Reindeer Games w/ Howard Kremer (HDTGM Matinee)

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Ben Affleck, Boobies, Cowboy Costumes, and a Cameo by Ashton Kutcher. We saw Reindeer Games, so you know what that means.

how did this get made? Hello, people of Earth, and welcome to our very special Christmas Day edition of How Did This Get Made?

Happy holidays. I am Paul Scheer, joined as always by Jason Manzukis.
What's happening? And June, Diane Raphael. How are you, June? Good.
How are you, Paul? Very good.

Today we have a very special guest. You know him from the wildly successful, the fantastically funny, who charted Howard Kramer.
Please welcome Howard to the show. Hey guys, how are we doing? Woo!

This is our, technically, this is our Christmas episode. So we are very excited to bring you, man, what a treat.
Reindeer Games, the last John Frankenheimer movie. By the way, not a treat.

Not a treat.

This is a perfect Christmas movie for anyone.

Did this come out or on the holidays? Oh, I'm sure of it. Yeah.

John Frankenheimer, just to give you an idea of what this guy directed, directed some great movies in the past.

French Connection, right? Yeah. Iceman Cometh,

Grand Prix,

Manchurian Candidate, Seven Days in May.

And it all ended with this Ben Affleck movie with Charlize Therone, Gary Sinise, and

Ashton Kutcher. And Ashton Kutcher.
Oh, I forgot about Ashton Kutcher. Terrible.
Oh, and Gary Sinise's hair.

And Donald Logan. Donald Logan.
Oh, guys, by the way, it came out February 25th. It missed missed the Christmas marker.
No. So that means that this movie was so bad.

Like normally they dump a movie like this at Christmas time. You'd be like, oh, just suck it up.
We'll get Christmas money. No, they released it two months after.
This is almost in March.

You release a Christmas movie. It's falling.

This movie.

It was done, clearly, by December. This movie sucked.
This movie was awful. I hated watching this.
This movie is everything that's bad about the movies that we watch. watch to me.

I was like freaking out. I was so angry at how bad the movie was.

I had, I had, look, I had some issues with it.

But I, you know, look, I'm a fan of twists and turns, and

I love some sexy acting.

The first thing that comes to my mind about this movie is the sex scene that is pretty like Charlene Sarone and Ben Affleck have this like sex scene that is a little like graphic in its

in the sense of like what you're seeing. Like you don't normally see the part of the man that connects from the waist to the upper butt cheek.
It's like a weird area that you're minotaur looking.

Yeah, you don't really

wait a minute. Wait a minute.
There was miniature looking. Yes, because there was a shot of him.
You know what I'm talking about.

You're describing it where you couldn't see his legs, but you did see sort of right above his ass. And it just looked like,

didn't look like a full human. Very miniature.

He looked like a human. Very miniature.
It was very weird. That's sex scene.
Because

I fully was like, oh, they're going to have sex now. All right.

Whoa!

And listen, I'm not going to complain because it was sexy. But then I had a real problem with, and maybe

I'm just not having sex correctly, but

does anybody in the room have so much sex in a hotel room or wherever that you're on the bed, you're off the bed, you fuck it on the floor, and then you fall asleep on the floor?

Why did I just get up and like, that's what they do. They fuck so much that they fall asleep on the floor next to the bed.
I was like, there is a bed right now.

The only thing in this room is a bed. It happened in Twilight too.
They fuck so hard, they fall asleep on the floor.

They are exhausted. They are too exhausted.
There's also in this movie a lot of open-mouthed kissing that's

very disgusting.

It's like

super wet kisses. Super wet, wide kisses that are not appealing.
Yeah, it's like just two wide-mouthed

each other. I mean, we'll get into a spoilers section, but there is a Gary Sinise, and I won't say who the woman is, he's kissing, who a kiss that I was like, what the fuck is this?

It's just nobody kisses like that. It's like kids who've seen their parents kiss, trying to kiss, like,

open mouth, right? That's how we do it a lot.

Is that what happened to you? I tried to French kiss my mom when I saw the love boat one time.

No. Yeah.
No. She got really freaked out.

I thought that was it. I thought that's how you kill it.
Does how adults do it? Like I saw it on TV and I was like, oh, I've been, like, my mom gave me a kiss. I could go to bed one time.

And I was like, ah. I was like, my mom's like, whoa, whoa.

What are you doing? She caught me way before I got close.

That's huge. Man, this is a pretty startling revelation.

Let's get into it. I didn't know you had this whole French kissing your mom thing going on.
Yeah, man. I tried to kiss my mom like Gary Sinise.

I gave her the full-blown Sine.

Also, I mean, I guess this is, I mean, this is a dumb thing to like pick on, but, you know, Ben Affleck and Shirley's Therone, both very attractive people.

I know movies are about attractive people and stuff, but I couldn't get a read on, like, are these supposed to be ugly people?

Or are they supposed to be like really attractive?

That's a really good point because a big part of the movie is that she's set up, we'll find out what her real intentions are later, but she's set up as a woman who's writing letters to prisoners, and she

writes. She's Charlize Theron.
And she's Charlize Theron. And we learn a little bit more about her that she's in this small town.
She's had a tough go of it.

She does know she's. She's got to a coastal city.
She does show. She's

pretty. She's super model beautiful.
I mean, she is so stunning. But that's what the thing is.
He says to her, why is such a good-looking girl like you doing this shit? Is this what you do?

Remember when they've woken up from their slumber on the floor? Yeah. He says, is this what you do? Why are you so beautiful?

And she goes, well, when you're as beautiful as I am, the guys that want you just want to fuck you. They wouldn't get inside.

They don't want to know about what's inside. They don't want to know what's inside you.
They just want to get inside.

Fucking control, alt, save. That is a good line.
Save it. And Frankenheimer is in.

I'm not the guy was a line that was in the movie about 30 times. Oh, yeah.

Basically, this whole movie.

Basically, this whole movie is: Ben Affleck is in prison. He just steals cars.
No big whoop. This prison mate is a guy

who stabs somebody who was harassing his girlfriend.

And there is a fight that breaks out in jail. His prison partner is killed.
And

this jail sequence is 10 to 15 minutes long. Yes.
And is like an SNL sketch about jail. It is so stupid.
It's actually really upsetting, too. Like,

I don't know. I watched that and I felt sick.
I felt really upsetting.

What is really upsetting about it?

Because the cockroaches were in the face of the

disgusting. You know that when he says, they are monsters.
Isaac Hayes.

What was Isaac Hayes doing in this movie?

I want to play the part that Harold just talked about.

This is my favorite post-seen in the movie. Monsters in the gelatin.

So they're eating some like gelatin. What's wrong with you?

Monster.

Sure.

Just a roach, sir. Yeah, it's protein.
It's good for you. Monsters.

In the gelatin! Alright, calm down.

There are monsters! In the gelatin! Fuck them! Monsters!

Come on, fuck a bunch! The gelatin!

Look at the shit!

This starts...

