‘Law Abiding Citizen’ With Bill Simmons, Van Lathan, and Craig Horlbeck

The Rewatchables

The hosts conduct a deep dive into the 2009 thriller 'Law Abiding Citizen,' analyzing its place within the evolution of revenge cinema. They

Key takeaways

• The hosts argue that 'Law Abiding Citizen' represents a shift from 70s/80s street crime vigilante films to movies targeting systemic corruption.
• A critique of Jamie Foxx's performance suggests his character lacked a clear point of view and was too reactive to the plot.

Main topics

• Law Abiding Citizen film analysis
• Evolution of revenge movies

Notable quotes

Lessons not learned in blood are soon forgotten.

Conclusion

The episode serves as a nostalgic critique of mid-2000s action cinema

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:05) The Rewatchables is brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where you can find higher learning with Van Lathan. Yes, yes. You can also find the Midnight Boys, and you can find Ringer Tailgate. Craig, our producer, is joining us because we lost the camera. We'll explain later. But you can find him on the very popular Ringer Fantasy Football Show. He's mad that he's on camera. No, I'm going to go A Speaker 1 (0:24) .J. Hawk today, like I'm on McAfee. That's great. Speaker 3 (0:27) Pull a full A.J. Hawk. We're down in camera. It didn't stop us. Law Abiding Citizen is next. This episode of the rewatchables is presented by Mazda. One reason why Mazda was named consumer reports, safest new car brand. Confidence isn't an upgrade. It's a given. Take the Mazda CX-50 Hybrid. It comes standard with a suite of proactive safety features. Mazda, move and be moved. Visit mazdausa.com and discover how confidence comes standard. Consumer Reports does not endorse products or services. Visit mazdausa.com to learn more. Speaker 3 (1:20) All right, this is great. We had the Craig cam for like four minutes and now it's already broken. But we have three left and we're going to talk about a movie that came out in 2009 that Van Lathan loves. Loves. I threw it at him and I said, Dan, just curious, do you like Law Abiding Citizen? You made it seem like this is one of your favorite Speaker 2 (1:39) movies. It's one of my favorite theater-going experiences I've ever had. What happened? Because, so go to the Arclight. So many memories at the Arclight. And you're expecting a movie that's, what was the movie with Ben Affleck and Samuel L. Jackson? Changing Lanes. Speaker 3 (1:54) Changing Speaker 2 (1:54) Lanes. I like that movie. So you're expecting something like that, right? Although you see explosions and stuff in the trailer, you're expecting something that's a little bit more grounded. And then you go to the movie, and right off the bat, People in the theater are like, what the fuck is happening? Brutal, surprising, absurd in the best way. Everyone in the theater, oh my God, what? Dude's like, what the hell, bro? And since then, I've had a love affair with the movie where I watch it every time it comes on TV. The Vigilante movie. A 1970s tradition. Speaker 3 (2:28) Craig's least favorite rewatchable we ever did was Speaker 1 (2:30) Death Wish. Speaker 3 (2:31) Really genuinely hated Speaker 1 (2:32) it. Because the sexual assault scene in Death Wish is about as grim as it gets. Well, you thought it was about as grim, but you never saw Death Wish 2, which was as grim as it gets. That's Speaker 3 (2:41) the nadir of all of these. But we had in the 70s Walking Tall. We had Death Wish. Foxy Brown. That was a good one. We had a lot of Speaker 1 (2:49) good Speaker 3 (2:49) ones in the 70s. And then they kept kind of making them and trying to figure it out, but it kind of died. Well, it feels like the Speaker 1 (2:57) revenge stuff got more sanitized. It turned into like Taken and things like that. Yeah. Law-abiding citizen goes back to the old days of, this is kind of like peak 2000s revenge porn, I feel like. Bangkok Craig did enjoy this because... Oh, Bangkok Craig. I don't know if you're an American gangster, I was upset the way Denzel killed Idris Elba. It wasn't enough. Speaker 3 (3:17) Right. Speaker 1 (3:18) This movie gives you everything you want and more in terms of getting revenge and going the full Speaker 3 (3:22) nine yards. Yeah, because the revenge thing kind of shifted toward... Like