Tom Clancy’s Op Center (1995)

Hello everyone, and welcome back to episode 4 of Clear and Present Dudes. Once again, thank you so much for staying with us over over these last two episodes. I think we're just as surprised as you that we're still here and still doing this, but it looks like we're kind of digging in and making this a regular thing. Want to start this podcast with a few shout outs to all some of our listeners and some of our followers on the social medias. So without, without breaking people's purse act too much.

Thank you very much to Jen from Syracuse, Carl from Cramlington, Jim from Cramlington, Brent from Ontario. Pretty sure it's you who's been listening to it because I know that you've liked a lot of my tweets. Our followers on the on the clear and present dudes Instagram, which is just clear and present dudes. Search for that and find some fun clips and some all that bullshit we have Tom, Daniel, James, Kevin, Felicia. Shout out to Mrs, Mrs Golden Dunbar, of course, Jim again, and the other two members, the clear and present dudes who follow the clear and Present dudes Instagram.

We also have Discord now. We're going to be putting links to the Discord up in the descriptions of the episodes. There's going to be a link on our SoundCloud page, on the Spotify pages, I believe on the YouTube page we're on. We are now actually on all of the major podcast providers we're on not just SoundCloud anymore. We're no longer in the early 2000s. We are on Spotify, Amazon, Apple Podcasts, Podcast Addict. Yeah, and we're on a overcast as well. Yeah. So just to echo Rory there. Thanks for listening.

If you've got a spare 2nd and you've enjoyed what you've heard so far, please be free to to rate the show and you can pop a little review or something in there that really, really helps boost the algo. That just means, you know, a lot of podcasts, they they're good on the whole pass your route straight away. We don't want to do that. We're we're quite keen to just build a follow in, keep it free, keep it fun, keep it breezy. But we would like an excuse to do more episodes and stuff, and a big relationship would help us justify that, I think, to ourselves.

Absolutely that that commanding of a Serial voice you just heard there was my old friend and podcast and colleague Mike Dunbar. And also with us tonight we have. And also with us tonight, we have Sanya Bjokson. Hi. And hello, Mike. I had a whole bit planned. I was going to, I was going to do an impression of that, that little coffee guy from OP Centre. But do it. Again, we'll do it again. No, we'll do it again. Let's just move on. No, we're we're going to make, we're going to fucking do it again.

OK, So yes. And as you just heard, my friend there just want to introduce to you Mike. Right and wrong. That was it. That was a little bit right and wrong. Government is about power.

The United States of America is about power. Why? Jesus Christ. Keep it locked through this podcast to find out the most unhinged character of this very fucking unhinged film. And hello, Sonia Bjergsom. Oh hello, what do you mean you've almost lost another member of the podcast?

Gains. Represent a clear and present danger national security of the United States. You have no idea what meant. Before we get too deep into Op Centre and this this bizarre little thing Rory O'Toole, I thought maybe we could take some time to talk about something else you've been filling our group chat with, which is an informal book club you've started from Saint Tom of France's The Bear and the Dragon. Would you like to give the listeners a little rundown on what that's all about 1. 100% so I've decided because I am a masochist and can't hear people put cigarettes out on me anymore.

I've I've started reading the Bear and the Dragon, which is which is I believe it's one of the last books that's in Thomas O Clancy fully wrote himself. He was balls deep in a divorce. He was quite tired of everything and this book is weird. It's massive. For a start, I'm actually listening to the audio book on my daily commuter work and it's it's 37 hours long, unabridged. It's read by a guy who every time he does a non American accent he sounds a little bit racist. Such an interrupt man. But just look to some context.

I had a look online and the unabridged Silmarillion audiobook is 19 hours. The the book itself is over 1000 pages. It's we're deep into Stephen King territory. The the plot is crazy. It's, it's, it's weird man. So if, if you do any just brief reading about it, if you do any quick Google about it or lock on social media like like Reddit or whatever, you'll essentially see a lot of people in the subreddit non credible defence talking about how insane the plot is, how it involves the war between China and Russia.

Russia joins NATO. There's a discovery of massive amounts of natural resources in Russia, which makes which is going to make the country very rich. And this makes China essentially try and do a land grab. Apparently it so I'm told the first like 1100 pages are just conversations, politicking, economics, President Jack Ryan simply at this point saying things that Saint Thomas of Clancy would have done if if he was president. And it gets weird, It gets awkward.

Tom Clancy writing sex scenes is it's kind of fucked. There's there's, there's this, there's this subplot. What's up? Well, you can't call it a subplot on a Tom Clancy. But kind of because everything's like in there's all these like tangled webs of a million plots that are all super valid. Like there's no real Bay plot and everything's just an air plot and it's all jammed together. So there's this Japanese American CIA officer who's working in China and he's, he's he's called Chest and Mori, and he seduces this Chinese secretary.

This this, this lady who's the secretary to someone in whatever their version of the Politburo is. I can't remember now. And the sex scenes, just ridiculous, man, because like, it's not graphic, but the pillow talk is fucking really bad. I'm not even going to attempt to do the voice because it was making me sound racist. Yeah. Don't do that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but she's talking about how small the the minister who bangs as penises, right? And and obviously she doesn't fur and therefore the chest.

And the more he's got, he always thinks he's got a hog and she's like better a better a sausage than a string bean. And and then after another, after another escapade, she literally refers to him as master sausage. And I find that deeply upsetting. I find it deeply upsetting this is not what you go to Tom Clancy novel for. It's not, it's not, it's not. There's sequences in which President Jack Ryan, I mean, this can be very fucking controversial and, and for good reason, because at one point Jack Ryan's like, I think we should just repeal Roe versus Wade just to overturn Roe versus Wade.

Because the only thing that's going to happen is that it's going to go back to the states, to the side. And it's like, fuck sake. Wow. I'm not surprised, right? I'm not surprised that that obvious. Obviously, President Jack Ryan's base is probably going to be pretty red, right? I'm not. I'm not expecting him to be like Josiah Bartlett in The West Wing. Yeah, he's a fucking opposite, isn't he? Yeah, really. But like, he's obviously going to be like one of those well meaning good Republicans that you see occasionally in The West Wing that don't exist at the minute.

But in theory could, could have done one day. I don't know. Not my country, not my, not my. That's not my monkeys. Not my farm, not my pigs. But right, you know that that doesn't surprise me, but I am surprised that Tom Clancy is weighing in on this issue. And I'm kind of surprised that that Jack Ryan feels is even even tracking these kind of things because like, I, I, I right. Jack Ryan to me strikes me as as a really good like foreign secretary or, or really good like Secretary of State kind of guy.

But I don't know if he's, but I just don't know if he cares about domestic issues to put himself at the, at the very pinnacle, the top job. Yeah. I mean, it'd be a good sector if he wouldn't get his Dick dump and kill kill, you know, hookahs that he's that he's banging your.

And and he certainly wouldn't do the stupid shit that the president in this film does. There's a significant amount of book of stuff in the book that's unnecessary. The last thing that I will say that dates the book is late 90s is that a couple of police officers in Saint Petersburg pull a couple of dead bodies out of the river. There's this bizarre kind of in a monologue when one of the detectives is looking at this body and he's like, oh, his, his, his features were twisted much like a gross distortion of a Pokémon.

Oh man, that's better than I hoped to be. I thought you were gonna have like a Tamagotchi or something in them. Yeah, it's like, Oh my God, Borgia Moi. This Tamagotchi, it's not feeding three days. Vasily, this Tamagotchi is not being fed in three days. It's starving. Yeah, so is my family, Yvonne. So is my fucking family. I have sent my Tamagotchi to gulag. He has the twisted features of Bulbasaur, the Garlic Pokémon. The the Imperialist Bulbasaur. I mean British Britishness eyebrows would have been right there as a comparison for something weird and twisted.

Oh. God, that's brilliant. Yeah, I'll, I will. I will update you on having seen the book that's. I'm very. I'm looking forward to that, but I'm going to go back and pretend that we had a segue. What have I told you guys? What have I told you guys? That somewhere in a bunker deep under Washington, DC, there's an OPS room. And in that OPS room, there's a ragtag band of civil servants made-up of APR consultant, A psychologist, several nerds, and they're all headed up by Brigadier General Apollo Creed.

An OPS room where they're poised to deal with the most complex, fluid greys and activities that erupts all over the world. An OPS room with near limitless resources and spotless Elint and Humant and Singant and the incredible abilities of throw sixes with every roll of the dice. Well gents, I just described not an OPS room, but an OPS Centre, which is either the name of the room or the unit or the mission in this Saint Thomas of Trancy adjacent, if not penned by TV movie The Yeah, it is 1995. The Soviet Union has disbanded.

Tensions remain between the hardline old guard and the moderate oligarchs stepping in to make hay. And in this, the fun blend of hardline KGB who also want to make a quick buck by selling nuclear warheads and putting them into the open market. It's a big threat. And who's going to stop them? Why, the OP centre, of course. But wait, the Op Centre has just received a new director, a Lily livid leftist snowflake who wants to downsize the military and spend all that save money on education and hospitals like some kind of pinko commie.

How will they do it? Well, new director Paul Hudd is just going to roll up his sleeves and actually be really great at doing it for some reason. We are of course discussing a 1995's Op Centre ATV movie, initially A4 part miniseries, and it hasn't gained maybe a lot of critical praise, but is there a Primetime Emmy for sound editing? It was directed by Lewis Teague, director of Navy Seals Cujo. And and I just learned this guys, we have a connection to Meteor, if you can believe it, because he directed Avalanche in 1978, which the footage of the Avalanche bit was was stolen from.

Everything's far too connected. That was that was a freaking random image generator as well, right? OK. It stars Harry Hamlin, Kim Cattrall, Wilford Brimley, Carl Weathers, Mia Korff, and Ken Howard, and an incredible lineup of that guys and those women that you'll have seen on TV in the 90s and naughties, either dating Fraser Crane, holding minor political office in The West Wing, or being interviewed about a murder by Adrian Monk. Let's take a look at the trailer. From the international superstar author of The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, The Sum of All Fears, creator of this year's worldwide #1 bestseller Dead of Honour, and the most significant box office match, Clear and Present Danger.

All these good movies, the Tom and Boost the Office. In the little known Ukrainian village of Derishnaya, the world's worst nightmare becomes terrifying reality. Priority one Flash 3 RPS have been stolen. He's going to mute me by the TGB guards. They're loading him onto heavy trucks. Halfway around the world, one man, Paul Hood, will find himself matching wits with ruthless killers. As Hood and his team move into a state-of-the-art operations centre in Washington, military forces on three continents rushed to alert.

But a White House reporter will stop at nothing to bear the truth. The truth Governments are determined. In a desperate gamble at a top secret military base, a team of Special Forces troopers, codenamed Linebacker prepares for a seaborne assault. Now everything depends on the split second timing of two attacks, 2 continents apart. We got something. He's going in. Turn the linebacker loop signal to six plates. Attack 10 seconds to target.

FBI young arrest. From filmmaker Lewis Teeth, director of Jewel of the Nile, with a dazzling cast of international stars Harry Hamlin, Kim Cattrall, Lindsay Frost, Carl Weathers, Wilfred Brimley, Rod Steiger, John Savage, Ken Howard, Deidre Hall, Kabir Badi and Bo Hopkins. Off Centre. A new world of adventure, a new world of passion, a new world of intrigue, a new world of excitement on the cutting edge of technology and courage as a combined task force roars into battle against a nuclear armed enemy who has a world to win and nothing to lose.

Tom Clancy's Op Centre will be the worldwide entertainment event of 19. 99, It wasn't for entertainment event of 1995. It's a Before we get into the impressions for this, it's worth everyone knowing that that Tom Clancy's op centre is the title. It was written by somebody else. It's called Tom Clancy's OP Centre. I mean, I, I when I was younger, because now I've I've read, I remember having in my hands at least two of the Tom Clancy's OP Centre books.

I've read them. I can't remember a single thing from them at the time. I I was kind of hoping that, you know, hoping against. So maybe, maybe, maybe these are kind of partially written by Tom Clancy, like a kind of Roman's kind of thing. But no, he clearly just signed off on them and and they just got some some dude to write them. So the trailer. Yeah. Like bombards you with a lot of books that are actually good, a film that's actually good and it it does also show you what might have been an interesting scene that's been cut out.

There's a scene when when the linebacker unit are are in a hangar and you see there's like there's like like the kind of plan of a ship that's like marked out on the floor, isn't it? So like obviously they've been doing some kind of building the inside of the ship so we can move through and know how to do all the CQB and stuff. Which I mean, in fairness, it's it actually tracks the removed because the sake you obeyed during the ship scenes is fucking dog shit, man. It's exactlyable. It's so bad.