So this starts a full-on prison riot because apparently the cooks, and they haven't just had one monster in the gelatin, one roach.

There, I guess everyone has tons of roaches in their holiday jell-o, yeah, and this starts a huge prison riot. Do you think that it was an unusual day?

Like, this is just a strange thing that happened. How many roaches must be?

I don't know. Hundreds.
Did they do it to start the riot? That's what I don't think.

Was it that elaborate of a plan? No, because at the end, when we hear the

shouting, how elaborate this plan could get, because it had so many moving parts, it's insane.

And he, but afflict at the end of the movie, Ian says, like, how did you think this would work? Because at any point, something could have gone wrong.

Because when you realize at the end of the movie what the plan has been all along, it's impossible to have been executed. Impossible.

It just requires so much acting, so much to go right. Well, you know what? I feel like maybe we can lay it out.

Well, yeah, it's probably better and serve everybody better to understand how it plays out. So the monsters in Gelatin happen.

Ben Affleck's roommate, his prison roommate, gets killed. And now like, Ben is all bummed.
And he's like, well, I'm getting released from jail tomorrow.

My prison partner was going to get released too.

He was going to go meet up with Charlize Therone. Maybe I'll take over for him.
And he decides that he's going to take over the life of his killed prison partner just to get laid by this hot girl.

Yeah, because

I do think he had some feelings for her just reading the letters and stuff. Yeah, he didn't think.
He wasn't entirely about it. He definitely did have some sort of attachment.

You don't think it was entirely about him?

Entirely? No, I don't.

No, I don't. And that's what they were counting on, was that it was more than just sex.

But he speaks his subtext so much in the movie that I just, whatever he says, he was thinking, I just go with that.

He's sitting on the bus thinking about whether or not he should

try to go after Charlene Staran and he's like, don't do it, Nick.

Don't do it.

How about when they're in the department store?

And she brings over some clothes to him and then she walks away and he looks at at himself in the mirror in a crowded department store and he goes just get through the holidays yeah just rudy just get through the holidays you don't wreck her holidays yeah we'll tell her after we'll tell her after like like like like a like a fucking superman villain like talking to himself in a mirror in a crowded store by the way this is the only movie that i can recall that uh that employs both talking to himself in a mirror or a window and also having voiceover narration too yes because he uh there is also a voiceover narrative That's me.

Like it's a lot of, like, it's a lot of like the camera going around. So he's doing dual narration, dual narration by one narrative.

Is everybody else really uncomfortable at how askew the close-ups were? Yes. Oh, yes.
Every close-up they would cut to was just like askew and a little off. Well, we were talking about this because...

Claustrophobia.

We were saying before we started taping that like this movie, you got to take into effect when this movie,

in consideration when this movie was done.

So it was like 2000, and how we're saying that it's it's like quentaro people were trying to emulate tarantino right tarantino had come along and now these older guys are trying to put a little tarantino in their game yeah and it felt like it was really trying like like the violence was a little bit more bloody it was like trying to be this cool thing yeah so Ben Affleck takes over the life of his prison partner and he, you know, forages this false relationship with Charlize Therone.

They're having a great time. They're having sex.
They're falling asleep on the floor. They come home and Ben is attacked.
Attacked by these burly thug dudes. I do want to talk about this.

So he walks in the door and he gets immediately like hit in the gut with like a

baseball bat. Goes down and at which point another guy pops out of the closet.

Why was that guy hiding in the closet? Wait, there were three guys hiding. There was one guy.
There was a guy in the bathroom and there was a guy in the closet.

How many people needed, like, there was a, like, again, when you understand the plan of this, not necessarily to have three guys to attack Ben. And he recovers so easily from brutal beatings.

He is brutally beaten

over and over in this movie and never has a mark on him, barely. He has a bloody nose in the diner.
That's it.

And, but, I mean, I will say that he does limp around from getting those darts thrown into him. He gets two darts.

He has a tortured dart scene, which is also like a very Quentin Terrant team, like, let's torture him. We'll do it darts, man.
Yeah, Yeah, dude, darts. And he gets like two

darts in him. And he's like, oh, like limping around.
Darts. Yeah.
Pool darts.

Maybe. He might have gone like a quarter of an inch in your body.

Maybe.

He's like, oh. But so basically, we find out that Shirley's has a bad brother.
The bad brother wants him to rob a bank.

No, casino. Casino, sorry.
Casino, because he worked in a casino, but he didn't actually work in a casino. The guy that he was...
Prison mates worked in a casino. And then he finds out

and he keeps trying to be like, when he realizes the guys want him because they think he's Nick, then they're going to say, Nick, help us rob the casino. He starts to say, I'm not Nick.
It's not me.

I'm impersonating him. And the guy's like, so you're impersonating a guy to fuck my sister.
You think that's going to get you out of this?

And then he has to be like, but what he said was, he goes, you're acting like

you did all this so you could get down her chimney. Yeah.

There's a lot of

Christmasy. Christmassy wording.
Yeah, that's right. And he does the reindeer games line, too, where he says, I read your letters, don't play no convicts.

You know what? I've never heard the expression reindeer games

used.

Just in the song. That's it.
I don't know. Okay, so I kept on asking Paul.
I mean, I must have asked like every five minutes, like, is reindeer games a thing? Like, are reindeer games.

And what would Paul say? He said yes. You actually said yes.
I said, yeah, it's from the song, the root off the red-nosed reindeer.

Well, I knew that, but I never heard this term or expression.

Most people

have any time.

Well, I don't think it has any other meaning other than the song. There's a bunch of reindeers playing around.
Like, there's no other context for it. You guys have.

Wait, there aren't specific reindeer games. You guys have egg on your face because I looked today and on Urban Dictionary, it came up.

It goes, reindeer games refers to any fun activities which are enjoyed only by members of a clique,

which is often purposefully made obvious to anyone existing outside of said clique in order to make them feel inadequate and left out.

So

that would line up, though. Okay, so.
But Ben Affleck has no clique. He has no click.
He's a man by himself. Yeah.
By the way, so Ben Affleck. So he's Rudolph in this scenario? Well, his name is Rudy.

What?

What affection.

Boom. Nailed it.
Look at the symbolism.

No way.

The joke's on us.

The joke is

not on us. What?

The movie

just got interesting. That's the reveal.
That's the joke.

Holy shit, my mind just imploded.

Are you kidding?

And do you know what his friend's name was?

Oh, no, Wick.

Nick!

Nick!

Man,

I wonder if we can see what was Gary Sinise's name. Let's even come.
Gabriel. Gabriel.
All right, so the angel Gabriel. Charlie's surrounded's name, Ashley, but her real name was...
Blitzen.

Holy shit. I wonder if...

That was the how we just got there was unbelievable. I'm sure the audience was like 10 minutes ago like, hey, assholes.

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During the courtship of Ben and Charlize, when they're out, you know, she's buying them stuff because Ben kind of looks like a villain from a Back to the Future one. Like, that's how he's dressed.