John Wick territory or Taken, where this group of people did something to me. Right. We rarely have the, I am going to actually make a real statement about our legal system and take out the entire city of Philadelphia, basically. So Speaker 2 (3:39) I have a list coming up that kind of explores this, but like the vigilante movies of the 70s and the 80s seem to be directly against like street crime. Like they're going against street crime. And it's like... Kind of racist. Yeah. You can kind of feel it. Well, whoever the criminals of the day were, that's what they're going to Speaker 1 (3:58) do. Speaker 2 (3:58) It's Speaker 1 (3:58) like Speaker 2 (3:58) independent Speaker 1 (3:58) actors, essentially, of crime. Right. Not a system. Speaker 2 (4:01) Then that's what happens. Later on, people start to rage at like a whole system. And those are the revenge movies that you get. Even like a movie like Falling Down, which isn't necessarily a vigilante movie, but it's a I fucking had enough of this culture movie. Like I snapped and now I'm going. They kind of became a little bit more elevated. You had to do more in them. Speaker 3 (4:21) Gran Torino is another one like that. Gran Speaker 2 (4:22) Torino Speaker 3 (4:22) is another Speaker 2 (4:22) one, yeah. Speaker 3 (4:23) They've tried to make versions of this movie. Like, Jennifer Garner made Peppermint. I Speaker 2 (4:27) never saw that. Speaker 3 (4:28) It's bad. Speaker 2 (4:29) But Speaker 3 (4:30) it was one of those, like, I think her daughter got killed and she was mad. The legal system did Speaker 2 (4:34) her wrong, so she started taking stuff out. What's the best one with the lady? What's the best lady? Because Jodie Foster made one, right? That was essentially Death Wish. Wasn't good. Yeah, like, what's the best one with the lady where... Jennifer Lopez, enough. That's against one guy. Who had Sleeping with the Enemy, though? Speaker 3 (4:53) I had Enough, where it was like a Sleeping with the Enemy ripoff. But basically, her trying to figure out, okay, if this guy comes at me again. I kind of like Enough. Speaker 2 (5:02) I Speaker 3 (5:03) think it's solid. Speaker 2 (5:04) I like Enough because Sleeping with the Enemy, she uses all of her guile and wit while in Enough, she becomes like an MMA fighter. Speaker 3 (5:11) Right. Speaker 2 (5:11) Sleeping with the Enemy, Speaker 3 (5:12) she's in danger the entire movie. Speaker 2 (5:14) Enough's like... Speaker 3 (5:15) I'm actually going to train to beat this guy when he comes at me. Speaker 2 (5:18) I'm going to Speaker 3 (5:18) kick the shit out of you. It's good. She looks good in that movie too. The four essentials for a vigilante movie. Our hero was driven to this. Our hero is broken. Our hero might have to cross a couple lines. By the end of the movie. Not even sure if Speaker 2 (5:37) our hero's a good guy anymore. He might be just completely gone. Went too far. Yeah. Speaker 3 (5:41) That's usually when they really work, that's the best where you're like, oh man, I was Speaker 1 (5:45) rooting for this guy. This guy dark. Yeah, it's like the moral ambiguity feels like a part of it. And this movie... Speaker 1 (5:52) I can't wait to talk about the end because I think it's the most fascinating part of the movie is what they decided to do with the two characters at the end. Also... See, Craig thought he wasn't going to talk that much on the pod. Speaker 2 (6:02) I'm not prepared. Let's get some shots up. What's up with you? Speaker 1 (6:06) Mike, I got to tell you about Craig Horvath. Speaker 3 (6:09) He just comes in one minute, one minute notice. He's right in the third chair. Speaker 2 (6:13) Shoots a high percentage. Gets a shot off. I thought CR Speaker 3 (6:16) was going to be in this Philadelphia movie. Never saw it. Speaker 2 (6:19) Yeah. Yeah. What Speaker 3 (6:21) an unbelievable miss by CR. Philadelphia movie. Speaker 2 (6:25) Philly? Like, also weird CIA government-type trained killer-type dude. The kind of guys that he likes. Delta Force, Special Forces, Lioness-type shit. I was honestly devastated. One more thing about the vigilante movie. Yeah. Our hero kind of becomes what he was fighting against. Becomes what he despised. Killer of innocence. Yeah. Becomes that. To catch a predator, you have to become a predator. Speaker 3 (6:50) That was