Hobbs & Shaw (2019)

Matt (00:00:00):

Hey everybody, this is our episode about Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw. One of the great movie titles. We love it. It just rolls right off the tongue. It’s right up there with Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever. Will Luke Hobbs and Deckard Shaw that rascal, that roust about will they find a way to get along to work together to save the end of the world, to save the end of the world, to save the world? You’ll have to watch the movie or listen to this episode to find out. We have a long discussion about Hobbs and Shaw and a long history segment that mostly is concerned with the hot, messy drama of the feud between Vin Diesel and the Rock that led to the Rock getting his own standalone movie series outside of the Fast and the Furious. We go all into that hot gossip. If you’re here for the messy drama, great. If you don’t care about it, look in the episode description. It’ll show you where the movie discussion starts and you just skip to that part. But we got it all for you folks and it starts right now. Right now after our theme song, which is here Play the music.

Matt (00:02:24):

Hello and welcome to Load Bearing Beams to our pin ultimate episode in our summer of rock mini series. I am Matt Stokes.

Laci (00:02:34):

And I’m Laci Ross, his beloved.

Matt (00:02:37):

My Better Half, but we’re always bickering and we have just lightning electric chemistry.

Oh, you’ve got a small dick and you’re like, oh yeah, you’re a some bitch. And then I do a lot of this told you,

Laci (00:02:53):

I don’t know if that’s the right way

Matt (00:02:55):

And this is just the kind of stuff that’s all over the film. Fast and Furious Presents.

Laci (00:02:59):

Yes, witty Rete

Matt (00:03:00):

Hobbs and Shaw. What’s your favorite movie that presents another movie?

Laci (00:03:07):

Oh. Oh, interesting. I wouldn’t pretend to know

Matt (00:03:11):

The Muppets Take Manhattan Presents Animal Farm.

Laci (00:03:14):

Can I count Thanksgiving because Eli Roth’s fake movie trailer isn’t the beginning of Grindhouse.

Matt (00:03:21):

What was Thanksgiving called? Hostile,

Laci (00:03:24):

Not hostile.

Matt (00:03:25):

Hostile Grindhouse Presents. Oh, Grindhouse did present Death Proof and another one Planetary.

Laci (00:03:31):

Why Not Present It?

Matt (00:03:33):

Grindhouse presents Thanksgiving.

Laci (00:03:35):

Yeah,

Matt (00:03:35):

So there we go. We have a definitive answer.

Laci (00:03:37):

I’m sure

Matt (00:03:38):

That’s your favorite one.

Laci (00:03:39):

We don’t need to look it up. I’m right.

Matt (00:03:41):

Second favorite is Hobbes and Shaw and listen, people love the Fast and Furious franchise. I’m a big fancy our Fast five episode for our thoughts on the fast

Laci (00:03:50):

Franchise.

Matt (00:03:51):

Enjoy and I fully despise this movie.

Laci (00:03:55):

I don’t remember a time when you hated something more on the telly. I don’t know if you made it better for me because it was kind of entertaining or if I had zero chance of enjoying this movie because I’d be a fool just judging by the look on your face, just pure wonderment of how bad it was.

Matt (00:04:17):

I was reacting like how you react to movies, which is a lot of physical, just very physically so physical. Laci’s a very physical person. I’m more of a man in a computer, brain in a vat.

Laci (00:04:28):

Yeah. Yeah, you’re stoic. You sit there. I can’t usually read. I don’t know until after sometimes Did you really like something when I’m with bated breath, watching your every flinch to see if you like one of my movies, but this was very visceral for you, this experience.

Matt (00:04:45):

I hated so much of no one Acquits themselves. Well, in this movie, everyone, I have less respect for everyone involved with it. Even Indra Elba and Vanessa Kirby,

Laci (00:04:56):

They couldn’t have known. Right? It sounded like you put Jason Statham anything and you’re like, that’s got a chance.

Matt (00:05:03):

He’s the only one who I’m like, you’re fine Jason, you’re fine. Jason Statham is always,

Laci (00:05:08):

He’s consistent.

Matt (00:05:10):

He has no range and that’s okay,

Laci (00:05:13):

But he’s not pretending to have any range either. He is so locked in on what it is that makes him work and what is awesome about every character he plays and he’s not fixing what Is Not Broke where the rock seems to still be kind of troubleshooting but keeps landing back on what I’ll call Zero Rock 30,

Matt (00:05:35):

Which is the Zero Rock 30, which is we landed on something last time when we were doing our history. We dove into him doing his career reboot in 2011, which was the turning point for him. And you picked up on something that I kind of missed. As he said, he felt like he wasn’t authentic with the roles he was taking,

Laci (00:05:53):

Which he literally meant he didn’t feel like himself when he was playing another person.

Matt (00:05:58):

Yes, exactly.

Laci (00:05:58):

Which is odd and to him

Matt (00:06:01):

Because acting

Laci (00:06:02):

Well also I think maybe his whole life he’s been acting as the rock. I don’t think there’s a distinguishable, he thinks he is supposed to act this larger than life, strong unflinching yet soft and caring as a teddy bear protector of the world and that is who he gets to be and if a movie’s going to show him that he could be slightly different and then he kind of relates to those feelings that is going to crush a fragile ego and sense of self

Matt (00:06:34):

And as we keep hammering home, those are his best performances are probably the ones that psychologically affected him pain and gain. Southland Tails. Even central intelligence

Laci (00:06:45):

He’s kind of reminds me of, I never can pull these two terms together when I want them altruism something altruism

Matt (00:06:54):

Effective.

Laci (00:06:54):

Altruism. Yes. He’s kind of having a misfire here where

Matt (00:06:59):

Go ahead.

Laci (00:06:59):

He thinks he can pinpoint exactly where all of his efforts would be the most benefit, where he is just prime him. He’s like pulling in all of his praise over his life and all the applause and what is it? It’s this guy and I can just put this guy in anything and it’ll just take off. And that’s not what people who love movies don’t want the same thing over and over if it’s not even confident, if you’re not even pulling it off. You can’t take wrestling rock and put him in a movie and that be good every fucking time. You have to bounce off of different people,

Matt (00:07:39):

But he’s in no way wrestling rock and hasn’t been for a long time

Laci (00:07:45):

Because

Matt (00:07:46):

I think, I don’t

Laci (00:07:47):

Know wrestling rock enough,

Matt (00:07:48):

But just imagine the Rock though is a character and you’re like, oh, that’s the rock we’re talking about Dwayne Johnson, who’s a real guy. Just to back up, effective altruism is the thing where billionaires are like, here’s my philosophy. I make as much money as I possibly can via capitalism, which totally won’t harm anyone and actually creates all the problems that I’m trying to solve. I’ll make so much money and then with my virtuousness and my brilliance, I will hone in on the actual problems and use my genius to fix them.

Laci (00:08:18):

I realize now why I was making the comparison. I went a little off the rails. He is so overconfident in his ability to do anything he wants to do, any kind of industry he wants to work in that he thought acting would be easy and that he could do it his way. He thinks everyone else is just, oh, method acting and oh, thinking of stuff to make you cry and oh, crying in a movie like, oh, I don’t do any of that. It’s like, yeah, but you should, so maybe you shouldn’t have jumped into this thing of trying to be a movie star if you weren’t willing to do the work. He wants to hop around from pond to pond and be a big fish in every one of them and you have to have some respect in the pond.

Matt (00:08:57):

What’s maddening about it is that, yeah, I’m sure we have a long, long section on his relationship with Vin Diesel and I can tell Vin Diesel’s like Artsiness annoys

Laci (00:09:10):

The

Matt (00:09:10):

Rock. Okay, I get it. However, one, you’re also a fucking theater kid, Dwayne, come on. That’s all wrestling is,

Speaker 3 (00:09:19):

But he’s not allowed to be,

Matt (00:09:21):

But you are good at it if you just allowed yourself to be.

Laci (00:09:26):

But his parents, well, whatever is around him, I don’t know what it is, is his ex-wife now manager, whatever. There’s something that is not letting him just be who he is and it will make him go a hundred miles an hour for the rest of his life until he is dead.

Matt (00:09:42):

That’s what I wanted to ask you though. As part of this long preamble before we get into the movie, he said, I’ve felt like I wasn’t authentic and as we’ve sort of tracked it, we’re now in the phase where he’s only playing himself and even the version of Luke Cobbs we see here seems to have nothing to do with to do with the Luke Cobbs we saw eight years ago in Fast five oh

Laci (00:10:05):

Had eight years gone by

Matt (00:10:06):

Realize and he’s played him over five movies and the character has just dropped all trappings of not being Dwayne Johnson. So he just wants to play himself. He just wants to have his stacks of pancakes and just there’s no difference. However, Dwayne Johnson is not a person. I think that Dwayne Johnson is as much a character as the Rock because it just seems like a collection of traits. What is Dwayne Johnson? He’s a man who likes pickup trucks and fishing and tequila,

Laci (00:10:37):

Dropping the Gs off of words

Matt (00:10:39):

Saying Some bitch.

Laci (00:10:41):

Some bitch. And

Matt (00:10:42):

I don’t buy a second of it and the only thing I know that he likes is binge eating. That’s the only thing I’m convinced he actually likes kissing women. No thanks driving a pickup truck. I don’t buy it. Eating lots of junk food. I do buy that. You’re always posting about it and it always works your way into movies and you have a very strange relationship with it

Laci (00:11:00):

This deep into his career, I must say I was shocked for the eyebrow to get, not just for the eyebrow to happen, but for it to have its own moment and for his kid to also need to do it too. It’s like he was really like, Hey, you guys remember the hits? And it’s like, whoa, that seems so insecure. There’s no way a producer was like, or a director was like, make sure the people’s eyebrow gets into Hobbes and shit. It’s like, we got it.

Matt (00:11:26):

And for it to just grind everything to a halt so that we can just linger with it, that’s,

Laci (00:11:34):

It wasn’t snuck in, it wasn’t a quick natural moment. It was a whole fucking thing. And the way he talks about parenting in his unhinged, neurotic posts on LinkedIn in real life

Speaker 6 (00:11:48):

LinkedIn

Laci (00:11:48):

Are, oh, that’s where he should be, honestly. Business brain guy, sorry. The way he talks and acts like a parent in movies, it is very like, here’s what I think a dad does. You call me daddy and you’re my little girl and my little sweetheart and I’m going to take care of you. And having just a brief talk with a 9-year-old child about how you’re going to go save the world and they’re not going to cry and they’re not going to ask more questions and that handle, he probably just lets his actual kids know with a quick post that he will be gone for six months.

Matt (00:12:23):

Oh see, I think it’s, he doesn’t, this is his parenting is I have breakfast with my daughter in a diner every six months for 25 minutes. I look at her homework. You’re doing good in school. Good.

Laci (00:12:35):

Yeah,

Matt (00:12:36):

Education. I always say this, write this down honey. Education is key. And then we have a secret handshake and then I send her away to her handlers. Right?

Laci (00:12:44):

And because I’m out there saving the world, actually I’m a movie star for on Baywatch and on Fast five for six months, I’m going to go save the world honey, for six months I’ll be back for pancakes. He thinks that’s enough. He thinks he is saving the world. What are they going to do without the

Matt (00:13:01):

Rock? Everything.

Laci (00:13:04):

I mean, I’m sorry. His political post has me convinced he does think America or the world really needs him to be guiding us or for him not to. Don’t divide us rock. You’re what keeps us together. You’re the glue.

Matt (00:13:18):

And we said last week he’s going to fail as a politician.

Laci (00:13:22):

He will find out how little he matters,

Matt (00:13:24):

But he does have the soul of a politician. The only reason to want to become president is because you have a personality disorder. Because you can’t do good as president, you can only do evil. But if you need validation so badly, this is the only position you can actually chase.

Laci (00:13:43):

True. You can be a late night TV host, I’m telling you.

Matt (00:13:46):

Yes, I agree.

Laci (00:13:47):

I agree with that. All they get are tons of people who are desperate to market their latest thing and to not be made fun of by the funny man sitting in the chair with the cards. So they come out and they’re so fucking nice. People do not give the host of late night TV shows shit on the regular. They’re just smile. They have a little skit, they show off whatever

Matt (00:14:06):

Because they need you because they’re there to promote

Laci (00:14:08):

And they need you. Exactly. And you are there five nights a fucking week. That’s insane.

Matt (00:14:14):

You’re on the television every night. You live with people. This also would’ve been the perfect career for Donald Trump, but because presidents can only do evil, anybody who actually wants to do good would not pursue that career. But people who are deluded enough to think like, well, I’m so good that if I do that job I’ll be doing good for the world. So that’s the delusion, right?

Laci (00:14:36):

Is it that they don’t walk through the door and are then downloaded with every single secret and limitation and handshake and red tape that they didn’t know existed? Because why would you until you have the right clearance or the right levers of power? Veep has really fucking pilled me.

Matt (00:14:56):

But

Laci (00:14:57):

Watching Veep right now is,

Matt (00:14:58):

Veep is great and I think Veep does a good job of showing how hollow, but just you have to be a narcissist and have this pathology where you don’t actually believe in anything. The only reason you want to be there is because it’s the thing that will solve your soul and

Laci (00:15:15):

You’re still out of touch. You have to be out of touch, otherwise the empathy would just consume you.

Matt (00:15:22):

But even Veep makes it seem a little too human. I think the real thing is it’s just an algorithm. You just go in and realize, oh, there’s no decisions. Nobody’s making decisions anywhere. This is all running by

Laci (00:15:32):

Itself. I’m making appearances and then I go home.

Matt (00:15:34):

We give people the appearance of human beings in control of the system. They’re not,

Laci (00:15:38):

I literally mean though, their job is like they’re sitting in their office and watching one of those desk duck things dip its head for, and then someone’s like, okay, Q, Senator Ryan or whatever, and they run onto the CNN camera’s view and I disagree. And then they go back and it’s all theater and they’re not actually, they’re just the face of it,

Speaker 6 (00:15:58):

Right?

Laci (00:15:59):

They’re being given the script whether they want to do the plot or not.

Matt (00:16:04):

So

Laci (00:16:05):

Politics. Alright, should we talk some Hobbes and Shaw?

Matt (00:16:08):

Just one more thing.

