Die Hard Ep. 05 - Cliffhanger / Crackerjack - Get Me Another

Episode Transcript
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Hello and welcome to Get Me Another, a podcast where we explore those movies that followedin the wake of blockbuster hits and attempted to replicate their success.
My name is Chris Ayanakone and with me is my co-host Justin Bean.
Chris, I am ready for a dip in the hot springs.
You know, you gotta, it's the natural hot springs, it's cleansing, and just in case youneed to escape, there is a tunnel connecting it to the main pool, and that is very

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important.
I cannot wait to get to the point of discussing that set and all the sets on that film.
But yes, it's a delight to be here with you once again, Chris.
It is absolutely a delight to be here with you.
Today is the fifth episode in our Get Me Another Die Hard series.
And we're going to be looking at two different versions of the Die Hard on a Mountainconcept, a setting that is a significant departure from the contained spaces that we've

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seen thus far in the series.
So,
Hang on, because first up today, from 1993, this is Cliffhanger.
Please, please, I don't want to die!
You're not gonna die!
Don't let me!
Don't let me fall!

(01:34):
The sentence has been transferred from the Denver office to Frisco and as a professionalcourtesy between offices I was asked if he could hitch a ride.
got plenty of room.
I'd glad to accommodate you.
We just got an emergency call.
Five climbers just ran off Cumb left.

(01:54):
I haven't climbed in months.
You just lose the feel.
Maybe you mean the nerve.
Where's the helicopter?
What the hell's going on?
What are your names?
Tucker and Walker.
Well, Tucker and Walker, we're missing three bags.
What's in them?
None of your fucking business!
Fats!

(02:23):
Where is the money?
It's funny.
We've been talking about a number of the films in this series.
We've talked about going all the way back to the original Die Hard.
And we've heard more than once, you know, before they cast so and so in the leading role,they offered it to either Arnold Schwarzenegger or Sylvester Stallone.

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Like it always seems like those guys were the biggest action stars of the day.
So it makes sense that, you know, a lot of scripts came their way of this sort.
And finally,
we have a movie that one of those guys actually said yes to and it is Stallone inCliffhanger.
And it's interesting because in the early nineties, while Schwarzenegger was sort ofhitting his career peak with movies like Total Recall and Terminator 2, Stallone found

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himself in a bit of a slump as far as the box office disappointments like Rocky Five,Oscar, and the legendary Stop or My Mom Will Shoot, co-starring Estelle Getty.
And it's worth mentioning that Stallone's career started a little earlier, so was kind ofrunning about five years ahead of Schwarzenegger's, who would hit his own rut in like the

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mid to late 90s.
So Cliffhanger represented something of a comeback for Stallone, along with DemolitionMan, which came out later the same year.
Cliffhanger was produced by Carolco Pictures, the company founded by Mario Kasser andAndrew G.
Vajna, which had its first big success with another Stallone movie, First Blood.

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And I've always thought of Carolco as kind of a more well-heeled canon films.
Yeah.
You know, they just feel like, they had a little bit more money.
And the early 90s was their peak.
Pun intended.
Indeed.
But the thing about Carolco is the wheels would come off the wagon by the mid 90s with theback-to-back bombs of Showgirls and Cutthroat Island.

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Now, the story of how this movie kind of came to be is curious because
Originally, Stallone was attached to a star in another Carolco production entitled GaleForce, which was described as die hard in a hurricane.

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And Carolco spent like $4 million in script fees for Gale Force, including one rewrite byJoe Estherhouse, rewrote it as an erotic thriller, because I guess that's what Joe
Estherhouse does.
And they were like ready to go on Gale Force.
And then it was canceled two weeks before production was due to commence.

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What was the reason for that?
Well, apparently they were concerned about the $40 million budget was a little too high.
And they were worried that how special effects were going to effectively realize the, youknow, the hurricane, the storm at the center of the piece.
Honestly though, that feels like something you should figure out before you're at the twoweek mark.

(05:27):
I wish that had been made on that schedule so we could see what they would have whipped upin two weeks.
that would have been amazing.
I mean, what I know them for is like shocker.
which I worked on, guess, I guess there were some part of that.
don't, I don't know that they were a producing entity, but of course, total recall, whichis one of my comfort movies.
then the doors.
I love all doors so much.

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Oh, I remember seeing that in the movie theater.
I mean, they've done so many, so many bigger things, of course, but that's when I see thatlogo pop up, it's one of those I'm like, okay, I think we're in pretty safe hands here.
Right.
Right.
Well, and essentially what happened was Carolco, they took all the resources that wereallocated for Galeforce and shifted it over to a different script, Cliffhanger, which was

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originally written by Michael France, who ultimately would share writing credit withStallone, who did a significant rewrite as Stallone often does.
And France would later go on to write the first Pierce Brosnan 007 film, GoldenEye, aswell as some of the early Marvel films such as Hulk.
The Punisher and the Fantastic Four, all the 2000s versions of those characters.

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And the director of Gale Force was Renny Harlin, who was, you we talked about a coupleepisodes ago with Die Hard 2, he was gonna direct Gale Force and they just kinda slid
everything for Gale Force over to Cliffhanger.
The irony of that is that Cliffhanger ultimately cost around $70 million.

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which is more than double what they had planned for Galeforce.
So like it went significantly over budget and they ended up spending, you know, more thanthey intended to anyway.
Harlan would then later go on to work for Carolco one more time directing the previouslymentioned Cutthroat Island, another wildly expensive film whose box office failure would

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ultimately doom that company.
That is a movie we will eventually cover on a Don't Get Me Another episode because it's...
That's fascinating that Cutthroat Island and Waterworld came out the same year.
It was just like, man, that was not the time to be making movies on the water.
I'll tell you that.
Yeah.
In Cliffhanger, Stallone plays Gabe Walker, a former mountain ranger who is haunted by hisfailure to save his friend's girlfriend in a mountain climbing accident, which is depicted

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in the film's stunning opening sequence.
In addition to Stallone, the film stars John Lithgow as the villainous Quailin.
Michael Rooker and Northern Exposure's Janine Turner.
Now, Reddy Harlan, this is interesting, originally wanted for the role of Quailin, DavidBowie, which fascinating.

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And Christopher Walken was actually cast in the role, but dropped out of the movie a fewdays before it was going to start.
And Lithgow was already cast as like the secondary villain.
So he essentially got promoted to the role of Quailin like
the night before shooting started.
It's crazy.

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And I actually saw this movie back in the movie theater in 1993, but it's one of thosemovies, I hadn't seen it again until this week.
Like I'd seen it once in 93 and I remember pieces of it.
I remember the opening really well, but like the rest of it was kind of forgotten.

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Like of the two 93 Stallone movies, I ended up seeing Demolition Man much more over theyears than Cliffhanger.
Same here.
Yeah.
And I worked on that earlier this year too, on a release of that.
And that I, was a pleasant surprise to revisit that.
Right.
And I didn't remember ever having seen Cliffhanger before.
I think my memory of it as something in my life was just because it was so omnipresent invideo stores.

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This was one of those titles that every store definitely stocked up on when it firstlanded on.
So I'm not sure I ever saw it before watching it for the episode, but you mentioned thatopening sequence in the budget I'd love I mean these two movies that we're talking about
today could not be more polar opposites when it comes to investment absolutely and thepresentation of environment and Practical effects and settings and things like that I mean

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they are on the polar opposite ends of the spectrum on that and this one right from theget-go establishes itself as such a
big movie and I think that you seeing it in the theater had to be a real treat.
Oh, absolutely.
Like, cause we open up with this amazing aerial photography of what is supposed to be theRocky Mountains, although many of the mountain climbing sequences in this movie were

(10:00):
actually shot in the Italian Alps.
But like it is absolutely gorgeous.
Like the helicopter shots and you're coming in and it's, is, it is a really like theopening of this movie really puts you in the place of, I mean,
Well, I'll be honest with you.
I will never want to mountain climb.

(10:20):
The thought of it is terrifying, but it was amazing to see these these, you know, theseshots.
mean, it's like we have this the title card comes up.
We actually see Stallone's character hanging off a cliff.
Yeah.
And one of the things that they do here as well is that a lot of movies may open with thiskind of footage now, especially on lower budget films.

(10:41):
It's going to be stock footage that they picked up from a
drone company or whatever.
But this is the days of helicopter and there were many helicopters to be had on the makingof this film for sure.
But what I like about it is that it's not just opening with this.
We're going to spend the duration of the movie in and around these mountains.
And as I agree with you on no interest in mountain climbing, but I am obsessively devotedto spending time in mountains, not up in the rustic, like just snow and rock areas, but

(11:13):
I really find a lot of peace and being in the mountains.
it's beautiful.
Absolutely.
Not necessarily in this setting, but man, do I love there's so many shots that are briefthat I think, God, any other movie would just milk this shot and hold on it for longer,
maybe even return to it or something.
But the good thing about Cliffhanger is that you're in it for the long haul with thisbeautiful scene.

(11:34):
Yes, absolutely.
Yeah, it's funny.
I don't I don't actually have a fear of heights.
have I do have a fear of falling.
which is a subtle but distinct difference.
Because it's like, I go up in a tall building or something like that and it's like, I'mlooking out the window.
I'm like, that's great.
I don't have a problem looking out the window of an airplane.
But anywhere where it's like open and I can feel it's like, I could just go over.

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No good.
I could just go over.
Yeah.
we get, we open up, we get a little bit of the Stallone polished dialogue.
Like he says over the radio, so what are you doing?
I'm just hanging out.
And I'm like,
That's Stallone.
That's unfiltered Stallone humor right there.
I have seen enough Stallone movies to know it.
Gabe Walker is climbing up to rescue his friend Hal, played by Michael Rooker, who is nowstranded on this tall peak with his novice climber girlfriend, Sarah.

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And also involved in the rescue is Gabe's girlfriend, Jessie, played by Janine Turner,who's flying up in a helicopter with the older Ranger Frank.
And Hal apparently has been injured.
He's climbed this dangerous part of the mountain.
He's injured his leg.
He's bringing along the inexperienced Sarah played by Michelle Joyner and the helicopterlike lands on a nearby peak and they run a line out to like Gabe, Hal and Sarah.

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And it is like, there is some genuinely amazing footage here.
when the helicopter's coming in and we push in on Hal and Sarah on the top of the peak,that is clearly Michael Rooker and Michelle Joyner.
in just an uninterrupted shot from a helicopter.
It's amazing.
Yeah, this whole sequence is harrowing.
Oh, it really is.
It's the kind of sequence that a lot of movies try to try to achieve in terms of howintense it is for an audience to be bearing witness.

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But this one absolutely delivers.
Oh, it really does.
And you can.
And it is clearly Rooker and Joyner up there.
They had they were on the mountain.
They had safety harnesses on that you can't see.
And I got to say,
This movie does an incredible job with editing because some of this material was shot onthe mountain.
Some of it was shot on the mountain with stunt doubles.

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Some of it was shot in the studios.
There's a few shots that are kind of clear process shots because of the time.
They're a little bit dated in that regard.
But like the way it's cut together, it's really amazing.
Especially when you consider that Sylvester Stallone, who is apparently afraid of heights,never went up on the mountain.

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Anytime you see him in a longer or medium shot, it was Wolfgang Gullich or Ron Cock whoare his stunt doubles.
But it is put together in a way that you genuinely would think that it's him.
Yeah.
You don't see the seams at all.
At all.
Anywhere in the movie.
Yeah.
And this opening sequence, this was the thing that I remembered when I saw it the movie.

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It's like they run the line and Hal makes his way across the helicopter and then Sarah'sup next.
And Gabe is like, it'll be fine.
Everything will be fine.
But I'll tell you, you know it's not going to be fine because he's already talking to herlike he thinks she's a goner.
Like, oh, are you still on for dinner tonight, Gabe?
Oh, of course we are.
Of course we are.
It's fine.

(14:45):
Like, no, dude, don't, you know.
So she starts to make her way across and the safety strap breaks.
And she is just hanging up there like by this little like buckle.
that's on the thing at like 4,000 feet up.
And it's just like, it is genuinely terrifying.
They had, there were shots where it was the actual, that was Michelle Joyner, the actresswas up there.

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And then there were other shots where it was the stunt double.
And it's just, it's just amazing.
And then Gabe, he kind of goes across, Hal doesn't want him to do it.
He says the lines, not gonna wait for two.
And you know, Gabe reaches Sarah just as the clip snaps.
He catches her, but then,
he ultimately can't hold on and she plummets down.

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it is like this opening sequence.
It's, it is so, like I said, this is the thing I really remember from seeing the movie inthe movie theater.
And it is, it, it, it hold up, mean held up amazingly.
Wow.
Like I was, I was sort of white-knuckled watching it to it, frankly, to a degree that Iwasn't for other parts of the movie.
Yeah.

(15:52):
Yeah, definitely.
And it must be noted just for the story's sake that
He doesn't let go of her.
happens that she's wearing a climbing glove.
Right.
And it's the glove that she slips out of.
So he doesn't lose his grip on her or anything like that.
That's going to come into play very shortly in terms of the story and his character in theaftermath of all this.

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But yeah, it's an unfortunate accident.
And some of those shots, there's this one sort of longer shot that starts on the edge ofthe cliff as she's dangling out there and it moves slowly out to her.
And it reveals the valley below as it's making its way out.
And that is incredible.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
One funny thing is that you have on the other peak, there's the helicopter with with Jesseand Frank and I the older ranger Frank.