But she goes, I get a 50% off discount. She was so into that discount.
She was crazy about it. She started laughing maniacally.
She's She's like, 50%

off.

But that's like

a discount. That's a pretty good discount.

You're giving away the store at 50% off. She was like drunk

with power that she was going to go get $100 off that coat. Do you think she got that coat 50% off with her discount? That silver coat? Yeah.

Because that was a crazy scene where she was...

Right after they got together and they were in the diner,

she said,

first he didn't say hello to her and he didn't when he got out of the prison. And then he came back and so then you cut to the diner and he's like, yeah, I'm sorry, I just got freaked out.

I thought maybe you wouldn't like the way I looked. And she's like, yeah, I mean,

I thought the same. I thought maybe you'd like to see my coat.
I'm just like, she's Charlene,

and he just got out of prison for five years.

Like, I didn't think you'd think I was. By the way,

that coat was pretty ugly.

And that's the only way they could ugly her up and make her look pedestrian is put her in ugly winter parkas like even that ugly i mean it was a silver coat it wasn't like they tried it like they they give her like a couple couple of things.

Like, she wears a baseball cap and sunglasses. Like, that's how they ugly her hair.
She had like a winter hat on. Yeah.

And then in the diner, the winter hat is off, and her hair is perfectly styled, though.

Can we talk about the second diner scene where he eats pecan pie? Oh, yeah. Oh, that was.
I found that disgusting.

I found the choice he made in eating that pecan pie to eat it as if he was like a starving person who'd never eaten food, but like an animal consuming pie. Or I was like, is this a sexual thing?

Like, what's what's going on well why he's eating this piece

he started chewing up the scenery literally yes

after that pie it was such a weird

shift in tone because up until then it's all kind of sinister yeah and then all of a sudden he starts saying you know what I want some hot chocolate I want some goddamn hot chocolate some fucking pecam pies here here's the funny thing about that too is like by the time that moment happens he has been out of jail he has had sex he has eaten with Charlize like they have bought a Christmas tree together.

It's like they've got a lot of cookies together. Like I mean I feel yeah they got cookies.
Oh that was a great lie. Lots of cookies.
When the guy goes these guys got a shitload of cookies.

It's a shitload of cookies. Why did they buy so many Christmas? Who fucking knows? This movie is dumb.
This movie is gross.

There's just a lot of grossness to this movie. Why did he

but why was he eating it like it was his last meal when he clearly could have had that pecan paya chocolate, hot chocolate? He had plenty of time to get that. Right.

Anyway, but that was supposed to be his first meal out of prison but he did but he his first meal out of prison was charlese right oh shit can we just play that i just wanted just to for you guys to hear the this is the only other clip we have here we go

get him up here

no no fuck that

nick doesn't do anything until nick gets something for nick got it

i want some hot chocolate

You want to hear about some job of mine? I want to see some goddamn hot chocolate.

And some pecan fucking pie. Is he doing Bernie Mac? Is he doing a Bernie Mac?

I feel like that was a craz I mean you're right. That's where the movie goes.
At that point, the movie is like, all right, now we're on this whole different track. It's like a fun romp now.

Because basically what we have not told you is Gary Sinise is Charlize's brother and he's a robber or a wannabe robber.

And they are using Ben's knowledge, but not really his knowledge because his former, the person he's impersonating's knowledge on how to rob a casino. So he's being pulled into a casino house.

He's just a car guy. He just steals cars.
So now he's told them numerous times, guys, listen, I'm not this guy. They refuse to listen to that.

They keep on going, nah, nah, you're the guy, you're the guy. And he's like, Charlize says to him, she's like, I was going to tell you about this

after New Year's. Like the two of them, Charlize and Ben's characters, are so strangely respectful of the holidays.

I didn't want to ruin your Christmas by telling you my sociopath brother wants you to do a casino heist.

Shit.

He throws his driver's license in the toilet.

And then it's real weird.

After he flushes the toilet, he pats the toilet twice like good toilet. You did what I wanted.
You just did it.

Oh my God. That's not the exact same thing.

So stupid.

And by the way.

What a long-term con on his part. He's like, I'm going to flush my license in the toilet so I have no proof of identification for the rest of my life.
I mean, well,

he's like,

I got to get laid. I got to get laid.
I got to flush. I understood him at that point.

I felt like you knew him. Yeah, I felt like I got him at that point.
Because he both was working towards getting laid and not getting found out. And, you know, you wanted to tell the toilet, good job.

Thanks, bro. Hey, look, I always pat the toilet just to make sure.

Good job. You ate that good.

You did a good job. Should we discuss the

when they go to scout the casino and they get him a disguise? Absolutely. Yes.
So they need to scout this casino and they figure the best way to dress him up.

By the way, this is the most obvious crew of robbers, right? Because even when they go get that pecan pie, it's like basically he is sitting amongst the most thuggiest of thugs.

It's like Danny Trejo, Clarence Williams, Donald Logue, Gary Sneeze, and they're all dressed like die-hard villains. Like, yeah.

And they don't look like, if you look at something like, oh yeah, I saw a fucking bunch of robbers in here. They're all sitting around this table with a guy with a bloody nose.

And a supermarket and a supermodel wearing sunglasses. They were at the robber's table.

We had to actually put three tables together to get them all that robber's table. How many? There's six of them? Put them at the robber's table.

I feel like this is that era of movie making when it literally is like, okay, so we'll get a couple of good like character actors to play bad guys, and then we just need one of the angry Steppenwolf guys.

So either Malkovich or Sineese, like Sinees is basically doing a Malkovich impression for the entirety of this movie.

He's not threatening at all. He's not acting

villain because

he's slimmer and slighter and shorter than every single person in the movie. He is not at all scary.
Well, how about when he throws those darts at him?

And he reveals, and he's hitting darts perfectly around Ben's head like like the kind of the way that they did it like on the tonight show like the tomahawk thing and and uh and then he goes hey I wasn't meaning to miss you and they're like ooh

yeah I've been trying to hit you so I'm just bad at this

but yeah he's not an intimidating no because Ben Affleck cracks wise so many times when he should be threatened like he's about to be smashed in the face but he just is flipping and then well the other thing that I can't figure out is like they are murderers but they've never committed a crime before.

And he is just a truck driver. Are they murderers? Well, there are sharps.
I guess they do kill people.

They kill people

without remorse. Well, but not before they beat them.

She says, I don't know, maybe she's lying. Because here's the spoiler alert is that she...
She's playing a bunch of reindeer kids.

Yeah, is that Charlie Theron is not just double-crossing Ben Affleck, because she is not Gary Sinise's sister. She is Gary Sinise's girlfriend.
Right, which Ben Affleck finds out. But guess what?

Another fucking twist. Double, double cross.

Nick, the prisoner who is Ben Affleck's best friend in prison, is not dead. He's alive.
Charlie's thrown is his girlfriend. What? And the whole thing has been a con on Ben Affleck.
Yes.

So they were... And Gary Sinise.

And everybody. They were counting on.