Laci (00:16:10):

This is the episode where you’re going to tell me about Vin Diesel, right? Yes,

Matt (00:16:12):

Yes, absolutely. So where we’re in this portion of his career where he is only playing himself and in 2017 the Fate of the Furious comes out and there’s just a handful of scenes between him and Jason Statham. And I think people did genuinely respond well to the two of them. Like, oh, they’re fun together, they are. But what was coming out from the studio and the producers does their chemistry. There’s nothing like it. We have to get them in their own movie. Watching the extras on the DVD, that’s all anybody was talking about. You’ve never seen an interview with Jason Statham, Dwayne Johnson’s like Jason, just the best. We had the best time working together and I’m sure they are fun to see together. Here’s the problem. The thing that you need to see chemistry on screen is you need to see the two actors in a frame together. And this movie makes the most bizarre decision to always have them in the frame by themselves reacting to each other.

Laci (00:17:11):

Literally tennis match, they’re hitting the ball back and forth with their little quips and they punctuate it by only showing their reaction and face instead of showing the other one’s reaction to what they’re saying. They’re in a room by themselves with their smart bald brains,

Matt (00:17:27):

And I’m certain they were in the room together, but David Leach for whatever fucking reason why I actually know why I have theories about why he shot shoots it this way

Speaker 7 (00:17:36):

Is

Matt (00:17:36):

Only show the individual actor and often staring directly in the screen. And I think it’s neither of these guys can improvise, so you can’t actually do it in real time. So it’s like, okay, Dwayne, so he just called you a small dick moron, so now I want you to kind of look a sc at it. Okay. Okay. No, do it again.

Laci (00:17:54):

Describe

Matt (00:17:54):

More a scance more like or more like No,

Laci (00:17:58):

Never the small dick you point to. I mean that’s a great point and I didn’t, I’m glad you didn’t point out while we were watching it honestly, but it does make me think instantly about a scene that did work for me and that’s when they are going through parallel rooms, white rooms with Brock having one bad guy to fight and Jason Sathan having a whole bunch and there’s a glass partition

Speaker 5 (00:18:21):

And

Laci (00:18:21):

Jason Sathan is literally doing his beating ups just for the approval of the rock, but it’s making them look at each other and do more than just quip. And that worked. I mean, I don’t know that I love the rock’s reactions to everything, but they just gave them more to do in that scene.

Matt (00:18:42):

That’s one of the best scenes in the movie because it does have them interacting in a movie that’s called Hobbes and Shaws presumably about them developing a fucking relationship. But the movie’s not about that at all.

Laci (00:18:53):

The sister is the fucking heart of the whole thing, but she also blocks their ability to form anything. Buddy cop movies work because they’re in the same cop car together. These guys never go in the fucking same car unless it’s a goddamn emergency. They always are in their own vehicles

Matt (00:19:10):

And it’s like at the end of the movie, they remembered like, oh shit, this is Hobs and Shaw, we got to work together.

Laci (00:19:15):

Flat bed truck. Right?

Matt (00:19:16):

You take a punch, I’ll deliver a punch. Great. You got it brother. It’s like the movie has not been building to this in any way. If it did, it’d be cliche. We’ve seen this a million times, but it’d be a little more

Laci (00:19:27):

Satisfied. Yes, these guys, but they’re both bald, bald brothers.

Matt (00:19:31):

So I fucking hate this movie except that. Except that I remember because I’ve seen it before. You have never seen this movie, correct? Yes, I’ve seen it one time. I remember disliking it until they get to Samoa and then thinking like, all right, this is starting to work a little bit. And then I remember that final car chase helicopter thing,

Laci (00:19:50):

The human centipede

Matt (00:19:51):

With cars. Yes, I love that. Just a fast and furious car chase sequence, but hey, this series knows how to do that.

Speaker 3 (00:19:59):

Do something.

Matt (00:19:59):

All the action leading up to this has been bullshit. This one feels like something and

Laci (00:20:05):

It works. I assume they actually filmed on Samoa.

Matt (00:20:09):

They filmed in Kauai, but yeah.

Laci (00:20:11):

Oh, okay. But

Matt (00:20:12):

It’s a real location,

Laci (00:20:12):

But there’s a real sense of place. The cliffs, the change of scenery, the lack of CGI and just these people look like people. This mom is not an expert in escaping fricking island prisons. She’s just a mom. Because by this point of the movie, I am so sick of every fucking character on the screen being an expert in something, from the handlers to the sisters, to the moms in prison, to the bad guy being the most capable bad guy you’ve ever fucking seen with the coolest motorcycle. I’m just like, can someone serve as the thing that grounds this movie? No one is an expert when you all are experts. I’m not impressed. I’m tired.

Matt (00:20:54):

And what did you tell me after the movie? I had expert fatigue. Who does this movie need specifically? I don’t remember what I said. We need a boring untalented white guy, Paul Walker.

Laci (00:21:05):

Paul Walker,

Matt (00:21:05):

That’s

Laci (00:21:05):

His role walker in the series, at least to be mystified by most of it and then to have his one skill, which is driving well hits his saving grace

Matt (00:21:13):

Or to see something cool and go, huh, cool.

Laci (00:21:15):

Right, right. That’s out of the usual.

Matt (00:21:19):

If everybody’s just like Shaw haw, you get to Samoa and your brother’s like also a world famous hacker, but he does it in an island way.

Laci (00:21:28):

No, he’s a world famous mechanic and at least they bolster that by showing look at all the vehicle he’s working. He’s just a mechanical guy.

Matt (00:21:35):

And as you pointed out, still the one AirPod in his ear that’s a touch of a

Laci (00:21:40):

Realism. It brought it all back like, okay, that is something people do.

Matt (00:21:44):

Alright, so this is going to be a saucy episode. We are going hard into the drama. I’m afraid that Laci and I maybe have revealed ourselves as messy bitches who live for the drama. I didn’t know that I was, but that might be what our podcast evolves into.

Laci (00:22:01):

That’s about fucking time.

Matt (00:22:03):

I’ve

Laci (00:22:03):

Waited. So this history segment, that’s Jason Statham. Why does he have his hair? Did they immediately tell him, remove all hair if you want anyone to talk to you. Look at his hair.

Matt (00:22:42):

Laci is looking at a photo of Jason Sta.

Laci (00:22:45):

That is disgusting. Hold on. So he didn’t even go bald before someone was like, be bald. Look, he’s got perfect hair in that Timberland advertisement, but they’re like, you don’t make sense with your hair. Five 10.

Matt (00:22:58):

Jason Statham. We’re going to just very quickly talk about Jason Statham. This is another thing I was realizing is the sort of parallel lives of Statham and Dwayne. So the history of Hobbs Athaw, most of this is going to be about Vin Diesel in the Rock, but let’s talk about Jason Statham, who was born in 1967 in northern England. He is five 10 and his father was a coal miner, but also a painter who sold paintings on the streets and in markets. His mother was a dancer. So he does kind of come from an artsy family in a way that I think is kind of parallel to the rock where the rock codes it as come from a family of athletes and wrestlers are athletes, but wrestlers are also theater artists. And he became a very accomplished diver. He joined Britain’s national swimming squad, competed for England at the 1990 Commonwealth Games, then became a model for Tommy Hilfiger Griffin Levi’s in French Connection and made appearances in a handful of music videos.

Laci (00:23:53):

Oh, really?

Matt (00:23:54):

Handsome in the nineties by British bands. But it wasn’t until he met a very young guy, Richie, who was developing his indie film lock stock in two smoking barrels. I

Speaker 7 (00:24:02):

Like all these movies

Matt (00:24:03):

And he’s just like, oh, I need a real looking bloke. You look like a real fellow. So come on then. And so Statham is Em Lock stock in a major role. The movie’s like a big indie hit and Richie brings him back for basically the lead role in Snatch, which was a huge international hit. Now he is a name people know is Statham,

(00:24:25):

His small roles in Ghost of Mars. And the one in 2003 is a major role in the Italian job, which is a big hit. But he becomes Porter. He becomes a star in a way that I only just realized a few days ago was parallel to the kind of movie star The Rock was kind of becoming in at the same time when we were talking about the Rundown and how it’s a shame that movies that can’t be the blockbusters that they were in the eighties and Hobbs and Shaw, they have a poster in their garage of Cobra and I think that they think that this movie, Hobbes and Shaw is like, we’re going back to classic eighties action movies, but you’re not at all.

Laci (00:25:03):

You’re not.

Matt (00:25:04):

And one thing about those movies is they were low budget. They didn’t have $300 million budgets in sci-fi and

Laci (00:25:09):

These science labs fucking these garages alone, these vast sets. Where’s the fucking two guys? It’s too big and sprawling. That’s always what happens in fucking sequels. They just keep getting bigger and bigger and forgot that small was good. The first fast and the Furious was so small, so low stakes. It was good

Matt (00:25:32):

For

Laci (00:25:32):

That reason. This is your first Hobbs and Shaw make it small again, you can contract and then expand. We’re going to start with the fucking world dying.

Matt (00:25:41):

When I heard they were making a Hobbs and Shaw, I thought like, okay, that’s interesting. They’d be fun to see together and Hobbs and Shaw, it should be this cop and this cop

Laci (00:25:49):

As part of your parole, as part of your ability to rehabilitate and get back into your copping that you actually want to do. You both have that in common or whatever, and it should be you are a thief and I’m a cop at heart and we’ve got to do the same community service. We are forced together.

Matt (00:26:03):

We got to infiltrate a drug ring or something. Just something do an eighties plot. The world does. It’s so obvious what this should be, but the rock in movies like The Rundown and Walking Tall and stuff, not happy to stay at that level of state. The movies like The Transporter and Crank and the Bank job, they were good solid hits for their budget and he gets a big fan base of Action Fans and Crank is a great movie and he’s like, oh, okay. He’s the action movies aren’t the biggest genre anymore. They were in the eighties, but you can be somebody like Jason Staton.

Laci (00:26:38):

You could the biggest person, right? Yes. Well, that’s why I also said Liam Neeson because he also is carving out a name for himself, is this stoic man of action and so much that he’s, that’s why it works so well when you’re in a movie like The Naked Gun and you’re so against type because you’re leading so hard into what was given you as your type.

Speaker 5 (00:26:57):

It’s

Laci (00:26:57):

So good. Just be so confident. The Rock wants to stay consistent and be authentic and be the rock, but it’s not confident and it gets boring and that’s probably where the confidence lacks. So it’s not something you should do over and over again. These guys knew what they had. Yeah.

Matt (00:27:16):

And know that, okay, there’s the ceiling. Ooh, the Transported three is going to make 45 million great for the Transported three, but you’re never going to, you’re not what the Rock assumes he’s destined to be if you stay at that level. But Statham in the 2010s gets to level up by appearing as a supporting player in the Fast and Furious franchise gets to be in Spy with Melissa McCarthy. If he’s the lead in the major, major movie, it’s something like the Meg where that’s like a Chinese co-production where it’s like, he’s like a B level star and really the Meg is the Star, but it’s like, okay. Is

Laci (00:27:54):

That the Shark movie?

Matt (00:27:55):

Yeah.

Laci (00:27:55):

Oh, that Z’s favorite movie Second.

Matt (00:27:58):

But I’m saying that’s the only huge major blockbuster where Statham can be the top build actor in it.

Laci (00:28:05):

It’s the same as being the lead role in Jaws. You can do that as Sta.

Matt (00:28:09):

Yeah. Yeah, I guess so.

Laci (00:28:10):

Yeah. Cause you’ve also got a nice couple of other handymen and then the shark,

Speaker 6 (00:28:16):

Right?

Laci (00:28:17):

And I didn’t even realize this until you put all this on the screen, but for years since Lock so and two smoking barrels have gone out of my way to see every the movie Really? And I don’t even think I knew why. I just knew when I heard his limey voice and I’m like, I’m going to like that movie and can I say Limey? Yeah. Okay. I’ve seen all of these.

Matt (00:28:36):

Really? You’ve seen the

Laci (00:28:37):

Expendables.

Matt (00:28:38):

Okay.

Laci (00:28:39):

I don’t even like Stallone.

Matt (00:28:40):

No, and the Expendables isn and I couldn’t tell you. It should be good. Okay, so he will get to be in bigger movies but has enough awareness to be like, but that’s not, he’s still going to make the beekeeper, which Laci and I both fucking love. Love it. He’ll still go back to making small Jason Statham movies. The Rock would Never, so Hobbs and Shaw was directed by David Leach, who was a stunt double for Brad Pitt. He did stunts in all kinds of movies. The BO series, he co-directed the first John Wick film with Chad Stawski. Then he directed Atomic Blonde, Deadpool Two, and Hobbs and Shaw followed those up with Bullet Train and Fall Guy. I liked Fall Guy. I did. I think Deadpool two is the only kind of good Deadpool movie. I

Laci (00:29:25):

Have not seen Bullet Train yet. I

Matt (00:29:26):

Tried watching Bullet Train had to turn it off.

Laci (00:29:29):

Whoa.

Matt (00:29:29):

I think he just does a bad, I just don’t think I like the way he makes movies.

Laci (00:29:33):

Action is to cut

Matt (00:29:34):

The action very sometimes he knows how to put together a good action scene.

Laci (00:29:43):

This is the guy that comes from a choreography action background, right? He’s a stunt guy. Yes.

Matt (00:29:48):

So sorry, the stunts are good. I think it’s the fighting that’s not good and then it’s everything else. He has no idea how to direct comedy.

Laci (00:29:58):

Sure, yeah, that makes sense.

Matt (00:30:01):

So he’s the director of Hobs and Shaw

Laci (00:30:03):

In Hobs and Shaw. There’s a million cool fucking fights, cool moves, cool things to look at. But the problem is the whole thing feels like a trailer. When are you going to get to the heart, to the story, to the when am I going to start feeling like arcs and bonding and caring about any of this? It’s just all action and boring dialogue.

Matt (00:30:26):

Why is there not the moment where they have to hole up in a thing somewhere? Just the two of them have

Laci (00:30:32):

Their talk,

Matt (00:30:32):

How

Laci (00:30:32):

They’re not so different. How my dad did this and your dad was like that and oh my God, they should be go on a bowling league together, whatever. I can’t wait to hear about weirdo and do so.