the old Adam Crowley joke. Speaker 1 (6:52) To catch a predator, you have to become a predator. Speaker 3 (6:58) Gerard Butler said there was one specific criminologist who had written a great paper on serial killers, especially revenge killers, which I guess is its own phylum. He'd gone very much into the obsessive nature of this, but the rewards and how somebody who gets into it can get really carried away. in a really egotistical way and enjoy hugely the power they get from it. It's cathartic. Speaker 2 (7:19) You feel it the most in this movie. You almost have to, right? Because your belief in the system has to come from this fundamental belief in what should be right and wrong. And that almost always comes from you and the way that you look at the world. This particular guy has been out on ops for the government. By the way, man, vet the motherfucker. You don't want to learn. That the guy that you're fucking with is a secret CIA murder killer. Right. Speaker 3 (7:49) Two Speaker 2 (7:49) fucking acts into the film. He's Speaker 3 (7:51) effectively Kaiser Soze. Yeah. And they just have no idea the entire time. So to mention, to go into what you talked about earlier, I wrote down, yeah, I used to talk about Russell Westbrook all the time. And how he would bring all of these things to the table, but then take something off the table. And every basketball player does this. But Westbrook. was the one you noticed it the most. Where it was like, oh, he did all these good things, but man, if he didn't do that. So I used to call him the 90-10 guy. 90 % brought to the table, 10 % took off the table, but you really felt his 10%. This movie, the ending is the 10%. I don't like it, but I kind of like watching it and getting mad at how they fucked it up. I feel like they were so close to an awesome movie, and then they kind of copped out, Van. So why? What happened? They ran out of Speaker 2 (8:41) smart. They ran out of smart. A lot of scripts, they have a brilliant conceit, propulsive action, great, and then they just run out of smart. It gets to a point to where you don't have that next thing, that next turn that makes the movie brilliant. It's the closer. Speaker 3 (9:01) Yeah. You have 44 minutes of the NBA game, but now it's crunch time. I need to run some plays for my best guy. They just couldn't do it. It Speaker 1 (9:09) just feels like it got Hollywooded to death a little bit. I think, because I think the movie would have been better if it was a Fight Club ending. If it just like, he kept going and everything, and he did blow up the town hall. But I would imagine that they test screened that or the studio making the movie was like, we just can't do that. We have to have a resolution. I did a ton of research Speaker 3 (9:28) on this. There was like an urban legend that Jamie Foxx made them Hollywood up the ending, and I don't think that's true. I think they really just wanted Fox to be the good guy at the end. I think it was a huge mistake. But is he Speaker 1 (9:42) the good guy in the end? Well, that's the Speaker 3 (9:44) thing. I don't think they established enough that he was a good guy to make me feel happy at the recital at the end. It's like, oh man, he made it. Because I don't really like the character. Speaker 2 (9:52) He's one of the worst, most annoying characters I've ever watched in a movie this much. Hate him. Speaker 3 (10:01) Absolutely. So how much is it is how it was written and how much of it was the Fox performance? Because I don't think... It's weird that he's the weak link of a movie where we have two stars. Right. But I don't think he ever figured out if his character was a good guy or not. I think it's in the script, though. Yeah. Because I don't Speaker 2 (10:16) know that they ever give Jamie enough to do or enough of a point of view in this movie. He's so reactive to everything. Well, you know what they give him? They give him this face. Right. The only thing that he knows is that he's the most important thing, which is a shitty way to do a character. Meanwhile, his foil is legitimately holding the system accountable for not avenging the murder of his wife and daughter. They don't start off with the same moral stakes at all. Yeah, Speaker 3 (10:44) Butler kills him in this movie. Like, this is an incredible Butler performance. But with Fox, so