I was, I was, I was upset you spaghetti at the whole thing. Once again, the quality of the video is so bad. They've managed to sneak actual breasts into a video on YouTube. But it doesn't get taken down for adult content, right? Yeah, I mean, I mean, they also get onto the one that I watched, but I didn't even realise. I mean, there's about 3 pixels in the whole thing. If if, if the by the way, I should say that the film I'm going to call it that is is available on YouTube. If you just search for OP centre film, you'll find it it it's an incredibly low definition.

If it had any less pixels, it would be radio. There's there's there's there's gun camera footage from embattled BF1O Nines in World War 2 that has sharper resolution than than than this. There are cartel execution videos that are more polished, definitely more polished in this film. There's probably snuff films in the 1960s that are way more fucking high def. It's it's painful. It's painful to watch. There's cutscenes on mid 90s full motion video horror games that are about on the level of this.

As you said that because there's there are, there's more than one occasion on this film where Wilfred Brimley is talking back into a camera and it's given big VGA. Like Gabriel Knight. That's AF and V cutscene energy. Big big big command and conquer alert to vibes. They've taken the weapons from Derish Schneider. It's up to you commander to recover them like. So so so so like Wilford Brimley's like I'm going to the one place and not polluted by liberalism. Ohio, You. Could probably add like Bigfoot running around in the background throughout the film and you wouldn't even notice.

Maybe did.

It's like, I mean, to be honest, the research about the geography of Ukraine's fucked up enough that they could easily throw a Bigfoot into there as well. It's like, Oh my God, I've, I've, I've got bones to pick about the whole Nikolayev thing. I, I've seen the floor. I've. Seen the floor to the gentleman from Newcastle, I suppose, I suppose I suppose what I'll do is I'll give a little a little summary of the beginning. I kind of did it earlier, but in a basically what it is is there's a new inexperienced political appointee guy director called Paul Hood who gets appointed the head of this supposedly obsolete National Crisis Management Centre.

This is Wikipedia with an eye to downsizing it. And then no sooner is he introduced around by the NCMC's Deputy Director Preview General Mike Rogers, played by Apollo Creed. Then he's in the middle of a crisis, rogue KGB unit hijacks 3 Ukrainian based nuclear warheads and tries to sell them to the Middle East. And then the National Security Adviser, Vice Admiral Troy Davis, split by Wilford fucking Brimley, orders orders 1st and the up centre to look at the warheads, verify the location and prepare a viable recovery plan.

Which all sounds really reasonable and quite easy to achieve from a set of bunker on the other side of the planet. So right off the bat, the film tries to familiarise us with the OPS sensor and gives you like a vibe of these guys. So like the very first scene, it's like you're in there and they're all going like, oh, who have you seen who the new the new guy is? You've seen Paul Hood and they're like all the ladies are looking at a picture of him. Like, Oh my God, he's he's quite a dish. And like all the guys are like, oh, this guy wants to downsize the military.

He's not good. They're going to turn this place into a video rental store, blah, blah, blah, blah. And, and basically they think they're too fucking cool for school and that he's a himbo, but they are fundamentally not cool people. Like they are all dweebs. Even the women are dweebs. Like they're all really dweeby. Big dweeby energy coming off all these guys. They're total, they're tall nerds less than nerds because nerds would add value. I mean, what are your thoughts on the team broadly speaking?

Sonia, do you want to go first since you've just literally watched the film about half an hour ago so it's very fresh in your mind. It's like you watching it at 1.5 times speed to fit it in. No, not to fit it in to make it bearable. Wait to throw me under the bus, Rory. What, Like they mostly registered? Registered is a bunch of nerds. What? Well, at least the women were made to deem unreasonably horny for some reason, I think. And everyone's just like, what's this guy doing here? And the guy himself seems like he doesn't know even I think that's like the, the, the main vibe of the, the introduction to the thing.

It's just walking around like, what am I doing? Who are these people? And all the people are like, Oh my God, the new guy. What is the new guy doing here? I, I, I don't feel like there, there, there's a lot going on in there actually in, in terms of, I know, plot, whatever. Yeah, like, OK, so. Big breath, right? First of all, he's, he's probably not. He's probably not even. He's probably not even not liberal. Yeah, yeah. I mean, he's liberal compared. So you're saying he's OP centrist? Nice. I mean let's face it, he's like a screaming shit Lib compared like holding blood feast Republican I 113 years old.

It just wants to bomb Iraq. Yep, yearns to smell blood, but no, every fucking I'm sighing like a parent who's let down by a stupid child. And I'm not talking about a child that's like occasionally dumb. I'm talking about a child that like just like keeps keeps trying to seal himself inside the microwave because he thinks it's going to like teleport him to Barbados or something. I feel like, I feel like the parent of a really fucking powerfully stupid child that like shots himself in the fridge daily because he saw Andrew Tate talk about it.

And if everyone in this film is fucking useless, nobody in this film makes oh right. Fucking hell. These these, these are fundamentally unserious people. Nothing matters. Nothing. Nothing fucking matters. Nothing makes sense. Nothing. Ever. Happens nothing. Nothing makes. Nothing makes fucking sense at all. None of the things these people do or say make sense. They don't react or act like normal people. It's like everybody in this film has been given a little bit of exposure to carbon monoxide. Not enough to kill them, but enough to give them a mild headache and like end up like writing notes to themselves and forgetting them and thinking someone else is living in the house as bad as fuck.

I think the root cause for this, I think, I think I know what you talk about, right is, is they've written it in such a manner that they want it to appear really busy. Like this room is a place where a lot of stuff happens, except there's not that much to talk about, OK, because they're, they're only handling 1 issue and people have to talk one at a time as well. Otherwise you can't hear it on a, on a movie. So what they do is they they move the camera around like it's really early version of shaky Cam like like this is what Paul Greenhouse would do with like Bourne later.

It's just a big bubbly camera around a room where everyone's just sitting around the table and they're all just chipping in there like 2 penneth worth like about the issue, like just saying like non sequiturs. And some of it sticks and some of it just drifts off and you don't. And it's just like it's like wet cake. You just don't. It just drifts away and like it's so weird, but they they avoid overtalking with each other, but they're all talking towards the same thing. So you have you're in this weird situation where you've got like these guys who are not adding any value.

There's no analysis going on. They somehow just know things inherently as if the people who are in that room might just happen to be like walking encyclopaedias for what's going on in the world right now. Everywhere. There's no, there's no research going on. There's no intelligence being brought in, analysed and then approach coming out. There's there's no, there's no intelligence cycle there just no stuff. And then it ends up being like this kind of weird midwich cuckoo hive mind thing where they just all together coalesce the planet out of thin air and it just happens to be the entire first what?

How long is it? It's an hour and 56 minutes. I would say the first hour and 30 minutes is just that those guys doing that over and over again. It's and some of the bits and bobs that happen around the sides, but that is crazy. Yeah. None of them add value. They're all they're also so that the make up of the team, right, Just for everybody who hasn't watched it. And if for some reason is listening to this is like the the make up of the team is they have, they have a psychologist for some reason, they've got a, a media and congressional liaison who it's essentially it's a PRO.

And like she's in like knuckle deep into the into like the, the OPS M3 picture, which is insane. And then you've got Lowell coffee, my favourite character, a lawyer who is literally insane. His special move is to wait until a plan is is fully hashed out and briefed before jumping in and mentioning what the legal constraints are. He's he's your, he's your overthrow democracy first, ask questions kind of later kind of guy. You got him. And then you've got you've got a a economic and political adviser, and her job is literally just to wring her hands and look worried the entire highway through or to say useless things like, oh, the boss, this isn't Turkey.

Yeah, man, Yeah. Cool. Thank you. This is the kind of stuff they just do. Yeah. And then. And then at the top of it all, you've got, you've got Apollo Creed, who's the Brigadier General who plays it with the energy of like a middle school football coach who's just trying to keep these kids, like, from running into each other and just, like, play a nice. And he has to, like, raise his voice once or twice. But most of it is just him, like releasing this this over talking situation, standing up at the front and occasionally throwing out a mission name, mission designation, touchstone.

OK, cool. OK, pal. Like it's also nits to pick with the introduction of Director Hood for a start. They're all really well, It's probably a fucking axe, man, right? I mean, I mean, it's a goddamned liberal who's who's, who's going to come and the shit Lib is going to close the place down, right? Women aren't going to get horny for this dude. I'm not a knower of women, but no, no one's going to be excited about a guy who's joining, join, joining an organisation to shut it down. So these chicks aren't going to be like fucking Oh my God, God, I can't be smash them.

It's like, no, it's like, I mean, he's, he's, he's going to fuck your careers. You know, you can, you can all of a sudden be laid off from the NCMC and you know what, what are you going to do after that? This could be bad for your career progression. You've just been sacked from this outdated Cold War bullshit thing, which is in itself a really fucking stupid concept. Like Oh my God, the Cold War zoo of our crises won't happen ever. Yeah. I mean, you have collectively done that for like 30 years, but.

But but, but halfway though, so, so, so just just like real worlds. Just like the real world. Tom Clancy also had the problem with when the Cold War finished, he didn't know who the bad guy was anymore. And he couldn't, he couldn't, he couldn't rally around a good clear bad guy. And that's kind of where we are at in global politics, isn't it? Like. Actually pretty. Much like that's, that's that's why we keep talking about the grey zone activity and we don't know who the bad guy is. And it's counterinsurgency and counterterrorism and it's not state on state conflict anymore because we haven't got an adverse superpower to, to to bat against until obviously, obviously there's a land war happening in Europe right now with Russia at the head of it.

But it's like, but me, is it actually like the top of the new cycle every day? It's not, is it? Yeah, you're right. It's not. You know, it's as well how the whole plot is like, oh, the OP centres uses it. I hate calling it the OP centre as well. It's a silly fucking name. The NCMC is useless. Nothing happens. It's very much it nothing ever happens dot JPEG. Yet when Paul Hood's getting introduced round people are taking phone calls. People are doing things. This is before the terrorist and I incident happens.

People are taking phone calls. The the is, is the psychologist who's who says something really weird to someone on the phone, like mess, mess, mess, mess with my body, not my brain or something like that. And then she's like, I don't believe the guy got the number wrong because he was dyslexic. It's like, wow, wow, man. And like, so people are answering phones, people are doing things and it's like it looks, it looks busy. It's just. But it looks very sort of performative busy, doesn't it? Like that same shrunk, they try so hard to make everyone look really preoccupied, but they introduce them 1 by 1.

So you just get the the impression that nothing's actually happening. It's like everyone's like, I am so busy and, and the second he's passed, everyone runs to the next office. Like Oh my God, have you seen the new guy? It seems very performative. It's it strikes me if it's, if it's the National Crisis Management Centre, you think it would be dealing And clearly his remit is like geopolitical defence facing stuff, right? It's not, it's not like FEMA, it's not dealing with like forest fires or shit like that, you know, or, or hurricanes or anything.

It's dealing with like international incidents of a military nature. That that to me seems like something that you would have like a watchkeeper at and then you would surge when something kicked off. It wouldn't be like open all the time with like, it's like 40 odd guys in there right now. Like I'm watching it in my picture. In picture it's like 40 odd guys like like coming out, taking phone calls, looking at maps and stuff like what do they do every day? Consume massive amounts of coffee first and foremost.

Massive amounts of budget as well. Maybe that's the reason why Paul Hood's been sending. They'd be the axe man, not. Exactly slashing burn baby. I mean, I wonder if all these telephone calls that they're taking and making or actually I'm just like fucking pretending like, oh shit, look busy, you know? It's like, hey, play with my mind, not my body. I bet they are calling each other actually. Fucking are actually Jesus, that's that's exactly what's going on. I love the introduction of Lowell coffee the lawyer when he's introduced as far as it WCDL we can't do that legally, which I found actually quite funny.

There's there's there's there's not many. I mean it's not a film was designed to be funny, but I got a bit of a chuckle out with the WCDL thing and when he just yeah yeah. And when he introduces himself as I got Lowell coffee from old boy blue blood and something else. And and it's funny because he's like saying, Oh, you know, well, I'm a netball baby. I'm I'm fucking incredibly white bread lawyer and, and I'm basically Patrick Bateman. And he becomes Patrick Bateman quite quickly later on in the film.

You kind of give him the idea that the lawyer's meant to be the kind of common liberal kind of end of things. I think on you, like you said, the guy who says you can't do that, you can't do that. And then he's like, am I wrong? In America, it's about power. Yeah, you know. I've got, I've got that down as my favourite quote. Yeah, that whole that, that whole breakdown that he has. That's the best quote of the film. But you're right, because like, you know, you would think, you would think that the Brigadier General would be the guy who's the most worey and is after causing trouble.