Matt (00:30:43):

But Statham gives his speech to Hobbes’s brother and he’s like, listen, I might not like this bloke here, but I trust him with my life. You do. Why shouldn’t we have seen? It feels like we skipped over the part where you learned like, you know what, God damnit, I can’t stand you, but I lay my life down for

Laci (00:31:00):

You. I mean, he does keep proving he’s super capable and ethical in the sense that there is a mission he’s going to achieve it. He also cares about the fate of the world, the understand he wants to save his sister. I mean they lay that groundwork, Hey, the most important thing to him becomes his sister. And then the Rock is taking care of her. So fine.

Matt (00:31:19):

They knew about each other going into this movie that they were capable. There should be something new. They learn about each other in this movie

Laci (00:31:25):

That The Rock likes the sister.

Matt (00:31:27):

Alright, now those were the vegetables. Let’s eat Dessert. The Rock and Vin Diesel Fracas.

Laci (00:31:32):

I thought you were going to say Meat. We’re having vegetables and dessert for our meal.

Matt (00:31:36):

Let’s eat some meat.

Laci (00:31:38):

Okay.

Matt (00:31:39):

Last week we checked in on the Rock’s insane 2016 shooting schedule and his moving between Baywatch and the Fate of the Furious and then thought maybe that’s why he stopped being so good in movies. He’s just trying to do way too many things at once and I am sure that the people working with him are not getting him at his best. Right?

Laci (00:32:02):

Yeah. There’s only so much that tequila and Go-Go Juice can do. Right?

Matt (00:32:07):

So there is a very famous feud between the Rock and Vin Diesel

Laci (00:32:13):

Over un timeliness on the set

Matt (00:32:17):

That led to the Rock never being in a single shot with Vin Diesel in the Fate of the Furious.

Laci (00:32:22):

I already know why the Rock doesn’t like him. You don’t even have to tell me what it is.

Matt (00:32:26):

And then the Rock basically getting siphoned off out of the Fast and the Furious franchise into Hobs and Shaw no longer with the main franchisees. These two men can’t be around each other.

Laci (00:32:37):

I know you’re going to tell me what the narrative is in terms of what they’ve told the media, but I’m going to tell you right now that Vin Diesel is the bald tough, no nonsense, all star American beloved action fucking tough guy who actually gets to feel and think and be weird and go off script and do strange things and be actually himself, whatever that is off camera. And I don’t think the rock gets to change on and off camera because the Rock doesn’t know how to be loved that way. And that is why the Rock can’t fucking stand video

Matt (00:33:14):

Laci. I think you’re onto something and Vin Diesel’s always been a very artsy guy. I think that the thing you need to know about him, I’m convinced he thinks he is a director despite having not directed movies. I read he really wanted to direct a fashion, the Furious movie, and a studio source said the studio said, that’s not going to happen.

Laci (00:33:39):

They give him a smaller chair that says Director on it. That goes back next to the bigger one like you do when you get a outdoor chair for a child,

Matt (00:33:46):

Right? Yes, yes. Or yeah, you give him a fake cell phone. A plastic cell phone or just

Laci (00:33:50):

Like a tiny lazboy next to your big lazy boy.

Matt (00:33:53):

Yeah, because okay, then you want to be, what have you directed? Well, I directed a short film in the late nineties. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:34:02):

Yeah.

Matt (00:34:03):

But it’s like there’s just people who I feel like a director. I feel like an artist.

Laci (00:34:07):

I fucking get that. I think I thought I was a teacher’s assistant a lot of times when that was not an available role

Matt (00:34:15):

Or I feel like a musician. Can you play any instruments? No. Can you SI

Laci (00:34:18):

Have the heart of one.

Matt (00:34:19):

No, but I still, you know what I’m saying?

Laci (00:34:21):

Sure.

Matt (00:34:22):

So on August 8th, 2016, there’s a week and a half left of production of Fast and Furious eight and the rock posts to Instagram and then subsequently deletes this. There’s no other franchise that gets my blood boiling more than this one. An incredible hardworking crew. Universal has been great partners as well. My female co-stars are always amazing and I love them. My male co-stars, however, are a different story. Some conduct themselves as standup men and true professionals while others don’t. The ones that don’t are too chicken shit to do anything about it. Anyway, candy asses.

Laci (00:34:54):

How do you be chicken shit about not being good at I’m too chicken shit to be more punctual. I’m scared of it.

Matt (00:35:03):

What put there on time? No, I read that as people are talking about him behind their back and not talking to him. That’s what I think he’s saying.

Laci (00:35:11):

They’re too weak to hear the truth about themselves

Matt (00:35:15):

Or too weak to say to him, I have an issue with you and they’re going to HR or

Laci (00:35:20):

Whatever. Does that not make the rock the candy ass chicken shit for saying certain coworkers rather than just calling them out?

Matt (00:35:26):

Yeah,

Laci (00:35:26):

This whole thing is, God forbid, have a conversation with them on the side.

Matt (00:35:30):

That’s the whole thing about

Laci (00:35:30):

This. It’s so messy

Matt (00:35:33):

Candy asses when you watch this movie next April, and it seems like I’m not acting in some of those scenes and my blood is legit boiling. You’re right. Bottom line is it’ll play great for the movie and fits this Hobbs character that’s embedded in my DNA extremely well. The producer in me is happy about this part. Final week on Fast eight and I’ll finish strong.

Laci (00:35:53):

Okay. Wait. When you first read this to me the other day, I thought he meant if it seems like I’m not acting in some scenes, meaning I’m absent, I’m not in them, then you’ll understand why we just didn’t have a lot of scenes together because fuck his candy ass. But now I think he’s trying to have an excuse for why he’s not giving it as all in the scenes where he is acting.

Matt (00:36:15):

That’s exactly what I thought too. That’s what I thought he meant and then realized,

Laci (00:36:18):

Okay, okay. Okay. On the second reading,

Matt (00:36:20):

I give it my all.

Laci (00:36:20):

This is my excuse and there’s going to be sometimes when I’m good,

Matt (00:36:24):

But I give it my all except when I’m not good.

Laci (00:36:27):

I was being a candy.

Matt (00:36:28):

So TMZ reports, so everybody knows he’s talking about Vindy. So TMZ reported that Vin Diesel and Joan Johnson had a private meeting in a trailer to clear the air, but the outcome unclear. But people magazine reported on the drama quote, all the sources are in the episode description and if you’re watching on YouTube, they are on screen. People magazine reported on the drama, but one set source says the problems began with Vin Diesel’s. Frustrations over the former wrestling pros behavior onset. VIN has been having problems with the rock because the rock keeps showing up late for production. The source explains sometimes he doesn’t show up at all and he’s delaying the production. There have also been reports of diva behavior on Vin Diesel’s part, especially during the filming of Fast seven. Vince spent a whole day in his trailer one day a source told the Hollywood reporter in October. So they’re right there talking about the last Fast and Furious murder

Laci (00:37:23):

Seventh. Okay. And this is a source other than the Rock saying something similar to what The Rock has claimed about Vin Diesel,

Speaker 6 (00:37:30):

Right?

Laci (00:37:31):

So we’ve got, do we have multiple sources on the claims against the Rock?

Matt (00:37:38):

Do we have multiple sources on the claims against the Rock?

Laci (00:37:40):

It sounds like they’re both saying the same thing. They’re not respecting the time.

Matt (00:37:45):

It seems like in these People magazine where these sources are all anonymous, you have one who’s the pro vin source and one who’s the pro rock

Laci (00:37:53):

Source, but they both seem to be claiming that each of them are doing the same rude things.

Matt (00:37:57):

Yes, yes, yes.

Laci (00:37:57):

That’s confusing. How can they both be late and notice the other one’s late if they’re both late?

Matt (00:38:02):

Well, or is it like The Rock is always late? Vin Diesel gets upset, upset about that his lateness and counters his lateness by doing his, I’m staying in my trailer all day. Fuck this.

Laci (00:38:11):

Okay.

Matt (00:38:12):

Okay. The next day they waited four hours for him. Vin Diesel called a meeting of studio execs to his trailer for two and a half hours to say, what the fuck am I doing here?

Laci (00:38:24):

He was having annexed existential crisis.

Matt (00:38:26):

Another source told page six that Diesel was constantly late when we worked together. When that source said that they worked together,

Laci (00:38:33):

Same movie

Matt (00:38:35):

Who don’t know,

Laci (00:38:35):

Don’t know.

Matt (00:38:36):

The source added that diesel acting like a diva and has held up production before and that it’s not surprising that he’s the one calling the rock Out end quote. So that’s like, it’s not surprising because he’s calling somebody out for doing the thing he’s guilty of.

Laci (00:38:51):

See, that also has a double read. Right? So it’s like, it’s not surprising that he would say that to take focus off of his shit or that he’s projecting

Speaker 6 (00:39:00):

And

Laci (00:39:00):

That he hates in someone else the thing he hates about himself or that he’s doing to just pull focus from him doing it. Or he is not surprised because, because they’re both just messy, catty little look. They won’t even take turns wearing sunglasses. Look at these photos. I’m wearing the sunglasses today. You are not wearing

Matt (00:39:20):

’em. I mean these photos are both composites. They’re not actually,

Laci (00:39:25):

I’m aware of that.

Matt (00:39:25):

Okay. In 2021, the Rock in a Profile in Vanity Fair by Chris Heath, he elaborated on this clear the air meeting he had with Vin Diesel. Well, there was a meeting, I wouldn’t call it a peaceful meeting, I would call it a meeting of clarity. He and I had a good chat in my trailer and it was out of that chat that it really became just crystal clear that we are two separate ends of the spectrum and agreed to leave it there.

Laci (00:39:51):

Tell me what’s in the middle of the spectrum Rock. What is the spectrum?

Matt (00:39:55):

The spectrum is like somebody who just goes to work

Laci (00:39:57):

And does their job on time, late on time and late means that all this is also late. So what are you talking about?

Matt (00:40:07):

I think that as we will go, sorry. I think that it’s, well we’ve already said it. You’re

Laci (00:40:13):

Table setting.

Matt (00:40:14):

It’s that he thinks it’s you are an artsy fartsy guy and I’m an athlete.

Laci (00:40:18):

You’ve got to explain to me any art. I have not seen any

Matt (00:40:20):

Art.

Laci (00:40:21):

What is this man doing? Oh,

Matt (00:40:22):

It’s that he thinks he’s an artist and that he talks, okay, we’ll just have to

Laci (00:40:25):

An artist of what? Of acting he’s a method

Matt (00:40:32):

Or that he takes acting more seriously. He also really takes his role as producer of these movies. Seriously.

Laci (00:40:38):

Again, not something that seems like art, but okay, so he’s not a singer or dancer or painter.

Matt (00:40:43):

We’ve listened to his music. Oh, a singer.

Laci (00:40:46):

Okay, got it. Got it all. But then the Rock got to sing in Moana. There you go. The Rock.

Matt (00:40:52):

But I think Vin wrote, I think he writes songs, writes comic books loves d and d.

Speaker 7 (00:40:57):

He

Matt (00:40:58):

Thinks of himself as a creative. So then the Rock said about his Instagram post, he said, quote, it caused a firestorm. Yet interestingly enough, it was as if every single crew member found their way to me and either quietly thanked me or sent me a note. But yeah, it wasn’t my best day sharing that. I shouldn’t have shared that because at the end of the day, that goes against my DNA. I don’t share things like that against

Laci (00:41:18):

My DNA

Matt (00:41:19):

And I take care of that kind of bullshit away from the public. They don’t need to know that. That’s why I say it wasn’t my best day. So when the Rock wraps his filming on Fast and Furious eight, he posts on Instagram my final week of shooting hashtag Fast and Furious. There’s no greatness ever achieved alone. It’s always a team effort. We promise an epic prison breakout for you guys. And we delivered huge thank you to my Ohana family stunt coordinator, jj, stunt coordinator, JJ Perry and his badass fearless stunt team, as well as my cousin and an incredible stunt double at Simonean Stuntman. Thank you team for the willingness to die hard and drop your blood and sweat daily for our movie hashtag my Stump Brothers hashtag logo for life. You guys reading this, know how much I believe in the idea of team effort? That means respecting every person their time and their value. When they stop on my set, when they step onto my set

Speaker 2 (00:42:07):

Or

Matt (00:42:07):

Partner with our production company and with any team that’s a family, there’s going to be conflict. Family is going to have differences of opinion and fundamental core beliefs. To me, conflict can be a good thing when it’s followed by great resolution. I was raised on healthy conflict and welcome it. And like any family, we get better from it. At the end of the day, me and hashtag fa costars all agree on the most important thing, delivering an incredible movie to the world. Hashtag fast eight, hashtag Iceman Cometh hashtag family growth. What

Laci (00:42:35):

The fuck is Iceman Cometh? But that movie is good.

Matt (00:42:38):

You liked it

Laci (00:42:40):

Fast eight.

Matt (00:42:41):

Yeah, it’s okay.

Laci (00:42:42):

Oh wait, it’s

Matt (00:42:43):

Much better than Hobbes and Shaw.

Laci (00:42:45):

I got confused. Yeah, that’s what happened. That’s what happened. No, it jumps the shark a bit fast. Eight is big for his britches. Oh, he looks nice in that outfit.

Matt (00:42:55):

Laci’s looking into a picture of DW Johnson from a Vanity Fair profile. So now it’s April of 2017. Vin Diesel is promoting Fast in Furious eight and he tells USA today. I don’t think the world really realizes how close we are in a weird way.

Laci (00:43:10):

Wait, wait, wait. What part of that’s weird that the world doesn’t know or that you guys are close? Which one

Matt (00:43:16):

Says Diesel? Who steered clear of the specifics of their disagreement? I think some things may be blown out of proportion. I don’t think that was his

Speaker 6 (00:43:24):

Intention. I know he appreciates how much I work this franchise in my house. He’s Uncle Dwayne.

Laci (00:43:30):

But what about in Dwayne’s trailer? Is he Uncle Dwayne?

Matt (00:43:33):

You weren’t in his house right then He was your colleague.

Laci (00:43:35):

What about on the Rock’s?

Matt (00:43:37):

No, I’m

Laci (00:43:38):

Personal set.

Matt (00:43:39):

I’m sorry. Are you then?

Laci (00:43:40):

No,

Matt (00:43:40):

No, no. Well here. I think this is it. I think it’s that Vin thinks he’s the boss.

