Episode 11 - Executive Target - The PM Entertainment Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You have had the entertainment podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
Hello, and welcome to an all new episode of the
PM Entertainment Podcast. The show that says, to hell with logic,
I'm going to slam my feet down onto this podcast
accelerator and effortlessly jump other podcasts while multiple lesser podcasts
explode behind me, The show that says, one exploding helicopter
is cute, but two exploding helicopters is cinema. And the
show that will always go out of its way to celebrate, exalt,

(01:22):
work hard for, and never put down the glorious work
of those straight to video action empresarios, those troubadours of thrillers,
those sultans of sleazy serial killer films, and the filmmaking
powerhouse that were also responsible for a few Little Bigfoot films,
Richard Peppin and Joseph Mehy, the P and M of
PM Entertainment. Unlike ungrateful star Michael Manson, who went interviewed

(01:44):
about the starring roles he had in PM Entertainment films
for my website aftermovie Dina dot Com some years ago,
said those movies are terrible. Sorry, he said, those movies
are terrible. I'm kind of exciting and fun to watch now,
but at the time they were done, they were looked
at rather on faith. I really feel like I got
taken advantage of in that situation because I didn't really
have good representation. I never have, and I didn't have

(02:07):
a publicist. I was just trying to make a living,
and PM Entertainment paid me a lot of money to
do those movies. To be honest, that's why I did him.
I wanted to be the hero, the lead guy, instead
of the killer. It's just the scripts were terrible and
the guys who shot him didn't know what they were doing.
Those movies are awful and embarrassing, but I did them.
I've done a lot of films that are great that
made a lot of money for people, and I'm really

(02:28):
proud of and I've done a lot of films that
I shouldn't have done. So let me just get the
straight mic. The movies were terrible, but they're kind of
exciting and fun to watch now. Taken advantage of. Yet
you got paid a lot of money, and even though
you got paid a lot of money, you're embarrassed by

(02:48):
those movies. Instead of showing up like you wanted to
be the hero, the lead guy. Instead of the killer
PM Entertainment gave you that opportunity, and instead of you know,
showing up doing the work, being fantastic, hitting out the park,
you just showed up, was lazy, mumbled your way through

(03:09):
the film, and then years later, when asked about them,
instead of finding something nice to say, you just ripped
into them. All right, Mike, Well whatever, the check cash.
The movies are awesome and you're wrong. Anyway. I am
your host, John Crusts, and don't forget. If you like
the show, please remember to rate, review us on any
of the podcasting platforms you use, share our Facebook and

(03:31):
Instagram posts like comment, and you can contact us via
our email Pmenttpod at gmail dot com. That's PM e
nt pod at gmail dot com. This week, as you
probably guessed, we're tackling Executive Target, the nineteen ninety seven
PM movie that guarantees at least two thirds of it
run time is action, and then at least one and

(03:53):
a half of those two thirds is car chases someone
else to the math. Anyway, it's one of those PM
classics where they stepped up a notch from its starry
cast to its larger than normal stunts and big sets.
This movie went on tiptoes just about stand shoulder to
shoulder with most things Hollywood had down up until that point.
Directed by Joseph Maye, written by Jacobson, Hart and Dayton Kelly,

(04:15):
starring Michael Manson, Roy Scheider, Keith David, Angie Everhard Dayton Kelly,
Gareth Williams, Robert Miano.

Speaker 3 (04:22):
Again.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
I think Robert Miano has been in every single PM
film we've covered so far. Matthias Hughes and Lance the Gold.
Lance the Gold also no slouch, did multiple PM entertainment
movies along with Robert Miano. Fantastic to have them both
in this movie. Cinematographer was Ken Blakey, the second unit
director in stunt coordinator was Cole S. McKay, and the

(04:43):
legendary Rick Owens was the foly artist. It's a drive first,
shoot him up, kidnap the President, blow up two helicopters,
put Keith David in a waistcoat and give him an
underground Bond villain lair to swe about in type movie,
and we are all the better for having watched it.
Our guest this week a screenwriter, a producer, an actor,
a composer, also a fellow countryman and all round incredible talent.

(05:08):
It's fellow countrymen and screenwriter, producer, actor, composer and talent
Tom Jolliffe, Sir, Hello, welcome to the PM Entertainment Podcast. Yeah,
thanks for having me. It's nice to have people covering
these sorts of films.

Speaker 3 (05:20):
Well, I hope, So that's my hope.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
My hope is that people who love these kind of
movies are like, Wow, finally, you know. I hope there's
someone somewhere. Really, what I hope is that there's someone
somewhere who always wanted to do a PM Entertainment podcast,
never got their act together, and now sees that.

Speaker 3 (05:37):
I'm doing one.

Speaker 2 (05:37):
I guess, damn it, damn it, beaten to it. That's
what I really want. I want someone somewhere suffering. No,
I don't really, I'm kidding, but you know what I mean.
I'm doing a bit So Tom, Were you always? This
is our Q and a section of the show. This
is where I reach deep within you and find the
action fan within and find out all about you and

(06:01):
your childhood and your life and your passion all in
one survey Q and a whatever you want to call it, Tom,
Were you always into?

Speaker 3 (06:10):
Action films from an early age.

Speaker 4 (06:11):
Yeah, I think so. I mean I was kind of
like the typical video store here a kid, so it
would be sort of a weekly event just going down
picking out a video VHS and back in those days
when you had sort of Drew Strusan covers and everything
looked amazing, no matter how bad the film might have been. Yeah,

(06:35):
so I was probably when I was very young. I
probably started on stuff like Star Wars, Indiana Jones. It
was kind of Masters of the Universe that really kind
of ignited a love of film with me.

Speaker 2 (06:50):
Oh, you've said the magic words right there, Master the Universe.
It's such an underrated movie. I think everyone expects it
to be the Heme cartoon. And as much as everyone
you know, like everyone I like the he Man cartoon.

Speaker 3 (07:05):
It's fine.

Speaker 2 (07:06):
But Master Universe as a movie, as a movie marketed
to kids, it's full of violence and gore and monsters
and weird stuff. The eighties were a joyous time. Anyway,
Sorry to interrupt, I'm just trying to say, I too,
am a kindred Master Universe dove lungred spirit.

Speaker 3 (07:24):
Anyway, back to use.

Speaker 4 (07:25):
Yeah, I mean it is really underrated, I felt. I
mean because you know, the reason I watched it was
the first film I can remember seeing at the big
on the big screen as well, and it was I
was absolutely obsessed with the cartoon. I had all the toys,
and even for me, I mean I should have been
the fan that felt let down, but sort of seven
years old, it didn't matter to me that there was

(07:46):
no orco or no cringing or battle care or anything
like that. I was blown away by the movie. So yeah,
that was a childhood favorite. And I suppose obviously Dove
kind of. I mean, it is an action movie, isn't it.
So it's action sci fi.

Speaker 3 (08:00):
Action, fish out of Water far yeah, time travel. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (08:04):
And then obviously later on Dolph became so synonymous with
that genre. So yeah, everyone kind of grown up was
sort of slier arnold. I was kind of like a
closet Dolph fan, yes, and also the other guys as well,
I love so I just yeah, I grew up watching
a lot of those films, watching films like die Hard, Terminator,

(08:26):
Predator when I was probably a little bit too young
to watch them, probably way too young to be fair,
So that was kind of it. And then it's just
that that other thing in that era with you know,
VHS and everything like that that I would be, you know,
you'd go to a friend's house. They'd have an older
brother who had a you know, VHS collection, and they're

(08:49):
a bit older, so it's you know, it's all stuff
like Die Hard Predator, but then it's also they've got
the kind of the next level if you like, which
is you know, Gary Daniels films, Don Wilson films, and
obviously that kind of skews a little bit into PM
as well.

Speaker 2 (09:06):
Yeah, so I was going to ask, can you remember
when you first came across a PM entertainment film specifically.

Speaker 4 (09:13):
Yeah, it was Executive Target And obviously that was so
not too too far off from when The Reservoir Dogs
came out. That's where I kind of knew Michael Madison
from and then he'd been in a few other films
of that era as well, Species as well, which by
the time that came out and I saw that, I

(09:34):
was about fourteen or fifteen, so obviously I was obsessed
with Species.

Speaker 3 (09:38):
Yeah. No, no, no.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
The momentary blip that Natasha Henstridge had on teenage boys
in the middle of the nineties where you know, you
could be like, oh, she's a Van Dam movie. Oh
there's a sequel the Species coming out. Like there was
a moment there where where everyone was all about Henstridge
and then that evaporated pretty quickly. But yeah, there was

(10:03):
some there was some key titles Maximum Risk and Species
that that yes, we all we all remember enjoying.

Speaker 3 (10:12):
It's like Terry Hatcher, Terry Hatcher had her moment. Yeah,
you know what I mean, Terry Hatcher had her moment.

Speaker 2 (10:18):
I'll never forget, you know, obviously, PM, we've talked about
zero Tolerance on the show Robert Patrick Big Style. One
of the straight to video movies Robert Patrick did around
this time was Cool Surface, and I will never ever forget.
I don't know if you had the same experience, but
finding the vhs of Cool Surface in an HMV. You know, obviously,

(10:40):
Terry Hatcher was big at the time with the Superman
series and all of that, and it having along the
front luridly, you know, Lewis TV's Lewis Lane finally gets
naked or whatever, and you're like, oh, you know, you're
like a fifteen year old boy, like can I get
away with buying this eighteen movie?

Speaker 3 (10:59):
You know?

Speaker 2 (11:00):
Because that was that's what the video VHS era was.
It was like what was when they would dig up
a movie that a famous TV actress had done, you know,
three or four years before that she wished would disappear.
There was that one Gillian Anderson had done. I think
that was it the Turning or something turning.

Speaker 3 (11:21):
Everyone remembers.

Speaker 2 (11:21):
Everyone who's in England remembers going into a VHS store
and seeing their TV crushes in because you know VHS.
The other great thing about it was it was this
sort of like wild West in the sense that you know,
Gillian Andersen becomes big on the X Files and everyone
everywhere just scrabbles around to try and find, like Gillian

(11:43):
Anderson movies that they can release on VHS, and if
there's nudity or lurid content, so much the better.

Speaker 3 (11:49):
Anyway.

Speaker 4 (11:51):
I specifically remember a friend of mine, we managed to
persuade his mum to rent that out for us, and
it turned out not being that entertaining. The film.

Speaker 3 (12:01):
Oh it's such a boring movie.

Speaker 2 (12:02):
Yeah, there's no reason to watch it at all, even
the unities such as it is. You're just like, ah,
it wasn't worse for that at least at least The
Cool Surface had. I mean, The Cool Surface is one
of the worst scripts ever written in the history of scripts.
But at least it was sort of, you know, cheesy,

(12:23):
You could get some kind of lurid value from it.

Speaker 3 (12:26):
It was sort of very.

Speaker 2 (12:29):
One of those like softcore TV movie of the week
type things that were prevalent in the nineties, and so
there was at least some cheese factor to it. But
none of these movies that they dredged up and put
out were any good. But that didn't stop. That wasn't
the point of VHS. The point of VHS was not
is the movie good. The point of VHS was we

(12:52):
can put it out. Let's put it out, you know
what I mean?

Speaker 4 (12:55):
Yeah, exactly, I mean, I mean they still kind of
do that a little bit today. You'll get someone like
I think there was an old Barry Kyogan film that
kind of got dredged up from about ten years ago
that even never got released or kind of just disappeared.
So that's obviously getting re released now that he's the
new big thing.

Speaker 2 (13:13):
There's not quite this sleazy gold rush there used to be, though,
there used to be, Like now, I mean, I suppose Nowadays,
you know, nudity and TV and movies is pretty doing
it like everyone's kind of done it or doing it
or you know, either that or you know, you can
go on someone's Instagram page and probably see more than
you would in a movie, you know what I mean, uh,

(13:35):
for some of these younger stars or whatever.

