a movie about 85 minutes of getting over or trying to get through this crisis.

And then when it's not Casper Van Deen, who's the actor, when it's not him, and it's just some hipster lady, I was like, what the hell is happening?

Also, her texting on that brick of a cell phone, driving 20 miles an hour.

I'm like, she can stop.

It's such a slow roll.

Yeah.

She doesn't go through the stop sign that fast.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This is an important part of Christian cinema.

Obviously, it's your first time on the show, so you don't understand, but it is mandatory in all Christian movies that the technology be at least 20-year five.

I was wondering why we didn't have an iPhone.

Yeah, it's a Blackberry from 1997.

This movie was made in 2020.

Yeah.

And they definitely could not afford a car crash in the movie because they spent a lot of their money on, I guess, stock footage of cell phones in cars.

Yeah.

So we just get this like terrible version of it.

But yeah, it's supposed to be a texter driving and crashing.

That's it.

And then we cut right over to one of our main characters.

played by Casper Van Deen.

He's the dad named Ben Stills, and he's talking, you know, know, business biz dad stuff as he walks down the stairs to breakfast.

Oh my god, it's rare that we have seen a scene so filled with I am expositioning my exposition, the exposition scene.

Although I will admit, I did like that at one point, because he's talking about what a bad dad.

Oh, I'm sorry, I missed your soccer game.

I'm sorry, I missed your ballet concert.

But then at one point, he turns to the wife and he says, I'll make it up to you, honey.

I'm not going to tell you what it is, kids.

I wanted the daughter to be like, it's Connolingus.

We know.

I was blown away because, again, I picked the movie based just solely on the name.

When Caster Van Dean showed up, I was like, oh, maybe this won't be so bad.

I loved him in Starship Troopers.

Then I immediately started thinking, I'm like, oh, no, I haven't seen him in anything since then.

Wait a second.

I was like, no, the Dean Kane curse strikes again.

Oh, yeah.

He's in the Dean Kane curse for sure.

He was in Starship Troopers.

Yeah.

Also, Starship Troopers 3, 4, and 5.

Not in the cast for part two, Heroes of the Federation, though.

I think it was some sort of rift.

Or they were like, we got to get fucking Van Dean.

We got to do better than Casper Von Dean.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I kept being like, isn't that what's his name?

Conan's friend?

I couldn't remember his name.

Oh, this is so funny.

I couldn't.

I was like, I know who I'm picturing.

It's not this guy.

So I kept Googling, trying to figure out, I know this actor is Conan O'Brien's friend.

But let me tell you something.

When you put Conan O'Brien's friend in Google, guess what happens?

A number one fucking podcast.

I was going to say, I feel like Barack Obama is fucking Conan O'Brien's friend.

I could not figure it out.

It was Timothy Oliphant.

It was Timothy Oliphant.

I was like, he looks like a Timu Timothy Oliphant.

And then I started screaming, Catherine Van Deen came first.

Because in my mind, he was in Starship Troopers long before Timothy Oliphant was in anything else.

And then she was like, it doesn't matter.

Timothy Oliphant's now the famous one.

So he's the Kirkland version.

And then I was just obsessed because Captain Van Deen's oversized trench coat that he's wearing makes him look like his body look really skinny, but his head look really big.

Giant.

Real big head.

Bobblehead in this scene.

Yep.

While he's like, I think it's also one of those things where, again, I know that a lot of really bad movies do this, where they run through all the tropes.

And then in this one, it's that lawyers are too busy for their kids.

Yep.

Yeah.

And that's 100% the trope.

And I'm like, are we doing a liar, liar?

Is where I was stuck.

Yeah.

I was like, is this the liar, liar from the get?

Right.

This whole scene is just like exposition lightning round to establish that he's a lawyer who works too hard.

That's it.

Yes.

But, and it may be the way it's shot, or it may be the truth.

But throughout this movie, Casper Van Deen's head seems so large.

He looks like a boardwalk-level cartoon, right?

Like the thing is, and what do you like to do?

Skateboard?

Great.

I'll put skates on the cartoon.

That's what he looks like throughout this movie.

It's just a giant cue.

It's like he's one pixel.

It's like he's a very low rest.

Large pixel.

His head is so large, he should have been casted to be the host of Wheel of Fortune.

Yes, exactly.

you guys know about that pat say jack yeah pat say jack and vanna white were both chosen and the end of the auditions because of the the guy the producer at the time believed that people liked watching people with larger heads and they had they were like all as i think you're equal they looked at vanna white and pat say jack and said well they have the biggest heads so that we'll just go to with them all right so like that's old hollywood weird insane thoughts that i was just like oh eli that's why you didn't get book of mormon oh there you go.

Josh,

we knew it was big.

Bigger head than me.

Yeah.

Certainly.

I did not notice his head was big.

I was very focused on the fact that he kept saying over and over again, I'm just so busy.

I'm so busy.

And then the rest of the 86 minutes, I didn't see him do one thing.

Not one single thing.

Nope.

Not once was he in a meeting or doing any work.

He didn't write any documents, file any complaints.

He answered one email, one email, and crashed a car.

He didn't answer the email.

He just saw it.

He didn't even know.

He saw an email.

He saw

it.

Yeah.

This was also early on, too, where I noticed I was like, again, there's no, in every location, there are no personal objects and nothing is lived in.

So like their kitchen is clearly an A or B and B.

Like there is not a single item.

There isn't like a KitchenAid mixer out.

There isn't anything out there.

They

went to Marshalls.

They grabbed two items.

Yep.

They put them out.

And then they handed the kid like a Game Boy from 1994.

Again, we're not even at iPods here.

We're not even even no everything so far back yeah everything is what they found at the local thrift store at the goodwill yeah absolutely so much so is that a zoon yeah in the second to last shot of the movie the mom will be working with a cd based walk men that is the level i know i was so mad i was like did she just plug in headphones for

20 shots she's screaming that she doesn't have any time with her family and then she puts on headphones for the family car trip what are you kidding yeah Big one.

So now we're going to learn about Ben's conflict at work.

He shows up at this fancy executive dining room at his fancy law firm to see his boss named Mr.

Derwood.

We learn here that there's a problem with the Lancer company that the law firm represents.

Yeah.

So I'm going to clarify this for our listeners because the movie does such a terrible job of telling this story.

So what's happening is his boss, miniature Dennis Leary, has been embezzling from their biggest client at the law firm, Lancer.

And this scene sets up that he wants Kesper Von Dean to fix it, right?

Fix the paperwork, come up with some kind of strategy.

But because they're doing that thing that poor screenwriters do, where they'll be like, the thing?

You mean the client?

Yeah, the client.

Well, they're at it again.

Edit again?

Yeah, at it again.

Because that happens for the first 40 minutes of this film, you're just undoing the fucking Rubik's Cube of this script to try and figure out what they want and who they are.

Yeah.

I'm very glad that you wrote down that the boss's name was Derwood because I referred to him as Evil Better Carl Saul in my notes.

Because he looks so much like Bob Odenkirk.

He really does.

Yeah.

The part that got me was.

Okay, so they were inspired for this scene.

It's Wolf of Wall Street.

Yeah.

It's the scene where Leo sits across from Matthew McConaughey and they do the

yeah, yeah.

It's shot exactly like that.

It might be in the same place.

Yeah.

It's the exact same window.

It's the big thing up against the window.

but the part that got me was the boss evil better carl saw is like i can't say anything in front of the waitress right and so he waits till like the waitress shows up he like gets real quiet and real cagey she walks away and immediately he starts screaming every crime they've ever done across the entire restaurant he's like i've been doing all this shit i've hidden everything from them we've given cancer to every kid in goddamn tennessee

and they're screaming it and like but like when the lady comes no everything's fine i really thank you so much for the salad.

I

can't experience this.

It's like, that's the feeling it gets.

Yeah.

So the point is that the Lancer company is trying to cure cancer somehow, but they're doing a bunch of fraud.

But also the law firm double-billed them or something.

So the law firm might get in trouble.

That's, that's about all we know.

Thank you for explaining it because it during the whole beginning of the movie, I was like, I do not understand.

Mostly I was mad at first that he got that big breakfast and didn't eat any of it.

The full glass of OJ, a big waffle on the table, and he storms storms out and leaves his phone and a waffle.

I was so mad.

You were more mad about that about that, too.

I was so bad about

it.

I was like, he left his phone, a waffle, and a full glass of fresh pressed OJ.

What are we doing?

At least carry the waffle out.

You cannot have a hand waffle.

Waffles are portable.

Yes, exactly.

No, let me tell you, this is a sin in our household, all right?

Because Mrs.

P has celiacs, she can't eat waffles.

And so, like, the fact that this actor, in his choice, doesn't touch the waffle, wastes the waffle, waste the

fucking privilege.

But also, I couldn't understand what the guy was asking of his staff member in this moment.

I was like, what does he want him to do?

No, what he wants him to do is not use his PTO.

Yeah.

That's

exactly right.

Entire first half of this movie is this equality

screaming, don't use your PTO.

And me screaming, why don't you have a union?

Oh, that's right.

You're a lawyer.

You fucking bootlicker.

And then they got it a whole side track.

Yeah.

Right.

So that's what's established.

And then we see that Derwood leaves and forgets his phone in addition to the orange juice and waffle.

And we stare at the phone for so long.

The movie does some music to remind you that you're staring at the phone for a while.

I thought we were going to get like a big short arrow that's like, ding, this is his phone.

The piano might as well be like,

ding.

Yeah, I'd say, look at this.

Yeah.

Then we cut to a new character named Doug, and he's getting fired by apparently Marsha Blackburn playing Janet from HR at the Lancer Company.

Yeah, I think you guys can guys all now see my all caps note I wrote.

It's literally United States Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn.

Also, her name, she was not HR.

She was just listed as payroll manager.

Payroll manager.

He was not fired by HR.

Yeah, he was fired by the payroll manager, which is somehow even worse.

Yeah, she just walks up and she's like, we don't have money for you.

Leave.

I don't have a check for you this week.

Yeah, get on out.

Yeah, just that's what you can't be here.

And in the in this mill that cures cancer.

Like, what the fuck are we doing?

Yeah.

Also, the entire company, Lancer at the entire company is covered by one sticker on a C-clamp.

Yeah.

Yes, we see it.

As he's walking out of the job, we're like, this is Lancer.

Okay.

Okay.

All right.

So we established that there's something wrong.

Showing and telling.

I got it.

Yeah.

Also, I think it's implied.

It's heavily implied that the boss stole so much money.

That's the reason why Doug is losing his job.

Yes, absolutely.

It's implied later in the film.

It's implied, but that's insane.

Like, that's so insane that, like, they, no one would notice that he's stolen so much money that it's cost one single person.

You know what I mean?

Like, if Doug was part of, like, a division that was being closed because of mismanagement, but like, they're like, no, no, we're really targeting in that God has written this story to really fuck over just Doug.

Just Doug.

He really fucking hates him.

If I could take one moral from this story, do not name your son Doug.

Sure.

God hates him.

That is what the Lord has taught me.

Yeah.

And his best friend Skeeter.

Yeah.

This is like Doge cutting down on one thing of pencils for sure.

Right.

Yeah.

Exactly.

This is like Doge cutting LIHEAP grants for seniors.

Yeah.

Pocketing more money to build more dick rockets.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Well, we do need them.

Yeah.

Yeah, we do.

We do.

So Doug's fired and he goes out to his car where his wife and kid are waiting.

They just wait there all day, I assume.

That's what I assume.

Yeah, just wait for for him to get out of work, I guess.

Well, Marsha Blackburn cut all of the pre-K funding.

Exactly.

They just have to sit in the car.

Yeah.

And the little kid is clearly supposed to have cancer visually, but it's just a buzz cut with you can like see the full hairline.

They let it grow in just a little too long before they started shooting, right?

Because they told this girl, like, hey, if you want to be in the movie, you got to shave your head.

And her mom was like, you can shave my daughter's head.

I got to meet Marsha Blackburn.

Yeah.

But then, you know, it took a couple of weeks to fit Casper Van Deen's chin through the set.

And so now her hair is just getting ever longer in every increasing scene.

It's phenomenal.

I will push back on this just a little bit.

I think it's because it's implied that she, her cancer's in remission.

So I think, I think that this is supposed to be like a few weeks after she's done the chemo.

Oh, okay.

That actually does fit.

That tracks.

So that part does fit.

But I did have the same exact thought as you of what a terrible parent who is just like playing a cancer kid, buzz them.

But also it's like she is only really bald in where she's visibly bald in this scene and one other scene where it's with a part where the vision.

And when she's later with the bike chain moment, she could have been wearing a hat.

So it's like, yeah, they could have bald capped this.

There's a bald cap.

Like any type of bald cap would have worked in this scene.

It would have been fine.

Or just to cut her hair short and put it, put a rag over it and be like, yeah, she has the.

Or she could wear a wig.

Lots of kids that lose all their hair just have little thing.