we rarely give this a word out, and it's a relatively recent one, but the... The Clarence Worley should have died at the end award for biggest cop out of an ending. How should this movie have ended? Cause it's a real fun part of about why it's rewatchable. Cause every time I watch it, my mind goes into like all the, Oh, they should have done this or they should have done that. My, my guess is. Butler should have known the whole time that Fox was going to know that he had the cell. And when Fox thought he had the way to one-up him, Butler then had an extra move on top of that move and like blew Fox up in the cell and got away. Speaker 1 (11:27) He's just like... Or got out of the cell. They thought he blew up in the cell, but he didn't. Or like he makes Fox make a decision where he's like... I knew you would know the briefcase was there, so I added a second briefcase. So you can either kill the two of us or kill Town Hall. Right, right. Chess Speaker 3 (11:42) moves Speaker 1 (11:42) it. And then Fox kills himself and Butler and saves Town Hall. Speaker 3 (11:46) Yeah. Okay, so Speaker 1 (11:47) I think Speaker 3 (11:48) Fox has to die too. What's Speaker 1 (11:49) funny Speaker 3 (11:49) is Speaker 1 (11:49) he's the, outside of the two murderers who deserve to die, Fox is the other person who, I mean, Butler kills everyone else around Fox, but Fox is really the one who's most to blame outside of the two murderers. Speaker 2 (12:00) So here's the thing. The movie early on would have had to make a decision about what it was doing. You take the murderer off the table early. So anyone else that he holds accountable now is going to be like ancillary to that. Anyone else that he holds accountable are just going to be people in the system. By that rationale, Fox has to die. What I would say is... But this is seven, though, where Speaker 3 (12:22) Gwyneth Paltrow, spoiler. has to be the seventh murder. You can't be like, ah, we can't do that. We'll just do six. Then the movie dies. Speaker 1 (12:30) It's a good point because this movie does feel like a bad David Fincher film. Speaker 2 (12:34) Yeah, but see, in that movie though, John Doe comes from outside of our two main leads. Yeah. So he just acts as a chaos agent. In this one, both guys stand for something and if you kill Jamie Foxx, then you're almost validating. The fact that this dude killed all of these people to get back at the system. Or he blows both of them up and that's how it ends. Speaker 3 (12:58) And they both die. I Speaker 1 (12:59) think Speaker 3 (12:59) Fox has to die. There's another way this could have gone though. Speaker 2 (13:02) And Speaker 3 (13:02) every time I watch it, I always wonder if they entertain this. So he's in the recital at the end. They throw in this scene that's like, hey, let's do one Speaker 2 (13:10) more Speaker 3 (13:11) scene Speaker 2 (13:11) just Speaker 3 (13:11) in case Speaker 2 (13:11) the audience Speaker 3 (13:12) doesn't think he's a good guy where he's emotional watching his daughter. But he's got the tie on. And I always wondered, because we saw him do this earlier with the bad guy with the phone, Speaker 2 (13:21) where Speaker 3 (13:22) he's holding the phone, but it has whatever, those poisons in it. They're in his system. And Fox has the tie, and I always wonder if he touches the tie, and then it zooms in on the tie, and there's all these poisons on the tie. It fucking kills him. Well, because they Speaker 1 (13:36) tease the tie thing, right? Because the guy says the tie. His colleague is like, oh, he invented this tie that strangled a man. Yeah, this Speaker 3 (13:43) guy in the tunnel. And so they set that up, and I almost wonder if they had decided that was how it was going to end, and they chickened out. It Speaker 1 (13:50) just felt like this whole movie was the Dan Campbell, Hail Mary, fuck it, going forward on fourth down, and it feels like the movie went forward on fourth down Speaker 3 (13:57) the entire movie, and then at the very end, they kick a field goal. Right. Speaker 1 (14:01) That's Speaker 3 (14:01) a Speaker 1 (14:01) good way to put it. Great way to put it. So Speaker 2 (14:03) how would you have ended it? Well, for me, I think the ending has to be litigated like earlier in the script. The moment that he kills the cellmate, The moment that he