Speaker 3 (13:37):
But back then, it was, you know, it was a
race to see.

Speaker 2 (13:41):
Which you know, shot for a shot in the backwater
of the US by a few dodgy guys with a
camcorder type movie you could get out on VHS.

Speaker 3 (13:52):
That was there was like a gold rush for it.

Speaker 2 (13:54):
Now now we're all too knowledgeable, and I think that's
the that's what's sad about living now, because there's no
there's no undiscovered treasures in the way that there was
back in the day.

Speaker 3 (14:05):
I feel it.

Speaker 4 (14:05):
No, No, definitely not. I mean you would kind of
discover the name unless you you were looking out for
the sort of big iconic things like everyone knows Jurassic
parks out and when it's going to come out on
video after it's been to the cinema. But you know,
I you know, remember going in a number of times
and one discovery at the video shop was seeing Blackjack

(14:29):
with Dolph Lundgren, and this was right after I'd discovered
John Wu and so obviously that was like the most
exciting thing since Slice Bread, just sort of seeing this
brand spanking new VHS cover Dolph Lugun from the director
of you know, Face Off the Hard Target. So right, Yeah,
those were the days when you could just walk in
and just discover something. But I mean I do remember

(14:52):
seeing obviously Executive Target probably around about a similar time.
I used to keep seeing the cover for Zero Tolerance
as well. I think I saw that. I eventually got
around to that a little while after Executive Target.

Speaker 2 (15:04):
You recognize that as a PM Entertainment film right away?
Or did you put together that PM was a company
kind of putting out lots of different types of films
then or like later.

Speaker 4 (15:16):
No, that came later, So I mean it was more like, oh,
that's you know that, that's a two one thousand. And
then obviously with Executive Target, he had Michael Madison kind
of at the I suppose the height of his fame
at that point, or he was probably just coming off
the height of it, really, but yeah, he was still
quite fairly big and obviously starring in a lot of

(15:38):
mainstream stuff in recent memory. But I think what when
I started to notice it a bit more, is you
watch more and more films. It was probably at that era.
Do you remember sort of pound shops and they have
a load of these sort of PM films, usually in
the very thin slip covers. Yes, you know, the ninety

(15:58):
nine piece specials. So I've had a few quite a
few PM films there, and then it's just like it's
just like a Ryan Krolco Canon, that opening sort of
company logo you stuck, you get that recognition, So you
know Kroco, Ryan Cannon as well as the kind of

(16:20):
the big boys like Disney. They were the ones that
I first sort of would recognize again and again from films,
and then yeah, PM came a little bit later. But
then obviously you kind of start to recognize all the
staples the more you know, five or six films, and
then you kind of think, ah, I know what they're
going for here, right.

Speaker 2 (16:42):
Because I mean when you if you sat down and
watched Executive Target like as the first movie, like you did,
you're probably weighing it up against like you say, the
big guy Cannon stallone. You know, willis whatever you're kind
of weighing it against maybe some of the bigger budget stuff,

(17:04):
which doesn't make it any less impressive, because it's an
absolute action packed masterpiece. But it certainly if it was
the first thing you watched, you would sort of be like, oh, okay,
this feels good.

Speaker 3 (17:16):
But it also feels different.

Speaker 2 (17:17):
It feels weird, it feels a little off, it feels
a little left of center. It's not quite the gloss
of cannon or you know, the budgets of like a
Stallone film, but it's but also I don't know, like
I don't think when I was a kid between the
ages of like six and sixteen, when I was first
really getting into movies, I don't know that I ever

(17:39):
really made that distinction unless it was so clearly obviously,
like shot on video or something. But I mean, most
of the time, if I put a movie in and
there were recognizable people in it, you know, the budgets
never really entered into it in my head.

Speaker 3 (17:55):
But I suppose you do.

Speaker 2 (17:57):
You consciously compare it to other action films you've seen,
but obviously by the time you've seen four or five
six seven PM films, is your feeling like mine was
that well? When I see that PM logo, I'm always
going to get delivered something that I'm going to enjoy.
There's always going to be something in here that I

(18:18):
can kind of grasp onto and enjoy. And obviously by
that point you're also watching kind of other straight to
video action stuff, Dolf stuff, Speakman stuff, Gary Daniels, whatever
it is. And actually, when you start to look at
PM up against the other straight to video stuff, PM
I think shines way above a lot of that other

(18:40):
stuff and still does like to this day. I mean
no disrespect to anyone putting out like the straight to
video action stuff now and I still watch it, still
love it, still whatever, but it's uncomparable to something like
Executive Tug.

Speaker 4 (18:54):
I feel, yeah, no, absolutely, I think. I mean what
they really nderstood was, you know, getting bang for your
buck and just packing it with so much action. I'm
not even entirely sure how they managed to pack so
much into the budgets. It was just amazing. And obviously
it also became sort of this almost like a playground

(19:17):
for a lot of these stunt guys, so you know,
it'd be a lot of guys that had been on
bigger movies and sort of would come and do these
as well, guys that would obviously become you know, huge
in the stunt world a few years later. But it
just seemed to be this thing where let's get these
great stunt people in, let them do their thing, and
just pack it with action explosions. And then you know,

(19:41):
they probably recognized certain things that, you know, the certain
formulas that always seemed to work, so you know you
could go and make a die Hard clone or obviously
Executive Target is very kind of heavily inspired by the Rock.

Speaker 3 (19:55):
I thought that as well.

Speaker 2 (19:56):
Yes, it's got a real rock vibe do it even
though the plot is different.

Speaker 4 (20:00):
Yeah, So I mean it's they do that. They know
what kind of sales and what people will recognize and
what people expect in those kind of movies. But then
they kind of in terms of delivering your expectations, they
do they do it with a plum.

Speaker 3 (20:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:16):
So when you started, like you say, like Zero Tolerance,
you remember Executive Target. Did you ever start to then
seek out PM films?

Speaker 3 (20:25):
Did you?

Speaker 2 (20:26):
Did they become a staple for you or was it
just that when you watched one you enjoyed it.

Speaker 3 (20:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (20:33):
Initially it was like I would watch them and then
I would enjoy them. I think Gary Daniels is probably
the main culprit for really kind of making me go
from I'm liking these films to recognizing, ah, this is
a PM film, because obviously he did. He was so
prolific with them. The first one was sort of Firepower,
and I kind of watched that because it had the

(20:56):
Ultimate Warrior and he was my kind of my always
growing up as a wrestling fan, so I kind of
watched that out of curiosity to see him in that
I knew I knew of Gary Daniels by then anyway,
so that was obviously another bonus, and it just kind
of snowballed from there. Really.

Speaker 2 (21:13):
And now would you consider them in terms of your
fandom for PM? Are they a frequent for you or again,
are they just sort of all part of the soup
of B movie action that you like to watch in general?

Speaker 4 (21:25):
No, they're They're a frequent for me, So I think, yeah,
like you say, they do stand above quite a lot
of the other studios of the time. And again, you
look at it, there's there's so many really you know,
really sort of spectacular action films with you know, always
with all these massive stunts and the you know, the
staple car flips and things like that. I mean it

(21:48):
it does get to the point that, even like watching
a load with my brother, we kind of had our
own terminology of the We called it the PM flip.
So anytime you see the car sort of corkscrew thy
bit out of explosion behind it, that would be our
you know, we'd call it the PM flip. So that's
kind of that's when it becomes ingrained in you.

Speaker 2 (22:12):
Yeah, you see, For me, it was all about, you know,
I grew up and I think my first experience, I mean,
although I'd watched obviously movies, all the movies you're kind
of talking about, my first experience with any kind of
out and out action outside of James Bond at Christmas
would have been the eighteen. And yeah, you know, the eighteen.
To me, if you're an eighteen fan, I don't know

(22:32):
how you can't be a PM fan because to some
extent what PM does, Like if the A team had
a million dollars every time, you know, every episode, then
the eighteen would be like a PM film every week,
you know what I mean. They they have you know,
there's an action sequence at the beginning or some kind
of crime or something that happens at the beginning. There's

(22:54):
always gonna be a big action sequence at the end.
There's a section in the middle where they build something,
and probably another in the middle where they'll flip at
least one car.

Speaker 3 (23:02):
Right, that's the ageing.

Speaker 2 (23:05):
You know, PM takes that as far as I concern
PM takes that, you know, mixes in a bit of
Hollywood soup, and then you know, puts it through their budget.
And also I think they're just the way they wrote
movies is always And we talked about this a little
bit on the episode that's upright now, Last Man Standing,

(23:28):
where my colleague Jim was talking about the fact that
like they're writing, like what you say, sort of like
a cliche plot or a plot that you know is
enough to hang a few action sequence baubles on, you know,
and then they'll come up across against the narrative problem.

(23:49):
And we'll get into this because you're a screenwriter, so
I'm sure you're aware of what I'm talking about. But
they'll come across a narrative problem, Right, how does this
character know this information in order for this character to
do what we need this character to do, which is,
you know, blow up this car or jump off a
cliff or whatever it is, right, they'll they'll come up

(24:09):
with a narrative problem. And the way PM solves those
narrative problems is always just a little bit like, you know,
just ever so slightly left of center, where you kind
of go. I understand how they made that leap, but
no one else would take that leap, you know what
I mean? And I think that once you watch as

(24:29):
many as I am in sort of frequent succession, as
much as the stunts and the pyrotechnics and other things are,
you know, the reason you keep watching just occasionally there
are plot points married, often with a wacky lead performance,

(24:50):
whether that's like a wings Houser, or whether that's a
Michael Madson, or whether that's even Gary Daniels as he
was sort of getting better and better as an actor,
because I think he does.

Speaker 3 (24:59):
I think you see him progress.

Speaker 2 (25:01):
Through these movies and become better as an actor, whatever
that is. I think the marriage of those two things
with the action sort of defines a PM film in
a way that doesn't really happen with Cannon or Caalco
or some of these other companies. There's always something that

(25:22):
feels just a little lost in translation with PM, but
I kind of love that. That's kind of what I
gravitate towards because I'm sort of into that. And I
don't mean ironically. I don't watch these films to like
snare out them. I mean because they're slightly different from
other movies I watch. There's a joy to that, there's
a there's an intrigue, there's a there's just oh that's

(25:44):
a weird yet strangely satisfying way to solve that narrative problem.

Speaker 3 (25:48):
Do you know what I'm talking about.

Speaker 4 (25:49):
Uh, Yeah, I've noticed a few things like that. I
kind of like the the through a lot of their
films as well. They tend to sort of throw in
a few quirky characters here and there as well.

Speaker 3 (26:00):
Well, yes they do.

Speaker 4 (26:01):
They do what I call the Larry Cohen effect, Yeah,
which I think always helps if you know, if like
there's characters that are a bit odd or a bit different,
it's better than just you know, having you know, nine
or ten typical bad guy archetypes you know, on the
on the villain roster or whatever it might be. So yeah,
just these kind of left of field decisions making them

(26:22):
a little bit more intriguing. It might not necessarily be
objectively good all the time, but you know, it makes
it more more interesting, I suppose, than being too kind
of straight and yeah, too sort of linear. I suppose.

Speaker 3 (26:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:42):
I mean, as I get older, sort of the idea
of good and bad becomes kind of a mood point.
I tend to kind of think to myself, if I
enjoy it, it's good, you know.

Speaker 4 (26:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:54):
I try not to make too many things because once
you start playing the game of second, this is what
you're doing. I'm just using this as sort of a
talking point to kind of jump off on, but sort of,
once you start playing the game of saying, well, you know,
a movie has to be this, or a narrative problem
has to be solved this way, or dialogue needs to

(27:14):
sound this, you are, I think, restricting and defining a
medium that we're still figuring out. I mean, I know
a lot of people want to say that movies are dead,
and that Hollywood is dying, and that you know, TV
series are now the thing and now the gold standing
and whatever. But I think we're still, like we're only
one hundred plus years into movies.