Yeah, they wear wigs, yeah.

Yeah, make it a very obvious wig, like make it a purple one or something.

And be like, Why does she have a purple wig on?

Oh, because underneath here, I'm bald.

Yeah, that's all she had to say.

They did not think through, no, they were like, No, we need realtage later in this film so sad, so much more dramatic.

United States Senator Marsha Blackburn does not do half measures.

When Marsha Blackburn asks you to shave your child, you shave your child in their church.

Yeah,

right.

But dad's fired and he's got a kid with cancer and he's like, who wants to go to Chick-fil-A?

Incredible.

Incredible move.

Got to plug the homophobia chicken.

You know what I'm hungry for?

The end of other people's rights.

That's right.

Okay, so they head to Chick-fil-A and then we're back home with the Stills family.

And Connor, their son, is staring out the rainy window with vague childhood angst.

Oh my God, I love Connor so much.

I I mean, look, I don't want to name names, but I'm just going to say that if there was a child version of someone on this podcast, perhaps a guest for the first time, who was in this movie, it's Connor, who will just tell everyone else in the film to fuck themselves the entire time.

It's phenomenal.

I hate this kid.

I hate him so much.

I can't call him Ferguson.

Which is a callback actually to this week's episode of our podcast where I talk about the plight of growing up as a red-haired kid in america but yeah i started there are dozens of us yeah i started screaming at the kid i'm like i hate this ginger kid i don't even like

ginger and um yeah i was like why does this scene even exist like again i understand they're trying to still double down and establish a good writer would have established in the first scene with the kids that dad isn't around that much and then instead they keep peppering this through because like the kid has to talk to the mom about how dad isn't around and i'm sad about it and then the dad has to mention to the secretary about it.

And then the mom has to bring it up.

And then there has to be passive aggressiveness sprinkled throughout the entire thing.

It's just so much extra shit.

Yeah, we got it.

You did a lightning round of exposition already.

We were fine.

Yes.

Did not need this.

It's so poorly written.

She literally says the words out loud.

I don't know how to reach you in the scene.

She might as well say, is my character's motivation at the end of her sentence.

Yeah.

I think the other thing that I don't know if y'all picked up on, but by the end of the movie, I was screaming bloody murder.

The mom's accent changes so much.

Why?

What the hell is that?

She opens up.

She was just like a random Midwestern mom in the opening scenes of the film.

And by here, she's British.

She'll spend a little bit on the movie British.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like sassy cockney.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

See, the thing is, I think you don't know.

She's following a special type of acting school.

It's called Every Scene is a New Choice.

Yes.

It's 100%.

She said, this is going to be a clippable movie.

Yeah.

Nobody's going to make it all the way through.

So we got to get each clip.

I got to be a whole different character.

And she doesn't want to be pigeonholed like the guy who'd played Bubba Gump.

They got Chris.

Of course.

Yeah.

He got typecast.

Everybody thought he was very specific.

And so she was like, I want people to think I'm British.

I want them to think I'm from the Midwest.

I want them to think I'm French.

What if the whole movie was my demo reel?

When they were fighting later in the film about date night, she was like Swedish or something.

Yeah, it's all over the place in nothing but this is where i i first noticed it when she was like i just don't know how to reach you i was like i'm sorry what i thought you were from nashville

star turn did you say star turn

so from there whatever that's more established we cut to the law firm and mr derwood he shows up and his ex-wife is already waiting for him in the office and he gets to be sexist about women for a second while he's talking to the assistant to a woman hey y'all hey y'all why this scene in the movie it does it doesn't make sense it didn't make any sense i think okay if again i'm gonna put on my bad rider hat take me there i think they're trying to establish his reasoning for stealing the money is that he's going through a bad divorce and so that's why he need but again he's stealing millions he's not stealing tens of thousands he's stealing millions of dollars and so and so he get an offshore account, which he's going to then flee the country.

I'm assuming.

One doug's worth of money.

Yeah.

I was more, I was more caught off guard that the wife, the ex-wife, looks like she's a Parks and Rec character.

Yep.

She has this huge blown-out hair.

She's wearing a white suit for some reason.

It's shot.

Like, the framing is really crazy because she's shot.

It's so insane.

They must have found the AD from like a cologne commercial and they were like, that guy knows how cameras work.

Yeah, but it's like the Better Call Saul Evil Boss is standing in the front of the frame.

She's way in the back, but then she like walks up and she like strokes him with like one finger.

I was like, what the fuck?

Yes.

What

is happening?

So what they're doing is a shoulder-to-shoulder two, which is like a multi-camera blocking from Telemundo, right?

It's what you're supposed to do blocking-wise when you turn around and like slap your evil twin.

Yeah.

But they're shooting it from the wrong angle.

So again, it just looks fucking insane.

It's so, it's so.

It looks like she's going to press the X button and do like a silent takedown on it.

They also have not, they don't even have X ex-partner chemistry.

No, they have no chemistry.

And here's the thing: is that this movie came out in 2020, which means I'm assuming it was shot and written and everything in 2019, maybe began in 2018.

So, the only thing this movie has going for it is the fact that I know it's 100% of human production.

Yeah.

And that actually makes it worse.

I was like, if you told me that this scene was written by Chat GPT, I'd be like, okay, fine.

I'd throw my pen in the air and walk off into the distance.

But the fact that a human being sat there was like, this is good shit.

He's fucking his ex-wife.

She's such a bitch.

That's why he'd be a good man, but his ex-wife.

And you know, you've got to steal one dog's worth of money.

I think that's what they're going for.

She says, like, I'll detach your flesh from your bones and sell it.

And he's like, cool, good talk.

End of scene.

That's that's all they do.

I interpret her as a hero.

I said, look at this righteous character coming in.

Well, he's a good one.

She said, Are you hiding money in the caimans?

Gotcha, bitch.

And I was like, Yeah, I'm on her side immediately.

Yeah, immediately on her side.

It's not like she comes back in later.

She's never seen again.

She is, she's brought in to establish.

If she was like the ex-wife who's also a partner in the crime,

then it would make sense.

But they say, Don't commit crimes.

I think this is all just

righteous and full of the law and the Lord.

I think,

I think they were aiming for a 90-minute runtime.

They couldn't even fucking do that.

No, no.

We have 20 extra minutes of exposition that somehow confuses us more.

This movie should be 65 minutes long.

This movie should be zero minutes long.

That'd be great.

That'd be great.

So Ben arrives at work two here and we watch him very importantly put Derwood's phone into the glove box for later in the movie.

So Ben goes upstairs.

He meets with Derwood about the Lancer problem.

Ben has figured out that Lancer actually owes them money for stuff.

So the double billing.

wouldn't count.

I thought this was genius.

Can I just step in real quick?

Please.

Okay.

In the beginning, when you were like, this problem that they're coming up at breakfast didn't make sense.

It needed to be explained to us.

Cause I was like, I don't understand what the problem is.

And then we figure out what the problem is.

He's been bezling money.

He wants the guy to hide it.

That's the task he's been given by his boss.

Figure out how to hide my embezzlement.

He comes back in and he says, consulting fees.

We're just going to say it was consulting fees.

Bing, bang, boom.

And then he tells them, go fuck yourself.

But it was a good idea.

Yeah.

If you're committing crimes, hiding them in consulting fees, I'm telling you, it's how the government works right now.

Yeah.

And also how law firms work.

It's like

we'll just double our billable hours.

We stole half the money.

Oh, okay.

Double our billable hours.

What are they going to do?

Sue us?

We're a fucking law firm.

Yes.

Oh my God.

Just yell lawyer, lawyer, lawyer.

And then smoke bomb, run out of the room.

It was a good idea.

It was a solution to the problem that this guy created.

Okay.

And then he shit all over it.

But here's the thing.

He had to shit all over it.

Okay.

The bad boss had to shit all over it.

You know why?

Or else there'd be no reason for this man to have to come back to the office later.

That's true, it would have been the movie.

Yes, exactly.

He kind of had to do it is about you have to be choosing your job over your wife according to the evils of the human world.

Yes, right.

And but the Lord wants

your family, right?

So, the boss, Mr.

Durwood's like, You got until midnight to make it stick.

I guess we'll try out your thing, but I don't like it.

And it's setting up like a magic pumpkin scenario for some reason, doesn't make sense.

But Ben is like, no, I can't tonight.

I'm having dinner with my wife.

And it's not clear.

They've just been like yelling at each other.

Not clear who has any sort of upper hand in this power dynamic.

The movie doesn't really know either.

We cut from there to Connor and his friend Tim.

They're at some sort of basketball camp or basketball practice.

And Connor is, you know, angsty.

So he's being mean to.

to Tim.

A little dick.

Yeah.

I spent my entire childhood being Tim, the heavy set kid who just wants his friends to like him.

But then, then I got mean, so it's okay.

It worked out, everybody.

It got mean.

Yeah, I like that at one point.

The coach, because like the kids are talking back and forth, and the coach says, This isn't gonna cut it in college.

I'm like, You're 11, they're nine.

Yeah, these are these are like prepubescent boys.

Maybe talk them through seventh grade first.

Coach, I feel like you're skipping a couple, yeah.

At least be like, Hey, hey, when you get to high school, they're not gonna like this, you know, but the teachers are going to expect more.

Hey, uh, COVID's about to happen, get used to Zoom.

You're never gonna have to do your gym class again, buddy.

Yeah, don't worry about it.

Your prom is going to be on a screen.

Yeah.

All we set up here is that they're going to have a sleepover together that's going to be in the movie later.

That's it.

Yeah.

Everything is just set up for something else that doesn't matter.

Yeah, they didn't need this.

We could have just seen them at a sleepover and been like, oh, they're probably at a sleepover.

Yeah.

The only thing that has mattered this entire time has been Chekhov's BlackBerry being put in the glove compartment.

Right.

Yeah.

Exactly.

And that only barely matters.

too.

Right.

So then we see Sharon, who is the girl who had cancer, and she's walking her broken bike home and she runs into Lori and Connor, the brother and sister, where they just further exposit that she had cancer and her dad lost her job.

Something that we already saw two scenes ago.

Yeah, I felt terrible in this scene.

I felt so bad because the girl who's playing the cancer, Sharon, the cancer girl, she is like full of sweetness and life.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

The girl who's playing this character, she's doing it so well.

And I felt so bad for her because I'm like, I can tell.

You know, when sometimes you see like a kid do a thing, you're like, I can tell this kid thinks this is going to mean more than it is.

Meanwhile, like the ginger kid's just like, whatever.

This is my third Christian movie this month.

I don't even care.

I'm doing Hallmark.

I'm just doing this for my health insurance.

Okay.

I got to talk.

We don't even have sag out here.

All right.

This is Nashville's a right to work state.

But there's a moment where she says to them, she's like, oh, yeah, you know, my dad doesn't have to work anymore.

So we get to like, we're going to hang out in the RV more.

Yeah.

And it was like the way she said it, it like broke my heart.

But then the ginger fuck, it's like looks her dead in the face like, that means you're homeless.

I'm like, right in the fucking face.

He's such a dick.

Mrs.

T was screaming the entire time.

Okay.

Let me tell you why I was so mad.

I was a bike messenger for years, right?

So I got a lot of bicycle knowledge.

So as soon as this little kid comes walking up, I'm like, oh, her chain's off.

Her chain's off, right?

It's such an easy fix.

So when she comes up, she's like, oh, why aren't you riding your bike?

My, my chain's off.

All Connor had to do in this moment, that little bag of shit,

put the chain back on for her.

He's old enough, he should know how, or he could figure it.

Like, you look at it.

It's an easy, simple fix.

Very easy.

Instead, he makes fun of her for being homeless and then walks away after she just like.

spits out into the world all these horrors.

Yeah.

And he's like, whatever, we got to go.

I'm going to go bully my friend who's not really my friend.

I was so mad.

Just fix her bike.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I wasn't proud, but a couple times I was like, I hope Connor gets cancer.

I hope Connor got hit by the car.

No, listen,

this is Connor's Spider-Man moment.

Like in the Spider-Man backstory, you know, he's a professional wrestler for a minute, and he doesn't stop a robber from rocking the promoter.

And that robber later kills Uncle Ben.

God.

If Connor had fixed the bike chain, then his dad.

His dad never would have run over that little girl.

Yeah.

Like, he wasn't able to ride the bike home.

Yes, because apparently she is covering, I think, 17 miles on foot.

Yeah, that was a long walk.

It's a long walk.

It's right after school.

They see her right after school.

That's 2 p.m.

Yeah.

And the mom's like, remember, she's like, we'll go look for her.

She's not back in 15 minutes.

Yeah.

And it's still daylight.

And then she gets hit and it's very late at night.

Pitch black.

Madam.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We see Doug, the dad here, get home from the unemployment office at the house and talk to his wife.

And she's mad.

He's like two hours late, whatever.