There's a whole scene of dialogue at the end of the movie where this actor has to come out. He hasn't been seen in like an hour and a half.
Yeah. And it has to explain the entirety of the movie to us.

It was awful.

Well, but by the way, how about the fact that

now it makes me question, did she actually have the 50% discount?

Did she really work in that store? We don't know. She had the card.
I don't know. This con goes deep.
If anyone in the audience knows.

Because 50% sounds like an enormous discount to be able to get a lot of people. Even like people who work in the corporate office don't get paid when I work to say,

she's putting some years. She decided to get a lot of paper.
By the way, because what she could do is just buy stuff and then sell it on her own and make some serious cash. I'm

a crazy discount.

Maybe she sold those other guys their clothes. They're rough.

Or their Santa suits. Do you think she got the Santa suits from that? From the clothing store? From that clothing store, yeah.
No, I doubt it. So they go to case the joint and they decide to.

And by the way, so the entire time of the movie, Ben Ben is. I hope I didn't spoil the end too early in the podcast.
I don't think it is. It's too hard to follow that anyway.

Well, now we can kind of really uncover it from all angles. Let's unpack this.

Because basically, Ben is telling Gary Sine the entire time, I'm not this guy. I'm not this guy.
Now, by the plan of this movie, Gary Sinise knows that he's not this guy, right? No.

No?

Oh.

So Gary Sinise is also being conned. Yeah.

So

Sinice does not know that he's not. Gary Sinice has no way of knowing that a guy named Rudy was reading those letters.
Yeah. Gary Sinise just knows.
He's Nick. He's Nick.

Gary Sinise needs to believe he's Nick. Even though everybody's going against him.
And

even when, at the point in the movie where he realizes this isn't Nick, he still says, where's the powwow safe, which is something that he invented. Yes.
Right?

Well, no, well, I think you find out later that

it was mentioned in the letters. It was mentioned in the letters.

But

there's a part where Gary Sinise is trying to run Ben Affleck over with the car and the snow, and then she reaches over to pull the wheel. But why would they do any of that?

If it doesn't make sense when you go back over. I think she's trying to

find.

I believe that if

Nick had not killed Gary Sinise, then

I'm sorry, if Rudy had not killed Gary Sinise. But Rudy didn't kill Gary Sinise.
Charlize kills Gary Sinise. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Charlize kills Gary Sinise when it all comes next to the truck at the end.
Yeah, she shoots Gary Sinise in the head.

Right, right, right. I'm sorry, right.
So, but she,

but he had no way of knowing, though.

You guys.

Wait, hey guys, let her finish that. Let her manage that.
I'm completely caught up in a reindeer game right now. I've really lost it.
All right, unravel it. Unravel it.

Even the screenwriters didn't bother to figure this out. So your question is, did Gary Sinise

know that Rudy

was not Nick?

No. That's what you guys are saying.
I'm saying no to that. You're saying...

I'm saying that Gary believed that Nick was Nick. He believed that.
Yes. Yes.
Yes,

we were all saying. Okay, so we're all saying that.
All right. Okay.

Sorry.

All right, but now. That was amazing.

Sorry, you guys, I got really lost.

It's still better than the movie.

Hearing you describe.

I'm still trying to figure out the parental logic of sleepaway camp.

It has been broken down online. You can check out our message board.
The movie or? The movie.

The movie. All right.
So let's get it. So they go to Case this Casino.
They decide to dress Ben up in

a cat, like a cowboy, like a comical cowboy outfit. Like, like almost like a fog whorn leghorn had formal wear, this would be what he would be wearing.
Like, uh, like when uh, when uh um

oh fuck, sorry, I just killed your whole party. No, don't worry when Norm McDonald plays but Burt Rouse.
Yes, that's exactly what he looks like. That's perfect.

Big old cowboy hat, like crazy mustache, bolo type. By the way, this casino is so low-rent.
Oh, gosh, it's terrible. And

What is Dennis Farina doing? I mean, poor Dennis Farina.

He literally keeps having, he runs the casino, and he keeps having the line, like, I shouldn't have left Vegas, you know, because he's working in this

po-dunk.

He basically,

he says to these,

he's having a meeting with these two Native American men. It's a Tomahawk casino.
And he goes, hey, you guys need to do some sort of rain dance and get it to stop snowing so I can do some business.

And then the guys leave angered and he's like, hey guys, come back. We got prime rib at the thing.
Like it was like, wait, wait, what? He just insulted these people, their religion, everything.

And you're like, come on. Hey.
Hey, come on, guys.

He's in the left Vegas. And I felt like every time he was saying that, he was like, I shouldn't be in this movie.
I feel like everyone did this movie.

I mean, Charlotte Starone publicly came out and said, this is a very, very bad movie. This is the worst of my movies.
I only did it because John Frankenheimer did it.

And I was kidding myself to do it.

So I feel like everyone probably got off on that. Like they're like, oh, well, John Frankenheimer is directing a movie.
I agree with that.

Like, if you told me John Frankenheimer was directing a movie in that era, I would have been like, awesome, I'm into that. Right.

The only person who was not able to cut it was Vin Diesel, who was originally cast in an unspecified role, but he made so many demands regarding his character that the director John Frankenheimer fired him before production started.

Interesting. I bet you was the Donald Logue character.
That's my gut. Yeah, or maybe like a combination of those guys.
They were all Vin Diesel. They couldn't get Vin Diesel, so they broke it.

They had to split it up.

I don't want to get lost in a twist again. But so.

Fuck, it's happening again. But if Nick, so if Nick.
Original Nick? Original. OG Nick

knew that Rudy, he was, must have been prepping Rudy in prison this whole time and reading those letters and all that stuff. Right.
Why wouldn't he tell him more information about that casino?

Like what?

Like

that it had like just more info.

It seemed like Rudy Nick, when put on, the only thing he really knew was the powwow safe. He didn't know anything else about the casino.
Good point. That is a good point.

It is an unanswered to. To what end? Well, to me,

the whole movie.

All he needs is for them to rob the casino. Yeah, but

he's prepping Rudy to know how to do that. But he's not, because b basically at the end, when Ben says to Gary Sinis, he's like, wait a second, if I died at any point, could you still have done this?

And Gary Sinis is like, yeah. We could have.
So basically, he doesn't say it to Gary Cinnis. He says it to Living Nick.
Oh, yeah, right. He says to Living Nick, he's like, this is so crazy.

There's so many moving parts to this. It couldn't fall apart in any way.
And he was like, yeah, it could have fallen apart. Oh, he's like, how did you know I would go with her?

What if I had just gotten on the bus and left? And he's like, if you had, she would have just convinced Gary Sinise to do it without you. Right.
Like, they would have done it anyway.

So, you didn't even really need to be the whole protagonist of the movie to be in it. No, no, you're not ancillary.

And by the way, I would also argue this is one of the first movies where none of the characters are likable.