Speaker 3 (27:36):
I think we're still figuring it out.

Speaker 2 (27:38):
It's not like plays are dead or musicals are dead
or books are dead like and people are changing the
forms of those forms all the time. So you know,
I don't subscribe to restricting movies to be a certain thing.
And so when I say PM can often solve a

(27:59):
narrative problematively or weirdly or in a way that brings
me joy. I like it because there needs to be
movies out there that do things in their own way.
And it's it's odd because even though initially there they
are movies that are made to ape Hollywood, you know,

(28:19):
simply fill up shelves in the VHS store and two,
you know, essentially make a buck from.

Speaker 3 (28:28):
There's a weird or to hate.

Speaker 2 (28:31):
I hate to be kind of pretenious that I'm not
trying to be pretenious about PM, but there is a
sort of awe to vibe to them because they are
a PM film.

Speaker 3 (28:38):
Like when you watch a PM film.

Speaker 2 (28:40):
It doesn't matter what era they're from, and it doesn't
even really matter who's writing and directing them. There's just
a PM way of doing things and and it is
its own kind of authorship without being I'm trying not
to be. I'm trying to just be regular about it.
But you kind of know what I mean, right.

Speaker 4 (28:58):
I know, it mean definitely, yeah, And.

Speaker 2 (29:01):
I think that's the joint as a screen writer then,
and you work a lot in genre film. Is that
fair to say you work a lot in kind of
sci fi and horror and action and sort of straight
to video stuff.

Speaker 4 (29:14):
Yeah, yeah, that's kind of that's my forte. I suppose
it's also what the I mean, it's always been a
strong market and things that you can kind of achieve
on lower budgets. So yeah, I'm kind of there. Whether
I mean, I aspire to do other things, but I
do enjoy doing it and do enjoy writing what I

(29:35):
hope every now and again, I aspire to write a
kind of PMS film or a film.

Speaker 2 (29:42):
So I was going to ask, obviously, with this background
in you know, I think similar background to myself, like
you know, obviously a kid at the video store and
obviously a fan of genre film a specifically action, do
you find yourself sort of working in in tropes not
so much from Hollywood, but from PM or Cannon films

(30:05):
into your screenplays, either consciously or subconsciously.

Speaker 4 (30:10):
Yeah, it'll be a mixture of both. Really sometimes. I mean,
if I'm writing for hire, for example, I might have
a plot come to me and it's just you know,
I'm there to flesh it out, and usually they want
you to stick quite vietmitarly to formula, I suppose from
a producer point of view or distributor's point of view.

(30:34):
If I'm doing sort of the PM way, I guess,
and being quite left the field and kind of doing
some trying to do stuff in a slightly quirkier way
or my own kind of way, they might stay, well,
can you just steer it back to you know, standard formula? Right, So, yeah,
it can be creatively limiting in some ways that obviously

(30:58):
you know, for PM, they had that advantage. You know,
the guys that were running it were also the ones
making the films. So yeah, that was obviously a good
advantage for them.

Speaker 2 (31:09):
But not fine because I see that you work with
there's sort of a couple of production companies that you
kind of work with. Not I mean, you work with lots,
but like there's a couple that you kind of work with.
Again and again a little bit just looking at your IMDb.
Are they different then? Are they set up where there
is just a sort of executive, you know there imaginary

(31:31):
like suit guy at the top who just sits there
and once movies made, who have never really made movies,
or are the producers in this case like PM also
movie makers.

Speaker 4 (31:41):
It's a bit of a mixture, so you know, I've
had both sides of the coins. Really. I've also worked
a few times with Mark Lester, who directed Commando, and
he's now kind of more like the suit in the background,
obviously because he's made films. He's very cool. He's kind
of been there, done it and got the T shirt.

(32:04):
So you know, working with him has always been really
quite easy, and he's always open to sort of ideas
that might go a little bit left of center, or
you know, trying to add add elements into it that
might feel fresher than just kind of going by the
same old tropes again and again. Some some some executives

(32:27):
just want the tropes because it's there. You know, in
the streaming age, you're so dependent on hooking in an
audience within the first sort of thirty seconds. I mean,
back in the VHS stays, you know, if you went
on EF you rented a VHS tape, you almost felt

(32:47):
compelled to finish it, no matter how much you might
hate it. Yes, but you know, in the streaming age,
it's just so easy. You know, you might be a
minute in and think, oh, I'm not doing this, flick
over to something so well.

Speaker 2 (33:02):
Not only that, but in the UK, where we both
grew up, you know that we only had I mean,
we only had three channels when I was born, but
we you know, we only had four channels by the
time I was sort of ten years old, and very
rarely would there be four good movies playing on four
different channels at the same time. So very often, if

(33:23):
you were watching a movie on Channel four or BBC
two or something, it was the only movie on. So
again there was this sort of captive audience. Even if
it didn't get you right away, you're like, well, I
don't want to watch anything on the other three channels.
I can't imagine work growing up in America with the
cable channels of at least you know, fifty stations, and
then ninety stations and now thousands of stations. You know,

(33:44):
I just would be I would never have finished a movie.
I would just be like, oh this is on channel
eighty nine, Oh this is on Channel one.

Speaker 3 (33:50):
Hundred and whatever. You know, it would just I would
be skipping around.

Speaker 2 (33:53):
Whereas I say that the the I think the training
that we had where you had to finish the movie
and you had to you felt like a little obliged
to kind of get through it in its own way,
I think led us to be led us to see
more things, experience more things, and kind of experiment more
as well in a way.

Speaker 4 (34:13):
Yeah, most definitely. Yeah, I think the sheer volume of
content now it's quite difficult to really kind of stand out,
and even if you do something fresh and a bit different,
you've always got that problem that the algorithm might not
give you a good placement and you get kind of
lost in everything else. So you know, there's never a
rhyme or reason to what ends up being successful, particularly

(34:37):
sort of in the low budget realm.

Speaker 2 (34:39):
But yeah, I suppose the last time I knew a
and I'm not counting like Millennium or whatever, whoever made
the Expendables films and stuff, because I still consider those
mid budget, you know, higher budget than low budget. The
last sort of low budget production house that I can
remember making a splash enough that regularsh mos knew their

(35:03):
name was like Asylum with the Sci Fi Channel movies, Like,
there was that brief moment and I don't think it's
still going on.

Speaker 3 (35:11):
Maybe it is, I don't know, but you know.

Speaker 2 (35:13):
There was the maybe Sharknado twenty eight or whatever it
was kind of finally killed it. But the they were
the last studio I can think of that were that
had a platform the Sci Fi Channel. But also we're
doing enough of the sort of wish fulfillment mash up

(35:35):
Roger Corman style stuff that you know, what's funny is
you then see Roger Corman being like, well, shoot, they're
doing Sharknado, I need to do Shark to Purse or
whatever his film was, right, you know, then there was
this sort of battle of B movie monster movies.

Speaker 3 (35:51):
And there are other productions.

Speaker 2 (35:52):
I mean, you're more in the industry, So are the
other production companies now that you think kind of making
that name for themselves that would within the sort of
PM to Asylum kind of graph.

Speaker 4 (36:05):
I don't think there's anyone really at the sort of
the PM level. Really, there's there's quite a few that
aspire to be more like Asylum. I mean, Asylum is
still going relatively strong, I think, and they still deliver
quite a lot. I think, you know, there's a the
company I've worked with quite a few times. I tn
they they churn out stuff at an amazing kind of volume,

(36:26):
and obviously, because of the short shoot schedules and low budgets,
a lot of it isn't you know, hugely great. But
they kind of hit a bit of a they've sort
of found a little corner of the market with Winnie
the Pooh, Blood and Honey Oh Yes, the sort of yeah,
the public domain thing, and they've kind of that was

(36:48):
unexpectedly successful. I mean, they've always had this that kind
of way of that model of making movies has been
around for ages, where make it for X amount, make
a tidy profit on it, and sort of churn them out. Obviously,
the budgets have gone down and the profit margins are
slightly different levels, but that kind of changed their way

(37:08):
of doing it slightly. So they've got kind of like
a larger tier movie and then they've got all the
sort of asylum knockoffs that kind of go straight to
streaming channels, and it's you know, it's a case of
putting out maybe one hundred movies a year and hoping
they do well. On kind of advertising video on demand,

(37:29):
so you know, stuff like TOB or the YouTube channels
that are kind of coming out now. Yeah, so it's
it's it's very much a volume game in that kind
of that kind of arena. But again, in terms of
like how PM did it, I think what a lot
of these studios now underestimate. This probably goes right up

(37:50):
to even the bigger studios. I think they underestimate the
power of entertaining your audience and making a good film
and kind of delivering what they want. I think the
more and more we've kind of been taken over us
by executives in terms of running it rather than creatives.

(38:11):
Because even going back to the Corman model, which is
kind of like perpetuates all of this. You know, he
was always a creative. You know, he started off as
a director and he made movies, so he knew what
it was about. Yeah. I think people just underestimate delivering
what an audience would want to see and really setting

(38:32):
out to entertainment entertain them. So I think PM always
did that.

Speaker 3 (38:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (38:37):
And I also think there's a you know, and again
I have no problem with asylum, and I'm not judging
any person who manages to make him put out a movie.
I think if you managed to do that, fantastic, hats
off to you, because it's hard enough, right. But I
think there was that sort of so bad it's a
good thing that I think kind of cropped up, I

(39:01):
don't know, probably about ten fifteen, maybe twenty years ago,
where sort of that you know, the Room and Samurai
Cop and all that kind of thing where once people
got online and could kind of share movies that they
considered so bad it's good. And I don't I'm not
a fan of that phrase. Like I say, if I think,
if I enjoy a movie, I think it's good, you

(39:22):
know what I mean. I think I think taking the
piss out of Samurai Cop, it's it's like shooting. Not
only that, but like the people who made Samurai Cop
clearly are in on the joke because it's full of jokes,
Like the movie is full of them, goofing around like
it's not meant to be a serious movie. But anyway,
the I think that kind of watching stuff ironically, which

(39:44):
again are no judgment. I mean it watched movies however
you want. But like I think that led a little
bit to you know, this thing where coupled with the asylum,
which obviously leant into the whole idea of well, we're
purposely making a bad movie. It's called Shark Nato. It's
about sharks and a tornado. Of course it's a bad

(40:06):
movie or whatever. They kind of lent into that. I
think it meant that rather than the idea when PM
was around, that there is a discerning audience out there,
that it has multiple choices that in order to stick
with your movie, your movie needs to thrill and entertain them.

(40:26):
I think now there are certain executives, and I might
be wrong, but there are certain executives that go, ah,
people like watching shitty movies, so don't even bother, do
you know what I mean? I think there was a
mindset that changed between viewing the audience as discerning even
if it's not, and then viewing the audience is just
a disposable mass that just wants to eat up whatever

(40:49):
stuff you put out. Right, I think that what I
see from streaming channels, and I'm not talking necessarily about
the independent movies and stuff that you put out, but
I'm talking about like the stuff Netflix does or the
stuff Amazon Prime does or whatever. Because it's not just
the very low budget guys. You know, Netflix will spend
three hundred million dollars on a movie they know is crap.

(41:12):
You know what I mean that they know is just ah,
we need to fill up the platform with. And my
argument would always be, well, actually, there are independent companies
out there, like the ones you work with.

Speaker 3 (41:23):
Making movies.