And they yell about the kid having the bike ride and he makes the worst comment ever he's like yeah i'm having trouble getting a job maybe you start an etsy or something she's like incredible

get a job use that computer i bought you yeah sell some some pictures of your feet

never mind sorry

i actually think that they use that computer i bought you line proves how old the writer is or at least a producer because everyone has a fucking computer everyone has a computer everyone has a smartphone, right?

This movie was written in 2020.

This comes from the mind of somebody who was like, computers are $1,000.

You know what I mean?

Like back in 1985, I bought my wife an Apple IIe.

I bought one for the whole family.

We kept it right there in the living room next to the TV.

Yeah, and then Connor was always in there at 2 a.m.

with the door open.

Anyway, but there's like that part of it because I was like, use that computer I bought you.

It's just such a crazy line where it's like, why don't you go online?

Like, that's what you should say.

Like, why aren't you going online and looking for a job?

Is what a human would say in that moment.

The other part that got me, again, because sitting current U.S.

Senator, Republican Marsha Blackburn is in this movie, Doug complaining about how long the unemployment office takes because they're understaffed, while the woman who is personally voting down hiring more staff for the unemployment office is in the movie drove me insane.

I am screaming at the movie if you have a problem with this talk to the united states senator this

name the movie yeah meanwhile we now have less they are cutting not only the the the the unemployment but also the social security staff oh my god they might as well have like a dinner where they don't have enough food and then they get a visit from their milkman ted cruise and he's just like all right well none for you tonight i guess bye-bye you know who i heard i thought that is venezuela

i also have wrote down here i've because again, they keep showing the cancer walk during this little segment, and it's just the most menacing shot of her feet at night.

It's just her feet at night and the dangling bike chain,

which should be always dangling over Connor's head for the rest of his life.

Like when the ghosts come back in a Muppet Christmas Carol, yes, it's the bike chains or all of them.

I love that.

Marley and Marley.

Marley and Marley.

That's such a good movie.

Perfect music number.

Yeah.

All right.

So from there, we cut to later that night.

Mom, Lori, and Connor are having dinner together.

And Lori's curious where cancer comes from.

The answer is God, according to the movie.

Just keep that in mind.

Yeah.

Well, that's because this is pre-maha.

This is a pre-maha.

Right.

Yeah, obviously.

Yeah.

No.

We don't know about seed oils yet.

Yeah.

But also, I also want to point out that it's probably now:

Connor, what Connor said is probably what most of this movie's audience believes.

Yep.

That cancer is caused by pizza.

Because that's what RFK Jr.

would say.

Yeah.

You can't have the cancer pizza.

So mom tries to make Lori feel better and says, like, don't worry, you're not getting cancer.

Right as mom says that, we're looking at a giant platter of chicken nuggets and fries.

And I was like, I don't know.

I don't know.

Maybe.

I just need to step in.

Mom comes into frame dressed in.

The most tacky ensemble I have seen.

Again, I was just yelling about this mom a lot.

New accent.

She's She's German, I think, in this part.

She is German at this point.

Yeah, she's German.

And she has on earrings and necklace that indicate she is going out and she is from New Jersey.

But she's wearing a boob top dress that's like very scandalous, but a housewife apron over top that's really bright and colorful.

So when she walks in the screen, I was like, is she topless?

Because you couldn't see her dress underneath.

And I'm looking at all this gaudy jewelry.

And then she sits down.

Her hair looks like it's from the 90s prom section because she's got got the two tendrils down, and she starts not explaining to her children what cancer is.

So, you need to understand: is earlier in the movie, they set up that the husband's gonna take her out to a nice dinner.

Yeah, what you didn't understand is a nice dinner is at Kid Rock's Nashville rock bar.

Yeah, it's the Kid Rock honky-tonk, yeah, that he called me.

Me and your father are gonna share a fish bowl of tequila to get kids, and I need something loose to get arrested in.

Yeah, but don't worry, we're gonna ball with the ball,

Yeah.

And just to make sure we know it's a Christian movie, Lori says grace here for their chicken nuggets and fries.

And I liked that she thanks God in advance for making Connor stop being a piece of shit.

That was fun.

It was.

Yeah.

We need more passive-aggressive graces.

Yeah, it was the most Protestant thing I've seen in the whole movie.

Yeah.

That was fun.

God didn't.

succeed by the end of the film, by the way.

No, no, Connor's and Connor's it didn't.

So from there, we cut back to the law firm, and Mr.

Derwood is yelling at his assistant, Bella, about the Lancer thing.

And he says, this is Enron reincarnated.

And I was like, okay, this is pretty much nothing like Enron.

Like the movie seems to know like Enron business bad.

We'll say Enron here.

That's bad.

It's so weird.

I wanted Bella to be like, what happened with Enron, Mr.

Derwood?

Yeah.

Explain yourself.

I have to talk about one line from this scene that I found so confusing.

As Casper Von Dean is leaving, he tells his secretary that he and his wife have a reservation at the melting pot.

Now, I assume they don't mean the fondue chain.

But if they do, that's the most bizarre pull for a screenplay I've ever found.

He might as well say, I've got us a table for two at Ruby Tuesdays.

That's ridiculous.

The melting pot's delicious.

I just looked it up.

There is a melting pot in Nashville, Tennessee.

Oh, my God.

They had one down there.

It's on 2nd Avenue.

It does say that it is temporarily closed.

I don't know why.

Today we're recording this on May 16th.

It is temporarily closed.

I'm a her outfit makes even less sense.

When you're going to go to the melting pot, you need to be in flexible clothing.

Yeah.

You need to be in stretch bear.

Yeah.

You need to have arm mobility because you're going to get in there.

You're going to be grilling your own shrimp and cooking meats and butter sauces.

You got to be able to move.

You can't be dangling trashy jewelry.

Athletic wear.

That's what you wear to the melting pot.

pot yeah this is where yoga pants come in clutch mom's ask like for the met gala here it's a lot what happened to your melting pot are you talking about the time when i uh literally shit myself at the melting pot

yeah i was gonna break it up and i

could see the twinkle in your eye

that twinkle that twinkle for me never hit the toilet

it was just i got up at melting pot went to the bathroom threw out my underwear and came back and i'm like let's leave this place i don't like cooking my own food

because anyone's never been to the melting pot.

I always heard like Fondue, like, okay, cool.

I guess we're dipping things in cheese and chocolate.

And they're like, no, no, we also like, you have to cook your own meat.

And I'm like, I don't want that.

Why am I paying you for me to cook my own boiled oil?

You do it.

Yeah, fuck you.

I'm not.

No, what?

This entire thing is a grift.

Absolutely.

Which is how, probably how Sharon got cancer.

She went to, is the melting pot a sponsor of this podcast?

Yeah, I would,

thank God, no.

I've been trying so hard, but no, they're not.

We have a button on too many tabs, our podcast, that I would love all your listeners to listen to.

That whenever I say something that we worry about, I just hit this.

Alleged.

There we go.

Covered.

Covered.

I like him.

At the beginning of this, though, is I'd love that the evil boss was, I wrote down, I did a crime.

Where is the guy I bullied to cover up my crimes?

Because he's just, he's such a like, here's the thing.

If you do a crime and you have somebody else who is supposed to cover it up because you can't do it, you're supposed to be nice to that that person.

Yeah.

You're supposed to give them PTO.

Like, exactly.

Let them have vacation time.

Also, it then brought us into because Castor Van Dean gets called back in, even though I guess like we never saw it.

I think he was supposed to have like a moment where he was like, fuck this.

I love my family too much.

And he goes home.

Not his family, just his wife.

Just his wife.

Right.

Yeah.

He dates the kids.

Loves his wife.

He goes home.

And then like all it takes is one call from the secretary.

He's like, okay, I guess I'll go back.

And then he has to have the conversation with his wife.

And that's when I wrote down: a divorce is cheaper than whatever this job is.

Like, just either get divorced or just leave this job.

Like, you're a lawyer.

Yeah.

Go get another law job.

Like, I don't understand.

They're not hard to come by.

No, they're not.

But this is, we, I have some notes here from Mrs.

P.

This is, you lost your mind about how this dead, this bedroom is decorated.

Yeah, because it was actually furniture gone wild in there.

It looked so bad.

And then there was this this candelabra that was on their bedroom wall that had six-inch white dining room table candles in it.

That if you lit these candles, it would catch this entire room on fire.

Light your entire room on fire.

I have a note about that as well.

Yeah.

And I couldn't stop staring at it because every candle was the wrong direction.

And there were so many of them.

And she's crying in her tube top dress about not getting to go to the melting pot.

And I'm just like, I don't, ma'am, I need you to reflect on your a lot of your decisions here.

And she was Dutch at this point.

And I think maybe he likes her a lot because he comes home to a new lady every night.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Polyamory without the hassle.

Yeah.

Also, also the curtains are drawn.

The ugly curtains are drawn.

And they, I think they use clips to hold them shut because this scene was shot at noon, but it is supposed to be night.

But they were unable to actually black out.

Like they should have put paper over the windows

behind the curtains because I could still see daylight coming through the curtains and he's like it's very late i'm sorry that we can't go to our very sexy late night dinner i have to go work all night at my job where it's already night right and they say that and she's like i hate you and then he goes so we're good and she says they're not good and then he says so weird

yeah

like he just he tries to han solo her yeah yeah these aren't the droids you're looking for yeah but yeah he he promises to come meet her at the melting pot after doing a little bit more work, right?

So he

drives to work too fast.

Real quick, real quick, because Mrs.

P.

looked this up.

I just, I have to say this.

He says, I'll meet you and then we'll stay at the Vanderbilt.

And they make a big deal.

And Mrs.

P.

looked up the Vanderbilt in Nashville.

This is all because, again, this never told us where this movie is filmed, but I looked it up because there's a scene in the beginning where he's leaving the Hermitage hotel.

And I said, oh, the Hermitage, that's in Nashville.

Is this, is this all in Nashville?

So I looked it up and it is.

And so then when he's like, listen, baby, I'm going to book us at the Vanderbilt.

And I was like, I've been to Nashville quite a few times in my life.

I don't think that's a fancy hotel.

The Hermitage is.

They didn't stay there.

But I looked it up.

And what was the Vanderbilt?

It's a Hampton Inn.

Fantastic.

He's like, I'm going to make up for everything by taking you to the Hampton Inn.

You're getting the red roof tonight, baby.

Baby, you're getting a continental breakfast.

I'm going to eat you up and down.

If the waffle machine isn't broken, you can go buckwheat on that thing tomorrow morning.

We're going to go from wet sausage to cold eggs.

Well, that works.

And Beth's like, okay, okay, Hampton in, Hampton in.

Fine.

We're good.

So Ben drives too fast and everybody watching is like, I wonder what will happen now.

He gets a call.

on the phone that he took from his boss, apparently.

The call says, basically, evil offshore accounts bank bank LLC.

That's the call.

He puts the phone back down, but he keeps staring at it.

The phone's like on the floor of the passenger seat.

He's staring at it even longer.

And he finally hits Sharon, the girl with the bike.

But it just gets to a comic level of negligence, right?

Because this whole movie will spend the rest of the time being like, aren't we being a little harsh on the guy who hit a little girl with his car?

And so look, if it was the first part of the scene where he just glances at the phone and hits the kid, I could see where this movie is coming from kind of but by the end of it he might as well be typing with his toes while doing a yoga handbridge also he i don't think he's actually typed like he they they from this moment forward they keep yelling he was texting while driving right he looked at an email yeah he doesn't type doesn't even open the phone he doesn't open the phone he like looks at like the the preview screen that says we're doing a crime still

crime email right yeah we're doing cayman crimes He's also also, he's driving down a non-residential street.

Why is this child there?

It is, I believe, 10.30 at night.

Yeah.

It's midnight.

It's just, it's bad parenting.

How did she get cancer?

Probably the parents' fault.

You know what?

I'm going to say it right now.

Pizza.

It was pizza.

It was the pizza.

I'm telling you, the pizza seed oils are getting the children.

Also, every time they showed him driving while he was fumbling around with the phone.

Yeah.

And also when they did the shots panning on the car, it looked like he was trying to cut a line of cocaine.

It looked like a drug addict driving to get to the dealers.

He was going so fast.

Yeah.

And then he's just scrambling around, sweating.

And I'm like, is this man going to his dealer's house or is he going to the melting pot?

Are they the same place?

But also, again, it's not even the same place.

It's his boss's phone.

So, like, if it was his phone and he was going back and forth doing law stuff, or maybe even he was cheating on his wife, or somebody he was fucking talking to, and there was a communication happening, then it would make sense.

It's his boss's phone.

He sees the crime.

Okay, I got him.

We got a crime.

Yeah.

We're done.

Crime time.

He doesn't need to look at it again.

It's not like it flew out the fucking window.

Like he's trying to grab this phone because he had put it down on the passenger seat.

It falls onto the floor.

He's then like, oh no, it's on the floor.

So now he's driving with one hand while reaching down.

Again, he's also on a road with no one there.

He could have stopped the car.

There's so many things he could have done.

He could have pulled over.