Like, Bennett Flake, I mean, he's not a likable guy because he goes from being like a very put-upon, like, he's like, yeah, I just, you know, I robbed cars and got the bum deal.

And then he's like a dick, and he's not like, he's not, he didn't take, you know, he assumes the life of somebody else. He's feeding toilets.

He's raw dogging Charlize Theron while she thinks he's some other guy. They're all evil people.
None of them is redeeming.

What? She doesn't really think he's an awesome person. Oh, right, right, right.

She's a bad person because he thinks

she's the same.

But let's talk about real life. When OG Nick really is very comfortable farming his girlfriend out to get plowed by everybody.
Two different men. Two different dads.
That is what he's really into.

Maybe that's just to see that. Just to set up his girlfriend.

All right, so they send him in Burt Reynolds style to this casino.

And now, meanwhile, you think, okay, well, this is a chance for Ben to case the casino. No, no, no.
All the thug guys also come in fully thugged out. They're not in any sort of costumes.

Again, they look like robbers and thugs. They're wearing their one outfits that they have.
And then what do they see? Well, oh, he sees this guy across the casino. He kind of looks like him.

He's got a weird mustache and a goatee, too. Oh, who is it? Ashton Kutcher.

What? What?

Ashton Kutcher. And does Ashton Kutcher have any lines in this movie? He's got two.
Two. Two lines in the bathroom.
Yeah, which in the director's cut are edited out. Really? Yes.

In the director's cut. The director's cut, they edit out.
I only can imagine that Ashton Kutcher owed something to the Weinstein Company. They're like, you have to be in this movie.

And he was like, okay, I'll do it. Is he a star in 2000? Yeah, that 70s show has been on.
He's a TV star. Because I was like, maybe

he's big now.

That's not a part that you take. I don't think.

How huge could he have been by then? Not that big.

I'm going to look right now. I'm guessing he wasn't that big.

I just assumed this was like one of his early roles. Maybe too.

Really? I thought it was sort of like Herman and the Blues Brothers. All right, because I thought it was much more.
That was a good pull.

I thought it was much more like, look at this, look at who this character is. I don't think he was doing movies then.
Okay, we'll see. I'm going to tell you right now.
I'm looking as I need to be.

Okay, in 2000, he had already done Dude Where's My Car. No.
Yep. And

he was on Just Shoot Me.

And then, yeah, so he, I mean, he had done, he was an actor. He was the star of Dude Where's My Car? Yeah.
Oh, so this makes no sense. Wait, yeah.
Did that come out in 2000 or shot in 2000?

It came out in 2000. So I guess, you know, so he was the lead in the movie.
So at that point, he also said, oh, I'll take this one-line part. I mean, he was, you know, he was a star.

He came out in Feb. That probably came out in the summer.

All right, yeah.

And maybe this, maybe this had been shot years earlier. Right.
Yeah. Maybe this sat around.
Who knows? All right. So you guys are predicting.

So you guys are predicting that this is something that he didn't. All right.

We could just ask Kutch. We've got Kutch on the phone.

We can dial up the Kutch file. Because, by the way, that 70s show started in 1998.
So he had been on that 70s show for a couple of years. Okay, then he should not be in a role that

has less than five lives. But it's it's a Frankenheimer.
That's probably how they got him. Yeah, it's like, you want to come in and do a Frankenstein screen?

So basically, Ben just goes, take this coat. Here's $100.
And he's like, all right. And they puts it on, and then he just runs around and he goes, he gave me $100.

That's basically all of the Kutch's lines. And teenage girls went crazy.
In my mind, I feel like the wine scenes were like, this kid's hot. Girls love him.
Let's put him in this Frankenheimer movie.

This movie will make a lot of money.

Here's my bigger question. The scene after this, when Charlize and Ben run away into a a bank of snow and they try to escape crazy Gary Sinise, they fall.
Charlize thereon falls into

frozen pots. Frozen.

One of the best shots in the movie. She falls into the ship.
Yeah, that's a heap.

It's amazing. And then Ben Affleck jumps in after her.
Now they swim away from the hole that they fell into.

And what happens to people when they fall through the ice is that they cannot find the hole they fell through. That is true.
The current might drag them or they can't see. Is there a better place?

Okay, because.

All right. No, I'm glad to hear this because it looked so bright, and it looked from where we were standing with them, the shot we were on with them, that you could see that other hole so clearly.

Yeah, that's a huge thing. That is a real thing.
I remember this from as a kid growing up. You can't see it.
He is a kid growing up playing hockey on frozen pond, like ponds and lakes.

But also, when you were growing up, like clowns would chase you onto that island. Oh my god, guys.

Guys, the clowns. Let's not fucking forget the clowns.

I gotta ask someone. Actually, you have been validated on one of the mini episodes of a lot of people came to your defense.
Oh, really? Oh, good. Oh, thank God.
All right. Thank you, people.

But I remember, like, there was, like, there was, there was the whole threat was that you would fall through the ice and that you would not be, because of how when you, you get so disoriented that it's very easy to get back up and get, you're stuck there, and you don't know where the hole is that you came out of.

So kids would die underwater, not because they couldn't find that little hole they came through. Oh, wow.
All right. So this is glad to know this.

So this part of the movie is 100% factual, ready to go.

Luckily they did not lose their machine gun and they were able to shoot through that ice. Yeah, is that factual? That's what I was wondering.
Would a machine gun? Would a

shotgun fire underwater? I don't know. Yeah, it was a full-on machine gun.
So it wasn't even like a pump action. It was like prap, prap.
Like they were able to get through there.

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One of the most heartbreaking moments is right after, though, when this little man who, this little local yokel. Fishing on the ice.
Ice fishing kind of like a grumpy old man.

He was so sweet. And that actor, I thought he was one of the best actors in the movie.
He says, so sincerely, is everything okay, you guys? And then realizes that he's dealing with like

murderous, yeah, sociopaths. Because they're all carrying guns.
Yeah. Sure.
He starts to run away. And do you think he died in that house? Okay.
Oh, no, wait. Definitely.
It's on the newscast.

It's the newscast. Oh, yeah.

Later, they go into a room, and the newscast in the background is saying the strange death of a local man on the river. This is just still unsolved, but the police suspect foul play.

Oh, do they suspect foul play? Is that because his little ice house was shot up by a machine gun?

And by the way, suspect foul play. This guy must have been some serious shit.

But these guys who are not robbers, because they've never robbed anything before, they're just truck drivers of the dream

to rob

out of their dream who live out of their truck. They live out of a truck that is like the Knight Rider truck.
Like it's like full decked out like Motor City truck.

Yeah, he

but oh my gosh.

This movie sucked.

I got so angry. So the scene where Gary Sinise is throwing Darcy Finaffleck, are they in like the rec room of that hotel? Aren't they in the truck? All I know is.
No, they are not in the truck.

They're in the truck. No, no, no.
That's true. No, Jason, they're not in the truck.
Because there's a pinball machine. Pinball machine there.
They're in the truck.

That's like a shitty motel with like cinder block walls. Yes.
Yeah.