Speaker 2 (41:24):
If you actually gave them a platform rather than throwing
three hundred million dollars away on whatever nonsense you're doing
with the Rock and Ryan Reynolds this week, if you
gave them a little bit of a platform but encourage
them to produce better content. So if you sort of said, well,
instead of spending three hundred million, we're going to give
this company over here that's been knocking out movies, We're

(41:45):
going to give them five hundred thousand, a million, two million,
whatever it is. We're going to give them five million
dollars to make a few movies, but they have to
reach a certain level of quality. I think we could
get back to a little bit of that PM thing
as it is, though, like you say, you've you've got people,
you know, either making tons and tons of stuff for

(42:06):
very small budget to just kind of hope one day
the spaghetti they're throwing at the wall sticks, or you know,
as it did with Sharknado, as it did with Blood
and Honey and the Popeye movies and all that kind
of stuff, you know, or you get these big fat,
bloated Netflix things that you just kind of go, alright,
that's fine, but I don't really understand why that's on Netflix,

(42:28):
you know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (42:28):
You know, I don't know whether that's just me, but.

Speaker 4 (42:30):
Yeah, no, I'm the same. I just think it's that
content mentality now where you know, in the in the
PM days, even a lot of the straight to video
companies that you know, I suppose more people with us
more sort of elitist statitude to film would have looked
looked down upon. But you know, you look back retrospectively

(42:51):
now at you know, the PM films and even a
lot of the New Image films and a lot of
these other companies where you know, in comparison to maybe
that the equivalents now, they they just feel more sincere
and again there was a little bit more money put
into them. You could almost you could almost see that

(43:14):
there's you know, a lot more care and attention there.
But again you could alsoy you could get more for
your money back then as well.

Speaker 2 (43:22):
Right, And I think it's why in the in the
world that we're in right now, I've always really respected
Scott Adkins, obviously, not only because of his martial arts prowess,
but he seems to pick movies that, even if they're
low budget, even if they're straight to streaming, and even
if they can't afford to do the action every six

(43:43):
minutes or whatever that PM could do, they're at least
striving to be a movie, you know, they're at least
striving to be a well shot, well written, well acted.
I mean, some of the stuff him and Jesse V
Johnson did together again, I feel are the closest we
get to like PM in these days because they're so

(44:04):
well made, so well scripted, but you know, on a
shoestring budget.

Speaker 4 (44:09):
Yeah, a hundred percent.

Speaker 3 (44:10):
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (44:11):
So I always think that Scott's doing some really interesting stuff.
I think Van dam still occasionally puts out something where
you're like, oh, okay, that's he's leaning into his age
now he's trying to do more dramatic stuff, like, there's
some interesting things there. But so before we move on
to executive target though, and this has been a fantastic conversation.
Two last questions. First of all, do you have a

(44:33):
favorite PM film?

Speaker 4 (44:35):
I would say, probably by a whisker, it's Riot, okay
with mister Gary Daniels, mister PM. Yes, But then you know,
there's there's so many that are really consistent, and obviously
you mentioned Last Man's Standard before that one would push
any of them close, I think as well.

Speaker 2 (44:54):
Yeah, oh yeah, And as I watched more and more,
because I had seen by the time I started doing
the podcast, I had seen you know, all the ones
you would expect me to have seen, right, the cyber Trackers, Rage, Riot, Recoil,
Executive Target, Zero Tolerance, Last Man Standing, those kind of ones,
running red, the Speakman ones as well, but watch it.

(45:15):
You know, coming across and discovering films like Steel Frontier
or The Wingshouse are Living to Die, you know that
there are still those ones out there that are not
going to be rolling off the tongue in the way
that Last Man Standing or Executive Target does, but that
are still well worth tracking down and having a good

(45:37):
time with. And I think that's that, you know, the
ce Thomas House stuff. I don't think I've seen a
lot of the s Thomas House stuff. But like Pure
Danger is an absolute trip. It's such a fantastic movie,
and obviously the Sweeper and others, so that there is
there's a lot more gold to mind, which I'm very,
very excited to find out. And then my last question

(45:57):
to you, then, sir, before we get onto the movie,
is if someone wants to dive in to the world
of Tom Jolliffe and start watching your fantastic movies that
you've written produced, starting things like this, where would you
have someone start? Do you have a personal favorite, do
you have a top three? Do you have a recommended Sure,

(46:18):
go start here? What would you say?

Speaker 4 (46:20):
So, I'll start with Cinderella's Revenge because that's got Natasha Henstrodgen. Yes,
it all comes back full circle to the henstreck Absolutely yeah,
produced by Mark Lester as well. That one was now.
But I cannot tell you how happy I was because
I wrote that knowing that the fairy Godmother gee who
she plays. I knew that there was going to be

(46:42):
a name involved and that they were going to get
a name to play that character. So when they confirmed
it was going to be Natasha Henstridge, I was quite
happy to say.

Speaker 3 (46:52):
Oh my goodness, that's fantastic. I'm so glad we didn't.

Speaker 2 (46:55):
I'm so glad we came full circle with that rather
than us talking about that at the beginning. That makes
it so much more narratively exciting. Yes, okay, So Cinderella's
Revenge great.

Speaker 4 (47:06):
Yeah, Renegades, which has got Danny Treo in Michael Parrey.

Speaker 3 (47:11):
It's a parade filmy.

Speaker 2 (47:13):
Ah, I'm doing a Michael Paray series over in the
Aftermovie Diner. I'm doing in the Parade Way with my
friend Gary Hill, and we've been covering a bunch of
parade films. Now I get to cover a parae film
written by someone I know. Now, that's fantastic. Awesome, Well,
we'll definitely cover this movie.

Speaker 3 (47:31):
Great.

Speaker 4 (47:31):
And then the next one is my kind of first
foray into producing my own feature. So it's The Baby
in the Basket, which I co produced with a couple
of friends of mine. That one's got Mariam Dia Bowin
who was in The Living Daylights. Yes, and yeah, that's
the kind of old school gothic horror film. So that's

(47:51):
kind of my most recent one. And we were really
happy with that one. How that turned out as well.

Speaker 2 (47:56):
Fantastic Okay, well, I will tell everyone that these movies
are available on Foursome Prime Video to be all over
the place, so there's no excuse. Please to support As
I said when Corey Dana was on and urged everyone
to go buy Corey's books, please everyone go watch Tom's

(48:17):
movies because you know, along with our love of PM
and sharing movies and stuff, my big love is supporting
others and sharing others achievements. So I'll be watching them
and I want everyone else listening to go watch them. Tom,
thank you so much for letting us know where we
should start. And then I mean the fact that you've

(48:39):
written a parae film that's going to the top of
my list because I'll just get Gary and I to
review that at some point in our journey through the
way of Paray. But yeah, so that was a fantastic
conversation just about like PM and about the way they
made movies and the way that people are making movies. Now.

(48:59):
I love being able to thread all that together. But
let's move on to the film at hand, which is
nineteen ninety seven's executive target. As is tradition here on
the PM Entertainment Podcast, Tom, would you like to have
a crack at the plot.

Speaker 3 (49:15):
What is the plot of executive target?

Speaker 4 (49:17):
Okay, so this kind of falls into the quirky vibe.
I suppose a stunt car driver is broken out of prison,
played by Michael Madison, and he's tasked with being a
getaway driver at first, and then he's forced to kidnap
the president because this terrorist organization who've got I think

(49:38):
they've got an underground bunker as well as always they've
got this plot to off the president because some nefarious
person wants him out of the way.

Speaker 2 (49:49):
Well, it's talking about the A Team, of course, it's
everyone's favorite Lancelon Golt, who people will know played Colonel
Dekker on the A Team and apparently was relegated to
just playing whenever anyone needed a chief of staff or
a you know, a general or some form of military

(50:11):
person within the government, he just shows up. And Lancelo
Gold did a few PM films. Yes, he is the
he's one of the joint chiefs of Staff, right, he's
one of the generals. And yeah, they get this new
president who's looking to not defund the military, but let's
just maybe just not pump as many billions into the

(50:32):
military industrial complex and largely. Gold's not having that, so
he enlists Keith David and his underground layer of whatever
they're doing down there, Area fifty five.

Speaker 4 (50:44):
Yeah, that was it, Yeah, Area fifty five. And they've
got Mathias who's down there, who gets described as being
a fabio looking something or other at one point.

Speaker 3 (50:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (50:56):
Yeah, So yeah, Madison is kind of broken out. He's
a stunt driver, which is an interesting Obviously they did
that later on with Drive with Ryan Gosling, so that
obviously means, you know, he's ace behind the wheel, which
obviously facilitates a lot of impressive car chases.

Speaker 2 (51:14):
Oh incredible. I mean the movie is two thirds car chase,
which I'm fine with. By the way, that's not a
that's not a negative. That's that's a positive. And it's
it's it's interesting actually because yes, as you said, he
gets broken out of prison, co opted to like drive
a getaway car, and then he's going to steal the president.

(51:35):
What's weird is that the president plot, such as it is,
pm have gone well, we can't for some reason, and
and and again it's sort of narratively odd, but I
also kind of like it. Any other movie would have
just gone We're gonna get Michael Madsen. We're gonna, you know,
kidnap his wife, hold him to ransom. He's got to

(51:58):
kidnap the president. He's got to do something against his
will that he doesn't want to do in order to
save his wife or keep his wife from being killed.
And then along the way, Michael Madsen's going to try
to either get out of it or to escape with
the president or whatever, but the villain's always going to
be one step ahead.

Speaker 3 (52:16):
That would be like the generic plot.

Speaker 2 (52:18):
That would be the plot that we've seen lots of
times before, right We've seen there was just one with
Liam Neeson made recently where his kids are in the car,
there's a bomb under his car. He has to go
do a thing he doesn't want to do, but if
he doesn't go do it, they're going to explode the
car or whatever. And it's all about, you know, every
time he tries to make a phone call or something
like that, the villains have bugged his car, or they

(52:40):
shoot his friend, or you know, there's always there's these
movies where you know, the main person is put and
I suppose Escape from New York is kind of like that,
or you know, whatever it is. But what's interesting with
this one is PM goes, well, Obviously the opening is
him being broken out of the prison bus that he's on,

(53:02):
so that's our big opening set piece, right, and obviously
the end set piece is you know, him getting revenge
against Keith David and his you know army of minions
in their underground bunkers. So we've got our beginning and
end right. The middle just can't be him kidnapping the president.
This is what I assumed the writer Jameson Harten and

(53:25):
Dayton Kelly kind of had this discussion because instead of
kidnapping the president at the end of the first act,
which is narratively kind of what you would do, right,
and then the second act would be like all the
problems that are put in front of them, and then
the third act is solving those problems. The second act
PM go well, no, no, no, we we need more

(53:48):
car chases, so Keith David, even though Keith David has
said in fact, no, Keith David's minion is it.

Speaker 3 (53:55):
Gareth Williams even he said, if we didn't.

Speaker 2 (53:57):
Need a getaway driver, like if we need a stunt driver, right,
I could do the job like if we didn't need
him for this reason. You know, someone else could do
the job. So they already know that Michael Madson is
like the driver they need. Yet when Keith David kidnaps
his wife and getst Madson on the way to doing

(54:18):
his bidding, he has Madson do a get get away
run for like some bank robbery that doesn't really connect
to anything. It's just to like test him again, right,
is that what it is?

Speaker 4 (54:29):
I suppose, Yeah it is. Again, it's one of those
sort of quirky choices, isn't it. And again, so just
you know, we need a reason to cram in another
car chase.

Speaker 2 (54:39):
But what's nice about it is and again I think
that I get maybe I'm too simplistic, but what I
love about a movie like Executive Target is that while
there are obstacles in front of Mattson obviously, you know,
Keith David has all these people, you know, and he
has his wife kidnapped and blah blah blah blah blah.
In general, though, like when he kidnaps the president and

(55:02):
then escapes with the president and double crosses Keith David
and figures it all out, he does it with relative ease.
I mean, yes, he has to drive and escape and
blah blah blah blah blah. But there aren't so many
obstacles put in front of him that he can't achieve
what we hope he achieves.

Speaker 3 (55:19):
And I quite like that.