Yeah.

He could have done anything except just mow over this girl at 90 miles an hour which by the way i want to point out she might have hit him okay i heard that up by the end yeah

also this is the moment when i found out my wife is a monster

because when he hit the child it is such a comical noise oh my god it's hilarious

and mrs p

scream laughs so hard woke up our own child

and then he gets out of the car and he starts screaming for help.

And again, and I'm like, you have two cell phones.

You have two cell phones.

And you're screaming into the streets for help.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That is what happened.

When you hit a tumor, it's like, boo.

Yeah.

It does make that slide ruffle.

And so we see Sharon.

She's like bloody like a Jackson Pollock.

It's crazy looking.

And that's the end of that scene.

And they're going to set up the rest of the movie with that, I guess.

They aim it too in a way.

It looks like Lois Lane holding Superman's corpse.

100.

Superman.

Yes.

It is so crazy as he's there.

And like, again, empty.

It was an empty road.

It's a non-residential street.

Suddenly now it's in the middle of a neighborhood and he's surrounded by all of these people who just walk outside at 10.30 p.m.

Yeah.

It's so fucking insane.

Yep.

It's insane.

Looks like we're going to be exploring phone-based vehicular manslaughter and I guess the extent to which childhood cancer is an aggravating or mitigating circumstance for the God of the universe.

We're going to need a quick break to think that over, then we'll be back with more acquitted by faith.

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And now back to the show.

All right, everyone, listen up.

We here at Big Christian Movie Company produce one thing and one thing only.

Do you guys know what that is?

Um, movies not quite at the level of the lifetime channel.

Poorly shot stock footage?

No,

we produce bad takes and we need new ones.

How about marry your abuser?

Nope, we already got one of those.

Religion, your way out of debt?

That's actually a sub-genre within our genre.

Yeah, yeah.

War.

War's good.

Done and done.

We did a bunch of those.

Okay, I think I've got one.

Go ahead.

I think people are too hard on those that text and drive.

Really?

What?

Hey.

That's a bad take.

Let's hear her out.

Okay, it's like I'm texting.

And yes, now I'm driving, but I'm not even supposed to look.

Not even supposed to look.

I've thought that too.

I was a little bit.

Myself.

Right.

so what if the whole movie is about someone who has negligently texted and driven but maybe everyone is being a dick about it wow

that is an awful take yeah

we're 100 making this movie hooray oh what about fat shaming penguins dude we already picked fine fine yeah no that one's good

and we're back when we left off an eight-year-old cancer patient was covered in raspberry sauce after getting hit by a car and now the cops show up and a witness is giving a statement well she's giving a facebook post that your aunt writes right before you block her yeah for sure yeah it's ai and she doesn't know it yeah yeah

now shrimp jesus was driving the car it's an old lady she's definitely an unreliable witness she even states she's an unreliable witness through bad adr it's like like sin like the lips don't match what she's saying and then i lost my mind because the cop walks over to Casper Van Deen and Casper Van Deen immediately starts telling the cop information, which any lawyer.

Shut the fuck up.

You're a high-powered scumbag lawyer that works for a cancer partnership firm.

And you're talking to the cop.

Why are you talking to the cops?

That's rule number one.

Listen, I've been on TikTok for four years.

I know not.

There's a guy who wears too many links.

His name's Kev.

And he snaps at the camera and he goes, tell him, Big Kev sent you.

And every single time, you know what he does, shut the fuck up.

You see a badge you shut the up you just stand there if the cop has to be like i don't know anything about cards yeah that's what it should be yeah and the cop just starts like doing all this different random shit he locks him up and then the cop pulls out a phone this was incredible as someone in the legal field yeah when he took a picture of him

i was like i'm sorry Are our Miranda rights a joke?

What are we doing?

He did give them his Miranda, though.

Yeah, he read them, but you can't take a picture of of someone who has not been found guilty yet.

That's crazy.

Yeah.

The other part is then, so they throw him in the back of the car, and then the cop calls the greatest character in the history.

So fucking

her name, but I loved her.

I don't know what her name was, but she is Larry.

Darla.

Darla, yeah.

Yeah.

Calls Darla, who works at the, I loosely say law firm, but she works for Larry the lawyer.

Yeah.

And Larry, listen, whoever this old boomer that wrote this shit, I know that he thought that he was making us hate Larry.

Yeah.

Absolutely not.

Camera pans.

There's a single weight on a desk, not two weights.

One weight.

Single weight.

Single dumbbell.

Larry's air era punch in the sky.

He's sky.

Yeah.

He's shadow boxing.

He's shadow boxing.

While smoking.

Really?

Yes.

Smoking, shadow boxing, lifting one weight.

Yep.

And he says, Darla, what's the news?

Yeah.

He absolutely would have been doing Coke as this intro if this wasn't a Christian movie.

If they weren't trying trying to capture the christian market this movie would have so much cocaine if it wasn't for god i think he was doing cocaine and they cut it out somehow

yeah they cut it out the actor was doing a lot of the cocaine yeah so at this point i just want to point out i wrote in my notes for the first time hey are they going to make the villain of this movie the advocate for the family of a child that was just hit by a negligent driver and yes yeah yes they are kind of kind of they're not sure they don't they lose focus a lot but that's one of the the bad guys is that lawyer but larry points out like, like the whole, I just, from here on out, all of my notes, almost every time Larry is on screen, I just wrote, get him, Larry, and all caps.

Because literally, literally the entire time, Larry is just like, oh, wait, who did it?

Casper Bandien?

He's rich.

Let's get him.

Oh, yeah.

That little girl, she got cancer.

Oh, that's good for juries.

He just starts.

He gets the money shakes.

Like, he just gets the money shakes over and over.

He sure does.

He might as well float over to the little cancer girl like she's a big pie on a windshield.

Yes, yes, 100%.

If he could be played by a cartoon wolf,

it's the only way he could be played less broadly.

In a Hawaiian shirt, of course.

Yeah, for sure.

Meanwhile, during this entire time, the ginger kid is home with

his chubby friend,

playing video games.

And then he, I guess he never heard the accident because I guess the dad wasn't that far away.

Like from how fast the dad was driving, he didn't get that far from their house because he can see the accident out the window.

Yeah.

Right.

Connor hears a siren and his immediate thought is like i bet my dad did another manslaughter

and he walks over and sees police tape and he's like that's my dad's car so yeah yeah it's just so crazy there's just like that moment i was like wait if we were to draw a map of how big this movie's universe is yeah like we're like here's where all the moments happen in the movie it would be maybe four blocks yeah there's no reason that girl would still be walking her bike home she should have already been home she should have been home he had time to get home from the office, tell his wife that melting pot's been canceled, or he'll meet her there, and then go back to the office.

And now he's driving home from the office again, and she's still walking one block.

Yes, but he's also like right around the corner from his house.

Yes.

It just didn't make any sense to me.

And also, the mom's accent changed again.

Yes.

Yep.

No, it does change again.

It keeps happening.

So then we cut back to Larry's Law for a second.

Larry's telling Darla they're going to make some huge money on this because texting and driving is hot right now, like as a legal topic.

Super hot right now.

Mrs.

P, is that a thing?

Is there like, you know, fads in the legal profession?

Chasing trends?

It's like, there's, it's, it's incredibly hard to prove.

That's the whole thing is we were screaming by the end is you would have such a hard time proving this in court.

Your one witness is a blind old lady who was on her porch.

Again, he was never texting.

He, the phone was on the floor.

He was reaching for the phone.

He was not texting.

There's no way.

You have to prove that he was texting.

There's no back and forth records.

It it was he got an email that said crimes yeah

you can't prove that he read the email because he didn't read the email he looked at the he looked at the preview oh my god i would it was such an easy win for a law firm this is such an easy win for a law firm whose job it is to hide the crimes of a multinational corporation llc yes and they can't hide they can't they are literally hiding the crimes of a multinational corporation llc that i'm assuming just kills children all day yeah across the world And they're like, well, this one, this is going to be different.

This one's going to be tough.

This is going to be real hard for us to not bury with mounds of cash.

I tell you, going back to Larry's office real quick, because he was talking to Darla, I think her name was.

He's Larry, again, he has the full money shakes on.

And he immediately, I think he's already spent the money he believes he's going to get.

Yeah.

Like he's already started to spend it.

He is shaking.

And at one point, Darla says, Can you, are you going to pay me more than minimum wage?

And he's like, well, hold on.

I had to look it up.

The minimum wage in Tennessee is $7.25 an hour today.

It's the same as federal.

2025.

Yeah.

Which is the same as it is here in Pennsylvania.

And so it's just like one of those things where, again, she's complaining about minimum wage.

Do you know who has stopped the minimum wage from being raised?

I have a guess at my mom.

Payroll manager Marsha.

Yes.

Again, they are complaining about a thing that is federal law and a federal legislator who is on the side.

Is onset eating crafty.

Who is there keeping it shitty?

It's not like she's once been like, ah, you know, it's not like Bernie's there.

And Bernie is playing the payroll manager who's like, yeah, you know.

You should unionize.

Private equity, right?

Like, it's just.

If Bernie Sanders was an extra in this movie, this instantly becomes my favorite film of all time.

This would be so great if Bernie just walked in like the 1% hit children with their cars.

Also, Larry does push-ups next to the leather couch from casting couch.

That's, I just want to throw that.

It is the couch.

I recognized it.

Yeah.

I was, I looked up and I went, nah, I know that couch.

I know that couch.

Yep.

He's so into fitness.

I don't know why he's not wearing fitness gear.

Yeah.

Every time we see him, he's doing a push-up, an air punch.

He's got the weights.

I'm like, why isn't he in the outfit?

He's just in Hawaii.

Because they didn't have it at Marshall's.

Sorry.

You're right.

Also, it's Marshall's.

Also, it's clear that his office apartment is in Florida.

Like, it's clearly a Florida hotel.

100%.

While everybody else is still in Nashville.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This guy's representing the Pope's brother at some point in his life.

Yeah.

yeah.

For sure.

So we cut over to Beth and her mom.

They're in the dark for some reason.

And it's just to check in with them.

And they describe what's happened to Ben.

Like, oh, well, they don't arrest the driver unless it's very serious.

And I was like, yeah, manslaughter.

It's pretty serious.

All this does is set them up to...

Get another grievance in there, probably from Marshall Blackburn, where they get mad at the lamestream media of local news for covering the car car accident.

Well, I will say the media in this movie is unlike any media in the fictional universe.

That little girl got hit by a car and landed in the arms of a reporter doing a story on her getting hit by a car.

Yeah, it is so crazy.

They're on there immediately, the only story that has ever been covered.

Well, I think basically they were like, okay, a girl with cancer.

Is she white?

And they're like, it's a white girl with cancer.

Is she blonde?

She was before the cancer.

Get down there.

Get down there right away.

Cancel everything else.

Cancel everything else.

Yeah, it was also.

Also, the grandma, the mom, new accent, says,

you don't know what's going on outside.

And she opens the curtain to expose all of the press.

It would have been the loudest situation that you couldn't hear inside the house.

Also,

the grandma's accent and the mom's accents do not look very differently different.

They vary.

So where is this mom from?

I have no idea.

Hilaria Baldwin strikes again.

Yeah, we see like an iowa caucus happening in their yard with the media service and yet nobody heard it until they opened the curtain yeah right exactly and then we cut over to ben getting put in a holding cell and like cartoon felons are gonna harass him for a second oh steal your shoes in your butthole i just wrote down gay prison panic that's it's gay prison panic yeah exactly and but it's just holding it's just holding he's in there for all of 45 minutes As Pat Williams says, I went to jail.

I didn't go to prison.

It's gay prison panic through the eyes of a Christian movie that isn't allowed to make prison rape jokes.

So it's just a series of people wandering by being like, don't drop the soap.

It's so fucking weird.

Yeah.

I think the one guy was like, yeah, you look pretty, girl.

And the guy, I'm not a woman.

And it's like, that's it.

Like, that's all they do.

And then there's a, yeah, there's the, there's the, the large red-haired guy who's like, I'll protect you.

And then they're like, all right, you can leave.

And then he goes, oh,

I was going to make him my fish and hold my pocket because I know scholarship troopers.

Kind of cock blocking there.

Whatever, cop.

Yeah.

So Ben gets released.

He walks out and we find out that Mr.

Cromer, he's the big partner at this firm, has bailed him out.

Yes.

We initially meet Mr.

Cromer in a limo that I believe is owned by a strip club.

Yes.

Oh, yeah.

Because it is not a lawyer limo.

It is the craziest.

It has, it has RGB lights running through it.

It's like purple at first, then goes gold.

And I'm like, these are stripper colors.

This is a party bus.

What the fuck?

These aren't real lawyers.

This is 100% a limo for vomiting your first ever Kahlua into.

It is not what a partner in a law firm rides to work.

The license plate says 99 bananas.

Yes, 100%.

100%.

Also, I thought because we only get one of the, I think these two old men, both of them in the limo, are supposed to be the owners and the senior partners.