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I don't know what was going through the actor's head, but he is grinning like a lunatic.
Like he has got to like he is he is grinning like an insane person.
I'm just like, what?
Like it wasn't until I went back and I was looking at scenes, I'm like, that guy is, thatguy is, he's looking for somebody to drop.
My God, this guy's twisted.
Yeah.

(17:04):
It makes you think there's going to be more to that down the road.
Thank goodness they didn't lean into that.
He's just a good guy the whole way through.
My God.
And this opening sequence, this is like the first 12 minutes of the movie.
And it's really just backstory for Stallone's character.
Cause we cut to eight months later and Gabe's, he's left the mountain range of life.
He's left that mountain range of life behind.

(17:25):
He's gone to Denver and he just apparently, you know, had up and disappeared and hereturns to pick up his stuff and ask Jesse to go with them.
Although he first encounters two extreme sports guys, cause it's the nineties and weneeded some extreme sports.
Two guys who definitely aren't going to come into play again later.

(17:45):
That's one thing this movie does.
Everything that's referenced, anything you see is going to come into play at some pointdown the road.
Yes.
There's nothing superfluous in this film at all.
But yeah, we see these two guys who recognize Gabe as some kind of mountain rock star.
Yeah.
And they're like, come, come and climb rocks with us.
he's like, oh, can't do that And he's on his way up to pack his stuff up and they're like,whatever they speed off in their Jeep.

(18:11):
I'm like, well, a, at least one of them is going to die.
We're probably going to visit with them again later down.
I mean, honestly, these guys talk like they are Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
They really do.
Radical, dude.
Yeah.
You know, they're they're dry.
They're having the conversation with Gabe and they're driving the jeep side by side.
I'm like, that's that's not safe.
That's not a safe way to operate a motor vehicle.

(18:34):
But they're extreme.
It was the 90s.
I'm sure they just had a lot of Mountain Dew.
That's it.
It's a Mountain Dew.
Jesse is less than pleased to see Gabe because apparently Gabe had just, you know,
up and disappeared and they have this, kind of, he feels guilty for what happened.
Now I don't feel that Gabe is responsible.

(18:56):
As you pointed out, he doesn't let it go.
There was no way he could keep his hold.
was, was the glove was slipping out.
And honestly, if anyone's to blame, it's Hal for bringing that girl up there when shewasn't experienced.
Like what, like, what are you doing, man?
Like, I know you want to impress the girl, like.
Yeah.
When Jesse says that.
Jesse said she, you know, it was all about why did he bring that girl up there?

(19:21):
But my problem with Jesse is that she is so, mean, I understand.
OK, so he packed up and left.
He didn't even take his stuff clearly.
We don't know what happened in the interim.
They didn't spend the time on that really occurring.
But she has no compassion about what he had been through at all.
Yeah.
And I mean, that's that is a life defining.

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certainly a life changing event for anyone to have that occur, regardless of circumstanceor what led to it happening.
And she, there's not even discussion on a human level with her.
She just immediately pulls out the bow and the arrow and aims it right at his heart.
And the poor guy, I mean, talk about beleaguered and I understand he shouldn't have leftprobably under, it's clear that there was some kind of just.

(20:10):
lack of communication at best between the two of them at the point where he took off.
But I was really put off by that with her.
thought, geez, that's pretty awful.
And second, if she really cared about him, wouldn't there's no element of her that'sexcited that he's back?
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, no.
I mean, she tells him quit hoarding all the guilt.
Which is weird.

(20:31):
That's a hell of a thing to say here as if there's a finite amount of guilt in the world.
I mean, that's the other thing is, is, is how he feels is not, uh
You know, it doesn't mean that other people can't feel guilty as well.
It's not like, you know, it's just, it's a very, she's very, very hostile to him in a verykind of odd way.

(20:52):
uh yeah, it's, you know, I mean, I understand why Gabe feels bad.
Like he, you know, it's a completely understandable reaction to that.
Even if I don't think in any kind of logical or, or, or sort of, you know, objective way,that's the word I'm looking for.
In any objective way, he is not the one to blame for what happened.
Right.

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But I can still see why he would, you know, feel terrible about it.
Of course.
While all this is going on, a shipment of a hundred million dollars in uncirculatedcurrency is about to be flown from the Denver Mint to San Francisco.
The money.
Powers.

(21:33):
The money is in three cases filled with one thousand dollar bills.
Now.
I have a trivia question.
Can you tell me who is on the $1,000 bill?
No.
It is Grover Cleveland, the only president to be born in New Jersey.

(21:55):
there's really $1,000 bills.
They're no longer in circulation.
They were used for, and the movie kind of points this out, that they were used essentiallyfor intra-bank transfers.
in particular before like we had electronic transfers and all that sort of thing.
But they are still legal tender.
Like if you get a thousand dollar bill, still, it's still is a thousand dollars.

(22:16):
So they're, they're, they're taking that, they're taking those money from, from Denver toSan Francisco over on a special plane.
And on this flight, there's an FBI agent who's catching a ride to San Francisco.
And what I like here is
All of these guys are so shady, except for Paul Winfield, who's like the head treasuryagent.
All these guys are so shady, you know one of them is going to turn out to be the insideman, but you can't tell who it's going to be.

(22:42):
Yeah.
It's a fun, you know something's going to happen.
We get a daring midair heist as the villains arrive in like a small Learjet alongside thetreasury plane.
It turns out the FBI guy is not the inside man, but it's this mustachioed guy, Travers.
is the bad guy and he shoots the other agents and the FBI guy and he runs a line from oneplane to the other.

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And this stunt where uh the key goes from the treasury plane to the the Learjet, that wasactually done by a stunt man named Simon Crane who was paid a million dollars to do that
aerial crossing at 15,000 feet.
And it was the most expensive stunt in history at the time.

(23:27):
Like it feels like a precursor to the hijack sequence from Dark Knight Rises.
Like it's very well done.
Yeah.
yeah.
You're seeing everything.
They don't really shy away from, from any of it.
And they had so much coverage on it too.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, they clearly mapped it out very well and it's pretty incredible.
It reminded me of the, I think it's the second, no, maybe the third airplane film where ithas Karen Black.

(23:51):
She's the stewardess who has to take over flying the plane and they lower
Charlton Heston down from one plane into her plane.
That's this reminds me of.
Which had been done years before, surely for a lot less money.
Oh, sure.
Oh yeah.
Now those are, man, those airport movies are so much fun.
my God.
I love them.
Well, let's see, maybe they may all show up and get me another Poseidon adventure down theroad.

(24:18):
There we go.
I used to watch one of those before I flew.
was like,
kind of superstitious and for a long time flying kind of bothered me.
And I was like, well, if I, if I get this out of my system now, if I just present to mysoul, some plane catastrophe, surely it won't happen to me.
And maybe it works.
still here.
I mean, there's that one, I can't remember which one it is where like they have the accentand the cockpit and the guy, the copilot just gets like sucked out.

(24:44):
And it just goes, just goes right up.
it's like, I think it's airport 75 or something like that.
It's
It's amazing.
It's amazing.
Yep.
So they have this, they're, they're, this is the heist.
They're, they're going to take the money.
They're going to run this line from one plane to the other.
And the three cases are going to go.
Travers crosses first, leaving the pilot who's also in on it to send the cases of cashafterwards.

(25:08):
But that's where things go wrong because before the cash can be sent over the FBI guy whoisn't dead.
kills the pilot and the cases go flying out of the back of the plane, and then the FBIguy, he shoots up the other plane.
Everything goes wrong.
A bomb detonates on the Treasury plane, killing the FBI agent, and they lose the cases inthe mountains before their plane has to go down.

(25:36):
And what I think is so interesting about this whole, first of all, this is an incrediblywell put together sequence.
It's really good.
But what I think is sort of interesting in the broader context of the movies we've beentalking about in this series is usually the bad guys have a well-constructed plan that
generally goes off without a hitch until our hero intervenes.

(25:59):
Right.
know, die hard.
Even the taking of Beverly Hills, they would have had it all.
They would have had that wall if not for, uh you know, for Boomer.
Boomer, you know, he foiled the plan.
But here,
The bad guys have a plan that goes wrong from the beginning.
It gets fucked up from the very start.

(26:20):
And the whole movie doesn't happen if that plan had gone right.
Like if everything had gone right, they would have never even been on that mountain.
It would have just been, hey, we're going from one plane to the other.
We transfer the money, fly off to Tahiti or wherever the hell we're going.
And there we go.
But what I think makes it so interesting is

(26:41):
This might be the least capable villain team we've seen in this series.
yeah, I would say so.
Like they are kind of, I mean, they have moments that are almost Keystone Cops-esque.
The plane goes down, we learn that the leader of the group is Eric Quaylen, a formerBritish intelligence officer, gone rogue.

(27:03):
And I do wonder why he needed to be British because John Lithgow is uh
affecting a British accent that I don't look entirely works like this.
Yeah, like it didn't need to be.
You could just been an American agent and John Lithgow is fine.
It's just it's that that both of these movies today have villains doing accents that aresomething.

(27:27):
And the second movie, even people who aren't villains with their with their accent comesand goes.
But it makes me wonder to the theme of this whole series if it's just well, diehard didit.
Yeah.
We had European villains in Die Hard.
We need foreign villains.
mean, and it's interesting because you don't really need that, but this is that thingwhere people imitate some of the details that really don't need to be imitated.

(27:54):
It's like, oh, well, he could just been an American agent.
Like there was nothing specific of why he needed to be British.
I also want to point out that the female member of Quailin's crew who is Carolyn Goodall,
who played Michael Douglas's wife in the glass brick intensive thriller Disclosure, whichwe featured in our Get Me Another Fatal Attraction series.

(28:15):
Yes.
She makes a call.
So the plane crashes.
She makes a call to the ranger station for assistance and Hal heads up there because ofcourse there's a storm coming in.
You know, there's always a storm coming in.
There's a storm coming in that, you know, they can't fly helicopters up.
Jesse is able to catch Gabe before he leaves, tells him that Hal is going up.

(28:36):
and basically says you owe it to yourself to go up there and help with the rescue.
Thank God you didn't leave.
Why?
We just got an emergency call.
Five climbers just ran off cumble after the weather's pouring in and Hal's gone up alone.
Oh, Hal's a good climber.
What?
What's that supposed to mean?
You mean if can handle it on your own?

(29:23):
She is really harsh to this poor guy.
She is.
And you...
And Hal, it's not like there aren't trained rescue people around.
You don't need Gabe necessarily to do this.
I mean, he may have been the best at one point, but it's clear that his mind isn't whereit should be.
I so that makes you think like if she's aware of how this stuff works from having beenwith him, right?

(29:47):
Wouldn't she at least think, well, if his head's not in this, this could be reallydangerous for him.
Exactly.
It could be really dangerous for everybody.
Exactly.
but she just walks up and she really lets him have it.
Like you're going to live with this forever if you don't go up there.
And it's just, it's so harsh and it feels so bad for the guy in this moment.

(30:09):
And he seems pretty hopeless anyway, not that we've gotten too much out of him so far inthe movie, but he really does seem hopeless.
And she's her relentless approach makes it harder for sure.
And, and then what I do like about how that scene ends is that you think he's just goingto drive off.
You're like, okay,
And in my notes, I say, well, I presume that wraps up this story and he won't be in therest of the film.

(30:30):
That's it.
He's gone.
Like it's the classic refusal of the call.
Like it's like, you know, he's going to.
Yeah.
And we never see the moment where he changes his mind.
It's interesting.
We never have that moment where it's like, you know, he looks down at, don't know, apicture of the girl who died and, you know, has that moment in his mind where he decides,
I've got to help here.
Like you never see that.

(30:51):
He just shows up on the mountain ahead of how.
Who goes to the exact place where he is.
Yeah, because the exact place where he is and we get a little conflict between the twobecause Hal blames Gabe for Sarah's death and you know, like, oh, you want to throw me off
the mountain?
Like there's a whole bit with the two of them.
But like, how I get because, well, I would think that Hal is, he bears the largest degreeof responsibility for what happened.

(31:20):
That is a tough thing for him to face.
So he faces it by pushing that responsibility
off on Gabe.
Yeah, it's not right, but I understand it.
Yeah, I get it too.
But I must say that what I like about these two is that their relationship isn't A or B,right?
It's not close buddies who are hanging out and like making sure each other are okay.

(31:42):
And it's not two guys who can't stand each other.
And it's sure that how's going to undercut Gabe at some point.
I like there's a bit of a dance throughout the remainder of the film between the two ofthem, because there are a couple moments
where these bad guys are either threatening or aiming to do something involving Gabe andHal steps in and says like, he'll freeze to death.
You can't do this.

(32:02):
So he, they aren't completely dismissive of each other.
And I like that.
I like that dynamic.
Yeah, no, I agree.
It's, it, could have been a much more sort of one note or one sided relationship for amovie like this.
they give it, they give it dimension.
I genuinely like, and, again, I think this is a good Stallone movie, you know, Stallone isStallone.

(32:24):
You know, that is he is who he is and the kind of roles he plays.
But Michael Rooker is terrific.
Rooker is so great.
He is he's one of these actors that elevates everything he's a part of.
Yeah.
And I don't he's just so naturally uh magnetic.
And even if he's the bad guy in a movie, you you can't help but want more of him onscreen.