kills the cellmate, you know Gerard Butler is out of there. Because he's now leaving such a trail of carnage behind him. Yeah. But I think Gerard Butler at the end would have had to die for something. Or he would have had to make the altruistic decision to not do the terrible thing and give his life up. If he leaves and decides to blow himself up on his own... I think that's an ending that would have sufficed. But he went through with it, and then Jamie, who was dumb as fucking rocks throughout the entire fucking movie. He wrote his, it's Speaker 3 (14:48) a bucket's Speaker 2 (14:48) promoter, no DA. Dumb as rocks throughout the whole movie ends up outsmarting the CIA badass. It kind of doesn't make any sense. Where do you stand on Gerard Butler? Speaker 3 (14:59) Just lukewarm? Speaker 1 (15:01) Well, yeah, kind of. He's in the Jason Statham camp of like, he's the guy doing his own thing. It's like the two of them are doing their own thing lane, and it's successful and people like it. But I feel like Gerard Butler is not kind of in the mainstream public consciousness. Speaker 3 (15:15) I'm not going to say my take yet, but I'm higher on Speaker 2 (15:17) him Speaker 3 (15:17) than that. Speaker 2 (15:18) Where are you? So, he's one of the guys to me that settled into something that I didn't think he was going to settle into. After 300 came out, I thought Gerard Butler was going to be Bill Gibson. I thought he was going to be that. Speaker 3 (15:29) Or Russell Crowe. Or Russell Crowe or whomever. I completely agree. I Speaker 2 (15:33) thought he was going to be that level of guy. He comes back in a movie that wasn't well regarded, but I love. Rock and Roller, the Guy Ritchie movie. And he does a couple of things. It's like, this guy has something. And then it just kind of disintegrates. I'm going to give you 20 plus years. Speaker 3 (15:47) Mid 2000s, Phantom of the Opera in 300. Now he's like, you're looking at him like a lottery pick. Like he's, I don't know, like Drake May right now or somebody. 07-09. Kind of gets sucked into the rom-coms. After that terrible fucking game he put together. That's week one, dude. Come on. He does P.S. I Love You with Hilary Swank. He tried, yeah. Not on the rewatchables list. The Ugly Truth with Katherine Heigl. Also terrible. 09-10, he does Law Abiding Citizen and The Bounty Hunter with Aniston. Speaker 2 (16:18) And Speaker 3 (16:19) they kind of try to pretend they're maybe together, but who knows. 12 and 13 does Chasing Mavericks and Olympus Has Fallen. Chasing Mavericks is one of my wife's favorite movies of the last 15 years. Absolutely loves it. Watches it all the time. And Olympus Has Fallen, ironically going against Jamie Foxx and White House Down. Two White House invasion movies, basically. Speaker 3 (16:42) Den of Thieves, 2018. Yeah. Greenland and Plain. Mostly settled into action, rom-com. I just felt like there was a lot more there for him. Speaker 2 (16:51) Well, he settled into the mid-level action movie. He settled into being one of the guys who you see him in movies and the movies are better than you think that they are. Den of Thieves is the perfect example. He's completely overqualified Speaker 3 (17:05) to be Big Dick Nick in Den of Thieves. That's one of the reasons it's really good. Right. He's too good to be in it. Right. I thought there was more there. I always liked him. Scottish guy. I think he's aged in a way where it seems like he's had some hard days and hard nights. Yeah. He's had a few. He's had a few sakes. Speaker 2 (17:25) Did you watch Greenland? I actually never Speaker 3 (17:28) saw Greenland. You like Speaker 2 (17:29) it? People like Speaker 3 (17:29) that movie. It's good. Speaker 2 (17:30) Yeah. Because they made a sequel. So Speaker 3 (17:32) it Speaker 2 (17:32) must have done well. Greenland, the sequel is very, very bad. I got to watch it. I'm going Speaker 3 (17:35) to Speaker 2 (17:35) watch it this Speaker 3 (17:36) weekend. Speaker 2 (17:36) If you watch Greenland, it's not what you think it is. It's good. Fox had a collateral on Ray back to back. Speaker 3 (17:43) Wins the Oscar for Ray. Follows that up with Stealth and Jarhead and Miami Vice and Dreamgirls and The Kingdom. By the way, 2000s, he's in the soloist, law-abiding citizen. He's in Valentine's Day. Kind of never figured out how