Yeah. But no, it's I was the guy who's like, hey, director. Like, I want to. I want to crack some heads open. Yeah, he's crazy. Like, I mean, like, I mean, I think what happened is the Lowell intern for Senator Holden Blood feast when Holden blood feast was just young 70 year old senator still yearning for blood in the deaths of Iranians. I mean the, I mean the Brigadier generally even like kind of when, when when Paul Hood's like, Oh, well, I, well, I, well, I didn't support Vietnam and March against it.

You know, he's like, yeah, good, cool America freedom to do that, man. And you would, you would expect, like you said, you'd expect the roles to be reversed. You'd expect him to be the the war hawk. It's it's one of the few, I think fucking there's very, very few bits of writing that like, yeah, OK, that's actually kind of cool that, you know, the Brigadier General is not a I'm a hardcore pipe hitter who went a bit crazy in the jungles of Vietnam and now everyone's my enemy kind of guy, you know?

He's yeah, he gives the energy of a guy who's towards the end of his time, he's topped, he's topped out where he is. Maybe he's maybe he's eyeing up a Korean politics after it, who knows? But yeah, he's pretty happy where he is. He's got his team, the civil servants go deal with fine, I'll do this for two or three years if I have to, and then I'll move on. It's fun what you say though, because like that we described is probably the best bit of writing in the whole thing. Unfortunately, that happens in the first.

Let me just check. Yeah, it happens in the 1st 11 minutes of the of the thing. So, so unfortunately we've got another 110 minutes to go. This, this this this film peaks in high school. Yeah, big time. So there's some there's some plot elements that I think we should, I don't want to go for the whole thing, but I think there's some plot elements that I think we should we should recap just just because they're so, so mad and they take up so much oxygen from the thing as well. So there's a there's AB plot, there's there's 2B plots or AB and AC plot that that take a lot of bandwidth in this that I think we should probably cover.

And they probably had a bit more time in the mini series, I guess. But they've got too much time, I think now in this when they bit it into ATV movie. So the first one is Paul Hood's marriage. So he's married to Kim Cattrall. They give her absolutely no character whatsoever apart from that she doesn't quite understand what his job is or why it's significant or what his working hours would be like. So her, so her job is to be like the angry wife, which is a terrible rule and doesn't really use her talents whatsoever.

No, no, no humour, no, no charisma whatsoever. She's just an angry woman which is beneath, beneath her I think. So that is given a lot of attention and the way they do that is they are actively surveilling her whilst Paul's pretty much in the same room and they're checking out her door. She's taking these visitors. There's one visitor in particular. Everyone leaps to the conclusion that it's an affair, but it turns out it's a divorce lawyer where she's already, like, engaging the services of just because she doesn't understand the nature of his job, that he's literally just started.

Like, it's like, literally, we moved to Washington and you're so distant. It's like it's my first day.

You can see what I mean when I say this is like if Tommy Wassow wrote a techno thriller. Oh yeah. Nothing fucking makes sense at all. Like Paul Hood's met with this like career wrist Beltway guy, this Korea civil servant and all of a sudden she was like, oh, well, you know, you don't do anything. I said, well, you know, he does fucking something. You know, like she actually refers to it as a make work job. And it's like, you know, either either either Paul's telling her it's a make work job to like cover himself, which is silly because he's punched above his weight already with Kim Cattrall.

He's clearly keeping us so incredibly in the dark that she thinks he's up until Zero Dark dipshit hours everyday making photocopies and salmon faxes. I mean, it doesn't make sense. But before that fight? No one in this film makes sense, yeah. They they go to like, well, she goes. He he can't attempt because he's busy working. She tends to function, but she's photographed with the president so like she knows he has a real job. Exactly, It's crazy. It's actually like a normal fucking human would realise that they would make the connections between I'm I'm in the social circle of the fucking president.

My husband has a civil service job when I don't see much of him. He's obviously not, you know, in, in, in charge of stationary ordering. You know, I mean, if anything, the less your partner would tell you, the more you'd think, holy fucking shit, man. This is, this is some real shit. You know, this is like Black Ops, mate. If you know, you know. So she gets actively surveilled, They find out the information that she's, she's like having these appointments with this guy. There's this weird bit of hand wringing between like one of the off centre guys and the psychiatrist Pam Bluestone, which we haven't talked about yet.

So there's a, well you mentioned earlier on, there's a psychiatrist Pam Bluestone, played by Lindsay Frost, who has definitely been in Frasier. And she's, she's actively involved for reasons I don't understand. Because surely her her energy should be spent on trying to figure out or use some kind of profiling to figure out who the KGB is going to sell these these nukes to anyway. Weirdly, she seems to be actively trying to like steal poor Hood for herself, which which is mental. Like guys, this is like one week and you've just met him.

It's terrible. It's absolutely terrible. She she is an absolutely terrible person. I mean, she she absolutely from from again, the do the weirdest kind of written and directed by Tommy Russell kind of shit. Like when when, when she goes out with them for drinks and then they go back to our flat and they're sitting on the fucking living room floor eating pizza, listening to jazz music through individual headphones or what I've had them. It's jazz music. Or I think it might be. Head Blues. It's all Blues music.

It's all Blues. Yeah. They're listening to it through fucking like, separate headphones. And he's like, huh, It's been logged out as I did this. And it's like it gives you the idea that she was kind of like mind fucking meant to fall in love with that, which is which is a gross violation of our medical training. And also, again, weird. It doesn't make sense. This is the kind of thing that Tommy was so would put in if he was right in this Lisa. I love this pizza party with the individual headphones.

You want some funny Lisa? So crazy. He's looking at the back of a record label and he's going, they don't do like this anymore. Whatever happened to this guy? And she just kind of just goes like a really flat voice died. It's unhinged. Yeah, it's crazy. And the best bit about that, that whole sequence actually, is that she's the one who gets profiles because they make a phone call looking for and they ring her flat knowing that she's put the moves on him. Yeah. Oh yeah, Pam. Pam will be. Pam will be deep into him now, I guarantee you.

Ring Pam, you'll be there. I think, I think Pam has got the reputation, which is like going through all the new starters. I mean, you've got to ask what happened to the last director of the NCMC? They had to move on somewhere else because there was there was some Palm instance. There's always, there's always the Palm instance. And it's terrible because because as well, oh, you know, she like, oh, if, if, if you like, not like Sheikh knows how world leaders are thinking. It's like most of the public statements made by world leaders are written by speech writers.

You're not going to be able to fucking like psychoanalyse a world leader by some speech written by some of that dude, right? It's like, but that's us. Maybe this is maybe and probably not. Maybe, maybe not in 1995. Fair one. No, no, no. Now people are governed by tweet so. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Concerning SO. Looking into it.

So that storyline gets way too much attention. There's like a couple of fights with with computer trial. There's mentioned several times of of Paul's children who we never see but. We have them on the phone once, don't we? That's right. And we've seen them at the very end, actually in the last scene, but like the rest of the whole thing, they're talked about, they're not seen, they're not heard, but it's evident that they're probably being neglected. It's only a week I. Feel like left on the car of the housekeeper who also isn't in the house all day.

Yeah, Kim Control threatens to go back to Cleveland, where they've come from. Yeah, but specifically, she says she's not taking the kids. I'll come back for my children. And it's like, yeah, the the film does a very good job of making I look incredibly unreasonable. She's they're called wearing a fur coat when she says that as well. It's not like. Yeah, I mean, Sandy, do you find any of these people in this film likeable? No.

They all seem just unremarkable really. Yeah, the the deeply we had people who seem to be governed by having one particular strange fucking quirk like Pam Pam Pam bluestones essentially a main fucking sexual harasser without without office pals. The lawyer guy is Patrick Bateman. He's always a ball hair away from just like 1776 baby. And of course, what is the dude's name? Well, there's one more guy. There's Wilford Brimley, who's The Who was the who's the only likeable guy in this is in my mind.

Yeah, yeah. So like nobody who works in the NCMC is likeable. Bob Herbert, the National intelligence officer, He's, he's just like, there's just that incredibly cliche, oh, he's in a wheelchair, so he's miserable kind of thing. Oh, yeah, it's John Savage's character. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, does does every OPS room, by the way, have to have a wheelchair guy? Is that a thing? No way out, Lee. Yeah. He was cool. He was cool as fuck. I liked him. I mean he was cool as fuck. The guy in no way out. He was mint and this guy was like, oh, look at me, I'm really pissed off to my wife guy.

He's like, fuck sake, it's like these people are crude ass fucking pencil sketches compared with if it was actually Tom Clancy, characters that have like more depth to them and more like kind of intelligence put into creating them and stuff like that. I mean, like, obviously Mike, you and I have now read a fair bit of Hood product, but you find out a significant fucking amount about Marco Ramius, don't you? It's incredible. Exceeds. Exceeds the movie, definitely. Yeah, yeah. Like, like, I mean, he's not raised by his grandfather.

He's raised by some fishermen that he hangs around with while his dad's working. And I like how they, I like how it makes clear that his dad's called Alexander and the and the fisherman's called Sasha. So basically they're both called Alexander, but the fisherman's the cool dad who lets you use his nickname. Yeah. And you got nothing with this. Like I said, I've I've, I've read up Santa books. I'm fucking sure about. I can't remember Dick from them. So I, I know you've got, you've not got that Tommy C granularity of characters, you know.

Yeah, absolutely. The other big point point I wanted to talk about, which was that gets way too much bandwidth, is the the internal drama with the president being like the biggest insider threats to US security ever because he's having that torrid affair with the journalists, Kate Michaels, played by Deidre Hall. And he literally leaves like top secret papers lying around in the hotel room while they're having their affair. And the whole affair is like becomes like probably about half of the main effort of, of the opposite.

Who in the middle of this crisis deliberately misinformed the president in order to trace the leak from him directly to Mossad? And then which is mental. And then and then the culmination of it is they tell Wilford Brimley what they've done and prove it to him. And he's like, OK, I'll deal with this. He just storms into the Oval Office and just dresses the president down in front of he's like close advisor because because the president's like, oh, he can stay. Anything you can say to me, you can say in front of whatever.

His name? No, mate. And he's like, oh, all right, then I will then like stop shragging Kate Michaels and and leaving papers lying around and telling her where the nukes are, because I don't. I can't believe I have to say this to you. One, you're married. 2. She's a reporter, like Mental. One life, one wife. I love it. That's. It yeah. One life, one wife. That's what I always say. Who, who, who who Who brings classified documents to sex date? Let's smoking. Ridiculous. In in the first place. Yeah, again, very, very, very, very 45th, 47th.

President, Not once have I seen a naked woman. You know what would prove there's a big red stamp? Yeah, it's like, it's like, oh, well, that was awesome sex as aftercare. I'm going to show you some photos of the Natanz nuclear facility. Come come with me into my It's my Mara Lego toilet where I have books upon boxes upon boxes full of TS papers and McDonald's well. It's like, hey baby, that was so good, man. But you know what else is good? The Caterpillar drive. Let's look at pictures. Would you like to see my Satan?

Holy shit. Again, yes, the President makes stupid fucking decisions like everybody else in this thrice accursed film. Nobody makes a smart decision really, apart from Wilfred Brimley who makes a very smart decision to thin the President out in front of his fucking hench men. And Wilfred Brimley should should have been the president. Wilfred Brimley is switched on. I see that as a viable coup for him going forward as well. Like, like, he seems pretty switched on. He's not going back into the movie, is it?

I mean, he's a Vice Admiral, but he's not. He's not. He's not getting bordership again. So yeah, why not? Can I just give a shout out to Ken Howard who plays It's another movie where the president is just called the President. But give me give a shout out to Ken Howard. He's he's he's my pick for that guy in the movie. He doesn't really bring the juice apart from apart from when he's getting dressed down by Wolf of Brimley. And you see he's a really tall guy, but you see him shrink into like a little child version of himself being dressed down like, yes, OK, yes, no, OK.

And that's incredible.

But I need to, I need to shout him out because he is the CEO of UN, Don Jeffries in the movie Michael Clayton. So he's the guy at the end of that climactic scene where he asks George Clooney who he is. He was like, is this man bothering you? Oh, I don't know. Am I bothering you? And he's like, who are you? He turned and then George Clooney turned around and goes, I'm Sheila, the God of death. Amazing. And he's saying it. He's saying it to the president in OP Centre. And that and that is, and that's really cool to me.

He's also going to 30 Rock and Curb. And this was the one I didn't tell you about. He's also in Clear and Present Danger. Yeah, he's on. He's on the senatorial. So, you know, when Harrison Ford's Jack Ryan is saying, I give you my word, there are no soldiers in South America. And then it smashed cuts to soldiers in South America. It's. Don Jeffries, he's accidentally lying to it's it's Ken Howard, it's the president. So yeah. So how to have to have to give him a shout out? Yeah, he's, he's, he's just a terrible, shitty, bumbling president.