Laci (00:43:45):

That’s what I keep. But so does the rock. So that’s what I keep saying. Whenever it’s their turn to post, each of them are taking ownership of the place that they congregate his trailer, his set my house. So he is just fucking the whole thing’s his house now. Shit.

Speaker 6 (00:44:01):

I protect the franchise. I protect everybody including Dwayne from I protected Dwayne more than he’ll ever know. And it doesn’t matter

Laci (00:44:12):

What’s happening to you,

Speaker 6 (00:44:13):

He doesn’t have to know, but he appreciates it. He knows it. Dwayne has only got one VIN in his life. Dwayne Johnson has only one big brother in this film world. And that’s me. I’m always rooting for Dwayne. I’m the first multicultural megastar in Hollywood.

Laci (00:44:30):

Oh shit, I didn’t remember you saying that. When you read this to me, you are coming for the multiculturalness that Dwayne likes to talk about.

Speaker 6 (00:44:40):

They didn’t exist.

Laci (00:44:42):

Shit.

Speaker 6 (00:44:42):

To see another multicultural star come up is something I am very proud of. I’m always rooting Dwayne on. It’s not always easy being an alpha and it’s two alphas. Being an alpha is sometimes a pain in the butt

Matt (00:44:56):

End quote.

Laci (00:44:57):

Thank you. Louis Armstrong

Matt (00:44:59):

And Vin Diesel is five years older than the Rock. And I’m sure he’s like, I’m your big brother.

Speaker 7 (00:45:05):

Okay.

Matt (00:45:07):

Hey guys. When you get to like, I don’t know, 27, nobody’s older than anyone else. You’re all the same. Would you agree?

Laci (00:45:14):

Yeah. I mean, VIN, you didn’t have to pave the way because you’re multicultural.

Matt (00:45:19):

In 2021, while promoting Fast and Furious nine, VIN Diesel said, we keep flipping back between these eras. Vin Diesel told Men’s Health. It was a tough character to embody the Hobbes character.

Laci (00:45:31):

Whoa, I’m sorry. Vin Diesel saying that

Matt (00:45:34):

He is talking about the Rock’s performance ass Hobbes.

Laci (00:45:36):

Why would that be hard to do? It’s one of the four things he does mean Cop who says weird things about your mama.

Speaker 6 (00:45:44):

My approach at the time

Matt (00:45:46):

Was a lot of tough love to assist in getting that performance where it needed to be as a producer to say, okay, we’re going to take Dwayne Johnson who’s associated with wrestling and we’re going to force this cinematic world audience members

Speaker 6 (00:45:59):

To regard his character as someone that they don’t know. Hobbes hits you like a ton of bricks.

Matt (00:46:05):

Fuck are you talking? Has he ever seen a Goddamn the Rock movie? Yeah. Now that I read this, this seems pretty insulting, like weird. I was a decade into my movie career when I started working with you, man,

Laci (00:46:16):

Military.

Matt (00:46:17):

I was not coming from the world of wrestling.

Laci (00:46:19):

No, exactly. Military alpha in charge, kicking ass badass. Motherfucker is absolutely already in the rock’s real house. What are you talking about?

Matt (00:46:32):

And just this, it would also, he’s talking about himself. He’s the director. He’s not a director. Right? But he thinks he is.

Laci (00:46:38):

But I guess he just kept getting in the shots, which makes total sense why. He was like, I’m not doing any more scenes with Vin Diesel because I don’t want him to need to be on the set while I’m doing my scenes. He keeps coming over, directing me, micromanaging me, telling me to do tiny little things different when I was already doing them. I’ve got a director. This makes total sense now. Vin Diesel was just a little weird fly. He kept going, I don’t have a big problem with you except for you’re annoying me and you’re making this take longer. Get away. He’s like our

Matt (00:47:06):

Dog.

Laci (00:47:06):

Well, no. It’s like our kid’s dad. When you’re in sports and someone’s like, no, do it. Like I told you. Alright, now you do. See, you did it. Nothing’s ever your win either. I’m not doing it. You showed me or I’m doing it. You showed me. Either way you get the fucking credit.

Matt (00:47:27):

It’s just like our kid’s dad, who is not me?

Laci (00:47:33):

My oldest kid. That’s the one

Matt (00:47:36):

Who, hey, if you’re listening, pass guests, Steven.

Laci (00:47:39):

And I’m only talking about the way that he,

Matt (00:47:44):

He’s a sports dad.

Laci (00:47:44):

The way you are a sports dad. That’s a sports dad thing. It’s just, you don’t even realize you’re doing it, but you’re taking away all of the reason for the kid to want to do it.

Matt (00:47:53):

And at very best you’re distracting your kid. At worst, you’re giving them a complex and making them perform worse

Laci (00:48:00):

And not even getting any joy and victory because it feels hollow because you’ve just taken credit for it. Don’t do that dad. Dad’s.

Matt (00:48:06):

Okay, we’re going to take Dwayne Johnson, who’s associated with wrestling and we’re going to force this cinematic world audience members this cinematic world. So what the fuck audience members, I’m in that world. He’s talking about us. We’re in the

Speaker 6 (00:48:18):

Cinematic to regard his character, someone that they don’t know. Hobbes hits you like a ton of bricks. I’ve

Speaker 7 (00:48:24):

Never met

Speaker 6 (00:48:24):

Him. That’s something that I’m proud of. That aesthetic that took a lot of work. Whatcha ties?

Laci (00:48:31):

Camo the whole time. He’s hitting people. He’s tall and he’s mean and he’s hitting people.

Matt (00:48:36):

Look, he is very good in that movie in Fast five. Yes. Yes.

Laci (00:48:38):

But what do you think he’s doing different from any other fucking role that

Matt (00:48:41):

He’s doing? I disagree with you there. I think that he is playing a different version of,

Laci (00:48:47):

He’s a meaner. He’s just a little meaner.

Matt (00:48:49):

He has a lot of presence in that movie. The thing that is annoying here is Vin, what did you do? What you have to do with the performance that I,

Laci (00:48:59):

I’m not saying the performance is basic or dumb or whatever. I’m saying that audience members have seen it and understand how people who they aren’t that way when they’re not in a movie become that way. And when they are, I think we can thank you then.

Matt (00:49:12):

It’s not a giant Leah. It’s not like we’re like, wait a minute. That’s what I mean. That’s what I mean. We’re not seeing

Laci (00:49:18):

Also he’d already done his most challenging roles already. You’re saying that we can’t really believe him to be this militant and whatever the fuck he is in Fast Five. But we already believe him to be like a Coke addict, whatever.

Matt (00:49:34):

That was the after Fast five.

Laci (00:49:35):

Okay. But what about be Cool? What about

Matt (00:49:37):

That was before? Yeah.

Laci (00:49:39):

I mean he’s already done some very out of character things.

Matt (00:49:42):

Maybe it’s because it came right after his family movie run and now he’s

Laci (00:49:48):

See and then this whole conversation goes away. Because if he had mentioned that instead of wrestling, I’d have been like, alright, I’ll give you this. But that is so fucked up to pretend he hasn’t been doing this for 10 years already. That is weird. Don’t be a person who calls yourself someone’s big brother. Wait till they’ve assigned that to you if you’re not actually their family. Because it is so weird to announce it when no one for it.

Matt (00:50:17):

It’s weird. Going to be abusive or just a mentor. I’m like a mentor,

Laci (00:50:20):

Dwayne. Yes. To any kind of authority. Just because you’re five years older is so odd.

Speaker 6 (00:50:29):

That took a lot of work. We had to get there and sometimes at that time I could give a lot of tough love, not

Matt (00:50:36):

Fellini esque.

Laci (00:50:37):

What is Fellini?

Matt (00:50:38):

Federico Fellini, the famed Italian director of the 60 seventies and eighties. But

Laci (00:50:42):

What is he known for? He

Matt (00:50:44):

Was a difficult man to work with, but also maybe the greatest director of all time. But I would do anything I’d have to do in order to get performances in anything I’m producing later that year. Back to the Vanity Fair profile of the Rock. They’re always just responding to each other when they have something to promote and they’re getting interviewed

Laci (00:51:04):

And they’re responding to each other’s media coverage. Not say anything that’s actually happened between them.

Matt (00:51:10):

Yes. So back to the Chris Heath Vanity Fair profile, where the writer says, reminded of this quote, Johnson at first simply bellows with laughter. And then the rock says, I’ll tell you this one. Part of me feels like there’s no way I would dignify any of that bullshit with an answer. But here’s the truth. I’ve been around the block a lot of times. Unlike him, I did not come from the world of theater. And I came up differently and was raised differently. And I came from a completely different culture and environment. And I go into every project giving it my all. And if I feel that there’s some things that need to be squared away and handled and taken care of, then I can do that. It’s just that simple. So when I read that just like everyone else, I laughed. I laughed hard. We all laughed.

(00:51:52):

And I’m sure somewhere Fellini is laughing too. Damn. So then the writer says, Jonathan says that he and Diesel are philosophically two different people and we approach the businesses movie making in two very different ways. The faults he sees in Diesel seem pretty clear from this description he offers of his own contrasting philosophy. It’s the philosophy of going into work every day, looking at everybody’s equal partners and looking at the studio as equal partners and looking at the crew regardless of where you’re at, either on the call sheet or otherwise as equal partners with respect and with humility and being respectful of the process and every other human being who is putting in just as much time, just as much hard work and sweat equity if not more. And I think it’s always been important to me to always be straight up and look somebody in the eye. And if you’re going to something, if you say you’re going to do something, do it.

Laci (00:52:44):

Yeah. I’m less sure of what I said at the very beginning. I think Vin Diesels is just annoying.

Matt (00:52:55):

I think he’s annoying.

Laci (00:52:55):

That’s what it sounds like. I mean, I’m sure there’s part of him that wishes he could be more of a diva, more eccentric. But the rock expects so much out of himself that he doesn’t have time to fuck around the diesel. That seems to have lots of time to fuck around.

Matt (00:53:12):

Yes, because the

Laci (00:53:12):

Diesel’s only doing these projects and the rock field’s stretched so thin. But the diesel is doing the right thing that Jason Statham is doing is he’s staying in his lane, staying in his bubble, staying where he’s good, where he makes sense and it’s perfect. And he built a multi, I mean one of the biggest action franchises ever, if not the longest running one except for maybe Mission Impossible or something, but it’s okay to stay small and the rock just can’t do it.

Matt (00:53:43):

Well it’s funny now, sort of recreating the same thing he had going with wrestling where he’d come back to wrestling and the wrestlers kind of resented him and the crowd resented him. You think you’re too big for us. You think you’re too big for this. You’re coming to Fast and Furious and you’re talking about giving it your all, but you’re also taking lots of meetings and you’re trailers with your agave farmers and you’re fucking Zoa energy, right

Laci (00:54:05):

And tight. We have such a tight shooting schedule because you’ve only blocked off a very tight amount of time with hard outs. You have a whole other movie you’re going to go shoot with Zach Efron. Yeah. So you’ve limited us

Matt (00:54:21):

And I have worked with plenty of people who are trying to do many things. You can barely get their attention to them. It feels like I’m giving it my all

Laci (00:54:32):

Where

Matt (00:54:32):

You don’t realize. No, no No, no one experiences that because the thing that they need your help with, you are not giving them the help,

Laci (00:54:40):

Right?

Matt (00:54:40):

But you’ve mistaken your busyness for productivity

Laci (00:54:45):

Or meaningful action, right? I mean, yeah, you are exhausted and you have way too many things to do, but you’re only giving half or a quarter of your ass to each thing. That does not mean you’re doing anything well or giving anyone a satisfying experience working with you just because more people have the opportunity to do it. There’s value in giving everybody your best self.

Matt (00:55:09):

So the writer goes on over time. Diesel has voiced his own oblique observations about this situation. He’s put their differences to them being two alpha males. And then in parentheses he says, Johnson says, sounds like him to say that. Sure, he’s a crazy

Speaker 7 (00:55:25):

Fuck

Matt (00:55:26):

Characterize Johnson, perhaps slightly Patronizingly perhaps as Hollywood’s second multicultural megastar, whom he’s proud to see following in his footsteps. God in Johnson, he talks like that and said that I protected Dwayne more than he’ll ever know, but he appreciates it. He knows he only has one big brother in the film world. And that’s me in parentheses, Johnson. I have one big brother and it’s my half brother, and that’s it. End quote.

Laci (00:55:54):

He took away Van Diesel’s family. That’s not nice. He knows how much that hurts.

Matt (00:56:00):

Oh, I didn’t even think of that. So Hobbes and Shaw is a pretty big hit. Caleb corrected me last week. I remember it being a disappointment, but that’s because it was only 174 million domestic, but 7 61 worldwide that less than one of the main Fast and the Furious movies. But this was 2019. 19 the biggest year ever for movies. And movies would kill to make this much money now. But still no sequel ever gets put in the works. They’ll occasionally get asked about it and like, I’d love to, but no conversations at this time. Alright, so 2021 Fast Nine comes out, the Rock is not in it, and Vin Diesel posts to Instagram later that year, my little brother du, the time has come. The world awaits the finale

Speaker 6 (00:56:47):

Of Fast 10. As you know, my children refer to you as Uncle Duane in my house. There is not a holiday that goes by the day and you don’t send well wishers, but the time has come. Legacy

Matt (00:56:58):

Awaits. I told you years ago that I was going to fulfill my promise to Pablo. I think he means Paul. I swore that we would reach and manifest the best fast in the finale. That is 10. I say this out of love, but you must show up. Do not leave the franchise idle. You have a very important role to play. Hobbes can’t be played by no other. I hope that you ride to the

Speaker 6 (00:57:20):

Occasion and fulfill your destiny.

Laci (00:57:24):

I can’t imagine being his wife or even his dog. Just give me the fucking bone. I don’t need to know the importance of it. I just want to eat it and want you to shut up.

Matt (00:57:37):

Joanne responded via CNN later that year. I was very surprised by vin’s recent post this past June when Vin and I actually connected not over social media. I told him directly and privately that I would not be returning to the franchise. I was firm yet cordial with my words and said that I would always be supportive of the cast and always root for the franchise to be successful, but that there was no chance I would return. I privately spoke with my partners at Universal as well, all of whom were very supportive as they understand the problem. Vin’s recent post was an example of his manipulation. I didn’t like that he brought up his children in the Post as well as Paul Walker’s death. Leave them out of it. We had spoken months ago about this and came to a clear understanding. My goal all along was to end my amazing journey with this incredible fast and furious franchise with gratitude and grace. It’s unfortunate that this public dialogue has muddied the waters. Regardless. I’m confident in the fast universe and its ability to consistently deliver for the audience. And I truly wish my former co-stars and crew members the best of luck and success in the next chapter.