And all the rooms have cinder block walls. Yeah.
By the way, you guys will be happy to know that. I'm not pretty sure that took place in the truck.

By the way, wherever it took place, there was a big fog machine. Everywhere in that hotel was foggy.
It was like, everything was defrosting.

By the way, you'll be happy to know that Ron Perkins, the actor who was killed

in the ice house,

is alive and kicking. He was just on the mentalist and uh he was on veep and he does he had a very big part on house md so you can check out his part um he is uh he is dr ron simpson oh all right

um but he's in a few of john frankenheimer's movies uh but yeah that everything in that hotel looked like uh that like everything was steamy at all times but my favorite line in the hotel

was Ben escapes from the hotel

in a feudal escape plan because he doesn't really get anywhere when he escapes. And he comes back and he's trying to break back into his hotel room.
And he's like, ah, I can hot wire cars.

I can hot wire hotel. That's what he says.
I can hot wire cars. And all he's doing, he has somehow found a knife.
How did he get a hold of that knife? I don't know.

All he's doing to hot wire the door handle is touching the knife to the door, like to the electronic component of the door handle. Just like tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.

Green light, I'm in.

There was no wires. There was no, there was nothing to do.
It was just touching a metal net. That's how it worked.

Metal to metal, Jason. When he does escape that hotel for that feudal escape plan, which I don't even understand why he escaped.

Yeah, he wrote.

And then he tries to get back in. Yeah, it's like you were loose.
Like, keep running. Just keep on running.
And by the way,

everybody, those four robbers are everywhere in that hotel.

Every which way that he goes, there's another one of the bad guys. Like, hey, I'm down by the vending machine.
Hey, I'm out reading my magazine. Hey, I'm over here in the pool.

Like, they are all over the place. Yeah, one guy finds leftovers outside somewhere else.
Yeah,

it's food.

These are disgusting robbers. That's a disgusting trait to look through people's used food and eat it.

That just shows you, though, how desperate these guys are. But Ben got the one up on them because he was able to order a lot of pay-per-view.

And these robbers did not want to pay for their pay-per-view. Cleared out the mini bar, too.
Yeah.

Another egregious tone shift where you're scared for this guy's life and then all of a sudden he's just dicking around and like the toothless villains. It was

a $1,200.

It was a $1,200 bill.

It was a huge bill. It was a huge, like, I'll print it out an old computer printer.

You charge us all this money on pay-per-view. They'd be like, one punch.
That's for the pay-per-view. Another punch.
That's for the mini bar.

It was so like...

Babbitt and Costello. Oh, my God.
And then, so now we get to the big, the big heist. Things are happening.
It's exciting. They're finally going to rob this place.
And

man alive,

to get you to this final scene,

everything goes haywire. They all dress as Santa.
By the way, the big reveal that they're going to rob the casino dressed as Santa's. It's Christmas Eve.
Because it's Christmas Eve.

And then they reveal the suits.

We got a plan, man. And they open up a closet full of neatly hung Santa suits.
In the truck. In the truck.
Right. And if you double back, the whole reason.
You can't tell. The reason he turns.

the truck,

no, guys,

we'll find out. The reason they that they dressed him as a cowboy earlier is because they said if you go in there regular now, they'll recognize you when the heist goes down.
Yes. And then they

were going to recognize him from when he used to work there. As Nick.
They were like, if you walk in now, they're going to recognize you as Nick. So he goes, that's why I need a disguise.

And then they were like, it's either cowboy or ballerina. By the way, why would it be such a big deal if Nick came in and just the old place he worked there? He wasn't fired for stealing.

He could have just said, hey, I'm here to visit. What's up? Yeah, I'm the guy with the problem stealing cars.
And it doesn't matter anyway. He goes in as the cowboy, Dennis Farina, who runs the

museum, the casino, says, hey, how'd you talk about it? How'd you hear him? How'd you hear about us? How'd you hear about the casino? And he's just like, whatever, whatever.

And then the bad guys are like, you were talking to the guy. Did you tip him off?

Like, a huge part of the movie was contingent on them thinking that he had said something to Dennis Farina, which wasn't true at all.

The whole movie is based on lies that no one has enough information.

And are low stakes. Very low stakes lies.

Very low stakes considering they didn't need Ben Affleck at all. Yes.

And by the way,

if the plan is walk in and shoot the place up, guess who you don't need for that? Ben Affleck.

By the way, can I just bring out the larger flaw of this plan? The casino is not making any money. It is losing money.
It is a not-profitable casino. They're like, we're going to rob it

on Christmas Eve. A dead night.
A dead night.

So there are no. Usually it's like, usually, high schoolies are like, on this particular night, there happens to be three times as much money in the vaults because of Betty, blah, blah.

Like Ocean's 11 or whatever.

Like a fight night that is something. This literally would be the night when there is the least amount of money in the least successful casino.
Shittiest casino on the shittiest night of the year.

We are standing to make hundreds of dollars.

It was. But yet, when they get in the back room, tons of money.
I guess casinos just keep it there just in case they have a rush. Just wrapped up in perfect, like, in perfectly stacked bills.

Yeah, they were. I also love that when they arrive at the casino, they cut to Dennis Farino, who's just watching the security cams.
Yeah. Just watching.
And he's going to come.

That Santa's kicking your ass. You security guy's ass is a security guy's ass.

Dennis Farina does not freak out when their full-on fight where they flip tables over happens on the main floor of his casino. He's like, I freaked out on my last movie.
I don't need to do it again.

Hey, guys, just put in Midnight Run. You'll see what I can do.
Anyway.

But then they somehow, Ben needs a weapon. They give him a weapon that has liquor in it.

It's a squirt gun. It's a squirt gun.
They give him a squirt gun. And then they pass around a bottle of rum later, which he puts in the squirt gun.
Yeah, so he's like, that's a comic relief moment.

Throughout the whole time, he can give himself a little squirt of rum. But

it comes in really handy because when Ben is tied up against the wall, when he is stuck in this one moment, he's going to get killed. The guy's like, I'm going to kill you.

But first, let me light a smoke. Now, I didn't see this twist coming.
I didn't think this squirt gun. I did not think this squirt.
I mean, in the moment, I did, but I didn't see it leading up.

The guy's like, before I'm going to kill you, let me take out my cigarette and my Zippo lighter. And he goes to light a cigarette.

But Ben, very quick on the draw, shoots some quick rum at him and lights this guy on fire in the most Hollywood I'm on fire like special effects are amazing like it's like this guy goes up in flames like you like a firestar three squirts from his squirt gun and it engulfs the man in like in like insane flame we should by the way when you say squirt we should be clear it's like such a tiny small stream there's no

yeah

we should work that out like see what would really happen if someone was we should myth myth-buster this? Yeah, myth-buster it. You think we should myth-buster this? All right.

I like that. Get my beret.

You get the beard. You get the beret.
Let's go.

I bet you someone online, if one of our fans wants to make a YouTube video, then I don't think you'll light yourself on. I don't think you'll light yourself online.