Yeah.

Like they're the names on the law firm.

But I thought we were getting into a trading places moment where like this was they're like, well, what, what if I can prove that I can save a man's soul by doing these things?

You know what I mean?

That would have been interesting.

That would have been so much mess.

I thought that's what, or, or if I was, okay, if this was written by a good writer, let me lean in.

Okay, lean.

If this was written by a good writer, these two, they wouldn't actually be lawyers or partners.

One would be an angel and one would be a devil.

And then they see using this situation.

It would be a job situation right where you have heaven and hell pitting against his soul but his soul is actually being one with his family

that's how you mix this together but we don't have good writers

instead we have them here we have you here on this you're doing psychomachia that's awesome yes fucking yes well and if you want more of this listen to our podcast two minutes

do you guys pitch do you guys pitch good movies on two minutes too

available wherever we get your podcast where we get your podcast and on youtube if you go go over to ProMania 500, follow me on Instagram or follow me.

This is ProMania 500 on Instagram as well.

Oh, you got pitched.

You got pitched.

Yeah.

So I felt like the movie couldn't decide if Mr.

Cromer was a good guy or a bad guy.

He says a bunch of evil shit here.

He's like, you're one of us now.

One of us.

Also, I was screamed.

I was like, what does that mean to have you all run over cancer videos?

Yes, that's what I thought it meant.

Yeah.

One of us.

One of us.

Yeah, right, exactly.

But then he ends the scene by being like, just pray, Christian.

We're good.

I'm a good guy now.

Okay, bye.

And that's the end of the scene.

They're going to try to have, I think that guy, Mr.

Cromer, be a good guy by the end, but it makes no sense.

The implication in there is that he'd be like, oh, you want some time with your family?

Well, I have a buddy of mine who has a private plane in an island.

You're like, whoa, what the fuck?

Oh,

the also he tells him, watch out for the press.

Don't speak to them.

Then he drops him off directly in front of his house

where there is no press.

Yeah, they forgot it, it's just not there anymore.

The press has vanished.

They will be back because it's clear also that this edit, the editor went crazy.

The editor needed, was like, We got to move the mom up, we got to move the mom in.

So we'll put the press here,

even though I think the press shows up the next day, and that's where the scene with the mom and the thing, but they like fucked up the writing somehow.

Yeah, two people were sitting in front of a premiere session going, it's fine, Chris.

It's fucking fine, but they got the scene.

Yeah, so Ben's out.

He goes back home.

And then we see him wake straight up from a nightmare.

And he wants to go see Sharon, who he hit at the hospital.

But his wife, his wife Beth explains that the lamestream media is going to spin this against him.

And I was like,

the vehicular manslaughter?

They're going to spin it.

against him.

Yes.

She's in a coma.

You hit her with your car.

Yeah.

Leave her alone.

Yes.

Yeah.

That's it.

That's all you have to do.

And it's like, you're a lawyer.

I know for a fact that you spent three years in school with every professor being like, if you hit a cancer kid with your fucking car, you leave them alone.

You do not go to visit said child.

And you shut the fuck up.

You don't put anything in writing and you don't go towards the person that you hurt that's going to sue you.

What?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Look, I'm not pretending I know what to do in the incredibly difficult situation of having hit a child with my car, but I definitely know it's you not to show up with two commander decks to be like, So, do you want to see the meta on the Lord of the Rings pack?

They're actually pretty cool.

They're actually pretty cool.

The Hobbit one has some cool food mechanics that you can work into like mono reds.

Oh, you're trying.

Okay,

yeah, no, no, this is perfect.

I know exactly where she is.

She can't leave.

She's in a coma.

She, her parents will probably be there.

We can work this all out at the same time.

Yeah, but it's also, it's like she's in a coma.

What are you going to do?

I'm going to say, I'm sorry.

Well, she's not going to hear you.

She's in a coma.

They think she's brain dead right yeah fucking terry shivo lawyer yeah

larry was a bulldog in this scene though oh yeah for sure

yeah so they argue for a second apparently they're gonna go see sharon anyway so now we cut to the hospital and doctors are telling sharon's parents basically explaining what coma means because they seem confused yeah dad is very upset that they don't have answers other than she sleep now we do our best He's like, well, come on, try those shocking paddles.

Like he seems like they're holding back on him.

Yeah.

Doug, who is supposed to have worked in some type of medical field at Lancaster.

Again, I think a mill.

He made sparks.

He made sparks for their medical plant.

Yeah.

I think it's a mill.

It's so crazy.

The doctors are so terrible in this movie.

There is so often where they're just like, here's the worst thing we could possibly tell a parent.

And as a group, they always do a lean out.

None of us are staying.

Not even a nurse is going to stay in the room.

They do it constantly, which is why they have to fall into the arms of Larry.

Yes.

Right.

Because every time the doctors will tell them the worst shit, and then they turn around and Larry's there, like, right.

He's like, I got a hug.

I got a tissue.

I have some cocaine.

I also have a lab coat that I stole to sneak into this hospital.

So yeah, that's where we see Larry.

And then they spend a lot of time complaining so much about the American healthcare system and welfare and a bunch of other things about how none of it helps people.

And I would like to remind the listeners: United States Senator Marcia Balfour

is in this movie.

She's watching this scene be shot.

She is standing just behind the camera eating a bear cloth.

And you know what?

Her reaction to it?

She's like, we should revoke S-CHIP and take away children's emergency medical care.

I don't like how that kid has all them machines.

I'm going to do something.

I think less machines would be better.

Maybe make that coma kid work for it.

Make him work for bootstraps.

So Larry pictures himself to Doug, and apparently he's going to get hired to do a lawsuit about this.

And then we cut to Ben.

He's staring into a mirror.

He's kind of like taking stock of himself spiritually.

And then the phone rings.

This right here is where you need to pause the entire podcast for, I believe, 45 to 55 seconds because that's how long he stays fucking.

Forever.

He's waiting for acting to happen guys meanwhile there's a phone ringing and i just kept screaming just answer the

phone oh yeah yeah it looked like he was gonna get mad at himself like a dog looking in the mirror for a second

oh have we given casper von diam the dot test i think he might fail it i think he did fail it right here yeah yeah but his wife beth picks up in the other room and it's another evil reporter from the lamestream media which again it's local it's local news this is they keep acting like it's msnbc calling.

It's Fox 14.

Yeah, and they're like, hey, any comment?

And she's like, fuck you, you bloodsucker.

Yep.

And it's like, I cannot stress, though, how the media, the local media would not care about a rich lawyer texting while driving.

Not even a little no.

They'd be like,

I hate to tell you.

This is not a razor blade in candy.

No, we need something we can scare old people with.

I heard the turtles at the zoo just had a new baby.

So we're all there.

We're all 100%.

We got to cover.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

I'm being told right now that Venezuelan gangs, we got to scare whites with Venezuelan gangs.

Okay.

You mean to tell me that a lawyer named Van Dean hit somebody?

That sounds a little bit too much for us to give a shit.

I've got a blood pressure medication conflict to warn people about.

Let's focus on the real name.

But Marsha Blackburn screamed, the antagonist of the movie is the press, also.

So they were like, okay, fine.

100%.

So then we cut to Legislative Plaza and we meet the DA who's decided to go after Ben because, you know, obviously.

That's a plot.

Oh my God.

Like me and Heath trying to figure out social media, these two cops.

Do people want us on the Twitter?

Should we go on the Twitter to do the policing?

They're so confused.

I think the assistant DA,

the DA would likely not do this.

Like, because again, such a powerful law firm in this movie, this is a rich, wealthy lawyer.

backed by other rich, wealthy lawyers.

DA

statistically doesn't go after these guys.

No, no, no.

That's their whole thing.

This is a plea deal.

This is a plea deal.

He is going to do what's community service.

Maybe.

Maybe.

He might do some community service.

He might pay some restitution to the family.

Maybe.

Maybe.

Or they're going to discover that one of these cops is too dumb to not actually check the fucking phone records.

Yeah.

Also, this is

at Legislative Plaza.

This is where we get our West Wing walk and talk.

We do.

The failed walk and talk.

and the director clearly was like i'm gonna fucking watch you want to see how these libs do it

west wing i'm gonna show you how two cops because we love the thin blue

walked and talked to me

and they miss they miss the walk and talk because they walk and then they're supposed to pull back and stop the camera but the director very clearly missed his woof yes so we watched them stop and then you watch the camera go

like two more clicks back and it's like there we go yeah there's the top of everyone's head head.

Yeah.

This is in my notes where I realized I'm like, they haven't actually checked the call logs.

This was the moment when, because as these two idiot cops are talking, these are possibly the dumbest like key, if this was a Pennsylvania, it's set in Pennsylvania.

Yeah.

These would be Keystone cops.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's set in Nashville, Tennessee.

So these are, I don't know what's both.

The DA wouldn't press charges until they've done all the discovery phase, which is when you collect all the evidence.

Yeah, of course.

And part of that would have been checking the call logs, knowing that there were two phones yes knowing that one of the phones was missing because it might be at a law firm i don't know tracing the phone number and who they're registered to yeah on the device or the sim card yeah all of these different things checking the speed of how fast the car was going because he is still at fault for driving too fast yeah for sure he did hit the child yes he is also still a distracted driver you could argue that he was distracted when he hit the kid yeah like there's all these different things you can argue in this legally that makes no fucking sense.

Yeah.

I feel like a writer in the writer's room a bunch of times was like, okay, but what about these obvious details?

And so many times it was just like, that would fuck up.

We can't do the movie then.

Shut up.

I think the fact that you're assuming it's a room.

I think you mean in the writer's park because I think this is written on a bench

by a lunatic high on meth.

Be like, and then, and then they took everything from it just because a little girl with cancer walked out.

But don't worry, there's an angel boss who might be a teenager.

All right, from there, we cut to the courthouse.

Ben is walking into court in slow-mo, and he's wearing a suit that is way too nice.

Oh my god, it's so funny!

You gotta slub it up when you hit a cancer kid with your car while you're texting, right?

And don't forget the bodyguard lawyers, the massive twin bodyguard lawyers that are behind him walking while carrying this.

Oh my gosh, like he's going into the ring for an MMA fight.

Yeah, yes, 100%.

He looks like Goldberg walking in the WCW.

Yeah.

So the judge decides, I don't, is it, you tell me, Mrs.

P, if this is how the legal system works.

The judge says, okay, well, you're not allowed to drive any cars until the case is over.

Okay.

Yep.

That would happen.

Yeah.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

They would say they would take away your license.

And then because you're a definite flight risk, you would get an ankle monitor.

Okay.

So here's where I got mad.

Take us there, take us there.

Number one, okay, opposing counsel held out a printed-out picture of a document.

This would never happen, that would have to be filed.

Also, you wouldn't do this in the bail hearing.

This is a bail hearing.

This is a 20-minute bing-bang-boom.

Next case, please.

But so this guy comes up and he's like, I have a printout.

And the even the judge is like, Hey, you got to save that for the case, boss.

But so when he's like, He's a fight risk, badly written movie.

They would theoretically put him on house arrest i would say that the stats on a well-off rich person getting an ankle monitor is pretty low but it wouldn't wouldn't not not happen because in the early aughts our girl friend of the pot lindsay lohan

quite a few times because of her behavior behind the seat of a car.

Yeah.

And that is why I know for a fact what an ankle monitor looks like, or we call them Irish Rolexes where I come from.

So, an Irish Rolex is a very specific look.

And the one they put on that guy, that was a pager with a Fitbit strap around it.

And I was so mad.

You couldn't even get an ankle monitor.

I thought it was a dog shotgun.

It could have been that.

It was a garage door opener.

It looked like an accessory from the limo that they were using earlier.

The best part, though, is the DA and the judge being like, and you texted while driving like a monster.

Like,

none of them have ever been.

And then I'm just like innocent until proven guilty.

We have no proof of that.

Yes.

It's crazy.

But I mean, he could have been put on, quote, house arrest, but it really wouldn't have come from bail.

But also the ankle monitor, then, besides there's one scene with the wife who is like mad that he has an ankle monitor.

Yeah.

It never comes up again.

Nope.

Yeah, they forget about it.

It's not like he's wearing the ankle monitor and he's like, I need to cut this off to run over here because I need to pray at this church.

You know what I mean?

Like there's nothing, there's no stakes to the ankle monitor.

It's just another thing.

He leaves the house later in the movie because they're afraid for their safety.

That's not a problem.

So what the fuck was the ankle monitor keeping track of?

Yeah.

And I'm assuming the kids, when she runs away with the kids to hide them for their safety, I'm assuming they're at least counties over.

Yeah.

And like when you have an ankle monitor on it, you can be at your house and then you can go to your job.

That's about it.

Like you can't do anything else.

And it's not like he has to call into a parole officer.

There is no checkup on anything.

He just has this thing.

You know, the new ones, your parole officer can call you through the ankle monitor.