(32:47):
And that's definitely the case here.
I.
He's it's welcome when he shows up, it feels like there's hope in this movie for somereason, even when he's trapped in a situation that's terrible.
I love him.
I love him so much.
he's incredibly gifted at he's absolutely great.
And so that they together, they go ahead, they say, okay, we're going to go ahead.
They're going to do the rescue.
They reach the plane and they're immediately taken captive by Quailin's team, which by theway, these two found the plane in like three seconds.

(33:15):
Yeah, they didn't know it was not a hard find.
So if the thought at that point is
people have crashed in this plane, need to be saved.
And our friend Jesse is saying, Gabe, you're the only one who can save the day.
Hal was already on his way there.
Right.
They didn't have trouble finding the place.
Hal would have done just fine on his own, not in relation to what the bad guys are allabout, but he would have certainly found the plane.

(33:37):
I mean, there was clearly no obstacle in the way of getting to that plane.
So why did Jesse even waste the time going to Gabe to do this other than the fact thatit's a movie?
Right.
Well, like if this if that had just been a crashed plane and they weren't like, you know,bad guys doing bad guy shit and it was just uh innocent people who who who got in a plane

(33:59):
crash and needed assistance, how was totally capable of rendering that assistance?
Absolutely.
And he was already on the way.
Like he was already on the way.
It's not like he had trouble finding it.
It was now, of course, because they are they are bad guys going to do bad guy shit.
Well, then it all goes, you know, it all goes in a different direction.
Yeah.
But the theoretical that they didn't know that when they sent how and then gave up there,like they didn't know that it was bad guys doing bad guy shit.

(34:27):
Yeah, it's kind of a weird thing.
But immediately they're taken captive.
And it's one of the things I really like about this movie is that neither Gabe nor howhave any kind of like special training in the military.
They reference.
uh, how having been in Vietnam, which makes sense for the age of the character, but like,it's not like, their former army Rangers turned park Rangers or anything like that.

(34:54):
They they're, they're specialized knowledge.
The thing that gives them the advantage over Quailin and his people is their knowledge ofthe mountain and how to survive in this kind of terrain.
So Quailin intends to use these two Rangers to track down the three cases, which do havelocator tags.
but they don't know the area and they don't know exactly where they are.

(35:15):
You get like kind of a little 2D readout on the thing, but you don't know like elevationsand stuff like that.
They find the first case pretty quick, but it's up on like this ledge.
So they send Gabe up like to climb the cliff face to get it.
And that's where I was like, these people are stupid because while Gabe is up there, theysay to Hal, well, who's down below with them.

(35:40):
Well, we're going to kill Gabe when he gets back down.
We don't really need two guys.
Like, why would you do that?
Like, and Hal yells up to Gabe, they're going to kill you.
Like, yo, don't, you know, don't give it to him.
They're going to kill you.
I'm like, why would you, once you know that they're going to kill you for sure, why wouldyou do anything?
Yeah.
And they had put the tracker that is monitoring where the cases are.

(36:02):
They gave it to those two.
They gave it to Gabe and Hal at the front of the, and they let them lead them on this sortof hiking journey.
up to where the first case was encountered.
So they're giving the only way to keep track of where these things are to two guys thathave no reason not to cooperate.
Yeah.

(36:23):
And, then when, and, but that is the scene where Hal steps in for a second before theycause they make him go out there without his coat.
And they're like, yeah, he's like, can't do this with this stuff on and I don't have on mygear.
They're like, well, you got to do it anyway.
And that's when Hal's like, no, he's going to freeze to death up there.
But of course, as soon as
Gabe gets up there, then Gabe has to come up with a way to foil the current plan at least.

(36:47):
this is where things really start to go off the rails.
Well, like he opens, he gets up to the ledge, he opens the case and it's full of theCleveland's as the kids say.
It's all about the Cleveland's.
um And he's able to cut the rope that they've tied around his ankle.
And then in response, Quailin's men start shooting at him.

(37:08):
Triggering an avalanche Like these guys are the dumbest villains that we've seen in thisseries like oh my god They really are even if they didn't think about the avalanche
potential or whatever there.
They couldn't possibly be hitting him There right he's on top of a cliff above them Whatdo they like shooting at hoping the bullets eventually rain down on him?

(37:32):
What?
And what happened, they do get the avalanche, like the snow comes down on everybody and itsweeps the case along and smashes it on the cliff and sends Cleveland's everywhere.
you know, like, so that's, like, well, now you've destroyed the, you've now, you're now,your profit is decreased by one third because you're stupid.

(37:56):
So, and then, the other thing about this, they think Gabe is dead and they just kind ofassume, well, I guess he must be killed in the avalanche.
Let's just move on to the next case.
I'm like, So, there's a brief exchange on the radio.
Jesse convinces Frank to fly her up to the area.
guess, you know, the weather changed enough that they could fly up to a certain area.

(38:17):
So it becomes this race between Quailin's group and Gabe to get the second case.
Gabe finds an old ranger station where Jesse just happens to be.
There's some old equipment and a sweater, which probably doesn't smell very good, but isbetter than a T-shirt in the, the, you know, the blizzard that's going on.
And, and then we have a race to the second case, which Gabe and Jesse find first.

(38:42):
And I love this bit.
It's a little bit like the machine gun, ho ho ho bit in diehard where they leave thetracker from the case embedded in a snowman.
for Quailin to find, like, and then they leave the case and there's like one bill left andsays, want to trade.
I take that back.
It's not really a snowman because it's, there's no like, it's like a snow depiction ofgrimace.

(39:08):
know, the purple McDonald shake monster.
Yeah.
It's kind of like that, except they didn't have any purple snow, but like it's, it's kindof, it's just kind of, they didn't take time with it, you know?
And it's the first of two times that they are playful with these little
beacon things in trying to use them as a bit of a distraction in one way or another.

(39:29):
Yeah.
And Quailin's team, they go out there, they have night vision goggles.
They're searching for gape.
Why do they even have those?
Like they didn't plan to be on the ground looking for the money at night.
Well, you know, if you think about this, Chris, they had all this equipment, right?
The night vision goggles, they have these cases that can survive falling from greatheights.
Yep.
They have Yeah, they fell from the plane and they're fine.

(39:51):
They're fine.
They have trackers on in the cases.
That all points to me to a much simpler plan of the guy who was on the big plane in thebeginning, just throwing them out of the back of the plane, right?
Open the butthole, the plane up at one point, which is that a thing?
I don't know.
And just let them fall in the mountains and then send your guys, send your guys to collectthem.

(40:14):
How simple would that have been?
It didn't have to involve all this carnage.
ah There's a there's a chase Gabe but you know blinds one of the guys with the nightvision goggles with a flare and they go sliding down the hill towards a cliff.
I love this moment because Gabe is like literally riding this guy like he's a fuckingsled.

(40:36):
Yeah, that's exactly what my notes say.
Gabe is riding him like a sled and it's like the way it's shot.
It's not the best sequence in the film in terms of the production standpoint of it.
But what it reminds me of is in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.
Oh, with the sled!
With the lubed up sled that goes down the hill with Chevy on it.

(40:57):
that I'm like, OK, here we are.
Yeah, we're doing it.
No, it has all of the same vibe to that as, you know, the sled coated with the...
whatever he puts on it to make it go like cooking spray or something like that.
And then there's some industrial cooking spray.
And then so he toboggan's this guy down to the edge, jumps off and this guy goes, yi, heflies off the edge of the cliff and then he's not like an axe.

(41:22):
He grabs the edge.
Yes.
Like just, you know, just at the last minute, Gabe is able to hang on.
Yeah, thank goodness.
Otherwise it's another place where the movie just could have ended.
This movie could have ended about 40 times.
oh That night, Gabe and Jesse
burn the money for warmth.
And we have another Stallone line.
I'm sure I know the Stallone.

(41:44):
I hear them, and I'm like, that's a Stallone line.
It costs a fortune to heat this place.
God.
That's Stallone.
That's Pierre Stallone.
uh First of all, they burn the money.
Well, A, if they had to exchange that money for Hal's life, that would be a real problemif they had burned it all up.

(42:04):
Right.
Aren't there plenty of trees around?
Yeah.
I mean, they, they knew how to start a fire clearly.
don't know that they needed the money to be the.
Did it need to be the money or he just wanted to make the quip?
It's the quip.
It's the quip.
the next morning, uh, Quailin's team and Hal encounter those two extreme sports guys.

(42:25):
They come back and, and how tries to like warn them off.
It's, it's a very good sequence.
one of the guys is shot and the other guy makes this very dramatic base jump.
Thank God he had his parachute all ready to go.
Cause he, it's an amazing kind of base jump off the cliff to like down to the area.
And it's, really, again, there is some really spectacular footage in this film of, themountain stuff.

(42:50):
It's really, really good.
Yeah.
And if this would have been a diehard film, that would have been McClain going over.
There's no way that that would have been left to some bit player in the movie to have thatmoment that should be in the trailer.
Yes.
So.
Yeah.
That's a big difference.
Yeah, yeah.
Now that totally would have been McLean.
Yippee ki-yay.
Yippee ti-yay-yay.

(43:13):
So, and again, the footage here is spectacular.
You get this one shot that I loved, which was like Quailin and company walking along theedge of a cliff from a distance.
It's like, it's like Rennie Harlan's audition shot for the Lord of the Rings.
Jesse and Gabe, go into this cave.
There's a lot of bats.
Okay.
That I didn't understand.
Made me think of Nightwing.

(43:34):
Well, yeah, it made me think of Nightwing, which thank you for an opportunity to rememberthe
Glory that was Nightwing, which also has hot springs in it, by the way.
Yes, that's true.
That's true.
Not that this movie does, but the other one we're to talk about does.
But also I'm thinking, OK, I've seen enough documentaries on bats and we saw even inNightwing to understand the smell like the ammonia, the ammonia inside these caves is

(43:58):
explosive, let alone just upsetting to to be around.
He doesn't notice that they're in the heart of a bat cave until he steps in crap.
Yeah.
And he's like, wait a minute, we're going to get out of here.
And then he looks up and then all these bats fly into a frenzy.
So another Batman movie moment in Cliffhanger.

(44:21):
all these bats go crazy and they have to make their way out of there.
But how did they not smell that?
Instantly.
Prior to that moment.
That was what what what.
David Warner's character made so clear in Nightwing was that you'll smell them and it'sjust like, it will make you sick for instance.
Like he notices the poop and then like he says to her, don't move.

(44:42):
We're doing terrible Stallone impressions, but it's too much fun not to.
This is the only movie with Stallone in this series.
We gotta take the advantages when they come.
But like he says, don't move.
And what does she do?
She immediately picks her head up into frame.
And then there's all the bats.
It's like, okay.
There you go.

(45:03):
It's a lot of bats.
spend a lot of time in that cave.
Cause when, when Gabe is sort of climbing out of it, he pops out through the snow and he'sright there next to one of Quailin's men.
yeah, but not before we get a, we get Wolf Vision.
do cut Wolf.
Yes, you're right.
You're right.
We get to see that, um, the older Ranger, forgot his name.
Frank's on his way.

(45:23):
Frank's up in the helicopter, another helicopter.
And then we cut to Wolf Vision.
there's these wolves who are trying to consume the boy, the extreme guy who got stuck in atree in his parachute.
the only time in this film, there's no bat POV, there's no snow POV, but we get to seethrough the eyes of the wolf as it's making its way toward him in this scene.

(45:49):
then- It's kind of amazing.
Of course, copter lands, the kid is saved, and then-
We go back into the cave with Gabe, who's like, I got to climb some more.
And so he needs to climb up and try to find a reason.
I'll send a line down.
And then we cut back to another helicopter full of the government guys.
Yeah.
Who are out there all day.

(46:10):
This is an orgy of helicopter action around this.
A lot of helicopter.
That was allegedly so remote, right?
But they can all get there pretty quickly.
And these guys, these government dudes spend the rest of the movie flying around.
just aimlessly.
They literally spend the rest of the movie flying around only to show up at the very endonce it's all over.
Yeah.
But when Gabe emerges from the top of that cave, he encounters probably the onlysubstantially terrifying bad guy in the whole lot.

(46:39):
yeah, yeah.
That guy is tough.
Small world, ain't it?
Don't even think about
Your life's on sale, Walker.
The price is 30 million.
Where is it?
It's gone.
What the fuck are you talking about?
Where's the money?
I burned it.

(47:00):
Never could save anything.
Not even a dumb mountain boy like you would burn 30 million dollars.
I don't make deals, Walker, but I'll make one with you.
Hand over the money, and I'll just kill you and not the girl.
And there's an extended fight sequence in the cave with him and he's got the guy he'sthreatening both of them and that that dude is genuinely frightening.

(47:24):
Yeah.
His dialogue is so cruel and mean in about he's like no bullets, bitch.
When she grabs the gun and he's got knives and guns and there's all this, but Gabe giveshim probably the most memorable death in the whole film, Chris.
It absolutely is.
my God.
there there's an extended fight sequence in the cave.

(47:45):
And honestly, I thought it went on a little little too long.
Like it was like we're in the cave for a little too long.
But it ends.
my God.
He grabs this dude by the crotch, lifts him up and impales him on a stalactite.
It's glorious.
is.
It's like a wrestling move.
He's like a body press up and just pushes him onto this thing and then lets him go and hefalls to the ground.