to leverage the Oscar into big-ass movies. And this was one of the last stands for him for Jamie's The Lead of a Movie, and it's going to make $100 million. And then I think it started to dip down. I don't think he ever really figured out what Speaker 2 (18:12) lane to go to. Speaker 3 (18:14) He Speaker 2 (18:14) never lost the Jamie Foxx-ness of it. Ever. Whenever you see Jamie Foxx in a movie, you're like, oh man, it's Jamie Foxx. I was watching this movie and then I watched Horrible Bosses. Another good Speaker 3 (18:27) one for him. Speaker 2 (18:27) He just adds so much to Horrible Bosses in the little bit that he's in the movie. Yeah. So a lot of actors act themselves out of their celebrity. They act themselves out of you caring that they're in the movie. He never did that. But he never actually then became the guy that you build a whole movie franchise around or something like that. I always felt Speaker 3 (18:45) like he was better as the second guy. Speaker 2 (18:47) Like Speaker 3 (18:48) he was kind of overqualified, you know, even in Miami Vice, which he barely says anything, but he's got so much charisma in that movie. Collateral, he's great playing off crews. And I always liked when he was in that thing, but I don't. I almost feel like he would have been better off doing like a True Detective season two or season three or, you know, some sort of prestige TV thing. It's Speaker 1 (19:06) surprising how quiet the last 10 years of his career has been. I feel like he has everything. I feel like he's got looks. He's got charisma. He's a good actor. He can actually like become characters. And there hasn't been a ton. And everybody Speaker 2 (19:17) loves him. The thing is that he does so much. He's funny. He does so much that it's never really quiet because when you don't see Jamie on screen. you see Jamie on stage. When you don't see Jamie on stage, you see him on television as a television host. He's one of those like five tool people that's just like almost ubiquitous in culture. So you don't think of the fact that, damn, it's been a while since I saw the Jamie Foxx movie. You don't think about it because you're always seeing Jamie Foxx. You can get entertainment from so many different places. Speaker 3 (19:47) Yeah, I think sometimes you can just have too many choices. He was almost too good at too many different things. He's also one of the great talk show podcast guests ever. He could host anything. He's Speaker 2 (19:59) so charismatic. He's really funny. He can sing. Speaker 1 (20:01) He's great at impressions. Yeah. He Speaker 2 (20:03) also had Foxhole Radio, which was a radio. That was hysterical. So even if you are not getting your entertainment. from Jamie in the movies. You're going to get it from somewhere so you don't think about the any one thing that you're not, the way that you're not getting it. So was it tough for you when he feuded with Diddy? Like, Speaker 3 (20:22) what side were you on? Did you feel like you were both sides? Speaker 2 (20:25) Yeah, were you on the side of Diddy or Jamie Foxx? When was the Jamie Foxx-Diddy feud? I don't remember. Oh, you're talking about after the thing? Look at you. You're trying to get a little spicy at the beginning of the thing. Hey, why not? Nah, I'm fucking Friday. At this point, it would be hard to be on Diddy's side with fucking anything, right? I know. Must have been Speaker 3 (20:43) tough for you. Shut Speaker 2 (20:43) the hell up, man. Okay, Bill, you want to start going back? I could throw some jokes. Oh, I'm sorry. Speaker 3 (20:50) I didn't realize I couldn't make fun of you in the podcast. Speaker 2 (20:54) This movie Speaker 3 (20:55) was directed by F. Gary Gray. Right. Who we just did another F. Gary Gray movie. How many weeks ago? Yeah, what was it? Speaker 1 (21:02) It was Italian Job. Speaker 2 (21:04) Yeah, F. Gary Gray, Italian Job. You know what I thought about? Speaker 3 (21:08) I Speaker 2 (21:08) like F. Gary Gray. You do? Speaker 3 (21:09) I think his movies have like a splashy style to them. It's a little like Discount Michael Bay. Sure. Not over the top like Michael Bay is, but same kind of... Just you feel him. Yeah. Good explosions. Good music in the right spots. I enjoy what he does. Good Speaker 1 (21:26) sense of skill Speaker 3 (21:26) and cool. Yeah. Speaker 1 (21:27) He's