(00:58:33):

So that’s 2021. Jungle Cruise comes out, is not a big hit. Black Adam comes out the following year is not a big hit. And then what do you know? Dwayne comes back, he films a post credit scene for Fast X. We’ll just watch 10 seconds of it now.

Speaker 2 (00:59:02):

The devil is coming for you. Law man, lying hard to find you some bitch. What?

Matt (00:59:16):

Fuck. So that was hastily added after they’d already wrapped the movie.

Laci (00:59:20):

What Little Girl’s phone just got crushed?

Matt (00:59:22):

I dunno. He infiltrates a place. You don’t know who this is. It’s a guy in a mask. He sees a little girl’s phone and he picks it up and it’s like, I’m a bad guy Who’s going to talk to you in a weird voice and I’m going to kill you? Law man. Oh, it has nothing to do with the movie you’ve just watched. I don’t remember. I don’t know that movie’s not very good. So on June 1st, 2023, the Rock posted an Instagram video. And in the caption he says,

Laci (00:59:48):

Oh

Matt (00:59:48):

God,

Laci (00:59:50):

I’ve got the driest underwear right now. Because he just said the word FundWare. Hope

Matt (00:59:54):

You’ve got your FundWare on. Hobbes is back

Laci (00:59:57):

And

Matt (00:59:57):

He just got laid. LEID Rose emoji. Devil emoji.

Laci (01:00:04):

It’s not a rose.

Matt (01:00:06):

Oh, well it’s like a flower. It’s like

Laci (01:00:07):

A la. It’s a Hawaiian flower.

Matt (01:00:08):

Okay. Luke Hobbs will be return to the Fast and Furious franchise. Your reactions around the world to Hobbes’s return in fast. Acts have blown us away. Hey, the next Fast and Furious film you’ll see the legendary Lawman in will be the Hobbes movie that will serve as a fresh new chapter and set up fast. X part two. I’m

Laci (01:00:28):

Sorry. I’m sorry. He’s calling it a Hobbes movie.

Matt (01:00:30):

He’s

Laci (01:00:30):

A Hobbes movie set up. Hobbes and Shaw.

Matt (01:00:32):

So he seems like he is announcing there will be a Hobbes solo movie that will come out. Never. That’s not, Nope.

Laci (01:00:40):

And this is after Hobbs and Shaw?

Matt (01:00:42):

Yes.

Laci (01:00:42):

Okay.

Matt (01:00:43):

This is two years ago. Okay.

Laci (01:00:45):

Oh, okay.

Matt (01:00:46):

And Fast 11 was supposed to have come out this year. It isn’t even shooting last summer at Vin Diesel. And I put all the past behind us. We’ll lead with brotherhood and resolve and always take care of the franchise characters advance that we love. I’ve built my career on an audience first mentality, and that will always serve as my North star. Congratulations to my fast family and Universal Studios on the global success of Fast X and as always, Hobbes. And at Seven Bucks Productions are motivated to help take the fast franchise to new and exciting places for fans worldwide.

Laci (01:01:18):

Don’t read it. Don’t read it. Earl Puke.

Matt (01:01:20):

You read it.

Laci (01:01:21):

Daddy’s got to go back to work.

Matt (01:01:24):

Hobbs hashtag Hobbs is back. Hashtag Fast and Furious. Hashtag put your FundWare on. Don’t

Speaker 3 (01:01:28):

Call Yourself Daddy.

Matt (01:01:31):

And the most recent development, which had people everywhere in the universe buzzing. What does it mean? Well, this Vin Diesel went on stage at the Golden Globes as a presenter, looked over the crowd,

Laci (01:01:42):

Showed his penis, his little Hobbs penis.

Speaker 8 (01:01:45):

Hey Dwayne,

Laci (01:01:47):

That’s the fuck. Why does Dwayne look like my son?

Speaker 8 (01:01:53):

I had the great privilege of working with critically acclaimed

Matt (01:01:57):

Directors. That’s it. He said, Hey, Dwayne. And Dwayne smiled and looked annoyed at him.

Laci (01:02:03):

I don’t know, he just kind of smiled.

Speaker 8 (01:02:06):

Let’s

Matt (01:02:06):

Look

Speaker 8 (01:02:06):

Again. Hey, Dwayne.

Laci (01:02:11):

Yeah. Just looks like Rick, like my stepdad Rick.

Speaker 8 (01:02:14):

Okay. I’ve had the great privilege.

Laci (01:02:17):

So weird. That’s it.

Speaker 8 (01:02:19):

Yeah. Everybody was like, what?

Laci (01:02:21):

I think he should say an hi to his friend. I think he’s a toddler.

Matt (01:02:25):

I think he’s wants to play the public, wants to work, wants to work. The crowd

Laci (01:02:31):

Wants to. He wishes he had been a wrestler.

Matt (01:02:33):

He

Laci (01:02:33):

Loves the drama of it.

Matt (01:02:35):

That’s the history of Hobbes and Shaw.

Laci (01:02:37):

Are you trying to put me to sleep with whatever the fuck you’re showing me right now? Don’t show me a chart.

Matt (01:02:41):

So let’s go over some charts we got.

Laci (01:02:43):

No, God, I only have,

Matt (01:03:20):

So we got some people in a helicopter, some special forces, and they’re like, oh, we’re going in with only electric rounds because MI six is looking for these terrorist winers in it. Right? Okay. And Vanessa Kirby is in there too. She’s an operator. And we were cutting between them and this mysterious motorcyclist and he has some sort of Robocop scanner initiating scan. So right away, I’m sorry, what kind of,

Laci (01:03:51):

What universe is this? Right? This is Uhuh.

Matt (01:03:55):

Calculating.

Laci (01:03:57):

Calculating.

Matt (01:04:00):

So the fucking Special Forces guys go down into this place where the terrorist blokes are assembling, and Vanessa Kirby throws a grenade at them. They attack, they get one up on the terrorist all looks like it’s going well for the good guys.

Laci (01:04:15):

I’m so confused because already Vanessa Kirby’s squad is infiltrating something and then that gets infiltrated by black Superman and I’m, who’s good? Who’s bad? What’s going on? Whose stuff is this?

Matt (01:04:30):

Yeah, so it’s like, oh God, I thought they were infiltrating the Idris Elba group and then Idris Elba showed up to stop them.

Speaker 7 (01:04:42):

But

Matt (01:04:42):

No, I think you’re right. I think this is a third organization where the poison virus starts from This plot is stupid. It sucks. It’s confusing. It’s bullshit.

Laci (01:04:53):

Fucking come man. And what year was this?

Matt (01:04:55):

2019.

Laci (01:04:56):

So they predicted Coronavirus.

Matt (01:04:58):

They sure did. Laci

Laci (01:04:59):

God damnit.

Matt (01:05:01):

And they predicted the anti-vax movement because there’s this whole thing with the scientist is like, I was going to use the virus for good using vaccines and stuff, but they turned it against me. Fucking

Laci (01:05:12):

Fauci pilled. Oh, just like a scientist. Elitist East Coast.

Matt (01:05:17):

Fucking it is East coast bubble

Laci (01:05:19):

Blue hair,

Matt (01:05:19):

East coast

Laci (01:05:20):

Bubble blue was blue tie and his blue glasses.

Matt (01:05:23):

So yeah. So Vanessa Kirby and her friends, her MI six Special Forces friends get one over. But then she starts hacking and she’s like a super hacker. She types really fast. That’s how you can tell she’s a super hacker.

Laci (01:05:36):

Actually, you know what? I’ve seen a lot of hacking lately because we’ve been watching Fast Furious movies and she’s got good flow.

Matt (01:05:44):

Yeah, she’s a good

Laci (01:05:45):

Unbelieving. Her typing.

Matt (01:05:46):

I agree. Good convincing typist.

Laci (01:05:48):

Yes, she’s going to the right places where the letters and the numbers are. We’ve

Matt (01:05:51):

Been seeing a lot of hacking in movies, watching a lot of fast and furious movies. You know that series about car races stealing VCRs?

Laci (01:06:00):

You know how hard it is to get into these races if you don’t fuck with their computer system and make it look like you had already registered to be in that street race months ago, they’re not going to let you in. Matt. You got to learn how to hack Google charts, Excel sheets.

Matt (01:06:16):

That’s the name of the game.

Laci (01:06:17):

Fucking IL dammit.

Matt (01:06:21):

Because Ludicrous starts in these movies as a great gearhead, but then they find out he’s also the world’s greatest hacker. So then in Hobbes and Shaw, when they’re like, where are we going to find a great mechanic? It’s like, I’m sure one of those guys you already know. Also, I had a life before you.

Laci (01:06:36):

No, no. Vin Diesel’s got dibs on all those guys.

Matt (01:06:39):

You’re

Laci (01:06:39):

In your own fucking thing now. Find your own crew. I’m not upset. You’re upset.

Matt (01:06:44):

Yeah. How do he react if you found out Roman was going to do a freelance mission with somebody else?

Laci (01:06:50):

Do you mean Vin Diesel or do you mean Dom?

Matt (01:06:51):

Both.

Laci (01:06:53):

I think Dom would be okay, you just got to get it cleared with the Don, who is also named Dom. That’s confusing

Matt (01:06:59):

And you need to give him a taste.

Laci (01:07:00):

But Vin, I think you got to call him Uncle Vin, and you got to refer to yourself as Uncle Ludicrous. And then maybe he’ll let you go into this movie.

Matt (01:07:10):

It’s actually pretty easy to work Vin Diesel. Just have a kid name the kid after him. Let him be the godfather. And that’s it. You’re good forever.

Laci (01:07:20):

But it’s some kind of secret name. So it’s like, it’s like Eleanor il later and you just call her Eleanor and then one day you surprise him and it’s like her name’s Eleanor Ventilator named her after you Vin

Matt (01:07:37):

The perfect Crime.

Laci (01:07:38):

No, it’s not a crime, it’s just how you fold it in case you ever need that vin favor. But you don’t have to go around calling your daughter Vin. You see what I’m saying?

Matt (01:07:46):

So Vanessa Kirby starts cyber hacking real fast and she gets the ass at, which is just some poison vile or something. And then the motorcycle guy arrives, he’s Edris Elba, and he’s like, MI six, I’m a fan. And they’re like, who the hell are you? And he says, bad guy. And then able to single handedly take all of them out with his punches.

Laci (01:08:07):

He’s denting iron. He does the thing where I get when there’s a bad guy that’s too badass that seems impossible to defeat, I start to get nervous that they’re not going to be able to defeat him. And then they do. And then I’m aggravated because I’m like, wait, wait, is it hard or isn’t it hard? I don’t understand. He can anticipate your movements, but he can’t tell that Vanessa Kirby’s going to do a spinny thing around his neck with her thighs and then run into a car. I don’t understand.

Matt (01:08:36):

And it can anticipate so much and do so many equations. But what it didn’t account for is what if two people fight me at once? If there’s two

Laci (01:08:42):

People? Why? Because it is a gentleman’s agreement that if I’m going to fight all you guys in this room, one at a time, one

Matt (01:08:47):

At a time, please,

Laci (01:08:48):

Yes, take a number in a naked gun.

Matt (01:08:51):

He can stop bullets with his hand and he corners Vanessa Kirby in the truck, but then she decides to inject herself with the asset. The only way she’ll be able to get it out of there. And then she runs away.

Laci (01:09:04):

Right? Because running was always an option with the world’s fastest man.

Matt (01:09:09):

Yeah, I guess why is she able to get away?

Laci (01:09:12):

She’s on another street and down a bridge when we see her next and it’s just moments later and he’s like, I guess she run away. I expected her in the Digi do and now she ain’t there. No. Okay, wrong. Orient me.

Matt (01:09:25):

Well, wrong Commonwealth.

Laci (01:09:27):

This

Matt (01:09:27):

Is the mother country.

Laci (01:09:29):

I expected her the Barbie in the Lorry, which is a truck.

Matt (01:09:32):

Yeah, there you go.

Laci (01:09:34):

I expected the shoot. The madam

Matt (01:09:37):

The bird. The bird in the lorry. The bird

Laci (01:09:39):

In the lorry, right with the,

Matt (01:09:42):

There you go,

Laci (01:09:43):

With the viral. We

Matt (01:09:44):

Have listeners in the uk. You’re finally understanding us. There

Laci (01:09:47):

You go.

Matt (01:09:47):

So there’s some virus bullshit. And Idris Elba calls his boss. The team is down. We’ve been betrayed. She took the virus.

Laci (01:09:54):

Wait, but then how is she being betrayed? Because he’s not MI six, I don’t know. Oh wait, no, no, no, no. He’s pretending to be MI six and saying that. Oh,

Matt (01:10:02):

You’re right.

Laci (01:10:02):

Yes. Oh,

Matt (01:10:03):

I assumed he was talking to Ryan Reynolds, the disciple or whatever his

Laci (01:10:06):

Name is. I don’t think you can betray these guys. They seem kind of above that. So no, he’s just like, I’ll talk in my six. I will. And then he gets on and he is like, she’s bad. She’s a woman, you bloke. She should have known.

Matt (01:10:19):

So his minions are like, what happened? He’s like, I’m going to get the bars back. Who’s going to stop me?

Speaker 6 (01:10:28):

These

Laci (01:10:28):

Guys wake up and they live different lives, but they’re Samuel. They’re Samuel, okay. But they constantly show the rock working out, which I think is in his writer, like must show me, do workout routine five to seven times per movie. And Jason Statham is jacked as shit and just as capable in a fight, if not more kind of creative, scrappy at his five foot 10 stature. But his whole montage, he’s just some guy

Matt (01:10:56):

He makes, he punches the clock. So the concede here is there in a perfect split screen, living the parallel lives as Laci says. But yeah, Hobbes is all about doing pushups immediately out of bed. Whereas Shaw in bed with a sexy lady gets out, they both go make breakfast. But Shaw makes a very sort of beautiful omelet. And Hobbes is just like, I’m just dumping the eggs in my trash mouth

Laci (01:11:21):

Completely. Rocky Pill doesn’t realize it was to show that you’re saving time, not because it’s healthy to drink raw eggs. Rocky lived in poverty, you have money, you fucking idiot makes the eggs.