Speaker 2 (55:21):
I don't like these movies where they just throw a
lot of needless conflict in there. I quite like it
if the plot simply is, well, I've kidnapped the president,
but of course I don't want to be kidnapping the president,
so I'm going to also free the president. And the
president never like argues against him or anything like that.
He just goes with it. I always call it like

(55:41):
the twenty four syndrome, which is, you know, at some
point someone's gonna go, oh, just let Jack Bauer kill everybody,
But there has to be eight episodes where the president
or the head of CTU or whatever has to like
conflict with Jack Bauer. Doesn't quite kill everyone all at
the beginning, do you know what I mean? And I

(56:05):
sort of think to myself, like, I would just like
it if they did a TV series where every episode
Jack Bao was just allowed to kill everyone, and PM
Entertainment kind of do that. They don't put too many
like even his wife against kidnap. They're kind of estranged
until the end. It's not even that they're wildly in
love or that he cares that much about it, you know,
like it's just it's all very low stakes.

Speaker 4 (56:27):
It feels like, yeah, it is a bit yeah, And
I think, yeah, Michael Madison seems sort of way more
competent than the people he's up against. Right, I suppose
that's an action staple anyway, But you know, even more
so really that he's not really especially challenged or stressed

(56:51):
or you know, he never gets put through the ringer.

Speaker 3 (56:54):
I suppose, yeah, and I think so. One thing I
did want to bring up.

Speaker 2 (56:58):
I think what is sad about the Michael Madson films
that he does for PM is that Madson was sort
of dismissive of them. And what I find odd about
that is that if you look at Madson's career, yes
he has done three hundred plus movies, and yes, occasionally
in those three hundred plus movies there's a Tarantino film,

(57:22):
or there's a Species, or there's a Donnie Brasco or whatever,
but ninety percent of what he's done has been straight
to video stuff, for good or for bad. Right, And
I would have to say, having watched a ton of it,
the PM films that Michael Madson does stands head and
shoulders above the other straight to video stuff he does.

(57:44):
So this idea that he would be sniffy about PM,
I think I think it bothers me really strongly.

Speaker 4 (57:51):
Yeah, I mean it might be just a sense of that,
you know, obviously his career highlights working with Tarantino. He
might feel that he's above a lot of what he's done.
But I suppose, you know, if he's there for a paycheck,
that might be his main motivation. Really.

Speaker 2 (58:07):
I mean, when you've when you've done as much sort
of schluck as he's done, At what point are you
not just that kind of actor and should show up
and you know, do the job and be grateful that
you're getting hired at all point?

Speaker 3 (58:26):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 4 (58:27):
Yeah, I mean, like Eric Roberts is similar in that
he's incredibly prolific and does you know he can do
twenty thirty films a year sometimes, Yeah, he really sort
of loves what he's doing, really kind of. He'll rarely
sort of phone it in, except for those roles where
someone literally hires him to be on it.

Speaker 3 (58:49):
Yes, didn't he do Grumpy Cat the movie over the
phone or something?

Speaker 4 (58:54):
Yeah? Probably? I mean he's done. He's done a few
roles here and there over zoom, so yeah, but I mean,
you know, he'll enjoy it and put the effort in.
I sometimes, you know, get the sense watching some of
Madison's straight to video films that he doesn't particularly want
to be there, but he wants the paycheck, right, And yeah,

(59:14):
I don't think he's necessarily entirely that way. Here he
seems to be having a good time at least.

Speaker 2 (59:20):
Yeah, So this is what I was going to say,
is yes, executive target, he at least services the film.
He doesn't sink it right. You know, I always the
person I always use as an example, and I've said
this before, but the person I always used as an
example is Michael Kain, and Michael Kane bothers me to
some extent because he will admittedly openly admit that when

(59:45):
he's just taking the movie for a paycheck or because
no one else was hiring him at the time, that
he doesn't work hard in those films.

Speaker 3 (59:54):
Yeah, And as much.

Speaker 2 (59:56):
As I love Michael kin in all his famous performances,
even some of the smaller ones that people might not
know that I like him in like Without a Clue
with Ben Kingsley or whatever, those kind of films as
much as I do like Cain in a lot of
stuff and obviously think he's a fantastic actor. When you
watch him in something like Olive Stone's The Hand or

(01:00:18):
The Island or the Jaws infamous Jaws sequel or whatever,
when you watch him in those and he's literally doing
you know, he's basically gone, look, you get toe takes
and then I'm going back to my trailer. You know,
when you watch that, it really really really pisses me off,
because I'm like, you're there to do a job. You're
being paid to do a job. Do the damn job.

(01:00:41):
Whether it's one day, you know, on a B movie
somewhere or whether you're the leader of a Christopher Nolan film, Like,
it doesn't it shouldn't matter. I don't understand people who
make the distinction. So Similarly, when I hear Michael Madson
and again he's perfectly fine in Executive Target, But when
I hear Michael Madson have talked down to it. But

(01:01:01):
then I see people like, you know, contemporaries of his
like Wing's house. I like see Thomas how like something
like even Keith David in this movie, who are just like,
I'm going to give this the beans, whether I'm being
paid beans or millions of dollars, I will always respect
that way more than someone who shows up and goes,

(01:01:23):
I don't really want to be here, so I'm just
you know, I'm just gonna mumble my way through the role.

Speaker 3 (01:01:28):
Thankfully, Madson doesn't do that too much here. There's the
odd hint of it.

Speaker 2 (01:01:33):
He's not giving it the full Madsen, But as I said,
it works well for his kind of stoic, gruff voice,
stunt car driver who's a man of action, not a
man of words, you know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (01:01:46):
I guess it works for this performance.

Speaker 2 (01:01:48):
This might be the latest point in any PM Entertainment
podcast episode that the bullet points show up, but here
they are.

Speaker 1 (01:01:55):
All right.

Speaker 2 (01:02:15):
We have Roy Scheider's Unflappable two Pay Keith David's Underground
Bond Layer. Two cars hit prison bus, both cars explode.
Truck hits prison bus, toppling it over front of prison
bus explodes, truck smashes police cars out of the way.
Police cars explode. Two cars crash into each other, they
both explode. Trucks ride over a police bike, then hit
multiple cars that all explode. Cop car hits caravan, explodes,

(01:02:39):
and then continues to plow through the caravan, tearing it
in half. The bad guys have an enormous military grade
machine gun and they blow up not one, but two
helicopters that both explode in the air, fall to the street,
and explode again. Street explodes, sending flaming and exploding police
cars flipping and soaring through a wall of fire, repeatedly,
over and over, to the strains of a majestic vocal chorus. Gunplay,

(01:03:00):
street shootout, cars bursting into flames. That's different than exploding
car chase. Car chase becomes longer car chase with cops
in pursuit. Car jumps, crashes into truck full of empty boxes,
comes out the other side. Cop cars flip over cars,
jump over other cars using magic accelerator pedals. Hero car
always makes it Cop cars not so much. Hero car
blocks woman with stroller while all other cars crash into

(01:03:22):
everything else. Car again magically jumps over truck and somehow
makes it Police cars not so much. Van chase, more
car acts van drives through whole warehouse full of empty
boxes and some loose tomatoes and cabbages. Truck drives over
several police cars. Another hugely violent street shootout. Villain lare shootout.
Man falls through glass, walkways randomly explode. Man shot off
high walkway. Man shot through pane of glass and into

(01:03:44):
a high fall. Probably more blood squibs used in this
movie than any other PM film. Gratuitous Michael Madson Hawaiian
shirt gratuitous, Michael Madson's seventies leather jacket, gratuitous, Michael Madson
rollneck gratuitus, Matthias Hughes cameo gratuitous, Robert Miano best friend
sacrificing life for hero. But in terms of acting, let's

(01:04:04):
talk Keith David. Let's let's talk how he just choose
this entire setup.

Speaker 4 (01:04:08):
Absolutely well, I mean he's always on it. I think
he's always great Keith David. Again, like you say, he's
one of those reliables that he'll he'll come in on
a film set, doesn't matter the budget level, and he
kind of knocks it out the park.

Speaker 3 (01:04:21):
Oh yeah, definitely.

Speaker 2 (01:04:22):
I mean he is wandering around his underground bond like
lair pontificating and speechifying and preaching and chewing and spinning
up the scenery, smoking cigars and talking to his wife
played by Kathy Christopherson, right, Nadia, that's his wife in
the movie. He's when when she's been kidnapped again. She's kidnapped,

(01:04:46):
but she's just hanging around his his control room, you know,
being talked at by Keith David. Yeah, and you know,
it's it's quite wonderful. They've kind of given him this
antagonist to bounce off, which I think always works well,
you know, and then we have to this whole thing
that I absolutely adore about this movie is also the

(01:05:07):
fact that Keith David apparently has cameras everywhere, Like he
has cameras mounted every he can watch every tiny bit
of every action that happens all from his lair. Because
he's apparently mounted cameras on every vehicle on the street essentially,
as well as a few street cams and ATM cams

(01:05:29):
and other stuff like that. He seems to be able
to access all of it. And we don't need to
ask too many questions.

Speaker 4 (01:05:35):
Yeah, exactly. You almost wonder with all that kind of
power he's got and all that technical advantage why he
even needed Madison in the first place.

Speaker 2 (01:05:45):
But right, well, I suppose he's worried that. I suppose
they're worried that he's going to be defunded. But like
nobody even knows that Area fifty five exists, Like they
mentioned it to Roy Schneider, the the President. He's like,
I have no idea, you know. So if it's such
a secret high tech installation doing whatever it's doing, I

(01:06:10):
don't even know what what their ultimate goal is.

Speaker 3 (01:06:14):
I have no idea.

Speaker 2 (01:06:16):
But it's not important, you know, is Roy really going
to defund them enough that, you know, Keith David's going
to be out of Cuban cigars and waistcoats, Like I
don't know, Like he seems to have a pretty cushy life.

Speaker 3 (01:06:29):
In fact, I don't know what everyone's so angry about.

Speaker 2 (01:06:32):
But we do get some absolute fantastic motorway mayhem, you know,
car carnage in this film, to the point where at
the end there's that incredible piece where the soundtrack, oh

(01:06:52):
my goodness, the soundtrack it suddenly goes into like you say,
kind of like the rock or like some big Bruckheimer movie.
You suddenly get all these choirs on the soundtrack, all
these like ethereal kind of kind of thing epic sounding
the soundtrack as cars in slow motion are kind of

(01:07:13):
corkscrewing and ramping and flipping through like fire and debris
and stuff on the road, and they just slow it
right down and they have the choirs come up, and
I'm just like, ah PM is having a field day.

Speaker 3 (01:07:27):
I'm loving every minute of it.

Speaker 4 (01:07:28):
Yeah, And it's just it's kind of joyous, isn't it.
The fact that they're clearly having a ball of a time.
It's just putting all this together. Everyone's kind of having fun,
you can. It's just the amount of creative control that
they give to the stunt people as well, that they're
so kind of they're so central to the you know,

(01:07:49):
the success of the films. Oh yeah, completely again, you know,
like you say before, HARKing back to the A Team
where that was very much you know, a craigar actually
gig that you know, famous stunt guy directed a lot
of the episodes and did you know controlled the stunts
as well. So it's you know, you're you're making your

(01:08:12):
your key selling point and you're you're doing it really well.

