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)

What's This About?