(48:13):
It's pretty brutal.
That reminds me of in that the airport diehard movie when there was random moments ofextreme violence that didn't seem to have a home in that movie.
the ice through the the icicle through the eye kind of this is through the eye.
This is like a bigger version of that.
Absolutely.
biting, ripping that one guy's fingers off with his teeth and all that.

(48:36):
I'm like, good lord, what did Eli Roth step in for a minute here?
What happened?
And in this one, this dude getting impaled is just so brutal.
yeah.
And throughout the whole thing.
And I know it's classic Stallone, right?
Yes.
He's not going to show much emotion.
He shows no emotion ever in this film.
He doesn't ever, he hardly seems bothered by any of this.
He's just kind of like sleepwalking through the whole thing.

(48:59):
It's a hell of a moment though.
It is.
It is absolutely a hell of a moment.
we have, I neglected to mention this earlier.
There's a rope bridge around which a lot of the action in the
in the later part of the movie happens between like these two peaks.
And it is, I mean, I'll just say it, it is not a bridge I would go, you could not pay meenough money.
No.
To go out on that bridge.

(49:20):
Like it just forget it.
I thought the one in just before dawn was scary.
Yeah.
No, no.
This is just like, my God.
And, and they, they plant a bomb on one side of the rope.
Cause they know that, that, that, that Gabe and Jesse are in that part of the mountain.
So they plan a bomb that's going to go off and
And I really like this variation on the classic diehard jump away from the explosionmoment.

(49:44):
That's become a trope.
And I think this one's interesting because here they have nowhere to go.
They lower themselves down one side of the cliff and then they have to swing before theexplosion goes off and take cover in like a crevasse.
They have to swing into a crevasse and take cover there before the explosion sort of blowseverything up.

(50:06):
And it's, reminded me of the bit in the Mission Impossible movie, Mission Impossible GhostProtocol, where Tom Cruise is on the building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.
And he's doing the running across.
It feels like, like the precursor to that.
And of course, you know, Tom Cruise was actually doing that himself because, you know,he's Tom Cruise, but you know, here it feels, it, it, still works pretty well.

(50:30):
And, and it feels like it's like kind of the prototype for that.
It's real interesting.
uh Frank shows up in the chopper, finally.
He shows up, he's lured down to the ground and they kill him.
And I noticed that Reddy Harland loves doing this thing where we go into slow motion whensomeone's shooting a gun.

(50:51):
We see the gun firing, but we don't hear it.
We just hear like sort of the dramatic underscore music and it's very, and someonelooking, no, and in slow motion they're going.
Oh, you can visualize that what what I'm doing with my face, but it's no.
And it's it's he does it a couple of times here.
And it is it's clearly a Rennie Harlan signature move.

(51:14):
And it's sad because Frank dies.
Frank is, you know, Frank seems like a good guy, except that he's grinning a little toomuch in that helicopter.
But, know, he's just the older he feels very salt of the earth.
And this is when how gets his moment like Gabe had at the beginning of the film.
where Frank dies in his arms and he gets to sort of settle into the reality of what'shappening there.

(51:38):
And I noted again, just put Rooker is so good.
Rooker is so good.
Absolutely.
they crossed the bridge that there's another bomb planted that they have a great shot ofStallone running away from the explosion.
And Gabe finds the last case.
And as you mentioned earlier, we get another more fun with trackers in here where henotices like a rabbit hole.

(52:02):
And he finds a rabbit and puts the tracker on a rabbit and, and Travers, the guy with themustache basically goes insane looking for this rabbit.
Like he goes completely bonkers.
It's a creative setup, but I'm like, that's so mean to that rabbit.
Cause this guy has a machine gun.
Funny thing.
No, not funny, but interesting in the original version, the guy shot the rabbit and testaudiences were so like horrified by it.

(52:28):
They had to go back and reshoot another version where the rabbit didn't die.
I like that it didn't die.
I like that they, it's a brief shot.
They just cut back to it for a second.
You see the rabbit's still there and he's frustrated and storms off like a teenager.
But I was glad that the rabbit didn't suffer.
Oh, I'm with you.
I'm absolutely with you.
I don't want to see the rabbit die.

(52:49):
Hal gets beaten up by one of Quailin's men who goes on this extended riff on soccer whilehe's doing it.
So weird.
Like, first of all, it's a British dude, so shouldn't it be football?
But he calls it soccer.
And this is one of those things, and this is going to come back huge in the second movietoday.

(53:10):
If you're going to shoot him, just shoot him.
Yeah.
Don't give him a chance to get the better of you, which is exactly what's going to happen.
And it happens a couple of times in the next movie, but it happens once here where, youknow, Hal has pocketed kind of
A knife, I think it was off of Frank when Frank was dying, he's able to stick a knife inhis boot and he grabs it out while he's hanging over the cliff and he swipes at the guy

(53:36):
and grabs his own shotgun and blows him away and he get the line.
Cause the guy's been doing this whole extended, you know, soccer rant.
Season's over asshole.
Oh man.
Just, you know, I don't, I don't know what it is like in these, it's like, if you're gonnashoot a dude, don't wait for him.

(53:57):
Don't go on an extended soccer metaphorical monologue.
Just shoot the guy and go on with it.
That's so weird.
We have Gabe and Travers fighting on a frozen lake.
The frozen lake was the only time in the movie I thought, we're on a soundstage here.
Yeah.
Like, I could feel it.

(54:17):
And it's not a bad fight.
There's a cool bit where Gabe goes under the ice.
Like, he's pounded on the ice, you know, because he's drowning.
But like everything in like the second half of this movie, like I thought the first halfof this movie moves pretty quick.
The second half of this movie, everything goes on just a touch too long.
Yeah, I agree.
I do like that scene though.

(54:38):
Well, you're right on the set thing.
Yeah.
When you first see Gabe, think it's Gabe you see first, walking across that bridge, itlooks like a dressed like haunted house room or something.
A great one.
Yeah, a great one.
Like it's a real, like if it was a haunted house room, you'd be like, yeah, that'sawesome.
Granted.
Yeah, it is great.
And then I think that the moment where he's trapped under the ice is pretty claustrophobicfor most people watching to see him under there trying to, he's realizing once he's hit

(55:08):
the water, cause he tries to pull the guy down, he's hiding under the bridge, Gabe, and hetries to pull the bad guy down.
The bad guy does fall, but hits the ice.
Gabe is the one who falls through and then he can't figure out how to get out from beingtrapped underneath the ice.
until the bad guys right above him, Gabe pulls out his gun that somehow, I don't know,maybe guns do work underwater, but they certainly do in movies and shoots him, which

(55:31):
cracks the ice and he's able to emerge.
But there's there's a couple of seconds in there where he's underneath.
He's under that ice.
my God.
How bad would this be?
Yeah.
And it just, it's, it's something it's there.
There are some genuinely kind of like,
nail-biter moments in this movie.

(55:54):
It's playing along a formula, which is why we're talking about it, because these are allmovies that are employing a formula.
But there are moments within that of genuine suspense and kind of terror.
It's like, oh, shit, that's freaky.
To think about being under the ice and not being able to get out, that is kind ofterrifying.

(56:16):
being in the bat cave and realizing you're in with all those bats.
Quailin eventually takes Jesse prisoner in the helicopter.
have the final showdown on one of the peaks where Gabe trades the money for Jesse.
And then he throws the bag of money into the helicopter blades and hooks the chopper tothis metal ladder on the side of the cliff and it crashes into the side.

(56:39):
So the final fight is Gabe and Quailin.
fighting it out in this helicopter that's like hanging off the side of the cliff.
ah It's interesting to me that they never had Sylvester Stallone and John Lithgow comeface to face while they are standing.
Yeah.
Because Lithgow would have towered over him like he was Ivan Drago.
Yeah.

(57:00):
It's an interesting setting.
Yeah.
Because you're back to realizing it sort of echoes the very beginning of the film and theshots are handled in very much the same way where it's really emphasizing the depth
underneath them and around them.
Yeah.
And it's also cranking that up a little bit by showing that the ladder, which isultimately what's holding the helicopter carcass up on the side of the mountain here is

(57:23):
starting to lose its grip.
so the time is ticking and it's going by quickly, which makes everything way more tense.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And then, you know, eventually the helicopter is going to, is going to plumb it to the, tothe ground with, with John Lithgow inside.
And on the top of the cliff, Gabe and Hal and Jesse reunite.

(57:43):
And they've exercised their demons as well as stopping the bad guys.
They've repaired their relationship.
And then as you say, the authorities show up.
They've been helicoptering around.
Paul Winfield's been helicoptering around the mountains, half the movie, shows up aftereverything's wrapped up and over.

(58:05):
It's like, okay, there you go.
Like I said, I hadn't seen this movie in years and I really liked it.
Like it's a little over long, know, Stallone is Stallone, but like there's some reallygood stuff in it.
And it did well at the box office in 1993.
It made about $250 million worldwide.
And that's in the summer of Jurassic Park, the fugitive and the firm.

(58:30):
So like that was a very competitive time.
I thought this was interesting.
It was Stallone's most commercially successful movie of the eighties or nineties thatwasn't part of the Rocky or Rambo franchises.
Interesting.
And for a while there was a sequel in the works.

(58:50):
Now you're going to love this.
The sequel was going to be titled Cliffhanger 2 The Dam and would have had Gabe Walkerfighting terrorists who took over the Hoover Dam.
Ooh.
It never materialized.
It was in and out of development for a while.
And then eventually in the 2010s, there were various plans for either a reboot or a legacysequel that brought back Stallone's character.

(59:17):
And in 2023, a sequel featuring Stallone was announced.
But then in 2024, the project underwent a reconceptualization to be a full reboot withoutStallone and filming started in October.
of 2024 featuring Pierce Brosnan and Lily James.
And that film is scheduled to be released next year in 2026.

(59:39):
So there is a cliffhanger reboot on the way for us to talk about somewhere down the roadin a bonus episode.
goodness.
But I like this movie.
thought it's, let me put it this way.
This was an expensive movie and you could see the money.
Yeah.
Like I know, I'm sure Stallone got paid, know, I'm sure these people got paid.

(01:00:00):
You could see the money on screen in terms of like just the shots, the way it's puttogether.
It's really well done.
And it's interesting because as you pointed out at the beginning, these two films sort ofhave in common on paper the idea that they are both sort of diehard on a mountain.
But our second film today is on the opposite end of the budgetary spectrum.

(01:00:27):
From 1994,
This is Cracker Jack.
In a remote mountain resort, a team of international terrorists has planned an elaborate,perfect crime.
to steal 50 million in diamonds without a trace.

(01:00:50):
They must bury the resort and everyone in it.
But there is one thing they didn't plan on.
Chicago police sergeant Jack Wild.

(01:01:30):
Thomas Ian Griffith, Nastascha Kinski and Christopher Palmer.
I hope you're happy to learn that you're making things difficult.
RG, I'm all choked up.
OK, let's let's get this out of the way first.

(01:01:51):
The main character of this movie is named Jack Wild.
And he's so wild and crazy, his colleagues call him Cracker Jack.
Which is it just doesn't make sense.
It doesn't make any sense.
If you're referencing the snack.

(01:02:13):
time I Google it, would be the snack would come up.
Well, what else could it be?
I don't understand the name at all.
His name is Jack and he's gone crackers.
No one says anyone's gone crackers, Chris.
And I want to ask you, how did you happen upon this movie?
You know, in my research on Die Hard, you uh know, in the research process.

(01:02:39):
you know, deep in the, in the get me another, the, the bowels of get me anotherheadquarters.
It came up on our list.
It came up on our list.
Okay.
So that I would say cliffhanger is maybe the most entertaining of the post originaldiehard films that we've discussed.
It's a lot of fun for sure.
would say that one is probably has the most rewatch ability out of anything that we'vecovered.

(01:03:01):
And I certainly found it to be the most appealing out of everything so far.
Sure.
And even though,
they can say Die Hard on a mountain for Cliffhanger.
really, it ultimately kind of isn't that.
The only, I would say ties to Cliffhanger are a sort of reluctant hero in a way who has tofind his, like the original Die Hard finds his way through these situations toward a

(01:03:26):
resolution, but it's really with the help of a team of people.
So it's different in that way, but they're the only real ties are sort of bad guys with aplan and him having to foil it.
Sure.
This movie, this movie is just taking the script for crack for Die Hard, Die Hard andessentially changing some names and the setting and then replacing all semi-competent

(01:03:52):
dialogue with absolute bullshit and the least entertaining or magnetic for all themagnetism we talked about with Rooker, for example, this guy has got nothing going on in
this movie here.
And it is so rinse and repeat.
This is just, it really can safely be described as diehard on a mountain because that'stotally what they're doing here unapologetically.

(01:04:17):
Yes.
Yes.
This is a Canadian made film.
had a theatrical release in Canada, as well as certain overseas markets.
was titled agent of destruction for its release in the Philippines and it debuted on HBOin the United States.
before a home video release in 1994.

(01:04:38):
It was written by Jonas Quastel and Michael Barado, and it was directed by Michael Mazzo.
in addition to Michael Mazzo directing science fiction and action movies, he directed anumber of documentaries about ice hockey.
Well, that's cool.
Yeah.
Cracker Jack takes a character very much like Martin Riggs of the Lethal Weapon series anddrops him into a diehard movie.

(01:05:02):
Yeah.
That's what we're looking at.
And honestly, I'm surprised it took this long for someone to do that.
Yeah.
Like our main character, Jack Wild, is a cop on the edge after losing his wife andchildren to a mafia-planted car bomb.
It's basically the same backstory as The Punisher, the Marvel Comics character.
The film stars Thomas Ian Griffith as Jack Wild.