And it's like. He's Clinton. He's meant to be Clinton, isn't he? He's thinking with his Dick. Yeah, I would say at least Clinton kept it relatively in house at least. Clinton was fucking like an intern, wasn't he? I mean, was she an intern or was she like a press secretary or something? If this was written by a competent writer who wasn't channelling Tommy was. So the the leak would have come from lower down. It would have been the secondary defence or or, or or or or or somebody or or somebody in the office of, you know, national intelligence or whatever.

Someone in the intelligence community would be the leak. It wouldn't be the fucking president because it's stupid as. Shit, do you like, it'd be like the assistant, like a deputy director or something, somebody who wants to prove how cool they are to their date, like by going, oh, have you heard about this? Do do, do, do, I can tell you about this because like, oh, I'm on the inside track or something. Somebody was something to prove to somebody. Yeah, not the most powerful man on the planet. Exactly what were you saying, Sonia?

I mean, if it if it so the journalist is probably the more ethical version. But if it would have been an intern, the whole classified information thing would have been more believable. As I can, I can see Monica under Bill's desk going. That's nice, but I don't see someone going. You know what this sex date needs? Several 100 pages of classified information on anti submarine warfare I'm going to bring into the hotel room for some reason. I can't believe you said you can see Monica at the desk saying, oh, that's nice.

I mean, I mean, I mean, that depends on what your definition of the word is, is. But and how the fuck is this lawyer getting all this precise information from aside anyway? I mean, you don't see, I've taken photographs of things. You don't see anything. It's just like, just like, oh, hey, President, really fucking good, man. Got to go. Runs off straight with pay phone rings. Is really empathy. OK, guys, Take dictation right way. Take dictation. Yeah, shit's going down, man. Yeah. And then just like rattles off.

It's stupid. It's bollocks. It's bollocks. Whole submarine. I've got to talk to some other Russians. Bye. It's.

Bobbins is what it is. It's bobbins and it annoys me because this takes up way too much oxygen from the movie, like to the point where by the time they finally get to the point where she gets thinned out. I do like how she gets thinned out, by the way. I like how she's trying to call the president and then the secretary says you have to ring the press office from now on and that's it. It doesn't even doesn't even bring all that properly. That that's it. One of the few bits of film it's kind of believable and actually kind of cool.

And I do like like the fact that for some reason she's in a car with the Mossad guy at the time. Yeah. And it's like they're like each other. I say, for fuck sake, it's what? Say what? It's terrible. That's not very Shalom of you, Mr. President. It's so fucking bad the whole the whole like Mossad connection is. Regrettable. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like it's regrettable, but it's silly as fuck too, because like, obviously there's the whole thing when Mossad are trying to get them to draw out that terrorist out of cover.

So Mossad can I some, right. And so for a start, this terrorist strives around a fucking limousine, right? He's, he's, he's, he's, he's hardly a grey man #2 the way the assassinated him is the get a guy into like the shop or the cafe or whatever it is. And he just sits there with a fucking trilby hat on and a fucking newspaper or something and a fucking Uzi in his pocket and just sits there and doesn't get fucking called out as being suspicious. And I'll just as the operations happening, it's like, again, the FBI agents involved this particular sting or all the people who like, like would have would have failed the Academy, but one of the classmates killed himself and so they all got an automatic pass.

I love this. This. This is obscene, yeah. They have a fucking meeting outside the building, working out how they're going to surveil the building. You see that shit, right? You see that shit? It's ridiculous. That's like, for fuck's sake. None of the decisions made in this film makes sense. I'm so sorry. None of the decisions in this film make fucking sense at all. I see it before. OK, thank you. Jesus Christ. Yeah, So the arms dealer they're talking about is a guy called Abdul Fazawi and he is going to be the guy.

He's brokering the deal isn't he? For the the nuclear warheads, allegedly. So Mossad really want to get him because he used to be ex Mossad. So presumably he knows where all the bodies are buried. Oh yeah, all the bodies are buried. Now he knows where all the bodies are buried. But the way that OP centre gets switched on to who he is is ridiculous. So he enters the country, they know he's got like a whole bunch of different aliases, passports. So they, they tracked down which, which passport is using and go, oh, this guy came into New York.

And then, and then as I was saying earlier on, like all the guys in the OP centre don't do any research. They just know stuff. And John Savage's character just happens to know, oh, if he's New York, he's definitely gone to this one particular whore house, which has shit tonnes of just shit tonnes of Asian women, which he's into and is also happens to be the haunt for all of the diplomats, but they also all go there as well. Like it's common knowledge. Like oh, OK, so if it's common knowledge that diplomats and stuff use this particular brothel, like why is the international arms dealer who's trying to stay undercover also going there as well?

Yeah, that's this guy has international arms dealer money. He's not going with whorehouse, he's getting a high class escort company wherever he is. You see what I mean? Nothing makes sense, nothing tracks if you think about it, for just five fucking. Minutes. It's not going to four floors. Four floors, yeah, it's like. We've barely even touched on what's even going on with it. So I guess right, Jesus, I'll have a quick look at Wikipedia and we'll we'll rattle off what what actually happens very quickly.

So right, where were we? The, the warheads have been stolen. They're trying to smuggle them out of Ukraine by getting them out via a cargo vessel that's proceeding out to the Black Sea through the Bosphorus. They want to check that. They can't do an opposed boarding of the vessel because they haven't got a legal imperative to do so. So they want to check that they, they think the warheads are on board. They do that by doing some kind of scientific experiment with some kind of neutral metre and and.

Boobies. Yes. And then yeah, yeah, yeah. So they get a cabin cruiser with, with one of the team on board in a shipped on a scientific gear and they do a little metre reading against the radioactive components and size of the, the, the, the, the warheads. And they, they do that by driving up real close to it and distracting the guys on deck by having two women in bikinis dancing on the hall. Amazing. Absolutely. And it's and so when you think about it, the world is essentially saved by by just four big American boobs.

Yeah, and where do they come from, by the way? Like. The soldiers you've seen, you've seen them before they deploy. They're actually, they're actually soldiers. Why about it? Mission. Yeah. Diversionary. Tactics. Yeah. And it's like, it's fucking stupid. I'm going to, I'm going to go back, we're going to touch on this again when I talk about the most egregious of a set of the military industrial complex. But the so the so the next. That's not what it sounds like.

But the next Oh. My God. So once they figured out that that is the vessel that contains the warheads, they leave and then they they Jack up this this linebacker operation where they basically do an opposed boarding with some fast roping from 2 Seahawks with what, 20 odd guys? Which they presume Black Hawks in the film. Yeah, but I don't think they are. And then, yeah, they faster upon and they do an opposed boarding. There's a bit of a gunfight and there's also what they're going to do. They were going to scuttle the ship as well, weren't they, as a sort of backup thing.

And they disarm that and they catch the bad guys. And that's how it all kind of all kind of washes out. And then finally, I suppose Mia Korff, who plays Liz Gorman, the the the media and congressional liaison, finally does something useful and does does a bit of spin at the end to sell the idea that this was all just a drill and that the the the warheads weren't really stolen. I didn't want to, I didn't want to do like a full blow by blow because I don't think this movie deserves it, man. If if, if if do a full blow by blow, it's just people would people would just log out, man.

Book is if this film is like having a story told you by a child and then and then and then and then and it's stupid little things like the Ukrainian troops who who bored the the little lighter that that rubber barge and to get a Geiger counter out for fucking some reason and it starts rattling and then there's then there's a box that's got Chernobyl written on it and the guys like sure, no, I said you can fucking read dude. Jesus fucking Christ, man. And like and like are nuclear warheads like would would nuclear warheads kind of pop hot on a gag account or like that?

No, the wood. What did the shield? Yeah, I mean, otherwise, like, you know, all of like Russian strategic forces would be glow in the dark fucking rules by this point, right? If, if, if the material in these weapons wasn't wasn't shielded. So that's dumb as shit. That whole sequence when everyone is speaking either Russian or Ukrainian. I do apologise the audio is shit. I even tried to use Google Translate on on my phone with audio to pick it out. Couldn't pick anything up. I get the feeling that they should have had subtitles on that and I wonder if the actual if actual mini series or the original VHS movie cut of it which was long on ATV movie actually had subtitles.

You get the gist. You get the gist. They pull him into leave me. Yeah, just bitches him out until he goes. Yeah, and it's it's stupid as fuck. I had Major and it's to pick with the whole Nikolayev versus Mikolive thing. Let's do it. Should we do? Should we just? Should we just do the nitpicks now? Yeah, yeah, like, yeah, let's, let's, let's, let's fucking nitpick the Nikolayev versus Mikolive kind of thing. It's like, I mean, fair enough for the time, you know, the, the, the, the, the city that's now called Nikolai by, by Ukrainian speakers.

But but but to the Russians is known as Nikolayev would probably would maybe have been referred to still as Nikolayev at the time. I'd know. But when they talk about when they've got that map, which by the way, it doesn't even show the correct fucking like a topography of that river and that area in general, it's like, Oh, well, so so here's here's here's a Nikolai from here is Mikolai from the opposite side of the river. It's like the same fucking place and it's only on one side of the river. This is terrible.

It's like it's like the ship is leaving New Castle. It's crossing the river to the tune, you know, it's fucking really bad. It's stupid. Shit. Can you fucking imagine a Ukrainian or Russian film saying this ship is leaving the harbour in New York and then moving to the harbour at the Big Apple? You know, Gotham, baby, fucking silly. It's stupid as fuck with with like Tom Clancy's stuff, there's there's inimitable amounts of research and there's granularity and there's accuracy and there's so many things in this film that are just fucking stupid and wrong and terribly research the the line when someone, some some some interchangeable officer of the OP Centre says the line hate Michaels is the second lady of the United States, which isn't fucking boss when you think about it, because the second lady of the United States is the vice president's wife.

It's not the president's side piece. I never Pam Blues don't fail. Yeah, absolutely. It's like come on Pam, unfuck yourself.

I have I have major and it's to pick with the armouring in this film and with the weapons handling and everything. And I'm a bitch about lads. I'm putting on my little Please be patient hat. So Oh my God, let let the record show the senator from Germany has now put on a straw boater.

Oh oh. We're doing the the the work heads. OK, we're doing the work heads then. OK, good, good. Right. I'm truly, I'm truly ambitioned by you putting on your work hats and be having nothing, right. But yeah. Oh no, these are navel lobster caps. That means you don't know anything about guns. Well, yeah, so right, we're going to kind of go just from the start to the end, the opening sequence with the gunfight, stupid as shit. You will know it as probably not because you're not as as TASM as me. Almost every long arm featured in this in in in this film, maybe every long arm in this film actually has a folding stock.

It's a folding stock model. So linebacker use MP5 as these, which are the integrity suppressed. MP5 with a folding stock, the Russian guys and presumably the Ukrainian to the shooting, but you can't really tell because it's so fucking blurry. A role using AK platforms which have folding stocks. Not a single person unfolds the stock to fire at all. The only time you see I think a stock fully extended is a scene on the ship when one of the linebacker guys is carrying someone and that's because he's got his weapon slung and because the slings kind of wrapped around the end of the stock.

It would look silly if it was Obi Obi ungainly and probably wouldn't work if it was. It wouldn't work well if it was like snapped against the body of the weapon. That pisses us off big time. Folding stocks on weapons are meant to fall down for storage, right? Awesome. Cool. Not single fucking person puts the stock to the shoulder. That's all. That's all. Like fucking holding them up like the windows. Iconic photos from Liberian civil war. It's silly as shit. The Russian officer stoleeping, I think as pistol for a start, the scene when he puts the Americans in that little convenient Sally puts them into you notice he takes the magazine out and then puts it back in again.

And I think it's it's meant to show him reloading, right? There's only two options. It's meant to show him reloading, or it's meant to show him pulling it out and seeing how many bullets are in it and then putting it back in the second one Doesn't work like that. The first ones the most likely. Thing is I don't think they had the budget to have more than one magazine for him. Fucking terrible. He has a suppressor on it which doesn't matter a fucking thing. As soon as he fires the first shot his mate turns up going Full Auto grip it and RIP it shooting people.

They don't clear the back blast on the RPG's re re, of course, of course, like stolipins fucking sideways pistol gangster style shooting. You picked that up right. You saw that when he's when he's got the pistol over at the side and he's like shooting gangster style. It's like, Ah, fucking come on, the sick you be in in the ship is dog shit as well in terms of cinematic effect, in terms how it's put together. I'm not an expert in sick you be by any means, but like there's this really great scene when the leader of the linebacker team kind of turns around the corner and then wiggles the barrel of his gun through about 15 to 20° of travel a few times and points it at a wall, points it at the fucking bulkhead and and assured Amber.