It's pretty cool.

I know.

I've seen that on TikTok.

I saw that on TikTok.

If we're spending our government money, it's on that your parole officer can call you through the ankle monitor.

Now you're like, yo, what are you doing?

Yay, what are you fucking doing?

Hey, why aren't you home?

Tommy, are you doing perks again?

Okay.

So no check-ins, but he's a flight risk.

So they've got the monitor there.

We check in with the family again for a second here.

Mom and dad are arguing upstairs and grandma's taking care of the kids.

The whole purpose of the scene is to establish that they're getting death threats on the phone, and grandma has to deal with it.

They are, I love this.

It's the most accurate scene in the entire movie

because the mom tells grandma, do not answer the phone.

It's death threats.

And grandma goes, No, it isn't.

And then she answers the phone, gets a death threat.

And then it's like, so shocked by it.

I was like, yeah, the boomer not listening.

This is the best movie I've ever written.

We've gotten it, everybody.

It's a documentary at this point.

She's like, Mom, don't answer the phone.

All we get is death threats.

And the mom is just like, no, no, you don't.

It's from our area code.

I have to pick up.

Also, also,

the grandma's reaction to the death threat is the same reaction that you would get to like a pervert call.

Yeah, she's like, How what language?

How dare you?

She says, Hey, language.

Yeah, it's so.

I lost my mind.

I wanted the person on the other end to be like, I'm sorry.

I don't know where that came from.

I'm going to kill you and your family.

Sorry.

I did mean to you.

I could be more polite.

I did not mean to use an F-bomb.

You C-word.

Also, there's in around the same area is when they have the conversation with the kids.

And in that, that's the part that I lost my mind is because the little girl goes, I'm going to need more crayons for this.

Oh my God.

The, we're going to need a bigger box of that little girl when she's drawing a picture.

I left for an hour and a half.

I was like, this is that kid uses crayons like drugs.

Yeah.

So to be clear, to smell what happens, they explain to the little girl that he hit Sherry and that she's in the hospital.

And she's like, well, I can draw her a picture.

And I'm like, okay, cutesy.

And then he's like, she might die, honey.

And she goes, I'm going to, I'm not kidding, moment for moment.

This is the performance.

Looks like I'm going to need a lot of crayons for this one.

Yeah.

The way I used to look at boxes of American spirit cigarettes.

I'm going to have a lot of explaining this one.

Right.

So from there, we get Mr.

Cromer very quickly at the DA's office representing his firm and his guy, Ben, as hard as he can.

He threatens to primary the DA for a second, I think.

He's supposed to be a good guy.

Smart.

Doesn't make any sense.

And then we get Ben and Beth bringing flowers for Sharon at the hospital.

Not smart.

Again, the thing they've been told, instructed to repeatedly.

By their legal counsel, by me.

By the ankle monitor.

By Mrs.

P screaming.

Yeah.

And that, and this is what I wrote, wrote, get him, Larry.

Oh, and he does.

And the thing is, again, also, remember, up to this point, the dad hadn't signed with Larry, the dad had not taken Larry under retainer until this exact moment because the dad is like so flustered.

He's like, My daughter just survived cancer, got hit by a fucking car.

Then you show up with flowers for a fucking apology.

Larry, I don't even know how to talk to this guy.

Have Larry step in.

And Larry is just like, Larry comes in like bib for tuna.

He's just like, Oh, yeah,

you're gonna, I'm about to fuck your face.

He slides under the ropes with a steel chair.

Yeah, he's he comes in hot.

And then after yelling at him for a second, he's like, are those even real flowers?

Yes.

That was another crazy take, Larry.

And Ben and Beth just leave because they realize that Larry the lawyer called their bluff about real flowers for the cancer patient in a coma.

I wanted so badly for them to be fighting on the way out of the car.

Just like, I told you we should get real.

Well, I didn't want them to die.

Because if the flowers died when the little girl died, it would feel very metaphorical.

It was going to be awkward.

We had to leave.

Yeah, so uh, we're actually gonna do that too and take a quick break.

But first, let me give Act Three the hard sell.

Is the movie about the economic struggle of late-stage capitalism?

Is it about the problems of the mainstream media and their coverage of local car accidents?

Is it about the overly litigious parents of eight-year-old cancer patients who get put in a coma by terrible drivers?

Find out the movie has no idea what the movie is about when we return for the Hawthorne-esque conclusion of Acquitted by Faith.

Mr.

Henderson, you are charged with involuntary manslaughter and reckless endangerment of a child.

How do you plead?

Your Honor, I'd like to enter into evidence that the kid I hit had cancer.

Right.

Like, like bad cancer.

Objection, Your Honor.

Sustained.

What point are you making?

It's just like...

Come on, you guys.

Come on.

This is like really bad.

Seriously?

No, interrupting me, Your Honor.

The kid's mom is here and she's interrupting me right now.

Your Honor.

Again, if you're making a legal argument, you need to make it, Counselor.

I don't.

I mean,

like, we all know what's no, we don't.

You know, you, yes, you do.

Yes, you do.

Last chance, Counselor.

I'm just saying that

the little girl.

Yes.

She was already kind of like

a dud.

Objection.

Sustained.

Yeah.

Okay, that's fair.

I'm going to kick your ass.

Don't.

And we're back.

When we left off, Larry the lawyer made Beth and Ben leave with their fake flowers.

And now we're inside Sharon's hospital room.

And Larry explains to Doug how the lawsuit is going to be ugly.

Yeah, he spends the whole movie sort of cajoling Doug.

And I think what this Christian movie wants to take us is like, good red-blooded Americans don't sue for medical damages when someone hits their daughter.

Is that the message I'm supposed to be receiving?

It is.

I think it's, again, I think it's lawyers are evil.

I think that's the whole thing.

But there are good lawyers, but ambulance chaser lawyers, they're evil.

And they're the reason why things are bad.

the subtext, I think.

Right.

But like, there's a line that Doug says.

He says, quote, he was insured.

We don't sue.

And that's where I screamed at the screen.

How do you think you get a payout from insurance?

Like, that's 100%.

Like, you don't get a payout from insurance unless you sue.

Right.

And that now I'm like, the dad lost his job because he's a fucking idiot.

Yeah.

There's a reason.

And then Larry is getting shiftier and shiftier now because.

Okay.

So for some reason, when we come back to this scene where in this moment, he is not a hired attorney,

which is crazy because why would he be there he's been just floating around this hospital waiting for them like a little raccoon just hiding back in the garbage like just waiting to see what gets thrown in yeah and he's getting sweatier he's getting sweatier but now when he comes in a scene his mustache has gotten the just for men treatment in a shade three times too dark for his head than his hair yes So this is how I know Larry's at his most powerful.

Yes.

But this is also where I wrote down that now Larry looks like the My Pillow guy, Mike Lindell, and has probably smoked with me.

He does.

How dare you?

Yeah.

Yeah.

My old friend.

Famously, your nemesis.

Yeah, my nemesis.

Yeah, he was at the Democratic National Convention last year when I was there, and I screamed in the side of his head.

Amazing.

And one of his people were like, we'll sue you.

And I'm like, whatever.

I'm insured.

You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, we had an altercation where I yelled at him to suck my dick.

Hero among men.

Hero among men.

But yeah, this whole part with Larry doesn't make any sense because it's like the family should sue.

But this is why I just believe that like the dad didn't lose his job because the evil middle management boss stole him.

No, I think he's bad at stuff.

I think the bad, the dad is just dumb.

Because when you lose a job, you don't go get Chick-fil-A.

You go home and make rice and beans.

Yes.

Okay.

We need to be smart with our money.

We're out of our last paycheck.

Yeah.

But his payroll manager is literally a Republican United States senator.

So, you know, there we go.

Yeah.

And Larry says they can sue.

the law firm that Ben works at for seven or eight figures easy.

And I was like, that's true.

That's actually true.

They could because he was going to, he was doing work stuff.

Yeah, he was on the work clock.

Oh, I see.

Yeah.

So, because he wouldn't have been in the car if it hadn't been for his job.

Okay.

So like that, that kind of does, there is something there.

And I think that's also why the bosses are getting involved.

Yeah.

Because they're like, if there's a lawyer,

yeah, if a, if a, if there's a Larry lawyer out.

Okay, but to be clear, the movie is saying that ambulance chaser lawyers are evil, but the giant law firm that represents a fraudulent cancer cure company is fine.

Yes.

Yeah, because they have Bibles at their disposal to fill out.

Oh, right.

No, they have Bibles.

Yep.

And he's clearly a Republican because he knows the Nashville DA.

Yeah.

I mean, that's what the implication is.

And Marcia Blackburn to get her in his movie.

Yeah.

Yes.

100%.

Okay.

Well, now the emotion is going to ramp up.

We're back at Sharon's hospital room, and a doctor comes in and says, there's nothing we can do.

And basically, it's time to like pull the plug.

And I was like, okay, so the movie's about euthanasia now?

Like, you got to pick a movie, guys.

They still won't.

They just won't.

This, again, the doctor does it in the craziest way too.

He just like walks in.

He's like, we got to pull the plug.

And then all of them leave.

The entire medical team leaves.

It is truly a poppin'.

He might as well just like tuck his head in the door and be like, seems like your kid's like a squash or something.

We should probably kill it.

All right.

Bye.

May I point out, though, who doesn't leave?

Do you know who's always there?

Our boy Larry.

Larry is always there.

Because heart from the heart, from the jump, Larry is in the corner like the, like the shadow king.

It's like, you know, when this family was looking for help, you know, they look back onto the beach in the sand and they see all these footprints and they're like, but there's no, there's only one set of footprints at our darkest time.

And that's when Larry was like, because I was carrying you.

And that's when I started yelling, who am I supposed to be rooting for in this movie?

It's never clear.

It's never clear.

We cut from there to Ben having like sad homicide whiskey on the couch by himself in the dark.

Yes.

Back at his house.

As one does.

As one does.

Yes.

Like you do.

Mr.

Cromer comes in and I think they're trying to like ramp him up to be the good guy more here.

And he does some Christian speeching.

Yeah, I wrote down, is the boss the devil or is he an angel or is he his secret dad?

Because this has, this gives, it's giving secret dad.

Yeah.

Like he cares about him a little too much.

But he never cared about him before because they made it clear that while they were at work, they did not engage with him.

They never met.

Yeah.

And he worked at the firm for how many years?

10 years, a decade.

So like, what do you mean?

Yeah.

Suddenly you're just walking into his house.

You have keys?

Yeah.

The door was unlocked, which is crazy because the day before there was a bullet on their front stoop.

Yeah, he keeps the door locked.

Yeah.

Your family has fled into the night.

Yeah.

You're on an ankle monitor.

You're drinking alone.

And your rich old boss, who I believe is a spokesperson for reverse mortgage commercials

he's psychomachia yeah i'm rich old and alone ankle monitors track how much uh alcohol is in your blood alcohol so he wouldn't actually be allowed to drink do they i think it depends on the thing i think you have to have it like shaking i'm not having a shaking heat to his car okay i just want to say something real quick that mrs p knows that not because she's a paralegal but because she is born and raised from northeast philadelphia oh sure she's had an irish role

Listen, she knows.

All right.

This is familiar.

I was born with a lot of roofers and plumbers around.

And what I'm saying to you is these things can see how much boost you take.

Yeah, but

you can't tell how many perks you pop.

Hey,

I do like, though, that the, I'm going to say the devil boss tosses him a Bible and just says this will help while we're going to.

Yeah, read it.

Yeah, you read it.

But I just want to point something out.

The Bible, not once, the whole book.

Even though it's a long read, doesn't mention cars, phones, users, bicycles, or unaccompanied minors once no it just doesn't happen but it is very wary of chariots of iron and so you know you can make a lot of pulls

okay he's like i guess i shouldn't wear mixed cottons i don't like yeah exactly that that suit looked like it was more than one fiber right

but i just bought these bacon wrapped shrimp from costco

it's fine it's fine matthew said keep reading yeah so it's established that mr cromer is a good guy because he had a bible whatever then we go back to the hospital and Doug tells his wife, Jeannie, that Larry is definitely going to be their lawyer.

They're doing the lawsuit.

And Jeannie doesn't like this.

Jeannie, not smart.

I did not like Jeannie.

I have to be clear that Doug is having this conversation over the brain-dead body of their child.

Yes.

They are inches from their child's, let's say it, corpse.

And he's like, so Larry said the retainer agreement can actually be waived until after the

second percentage.

Jeannie turns to him while again staring at their brain-dead daughter who's in a coma and says quote we don't need a lawyer which is the absolute stupidest statement in this entire movie you don't necessarily have to go with larry but you need in this situation you need a lawyer you need a caseworker

you need your state rep at this point and maybe your state senator there's gonna need a funeral director to help you plan the end of life yes there's all you're gonna need a lot of help and then then doug looks at her and goes quote welfare doesn't cover the bills Who is going to pay for all of this?

Meaning the hospital, which is what he said in a movie with U.S.