(01:05:26):
Now, I will admit to being, and you're going to be shocked by it, I am a Thomas IanGriffith fan.
from his turn as the villainous sensei slash disposer of toxic waste, Terry Silver in theKarate Kid part three and its follow-up Cobra Kai.
I haven't seen those.
Yeah, I need to catch up on that stuff.

(01:05:48):
I think he's great in those.
Here, you know, he's not really given a lot of material to work with.
Yeah.
Maybe it was his hair in this movie that set him off.
I don't know.
His hair is very much is very, is very mar-
We can put him in our Get Me Another Mullet Hall of Fame.
For sure.
It's free flowing, let's say.

(01:06:09):
It's a free flowing mullet.
in addition to the film stars Natasha Kinski as the resort activities director Casey andthe legendary Christopher Plummer as the East German terrorist Ivan Gatz.
Well, you say Ivan.
Now, did you notice
throughout this movie how many different ways his name was pronounced.

(01:06:31):
It's a lot.
character's name.
Yvonne?
There's Yvonne, there's Yvonne, there's Avon.
It's said so many different ways.
So my notes just say E-E-E-V-O-N every time I have to make reference to him.
And as I said, it's so basic.
As I said, Jack Wild is basically Martin Riggs.
He's got the same hair.

(01:06:51):
He's got an African-American partner, you know, on the police force.
who he seems to continually put in dangerous situations.
The one slight difference, the partner isn't too old for this shit.
He's too newly married for this shit.
Yeah.
And he's, mean, later on he's getting laid when he gets the call.
We should just say there's a couple of moments of nudity in this movie that feel verymandated by a producer.

(01:07:17):
Totally.
I would agree with that.
Like they don't feel organic at all.
Yeah.
It starts off though with pretty boring credits, except when you are
jarred out of your seat when the word crackerjack appears on the screen with like a highschool marching band slamming it down.
And then the next thing you're seeing is like bullets piercing the darkness and you're inthe middle of a shootout in one of the strangest settings.

(01:07:44):
Like the combination of the people and how they're dressed and this set.
It perplexed me.
First of all, it's very dark.
It is tough to really make out what is going on, where you are, why anything is happening.
We just know that Jack Wild, Cracker Jack, has rushed into this situation and his partneris...

(01:08:09):
They're hiding behind a wall and the partner sneezes so the bad guys find them.
They're all outed by a sneeze.
We should never have come this far without backup.
Shut up, boy.
Shut up, my ass.
just got married, Why you have to do this to me now?
For Christ's sake.
This one's supposed to be just a steak.
I'm...

(01:08:33):
Yeah, there's a lot of beaded curtains in this place and all the bad guys.
You're right.
All the bad guys are dressed like teachers and principals and the principal in Say By TheBell.
All these bad guys are wearing these kind of silvery shirts and ties.

(01:08:54):
Yeah.
But they're in this haunted mansion looking place that for some reason has beadedcurtains.
You're right about the beaded curtains.
Again, which back to what was the
the shark movie we watched with all the beaded curtains like, but the score sounds likeit's Richard band.
The score for this had to have been an afterthought when they were done with them.

(01:09:16):
crap.
We need music.
Let's find somebody.
Well, Mike knows a guy.
Okay.
Well, let's see if Mike's buddy's free.
And this is what we get.
Cause the score is hilarious in this movie.
It's, it's so bad.
It's, is.
It made me the weakest point of a weak movie is this score is just.
Yeah.
my God.
Yeah.
So that we get, we get all these, it's like there's a shootout.

(01:09:38):
Jack is a kind of take no prisoners cop.
He shoots dudes through walls.
He uses another bad guy as a human shield.
He saves his partner at the very last second.
But you know, the partner is like down at the precinct, you know what they call you.
You know what they've been calling you for the past few months down at the precinct?
Cracker Jack.

(01:09:59):
That's what they've been calling you.
Cracker Jack.
What the hell with that boy?
They call him Cracker Jack and I can't, that's just, it's since I can think about it.
All week I've been like, stop and think about it I'm just like, what?
And why would that rile him up?
He doesn't like it.

(01:10:19):
You know what they call you?
I mean, that's what they call me?
I would just laugh and be like, hey man, that's all right with me.
I'll start signing my autographs as Cracker Jack.
I don't know what that would mean, but okay.
Yeah, but we also get our bad guys because our bad guys, cut to this large group of men ina dark warehouse and we have no idea who they are.

(01:10:44):
We have no idea what they're doing.
They have a lot of guns.
Like there's a lot of guys and a lot of guns and one dude with an eyepatch.
And one of the things that this movie does, I think three times, it's certainly at leasttwo per my notes, is showing these guys familiarizing themselves with their guns.
And that's what a lot of.

(01:11:05):
Yeah, there's a lot of loading and examining bullets and putting clips in and out as we'resort of like walking around the room on a dolly or something like that.
They're like, do you not know what these things are and how they work?
You guys have been brought in on a mission.
They didn't bring the right guys in because they don't know anything about weapons.
They all seem perplexed by the things in their hands.

(01:11:28):
It's like it's a two way.
And And why do.
All these bad guy squads have one woman.
Yeah.
Why is it just only like only one lady allowed?
Yes.
The both both movies today, there's one blonde woman on the bad guys, you know, in the thebad guys team.
And that's not the last time we'll see that fact off top my head.

(01:11:50):
but they bring in this guy into this room with a hood over his head.
We have no idea who this guy is either.
And then finally in walks Christopher Plunk.
And he is wearing sunglasses, which he is wearing through most of this movie.
Yeah.
Why?
He's got a red tie on a black suit and he has got Michael Corleone's haircut from TheGodfather Part 3.

(01:12:14):
I don't understand the sunglasses thing.
He's indoors pretty much the whole movie.
I don't know that we see him out of doors.
At night?
And it's nighttime.
Yeah.
And if I don't get why he would do that, that seems to me like it would jeopardize at thevery least just his vision within the room to know who's around him and
Why add that unnecessary element of visual, I don't know, obscuring the things around you?

(01:12:41):
Why?
Supposed to be a professional.
What are we doing?
Yeah, a professional would not be showing up with sunglasses on.
I don't get it.
It's just, and it's throughout the movie.
It's not like, this first scene.
Right.
Like throughout the movie, he has sunglasses on through like 75 to 80 % of this movie.
But eventually he does put on regular glasses.
at a certain point and you're like, okay, so why don't you if you need glasses.

(01:13:04):
Why don't you have those?
If that even it's even worse because.
yes, yes, indeed.
It is.
It's even it's even dumber.
Yeah.
So the hood gets taken off and Christopher Plummer in this German accent tells us thatthis is Mr.
Oliver Green, the Iceman.
What does that mean?

(01:13:25):
I have no idea.
Like, I know because I've seen them, but in the time like, well, what the hell does thatmean?
Like we just have no idea what that's it is.
This movie is so weird in like what it tells you when.
it has lots of smoking.
And that's one of the things here that Plummer hands.
He okay.
So the ice man is tied up and confused, right?

(01:13:45):
He's kind of, he's clearly against their against his will squirrely little weirdo guy.
It's like a, guy who helps, what is it?
Weird Al in, in weird Al's movie.
Oh, UHF and UHF it's kind of madman in the lab.
That is really what the ice man looks like and plumber puts a cigarette in his mouth andsays it's the habit of a weak man And then he wants information out of him like so why

(01:14:10):
don't you give it to him to give it to him?
It like he didn't ask for it wasn't like oh he asked it was just you give it to him andthen tell him so I have it of a weak man It's for the quip.
It's for the quip again.
It's for the quip.
It's for doing it for the quip That's gonna be on a t-shirt doing it for the quip
So Cracker Jack goes into his apartment building and he pretty soon realizes- You startcalling him Jack.

(01:14:34):
He's Cracker Jack.
That's what they call him.
I'm gonna call him Cracker Jack the whole time, it's in my notes.
I'm gonna embrace this, I love it.
Tell me more.
So Cracker Jack goes into his apartment building and he soon realizes there's someone inhis apartment and he draws his gun, he bursts in and...

(01:14:55):
It's a surprise birthday party.
First of all, why would you throw a surprise birthday party for a dude who's clearly onthe edge?
He nearly guns down all his family and friends.
I don't know, like a guy called Cracker Jack, you know, he's off his rocker.
He is.
He's well, he's Cracker Jack, man.
You know, that's what it is.

(01:15:15):
Yeah, they're risking life and limb.
The older brother, he follows him into the kitchen and Cracker Jack just holds off anddecks him.
Yeah.
Just like he did in the face, knocks into the ground.
He's less hostile to when his sister-in-law comes into the kitchen and hands him a baby,which seems like a really bad idea.
Yeah.
Like this guy is clearly in a state.
He just pulled a gun on a whole party of people and punched his brother.

(01:15:40):
Don't hand him a baby.
By the the apartment, like the kitchen that he's in, looks like an apartment I lived in inBoston in the 90s.
I hope it was.
Be amazed.
This was shot, unfortunately, in Vancouver, British Columbia, uh not in the great city ofBoston.
Also worth noting, the baby has a hat on.

(01:16:01):
Yeah, it does.
Yeah.
You don't see a lot of babies just sporting hats and it's not like one of those littlelike a beanie to keep its head warm.
It's wearing a fashion hat.
This is a role to play in this movie.
Well, like things happen because of this baby.
Yeah.
So the plan from the brother and sister-in-law in order to help Cracker Jack get over theloss of his wife and children.

(01:16:30):
She and her husband are going to take him on a weekend getaway to the Rocky Mountains.
And she's even gone so far as to clear it with his captain who has put him on a leave ofabsence.
mean, you know, hey, least Cracker Jack's got a family who cares about him.
That's something.
He does.
And I think his response to his brother walking in the room is pretty unreasonable.

(01:16:52):
Even if he's upset about a surprise party decking someone.
Come on.
You could say that like, you know, when he pulls the gun, he didn't know who was in theroom.
He was he was surprised he's on the edge at that point.
But the but the punch seems complete.
It's like, listen, I get you're upset, but come on, pal.
Yeah.
And of course, he's like, there's no way you're getting me up into some dumb mountain.

(01:17:13):
Cut to Cracker Jack in the cable car on the way up.
Yeah.
They get to the resort and we see that Cracker Jack is packed in his garment bag, a shirt,a tie and a bottle of J &B.
Which is, hey, that's, I mean, he knows how he's going to spend his time and he's stillwearing his shoulder holster and gun, which his sister-in-law confiscates, which you think

(01:17:35):
is going to be a setup for later.
It's like, oh, he didn't have his gun because the sister-in-law took it.
Okay.
Nope.
Nope.
He finds it immediately once he needs it.
Yeah, of course.
And these two, Mike and whatever her name is, they keep taking things away from him.
Like he's a toddler who picked up a knife.
Yes.
Like they take his gun.
They take his flask.

(01:17:56):
Yeah, yeah.
And then at some point, the brother's like, well, I mean, we're going to get there, buthe's like, that's it.
You're on your own from here on out.
Well, I understand he's traumatized or something.
He's had a rough go of it, but he's not he isn't.
He's not a child.
He's not a child at the very least.
Yeah.
And yet they keep walking out.
That would be so annoying.

(01:18:17):
Even if you are someone who's embracing the help of the people around you who want to helpyou better yourself.
He went.
On the trip.
ultimately he went.
Wouldn't it be demoralizing to have them keep coming up and like checking your pockets andtaking stuff from you?
Get away from me.
What are we doing?
uh Meanwhile, the men we saw earlier are planting dynamite charges in the ice on thismountain.

(01:18:42):
Now hold up.
This isn't the men we saw earlier.
This is an old man and a woman and the old man was not.
An Oliver Green.
Okay.
Three.
Yes.
Okay.
It's three.
There you go.
But go ahead.
Well, it's, there's nothing imposing about these people.
There's no, oh it just looks like it really looks like an old man and a lady just outdigging holes and shoving dynamite in it, which, okay, fine.

(01:19:08):
But they are not the powerful duo that would be out there doing something so dastardly.
It's very strange.
But the dynamite man, the dynamite looks like it is out of a Looney Tunes cartoon.
totally.
Like it's that, it's that.
like dynamite wrapped in like a, like a thing.
And it's like, it looks like it's something that that Wile E.

(01:19:30):
Coyote would plant in order to try and trap the road runner.
100%.
So apparently Green is some kind of scientist who is, who knows how to blow up a glacier.
That's like his, his, his purpose here.
And after he, he, they plant the dynamite, he, and it's the most comical thing.
He tries to run away.

(01:19:51):
And then from a distance we see him fall straight into like a chasm.
And you just hear
And then the lady goes, saved a bullet, saved us a bullet, saved us a bullet.
There it is.
And this is like the only scene that feels like it's shot on a mountain.
Yeah, that's that's that's real.
Yeah.
The blue screen, I think it would have been blue screen at this time in this movie isstraight outrageous.