It's like, Oh my God, this pond got a fucking wall. He is. It's like something from dark place. The whole scene of them storm the ships like someone from a dark place. It's ridiculous. As for Gotham, Marenghi, be the one, the fucking hunt. And it's like we're going after Garth Morangi. He's a writer, director, plus actor. And it's no wonder these guys are getting curb stomach by these like Russian dudes, you know, I mean, like the movement's shit, the move from the ship, like they're exploring a fucking like crumbling space Hulk in a sci-fi horror movie, you know, like the man who was like trained with his ship's layout and stuff, but like gingerly moving around.

It's garbage. It's shit. I don't know when you compare it to films that came out in 1995 and I know budgets, apples, oranges. For instance, this heat, heat. Well, heat exactly. I mean, yeah, I was thinking as well specifically for CQB as the the it's a short scene, but the SWAT raid scene in seven and that looks really fucking cool. And the, the, the SWAT guys showed dynamism builds tension, the believable when you look at in, in in other Tom Clancy properties. I'm like, so like this morning to make myself miserable before work.

I watched the scene from from clear and present danger when it cuts between Jim Greer's funeral and the massacre of Ding Chavez's team at the hands of the hands of the, the, the, the cartel guys, I believe. And you, you say realistic gun fighting. There's even 1 cartel guy doing AC clamp grip on his rifle, which I think might be the earliest fucking C clamp I've seen in a Hollywood movie. How the fuck am I married and, and and and and that, and that clip that I showed you just the other night, that, that clip from, from Megami vice from fucking years before this film came out showing just insanely cool weapon handling.

You know Michael Mann, you say? Michael Mann with heat with with. Yeah, exactly. Was it a Mombasa no Mozambique? Yeah, Mozambique drill. Yeah, I mean, that's an insanely fast fucking appendix straw. Mozambique drill. It's slick as as the same heat slick. You don't need to invest a huge amount of money and make an action scene look cool, just directly with some fucking dynamism. I've seen footage of Indian police officers doing CQB with Lee Enfield rifles. That was slicker than what the linebacker guys are doing.

And that's not, Oh my God, it's slicker in their Indians. It's it's slicker in the US and fucking 120 year old rifles, you know, it's, it's just a really badly put together set of action sequences which suck ass. I see the floor. Yeah, I think, I think you're right. That loose teak here is not operating at the same level as Michael Mann or Dave Fincher. That's pretty much all we need to say about that. Absolutely. But cool, shall we take a quick break and then do some categories? Unless does Sanya have any Nets to pick with this?

Oh shit, yes, yeah. I have minor Nets to pick with the way they they run like the conference room in the. I want to hear this. I want to hear this like. Centre itself, it's like the the the first time they get all in there together to talk about this, this Ukraine thing. Yeah, And you can just get this put, you put it on screen. It's like you heard this in Star Trek and thought it sounds cool. And then you get this weird sequence where he goes, Ukraine is in Eastern Europe. Like who the fuck doesn't know that I'm going to expect the goddamn screen to just go Ukraine and instead you get to watch them fucking zoom in on a world map?

And. Scroll around a little as if I as if I paired Google Maps on my phone to the drop down beamer. I'm just standing there. Where's Ukraine again? And it just keeps dragging like that. And Mike, you brought up that weird sequence where they try to figure out where the lorries are going. Oh yes, essentially it's like it's the fucked up version of drawing a datum on your anti submarine warfare plot where you try to figure out where the damn thing is going and what what its weapons envelopes going to be in the next hour or so if it keeps its projected course.

And they just put a bunch of concentric circles on a nondescript map of Ukraine as they are taking that highway without having any idea where they're actually going. It's horrid. It's staggeringly. Fucking stupid. It's staggeringly fucking stupid because they're not looking at any variables like what if the change vehicle? What, what if they stop to get more fuel? What if they do a million of fucking things? It's really, really fucking bad. And yeah, you're right. The whole like zooming, you know, it's like, no, now that it is the year 1995, the planet Russia and the planet Ukraine are enemies.

Fucking terrible. What what do you guys think about the naval operations aspect of the film? Because I think this is kind of in in your wheelhouse because you're, because you're both CLMN and what do you think of it in general? Because this, this is, this is a film that has naval operations at its centre. It's OP Centre, Yeah. Feel like it though. Is it? But, but you're right, my my takeaway is one of the, one of the earlier causes of drama in the movie is they want to establish where the warheads are on this one particular merchant vessel, which we related to already.

And the lawyer says, oh, we can't do a boating because we're in Turkish waters there. And I'm like, OK, that's, that's accurate. That is accurate. But we know that's going to leave Turkish waters and you can keep an eye on it and it's eventually you're going to have to go into the Mediterranean or into the into the high seas, certainly. And there are other reasons why you can do a boarding that aren't I'm checking for your nuclear weapons. Although actually by the IMO in the United Nations, arms trafficking is one of the reasons why you can do a thing.

So why don't they just do a fucking boarding? Sorry, pardon by French, but like why they just do a boarding that you know, that you think there's going to be weapons on board the vessel, that's probable cause you've got intelligence do it. We're doing a boarding, we're doing an opposed boarding because we believe you are harbouring weapons. We can do it for charcoal for God's sake. So like. That's crazy. I mean in in and of course we all we all know that in 2003 there was there was the incident when the MVBBC China was boarded in international waters because it was suspected of having centrifuges on it bound for Libya and it was diverted Whitley and they they did indeed find centrifuges on this that were provided by AQ Khan and the school and and as well fucking proliferation network he was running.

So yeah, it's and and and I bet there wasn't a fucking mass casualties, you know, linebacker S corporation in involving the Seahawks dog and I just hosing down the ship.

So in the movie they, they have two CSGS in the in the Med at the same time. So you've got plenty of vessels, they're capable of delivering an opposed boarding like they'll have had destroyers there which have had. Autism, Autism moment. But at that time it would not have been a CSG. It would have probably still have been a carrier battle group. Oh, sorry, yeah, Carrier battle group. Cheers for that. I am removing myself from the pod. No, do not see it. Never see the floors, have you? So. You've got 22 carrier battle groups in the in the bench Iranian.

Yeah, brilliant. So you've got you anyway, you've got 2 bunches of ships operating, operating, operating in the bed who are more capable to the post boarding for a perfectly legitimate legal reason. Well within certainly the Americans international rules of engagement if if not anybody else's like like if you ratify any of those UN treaties. In fact, the Americans do normally. But if you. I was going to say they haven't ratified anything that. Stops them anyway. They don't ratify the things that they they wanted to.

They don't ratify things like stopping Christian munitions because they want to use them. Sometimes that's that's just a thing they do. It's one of the quirky little things about USA, the US of A, North Korea, Iraq, China, all doing the same stuff, but just one of those funny little guys, yeah. I'm just a girl. Point is, there's plenty of people out there who could have done a normal boarding that that wouldn't have been quite as horrible. Kinetic. Absolute shit show that that linebacker was. And, and and it really is a shit show as well.

It's like, but even like the crew of the ship's reaction to it. I mean, these these these helicopters aren't fucking silent, right? The whole the whole thing, but faster up and people aren't the ship is that they can then, you know, proceed with speed and overcome the ship's crew. Instead the fucking move through the ship like they're in a cutscene from like a bad sci-fi video game with like generic colonial marines exploring an alien cruiser while helicopters over above closing people down. And not all of the crews even got out of fucking bed because fucking spoken's just chilling in bed for some of it, just hanging out.

Yeah, there's a line about how they they they plan it to do it during the middle of watch so that most of the crew will be in bed. So I get that. But but no, no, no, it's not fair because because what what exactly? Exactly as you described? Like once they're on board, they could do it in the middle of the day and just come and the, and the head come from the same direction the sun's at. Because once they're on board, like the jigs up, because the sound of the Hilo is enough to like alert people that you're that's happening.

So once you're on, it's like shock and awe smashing doors down, violence of action. Well, I mean, again, right, I've only got some very, very minor maritime CQB trading, like like very, very little from like 10-11 years ago. So like I'm not an expert at this, but, but you know, it stands to reason that once the jigs up, you'd be in there guns blazing. Like, they're going there to stop the sale of three nuclear weapons. You know, they've got, like, the highest level of approval to do it. So why are they creeping around for?

And I mean, they've got a code name related to American football. So that's everything to fucking play for, you know? I mean, they've, I mean, they've got the whole ball game. It's, you know, like a whole ball game at stake at this point. I mean, they're not like they're not a team basketballer. This is football, baby. This is as American as the Trail of Tears and Exceptionalism. I would certainly not trust a door gunner with a heavy machine gun to cover me from someone who's standing 2 metres in front of me, at any rate.

Exactly. It's like. It's like no check fire, fuck off, go away. This again comes down to nobody makes decisions that make sense. Every character in this film has a male concussion through the entire movie, even the actors just stopping at like the welfare tent between shots. And there's a very skilled Dr giving them slight concussions with a little hammer just to make sure that they're really in character as people who make the silliest fucking decisions, the stupidest decisions. It's so bad the the the scuttling charge is tiny.

It's tiny. It appears to be give my nautical terminology, but it's like the fucking gunwales would be like it's like it's like it's not the the scuttling charge. It's it's on the fucking top deck on like the. It's significantly above the WAR line. The fucking debt cord, the debt cord that they used to blow through the bulkhead. So sorry, no, to blow to blow the Hatch off is probably more powerful than that. Toppens hit when he scuttling charge again. It's just silly, silly things that don't make sense.

And also, if, if, if they're going to scuttle it, cool, awesome. Just pull the team off on the helicopter. You know, you've got nukes at the bottom of the ocean. You've got a bunch of dead Russians, probably. And let the record show that I'm shrugging quite a bit. I don't know. Yeah, maybe he had to get the the the fucking scuttling charge at Home Depot or, or Home Bargains or whatever. Not on on the way to get there. So I've got, I've got no time. Ma, do you have £2? I need to head to the store and buy some explosives.

Oh, look, it's on sale this week. All right. We can't. We can. Due to budget contains and and our imperious enemy and several decades of catastrophic economical mismanagement in the Soviet Union, we can only afford a very small scuffling charge.

This is it this this, this, this ties into the reduction in force that happened in the Soviet Union. That was actually a really, really, really big Scotland charge at one point, but they just like shrunk it, they reduced it in force. Either that or he realised that Philippine realised he didn't have a Scotland charge and he went back off into the streets of Turkey after, after buying several fake Rolexes And because you, because you mean you would, would, I mean, I mean, I've got a Turkish Rolex boss and, and, and he found like he, he, he went back to his Turkish Rolex seller and he's like, Mehmed, can you, can you sort me out with the Scotland charges?

Like I give you a good deal. And he just like gave him this tiny shit Scotland charge. And he's like, if I don't pay for this, he's going to send someone to beat me up. Support a shitty little Scotland charge. Oh, well, I mean, the Scotland charge would have killed Stalepin. And that's basically it. It's just suicide with extra fucking steps, a seed. So let's take a quick break then. Let's go in the categories.

OK, welcome back. Let's do some categories. So there's not a lot to go on with this movie because there's not a lot on IMDb. So casting and back guys and what ifs and all that kind of stuff. I haven't really got very much. I've got Deidre Hall, who plays Kate Michaels, the the reporter. Her IMDb page describes her as one of America's beloved actresses, and she was in Days of Our Lives, which people in the UK I really know for having Doctor Drake remember in it and Friends, But people may know her latterly being from playing herself in Hacks.

That's pretty much it for her. And I've talked about Ken Howard already as the president. It's kind of it really. There's not really much more. I saw an excellent cameo, actually. Yeah. So in in in the in the motor boat and on the the motor boating and Turkish water scenes quiet at the back and and Evergreen. An Evergreen book cargo freighter is visible. I remember if it was the ever given the funniest cargo ship in the fucking world. I'm just going to Google and see when the Evergreen was launched.

Actually, the Ever Given was launched in 2018. So it was not the Ever Given. But yeah, there's yeah. So that's, that's a great bit of stunt casting. I think when there's, when there's, when there's an Evergreen ship there again, the prophecies of Tom Clancy, it's all connected. So some of our usual categories, again, are pretty weak here. So needle drops, there are no needle drops. There is no music in this that I find good or interesting at all. The the IMDb trivia is also pretty barren. The final rule for one guy, Tom Villard, who a press aide in it.

I don't even know who that guy. That is the only bit of IMDb trivia. However, I think something we can all get behind is what is the best quote in the movie? I think you guys know what my quote is. I'll save it for the for the end. But Rory, have you got anything good? You know what, it was actually a few, but not for good reasons. The random outbursts that members of the team seem to make in lieu of actually doing anything productive or helpful or definitely up there target designation touchstone.