Senator Mark.

She just ducks her head in with the bear claw.

Exactly.

She just pops in like Mortal Kombat.

Whoopsie.

And then again, if Bernie was in this, he would have been

Medicare for all to cover this forever.

I'm telling you right now, the 1% can deal with all of this.

Larry, Larry, I'm telling you, Larry.

Larry, Larry.

But Larry is smart.

Larry knows how to weaponize Bible verses, which is how he gets his way.

Which is how he reaches the stupid people of Nashville.

Yeah, exactly.

Right.

Jeannie says we don't need a lawyer.

We need a pastor.

And the movie's like, yeah, we got it in there.

And then we get Larry back.

Doug and Larry do another walk and talk in the hallway of the hospital.

And Larry pitches the lawsuit more

using metaphors from the Bible.

Yeah, because we read the Bible recently.

Yeah.

In the last scene.

The pastor does show up eventually.

And Mrs.

P did notice something about the pastor.

Oh, he looks like a Nazi.

Yeah, he has a Nazi inside.

Yes, he has the new Nazi haircut.

Yes.

And I was like, why is there a Nazi in the room?

And Alex was like, what do you mean?

I was like, that guy has the vibes of one of those, I'm a white nationalist Christian preacher who has a church in quotes that has like live music and a coffee house with chalkboards.

Yes.

He's giving Nick Fuentes.

Yes.

He has Nick Fuentes vibes.

And his vibes were bad.

Even when he was like talking, trying to quote pray over the child, I was like, he didn't say a prayer.

He just talked shit.

No, he just talked shit on modern medicine, I think.

Yeah, I don't really.

It was hard to figure out.

That's so weird.

Okay, so from there we cut to the conference room at the law firm and the partners are talking about all the offshore money that Ben was allegedly hiding.

So Derwood apparently lied and now he's trying to frame Ben for the whole thing.

Yeah.

That's going to come back in a second.

Then we're back at the hospital room and Doug and Jeannie are deciding what to do.

And there's a pastor there this time.

Right.

The pastor's like, look, guys, it's your choice whether or not you want to murder your daughter.

But like,

are you sure though?

Yeah, there's very much a, we can't let your daughter die.

She will be replaced by, I don't want to say, mishmoosh, but you know.

And then he lit a tiki torch and walked out of the room.

Right.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The pastor actually says, okay, well, you got to pray again, and you have to, quote, give God room to be God,

which was

really, really, yeah, it means that it's nonsense.

Yeah.

But essentially, what the movie is trying to say, the movie's message about childhood cancer is God's doing a fucking thing.

Just let him cook.

Let him cook.

Yes, let God cook.

Let God cook.

He's never done anything bad before.

Just ask the firstborns of Egypt.

Yeah, exactly.

Hold my wine.

So from there, we go over to mom and the kids.

They left town.

They're at grandma's house now.

And Connor is yelling at mom for being weak and selfish because she left town.

It's crazy this mom hasn't slapped the fuck out of this kid at this point.

All he does is talk back.

I'm telling you, Ferguson.

Listen, when he's like, mom, you are weak and selfish.

I was like, is he turning Klingon?

Like the way he said it, it was so nuts.

And then his French mother.

Yeah.

And again, also, this is one of those situations which drives me crazy in some movies where a lot of this could be handled by just explaining to people everything that's going on.

If the mom looked at them and said, listen, your dad hit a cancer girl with this car and now other people want to murder us.

He would sit still and shut the fuck up.

Yep.

Yeah.

But instead, she just lets this go on.

It's just so wild.

They don't explain anything to the kids.

No, nothing.

And whenever they do, the one girl's like, I need more crayons.

that's true and they pray for sharon of course

except except connor who's a dick about it and he like eventually begrudgingly agrees to hold hands and pray yeah begrudging i thought the prayer wasn't gonna work and then we were gonna cut back to connor finally clasping hands and it works yeah you see him like slightly open his hand to be like like crossing his fingers behind his back basically yeah he's the worst He's going to grow, like I said before, he's going to grow up to be a racist streamer on Twitch.

No question.

No question.

there's no way around and when you mean grow up you mean two years he's in alex's comments right now calling him a shill for the government yes he's a hundred percent right now he's explaining to alex in his comments why he's going to vote for jill sign in 2020

no it's it's a monopoly it's a it's a uniparty shut up connor

connor it's going great how'd that message go you loving 2025 you piece of yeah Yeah.

You see, Alex, you see why I brought you on the show?

You're home.

You're home here.

You're loved here.

You know who's not here?

Jill Stein.

Haven't seen that bitch.

Where is she?

Moscow?

I don't know.

We did invite her on this episode as well.

I should have told you guys.

I was hoping we would.

That would have been so funny.

That would have been so goddamn.

But we're just insisting on doing the movie review the whole time.

The whole time.

You made us watch the 86 minutes of the worst movie I've ever seen just to then bring Jill Stein on.

Guys, we're getting a little off topic about who may or may not be a Russian agent.

So then what happens in the movie?

Okay,

so then we cut the slow hallway walk number 12 because we've got a pad.

We got a pad.

So many hallway walks.

Here's the thing with streaming is this movie could be any length.

This movie could have been 40 minutes.

It doesn't matter.

You could have still called it a movie.

There's no definition of a movie that says it has to be over an hour.

You could just say it's a short film.

There's so many different things.

It doesn't need to be 90.

What are we fucking making it 90 minutes for?

No, they were psyched.

They were psyched psyched about Sorkin somehow like winning against them with the walk and talks.

So they did another one here.

Doesn't matter at all.

Yeah.

So now Ben has to meet with the bosses in the conference room.

Yes.

And it's revealed that text messaging confirmed that Ben embezzled a bunch of money and sent the money to the Caymans.

Yeah, and the person who says that is one of the dumbest cops in the history of the United States of America, which is fucking sane.

Crazy bar.

Crazy bar to be low below.

It's really fucking insane to be this fucking stupid.

But yeah, the cop holds up a phone.

He's like, we have the text messages.

You stole the money and you're embezzling in the Caymans.

And then, like, literally, Casper Van Dean's like, what are you fucking talking about?

Are you?

And like, he looks over at the evil boss, Derwood, and he's like.

Fuck you.

And Derwood's like, gotcha, bitch.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Derwood has the biggest shit-eating grin on his face.

But again, okay, here's where again I'm screaming because the cell phones would be in an evidence locker where the district attorney is holding the discovery evidence.

There is no way they would have been signed out by a cop to be brought to a private law firm to then be inspected to see where the money was going in the Cayman Islands.

They would have to request that from the courts as part of the evidence for this crime.

But the crime is about a car.

It's not about the Cayman Islands.

So how did this law firm

get a hold of this?

And then, okay, I'm going to spoil it.

The phone rings.

From inside the bag, from inside the evidence bag,

they open the evidence bag.

Here's number one of things you don't do.

You don't open the evidence bag.

They open the evidence bag, no gloves on their hands, pop their hand in the evidence bag, answer the phone.

You're not allowed to do this.

And the phone's on speaker.

And it's, what's Derwood's mom?

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's Derwood's mom who calls.

Nobody says hello to Derwood's mom.

She immediately yells, Michael Anthony Derwood, this is your phone.

I'm your mom.

yeah and they all hear it on speaker but also that proves this proves in that moment that the cops did not check the sim card to see who the phone was registered exactly and also that means as far as i'm concerned they never found his original phone yeah they never once mentioned in this card there are two phones no yeah it's never mentioned once also it's been like weeks months i don't know so they took out the phone from the evidence bag and charged it a few times and now it's able to to get a call i don't know I guess.

I don't know.

Like, that's the thing.

But also, if they had ever opened up this phone, which they claim they had done, they also would have seen that the email, which or the text, which is the Cayman Islands, the Cayman Islands thing, is addressed to Derwood.

Yes.

There's so many evidences available.

You didn't have to use the mom exposition phone call.

I almost wrote this as my best worst because it might be the laziest resolution to a movie I've ever seen.

Also, okay, so theoretically, right?

The DA gave the evidence to this law firm, to the big bosses, because they're friends.

The DA is friends with the big bosses because big law firms are always friends with DAs.

That's how it goes.

There's money in pockets, handshakes behind closed doors.

That's how it goes.

So the DA at some point gave them access to this phone, which means that at no point is this lawyer ever going to get charged with vehicular manslaughter because this big law firm is in with the DA.

Yes.

Also,

also.

Makes no sense at all.

I'm sorry.

Also, it's now also clear to me as we're talking about it, because he's a big lawyer.

That's not his personal cell phone.

That is the property of the law firm.

So law firms, cell phone, they could get the records so easily.

Yeah.

The payroll lady could pull the records because they're paying for the cell phone plans.

Yes.

It's so fucking insane.

It's just so insane.

So after this moment when they realize, oh, it's Derman's been stealing the money.

Yeah.

They put cuffs on Derman.

They walk him out of the room.

And then the big boss says, anything else, anything you need, anything at all to Casper Van Deen.

I'd like to Christianly help you.

Yeah, but here's the thing.

Now they know that Casper Van Deen in that moment was an accomplice to hiding the embezzlement.

Yeah.

Like that was his, his job in the company was to hide because he even mentioned it to the boss.

Yep.

Yep.

He's like, hey, I'm handling this thing of like hiding this money.

And And the boss is like, what the fuck are you talking about, double billing?

Yeah.

There's a moment like earlier in the movie, like the boss had no idea any of this shit's going on.

And so like, there's this, there's this moment where I'm like, okay, just because Derman did evil doesn't mean this other guy isn't a part of the, what the fuck?

Right.

Yeah.

They're supposed to be two good guys now.

They're at a firm that's representing a company that does cancer medication fraud, and they did a bunch of embezzlement for that company makes absolutely no sense.

None.

Zero.

But now we cut back to the hospital hospital and it's going to get sad.

They're about to pull the plug on Sharon.

Yes.

Now we need the only ending that could be sillier than the speakerphone phone call to establish whose office this is.

We need the pull the plug miracle curing of the little girl.

Okay.

Oh my God.

Can I be honest?

I laughed.

a lot

because

I would cackle.

I'll explain why I laughed.

So it's this tragic moment.

And then the doctor who's gonna pull the plug is like, yeah, I'll need like,

you know, do you ever sit in the exit row on an airplane?

I need a coverboard conversation.

I can't.

You actually have to say, murder my daughter.

And to kill your kid based on yepers, you have to say it all the way out.

No signing a document or anything.

Yeah, no signing a document.

I need you to say it three times, like a divorce.

I'm actually giving you this unicorn pillow.

You have to smother her right here.

But also in this moment, Larry being in the room in the corner is just crazy.

Yeah.

Like,

again,

if he's actually their lawyer in this moment, Larry would be the one communicating to the doctor because Larry would be handling the paperwork and the legal issues for the parents with unplugging the kid.

But instead, he's just sitting in the corner, just like, we're going to make so much money.

He might as well have like a calculator and that green visor that accountants had in old-timey moods.

Yes.

Yeah.

His tongue should roll out like a wolf.

Should I stop doing the cha-ching while you verbally confirm you want this doctor to kill your daughter?

There is a point during it where, like, he says to the dad at one point, he's like, Yeah, if she doesn't die, it's going to be more complicated.

Like, what the fuck?

Like, Larry, like, that's the only moment in the entire movie where I was like, Larry,

when the girl was better, Larry should have gone, oh man,

son of a bitch.

Oh,

here it goes.

So they finally do pull the plug, and then we see them do some praying genie the mom does some like face praying and she's crying yeah and then we get a flat line anyway and i was like

rough okay quick off quick real quick yeah but then we go to a dream sequence of some sort with sharon the kid and mom and dad montage yeah playing tag together sepia They have the Mexican sepia thing on there.

And it's clear.

I think they're running around the Parthenon in Nashville.

It was either that or the Tennessee state capital.

Yeah, no, I think it's the Parthenon because it's in a public park.

It's outside.

They actually rebuilt the entire Parthenon, the building that's on the top in this park.

It's actually beautiful in Nashville, and you can go to it.

Yeah.

So I think that's where she's running around.

But I also felt like this was like one of the visions from Minority Report.

Yes.

It had like that moment.

And I was just like, all right, this is weird.

Like, it's just like, and like the dad and the mom are like chasing the little girl around.

Like, you couldn't have shot one version of her with hair.

Yeah.

I said, Why wasn't this pre-cancer?

This is a loving montage, it should have been pre-cancer, or just like them at a picnic or them having fun at the house.

There's so many different things you could have done, but again, I think you guys are right.

I think that the cancer girl actress's mom shaved her head before they even brought her into the

that's how she got her in the audition.

She was like, I shaved her in the waiting room outside, y'all.

Yeah, I heard she needed to have cancer.

My method, she actually has cancer.

Damn, damn, yeah, it's weird.

We've been giving her a lot of pizza.

So they fade out of that weird dream sequence and we see them again.

And they're like, still fucking flatline?