(01:20:15):
my God.
There are some scenes, including when they're riding the gondola up a little bit ago.
We kind of glanced over it a little bit.
But when everybody's on their way up the mountain, Jack and his.
family and stuff.
It just looks like, it looks like a Toonsis sketch from Saturday Night Live where Toonsisis driving down the road and you're seeing things go flying by and it doesn't really line

(01:20:37):
up in the background necessarily.
That's what it looks like.
And that's the blue screen throughout the remainder of There's a lot of blue screenbecause you have these models, like there's a lot of model work in this movie.
Yeah.
Yep.
With the hotel on the cliff and everything.
yeah, it is something else.
One thing to note.
because it's going to come into play in a minute that we jumped over was that there'sdiscussion about there being an orientation happening on the mountain.

(01:21:04):
And I think it's Mike, his brother, who comes to him and says, like, we'd like you to goto this orientation.
He's like, well, I'm murmur.
He doesn't want to do it.
No.
And then so when we next see him in a minute, which you're going to get to, he's he's inthe bar.
And by that point, it's transitioned into a nature wall.
Yeah, yeah, no, you're right.

(01:21:25):
Now the orientation is a nature walk and I didn't need your way.
Is this the same thing?
What?
I understand why he wouldn't want to go to an orientation.
Maybe a nature walk would be better.
I don't, I don't really know.
It's unclear.
Yeah.
But what is clear is that all of it's being organized by the resort's activities director,Casey played by Natasha Kinski.

(01:21:47):
She's a, she is, she is an actress in this movie.
I don't know what
part really she has to play.
She's kind of like the quasi, the love interest, like she doesn't see it's, it's that shedisappears for long stretches.
Let's put it that way.
Like there's periods where she's just kind of absent and you kind of forget about her, butshe does take cracker Jack to this random supply closet to establish.

(01:22:13):
have a whole mess of locator beacons stashed there and she explains how they work.
So he'll know later.
Yeah.
It's.
It's it is the exact opposite of sort of the artful setup in in diehard.
It's like it is the most.
It's like, well, he's going to need those locator.
Well, she finds him.
She sent the power introduced to Casey is that Jack is in the world's smallest bardrinking by himself.

(01:22:38):
It's a tiny bar.
is really tiny.
And she walks up and she's been sent to get him like it's that important to the people whoare like, no, Jack needs to come to the orientation nature walk.
And so she's she's
Uh, she's there to retrieve Jack and he's like, and then he leaves the bar without payinghis tab, the way.

(01:22:59):
I'm sure it's charged to the room.
It's gotta be charged to the room.
That's probably true.
It's all inclusive.
So he follows her to her room full of weird stuff, the bat cave, and she mentions theselocator beacons, which once again, locator beacons on this episode.
And when he asks her what her, what Casey stands for, she's like,

(01:23:19):
She doesn't want to tell him she's like, that's for me, for people who are friends with meand like my family or something like that.
Wait, what?
So maybe eventually you're going to find out it's Casey from the Sunshine Band.
It's going to reveal itself in what I kept thinking was the sunshine, the fucking SunshineBand.
We do get at the very end people.
So stay tuned.
It's all building up to that moment where she reveals what Casey stands for.

(01:23:41):
means, ultimately it doesn't matter.
It's like, it's a thing of like, it doesn't matter at all.
At all.
it's so, it, ugh.
We also, have to talk about, because there is an old Italian man staying at the hotel.
Yes.
Who, and his, I think his son, maybe?
I'm unclear.
Mario.
Mario.

(01:24:02):
He is Don LaRusso, and he is a mafia don.
Now listen, I am not just assuming that you see an old Italian guy, he's in the mafia, butthis is the kind of movie that if you have an old Italian man, he's going to be a mafia
don.
Yeah.
And this thing plays out like a stage play.
He's like, I'm dying.

(01:24:23):
have arthritis.
He says, have arthritis and my intestines feel like a traffic jam.
So we know the bowel condition of this guy before anything else about him.
And he says that being in the mountains has offered him more of a life than all thisreally dramatic.
I shouldn't say stage play.
It's more like a soap opera, like old, old soap opera scene where he's sitting on thisbalcony in his wheelchair.

(01:24:47):
clutching onto this tin box and telling Mario of his, I don't know, impacted bowels.
It's very odd.
Here's the key is that he is on his way to Rome to try and meet the Pope.
The Pope?
Because that's what old Italian men do.
They go to Rome to meet the Pope.

(01:25:08):
He wants to confess everything to the Pope.
I talk about what he's done before he dies to the Pope.
Yes.
I'm thinking, my note says,
Is that a thing?
Can you sign up on a list?
I was not aware that was a thing.
I think that's a tough, that's tough to get a confession with the Pope.
Even now in this day and age with an American Pope, I still think it's a tough ask.

(01:25:29):
They're going to say go to your local, you know, local clergy, your local bishop, maybe anarchbishop.
But uh yeah, we go cracker Jack and his brother and sister-in-law down by the pool.
Well, wait, hold on.
You forgot the nature walk, Chris.
Oh, there is the nature.
They're on the nature walk, which is more of this incredible blue screen.

(01:25:50):
Oh, God.
In front of some just like scenic photography in the background for this orientation.
And Casey, who did not have an accent in the first scene now does.
She's sporting an accent.
then the old then the old man TNT walks by in his windbreaker and matching hat with hislady friend.
And then Casey, the worst.

(01:26:12):
employee at a resort, presumably often populated by wealthy people with lots of secrets.
Jack goes like, who are those guys?
And then she's like, she proceeds to tell them everything they've been doing since I gotthere.
They've been here for a couple of weeks.
They leave in the morning.
They don't come back till late in the evening.
We don't see a lot from them and they haven't said anything.

(01:26:34):
She just spills it on any guests you want to ask about.
So, yeah, this gives it all up.
Yeah.
Casey in somehow stands for like not keeping secrets because she's absolutely terrible atit.
And the nature walk is incredible.
The nature walk is, is, is amazing.
You're right.
Then, but then we have the scene down by the pool and the scene by the pool establishessomething I think that's very important.

(01:26:58):
The fact that there's a pool on a snow bound mountain.
There is that it's not an indoor pool.
It's an outdoor pool and that's where everybody's like wearing summer wear and well,because of the hot springs.
Okay.
It's the hot springs are heating the water.
All right.
But this is where we established the baby monitor.
Yeah.
So the brother and sister-in-law have left their infant in the room in the hotel.

(01:27:24):
They're down by the pool.
They left the infant in the room, but it's okay because they have a baby monitor.
But like it feels like it's a long way away if they heard something was wrong.
It does.
And you can hear the baby is awake.
It's like making sounds and it's not sleeping.
It's not, you don't hear the baby silently just snoring away or anything like that.

(01:27:45):
The baby's up.
They should be up there.
Right.
No, they're down by the pool.
It's, but like you're establishing this baby monitor that is going to play a role.
yeah.
And, Jack, wanders out, he wanders into the hot springs.
Cause the, the pool is, is, is heated by these hot springs where Casey is taking a nudeswim.

(01:28:06):
We don't really see anything, like she's she's not got a bathing suit on in the middle ofher workday in the middle of her workday.
This this set is straight out of a Fred Olin Ray movie or like a Jim Wynorski movie.
Jim Wynorski did a remake of Giant Gila Monster.
That's just called Gila that I actually like a lot.
It's got a lot of heart in it.
It's way better than it should be.

(01:28:27):
I do recommend you check it out.
But all of the cave scenes in it look very much like they were made with like paper andglue.
And that's what this looks like.
Yes.
100%.
It is so stagey.
Yes, absolutely.
Like, but why is like this is it?
It's not like some off limits area.
It's not like some private area or something like that.

(01:28:48):
This is just like, he just walks in.
It's just, he's a guest and he walks into this area.
Why would you be swimming naked in an area where guests, I it's not that kind of resort asfar as I can tell.
But she also doesn't keep secrets of her guests.
mean, she's not.
She doesn't have her eye on the ball.

(01:29:09):
So, you know, they, it's just, it's just, it's, I don't know.
She also, the other thing is, is she may swim naked in the hot spring, but what shedoesn't do is get involved with guests.
Right.
She says that very clearly.
But then in the very next scene, the very next year, that with her behavior, exactly thatshe's like, but you want to drink it.

(01:29:30):
That's, know, you want to, you want to have a dance and that sort of thing.
What I will say about for.
your pal Cracker Jack here is that all of the advances between the two of theseknuckleheads are hers.
Yes.
She is the one who makes the first move in every instance for the duration of the movie.
So he's never pushing himself onto her in any way.

(01:29:50):
She's very much always coming onto him.
Cracker Jack's an honorable man.
You know, he's in mourning.
Yep.
So the brother and sister-in-law who left their child, you know, when they went down tothe pool,
They also feel compelled to bring the child to the dinner table.

(01:30:11):
Like they bring her into the dining room, which feels like it would be much closer to theroom if you were going to leave the kid in the room with a baby monitor.
Like that's like, okay, this is where it feels like you could leave the kid in the room.
Like, cause the kid's not, and the kid is an infant.
Like it's, a, it is an infant.
The kid is not going to eat the chicken cordon bleu or whatever the hell they're havingfor dinner at this.

(01:30:33):
At this two star resort like it's just like like but what's more confusing is they broughtthe baby with them so the baby's sitting in a little crib next to the table and they have
the baby monitor with them with them.
Why that makes no sense at all for anyone who's been a parent like it just doesn't likeI've never been a parent but I at least understand the concept of the baby.

(01:30:57):
Why would you just leave it to listen to an empty room?
Yeah and they have it on.
They have it on at that.
It's not even like, yeah, we just left it there.
We turned it off.
Like they have it on in case what?
Listen, I understand.
Obviously, Cracker Jack did not have the money that Cliffhanger did.

(01:31:18):
But the problems with this movie have very little to do with the money.
Like some of it, yeah.
Could the green screen have been better?
Sure.
But here's the thing.
All the script stuff that in Cracker Jack is so dumb, none of that is like money related.
It's just, it's a stupid movie.

(01:31:42):
For a reason, it's just like, whatever.
It's so strange.
It's not the money.
If it was just, hey, there's some shitty blue screen, I wouldn't care, ultimately.
And if everything else about it was good, it'd be like, I don't care that the
the special effects are not great.
I don't care about that.
It's really, why is this movie so dumb?

(01:32:04):
And we haven't even reached the point of maximum dumbness.
Yeah, true.
So Casey, she dances with Cracker Jack despite telling him that she doesn't get involvedwith guests.
But while they're dancing, first of all, there's another couple on the dance floor who aremaking out furiously.

(01:32:25):
Like, they're actually more the focus of the scene.
The camera is pointed at this couple that is just, they are like eating each other's faceson the dance floor.
But then, you know, just as things might be turning around for Cracker Jack, he noticesthe old Italian man, his son, and he totally flips out.
Like he goes, he hits the guy several times.

(01:32:47):
guy, he hits people a lot and he kicks a chair.
He gets all, and he takes off.
And it's like,
He has this whole, the brother follows him.
have this whole conversation.
What the hell do think you're doing, Jack?
How dare you bring that back alley bullshit along on this trip?
This isn't some goddamn bar off rush street, you Shut up.
Shut the fuck up.
You don't know what you're talking about.

(01:33:07):
You know who those people are?
No, don't.
I care.
I've had it with you.
I told Annie from the start it was a bad idea to bring you along on this trip.
There is nothing more I can do for you.
From now on you're on your own.
This is one of those instances where
If the character just explained what was going on, it would resolve things.

(01:33:29):
Hey bro, those are the gangsters that killed my wife and kids.
well that explains everything.
I'll help you with the old one.
Like, but he doesn't say it.
So it's just like, he's randomly beating up Italian people.
this is when Mike says from now on you're on your own, which is weird.
But yeah, the whole thing plays out so strange at

(01:33:53):
at this moment and you're coming to understand a little more.
It's like they're revealing the Don as they to him in movie and Mario a little bit bylittle bit as we're moving on here.
But we still don't really have any answers at this point.
No, no.
And, you know, Casey comes to Cracker Jack's room because she doesn't fool around withguests and immediately starts to fool around with him.

(01:34:17):
But he is the one to push her away because he's upset.
You know, he's upset about all.
And thankfully, happens is Casey, so she goes and has this thing with Cracker Jack whereshe kisses him and then he says, I can't do it.
She leaves.
She goes and talks to the sister-in-law and the sister-in-law is very helpfully going totell Casey Cracker Jack's whole backstory.

(01:34:41):
And she's going to do it so Cracker Jack can hear this happen over the baby monitor andthen have his own sort of
sepia-toned flashback of the night his family was murdered at a gas station.
So it's all prompted by the fact that they left the baby monitor there and on.
And we have this whole sequence, he's telling his wife, you know, the trial's in a fewweeks.

(01:35:05):
We gotta lay low till then and then everything will be fine.
And then he leaves.
We hear a guy in a German accent ask about checking the oil, but we don't see him.
German accent should be a tip off.
because this is a Chicago cop, know, it's not like, he's Interpol or something.
But then, you know, he leaves the car and he goes, he realizes that there's danger and hestarts shouting across the gas station.

(01:35:28):
This is genuinely my favorite moment in this movie.
He starts shouting at his wife in the car and his wife raises her arms in this indignant,huh, gesture like, huh, what?
don't.
Which honestly is exactly what my wife would do under those circumstances.

(01:35:49):
She'd be like, what are you talking about?
Get over here and tell like, why don't, what do you, it would be that like, could almostsee it.
And I'm like, I kind of love that the indignant wife of, of cracker Jack.
Alas, she's, she's not long for, for the world.
Cause the car's going to blow, but I like her indignantness.
Just her stupid ass husband who is shouting across from the.