Speaker 2 (01:08:16):
Oh and I think it's very obvious with Executive Target
as it was with Last Man Standing. There are certain
moments in PM. I think, you know, Last Man Standing
is ninety five, right, and this is ninety seven, and
I feel like every couple of years, you know, Joseph

(01:08:37):
especially is sort of saying, because I know this for
a fact with Last Man's Standing, because Spira was talking
to us about it, that you know, Joseph was like,
we want to take this up a notch. We want
to make PM, you know, we want to make that
next leap up. And I think that with Executive Target,
I get the feeling that after two years of sort
of doing you know, because after Last Man Standing, a

(01:08:59):
lot of their movies start to look that polished and
that action packed, and you know that that's at the
point where we start to expect PM to be doing
the same thing out the gate. And then I think
with Executive Target, you know, especially with the slightly starier,
slightly name heavy cast, but also with the amount of

(01:09:22):
car chases and with the larger sets and everything else
we're seeing, I get the feeling that Executive Target is
sort of that it starts then them gearing up towards
nineteen ninety eight nineteen ninety nine, where they're working with
you know, much starier names. You know, they make the

(01:09:44):
Van Dam movie, etc. I think that this is them
taking another, yet another step forward and being like, how
can we make this look even more Hollywood, because apart
from you know, a couple of scenes here and there,
like you say, this could be a very very very
acceptable Hollywood action movie. No, it doesn't have the glass

(01:10:08):
of the Bruckheimer movies maybe, but it's I think it
sits side by side with you know, any other kind
of fifty sixty million dollar movie that was being made
at the time, maybe not one hundred million dollar movie,
but the forty fifty sixty million dollar action movie that
was still quite a staple in the nineties. I think

(01:10:30):
this sits side by side with them, and there's probably
only cost. If it cost a million five, i'd be surprised,
you know.

Speaker 4 (01:10:38):
Yeah. I mean, I've always been amazed how much they
can eke out of those budgets because I think I
don't know whether it was the way they cost things
back then, but you know, nowadays, if you want to
do stuff practically, it almost comes with you know, attacks
on it. It almost comes with an extra cost even
you know, inflation aside. So doing stuff the way that

(01:11:02):
PM did it, I mean you'd struggle to do it
on one hundred million these days, really to the amount
of action that they had, and they packed into something
like executive target, but it does it looks way beyond
its budget, and obviously, you know, adding in a couple
of recognizable names like Madison and Keith David. Roy Scheider

(01:11:26):
was still you know, very well known at the time
as well.

Speaker 2 (01:11:29):
Oh, I think Roy Scheide, especially for Joseph was a
huge guin. I think he was so happy to say
that he made a movie with Roy Scheider.

Speaker 4 (01:11:38):
Well, I think Roy he basically plays essentially the same
character in Peacekeeper with Dolph the same year that was
obviously nu Imadge and again that was took a lot
of inspiration from the Rock. But yeah, Roy is this
kind of very you'd almost say, leading to the left

(01:12:00):
kind of president, very reasonable, very kind of people.

Speaker 2 (01:12:05):
First He's like, maybe we shouldn't have as many homeless people,
and maybe we shouldn't be fighting as many pointless wars overseas.

Speaker 3 (01:12:13):
I mean, yeah, It's what's funny.

Speaker 2 (01:12:15):
Is it always gets because of the political club climate
Now it always gets pushed to seem like wishy was
he left the ideas, But really it's just centrist. It's
just you know, a regular how a regular person should be,
not the insane right wing that we're dealing with now.

Speaker 4 (01:12:33):
Yeah, I mean, I mean it almost makes it seem
like fantasy, doesn't it. We've uh of saying someone so
I reasonable and level headed.

Speaker 2 (01:12:43):
We've not even had a democratic president who's ever stood
up and gone, maybe we shouldn't have as many homeless
people and less wars. I mean we you know, even
the people that people you know lionized and say say
these phenomenal political icons, none of them have said that
at any point.

Speaker 3 (01:13:00):
So no, I would Roy.

Speaker 2 (01:13:02):
Schein against my vote as president, and and but apparently
not Lance the Galts, because Lance is like defund the military.

Speaker 3 (01:13:11):
It is one step too far.

Speaker 2 (01:13:13):
I gotta, I gotta, I gotta call my friend up
at area fifty five and have him break Like at
one point, Keith David gets mad at Angie Evahart and
Gareth Williams are like a male female hench person double act.

Speaker 3 (01:13:34):
Who are the ones?

Speaker 4 (01:13:35):
Yeah, go ahead, yeah, they They almost seem like they've
come out of a Tarantino film.

Speaker 2 (01:13:40):
Oh yeah, yeah, they're they're target They're they're tasked with,
you know, getting Michael Madson out of out of jail
and then you know, getting him into the fray of
their business whatever it is they're doing. And what's hilarious
is obviously like later on he escapes when when they

(01:14:03):
get him out of prison off the prison bus, he
then jumps into Gareth Williams's yellow muscle car. He doesn't
wait around for them to keep shooting carps. He gets
as you wouldn't. And another thing like that's a great
writing lesson. There's no other movie that I can think

(01:14:23):
of where the good guy is just like, oh, I
see my chance. I'm jumping in this car and driving away,
because it's not what the picture would normally do. Right
in am like in any other movie, they would break
him out of prison, they would handcuff him, they would
throw him in the back of a truck or whatever,
and then he would be kidnapped. Like there wouldn't be
a whole thing where he gets away and they have

(01:14:46):
to re kidnap it.

Speaker 3 (01:14:49):
But that's but it's PM.

Speaker 2 (01:14:50):
You know, they're like, well he needs to have you know,
blowing up a prison bus and and shooting up a
bunch of police cars and crashing a bunch of cars
on a main street is not enough. We need a
high speed Michael Madsen chase in a yellow muscle car,
and that's what we get. And that's why I love them.

(01:15:11):
That's that's why I love them. But he goes off
to see his wife quickly where he goes to see
his friend at the strip club, and then he goes
to see his wife. And because of course his friend
hangs out at the strip club because you've got to
get boobs in the movie.

Speaker 3 (01:15:25):
We all know how that works. And he goes off
to see his wife.

Speaker 2 (01:15:29):
And then when he's at his wife, there are two
police detectives who were looking at the bus crash earlier on,
and goes, well, one of the guys who is missing
is this Nick James guy Michael Madsen's character. I bet
he's gone to see his wife. Let's go see the wife.
And when they go see the wife, Keith David's, Lackey's,

(01:15:50):
Angie Evahart and Gareth Williams show up playing Lacy and Clay,
and Clay shoots the two police and we go go
back to Keith David, and he's shouting at Angie heav
Everhart and he goes, I didn't want any connection between
us and the police and Nick James and all of this, Like,

(01:16:11):
I didn't want any of this to happen. By killing
these police, you've jeopardized this whole thing, and blah blah
blah blah blah, which seems quite reasonable when you're watching
it and you're embroiled in the suspension of disbelief required
to kind of go along with the film, But when
you think about it for five minutes, you're like, wait,
you blew up a prison transport system, You crashed several

(01:16:32):
cars in the middle of the street, You killed several
cops in a hell of bullets, right in order to
kidnap a stunt car driver, right instead of just I
don't know, going to any other stunt car driver not
in prison. And because it's not like there's only one, right,
you've already jeopardized your career, Like you've already jeopardized who

(01:16:55):
you are and what you're doing and what's happened, Like
you've already given them enough evidence. Shooting a cup more
cops in the guy's wife's apartment. I suppose connect them
even closer than Nick James, but only just And it's
just again, It's one of those things that narratively, when
you're watching the movie, you don't think about it. You're
just like, yes, she has jeopardized it. Shout at her,

(01:17:16):
Keith David.

Speaker 3 (01:17:16):
She was wrong.

Speaker 2 (01:17:18):
Her partner Clay is an idiot. Everything they've all the
mistakes they've made, this is terribly wrong. Yes, they need
to get this whole plot back on track, but really,
ultimately their entire plot is fraught with holes.

Speaker 4 (01:17:31):
And yeah, but I mean that's always the advantage with
a PM film is that you know, you don't get
enough chance to stop and think about it long enough
before the next car chase, right, And.

Speaker 2 (01:17:47):
I don't want to be thinking about it. I only
bring it up because it's a fun thing to talk about.
But no, when I'm watching the movie, I'm in it,
and I'm very What I love about this movie is
it while it does go from A to B two
C and it does have those three acts, that three
act structure, it's not like what you would expect. They've

(01:18:08):
slammed sort of three different films together and then kind
of glued it together their way because like I say you,
if your point is we're going to kidnap this stunt
car driver, hold him to ransom, and he's going to
kidnap the president. Most other movies that's their entire plot,
and this movie has multiple characters, multiple relationships, multiple twists

(01:18:31):
and turns. As I say, they break him out of
the prison transportation, he immediately jumps in a muscle car
and is off and they have to go kidnap him again.

Speaker 3 (01:18:41):
You think that the two detectives that you meet at.

Speaker 2 (01:18:43):
The bus crash are going to be kind of the
third storyline, right, You think there's going to be like
the villains, the the you know, the antagonist, the protagonists,
and then the side characters are going to be these detectives. Nope,
they just kill the detectives. So you're like, oh, okay,
I guess not in the movie anymore. And you know,
and then you have this whole well, we need him

(01:19:04):
to be the getaway driver for a botched robbery. Why no,
XPLA doesn't matter, but let's have that anyway, and you know,
and then when he does kidnap the president, the whole
third act, which essentially could have been all three acts
of the movie, the whole third act is so like
I say, so few obstacles are put in front of

(01:19:25):
Madson that his whole plan more or less goes off.
And there's this wonderful thing where Madson brings the President
of the United States to his like greasy you know
auto shop guy, you know Carl mechanic friend who hangs
out at strip clubs and has blow up dolls and

(01:19:46):
sex toys everywhere, and you know, and then you have
Roy Scheider, who's playing the whole thing serious is a
heart attack, like you believe he is the president. It's
so he knows what movie he's in, but at the
same time he's playing it like he's in Jaws again
or something.

Speaker 3 (01:20:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:20:03):
Absolutely, I mean I suppose that's one of those reasons
why you hire someone like him is just a seasoned
pro and you know what you're going to get, and
you know you're going to get someone that's got that
gravitas just to really elevate his.

Speaker 2 (01:20:15):
Scenes one hundred percent. So do you have an executive target?
What are sort of your overall thoughts of the film.

Speaker 4 (01:20:25):
I just think it, I mean, like you say, I mean,
it's got these three different kind of movies almost sort
of smashed together. Ordinarily, you know, most other people would
have done one, but then you know, you would have
felt like it would have dragged in the middle, or
it would have been you know, it would have been
spread thin over the course of ninety minutes. But I mean,

(01:20:47):
this one, it packs so much in that it can't
fail to entertain you. And again, you know, so many
card chases, like incredible card chases as well. Yeah, yeah,
really amazing stunt work and camera work at a time
I suppose where you know, all these great stunt people
that they used to work with, they just let them

(01:21:08):
kind of do their thing. I suppose It's hard to
say whether they were pushing their luck a bit more
or there were less restrictions or less safety margins or
anything like that, but it feels to me like they
were really kind of you know, they really pushed it. Yeah,
back in the day, well it was.

Speaker 2 (01:21:30):
I still do think we could our generation, especially because
I'm guessing about the same age as I am, that
we can really draw a line sort of pre nine
eleven and post nine to eleven in terms of the
movies that are made, in terms of what everything costs.
I mean, since nine to eleven. And I'm sure greater

(01:21:51):
minds than me have already planted this out, But the
rate of inflation, the rate of corporate influence, the rate
of money in politics, that all various different things have
kind of got to a point where, you know, not
only that, but like wealth, inequality and everything have ballooned
in the last twenty four years in a way that
was never really even through the eighties, and the sort

(01:22:12):
of you know Thatcher Reagan years could never have imagined
anything like what's happened since nine to eleven, and the
advantage that has been taken by a lot of companies
and countries and politics and everything else. And so you know, yeah,
it's it's unfortunate, I guess, but yes, you couldn't. There's
no way on earth you could make this movie today,

(01:22:34):
even if you even if there was, you know, I
kind of wish there was a town in the Midwest
or in you know, Utah or Nevada or something like that.
There's so many like ghost towns or small towns or
towns where there's only like three or four people or
whatever in the US. I kind of wish some B
movie studio would just buy it so they could do

(01:22:55):
ridiculous car chases and do ridiculous stunts and things, you know,
simply for the cost of whatever it costs to flip
a car, rather than having to always try and do
it in you know, Bulgaria or Canada or somewhere where. Yes,
it's cheaper to make a movie, but it's still millions
of dollars, you know. Interestingly as well, I was looking

(01:23:18):
up kind of what nineteen ninety seven looked like in
the action world, and I mean, if this isn't an
example of a great year that could probably go down
in history as one of the best action years. You
have Drive, the Marked Cascos movie, which is just phenomenal.