All you'll do is put out the cigarette. You'll just put out the cigarette.
You'll put out the rum.

Also, I will say that in this heist, there are more point-blank misses of any movie ever. Because there's only like six characters, so they can't kill each other that much.

And they have to just miss each other non-stop for the entire ending. Then they get a little bit.
I don't know even,

this even goes to show you that it's not even a fun movie because you don't even remember how any of these guys die. Like, I don't remember how Trejo dies.
I don't remember how Trey.

Well, you know, like everybody gets shot. Well, the problem is that everybody dies in Santa suits, so you can't tell who's being killed.
Yes, that is.

So at the end of the movie, everybody's indistinguishable from each other, except for Ben Affleck. And so you have a lot of trouble figuring out who's who.

Like, like the guys in, when they open up the vault room, one of the Sansas gets shot with a shotgun and flies backwards and dies. I'm not sure who that was.
Maybe Danny Trejo or Donald Logue.

Not sure. You don't know.
And that's what it's like.

You're not tied to any of these deaths because I don't fucking get it. Like, who was that? Why did that just happen? So if you...
Any movies.

Where the achievement is that you can't tell the difference between Danny Trejo and Donald Logue? Yeah. That's pretty good accomplishment.

Well, but that's a big part of... Well, I thought it was going to be a huge part of the ending when Ben Affleck said,

when they say to Ben Affleck that Five Santas came into the casino,

so Five Santas need to be dead. Yeah.
But

there weren't Five Santas dead there. No.
Well, what you think, what I thought was going to happen was that Ben Affleck

was that Ben Affleck was going to,

once Nick, once OG Nick got killed,

Ben Affleck should have put his Santa suit on OG Nick and killed him because then Ben Affleck can walk away unscathed, right?

Wait, but by the way, they keep on saying that they blow up, but at the end of the movie, they blow up everybody anyway. They're all on fire.
They don't need to put the Santa suits on anyone.

They're all burnt to a crisp. I don't disagree.
There's like...

And then am I to believe that at the end of this movie, he gives all of the money away in people's mailboxes and then goes to his own family's dinner? And walks away from the window.

When they're in the middle of the day, Angela Santa's.

The movie could have been over so way before that. Oh, yeah.
But they took the time to show you him going to his holiday to watch the ball game with his dad. That was it.
Like his whole dream.

He's still bloodied and in the Santa suit. He's in a bloody Santa suit and he's at home at the head of his kitchen table with this convict.
With a big smile on his face. He's like,

and what his last line is, I know what the holidays mean now. Like he knows.

Learned a lesson. You pointed out some mailboxes.
Yeah.

Yeah. Wait, yeah, the first chunks to change.
Like, he would take all that money and he would like sometimes he would put like one stack of bills and sometimes two. So people should know.

He walks away with the stolen money. Yes.

Right. And now in my mind, I'm like, hey, return that money to the casino because

that tribe was struggling. You know, return that money.
A lot of casino workers were killed. But instead, instead, he robin hoods it and he puts it in just people's mailboxes.

He walks down the street.

But what he should have done. They finally make him likable in the last scene.
But that wasn't likable.

What he should have done, he should have started a fund for all of the families of the casino workers who were killed in that shootout.

He should have started cheering

care of them. I think he should have just either left the money there

and called the police to the scene of the trip. But then it's evidence, Jason.
They can't do anything with it. Doesn't it get won't evidence get returned to the casino?

Guys,

I don't know about that.

He should have done with the money. He should have made those design changes that he was trying to convince them took place place on the casino.
He should take over the casino.

Can I? Did anyone catch the real twist ending of the movie? Oh. So he gets home to his parents' house, and the entire thing was orchestrated by his dad to get him home for Christmas.

So his dad set up his prison roommate to fake his debt.

It was a long-term family con to get him home for Christmas. That's all it was.

It's a movie about family. It makes sense.
Well played, Rudolph's dad.

Rudolph's dad. I believe, whose name is Santa.

No, the whole idea, the reason why he was called Nick was because that was the whole theme of the movie.

Do you believe it's Nick? Do you believe in St. Nick? Yeah.

Hey, can we talk about

he dispatches Charlize Theron? She's on the hood of the car and she goes over the cliff. Yes.
And then now it's time to get rid of the real villain, her brother.

And it's just the same same exact thing. Didn't he just send them over the cliff?

Same two deaths right in a row. Ah, fuck it.
We don't care. We just do it again.
Let's do it exactly.

Oh, well, but no, the difference is the first thing she went over the cliff on the hood of a car. Yeah.
And then the next thing, it's an 18-wheeler that goes over the cliff. Oh, it's a big one.

So it is basically completely different. Okay.
So, shame on you. I did love it.
You need a different license to push those off.

I did like his one lines out. You have to be able to double clutch.
Wait, what did did he go? What did it? Wow, man, I'm going to mess up the line, but I did like it.

He's like, one first rule, never trust a,

never put a car thief behind the wheel. Yeah, that was it.
And I was able to just reverse into the brother or reverse into the

OG Nick, get him, and drive her off the cliff. Oh, it was an anticlimactic ending.
Just seeing Chris fall off a thing exploding. It's like, all right.
Yeah.

The,

is there any, well,

Obviously, we had an opinion about this movie, but it is time to hear some second opinions.

These are reviews called from Amazon.com. Five-star reviews.

This is

five-star reviews. So here, you can agree or disagree with this.
But critics are just pedestrians. These are pedestrians.
These are what America is thinking.

Josh Miller says, Reindeer Games works on so many levels as an action film, it's damn near flawless. flawless.

In fact, I think it is flawless, except for the lame brain twist that was going to throw in at the end. But that didn't ruin it.
So I stick to my five stars.

I'm going to have to start trusting Elmore Leonard a lot more because his mini review on the cover sums up everything well. Reindeer Games rocks.
Oh, really?

He's more accurate than Stephen King has been about certain movies. So that's a guy who's trusting

author mini reviews on a DVD box cover. That's what makes you start liking Elmore Leonard.

Well,

this one is a good one, too.

Amando Mesa writes, even viewers who are not familiar with the previous works of Affleck, Theron, or Sinise will surely change any misconceptions about their underrated acting abilities because I can't figure out how Theron and Affleck turn on the waterworks.

Is it method acting or real emotions? It's incredibly believable. Do they even cry in that? I don't remember them crying.

Gary Sinise can play either good or bad flawlessly. If he's a good character, he's intense.
If he's a bad one, he's super intense. That's how he turns it up.

The only drawback. This is it.
The only drawback. This is a five-star review.
Is that this is the kind of movie where the twists in the story will be fresh in your mind for the next three days.

And then afterwards, you're going to want to analyze the whole thing and and remember it afterwards.

So, that is the drawback. Thinking is the drawback on this movie.

And then, and this one, I just pulled these two.

I don't,

this one is, this one I wouldn't normally read, but it's so, it's a five-star review, and I think it's funny.