(01:36:13):
from the other side of the, like, why would you even stop?
Like, get gas and go.
This is also a strange setup because the reason he gets he even gets out of the car isbecause the gas station attendant came up and he's like, fill her up.
He wants to check the oil.
That was it was the oil check.
And then he's like, where is this guy?
Whatever.
Yeah.
And then he says, where is this guy?

(01:36:34):
So instead of just like craning around in the car, maybe rolling the window down andsaying, hey, buddy, what's what's the status here?
He gets out, walks away from the car.
and toward the gas station, which is where I guess he assumes this man is gone.
But there was really no reason for him to leave the car at all.
No, no.
He could have tried to figure things out from in there if he's being so cautious with hiswife and all that stuff and his two kids in the backseat, the way.

(01:36:56):
his two kids in the backseat.
Well, here's the thing.
Now, we established that Cracker Jack is a Chicago cop.
Now, let's presume he's in Illinois or maybe, I guess, you know, Wisconsin is a nearbystate.
You know, maybe he's driven a little outside the city.
You know where he's not?
He is not in the state of New Jersey where you are not allowed to pump your own gas.

(01:37:18):
You know, New Jersey, you can't pump your own gases against the law.
That is a good point.
Yeah.
So why didn't he just pump his own gas and get the hell out of there if there's so muchdanger?
And why would there even be a gas station attendant in the first place?
If these guys were setting this up as a hit on him to plant a bomb and then blow it up.
How would they have known that he was there?
Right.
How would the person who planted the bomb know to dress as an attendant and do that?

(01:37:41):
They could do that while while he's filling his tank.
They could sneak up or any number of.
It's not like, yeah, they got him outside of his house when he was getting ready to leaveand be like, OK, we're going to wait till he leaves.
Like, how did you know what gas station he was going to stop at?
Right.
when he run out of gas.
Yeah, that this is a great point.
Like, it's so weird.
know, again, if it was in New Jersey, it would work.

(01:38:02):
This is the one plot hole in Cracker Jack.
Yeah.
Jack the The one part where he found it.
But I do love the wife and her kind of indignant huh gesture like what?
Sure.
You know, and my wife would do the same thing and you know, it's the way it is.
The terrorists start their raid on the hotel by parachuting out of a plane and down to thehotel.

(01:38:24):
And there are a lot like this is one of the biggest groups of terrorists we've seen.
Oh yeah, we see them all jump out.
Like die hard.
It's like a half a it's like a dozen guys here.
It's like 40 guys.
go go go and they're jumping out go go I'm like Jesus what this is like those dildos inthe one movie where they all came out of their hotel rooms.
They all need to their ways to come out and die hard too.

(01:38:47):
But then we have so they're starting to take over the hotel like like they go into theballroom and they take the ballroom where most of the guests are the restaurant or
whatever but then they're going into different rooms because some people might not behaving dinner and as they're taking over the hotel
Cracker Jack is out on his balcony.
This is amazing.
He sees that couple that was making out on the dance floor.

(01:39:10):
They're in like the room across the way.
So he's got a view from his balcony into their room and they are starting to have sex.
She takes off her shirt.
some, you know, like I said, there's some very, there's some nudity in this movie thatfeels very mandated by a producer.
Like it doesn't feel organic at all.
Listen, I'm not against nudity in movies.

(01:39:30):
I'm just going to, but like,
They linger for a long time on this woman's breast.
The guy rubs ice on them.
Yeah, there's a close-up shot of that.
Of the guy rubbing ice on this woman's breast.
And I'm like, why are we spending time on this now?
Well, they're not going to have time later.
Oh, you think that?
But yeah, Cracker Jack is in full Whack-a-Jack mode where he's like, this is a new loweven for you, buddy.

(01:39:57):
That's the best impression I'm going to give you.
then he's watching.
keeps watching.
It's like body double.
He's on his balcony and he sees people starting to have sex.
He doesn't like go inside or turn away.
He gets a better vantage point.
he's dialed in for sure.
He's a fucking peeping Tom.
He's a peeping Tom.
Yep.

(01:40:17):
But it ended up almost kind of saving his life in a way.
Well, it does because, we, we, know, like that's how he knows the terrorists have takenover.
He sees them bust into the couple's room and kill them.
Like I really thought he was going to hear it over the baby monitor, but no, that was justso he can have his flashback.
The terrorists come into his room.

(01:40:37):
He hides under the balcony, uh, before the gutter comes apart and he comes, then, youknow, then it comes crashing down.
But like he, he's alive because he was a peeper.
That's right.
So peeping pays people, people.
We're not, we're not pro peeping here at get me another, but we acknowledge Cracker Jackis alive because of his peeping.
That's true.

(01:40:58):
It's true.
And.
This is the first time that we get a real good look at the exterior of this place wherethey're staying and it never looks like this ever again.
The exterior they cut to is this jagged, I don't even know.
would like almost Frank Lloyd Wright, but like on crack design for this place that lookscompletely impractical.
And every other exterior shot they show is just like standard brick and kind of maybe evenItalian design or something.

(01:41:25):
This one shot, I don't know what movie it's from.
but they pull the shot from something and cut it in here to make this place lookdifferent.
And it's so jarring when you see that you're like, wait, what is that?
Where, where are we going now?
And then it's back to interior.
You're like, wait, what?
Yeah.
Okay.
Christopher Plummer as Ivan, Ivan or Yvonne.
call him Yvonne.

(01:41:45):
Yvonne gets, he makes his dramatic entrance into the restaurant and you know, it's very,it is very reminiscent of the Hans Gruber entrance to the party in
in the first Die Hard, he, and he tells everybody that we're only interested in oneperson.
Like he gives it all, he lays it all out that they're only interested in one person andthat is mob boss Don LaRusso.

(01:42:11):
And they want, I don't know why he reveals all this information, but he wants the 50million in diamonds that the Don is carrying with him with the intention I think of giving
to the Pope.
I also don't know if it's 15 or 15.
15 or 50 million, it was a little unclear.
Yeah, there's that.
We also learned in this moment that Getz was tipped off he would be there by the Don's sonor nephew or Mario, the assistant, ah who unprompted goes full Fredo Corleone.

(01:42:42):
Don Ross, forgive me Don Ross.
I was humiliated.
They contacted me.
They said I could get a piece of the pie, that it was my birthright.
They said I could have a piece of my pie.
They said they could have a piece of my pie, my birthright.
It's not what I want.
You were my older brother Mikey and I was passed over.
That's what Pop wanted.

(01:43:02):
It's not what I wanted.
We also talked a little bit earlier about, I think it was in Cliffhanger, about notletting people have that moment where they could escape before you kill them.
And in this movie, the bad guys, when they first burst into this resort, they're justshooting everybody.
Yeah, everybody.
They plug a busboy, the receptionist.

(01:43:22):
Yeah, receptionist busboy, the receptionist.
Everybody is being slaughtered wholesale.
Yes.
But when the guy ends up with Peeper Jack on the roof where he's once again peeping, bythe way, looking into the glass ceiling down at what's happening in the big event ballroom
or whatever, this guy just starts chit chatting with him.
And he this is the first of many times in this movie where the bad guys are giving Jack achance.

(01:43:48):
to get out of whatever situation he's in by delaying murdering him, which makes no sensein context when you consider that they're just guns blazing everywhere else, the entirety
of the film.
They don't think twice in any scenario about blowing anyone away except for him when it'sjust a one-on-one situation where he's not even armed usually.
And it could be a very easy pow pow or something.

(01:44:10):
I want to talk about that scene on the roof because it is one of the most fascinatingscenes.
like Jack had, had, had
You know, he had been hiding under his balcony, like the gutter gives way and he fallsdown under this roof where there's this glass dome, which looks very small for a glass
dome over a ballroom.
it feels like it would be a glass dome over, like if you had one of those pools in yourbackyard that was like an above ground pool, like it feels like it could go over that.

(01:44:42):
Like it's that size.
Now I do like this moment because when the guy first, when one of the bad guys shows up onthe roof, Cracker Jack is caught and he pretends to be a drunk guest.
As you mentioned, they're just killing everybody left and right.
So why they would even stop pause.
But I like that.
I like the effort of I'm going to pretend to be a drunk guest who's up there to meet agirl.

(01:45:02):
Yeah.
But the guy who has just already murdered other people, he's like, what are you doing uphere?
Like, why does it matter what he's doing up there?
Right.
Like why would he even ask?
Why did he just shoot him dead?
Totally.
But like,
He gets the drop on the guy and we get this extended fight, which is actually a prettygood fight between the two of them.
I like the fight between Jack and the guy.

(01:45:24):
And what I like about it is it shows a lot of times in movies, it feels like people arereally easy to knock out.
Like you hit somebody in the head and they're unconscious.
That's really, in real life, that is not very easy.
And we see that in this, to knock someone
unconscious is not that easy.
And we see that here in this fight.

(01:45:46):
Yeah.
But the fight ends in what is the most bizarre way I think I've ever seen a fight end inany movie ever.
Jack, he hits the guy, he thinks he's won.
He thinks the guy is out for the count and he's about to go inside.
There's this door from the roof.
He opens the door, but the goon, the henchman,

(01:46:09):
throws this giant knife and I mean it is like crocodile dundee size and he misses Jack butit embeds in the door.
The knife is sticking through the door.
That's important.
So the goon comes after Cracker Jack, he kicks him to the ground and he's standing in thedoorway about to finish him off and then a gust of wind comes and slams the door shut and

(01:46:35):
the knife goes right into the guy's back.
I swear to God that's what happens.
then what does Jack say?
Hang in there.
What I find interesting is like in the first fight that John McClane has in Die Hard withthe guy who he tries to take his shoes, like the very beginning, like that guy gets killed

(01:46:56):
kind of by accident because they both go tumbling down the stairs and the guy's neck getsbroken.
And it's great in that movie how like, hey, was so much things that happened that are justchance.
Like he was, McClane got lucky that the guy broke his neck falling down the stairs.
Right here.
It's the most ridiculous version of that because you have to have a gust of wind blowingthe door shut with such force that it stabs the guy in the back with his own crocodile

(01:47:25):
Dundee knife.
Well, it's a rare creative moment in this movie.
It's something.
So we, we, they're after the diamonds.
is either 50 or 15 million.
I can't tell.
I rewound it several times.
The closed captioning told me it was 15, but that seems low.
Like that seems like not a lot of money for the amount of effort they've put into thisthing.

(01:47:48):
Like they have a lot of guys, there's a plane, there's a helicopter, there's uh bombs tocreate an avalanche.
If the upside, if the goal is to $15 million, that doesn't feel like a lot for the amountthey've put into it.
We also learn that

(01:48:08):
that Getz was with the East German secret police.
The Don knows this.
He's with the East German secret police and he was fired when he lost his marbles.
That's the quote.
uh Or whether maybe when East Germany stopped being a thing and maybe he lost his jobthen.
I'm not clear.
But we learned that Getz was the man hired by the LaRusso family to kill Cracker Jack.

(01:48:34):
So he was the one who checked the oil.
The German accent should have been a tip off, but the Don didn't sanction it.
This movie has a weird redemption arc for Don LaRusso.
Like it's so strange for a movie that is not very focused on character.
They spend a lot of time on the character of the Don and his arc.

(01:48:58):
every scene with him is like a soap opera.
Oh, no, absolutely.
Absolutely.
And it's just, it's like, it's so strange.
uh and by the way, before things can go, cause they're looking for the Don's diamonds.
They grabbed like the box he's got, but it's not, it's got like candy in it or whatever.
But like the Don then before they can learn where the diamonds actually are, the Doncollapses from a heart attack.

(01:49:21):
Which is the shortest live heart attack in cinema history.
immediately he's having full conversations with people right after.
So Crackerjack goes back to his room.
He gets his pistol.
which again, barely an inconvenience.
And we do get what I think is the film's signature line.
Okay folks, Cracker Jack is back.

(01:49:44):
Honestly, that's amazing.
Amazing.
He goes to the storage closet that Casey showed him earlier.
He activates the locator beacons, hoping that will signal for help.
I do like that because he is trying to get help.
ah And then Yvonne's men, find the body stuck in the door.
They realize someone else is in the hotel.
And what does Ivan do when he realizes, hey, there's a loose cannon on this deck?

(01:50:12):
He decides to take attendance.
Since I doubt anyone will come forward and give his name, this is what will happen.
I have here a complete list of guests and employees.
Your names will be read out in alphabetical order.
Upon hearing your names you will proceed directly to that room back there where eventuallywe will arrive at a name which does not have a body to match it.

(01:50:42):
Aronson, Henry and Eva.
Which, why?
I don't know!
Like it's this whole thing of I'm gonna call everybody's name and then when they stepforward, so we'll learn who the person is who's running around the building.
It makes no sense.
It goes on and on.
It's the husky voice gal who's the one lady on the bad guy side.

(01:51:07):
She does have a very husky voice.
And she's just going through the alphabet through these guests for so long.
Of course, wild at the end of the alphabet, right?
It's going to take a while to get there.
Um, yeah.
And, and, and they do, they go through the whole thing and then like, as soon as like, andthey actually pull something clever where it's like, cause I guess the baby, cause it, you

(01:51:27):
know, the baby's a baby.
It's not on the list, but then they're like, you know, you know, wild party of three.
And they're like, you know, it's, it's, it's Matt and the sister-in-law and little babycracker Jack, you know, that's, oh, the baby is Jack.
But so they've like, that's a clever ruse to try and conceal the fact that, you know, Jackis out there, Cracker Jack is out there.