trying some stuff. It's not plain. Speaker 3 (21:30) Good director. Yeah. Written by Kurt Wimmer. We have people like Bruce McGill and Calm Mimi. I think I said his name correctly. He's another Scottish guy. Leslie Bibb. Regina Hall is the wife with really no role at all in the movie. Just a couple lines. $53 million budget made $127.9 million. That's pretty good. Yeah, that's Speaker 2 (21:53) good. Speaker 3 (21:53) I somehow didn't see this in the theater. I don't know what was going on with me. Yeah, this Speaker 2 (21:57) was the ArcLive phase where I was just going to see. I was just like making excuses to go there. Yeah, this was right in my Speaker 3 (22:01) wheelhouse. It's not like Speaker 2 (22:02) I didn't want to go see this in the theater. And it was interesting. Because both of these guys were kind of still in their assances. We were still kind of in the Jamie assance. We were definitely in the Butler assance. So it was like putting these guys together. I was like, when are they going to cook up? Speaker 1 (22:15) Well, because this was Gerard Butler's first movie after 300? Speaker 3 (22:18) No, he did a couple of rom-coms. But it was like, he's going to have a moment right now. Sure. I don't know. Who is Gerard Butler right now? Speaker 1 (22:25) You mean... Speaker 3 (22:25) No, I'm saying like... Like the younger version. Early 30s, Speaker 2 (22:30) mid 30s. Speaker 3 (22:32) People want Speaker 2 (22:32) it to happen. Speaker 2 (22:34) They really don't have any Gerard Butlers right now because the guys, our guys right now, the grizzled white boy of that age is not around. Everyone's a little prettier now. Everybody's a Speaker 1 (22:46) little prettier now. You can't say Glenn Powell because Glenn Powell's not really the same vibe. Speaker 3 (22:50) He's Speaker 2 (22:50) going for the Tom Cruise Speaker 3 (22:51) thing. Yeah. It's funny because I was thinking for recasting, if this movie was 2026, MBJ would clearly be the lawyer. And then I was trying to think who would be Butler and I was trying to workshop like Glenn Powell. as the guy. And I was like, I just Speaker 2 (23:06) think he's too likable. Speaker 3 (23:08) Bartlett has like a little bit of a dark side where you feel like some bad shit's happened to him 20 years ago. Speaker 2 (23:13) Yeah, Speaker 3 (23:13) you like, Glenn almost went for that in Running Man. Didn't really work. It didn't work. It's more, you just want to hang with him. Very shocking. Speaker 1 (23:22) It's Speaker 3 (23:22) an Speaker 1 (23:22) interesting point, though, that we don't have a lot of gruff, male, up-and-coming stars like that now. Speaker 2 (23:28) It's two buckets that are missing. Number one, the—and this might sound stupid— but the 30-, 35-year-old, 40-year-old, really Italian-American star that does the Moffitt, the De Niro, the guys like that. De Speaker 3 (23:44) Niro for Speaker 2 (23:44) now. Those guys like that. And then you also don't have— the man's man guy. I thought that Miles Teller, I always thought that Miles Teller would like kind of jump into that, that Miles Teller kind of brought that, but kind of. When he got jacked in Top Gun Maverick. Yeah. Speaker 3 (23:57) Yeah. Cause basically you're saying. A guy who could play a cop in a buddy movie. A guy who could play this guy in Law Abiding Citizen. And a guy who could be in a rom-com. Solving stuff with a rom-com. You have to be able to have those three moves. Speaker 1 (24:11) Yeah, someone where when you see them in prison and they're ripped and they're beating the shit out of somebody, you believe it. Like Brad Pitt would have been Speaker 3 (24:17) awesome in this Speaker 1 (24:18) movie. Speaker 3 (24:18) And we're Speaker 2 (24:20) not Speaker 3 (24:20) making Brad Pitt in the same way. Speaker 2 (24:22) Well, Brad Pitt also, Speaker 3 (24:23) he's so pretty though. And his star brings so Speaker 2 (24:26) much. Speaker 3 (24:26) But he can do his ugly Brad Pitt. He can, Speaker 2 (24:28) but he would have elevated this movie to a point to where you'd have had to bring in Martin Scorsese to direct this bitch. Like, he would have, it's like Brad Pitt's version of this movie is way, way up the escalator. I like your idea that this Speaker 3 (24:42) was... kind of a discount fit your movie. Yeah. Like if he went bankrupt, if he'd been