What the fuck?

We did a dream sequence, I thought.

But then she is alive again.

And the doctor's like, I've never seen this before.

It's a miracle.

And it's, again, it's such Christian movie bullshit, right?

Because it's not just, oh, her finger moved.

Put the thing back in.

She's going to be okay.

It's like, her finger moved.

And then she breathes on her own.

And then she does a fucking kimp up out of the bed.

It could not be sillier.

The ref was like one, two.

I can't do it.

Here comes Mary with the steel chair.

Like, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, no, I actually have written down here that Larry should have screamed no and then hit her with a trash can.

There it is.

Trying to win the case.

Yeah.

So yeah, the miracle happens.

The flatline goes away.

I wanted them to pan over to a nurse or Larry just being like, shit, sorry, knocked out the wire.

Puts it back in.

Flatline comes back on.

Your kid is very much still dead.

I'm so sorry.

Yeah.

But no, she's alive.

Sharon's alive.

And then we cut over to Cromer and Ben at the office.

And Cromer got a call from the DA explaining that Sharon died, but came back to life.

And they're all good.

Why would the DA know that?

Why would the DA know that?

I don't know.

They would just say, like, hey, she's better.

Better now.

Yeah.

You don't tell everybody every fucking thing.

Also, why is everyone sharing children's medical reports?

Oh, hippa, Schmippa.

That's what I say.

And

this is where CVD asks for dad's job back as a condition of his return to work.

He would like his law firm to ask their client to hire back Doug.

Their client who they just found out they've been stealing from defrauding.

Exactly.

Yeah.

For like 20 years.

Hey, sorry about that.

We're going to repay it.

I know that we're still very much up in the air with the Cayman Islands fraud thing, but do you know Doug?

No, you have thousands of employees.

Okay, can you talk to Marsha Blackbird?

Because she knows too.

Yeah, United States Senator Marsha Blackbird, she also works as your payroll.

And I want to say they very heavily implied here that because this girl, because Sharon the girl lives, that all of the legal troubles are gone.

Yeah.

They are not.

That's not how that works though.

He still hit a girl with his car.

Yes.

He still negligently drove.

He is still on the hook for her medical bills.

Absolutely.

He is still on the hook for all these other different things.

His insurance is going to go through the roof.

The legal company, because now also, because they've now proven that one of the phones, the only phone that went off in the car that could have distracted him was a phone tied to the law firm.

So the law firm's still in trouble.

Like, if anything, the law firm's in more trouble now.

Of course.

Yeah.

You would think.

But they're going to ignore everything we've ever said because they don't care.

No.

We cut back to Beth and Ben.

They're going to the hospital again.

Again.

Again.

They want to see Sharon.

This time with the stuffy instead of flowers.

Okay.

We got a real stuffed animal this time.

It was the flower.

Flowers were the problem.

Yeah.

And they see Sharon's mom, Jeannie, and it's gross.

The first question to Jeannie is, hey, is your husband here?

We want to talk to your man person.

Oh my God.

Yeah.

And she was just as polite.

She's like, I'll forgive you, but I don't like it.

Yeah.

But God told me to.

God tells me to forgive.

And he's like, that's so awesome.

Like, amazing.

He says, can I tweet that?

That's great.

It's really cool.

No, that's really cool.

Can I make up my banner on the YouTube channel?

Yeah.

Oh, stop promoing.

I want to promo.

This is a plug-safe space.

There are three things that are safe here.

You can say Jill Stein is probably a Russian asset.

You can plug your podcast.

And you can laugh when a child in a movie gets hit by a car.

That's what we represent here at God Awful Movies.

Thank God, because I do be laughing.

You do be laughing.

There's two things that make Mrs.

P laugh hysterically.

Number one, a child being hurt.

Classic.

Number two, it's tickles.

Tickle class.

No, okay.

As I'm plugging the podcast, do not tell people that animals being hurt also in the children.

And we lost them.

We lost them.

Oh, right there.

So many people were going to listen to too many tabs wherever they listen to podcasts.

Yeah.

So Jeannie says that God tells me to forgive, whatever.

And Ben's like, oh, cool.

I mean, this is God's plan then.

So my bad driving was God's plan.

If you think about it, you're welcome.

John's plan.

John's plan.

That's a Drake song.

And then Doug.

Dr.

Road before was no Drake.

Remember?

Oh, sorry.

They said that no one.

Yeah, no, that's right.

And then Doug steps out of the insane shadows of this.

He's literally in the very well-lit hospital hallway.

He learned it from Larry.

And he's like, well, well, well.

Congratulations.

He's still mad.

Yeah, he's so mad.

But that's when they're like, hey, listen, I understand you're mad, but we got your job back.

And he's like, you can can see it in his face.

He's like, my shitty job that I hated.

Yeah.

Why do I want to go to work for minimum wage when I could get your ass to pay me a big old penny out?

Right.

Yeah.

And then, like, the wife gives him a look and he's like, I guess I have to settle for the bare fucking minimum.

I guess I forgive you for hitting my daughter with your car.

Yeah.

And then we get, I would say, the best moment of the movie, like really good acting by the actor who plays Sharon here.

We go into Sharon's room and Ben walks in and he's like, hello today, stupid.

And she goes, hey, are you the man I hit with my bike?

Yo.

And I had a genuine like laugh, cry moment for a second.

This little girl, like I said earlier, was so incredible.

She's the best actor in the entire movie, which is insane because Casper Van Deen is the main actor.

Yep, he is in this movie.

But this little girl is so good.

That moment when she asks him, are you the man that I hit with my bike?

And he like cry laughs a little bit.

Yeah.

That should have been the ending.

It should have been snatched cut.

Oh, you know, it should have said, like, through, through Jesus, all things are possible or whatever.

Like, whatever bullshit wants to say, don't text and drive.

Would you download a car?

And whatever he says, okay.

Because that moment is just like, I don't know if you guys have ever seen the movie Godzilla Minus One, when he discovers that his love is still alive.

Yeah, of course.

He walks into the hospital and she looks at him and she says in Japanese, is your war finally over?

That's it.

We're done.

This is the is your war finally over movie.

This is that same fucking moment.

And they're like, no, you know what?

We need six more actions.

We have have more grievances from Marsha Blackburn that we have to deal with.

But yeah, the movie clearly should have ended there.

They're trying to go on a little bit more.

And then

thankfully, a doctor walks in and is like, hey, wrap up.

The scene's over now.

Seems like you didn't write an ending here.

Yeah.

He's like, oh my God, we are fake doctors.

Yeah.

We have one final scene because they're idiots.

Now the family is heading back home from grandma's house.

And we watch dad stop playing playing frisbee with connor mid throw to take a cell phone call incredible incredible parenting yeah it's so good yeah i think also it's not they're picking up from grandma's but then i think they're supposed to be going immediately camping yeah they're immediately going on their road trees their road trip yeah yeah he's finally using pto

which is incredible but the call is from mr cromer he's got a big case and he wants ben to put that PTO off for another week.

And he promises to give Ben like a private plane to fly to the Bahamas with the whole family.

But Ben's like, nope.

And this is where I started screaming.

Family first.

And I was like, take that fucking plane, really?

No, no, because the whole thing was the boss, this big boss, from the moment we meet him in the beginning of the film, he keeps trying to play the nice skyrole.

He's like, I'm different than other bosses.

I'm not like your other boss.

I think you should spend time with your family.

Here, read the Bible.

I'm all about family.

I'm a good boss.

And then he lulls them into a sense of safety.

And now he's like, I'm going to finally go spend time with my shitty family I don't like.

And he's going to go get in the car with them.

And then the boss calls.

And the first thing he fucking does is like, hey, I need you to come to work and put work.

I need you to come into the ability.

He should come in on Saturday.

And I was like, you are an abuser, sir.

You, what is it called?

Love bomb that guy.

You did.

You love bombed him.

You love bombed him.

And then he's back in the cycle of abuse with his employer.

Yeah.

Truly.

I'll tell you the part that got me was that the boss said, I'm trying to tag team a case with you.

And I was like, okay, man, you are clinically divorced.

This is coming off as sexual now.

Like this is coming off as creepily sexual.

Then they finally all get in the, in the van.

The phone rings again.

Casper Van Deen slams on the brakes.

Yeah.

Right.

And he's like, this is the moment where he talks the entire family into a white Lotus style digital detail.

Yep.

I white load.

Exactly what I wrote.

And I'm like, what fucking crime are you hiding now?

That was my next thought.

I'm like, excellent question.

What fucking crime?

And so he goes in the back.

They take all the shitty electronics that they clearly got from a Goodwill or probably his house since it's down in Nashville.

And they go into the back and he puts them in the back, but the ginger kid gets out of the minivan.

And the final line is him telling him, Connor, telling dad, he gives him this awkward hug and he goes, I love, dad, I love you.

Yeah.

And that's the true ending of the movie.

Yeah.

Because if you just put down your phone, your kids will love you.

Yes, exactly.

And if you get your kids to put down the phone, the kids will love you too.

Yeah.

The phones are the problem.

The phones are the problem.

And that's what I need to write onto my Facebook status.

Just cut to the worst trip ever.

All of them trying to talk to each other, but they got nothing because they're addicted to the phones.

Seemed like that was going to happen.

Apparently, though, the movie has landed on Mr.

Cromer is the ultimate good guy because he's a Christian, but also a job creator.

I think that's the message.

I think you're right.

I think also in the tag team scene, I think they were supposed to pan to him like looking at a cross on the wall or something.

Tag team scene is supposed to be a test to see if Ben has learned.

And again, if this was guy was supposed to be a secret angel devil thing, then that would make even more sense that it was like, we're now testing his soul again to make sure that he checked.

But instead, it's just a creepy old man being like, I'm trying to tag team with you.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Remember when I walked into your house while you were drinking alone and your family was gone?

Yeah.

The writer really wanted that guy to be Al Pacino and for our guy to be on their raves.

Yep.

They got old advocate.

But they could not get the mark anywhere near it.

Yeah.

And not once did anyone say, your sister is ovulating.

I fuck all of them.

The end.

It's one of the Christian movie.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, I think that's going to do it for Acquitted by Faith, but that's not going to do it for the episode just yet because we found another terrible terrible movie for next week.

And we're going to be live in Portland for that.

So Eli, what's on deck for Portland?

Bigfoot Blood on the Farm.

All right.

We got some right family.

So excited.

With that to look forward to, we're going to bring episode 507 to a merciful close.

Huge thanks to Mrs.

P and Alex for joining us.

Great time.

So if people want to hear a little bit more from you, where should they go?

You can find our podcast, Too Many Tabs, wherever you listen to podcasts.

Or if you want to hear our podcast, The The Warm Up or Vibing with the Food Idiot, you can join us on our Patreon at pearlmania500.net.

That's Pearlmania500.net.

Both of us are on our Instagram or over on TikTok, YouTube, all those different things.

Find me, Pearlmania500, and then you can find those link trees for everything else.

Oh, yeah.

Fantastic.

And of course, a big thanks to our Patreon donors for all the generosity.

If you'd like to help support the show, you can make a per-episode donation at patreon.com slash godawful, and that'll get you early access to an ad-free version of every episode.

And if you enjoyed this show, be sure to check out our sibling shows, The Scathing Atheist, Citation Needed, The Skeptic, and DD Minus, available in all the podcast places.

If you have questions, comments, or cinematic suggestions, you can email GodAwfulMovies at gmail.com.

Tim Robertson takes care of our social media.

Our theme songs written and performed by Ryan Slotnick of Evil Giraffes on Mars.

All other music was written and performed by our audio engineer, Morgan Clark, and was used with permission.

Thanks again for giving us a chunk of your life this week.

For Mrs.

P., Alex, and Eli, I'm Heath, promising to work hard to earn another chunk next week.

Until then, we'll leave you with the breakfast club close.

Connor the Ginger Kid went on to become a world-famous Twitch streamer where he's been arguing for weeks on end with Hassan Piker over the current Israel-Gaza conflict.

He is well known for his hot takes all about how the wokes have destroyed video games and he has recently been canceled because he can't stop rubbing his bleeding gums on the wall.

Yeah, that's right.

The Connor the Ginger Kid is Asmund Gold.

It's Asmund Gold.

If you know who that is, please do less internet.

Lancer multinational corporation got convicted of fraud when their cancer medication didn't do anything.

They went bankrupt.

Doug lost his job and Sharon has no health coverage for real medicine.

Main character guy's boss fought three more Pokemon and then eventually evolved into full-size Dennis Leary.

Don't she hit you with silly rage and you came back with a don't?

Get off

also.

I do love that it says last chancellor here.

Yep.

Apologies for my typing.

No, it's amazing.

I was like, between that and rec last, I was losing.

Don't

This content is canned credentialed, which means you can report instances of harassment, abuse, or other harm at their hotline at 617-249-4255 or on their website at creator accountability network.org.

The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle in the Thunderstorm LLC, Copyright 2025, all rights reserved.

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