Kilmari writes: Sinise is terrific as the deranged wannabe thief once he gets past his hideous reptilian looks.

How many camera lenses did they go through?

Wait,

what?

Is the presumption there that his looks are so bad that he would break camera lenses? Yes. Many.

But he is terrific. He is terrific.
It is a five-star review.

His reptilian looks reptilian looks. He does look a little like a character from V.

And then somebody else just compares a fleck to go.

Affleck is emerging as a star who possesses a commanding screen presence only afforded by older, more distinguished actors such as Sean Connery and Ed Harris.

Therome proves to be the theatrical equal of Marlena Datrick.

So

those are some five-star reviews. Is there anything that we missed? Anything that anyone had written down that we didn't talk about?

Nobody else may buy into this one, but I thought that Nick, the OG Nick,

he reminded me of Todd Berry.

She's like, if Todd Berry.

Kind of a little bit of Todd Berry. I like that.
A little bit of Todd Berry in him.

I'll take that.

I'd actually prefer to see that character played by Todd Berry. He's being good at it because he's like a mastermind.

Yeah, I would have liked to see, like, because I think Todd's energy, his look is similar, but Todd's energy would have nailed that part. He would have brought that wrestler magic to that guy.

I looked at that because I was like, who is that guy? Yeah. And he's been in every TV show.

He's been in everything, but he has never had like a big thing. Well, this could have been it.

Anybody else, anybody else, anything before we wrap it up? Just if the little drummer boy is constantly getting sung by

the Christmas music made me sick in this movie. They ruined the Christmas music, and then there's like sort of upbeat Christmas chamber music at the end.

Which didn't match any part of the movie at all.

It was like a diehard thing. It was like, oh yeah, diehard.
It's like, yeah,

I think it was just like mashing together. They also fired their composer in the middle of this movie.
So half of the music is done by Akiva.

I'll find out.

Two different composers, like James. You know, they had that February 25th deadline.
They had to get it.

Guys, I've got to get this Christmas movie out by February 25th. I thought the pool scene with Charlize and Gary Sinise was very gross.

Where they are revealed to be lovers. She takes your top off.
Great tits on Charlize Theron. I'll say that.
By the way, she's making it quite a few times.

That makeout they share is disgusto.

I thought that was gross. Every makeout in this, everything is gross in this movie.
I mean, makeout-wise. I was very grossed out by it.

I was so intrigued by that hotel, too, because it looked like a Motel 6, but then it had this, like, weird indoor pool area. Yeah, it's like, why did it have that pool? That's too nice.
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. That pool is.
By the way, also, when Ben finds out that Shirley's and

Gary Sneezer are fake dating, like the way he finds out about it is he hears Shirley's yelling, like, hey, get your hands off me, get your fucking hands off me.

And then he goes in and then he finds out, oh, they're going out. But she's like drinking out of a wine glass, and it looked like they were having a romantic interlude.

So it didn't look like they were in the middle of a fight. It seemed like they were just like...
They were drinking wine. They were clearly over it.
Right. Relaxing.
Yeah, they were.

There was some argument. I don't even remember who it took place, but there was a point where he goes, you said he was stabbed.
He took a shiv. Oh, that's what I said he died.

That's how it all becomes revealed.

Who is it? It's Sineese.

She says that to

Affleck. Right.
And then he's like, Affleck's like, wait, how do you know he took a shiv? I never told you that. And then they just keep repeating that.

They keep repeating it back and forth because that's letting Gary Sinece know that he's being double-crossed. And he doesn't, he gets super confused.
That's when she shoots him in the head. Right.

And she goes, oh, men. Okay.
And then she becomes the true cold-hearted bitch that we all knew she was. Yeah, women.
Don't Don't trust women, even though she hates men. She's from South Africa.

Man, oh man.

One more. Please, anyway.
In the beginning, when he's talking to his cellmate in the cell, his cellmate's like reading the letters from Charlize. They're on, and Ben Affleck is exercising.

He's doing push-ups. He's doing push-ups in his wife, Peter.
And then he turns over and he starts doing like sit-ups, but he's just in full conversation as he's doing these weird.

It just seems like, where does he even get the breath to have that conversation?

By the way, I keep on thinking, like, he must have made that, regretted that choice immediately, like, as he's like, take 17. Fuck, like, ugh, like, because he has to really do it in those scenes.

By the way, that's also like a great part of the movie where there should be some, like, witty reparte between these two, like, prison immunes. Nope.
Nothing. None.
Nothing. Very, very stale.

Even though Ben Affleck has told us in voiceover, and that's my best friend, Nick. Yeah.

It's ludicrous. And like, there's a moment even in the beginning where he's like, hey, maybe I should fuck this girl that you want to go fuck.
And that was weird. And he was like, and then the guy.

Also, a really big coincidence that they're being let out on the same day. Yeah, two cellmates.

Because originally I remember thinking, like, oh, they must be in for the same crime. They must have been partners.
And they weren't. They were just cellmates.
No, one guy, that guy killed.

The original G stabbed somebody. Yeah.
Ben Affleck just stole some cars. No big deal.
But that's the way life treats it.

Maybe the ward was like, we'll put you two guys together because you get out on the same day, so there won't be any conflicts yourselves. Well, you know, yeah, it's all about rooms.
I'm not jealous.

There won't be any hidden resentment. Well, because you know, it's so tough to get new roommates in there, too.

Hey, did you Ron Jeremy's in the credits as prisoner number one? I didn't see him in the credits. Whoa, I did not see him in there either.

I didn't see him. Oh, no, his name is Ron Hyatt, prisoner number one, is what it says.
Oh, but it is him, yeah. Ron Hyatt is Ron Jeremy.
That's his aka. Yeah, yeah.
What? Did not know that.

Wow. Hey, I don't know if you guys, you know, the movie Bandits came out around the same time with

Bruce Willis? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, no.
That's the one where he's like having cancer,

him and, oh, man, the guy from

Billy Bob.

Yeah. So I'm not that familiar with this movie, but this kept reminding me of it because it's like just that same era and kind of these sprawling crime

trips. I don't know.
Directed by Barry Levinson, too, like an older director trying to get in on this new like. Yeah.
But I think that one's terrible too, but I'm not sure if it's as bad as as that.

All right, we'll have you back for that then.

Stay tuned for Bandits, 2001's Bandits.

Opening weekend, $13 million,

$80 million budget.

Wow, boy.

This movie was $40 million, and it made $30 million worldwide. Oh, wow.
And all said and done. Wow.
And all said and done.

Did Frankenheimer just pass away or they just said no more for you? That was it. He went to movie jail permanently.

That was his last film.

well would i recommend that you watch this i wouldn't think it's a necessity to see it i think you could pass on it i think if you want to watch that ice fall scene it's pretty good and maybe the end the end is pretty good too um yeah you can watch this is a watch while fast forwarding yes all right so that wraps up reindeer games merry christmas to all those who celebrate it and happy holidays to all those who don't see you in the new year

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