Matt (01:11:34):

He also give time and money. The most disturbing thing is he just takes a spoonful of coffee grinds and spoons them into his mouth. It’s

Laci (01:11:42):

Disgusting. You also have a daughter. Alright, so

Matt (01:11:44):

Where’s she?

Laci (01:11:45):

Right? So this is one of your days off. Clearly you don’t know you’re about to be pulled back into the game. Where’s her stack of fucking eggs and grinds? And this is the same day you’re going to go take her to breakfast. What’s the timeline here

Matt (01:11:59):

Also? What’s on his No, that’s later. That’s later. What’s on his nightstand, the portable? He’s a smart guy. He reads philosophy

Laci (01:12:09):

Totally. You quoted one thing. It’s probably the one that’s on the back of the book. The book. You flip over every time you take a shit and you read the fucking, give me a quote, give me a quote.

Matt (01:12:19):

It also follows him around the house. It’s in his bathroom when he’s brushing his teeth. And there’s also a flower inside of it as a bookmark. So this guy’s a little bit quirky. He puts a flower as a bookmark. That’s how you can tell they leave the residences in vehicles. Shaw’s in a beautiful, immaculate British sports car. Which one? Hobbes in a big old pickup truck. And

Laci (01:12:44):

If he could drive a trash compactor, he would,

Matt (01:12:47):

Oh my God, why

Laci (01:12:48):

Doesn’t he? Right? Just go ahead.

Matt (01:12:51):

And so Hobbes is working out while Shaw just goes to a pub, but they get a call at the same time and they just go, where? Where’s me? Assignment?

Laci (01:12:59):

Okay, but the reason why you do a split screen is usually to show how similar to people are or how different, what did they achieve here? They just showed two regular mornings. For guys who haven’t finished their day, we don’t know that the rock isn’t going to end his day at the pub and with full pajamas. And we don’t know that Shaw’s not going to then do his workout or what have we shown each other?

Matt (01:13:21):

And it’s not like,

Laci (01:13:24):

You know what this smells of the whiff is two people with equally good agents who are like, I’m not going to be on the screen after him. Well, I’m not going to be on the screen after him. I have an idea. Show you at the same time, split Green.

Matt (01:13:36):

That is the entire movie.

Laci (01:13:37):

Yes, that is exactly. They’re getting equal treatment to the point where it is

Matt (01:13:42):

So distracting. It happens in individual scenes and there’s even a thing. And in wrestling it feels like wrestling because in wrestling there’s the concept of I got to get my win back. If I laid Atlanta, put my shoulders on the mat for you in the future, you owe me one.

Laci (01:13:56):

And

Matt (01:13:56):

So when Statham gets one up on the rock early in the movie by pushing him down the side of the building and then says,

Speaker 6 (01:14:04):

No one tells me what to do

Matt (01:14:07):

Two and a half hours later because this movie’s so fucking Long Rock. Then sends him up in his parachute and then he goes, no one tells me what to do. Some bitch.

Laci (01:14:15):

Oh, that was an answer back. I’m like, why do they both say this to each other all the time? It was a callback, just a shitty one because it’s something a child would say, because you guys are acting like children and acting saving the world is like of the utmost importance. Saving your sister is the only thing you care about. But you’re doing this too. It doesn’t add up. Is it serious or isn’t it? I mean, I know we can have levity when things are serious, but this is like

Matt (01:14:40):

You want it to come from an honest place to who these characters are. And

Laci (01:14:43):

You

Matt (01:14:43):

Would think what this is setting up to me seems like Hobbes takes his, my body is a temple. Every ounce of energy I devote to perfecting the sculpture that is my body Shaw’s. Like I wake up and I go to the pub. I don’t want to give a shit. And yet I’m still, I’m an old school brawler.

Speaker 7 (01:15:02):

I

Matt (01:15:02):

Don’t have to use my fist. I’ll beat people with a champagne bottle. I’ll fight dirty if I have to. But nothing in the movie actually follows from there.

Laci (01:15:09):

Yes, no. And

Matt (01:15:10):

A couple of times they will be like, you know what your problem is Hobbs. Your sparring is all about finesse. You’re not subtle at all. You’re a blunt object. You would think it’d be like, well

Laci (01:15:21):

Now show me your finesse.

Matt (01:15:22):

Or we learn there’s room for both.

Laci (01:15:24):

Oh, you

Matt (01:15:25):

Know what? This is a situation that calls for Vanessa. This is a situation that calls for being a blunt instrument. Nothing like that ever

Laci (01:15:30):

Happens. No. Every time they decide to do something together, it’s rare and it’s just they’re going to fuck shit up. We never get to see Jason Statham stealthy ness. We don’t know that. That’s his thing. The

Matt (01:15:40):

No difference between these two, which is so weird.

Laci (01:15:42):

Absolutely no fucking difference except for a foot of skin

Matt (01:15:46):

And you need to use that. Yes.

Laci (01:15:49):

Right. Scrappy makes sense with short.

Matt (01:15:52):

So they both confront their bad guys. They confidently stride through a club. The rock grabs two shots of tequila and downs them instantly chases his target into a tattoo parlor, and then he threatens the guy with the tattoos. I’m the hangman. Okay, I’m going to get information from you or else I’m going to write words on you. And he ends up tattooing. I love Cops on his

Laci (01:16:13):

Right, which isn’t hangman the rock. I was expecting you to at least write a, that would be funny. L Yeah. Draw this head. And then the arms.

Matt (01:16:24):

So this guy, and then Statham is doing that to his guy who he’s holding out of a window or he is going to drop him. We find out there’s a super virus that’s up for auction on the deep web and there’s this terror group called ET N. And so they both leave their places having accomplished what they needed to do. And then the credits roll. And this was a two minute stretch where I was thinking maybe I was wrong about this movie. This is stylish, it’s confident.

Laci (01:16:50):

You’re showing how Jason Sathan uses his body’s leverage and inland contraptions and things to too counterbalanced the fact that he’s a little bit smaller where the rock uses his bigness to just smash skulls and overpower people and pick up the ladies while they’re torturing your boyfriend, ladies. It’s like these are distinctly different ways of handling this or distinct enough and then that just goes on.

Matt (01:17:17):

Yeah, it’s not in the rest of the movie, but the title comes on screen. You’re thinking like, okay, yeah, we might have a movie here folks. Okay, I’m liking this, but no, that’s it. Then the movie comes to a screeching halt so that the Rock can have breakfast at Jenny’s Diner with his nine-year-old daughter who’s writing a report about Ernest Hemingway’s the old man in the Sea. Like what? And she’s like, and then dad, my social studies teacher wants me to make a family tree, but I don’t know anything about my family. And he’s just like,

Laci (01:17:48):

Oh yeah, you just, I’m your people. It’s like, I know dad. Every time I bring up a family, I’m your people. Alright dad, just like, I have a boyfriend. I’m your people.

Matt (01:17:57):

I know. He’s like,

Laci (01:17:58):

Like, okay.

Matt (01:18:00):

It’s like the way he delivers it is like he’s sang a really heartwarming thing and the music is swelling. And what he’s like is like, look, things happen in life. Fucking I’m your people. I’m your family. I’m good enough. That’s all you need. And she’s like, daddy,

Laci (01:18:13):

The only person selling that this is moving is her. She’s at least a good enough actor to be like, okay, I know this is satisfying. I’m just tv. I’m TV teenager. I don’t actually act like a teenager. I’m just a plot. I’m your cat. I’m here to make you look like you have a soft side and something to fight for. Because God forbid you have a wife.

Matt (01:18:32):

No, never mentioned never.

Laci (01:18:35):

He never has an animal either. You notice that he’s an animal person,

Matt (01:18:37):

Has an animal. He

Laci (01:18:38):

Never, if it’s a pet, there’s a million times he’s He’s a single guy. He seems like you would want a pet.

Matt (01:18:45):

Yeah. I mean it’s John Wick’s dog. That’s the most humanizing thing you can do. But he has a pet.

Laci (01:18:51):

Give him a daughter.

Matt (01:18:52):

It’s his daughter.

Laci (01:18:52):

Yeah, that’s what I’m saying.

Matt (01:18:53):

That’s the pet,

Laci (01:18:53):

Right?

Matt (01:18:55):

But

Laci (01:18:55):

He loves this daddy thing and I think it’s like, well, my kids at home don’t get to see me be a daddy, so I need to be a daddy in every single thing that I do. Please work that in somehow it doesn’t need to be here.

Matt (01:19:05):

And it will incept into their brains. I remember when our dad took us to Jenny’s Diner and did our homework. Love those

Laci (01:19:11):

Pancakes. Yeah.

Matt (01:19:12):

It’s like that was a movie you watched. It’s just another weird missed opportunity to actually dive into this thing of I left Samoa, I left my entire family behind. I haven’t talked to them in forever.

Laci (01:19:27):

The single most interesting thing that’s going to come up in this movie, and I don’t even realize you’re hinting at it here. I have no idea that this is coming.

Matt (01:19:35):

And if it’s something you’re actually going to dig into, make it be about something. When we met Hobbes, he was a super serious lawman going after the Totto crew. Make it so that my family were into criminal stuff back on Samoa.

Laci (01:19:47):

Yes. Because that is what it is. That is what it is. You just have no way that you’re not setting that table up at the entire time. In fact, he flips so quickly from the Fast and Furious movie he’s in and just becomes part of the Toto family that I kind of forgot he was a law man.

(01:20:04):

I was like, is he military? I know he’s coming in from a different country to extricate the totos. So what is that brand? There’s all too many alphabet soup to begin with all these in my six and CIA and FBI and all this shit that this movie needs to do some table setting to remind me what makes him tick. Why did he get into this? And if you’re going to go back to your family and that’s going to be like the big cool fucking final place we’re going to do stuff. This is a great chance for you to explain to me why you’re like this. Why are you so tough? Why are you so mean to people? Why do you give everyone a hard time? Oh, you had seven brothers who all give you a hard time. Oh, because you’re not the oldest brother. So all this makes sense to your character, but you’re not telling us about it.

Matt (01:20:56):

Do you feel like guilt about the fact that you left Samoa? Now I’m totally assimilated into America and yet I have these giant Samoan tattoos, giant tattoos right now. That’s the rock’s real body. And he doesn’t want to hide that. But

Laci (01:21:08):

What maybe

Matt (01:21:09):

There’s, but that’s part of the, I mean that should be part of the characters. I need to learn to embrace who I really am, which is Samoan. And

Laci (01:21:16):

It’s such a part of the Hobbes character specifically that it’s a joke when Ryan Reynolds reveals he has the same tattoo because they’re so close.

Matt (01:21:24):

Yes. So they’re using a country and a culture just as a prop when it’s useful and then discarding it when it’s not. So Ryan Reynolds then arrives for some fucking reason

Laci (01:21:36):

For some fucking, and I am different from Matt, Ronald Reynolds works for me even though he is just got one speed. It’s a Jason Statham thing for me. I like his humor. But here, what are you doing? Why are you here? Are you some kind of just wait? Every fucking person they introduce is an expert. That’s all that exists in this world and it is boring. So here’s another guy who’s not susceptible to the rock’s Big presence. That’s the thing. The rocks should be able to shut people down. That’s the point of you looking imposing like that. But there’s no one in this movie where that works.

Matt (01:22:16):

Yeah. Ryan Reynolds is just like the rock yells at me’s. Like I definitely, you shit my pants. Oh, there’s a lot of shit in my pants right now because this is a cameo. And that’s weird because the Fast and Furious movies haven’t had cameos yet,

Laci (01:22:31):

But

Matt (01:22:32):

Then it grows a little bigger than a cameo, but still is ultimately a cameo. But then there’s the weird thing where Ryan Reynolds is also voicing the ultimate bad guy with the computer distorted voice.

Laci (01:22:42):

Well, you don’t think that they planned on the second one being him bad guy.

Matt (01:22:46):

It’s like obviously that’s what they are setting up. But that just never came into fruition because

Laci (01:22:51):

Why else have him?

Matt (01:22:52):

It’s just because he was in Deadpool two, which David Leach directed and then he’ll go on to collaborate with the Rock a bunch. But he shows up and he’s like, Luke, it’s Rebecca Hobbs. I haven’t seen you in forever. How long’s it been? Six months. Time flies. What is your skincare regimen? You look like a young Shirley Temple just doing the Mad Libs bullshit. That drives me insane. This is luck. He works for the Ccia A and here’s what’s funny guys. He thinks they’re best friends. He got an identical tribal tattoo and the rock’s like we’re not friends. I miss our playful banter. But then starts telling him about the super scary virus that’s going to end the world. But you can’t take it seriously. Ryan Reynolds is delivering it. Delivering

Speaker 7 (01:23:35):

It. Right.

Matt (01:23:36):

And also like did you watch Game of Thrones? What’s it fucked up that John Snow had sex with his wife or his aunt? What’s up with that? Oh my God. He hands him a file folder with a picture of Vanessa Kirby and the daughter’s like she’s pretty and the rock’s like baby girl, that’s a lady who’s like a bad person or whatever. And Brian Reynolds, I’m sick you. I’m DSS. Remember Diplomatic security Service and you’re a CIA don’t work for you. And he’s like, not anymore. We bought you. We own you now bitch. So you got to go to London. So he’s got to go to London where he’ll have to work with an operative there.

Laci (01:24:14):

I wonder who could be, you’re going to London Town.

Matt (01:24:18):

So back in London, Jason Statham as Deckard Shaw visits his mother, Helen Miran who’s in prison. She could easily escape this prison, but she doesn’t want to just yet. And she dumps exposition on him about his sister. And what does she say about the sister?

Laci (01:24:38):

It’s your sister. She looks up to you. You need to fix this. Whatever it is, you need to fix it because by this time the brother’s dead, right? I don’t know.

Matt (01:24:47):

I don’t know. I don’t know either.

Laci (01:24:49):

I thought they were all in the same scene together at once

Matt (01:24:51):

Time. He was in the last movie.

Laci (01:24:52):

So to me,

Matt (01:24:53):

Owen Shaw played by Luke Evans.