It's like, OK, OK, man, that's cool. That's that's awesome. That that's that. Yeah, thanks dude. I need one because someone's writing a frag head but OK.

One of my favourites in the in the same vein of what you're talking about is when Liz Gorman, who has just been at the gym with Kate Michaels for some reason, finds out that she knows all about the the nukes and stuff, she just storms back into the op centre and goes, now get this. And then one guy, I don't even know who he is. He's off camera. We don't see him, but all we hear is go, Oh God, what now? You see again, massive. And he's the best. Massive Tommy Russell energy. I feel like I'm sitting on an atomic bomb, you know?

Waiting for it to go. Out I feel like I'm sitting on a re entry weapon from a Ukrainian nuclear missile waiting for it to go off. That was shit. But no, it's like fucking and also the whole gym thing made was weird because the rapidity from her having the conversation to being back in the OP centre. Were they in the OP Centre's gym? Does does this journalist have have such raise that she's like, hey, do you want to let me work out in the NCMC's gym? And they're like, well, guess so, booba, you know?

But where is the MCMC even based? You would presume the Pentagon, right? I I thought it was suggesting that me was, I was sort of suggesting it was based at Andrew's Air Force Base, but that can't be right. Oh no, well, because they mentioned on the phone. Oh, there's another bit, right, We're going to touch on it in a bit anyway. We might as well do it now. Most egregious of the military ancestral effects occurs to my mind when they are talking about getting this cabin cruiser and all scientific equipment rigged up ready to go in Turkey in order to perform an operation that they have to do within like 12 hours.

And off screen you see in the middle of the conference, they're still having the meeting they're doing. They're doing their standard thing with all just yelling, but towards common purpose somehow. You see, Brigadier General Paul Creed turns his back for like, it can't be more than 30 seconds to pick up a phone and makes a phone call. But he didn't say anything because obviously that would affect the sound mixing, whatever. But then he turns back around again after 30 seconds ago. There's a plane waiting at Andrew's airfield ready to ready to wheels up in 90 minutes with all the equipment on board.

I'm like, what the fuck? Who did he call? What what, what aircraft is ready to go or in the state of a 32nd conversation to square away at an aircraft with the appropriate lift with with the cargo manifests already squared off and ready to go or ready to be turned a blind eye to. They don't even know what this equipment is made-up of, but they know it doesn't have any hazards or lithium batteries or anything like that in it, just like that kind of stuff. But he solves it in like 30 seconds And look, get me wrong, I'm sure it can be done.

But like in the fight that happens in like 2 seconds flat before they've even decided what they're going to call a plan. Because after it's after that he goes mission designation, touchstone just. Like what the fuck I mean. You don't need a mission. It's already done. It's already in planning starting. Yeah, left command, which I think is what it is called or what's called does have planes at relatively like readiness to deploy, but of course, but I don't think like it's an aircraft carrier when it's got planes ready 5 you know what I mean?

Like, there's no one like, like, yeah, like, like, like. You got AC17 and A-15 like ready ready to ratify anywhere in the world. Like somebody sitting under the wing of this fucking C5 on on a fucking like lounger with a, with a fucking kind of Pepsi in his hand, just just waiting for someone to say, guys, we've got to get a boat and, and some and some U.S. Army soldiers who aren't scared of getting the boobs out to to Turkey. Like like lick it, be fucking split guys. That's crazy. Maybe. And yes, we do want to call back.

Maybe he rang Director Sherwood from NASA and he was like, well we can, we can't delay a civilian flight that leaves at 30 minutes. But at this point we can't get a boat on a civilian flight. We could barely catch 1 Connery on that flight man. So that was the most egregious. The most egregious oversell of of the military industrial complex is the fact that the logistics of this are so incredibly fast, done in seconds as well. The bit when it's like, ah, the, the Turks won't allow us to do this thing.

5 minutes later. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Turkey's cool. Turkey's fine. The down, the down the clown man. You know, I had, I had. I had. Yeah, it's literally, it's literally a 2 minute gap. Yeah. Yeah, It's like, oh, well, I had a really, really, really, really, really, really quick, quick conversation with him. What? Who? Or just some guy who answered the phone and he says it's cool. Yeah, I might say it's cool. Awesome. It's terrible. It's bad. It's yeah. So the OP centre all freaking out because they obviously, as soon as they realised it's in Turkey, there's no way Turkey's going to let us do that.

And then they talk to Admiral Davis Guilford Brimley, and he's like, oh, Sharon, whatever her name is, get the general, whatever his name is, on the phone. And he rings a general in the Turkish Armed Forces. And he gives them the dip clear to conduct a military operation in Turkish wars. OK, I bet. I mean people, people in the military wish that was as simple as that, but it's not. Let's face it though, there's two animals that could do this. Admiral Jim Greer could pull it off, and Admiral Wilfred Brimley could pull it off.

I imagine. I imagine Wilfred Brimley's car. And I'd be like, hey, General, I'll support you with that coup that I know you're planted if you just gave me the green light for this operation. He seems like the kind of guy who would who would have like, a rolodex of various officers like that he's met in his career. Who, who, who who might be liable to throw a cue for him. I mean, to be honest, yeah, he should have been present. He wouldn't let this shit happen if he was in charge. Plus, Admiral Davis has added you to list possible junta.

You'll be picked from a list. Possible Chunta. You've been added to the list. Definite Chunta secret. So that was most, most degrees of self and just a complex within. Best quote. My favourite quote I've got to say is because we've been talking around it the whole time is is Lloyd Coffee when he has his absolute crush out and it's like right and wrong, right and wrong. Mr Political Appointee, holier than thou Director. Government is about power, United States is about power. Why? Since 1776 we've been saying don't tread on me Because if you do, then.

Bang, you got a bloody. Nose and I won't wait to get to a war kind of trial am I wrong and then my favourite bit of that is Apollo Creed that goes you're not wrong but you're out of line it's. Wrong.

It's like that. It's incredible, it's amazing. It's like something fucking snaps in them.

It's something snaps in them and it becomes Patrick Bate never recovers. I mean, the issue is it's just what you don't see what was cut from what, and I've got this on good authority, what was cut from the the actual miniseries to make the TV movie? Is this a scene when they all like compare business cards and he's like, let's see Paul Hood's business card. God damn, it's so liberal. It's so Beltway and Steidar, that subtle white collar and Oh my God, I. Feel that he's he's called elitism. He's even more white breath than me.

Double embossed. God, he's even more white breath than me. And then he's just fucking snaps that this is this is, this is his his, this is his equivalent to the feed me a stray cut scene in American Psycho when the ATM tells Patrick Bateman to feed a stray cut. But yeah, he goes, he goes full, full Patrick Bateman. It's amazing. It's nonsensical as well. It doesn't make sense because like all this, very few countries that have been involved in wars against America have seen their people in war crimes trials.

Japan and Germany, yes. After that, no. I mean, were there any war crimes trials after the Gulf War? I don't think so. Clearly. Not often after Vietnam, you know, not often after after North Korea, so not after the Korean War. So he doesn't even know of which he speaks. It's it's an incredibly cooked out rant as well. He's like, I wonder if the big difference between him and the start of the film to him at the end is that he's just boofing the fuck out of cocaine. So that's the quote question I have for Sonia.

A new segment is. How would this should have gone down in Germany? Oh boy. No, in that OP census on you and tell me what you see. OK, so so given that this is supposed to be a military operation, I think the the ratio of people in uniform and just random civilians would stay roughly the same. I think you would see a vastly high amount of nondescript weird civil servants just running around trying to make this work. We would definitely need more advisors like just random so-called experts doing things.

But also the main thing the the main way how this would go down in Germany, I think is it wouldn't there's something upsetting to say about given that the German military is bound by parliament before it can do anything. It it, it's like the bureaucratic version of that, that hunt for it October thing. Russians don't take a dump without a plan. It's like the the German military isn't allowed to take a dump without German parliament first having a vote on it. So I don't think we could do Black Ops just off Turkey to, to steal nuclear warheads back.

Think unilateral. We, we, we've had a few issues without regarding like counter piracy OPS. They've, they've been ongoing hostage situations and such and they've, they've already immediately deteriorated and taken for forever to solve because nobody could agree whose job it was to, to solve that crisis in the 1st place. Because I've got handed back and forth between essentially specialised forces of border police and the actual military.

So I, I think the, the first thing that would happen in Germany is, is a giant discussion about whose job it would actually be to get the warheads back rather than the actual thing of getting them back. And that would cost us roughly, I'd say two months. And after that, what, what when, when, when, when, when someone decides finally that the, the, it's the navy's job to do it, then we need to get that through Parliament, which at the moment might have, might be a lot easier than let's say three years ago.

My even if that happens, then the Navy still needs to find a ship that fucking works and a helicopter that actually works. Like we've got so many problems it's not even funny anymore. Actually, just to speak about it. It's just it, it, it just wouldn't go down. I mean, it, it possibly would you? We would if we really had to. We probably the military would find a way, but politics would make it its job to get in the way of that happening badly. Very comprehensive and fascinating answers on you. Thank you.

Next, Rory O'Toole, would you like to maybe bring us some notes from the Peanuts gallery? These are sparse, sadly. Even Letterboxed is letting me down on this one. There's a lot of there's a lot of let down, disappointed Dad's size. There's son. I am disappoint so let me just pull them up. OK?

This one started making me laugh when I read it initially, so I kind of put it away because I wanted to get a real reaction with OPS. And that was a successful line of ghostwritten novels created by Tom Clancy and Steve Pechenek that actually continues to this day. It was so popular that NBC aired a four hour all Capitals miniseries based on OPS and on 1995 later a 2 hour film version was that it didn't released on video, which is what I saw. As bad as it is, I can't imagine watching the four hour version.

I wouldn't be able to make it. It's truly the worst Tom Clancy related adaptation ever put forth. Don't look for any of the intrigue scene in The Hunt for October or Clear and Present Danger here. It's almost an out and out soap opera as a major subplot involves Harry Hamlin boring soap backed out with big plump cock sucking lips trying to mend his healing marriage. As world events had fooled around him with stolen nukes, On the Move puts surveillance on his wife and sees the man repeatedly visiting her.

It finally turns out it was just her lawyer and nothing was really going on. Oh OK. Up Santa also stars Deidre Hall, an actress, was the distinction of starring on Days of Our Lives over 45 years. The calibre of the cast and the melodramatic tete tets between various quarrelling lovers, including the president in the throes of a duplicitous, scandalous affair, gives opposite of the unmistakable feminine touch of a soap opera. And it fully overpowers the main geopolitical plot, which isn't that interesting either.

Is this what the books are like? This doesn't feel like Tom Clancy's style. There's no attention we found in the OP centre. We cut back and forth from the OP centre when they say the Ukraine or other world locations where the action poorly and cheaply shot unfolds with no connection whatsoever. The main characters who are never ever in any danger. Wilfred Brimley appears for one date. Wilfred Brimley appears for one day to fill in the scenes, all of which feature him sitting in the same chair in the same office.

Rod Steiger appears as a Russian official and his accent is a bizarre made-up of Russian and his five year Latin accent from the specialist. This is 1 OP that should have been aborted. 90s TV movies are just so sexy. Holy shit. Look the nukes on her. Didn't expect anyone would cover the nukes in the 1995 Tom Clancy's OPS on ATV movie. And Miya Korff is cute. Yeah OK man I think I could have. I think I could recover stolen nukes too if I had limitless resources near magic levels of OH, oh, this was a review from a guy called Meg Dunbar.

I think I could recall my stolen nukes, 2 of fire and heavy lift capability and also Wilfred Brimley. The best bit was on the lawyer. I suggested detaining a member of the Free Press, the Free Press on spurious grounds. That was actually brilliant as well. It's like, hey, let's, let's, let's just arrest a journalist. It's got no self preservation. It's obviously like it's the legal invite. I actually like the idea of a story like this, set almost entirely within the war room or whatever name you want to call it.

The other reviews seem seem use as a negative, but I don't know if the failing marriage plot is really necessary for a political thriller. It's not. It's not at all. And my favourite thing about the whole failing marriage plot is that it's a big thing. How like, Oh my God, so Paul Hood doesn't. I've just seen Sonia's changed his background with fucking operations centre. Let let the record show that the senator from Germany now has a fucking op centre in his background. Good fucking God. So I really like how there's this whole big plot about how Paul Hood doesn't tell us as as stupid wife scare quotes because because, because he obviously thinks she's a fucking idiot, right?

But the film also paints her as an idiot because like, you would you would know if you're hanging out with the president, you would know that that maybe your husband's actually a big wheel and he isn't just the guy you, you know, like gets gets gets coffee and makes photocopies. There's a whole plot about how he keeps things from her because it's all super secret and stuff. And then at the end of it, Admiral Wilfred Brimley just fucking tells his wife everything. And she takes them back immediately because she's fully chastened by what I think would actually have been a really good scene.