(01:23:38):
You have Connair, which I still think Connair is like
the pinnacle of those insane, overblown nineties Mackismo action movies.
I mean in terms of ensemble casts and you know,
plots and soundtrack and stunts. I mean, Connair is just
to me, it's up there. You've got Face Off also

(01:23:59):
comes out that, I mean, what a banner year for
Cage that year.

Speaker 3 (01:24:02):
My goodness.

Speaker 2 (01:24:03):
Air Force one of course, which could also be related
to Executive Target. Very similar kind of thing, but in
a different You've got Tomorrow never dies with the which
is the Bond movie that comes out, which has that
incredible motorbike michell yeo handcuffed together sequence, which I always
think of as like a quintessential nineties action film sequence.

(01:24:24):
You've got conspiracy theory breakdown. There's just some great, great
movies that come out in nineteen ninety seven, and you know,
as I say, like sitting alongside them, Executive Target isn't
no obviously, it's not con air you don't watch, and
it doesn't have like the necessarily the glossy nature of that,
but the stunts are every bit as good as you

(01:24:47):
know in most of those movies. I think it certainly
sits side by side with something like Drive, which is
sort of an equivalent level in terms of B movies
or straight to video movies or whatever you want to
call them.

Speaker 3 (01:25:00):
So, yeah, it was.

Speaker 2 (01:25:01):
It was a banner year for action movies, clearly, and
I think Executive Target fits in quite nicely and somewhere
somewhere between The Rock and Air Force one.

Speaker 4 (01:25:13):
Yeah, absolutely, yeah, I mean, and again I think people
a lot of films of this era get looked back
on a bit more kindly than maybe they did back
then as well, because people kind of look back and
you get to appreciate, you know, just practical in camera
action a lot more when you're when you've become so

(01:25:34):
used to the CGI that they have now.

Speaker 2 (01:25:37):
Yeah, I mean even stuff like The Saint and The Jackal,
neither of which are Valcilma or Bruce Willis's best movies
by anyone standard. At the time, I remember thinking, eh,
but now when I watch them, they're really super enjoyable.
People are putting on wigs and mustaches and doing ridiculous
stunts and things, and you kind of go, yeah, I

(01:25:57):
wish movies are more.

Speaker 4 (01:25:58):
Like this again, Yeah, very yeah, very much so. Any
even in terms of like straight to video action nowadays, Yeah, this,
you know, you get a lot of you know, the
it's so difficult you get half the time to shoot them,
and they seem to lack a lot of action. I mean,
you know, that's always a big drawback when you're watching

(01:26:19):
an action film and it's got no action in it. So,
you know, PM was the complete opposite. They really did
deliver on what their genre was.

Speaker 2 (01:26:28):
And as you're a Dolph Lungern fan, The Peacemaker was
the Dolph Lungern movie released in nineteen ninety seven, that
was his big tentpole action movie that of that era.

Speaker 4 (01:26:39):
Yeah, yeah, I mean that has got Have you seen
that one?

Speaker 3 (01:26:43):
I have, yes, A long time ago, Yes, I have
seen it.

Speaker 4 (01:26:46):
Yeah, that's got a great opening car Chase that PM
would be proud of, I think as well, Yeah, car Chase.

Speaker 2 (01:26:55):
So no, I mean I think it fits into the
the era pretty well. And I think that when you
look into it, I think nineteen ninety seven pretty pretty
strong year, whether you're talking straight to video or whether
you're talking big Hollywood action, pretty strong year for it,
I think.

Speaker 4 (01:27:15):
Yeah, definitely, Yeah. I mean you were reminding me of
a few there that I think I seen that in ages,
So I think I'll a go catch up on that.
Definitely my sort of bi annual conn Air watch as well.

Speaker 3 (01:27:28):
It's so good, it's so good.

Speaker 2 (01:27:31):
And then the col Meeni John Cusack of it all,
and then you've got all the I mean, there's just
so many that Steve Buscemi and I mean there's just
so many great things. And then what are we looking
at for PM Entertainment, Well, ninety seven not the best
year for them. You do get the underground an executive
target which definitely stand out. I would then say second

(01:27:56):
tier PM for that year is probably the Big Fall,
which was see Thomas How's one of his last works
with them. I've not seen Road Ends. I need to
see that. That gets quite a decent score on IMDb.
So maybe that one was a bit better. But apart
from that, you get Busted, which is the Corey Haym
Corey Feldman sort of sex rom comedy. You get which

(01:28:21):
is like ten years too late. You get Dumb Luck
in Vegas. I don't even know who's in that. You
get The Little Bigfoot, which is the beginning of the
Little Bigfoot franchise, Hollywood Safari, another kind of family kids movie,
Bikini Summer three, South Beach, Heat, Earth Minus Zero, Heaven

(01:28:41):
Before I Die. So it's sort of a bunch of
PM films that no one is talking about. At the
end of ninety six you get Riot, and at the
beginning of ninety eight you get Recoil. But in terms
of ninety seven for PM, Executive Target and The Underground
are the two big stunt, heavy action, heavy movies that

(01:29:01):
they put out that year. And maybe again that was
They're like, we're going to spend more money on executive targets,
So you know, we can only afford to do a
couple of these big ones this year. Everything else has
to kind of be you know, because Road Ends is
a drama, Heaven Before I Die is kind of a comedy.
A lot of the other ones are sort of family

(01:29:21):
movies that don't necessarily require a lot of big stunts
and things. So I think maybe that's what happened. Maybe
they plowed some money into the two big ones and
the rest of them were all made on whatever money
they had left.

Speaker 4 (01:29:37):
Yeah, I would imagine. So I think that seems to
be a model for quite a few studios as well.
Even now they seem to do that as well. They'll
filter a bit more into I guess their tent poles.

Speaker 2 (01:29:51):
Yeah, and it is, you know, ninety seven ninety eight, Well,
I would say ninety eight is sort of the last
great year that PM has. I mean, ninety nine they
do Desert Heat or Inferno, which is one of my
favorite Van Dam movies, even before I realized it was
a PM film, it's like one of my favorite Van
Dam movies. But in general, you know, outside of that,

(01:30:15):
and obviously they're focusing on their TV series, so you know,
they're then spread a little thinner, but really after that,
you know, the ones that stand out are maybe the
Speakman ones, Land of the Free and Running Red Recoil obviously,
and then No Tomorrow, but only for its cast, only
because it's Daniel's, Pam Grier, Gary Busey, Jeff Fehe like,
it's it's a really loaded cast. It it's not that

(01:30:39):
strong a film, but it's a really loaded cast. And
then after that sort of it it falls away because
you kind of just get the last few that they
do and the last few scraps, and then PMN's in
two thousand with Epicenter, which is sort of the last
official PM film. A few others come out after that,
but Epicenter is the last one that Joseph and Rick

(01:31:00):
Peppin produced.

Speaker 3 (01:31:02):
In their way.

Speaker 2 (01:31:03):
Paul Volk, who was sort of the third guy behind
PM he kind of continues and puts a few more
movies out between two thousand and two thousand and two.
But yeah, you go from the likes of sort of
ninety five ninety six, which are really tremendous years, I mean,
really incredible years for PM. I mean ninety five you

(01:31:24):
start with Steel Frontier. You have Rage, you have the Sweeper,
you have well Sweepers beginning of ninety six, but you
have Rage, you have cyber Tracker two, you have Last
Man Standing, you have the Power Within, you have Hologram
Man and Steel Frontier. All in ninety five and ninety
six you have the Sweeper, Skyscraper Silences, Pure Danger, Dark
Breed Riot. You know, those are the two really strong

(01:31:47):
years right in the middle there, and then ninety seven
begins the downturn, but they go out with a bang
because I have to say, Executive Target in the underground
phenomenal pair of film.

Speaker 4 (01:31:56):
Yeah, absolutely, I mean that's not a bad way to
sort of out, I suppose just before that cut that decline. Yeah,
but you know, it happens to the best of them,
doesn't it. I Mean Canon had similar didn't they, Where
they sort of peaked in terms of the scale with
stuff like Masters and Life Force and Superman four, and

(01:32:16):
then it kind of just tailed off after that until
they eventually shut down, and again they kind of skewed
off into Golon going one way and globuscuing the other,
right exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:32:29):
Yeah, all right, so favorite scenes, favorite scenes out of
Executive Target, do you have any favorite scenes I do like.

Speaker 4 (01:32:36):
The opening car chase with the yellow muscle car because
I suppose it does directly lift from the rock. When
Nick Cage grabs himself a yellow I think it's a
Lambo or Ferrari or something. So you got this, Yeah,
this quite similar car chase. Yeah, that's probably I thought
I would say probably my favorite scene.

Speaker 2 (01:32:58):
Yeah, for me, it's it's for me, it's all of
the car chases. And then anytime Keith David is like
chewing the scenery. Keith David in this movie is absolutely fantastic. Yeah,
he's both far my favorite thing in the movie and
then ranking within PM entertainment films. So where do you
kind of put executive target? And it doesn't have to

(01:33:19):
be an exact position, but where do you kind of
put it? You know, is it near the top view,
is it in the middle, or is it near the bottom.

Speaker 4 (01:33:26):
It's possibly pushing top ten, but I think, yeah, miyah,
pushing top ten. But I just think because it's it's
so heavily reliant mostly on car chases, it doesn't quite
have the variation that you get in something like Guardian Agent,
for example, which has got like you know, speedboat chase,
horse chase, you know, car chases, fights, so this is, yeah,

(01:33:50):
a bit more I suppose reliant on car chases obviously
because he's a stunt driver, so that was almost a given.
And then you know, there's a few shootouts as well,
so yeah, I'd say it's kind of pushing the top ten.

Speaker 2 (01:34:03):
This is my favorite scene in the movie. This is
my favorite scene in the movie. This was when I
was like, this is phenomenal. So Roy Schneider is kidnapped
as the president, he's in his modicade. Michael Madsen in
his red lambou or whatever it is, kidnaps him and
as they're driving away because obviously he has to escape,

(01:34:24):
not just the police but obviously the Secret Service and
everyone chasing them, and there are two helicopters that have
been flying above the modcaide also trying to keep him safe,
and you think, well, how's he going to get away
with all this? And Keith David has a bunch of

(01:34:44):
his minions, of his many Hench people lining the streets
or lining the area, and one of the things that
the Hench people, two of the hench people reveal is
an enormous machine gun, like one of those like you
have to feed where you know, it stands on a
little tripod, and then you have to feed like the

(01:35:05):
bullets into it. And these two stunt guys have the
most immense amount of fun firing this enormous machine gun. Yeah,
and the enormous machine gun takes out not just one,
but two helicopters. Now we all know that, you know,
it's the riga for an action movie to have a

(01:35:25):
helicopter explosion. Our friends over and exploding helicopter Blog know
all too well that you need to have an exploding
helicopter PM do back to back exploding helicopters over the
top of Roy Scheider, who's in the passenger seat being
thrown around. You see, like the they kind of put

(01:35:47):
a gold light above them so it looks like the
explosions going off above them. And then as they drive away,
like the two helicopters come crashing down. That was my
favorite scene, blowing up one helicopter above la phenomenal, blowing
up two helicopters and having the debris fall down by
some enormous, fucking gatling gun that the two stuntmen are wielding.

Speaker 3 (01:36:10):
Ah, joyous, absolutely joyous.

Speaker 2 (01:36:13):
Yeah, that that kidnapped the President car chase is probably
my favorite bit.

Speaker 4 (01:36:18):
I think you've convinced me. I think that might be
mine as well.