(01:51:49):
But then it's immediately undercut when he shows up in the glass dome and the terroristsstart opening fire with the machine guns and shatter all the glass.
Yeah.
So we're going to get what is the most sublime moment in this movie.
So like they're starting to, they see Cracker Jack up in the, in the dome, they startshooting, all the glass comes down.

(01:52:10):
There's a baby on the floor.
And what happens is, is Don LaRusso revives from his heart attack just long enough toshield Cracker Jack, baby Cracker Jack, the nephew from the broken glass.
He, he covers it up so the baby won't get hit with the broken glass.

(01:52:32):
It is, it is completing what we were the most well-developed character arc in this movie,which is amazing.
Yeah.
Jack has a fight with a guy who
Again, offers him any last words.
So many times, think, could have just blown this guy's head off.
Blow him away.
He gets chased over the grounds, he goes into the pool and you think, oh, he's cooked forsure, they're going to shoot him in the pool, but there's an underwater tunnel to the hot

(01:52:59):
spring.
Did he know that was there?
I presume no.
We have a rescue helicopter that shows up, brought by the distress call.
but oh the bad guys take it out with a rocket launcher.
We actually have the line, Jesus, he's got a rocket launcher.

(01:53:20):
And then, you know, we have the contact, he's able to contact the military and they aregonna send a strike team up to the hotel.
Instead of another helicopter, they're gonna take the cable car up, which is a bad idea.
And hilarious when it happens.
my God.
But you knew, it's like, oh, don't take the cable car up.
Come on.
And this is when Cracker Jack

(01:53:41):
recognizes Ivan's voice as the man who planted the bomb in the car.
I have no idea how he recognizes that voice.
don't know either.
Like he just does.
But they start communicating through the baby monitor.
And so this is back to diehard again.
Where we're back in diehard territory very clearly.
And again, here too, Jack doesn't want to say who he is.

(01:54:01):
He's like, it doesn't matter who I am.
Right.
Right.
Doesn't matter.
Military guy once again on the other end of the, so there's when
Jack is communicating with the military people also through the baby monitor.
That's on the red.
There's a radio that he finds in the radio.
Yeah, that's a radio in the hotel.
But that the military guy is, how do I know who you are?

(01:54:22):
And you're not part of it doesn't matter who I, yeah.
So it's that sets up that scene again.
And then we cut.
So you've probably been wondering listeners where his partner in crime has been throughoutthe duration of this movie.
Well, we're about to find out.
he calls his partner in Chicago and his partner is because he is a newlywed, his partneris having uh marital relations with his wife.

(01:54:48):
And again, this feels like more producer mandated nudity on the part, you know, it's like,again, I'm not opposed to a little nudity in movies, but it feels so forced and weird
here.
Does the partner, does contact the partner do anything?
It is literally has no point.
There's no, it's not like, he sends somebody, um, you know, instead they, uh, they, they,you know, the Marines are coming up in the, in the, the cable car and, uh, and cracker

(01:55:20):
Jack kind of gives it away before, like he's on the, on the baby monitor, oh monitor.
Like what I stopped and think about, it's like, he's on the baby monitor with, with Ivanand he kind of gives away the Marines are on their way.
And Ivan's like,
they're coming up the cable car.
They might not want to do that or they'll soon be an airborne division.

(01:55:40):
Oh, so yeah.
And as you he's ribbed rigged the cable car, like the connection that explodes.
So as soon as it like it plummets to the ground and it's kind of amazing.
Well, Jack is hanging out with the ice man at a certain point too.
Yes.
He runs into the ice man who survived his fall into the ravine or the crevasse.
Yeah.
And the ice man's the one who talks about.

(01:56:02):
The plan to blow up the glacier and there's 22 minutes left, said.
know what?
In 22 minutes, this is going to be happening.
And at that moment, he says there's 22 minutes left.
There was exactly 22 minutes left in the movie.
Wow.
Well done.
Cracker Jack.
And now the glacier blows up slightly before the end of the movie.
So it wasn't, it's not like, we're in real time here now.

(01:56:26):
All of this is to cover up the theft of the diamonds.
And what I can't, here's the thing you mentioned it.
He's like,
There's like 48 explosives that have to go.
He goes on this, the scientists, he goes on this rant.
There's like 48 explosives that have to go off in a certain order for it to work.
And you'd never be able to like, you know, you'd never be able to disarm all of them.

(01:56:48):
if they all have to go off in a certain order, why wouldn't disarming a few of them stopthe chain reaction?
Like, oh yeah, we're not going be able to do all of them.
We can get like.
three or four and yeah, they'll still go off, but it won't cause the avalanche thatthey're planning.
Jack eventually does find the diamonds that the Don hid.

(01:57:09):
were in a cube of ice.
The ice was in a tray of ice cubes.
know, and they like, it's so, this movie is so weird.
And we learn at the 11th hour that Ivan wants the diamonds in order to fund his dream of aNeo Nazi army.

(01:57:30):
Which is an interesting motive.
Like most of the time in these movies, like we found the villain is just motivated bygreed.
It's just money.
I want to be rich.
I want $200 million or whatever.
But like here it's like, there's a, there's a kind of a deeper ideological motive at work,but it's, it, learn about it so late and it just doesn't matter.

(01:57:53):
I thought that murder paid well.
Not well enough.
Do you know, with the money from these stones, I can feed, arm, clothe, train a smallarmy?
who's pretty expensive these days, huh?

(01:58:14):
Volunteers into thousands.
Young.
Strong.
But just following the merge of East and West.
Without hope, without jobs.
Desperate for a man to give them direction, to lead them to glory, to take back theirdestiny.
Already the seeds have been sown.

(01:58:35):
Now is the time for the harvest.
The idea of a people superior to all others.
who are capable of ruling without flinching that has never died.
Well, that's his Scooby Doo speech when he's unveiling all that.
And it reminded me of Legosi and Glen or Glenda.
He talks about an atomic race of Superman.
Yeah, that's that's really what it kept reminding me of.

(01:58:58):
And cut in right before that moment is another thing.
You talk about the nudity being shoehorned in.
There's this odd.
Attempted rape sequence with Casey that goes on for a long time where one of these badguys gets a hold of her He tries to assault her she kind of fights him off then he
overcomes her bends her over a table Yeah, and then he says I bet you're a screamer aren'tyou yeah?

(01:59:22):
And then she fought he forces her down and then she grabs a pan swings and hits him in thehead she hits him in the head but like it's it's so late and it feels so like
Like, why is this even here in this movie at this point?
Yeah, the plan is well underway at this point to get this stuff dealt with.
You don't need to establish these guys are dangerous.

(01:59:43):
We already know that they're dangerous.
It's weird.
is.
It is very, very strange.
It is a very it's and it's place.
It's it's an un it is an unnecessary scene and its placement in the movie makes it feeleven more unnecessary.
Yeah, it doesn't do anything.
So like they get the diamonds and then Ivan goes to shoot Cracker Jack, but his brother isthere and the brother pushes him out of the way and takes the bullet for him.

(02:00:10):
like, that's something.
But then what's crazy, and we've been talking about this, Ivan's standing right there whenit happens.
So he sees that Cracker Jack wasn't hit, but does he just shoot, does he use the nextbullet to shoot Cracker Jack as well?
No.
No, he just says,
I'm going to leave you there to watch, to watch your brother die.

(02:00:32):
Why?
Just shoot him and go.
He's the only obstacle to your plan.
Why wouldn't you just shoot him?
And it's all made more, all the more stupid by the fact the brother turns out to be finebecause the bullet was deflected by the flask that he took off a crackerjack earlier.
But, but he still goes through this whole dramatic death scene and then crackerjack findsthe flask with the bullet and then he just kind of wakes up.

(02:00:58):
Yeah.
Like, you just, dude, were you just milking it just for the, you know, for the TikTok?
I don't know.
I don't know.
We have, Cracker Jack and Ivan have a fight where, again, Cracker Jack has an opportunityto uh kill Ivan, but he doesn't.
Well, he walks in just wasting all of his bullets shooting around the room to scareYvonne.

(02:01:22):
Yes.
And my notes are like, why is he wasting every bullet that he has?
Why is he even hesitating to kill him?
And then he ends up not killing him.
like Stefan, the second at command gets involved.
It's it's a whole, it's, it's, is so convoluted what happens at the end where I'm justlike, why?
don't, I don't know why anything's happening, but the bombs go off.

(02:01:45):
They cause an avalanche and, and Casey leads all the guests into the hot spring cave.
Cause
Thankfully that cave turns out to be safe.
see minute.
see miniature shot.
lot of miniature shots.
Snow rolling.
get a really funny blue screen of Jack and I think it's green.
think it's the scientist.

(02:02:05):
Okay.
In the garden area with the air quotes, glacier behind them that looks like it was shotabout 40 years prior and not even in focus.
And that's like draped behind them and the snow starts to come down.
Oh man.
the miniature stuff, it's just more, it's a miniature after miniature blowing up.

(02:02:26):
We've had miniature helicopters and now portions of this building.
This hotel.
my God.
And, and, uh, you know, Ivan just sitting there in a chair in the hotel, like in thelobby, and then the snow comes in and takes him out.
It's, is, this is such a weird movie.
My God.
Um, and then, you know, I, you know, cracker Jack and, it makes it into the cave.

(02:02:50):
He dives into the pool and makes it into the cave and, uh you know, he reunites with hisfamily and then, know, Casey, Casey tells him her real name, which is, it's a Slavic name
and that has the initials Casey and who cares?
What does it matter?
Like, I don't even remember what it is.

(02:03:11):
Well, I don't either.
I was like, I'm going to try to pronounce it.
I turned on the subs, I'm like, I'm not gonna try to pronounce that.
And Crackerjack gets over his dead wife and family and gets together with KC.
Well, there's a weird scene where he goes to, he takes off his ring and he says, Caroline,I've got to move on.
He's gonna throw it into the spring or something.
the hot spring.

(02:03:31):
You heartless psycho.
Why would you not, it's like the one remnant of your marriage where your wife was murderedand you're gonna bail on her and this ring for this girl who just told you her name like
30 seconds prior.
But it's Casey who stops him from doing it.
comes back and she says, don't need to forget the past to embrace the future or something.

(02:03:54):
And you don't need to deny your past to make yourself a future.
There you go.
I mean, you know, she's like, thank you.
And then he says something about, she says, you'll need another vacation.
Yeah.
And he says, you can call me Jack.
Then they have a weird half hug.
And then they walk off like into the scenery from
It's in the cave, deep into From Jim Wienorski's remake of Giant Diva Monster?

(02:04:18):
I don't know why.
Where are they headed?
Where are they going?
They got to dig out from the anvil.
But here's the thing about Cracker Jack.
It's a ridiculous movie, but it did well enough in its home video release.
Justin, I'm happy to report that in 1996, Cracker Jack 2 came out.

(02:04:41):
It was released in America as
under the title Hostage Train.
Unfortunately for us, Thomas Ian Griffith did not return for the sequel.
Instead, the lead role of Jack Wild went to Judge Reinhold.
That kind of makes sense.
He looks like him.

(02:05:02):
I get it.
And then in 2000, Cracker Jack 3.
What?
There's a trilogy.
Hold up.
There's a trilogy of Cracker Jack movies.
Is it the same producers behind this?
I think so.
But in the third one, they don't even have the Jack Wilde isn't even the main character.
have Bo Sevinson playing the lead role of Jack Thorne, a completely different character.

(02:05:28):
despite that, the poster has the tagline, one last time, one last chance.
Jack is back.
But he's not.
But it's a different Jack.
It's just a guy named Jack.
Amazing.
Yeah.
So it's, mean, you know, maybe down the road, Cracker Jack 2 and 3.

(02:05:52):
uh What's interesting about these movies is on paper they feel like, they are both diehardon a mountain.
But the execution in terms of how they are produced, how that vision is realized, couldnot be more different.
yeah.
Anyway, I think that is probably the place to stop for today.

(02:06:14):
Get Me Another will be taking a short break for Christmas and New Year's.
And we want to wish everyone out there
the very happiest of holidays.
We'll be back for the rest of our Get Me Another Die Hard series beginning on Tuesday,January 6th, in which we'll be discussing one of the most innovative and successful films
that employed the Die Hard formula, 1994's Speed, starring Keanu Reeves and SandraBullock.

(02:06:41):
And joining us to explore that action classic will be David Rosen of the Piecing ItTogether podcast.
We are very excited to welcome David to the show.
Piecing it together is a terrific podcast that I highly recommend, and we are going tohave a great time keeping it over 50 miles an hour.
As always, we are your hosts, Chris Iannicone and Justin Beam.

(02:07:02):
If you've enjoyed our show, please consider subscribing and following us on Blue Sky,Instagram threads and Twitter at Get Me Another Pod.
And make sure to check out Justin's album, Phantom Light Keepers Shore Ghosts atJustinBeam.com, Bandcamp or Spotify.
If you like the show, tell your friends about it.
Tell your enemies about it.
Tell that guy down at the precinct that they're calling Cracker Jack about it.

(02:07:25):
And join us next time as we continue to explore what happens when Hollywood says, get meanother.

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Die Hard Ep. 05 - Cliffhanger / Crackerjack

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Die Hard Ep. 05 - Cliffhanger / Crackerjack