Can you imagine? Wilfred Brimley, Kim Cattrall? And he said, God damn it, that husband of yours, he isn't just a boy who gets the coffee. He's almost, he's almost got as much power as I do. I put him there, you know, like he, he does super secret shit. He just saved the goddamn world. Missy, you're going to run off. You're going to run off for the Hamptons and then you're going to send for your children. That dog won't hunt. Missy, I would get on my horse and chase you down if you got on that plane.

Even though I've got diabetes. Two hours of recording before a diabetes joke. I was just on the subject with Brimley. I need to interrupt with this, this bit, this Brimley fact. So I was looking for a picture for him to use as a post on on our YouTube page. And I found a production still of him sitting at a desk holding a mug. And it was from a Facebook post by the photographer who's on set at the time posting it, like in response to Brimley's death. Rest in peace. It's like a little bit. And he said yes, I was on set that day and I was asking and I asked Wilford Brimley if he would take if I could take his picture.

He said yes, but only if I don't have to stand up. So if you take a picture of him sitting down. And he said he remained in that seat for the rest of the day until one of the moment where he got up and to the other side of the room and had one was Asian standing and then came back is. It right. This is the duality of man. Wilford Brimley doing most of the scenes sitting down rules, right? We can inarguably say that's actually cool and good, right? Wilfred Brumley at this point he comes in, he just shoots most of the scenes sitting down or there's a few ones when he stands up like 5 minutes, like thin the president out.

Yet you see these films now and again. I'm going to mention Steven Seagal's money laundering year on movies when he's so fucking lazy he has whole fight scenes when he's sitting down. It's terrible. And this is a man who uses a stunt double S for walking scenes. Somehow this is somehow this is incredibly cringe and bad, which it is. I I agree it's incredibly cringe and bad. Yet also Wilfred Brimley doing the exact same thing is cool and good and I think it's just as Wilfred Brimley is actually fucking cool.

That's basically the endnotes from the peanut gallery on the film. I did briefly look into reviews of the of the OP Santa book as well. The OP Santa book. Now I've I've seen multiple people say that this this is this is based on the first OP Santa book. Some of the reviews of the book scathing. Written by someone who must have paid or blackmailed Clancy to put his name on the book. BNF horrible through the whole set in the garbage. After reading the first 3 chapters we won't even put this into the free bins or second hand stores in case someone else might think it worth wasting their time on.

These series of books are crap. They use the name of Tom Clancy but they are not worthy. Consign these to the 10 piece shelf at the charity shop. Now if you buy anything with UPS centre on the title, you're a woeful fool and I will beat you with a stick when I next see you. You know what, I'm actually walking back. What a side of a good reads review is not being funny because I just like filtered by one stars. Shelley says Read to page 12. Stop. Never picked it up again. Scathing Rattleslav Fedor says.

I still don't know why I even bother to read this book till end. Horrible, bad, boring. Jesus Christ, by the way. Oh yes, still one of the still one of the oh sorry John who said these series of books are crap, views the name of Tom Clancy, they're not worthy, etcetera. Made another review of it as well. Still one of the worst books that Tom Clancy's ever had the misfortune be associated with. I say one of the worst is Net Force is definitely the worst of the worst. And you can think is you can you can put like kind of tags, I guess on these reviews.

And he's tagged this modern fiction, mystery, crime and thriller. Codswallop. Codswallop. I'm not looking forward to that. Yeah man as I saw review that I can't find the talks about how ridiculous some of the plot aspects and things in the book are including an F11 sevens with swing wings deploying from an aircraft carrier and anti aircraft artillery with a range of 450 kilometres. It is, it is. It is a tale told by a fool signifying nothing. These books come in for a hammering on the on on Goodreads.

Shall we do ML Coer, M&D Coer and MH Coer? Most likely course of action, most dangerous course of action, and most hilarious course of action of the movie. So ML Coer? Well, none of this is likely, but Kate Michaels releases a book describing her affair with the president after his term or terms are up. Paul Hood and his wife remain together, but also remain emotionally unavailable for their children, each of whom developed substance misuse issues into their late teens. Finally, Wilford Brimley somehow lives on, on and on and on like Henry Kissinger did, and eventually, maybe steps into the White House.

Most dangerous course of action? The death of the Mossad operative in New York sparks tension between Israel and the US and to rebuild the US personally abandoned the two state solution. Similarly, psychiatrist Pam Bluestone gives up on men entirely after her failure with and buys 101 Dalmatians. And then most hilarious course of action arose. Of action building up a significant amount of political capital from how he handles the whole thing. Admiral Admiral Troy Davis runs for president on an independent ticket, somehow garnering significant amount of support.

Probably because all of these random Turkish generals and other people that you knows find a way to dial in and manipulate the election results In order to placate the Republican side of his power base. He takes on Lowell Coffee as the Attorney General and America is even a bigger fucking clown show than it is today because you have tension between this very wise and magnanimous president and a full on turbo fucking psycho as the Attorney general. That would be hilarious to me. It wouldn't be hilarious to live through.

I think there'll definitely be a palace coup within the first fucking 10 days of the administration. However, we're going to all laugh as we're burned. Can you imagine being like lower coffees speech writer?

Can you imagine being Lowell coffee speech writer? Because he wouldn't want, because he wouldn't want his speeches to be written. He would keep going off on on on tangents like I do, like you thought, Oh, so was your new attorney general. I, I promised to. You're not going to be, man. I'm going to erase you. I'm going to destroy you. I'm going to turn them inside out and wear like a shoe. I'm done.

Am I wrong Wrong. We've got we, we have his campaign slogan at this point because of course, eventually, you know, gets out under the Admirals kind of kind of robe and he's like, OK, now I'm going to run for president. He of course runs on a hardcore Republican ticket. He is endorsed by Senator Holden. Blood Feast 135 years old. What's the smell? Burning flesh. One more time. Most of every course of action I yield a seed.

Would this movie be better if it had Jack Ryan, Doctor Richard Kimble, or President James Marshall? Brackets. Get off my plane those brackets in it. Basically. Yes, yes to all the above. Yeah, President James Marshall wouldn't have had an affair and therefore 75% of the runtime wouldn't have had that subplot running through it. He would you would have got a Russian into the rooms unit because of his track record of dealing with the former Soviet Union and his extremely pro US interventionist stance.

Jack Ryan with a Soviets unit and also Jack Ryan would have went abroad and he would have got on board the ship as part of Linebacker. He would have punched out the Colonel himself. I mean, the presence of Jack Ryan would be in this film was actually part of the Ryan verse because because the OP centre films have the top centre books have have their own continuity that isn't part of the part of the Jack Ryan continuity. So yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, like there's there's no connection between the Ryan verse and and the OP centre verse.

Like there's no connection. There's there's there's no crossover, because if there was, I mean, fucking Ding Travers and John Clarke would have led that raid on the ship and everyone, everyone would have been pink missed before the echo faded, right? That would have been absolutely brutal. That would have been fan fucking tastic. You know, Admiral Greer would have. Well, I mean, I guess this these, I guess both these films have cool fucking Admirals in them. Can you imagine Admiral Greer and Admiral Wilfred Brimley double team in this whole operation?

You wouldn't need anybody else in the film. I can all be done from an office. They just make a series of phone calls and everything's fucking fixed and and like we were never here. I don't know if that's a better movie. Yeah.

I've got a new question for you. Would this movie have benefited from a weird little scruffy guy played by Peter Falk? Of course it would. The question is where do we deploy this Peter Falk sort of a character and then what function certainly made like a law enforcement aspect of it, like with the FBI investigation into the in the arms sealer. Funnier and better and and less garbage. If there was a little Peter Falk and a guy who's a walking around like whore houses, like, hey, just one more question.

You know, I can't do a good Columbo impression. But he said just one more question. You ever see, you ever see a guy with ex Mossad Thais come around here trying to call out some of your ladies kind of thing, like just like because, because he's like so like fucking laconic as well. Like it'd also be a great foil for all these high drive nut cases in the OP centre who just like seem like shout buzzwords and catch phrases at each other. He'd feel like he'd been ported in from another reality. So I think we'll put a little kind of scruffy coat, kind of Peter Falk guy in as perhaps perhaps a guy from the CIA because the CIA don't don't feature in this film.

Indeed, I was going to bring that up. Yes, good point. Peter Falk playing scruffy pair worn CIA officer who's had a career of covert operations and now he he works from behind the desk and he's full of wisdom, he's full of wit and he's a calming fucking he's a calming influence. He he would shout about 1776 in the office, you know he'd. Be like my wife. She always whenever she moves nuclear missile she does it down for the Bosphorus if you consider looking there. I would also really prefer like, the scene of the two characters getting horny for the man who's going to come to fire them.

I'll prefer that if they were getting horny for the Peter Falk guy. If like, Oh my God, it's something about like, I know it's fucking crazy, man. Words. This move benefited from Lieutenant Commander Samuel L Jackson, U.S. Navy. I see. Yes. But I have I have the perfect. Idea. Put him in the OPS room when they they put put put the map on the screen and it just starts at this world map and then he just comes in going like motherfucker, do you know that Ukraine is in Eastern Europe? And that's like the whole thing is this.

Or like, you know, when, when they're all making noise and Apollo Creed has to go like at ease, at ease to get to shut up. Like he would be like, I don't remember asking you a God damn thing. Shut up. Fuck up, motherfucker. Just like.

Do I look like a? Bitch just direct support look like a bitch. Why are you trying to fuck him like a bitch? Lol yes you did Lyle What? What? Ain't no country I ever heard of. Is this movie, do you think pro or anti the Central Intelligence Agency? I ask because I was asking. I'm keeping I'm keeping a score. But since someone Clancy is is the king of pro CIA content. But these guys don't out and out with the agency. I don't think they are with the agency and I'm not sure if they're spies, military or civil service or anything.

So where are the spies? Where are the spies? This film makes no reference to the CIA. There's no CIA officers brought in for opinions. There's no actions of CIA officers involved in in locating the nukes or anything like that. It's it's almost as if it exists in a really fucking stupid timeline where the CIA doesn't exist. It's like maybe like the Ryan verse kind of peeled off from the op centre verse and took the CIA with it. And that's why this stupid crisis management unit that's meant to somehow manage all the world's crises, how there's a lot of crises going on right now, right?

And MCMC has got to run all of them. Jesus Christ. No wonder Paul Hood's not got time, you know, go, go, go home and have sex with a woman who's out of his league. You know, it's like, yeah, this, this, this, this film is anti CIA based on the fact that it proposes a world, which is a horrifying thought to me, in which our friend, the CIA does not exist. So it's anti CIA? I agree. I think it's a good point on this. Time for the Ding Chavez award for missed opportunity. One new Ding Chavez. It's always the missed opportunity in any movie.

But for me it's it's not sending Lowell on any of the field work. So, so during the during the cabin cruiser bit, he says, so they get the video feed and the first thing they see is the dancing ladies and they're like, oh, what is this basically cable? And then he says, how come? How come I don't get any of these assignments? I'm like, you don't get any assignments. You're a legal aid like, like you don't you don't do field work. You went to law school. Like what are you talking about? But he should have been in the Seahawks at the end and did the and did and did the the opposed boarding.

And then he should have at the very end of it, served that KGB Colonel some papers for a walk around trial. Right and wrong. You've been served. I don't know how that works. Like like you ought to appear, but like there you go. You just know that if there was a scene in which you did kind of go out in the field and not like negotiate with the Turkish authorities, you'd get really amped up and probably refer to them as Ottomans to the faces, like, like.

You Ottomans are the reason the US Navy exists in the 1st place. We have been putting up with your bullshit for 200 years, am I wrong? Am I wrong? Fucking hell yeah. You would be an absolute fucking menace. I mean, it's, I mean, it's quite funny how basically so he, he, he, he walked. So 20 years later, I'm so fucking He Walks. Or 30 years later, the plot of the TV series The Recruit could run. Because. Because that, of course, follows a lawyer for the CIA who does end up doing field work. Right, so final category before we play my game is Command and signals core signs in the movie.

I've got a couple, but I'd like to hear your thoughts. My first ones were Paul Hood who I think score sign is Mr Political appointee. Holy than that.

Oh my God. I I would like to nominate just masters. I think we know for who. I had an item done is diabetes. Alternatively, Lorax. Holy shit, Lorax. Oh my God, Very good, Lorax. Listen, Mr. President, I've been The Lorax for 35 years.