Laci (01:24:55):

God, they really would’ve helped us out if they would’ve made the Rock’s character’s name a little bit more Samoan and Jason Stat’s character’s name a little bit more limey because Hobbes and Shaw are so interchangeable in my head. And then you throw in lock, give me some sort of longer name to go with the, I just keep wanting to call each of them this and I’m dyslexic so that, anyway, I hear you almost doing it. A couple may long

Matt (01:25:22):

Bottom.

Laci (01:25:23):

That’d be better if that’d be

Matt (01:25:25):

Something

Laci (01:25:25):

Tongue.

Matt (01:25:26):

But his brother is Owen Shaw, who is the villain from the Six Fast in Furious movie.

Speaker 7 (01:25:31):

He is

Matt (01:25:31):

Not killed then or is he? I don’t fucking remember. I just watched it a few weeks ago. But he does come back in Fate of the Furious. They team up and get Dom Touro’s baby off of the plane in the eighth movie. But in this movie, they’re acting like he’s dead.

Laci (01:25:47):

Maybe that’s why the mom’s in jail. Maybe she killed him.

Matt (01:25:49):

She killed him. Okay. The domestic dispute.

Laci (01:25:51):

That’s why she won’t get out because she’s like, no, I deserve it a little bit longer. Love.

Matt (01:25:55):

And she says the thing, she’s like, I really hope one day I’ll come out to visit you and you’ll be here with your sister. And you were like, boy, I wonder if that’s how the movie’s going to end.

Laci (01:26:06):

But you think it’s going to be like this touching ending. But no, the rock cannot have that. It’s a split. It’s like an afterthought ending. Like no, no. Statham does not get the touching ending. I do look, see my family. I brought my daughter. Even that’s equal. Everything’s equal. It’s

Matt (01:26:23):

So boring. Yeah. I mean I think it actually, it did stupidly work on me when the daughter hugs the grandmother.

Laci (01:26:30):

That did too. Yes. But pick a meaning. I don’t know. I don’t know why you both have to be working on your family shit right now.

Matt (01:26:37):

Why is that? See, because they have so much in common. Yeah, it’s annoying. It’s annoying. I think it is charming that these three, they can all easily break out of prison. That’s fun.

Laci (01:26:48):

I like that. I’ll watch a whole movie about whatever it is that family was up to when they were younger or that’s the interesting family to me.

Matt (01:26:56):

Don’t you remember all your little crimes you had with Y,

Laci (01:26:59):

The little nicknames.

Matt (01:27:00):

And we get to see the Keith Moon because it involved a lot of permanent ear damage and explosions. We see in a flashback two kids who are very close in age. Jason Sathan is 20 years older than Vanessa Kirby. But in the flashback, I’m 11, year nine, Helen Marion, take her. Oscar away knows you did not win for the Queen because you were in this movie. Sorry. God. So on his way out of the prison,

Laci (01:27:22):

Maybe it’s a real prison, Matt, maybe she had to can’t get out of this movie.

Matt (01:27:27):

So they had to write it around her. Around her in

Laci (01:27:29):

Custody. No, no. I’m saying that they own her for whatever reason, know what she did. But that’s why she’s in this movie. Not because she’s a bad actress, but because she owes something to the studio.

Matt (01:27:37):

Gotcha.

Laci (01:27:38):

Yeah.

Matt (01:27:39):

So he’s going out of prison and he runs into Rob Delaney who plays a CIA guy, thus begins a runner in the movie. That’s always hilarious. But he’s like, I know you, your CIA. He’s like, whoa, how did you know ICIA? Because

Laci (01:27:52):

They say that and this it banana in your pocket,

Matt (01:27:54):

Your shirt and your fucking shoes and the way you are an asshole. And he’s like, whoa, whoa. I thought I was more incognito, but turns out I’m not. And he’s like, I do like this line.

Laci (01:28:04):

I like that actor. But go ahead.

Matt (01:28:05):

No, I like Rob Delaney too. But he also was in Deadpool too, and that’s why he and Ryan Reynolds have to talk to each other. What do baseball in the CIA have in common? Two things I don’t give a tossup about.

Laci (01:28:19):

Right? But it’s already underplayed by the guy answering a perfectly good reason with the, he’s like two things you want to hit with a bat. Tick tanks. I don’t give a toss about. It’s like, okay, well both jokes suck. Both punch lines suck.

Matt (01:28:31):

I think it’s funny to say like, Hey, you know what? I don’t give a fuck about the CIA man.

Laci (01:28:35):

Yeah, that’s fine, but toss. I don’t like that.

Matt (01:28:38):

He’s like, well, what about this? And shows him a picture of Vanessa Kirby. If you bring her in, we’ll give her immunity because right now she’s a wanted criminal. And then Ryan Reynolds and Rob de talk to each other on the phone. I think my guy’s not going to like your guy. Jesus

Laci (01:28:50):

Christ. I thought they know everything. I thought they were so in tune with what their guys are up to. They don’t know. They know each other that they were in prison together. The fuck are you talking about?

Matt (01:28:59):

And in the last movie seemed like they were getting along at the end

Laci (01:29:02):

They were fine. They were.

Matt (01:29:06):

So finally, Hobbes and Shaw meet up in London and they both go, no fucking way. A PG 13. Fuck.

Laci (01:29:14):

I don’t understand how they’re always the same height. It doesn’t make sense

Matt (01:29:17):

Because you got to, that’s part of the thing.

Laci (01:29:20):

Well then that shows me that further evidence, Statham has got a great agent

Matt (01:29:27):

And thus begins the bantering. Statham is like these lines are immaculate. Mr. Shiho, he only knows how to smash. And Mr. Arson here only knows how to blow things up.

Laci (01:29:40):

One of those things is funny. The other one is not the She-Hulk one works

Matt (01:29:44):

Okay, but they’re just lots of Wait what? That’s just so many reaction shots and eye rolls and

Laci (01:29:50):

Well, right. And he’s known for blowing things up. I didn’t know that. Why? Well, he does bigger jobs than you, I guess. What are you talking about? Yeah. I didn’t think he was known for blowing things up. He beats people up with champagne bottles and stuff. Also, Dom’s always looking for guys. Maybe he’s an arson guy. Why now? Is it a bad thing? You need a guy.

Matt (01:30:11):

I guess he does blow. He blew up on,

Laci (01:30:13):

He’s just smart. He knows how to do contraptions and he has that equipment.

Matt (01:30:18):

You don’t know this Laci in the Han dies and it turns out that it’s Jason Statham who kills him. And so fans were very upset that then he gets to just join the Toto family. They’re like, but you killed our friend. So then they had to direct con it. And Han’s actually alive and in the last Fast and Furious movie, they had Han meet up with Jason Statham to basically tell everybody it’s okay. I forgive him for killing me.

Laci (01:30:46):

Paul Walker, I

Matt (01:30:48):

Heard being dead. I liked it. I give my permission for my likeness and perpetuity to you. Comcast, Inc.

Laci (01:30:54):

I’m not doing what I love.

Matt (01:30:56):

These guys are not going to work together. No way. Decker Shaw leaves and Hobbes is like, great, CIA guys, use your camera, do hickeys to find me the lady. And they do. And he goes and finds her.

Laci (01:31:07):

These guys really rely on the do hickey. They have an eye of God. They have the eye of the devil, they have the eye of the tiger. They have all of it. They’re just like, someone do the hard stuff. Okay, now I’ll go in and smash it.

Matt (01:31:19):

They’re all doing that. And the rock just walks by. He’s like, now inverted. Okay, now,

Laci (01:31:23):

Now flip it, now give it sex it down,

Matt (01:31:25):

Enhance,

Laci (01:31:27):

Reverse,

Matt (01:31:27):

Enhance.

Laci (01:31:28):

Now go back seven years.

Matt (01:31:30):

Chacha real smooth. So Shaw goes to his sister’s apartment while she, Hattie is Vanessa. Kirby’s character gets intercepted by Hobbes and he’s like, A lot of nasty people are looking for you. She says, are you nasty? I might could be, but I prefer not to be if I’m being honest.

Laci (01:31:50):

Don’t ask me about my bedroom activities.

Matt (01:31:53):

He says his line from the rundown, which you pointed out. He’s like, we could do this the easy way or the hard way.

Laci (01:31:57):

And

Matt (01:31:58):

Then they start fighting. She uses her helmet as a weapon. Meanwhile,

Laci (01:32:01):

I like that she puts it on to brace for a hit.

Matt (01:32:03):

Yeah. Yeah. I mean the

Laci (01:32:05):

Fight is good. I mean, this is what the director’s good at or these parts.

Matt (01:32:10):

There’s

Laci (01:32:10):

Just a lot of it.

Matt (01:32:10):

Don’t think, I think the actors are good and they move really well. I think it’s cut to shit.

Laci (01:32:15):

I mean, there fight sequences that are good. I like the way she fights. And all three of these guys are convincing at being what they’re being shown to be. Yeah,

Matt (01:32:26):

They are. I think stylistically is what It doesn’t work. And it’s always cut with comedy, so nothing feels like it has any impact. But they fight and we’re cutting back and forth. Shaw at the apartment getting attacked by some guys, but he fights them off. We check in with Idriss Elba who’s going to his headquarters, ETN, and then Iris Elvas character’s name is Brixton. He goes to get some tech upgrades.

Laci (01:32:54):

I just don’t understand. What is this bad guy? Their goal is to replace the human race with only really, really powerful humans. Well then that just will then give you a new underclass of the least of those powerful, powerful humans. It’s a stupid goal. What would it do?

Matt (01:33:14):

It’s not a great plan. One would assume that’s what they’re saying their goal is. But actually the elite in this organization get the upgrades. Everyone else gets to be our servants get to be the

Laci (01:33:25):

So you’re just doing the thing again. Yeah,

Matt (01:33:27):

We’re

Laci (01:33:27):

Doing humans again. Sure.

Matt (01:33:30):

Yeah.

Laci (01:33:31):

We just want to be able to fight back a little harder. It makes it more fun.

Matt (01:33:35):

Would you ever get an implant? Laci? Would you want upgrades? Oh, you got

Laci (01:33:40):

’em. I got two right here.

Matt (01:33:41):

No, but like a cyber upgrade.

Laci (01:33:44):

I mean, tell me what it would do, Matt. I

Matt (01:33:46):

Don’t know.

Laci (01:33:48):

Fix my erectile just function then. Yes. I mean, in my eye, whenever we watch Black Mirror, I’m always thinking, when do we get one of those? I want an eye thing. So yeah, I mean it’s all about the way it’s presented and when it comes in, if they’re going to show a man screaming on a fucking doctor’s table while they install a metal spine, I don’t know that I want that. But if it’s Steve Jobs showing me the latest eye thing,

Matt (01:34:14):

I want that the Rashida Jones Black Mirror episode where she gets that brain implant that then requires a subscription. And if you don’t pay the right amount, you’ll do live ad reads. That’s, I think that’s the most realistic prediction Black Mirror has ever

Speaker 7 (01:34:30):

Made,

Matt (01:34:31):

Is they’re just going to have to make you pay subscriptions to live your life.

Laci (01:34:34):

Well, and the idea that you would catch someone at their most vulnerable grieving who they think they’ve lost their wife and you give them the, but you could come back if you want this. Yeah. The targeting of the way they target people.

Matt (01:34:51):

Ryan Reynolds’ voice explains, we’re going to create the perfect man and he’s just giving him information he presumably already has. You’re working for me to create the perfect man

Laci (01:35:00):

Just on a loop. It’s like a Disney ride. Let me sit down. Let me tell you the thing.

Matt (01:35:03):

You are attention players back at the CIA black site. Hobbes is interrogating. Hattie

Laci (01:35:11):

Is he?

Matt (01:35:12):

He’s like, listen, have you ever heard of just joking? The tango? The tango?

Laci (01:35:16):

No.

Matt (01:35:17):

Yes.

Laci (01:35:17):

Is that Samoan?

Matt (01:35:19):

It requires two to tango.

Laci (01:35:21):

Oh, thank you. No, I think I’d heard that. Is that

Matt (01:35:25):

Why should I talk to you? You’re not CIA. How can you tell where should I start? So we have another in this runner of here’s how you can Z my God. And then she says, espionage is about blending in and being subtle. You could never be subtle. And then he is like, you know what though? I think you’re a good person because we fought and the best way to tell something about somebody is to fight them. And you weren’t fighting to try to kill me. You just wanted to escape,

Laci (01:35:48):

Smash, cut to her beating the shit out of a much smaller person where all she does is focus on the neck. Just a lot of choking and a lot of chairs to the neck and shit. That’s not fighting to kill.

Matt (01:36:00):

Yeah. He thinks she wasn’t fighting to kill him, but she just can’t kill him with her legs. His neck is two miles wide.

Laci (01:36:05):

Right? No. Normally this kills people. But thanks,

Matt (01:36:08):

Happy accident that you thought that

Laci (01:36:10):

She was clearly trying to get away though. I mean, that’s true.

Matt (01:36:14):

She’s like, you’re all brawn. You should try exercising your mind. And he says, there’s more wisdom in your body than in all of the philosophies. Who said that? Bruce Lee. No, that’s Nietzsche. And he points at his head because I’m exercising this and this, and then he flexes his bicep and he goes out to FaceTime with his daughter for one of eight FaceTime sequences with the daughter

Laci (01:36:37):

Is FaceTime sponsoring this

Matt (01:36:39):

While she beats up a ccia, a guy. She’s able to get out of her handcuffs and her daughter’s like, maybe she’s flirting with you daddy. And he’s like, no, we’re not flirting. He literally says, we have zero chemistry. Correct. And then they have the three minutes on the people’s eyebrow. You gave her the eyebrow. What’s the eyebrow? We’re 15 minutes of the movie. I’m so exhausted talking about this movie

Laci (01:37:03):

Because it’s the same thing over and over again. There’s nothing, there’s no new information except for information that’s unnecessary. We could stop now and people would understand the roof.

Matt (01:37:17):

So he goes back in because he’s like, God damnit, that woman fucking broke out of her handcuffs. So he starts fighting her and she jumps onto his shoulders. She’s trying to do the neck twist. And so basically her crotches is in his face. When Jason Staithe arrive.

Laci (01:37:29):

Wait, can smell great. You’ve been on the run. You’ve been overnight. Don’t tell me that. That thing is just perfect and should definitely be in his face right now. Maybe

Matt (01:37:37):

It’s the thing that finally activates him though.