Speaker 2 (01:36:20):
Oh so much fun. I forgot about that. Yeah, I've
forgotten about that. That's definitely the sequence where I'm like, oh, okay,
this is you know, and yes, I agree with you.
There aren't There aren't a lot of foot chases. There's
not a lot of fisticuffs, there's no martial arts to
speak of, you know, and it really is just a
lot of car chases. But you kind of get a

(01:36:41):
bunch of car chases and then you get like a
James Bond villain lair explosion sequence at the end, you
know what I mean, with a lot of tunnels and
you know, people in rooms with large machines with lights
and numbers on that mean absolutely nothing. And so yeah,
I to be honest, I'd be hard pressed to find

(01:37:01):
a scene in this movie I don't like. I even
like his greasy car mechanic friend who who has weird
sex toys and things played by Dayton Kelly, who co
writes the movie.

Speaker 4 (01:37:14):
Oh wow, that's that's a good bit of trivia. I
didn't know that.

Speaker 3 (01:37:17):
Yeah, so bella.

Speaker 4 (01:37:19):
Character as well. Again, it's a quirky, sort of interesting
character a lot of other films wouldn't necessarily think to
put in.

Speaker 2 (01:37:28):
Well, what I love about it is you can just
see him. Jacobson heart set around writing the movie and
Dayton Kelly going, well, if I'm going to be in it.
My character is discovered in a strip club where a
stripper is paying too much attention to him, and and

(01:37:48):
you know, it's just so that I can just so
I can get some stripping in the scene with me,
and then when we go back to my house, we'll
continue the joke with lots of sex toys and handcuffs
and things like that.

Speaker 3 (01:38:00):
But no, he's he's a great character.

Speaker 2 (01:38:02):
He's again a sort of a comic relief character, a
good sidekick character.

Speaker 3 (01:38:07):
You know, he's sort of required in a movie like this.

Speaker 2 (01:38:09):
And Dainton Kelly does a great job, does a great
job writing him, does a great job playing him. And
I think the Motley crew that we have together by
the end, I love that they send Bella in with him,
you know. And it's once a marine, always a marine
kind of thing. You know, he's dying, but you know
that it's it's worth him and Madson kind of going

(01:38:30):
in Together.

Speaker 3 (01:38:30):
I love it.

Speaker 4 (01:38:31):
Yeah, definitely, I think that character as well. Also he
got Madsen bouncing off them a bit more than perhaps
he did with some of the other characters in the film.

Speaker 3 (01:38:41):
Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 2 (01:38:42):
Now, this is going to be difficult just because obviously
a lot of people love Tarantino and he's been in
a ton of Tarantino films. But where do we rank
this in Michael Madsen's career, Like, as I said, difficult
because Madsen is in Reservoir Dogs, Killed Bill on Luise,
Donnie Brasco, She's the Hateful Eight, you know, He's in

(01:39:03):
some key movies, right, So difficult to maybe necessarily put
executive target in like a Madsen top ten, But it's
possibly in a Madson next ten whatever that would be. Like,
it's definitely sort of in his top twenty, I think.

Speaker 4 (01:39:20):
Yeah, I would say so. I mean, I think it's
one of his stronger I mean, it's my favorite of
is sort of straight to video stuff, so and obviously
that's been the vast majority of his career really, so yeah,
I would say at ranks fairly high.

Speaker 2 (01:39:36):
Yeah for me, I think this again, I think it's
in probably my top twenty PM somewhere in my top twenty,
and it's probably somewhere in my top twelve of Michael
Madsen films.

Speaker 3 (01:39:48):
That's probably where I put it.

Speaker 4 (01:39:49):
Yeah, i'd probably say, you know, yeah, similar.

Speaker 2 (01:39:53):
All right, well, is there anything else, time that you
would like to say about Executive Target before we wrap
up and let the people know where they can find
you and and what they should you know, how they
should interact with you, if you want people to find
you or interact with you, or if you have anything
to promote of course.

Speaker 4 (01:40:11):
Yeah, no, I think Executive Target is well worth a watch.
I think, you know, if you like action films, you
want to see some spectacular stunts and watch something that's fun. Again,
a really nice, tight, sort of ninety minutes as well,
which is obviously a bonus. These days, a lot of
films seem to be getting longer and longer. So again,

(01:40:32):
a nice tight ninety minutes, just loaded with action.

Speaker 2 (01:40:36):
So yeah, I mean it's actually it's actually one minute
an our thirty six minutes, which is about yeah, eight
minutes longer than most PM films, but they packed those
eight minutes with ridiculous cast stunts.

Speaker 4 (01:40:48):
Yeah, absolutely, and yeah, two exploding helicopters. So yeah, what
more can you want?

Speaker 3 (01:40:54):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:40:55):
I honestly don't know, Tom, I honestly don't know what
more we could want. I honestly just that more people
should be watching Executive Target right now and just enjoying
themselves and realizing there was a world before all this
hideousness and it was a thing of beauty.

Speaker 3 (01:41:10):
Sir, Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:41:11):
It has been an absolute joy talking Executive Target and
low budget movies with you today. If you so wish,
let people know where they can find you, and if
you have anything to promote, do it now.

Speaker 4 (01:41:24):
Yes, so you can find me on Instagram. It's probably
the best place, and that's at Jolliffe Productions. And yeah,
if anyone wants to check out my latest film, The
Baby in the Basket, that's currently on QUBI in the
US and then a load of other channels as well,
also out in the UK, So yeah, give that a

(01:41:46):
checkout if you like gothic horror.

Speaker 2 (01:41:48):
All right, fantastic, Well, thanks ever so much for being
on the show today, Tom. We will have you back,
of course to discuss more PM in the future, I'm sure,
but yeah, thanks having so much for your time. It's
been great and this should be the episode going out
sometime next week.

Speaker 4 (01:42:02):
Yeah, cheers, John, thanks for having me on. It's been
a pleasure all right, So all the best. Take care
you two mate.

Speaker 2 (01:42:09):
Thank you well. I hope you enjoyed that episode on
Executive Target. I have one more little easter egg, little
story from Paul Vulk which I'm going to drop at
the end of this episode, which is going to leave
everyone with their jaw slack. By the end of this episode,
your jaw is going to be dropped hitting the floor

(01:42:29):
when you hear the story about Executive Target from Paul
Volk about Michael Madison. Anyway, I'm going to drop that
at the end of this episode, so we'll have a
few commercials now, then we'll have Paul Volk's story, and
then the episode will be over. But thanks ever so
much for listening. As always, please please please go over
to wherever you get your podcast, rate, review, like, comment, share,

(01:42:50):
whatever it allows you to do, and all the platforms
allow you to do at least one of those things.
Please please please write a review, share the episode on
social like, comment, all of that good stuff, tell everyone
about it. Let's make this show truly successful. We're putting
so much work into it. You guys are really really
engaged on Facebook and commenting all the time and sending

(01:43:13):
great messages. That's awesome. I'm super thankful for that. Now
let's get the word out to everyone else. All right,
thanks so much, And here is pull Vog's story that
will have your jar on the floor. Do you have
any stories about those particular actors either, people you worked with,

(01:43:34):
someone who was who kept coming back to PM and
was sort of became part of the family. Do you
have any stories about about recurring cast members?

Speaker 5 (01:43:43):
Well, I mean, I mean, I think one comes to mind,
and but I mean as far as why we use
these people, I mean, bottom line, they had to be
worth something for sales to begin with.

Speaker 4 (01:43:55):
They had to.

Speaker 5 (01:43:56):
I think another reason we would use them more than
once was because we started a relationship with them and
they were well maybe not Michael Madchen because he was
kind of a dope jerk, but we used him I
think what two or three times? Yeah, yeah, well yeah,
at least twice.

Speaker 1 (01:44:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:44:16):
I'm not a big fan of his either.

Speaker 5 (01:44:17):
Yeah, not because he was a nice guy, but he
was worth something.

Speaker 2 (01:44:23):
Yeah, that was later that was sort of so he'd
already done Reservoir Dogs. Oh you start using him, I
think in ninety seven.

Speaker 5 (01:44:30):
And yeah, Targeted and then Rick did a science fiction
one with him in it, and.

Speaker 3 (01:44:35):
Yeah, no.

Speaker 2 (01:44:35):
We had one of our writers on the blog on
the website got to speak to him at some convention
in England and he asked him about PAM Entertainment films
because he knew that me, as the editor of the website,
was like a big fan, and Madison was just very
sniffy about it, and I just sort of thought to myself,
Like the people I like, the act the actors I like,
the people who star in straight to video stuff that

(01:44:58):
I like are the ones that champion it, not the
ones that claim like.

Speaker 3 (01:45:01):
Well, you know, I just did it for this reason,
I did it for that.

Speaker 5 (01:45:04):
I did it for the money only for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:45:06):
But he's still doing straight to video stuff, so he
can claim that he just did it for this reason,
or he just did it for that reason.

Speaker 3 (01:45:13):
He did it to have a career, you know what
I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:45:15):
Like he's having a career, so by shitting on them,
the only person he's shitting on is himself, is the
way I look at it, you know what I mean?

Speaker 4 (01:45:22):
But you mentioned it.

Speaker 5 (01:45:22):
I have a story here, I have story in back
in my head. But I got this story too about
Michael Madson. So he did, let's.

Speaker 3 (01:45:28):
Just crap on him. I'd love that note.

Speaker 5 (01:45:30):
Yeah, okay, this isn't a way he did. I don't
remember which movie it was, whether it was Rick's a
science fiction movie, or it was executive Target. I was
finishing it and I was in sound, and we needed
him for some ADR. I mean, you know, I mean
a lead you're gonna well, of course, it's in a

(01:45:51):
little budget. You rarely.

Speaker 4 (01:45:54):
Take much.

Speaker 5 (01:45:56):
Worry about keeping a quiet set. And so we did
a lot of ADR quite often, and I became really
good at directing it because when done well, it can
really help a lot when you're only the noise that
you're adding to a scene is the only noise you
want to add because everybody otherwise, everybody is replaced in ADR.

(01:46:18):
So I needed ADR.

Speaker 1 (01:46:21):
I talked to.

Speaker 5 (01:46:22):
His his agent, I tried calling him directly. He dropped
off the face of the earth. We needed to finish
the movie, you know. We we had to finish our
movies in a timely manner. He just was he would
not show up, He would not come. He would not
answer my calls. So I'm thinking, the fuck sound alike.

(01:46:42):
I need a sound alike. So this was what in
the mid nineties. But somebody had told me that they
knew a radio guy that was also from Brooklyn. That thought,
because he's from brook and maybe he can sound like
you know, Madson. And he gave me his number and
his name was Jimmy Kimmel. So I called it really well, yeah,

(01:47:05):
I called it Jimmy Kimmel. And I asked him if
he if he would come in and do Madsine's voice
for me, you know, I sent him. I said, well,
I played for him over the phone some imagines lines
and he was just really low and just I mean
the way Madson was low key, hardly spoke up. That
was one of the reasons we didn't freaking ad r
because he'd hardly speak up. You know, he quiet quite often,

(01:47:29):
whether it called for that or not. In the scene,
Uh and and and and says Jimmy said, yeah, sure,
all you know, would you come to meet me at
the at the sound facility which was in Burbank on
Magnolia and and and so he but he he was
not no, he he had a he had a radio
show or something, so I meet him there. He attempts
to do the ad R. It didn't work very well

(01:47:50):
at all, actually, but we had no choice.

Speaker 3 (01:47:52):
I put it.

Speaker 5 (01:47:53):
We put it in the movie. And and so there's
you know, I don't know, half a dozen lines from
Jimmy Kimmel as opposed to Mike.

Speaker 3 (01:47:59):
That's that's amazing. That's liked. Jimmy Kimmel did did a
dr for Michael Madson. That's incredible. That's a fantastic story.

Speaker 6 (01:48:14):
You are now leaving the payment entertainment podcasts

Speaker 2 (01:49:10):
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Episode 11 - Executive Target

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