The trees can't be harmed if The Lorax is armed. Then I'll go give a Sneed what you think about. It not a cold peacemaker concealed under my beer gut. I will shoot you like a dog, Sir so and it's great because obviously with like presidents they get a code like they get a code name anywhere from the Secret Service. His is obvious either horn dog or just sucker because because. Yeah. I mean, I mean, yeah, it's, it's, it's thrillers and the horny the, the, the 70s through the current year. It's it's, it's a sexual outlet for certain parts of the zeitgeist.

I think Brigadier, Brigadier General Mike Rogers. That's the first time I've said his actual name. Apollo Creed his his. I've got 2 course hands for him. One is I've Chubbs after his character in Happy Gilmore.

Yeah, incredible rule. Or also living in America? Living in America. Oh, there goes a couple of. We could just call them, could just call them parade race. Oh. Man, just. Putting a bunch of people at ease. Oh yeah, of course it is. I've got a lot of coffee. I've got down as personally as legal aids. I I I actually had like a whole bunch of ones for Lowell coffee and his no and his don't try to make shit. Gadsden as in the gods in flag steppy as in no step on snack minute man, because he's ready to ready to fight the revolution.

That a minute's notice and definitely not the other thing we're going to give. I mean, she's under surveillance, right? So we'll probably, probably should give Paul Hood's wife a code name. We could also actually call Paul Hood's wife a fucking name, which I don't think we've we've said Jane Hood. Jane Hood, I don't. Think we've given her a real name the whole the whole film, because you notice how the some films would do when we're just referred to the characters by the actors names. So yeah, what's what's what's what's Kim Cattrall's call sign?

It's not. It's not Pam Bluesone's call sign, which is Man Eater, as in whoa, here she comes. But Kim Cattrall, I mean, what was she? So it's a shame. Oh, actually, no, this is good. This is just like, it's just like her role in this mannequin because she has no character whatsoever. I absolutely see you did that. I mean it it her her first name already Jane. Like they they made it Jane Doe. Basically, she's just and there. We go. Jane Doe. Fucking amazing. Are we of course giving who who who else needs a call sign?

The the grossly and God bless him, he was unused and probably had more more more role in the version of the film that wasn't cut down. But what call sign are we given to the leader of the the linebacker team? Oh, but me, the guy who's not Ding. Chalice. Yeah, yeah. Not Ding Chalice, Yeah. I guess instead call him Bong or something. I got Bong. He's Dong. Yeah, yeah, he's Bong. Chavez. Dong Dong Chavez or Bong Chavez or Bing Chavez. Bing yeah, he's like the multiverse version. If it's like when Miles Morales.

Don Chaver. If if I can deserve better, you really did. We haven't given anyone the call saying Touchstone were probably short since since fucking Apollo Creed was just stationed out to the to the to the target designation. I guess we'll get. Guess we could just stick Stalipen and call him Touchstone. Yeah, yeah. Or just audio track given the quotes in audio, because you've noticed how the there was rerecordings done for the film and they're actually credited at the in at the end of the film, the rerecords and the scenes when when linebacker and then they call them Rickenbacker like the guitar there Christ, the the scenes were like linebacker Abraham Stalin.

There's been clearly all of the vocal, all the vocals, all of the all of the dialogues been re recorded and it's totally out of sync and it's terrible. I kept watching it again and again. It's so decent and this great scene as well. When he when he, when he realises under attack, he gets his rifle. He gets his rifle. You have a cock and sound effect. You see him pull the cock and handle back silently then release it. And it's like, so so so his call sent to me is audio because it's so bad around him.

How do we play a game right? So I've I've put a little bit of effort into this last Night Live game. It's called guys. Is it St Tom of Clancy or is it heresy? I'm going to keep and I'm going to keep scores here, but basically what it is that I've got the I've got the synopsi of a bunch of post post Tom Clancy novels that were written by people who aren't Tom Clancy. And you have to and I'll read them up for you. And then you've got to the size of what I've read is a real post Tom Clancy novel or some bullshit that I've made-up.

Yes, that's cool. That's fucking cool. Ads. It's just going to rule. So which are real, which are heresy? So I'll start with this first one right Here we go. And I need you to keep track of who's who's got the points because I'm not going to do it. So Jack Junior. Jack Ryan Junior tracks down a Bosnian girl whose eyesight his mother saves 20 years ago. He finds a self possessed beauty who runs a refugee agency that helps children of her native Bosnia and has to rescue her after she's kidnapped in Sarajevo.

Is it real or is it bullshit? Sonia. Sonia yeah, I'm gonna. The word bullshit is really tempting. But on the other hand. You saying real? That one is real. That is, that is Line of Sight by Mike Madden. Line of sight. I am sorry. It's called line of sight and there's a girl in it. Excuse me while I jump out of the window. Everybody's buying it. That's so fucking bad, OK? Right, go. OK, here's the next one. A hacker called Weed is offering to sell intelligence to Russian, Chinese, and Venezuelan criminals.

He holds auctions after demonstrating his credibility by offi Intel DIA agent movements, causing several to be murdered while undercover. Meanwhile, Jack Junior and his colleague Basco Bradley in Latvia are tasked with investigating AUS senator who withdrew support for a bill that would have increased U.S. defence presence in the region, with an air base outside Riga believing that she has links to the newly reunified communist career. When Basco Bradley is assassinated on his way to work by the Latvian mob, Jack Junior who owns in On Weeb and finds the cases are connected.

Is it real or is it bullshit? It's. All in heresy on this one. Oh yeah, yeah, me too. I don't know the the the the term we is throwing me off. Also, this reminds me of one of the the Craig Bond films too much. It is bullshit but it's extremely similar to the plot of enemy contact. Like all I did was change the name of the hacker and the coach dealer in pretty much. Oh God. Oh. I'm Basco Bradley. I'm in Basco Bradley. Next one, right. Next one. Jack Ryan senior needs to discreetly rescue an old friend framed in Indonesia for a serious crime there.

Oy, oy. To top things off, that old friend sends him a text warning of an upcoming attack in America. Ding. Chavez is kidnapped. Is it real or is it bullshit?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. TikTok, motherfucker.

Yeah, I'm playing with heresy as well. You're both wrong. It's real. It's code of honour by working God. Cameron, Christ. Christ. It's it's, it's the entire Jack Ryan wider family just in the CIA. That's nuts. Here we go. Next one right, Let's keep this train going. Jack Junior investigates the death of an old school friend and finds it linked to a cyberattack. The attack is the use of a fleet of quadcopter drones rid with explosives flying towards the US Stock Exchange in the shape of a dragon.

Or the cyberattack is money theft from several major banking corporations using a programme called Chickenshit Jing. Chavez pipes the Guardia Seville while working with Spanish intelligence. The hunt down with the cyber attacker isn't. Real or it's? Probably fucking real. Yeah, the fucking. Let me guess, it's called something with the red dragon? Though are you saying it's real then as well? Yes, yeah. It's. Not actually yes, but not that much. It's pretty similar to firing points like Mike Madden, but it's not the same.

But the Guardia Seville stuff, Spanish. That's all legit in the book. But it's not called chicken shit and it's not about drawing attack on the US Stock Exchange. OK, next one. Next one. I've got a few more to go. Jack Senior has a lot to deal with. A missing Chinese scientist, unexplained noises under the Arctic ice pack, and a possible mole in U.S. intelligence is a real or is it bullshit? That sounds kind of real. It doesn't have enough crazy elements of the plot like desperate mad arms the plot to be an actual original Clancy work.

Because they'd be they'd be a missing Chinese scientist. There'd be strange noises under the Antarctic. There'd be a Russian officer with experience of fighting in World War 2. Once to the fact that there'd be that there'd be a project to create a super fighter and Ding Ding Chavez would shoot some people in the balls. But it is it is simple enough, I think to be one of the post the ascension of Saint Thomas of Clancy books. I'm going to say real. Your birth thing? Real Israel. It's Shadow of the Dragon by Mark, right?

Next, 1A shadowy billionaire tries to remove Jack Senior as a threat to his most ambitious plan, which involves deep fakes by kidnapping Kathy Ryan. Ding Chavez leads the search to recover her in Texas. Bullshit in Texas bullshit. Oh, it's real. It's Chain of Command by Mark Cameron. So Ding Trevor's kind of way by this point is literally a grandfather cannot be so. So this is so this is so this is now well from Ding Travers is about our some of your lover guy and he always deserves better and it always deserves to be better deployed.

He's a granddad at this point. He's he's deputy director of an organisation called Campus. Yes, yes. So I've read about the campus on on the subreddit and people fucking hate it. The the the general consensus among Clancy heads is that the campus fucking sucks ass. Well, on that note, Jack Junior is engaged to be married. But crisis looms as Jack Senior discovers the brides linked to the Greek Mafia who happened to be planning a second war in Cyprus. Ding Chavez and John Clark of campus are tasked with apprehending her, but not before she can finger her connections in the US.

Fuck it real. It sounds like we're like spinning the wheel of Clancy at this point. It sounds like they're just like fuck it, real real.

Yeah, I don't know. Bucket with real? I've got no fucking idea. Oh shit. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. And that's all me I didn't even understand from ripping me off. Amazing, to be honest. I will say the reason why I thought it kind of has the ring of truth is that sounds like a Clive Cussler plot. So LEGO's got that crazy kind of Mad Libs. Not that I'm dissing your work or anything, but it's not that we are Mad Libs. Let's let's spin the wheel for protagonists, for antagonists. We'll throw in a Clive Cussler self insert and we'll throw in a shipwreck and a mystery.

And it's like, so the separatists from Belgium are trying to raise the Edmund Fitzgerald because it's got spin the Wheel nucleus built into spin the wheel, the boiler room, spin the wheel and the and and the and the other people searching for it are spin, spin, spin, spin a crack team of former KGB agents and spin spin, spin, spin a voodoo practitioner from London. So what you did had the fucking ring of a Clive Cussler novel. And that tracks with late era post ascension St. Thomas of Clancy courtesies.

Amazing. 2 more left if you're ready for them. You're by the way, are you guys on neck and neck? So the only one winning here at the minute, isn't it? OK, so second last one. Jack Junior and a colleague are sent to Vietnam to investigate a rare earth mining company. But when the helicopter is shot down, Jack Junior is plunged into a fight for his life. I'm seeing real on that one. Yeah, this sounds too simplistic. I dislike it so. What do you mean? I'm going with an. I'm going with a no. What do you mean no, it's real bullshit.

Just no, in general it's not real. It's not real. Yep, it is real. It's shadow States by MP Woodward. Rory, you, you're finally going to put it on the lead. Who's the real class you had now? But. Right, final one though. Yeah, last one. Right, final, final, final one, though. This could this could be the tie break. OK, Jack Senior runs for re election, but a Chinese spy has photographed him eating a bacon sandwich in an emasculating fashion, and it's offering not to make it public in return for military intelligence.

Meanwhile, Jack Junior sees himself pitted against an enemy the likes of which he's never encountered to be found his armour server. Fucking hell, obviously.

This obviously real. That's your final answer.

It is obvious. Yeah, that was a little fun one to run out the game there. But thank you very much for playing Saints Tom of Clancy or Heresy. That was fucking amazing. Amazing. I think that rounds us out. I think that brings us the end of this episode of Clearing Present. Dudes, we've COVID-19 90 fives op Centre in painstaking detail. We had some fun along the way. And our next week we're going to be doing an episode that's going to be my pick. And I want you to imagine a world where John Mcclane never scaled the Nakatomi Plaza, he never got his wife Bonnie Bedelia back, and he never got his roses at work for being a good cop.

Picture him in Pittsburgh working on the river as a boat cop, bitter, angry and lonely. Now imagine his dad is Marty Crane from Frasier, his partner is Carrie from Sex and the City, and his boss is Dennis Farina. It's 1993's striking distance, starring Bruce Willis, Tom Sizemore, Sarah Jessica Parker, Dennis Farina and John Mahoney. It's written and directed by Rowdy Harrington of Roadhouse fame. I haven't even watched it yet, but I look forward to seeing you guys there. We have been the clear and present dudes I've been.

Mike, goodbye. I mean, Rory, it's great to have you aboard the Clear and present Dudes train wreck once again. You can find us, as I said, on all of the major podcast providers and also on YouTube, which one search for clear and present dudes. You'll have to put speech marks around it or we'll just pipe you through lots of clips of clear and present danger. You can find me on Twitter, which I refuse to call X on. Rory O'Toole. That's RUARI O'Toole. Peace out. Yep. Hi Sanya, thanks for joining us this time again and see you again next week.

Another film that involves boats. We keep coming back to that. Wonder how that is. Thank you for joining in this week. Thank you for having us on the see. You well then. Cool and see you then. We've been, we're trying to. Make a thing happening. Do it's? Present. Dude. Excellent dude. Dudes. Together VSN afen modus VSN afen modus.

Tom Clancy’s Op Center (1995)

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