Laci (01:37:39):

He does need some activation.

Matt (01:37:41):

Jason Statham walks in. He is like, Hey, get your fucking mouth out. My sister. He’s like, your sister, what? Now she’s hotter and then they’re all holding their guns at each other. Don’t anybody move. I’m getting the blood out of here. Oh, I am. And then fucking Edris Alba shows up and kidnaps her and runs on the side of the building and this stunt sequence. I’d say it’s a good idea, but it’s executed very poorly. It’s just a bunch of CGI garbage.

Laci (01:38:09):

Right? If this were Tom Cruise, this would be real.

Matt (01:38:13):

Or even if this were one of the regular Fast and Furious movies, it would probably be, it wouldn’t be this, but it would be something.

Laci (01:38:18):

That’s what we were saying. They need this to be so big that their stunts feel like they need to be extra big and you can’t actually pull those things off. They do spend money and time on some real things, and those are the best things in this movie, but because the scope is so big for fucking no reason, you could totally go back to your roots here. This could literally be a buddy cop movie that’s leading you back to home. That would be so much more interesting.

Speaker 7 (01:38:45):

Both

Laci (01:38:46):

Of your homes, if you want to be even, let’s go to London for that reason, not for fucking to pick up this asset and whatever. If you’re being led to use CGI over and over and over again, maybe your scope is a little bit dumb,

Matt (01:39:01):

Right? You said when I’m pointing out, look how obvious the green screen is when they’re standing in the bed of the truck fighting. And you said, but how could they do this without that? And we were talking and it’s like you need to come up with another idea.

Laci (01:39:16):

Exactly. Right.

Matt (01:39:16):

You have to do something else.

Laci (01:39:18):

Fast and Furious series are known for taking it up a notch and giving you at least two things you’ve never seen before with usually with vehicles. And they did that with the Caterpillar fucking philant. Yeah, they did that with the helicopter thing. We don’t need to keep going. You guys are very tough. I don’t know how many fighting sequences we need. Maybe if everybody’s skillset isn’t fighting, we could do something else racing. I feel like they do car stuff. I don’t know what else there is. God damnit. I think I’m just not that big of an action person. It can’t sustain me by its own just because it’s action.

Matt (01:39:57):

Yeah. I remember asking you, we had 30 minutes to kill or something, and I said, you want to just watch the building sequence from Mission Impossible four? And you were like, no, Ew. No,

Laci (01:40:07):

No, I don’t watch it for that. I watch it for the fucking stories. If anything, I tolerate that. That shit makes me nervous.

Matt (01:40:12):

That’s insane. That’s insane. It the best sequence ever. The best part is when he getting nervous

Laci (01:40:17):

When he flies in and he’s Okay.

Matt (01:40:19):

Yeah. That’s why it’s worth it.

Laci (01:40:22):

I’ll watch the fly in.

Matt (01:40:25):

Something occurred to me. You said, if this is all leading Hobbes back home, I know this is weird to say, but maybe another reason this can’t be an eighties action movie is if it were the eighties, the partner would be racist against Samoans

Laci (01:40:40):

Or something. Oh yeah, but that’s okay. It’s not the eighties. You can still take the formula.

Matt (01:40:46):

There needs to be some sort of friction because it needs to be like a triumph when Jason Statham also gets accepted by the family.

Laci (01:40:55):

So it could be, well, the opposite. So it could be that the Rock really wants to be with the sister for whatever reason. I don’t know how he knows her and the partner will not have it. No fucking way. You just don’t. You have no roots. You have no people. You’re just some single guy I’ve never even met in your family. Something like that. And then for some reason, he has to go back to Samoa and that’s where he realizes, oh my God, you come from a big loving family. Oh my God, you left them for good reasons. Oh my God. They’re better now. They’re not even criminals anymore. We cannot be a family. Yeah.

Matt (01:41:29):

You just made it instantly better,

Laci (01:41:31):

Instantly

Matt (01:41:32):

More understandable. There’s a fucking car Chase. They get Vanessa Garvey back.

Laci (01:41:36):

Okay. Okay, stop here. Every time they show this room, whatever the fuck this is, it’s supposed to be very cool. All I see is a bunch of men in a bathtub with their head sticking out. That’s the only thing that makes, I don’t understand what I’m looking at,

Matt (01:41:48):

But the headquarters of ET n presumably these are guys sitting behind computer terminals, but yeah, they’re floating heads in a vat

Laci (01:41:53):

And they’re all just watching CNN, Fox News and fucking C-Span all the time. Why?

Matt (01:41:58):

Because ETN controls the media. And he’s like, they do? Yeah. Iris Elba says this. He’s like,

Laci (01:42:04):

Oh,

Matt (01:42:05):

Get out to our media organizations, which we control by the way, and tell them hubs and Shaw the bad guys. And so we cut all around the world breaking news out of London. These two guys are bad blue costs. How Shaw

Laci (01:42:19):

Look how it’s pin on this. We need a red one, a blue one and a yellow one.

Matt (01:42:23):

Those

Laci (01:42:23):

Are the newses. Yellow, blue, and red. Look at the screens.

Matt (01:42:27):

Oh yeah, the graphics. All the news cut

Laci (01:42:29):

Is so bad, right? White guy, Asian guy. Dad, I’ll do it.

Matt (01:42:33):

Why are they showing German news in Piccadilly Circus? Anyway? What? Because on the right, they’re looking at the news screens in Piccadilly Circus was the Times Square of London. And they’re seeing like, oh no, we’re wanted criminals now. But anyway, Tilly

Laci (01:42:51):

Circus. Wow,

Matt (01:42:52):

What a name. Hobbes or Brixton is talking to his boss and he’s like, who are these guys? Hobbes, I have history with Hobbes. Hobbes and Shaw are formidable. How about you try to turn them and win them over to our side? It’s fucking Star Wars. Can they be turned?

Laci (01:43:08):

Well? Yeah. He’s got a voice changer and everything. And why else kind of distort the person’s voice and not show them. If the reveal is not that, oh, it’s someone you’ve already seen before and they’re acting like a good guy, but they’re bad guy.

Matt (01:43:23):

But if that were the plan,

Laci (01:43:25):

It’s the plan. Because Ryan Reynold’s character is a fucking sociopath in this. I know he is just doing regular Ryan Reynolds stuff, but he’s unhinged and he’s disheveled and shit. He’s living two lives.

Matt (01:43:37):

I guess he could plant manic. I was going to ask, how the hell does Ryan Reynolds play a big villain in a movie? He can’t. But if he’s so fucking manic that it’s scary. Maybe he could, I haven’t seen him acting 15 years.

Laci (01:43:51):

I’d say this is the least put together. I’ve ever seen him in a role except for best friends or something. When he used to do things that were outside of his box. But he’s like, weirdly, he’s got five hour, what the fuck? Shadow? Yes, he’s got a five o’clock shadow. His clothes are all weird. He seems sweaty. He seems overhyped. So yeah, they think they’re setting him up to be. This isn’t the Ryan Reynolds. We know

Matt (01:44:17):

Hobbs and Shaw have to find the scientists who made the virus and good news, they find him very, very easily.

Laci (01:44:23):

I just remembered another thing that bothered the fuck out of me. There’s like four different layers, not layers of cake, like someone’s fucking big cool place where they put all their big cool stuff. There are so many layer reveals in this movie. There’s the Samoan brother one. There’s the

Matt (01:44:46):

One in the Russian lady,

Laci (01:44:47):

The Russian one lady, and I think there’s another one.

Matt (01:44:49):

There’s the nuclear facility where they have their lab

Laci (01:44:52):

Sprawling and there’s vehicles, lots of them. Every one of them has got just tons of vehicles and rows and compartments. And it

Matt (01:44:58):

Is way

Laci (01:44:59):

Too

Matt (01:44:59):

Fucking much.

Laci (01:44:59):

And the weapon thing, the weapon reveal where they pull out the weapon wall, where the only time it’s funny is in Samoa when it’s antique weapons. That’s funny. If that’s going to be a callback, fine, but you don’t need to do it three times before that, dude, we’ve all seen John Wick. This isn’t interesting anymore. Think of something else.

Matt (01:45:22):

A layer has to,

Laci (01:45:24):

I like Shaw’s layer and I like all of them. I just don’t need four of them in one movie.

Matt (01:45:28):

It’s too many layers. One layer and too many.

Laci (01:45:29):

And you’re so lose rich. You’re so fucking rich. I don’t have a lot of sympathy here. You guys are rolling in dough. I know I’m not supposed to have sympathy. They’re just supposed to save the world. But I’m glad they have the funds for it because with all these different fucking people who are saying that they bought him, they own him, they want what? None of them are talking about their contracts and how much money they’re going to get all them to see be doing all of this work on faith. Who’s paying them?

Matt (01:45:52):

Oh yeah. How do they

Laci (01:45:54):

Even find you to give you your paycheck? They send it to your fucking layer. Shaw,

Matt (01:45:58):

The scientist is like, I can’t take the virus out of you. You got 42 hours before that thing bursts and it’s going to infect the world. They’re like, oh

Laci (01:46:06):

No, the movie is six months long. So I don’t know how that happens, but

Matt (01:46:10):

Is there anything we can do? And he’s like, well, there’s two options. You can kill her,

Laci (01:46:14):

Burn her, burn her

Matt (01:46:15):

Sober, and then burn her body so hard. Now he’s doing some Ryan Reynolds riffing this scientist guy, and they’re like, well, that won’t work. What’s Option two? You need a device, but the device is behind. It’s in the super secret layer. You’ll never get in there. And they’re like, well, that’s where we’re going. Okay,

Laci (01:46:29):

Also make two next time, asshole.

Matt (01:46:32):

So then the Rock FaceTimes his daughter and he’s like, baby girl, listen, I think the world might be ending. Okay. Just be careful. She’s like, you too, Danny. I love you.

Laci (01:46:41):

Be careful. Don’t step any sinkholes. I try not to. I’ll keep the pancakes warm.

Matt (01:46:47):

So they go to Shaw’s layer, which full of luxury cars, and they’re just flirting with each other and talking about each other’s dicks. And then Shaw gets in touch with his Russian mobster friend and they have to go to Moscow. But Hattie, she’s like, well, it’s going to be hard to get you out of the country because you’re the most wanted men in the world. And also, brother, you betrayed. Am I six? This is the first word we’ve heard about that.

Laci (01:47:09):

Now we know.

Matt (01:47:09):

Oh no, what could that mean? So they’re going to have to put on disguises to get through the airport.

Laci (01:47:15):

I didn’t even realize they both betrayed something. Even that is equal

Matt (01:47:20):

And both for noble reasons, but that

Laci (01:47:22):

Noble right in a way that makes it hard to go back home.

Matt (01:47:26):

Yeah, exactly.

Laci (01:47:28):

Fuck this thing needed Kevin Hart. Fuck fucking, thank God. Now they’re on a flight and they’re going back and forth and anytime anyone talks this loud on a flight, I’m thinking, are you the most annoying two people on a fucking flight ever? It doesn’t make sense that no one’s looking. Everyone’s asleep. Everyone’s always asleep, conveniently on a fucking flight when you’re not supposed to be carrying what the two main people are doing. But luckily Kevin Hart comes out and breaks the fourth wall and he’s like, y’all are really fucking loud now. I’m going to be loud. I’m welcome. Kevin Hart being here. He has chemistry with everyone, I think.

Matt (01:47:59):

Well, he plays Air Marshall and he just pops in to do a little Kevin Hart cameo. It’s like, Hey, the Rock loves working with Kevin Hart and it’s annoying to have a cameo, but he’s the only person in the entire movie who knows how to deliver comedic lines.

Laci (01:48:16):

And

Matt (01:48:16):

So it just feels like a pressure flare there, fresh air to hear him successfully deliver funny lines.

Laci (01:48:22):

And it doesn’t matter what he can take anyone and make them the straight man because of how he responds to it, he doesn’t mind getting real pathetic and he doesn’t need direction to know how to do this. So he’s bouncing off of two fucking brick walls

Matt (01:48:42):

Who are so brick here that he then does the thing where he is like, I used to be in Delta force with all of my Delta Force brothers, and they’re like, why did you just drop your voice low? I didn’t do that. No, stop doing that. Yeah, stop talking like that. Your voice is low now. No, it’s not. Yes it is. This goes on and on and on, on

Laci (01:49:02):

And on and on. And he does the most with, I mean,

Matt (01:49:05):

The whole point of this is that he’s an air marshal, but he also has connections and can get them flights if they need it. So we just might need it.

Laci (01:49:13):

They end up needing it. But he even says in one or two different ways that like, no, I am what will complete this. And I’m like, please tell me he’s there the rest of the time. Because you will. He will. This is what you need. You need a short guy. You need a normal guy. He’s already a fucking expert. The most expert fucking Aaron Marshall who’ve ever run into in your whole fucking life. That’s already annoying. But at least he’s not cool to them. At least he’s very, very short. If he would join, it would ground this.

Matt (01:49:42):

Yeah. I mean,

Laci (01:49:43):

In a way,

Matt (01:49:44):

Think back to the rundown. The rundown worked because the rock was playing like a stiff guy who’s not a wisecracker, and then Sean Williams, Scott who is an annoying, wise, cracking sidekick. And that pairing works here. It’s like, no, they’re all wise cracking. They can’t do it though,

Laci (01:50:01):

Except for that they don’t let everyone into their club. What Hart’s doing is funny. He’s doing comedy where the other two are cracking wise and busting balls. That’s cool. The other thing’s kind of lame, right? So it’s like they’re acting like the cool boys club, whatever.

Matt (01:50:18):

I don’t want to be watching the Cool Boys club.

Laci (01:50:20):

Exactly. And you know what? When you were saying it’s all in the fact that they need to be equal when there’s different ways to be equal in stature, they are not. Statan and the Rock are just different. So why not lean into that thing where show a situation where it all depends on stat’s, ability to be stealth, to use his gadgets and arson, and then show when brute force is it, but also show when big, giant people make things harder. But then

Matt (01:50:55):

No, he could never,

Laci (01:50:56):

That would put rock back into a situation where he is feeling weird about his body again. Because I’ll bet he does wish he could blend in. That’s why he leans so hard into the fact that he can’t, doesn’t have a fucking choice. And then show me where gadgets don’t work. We can be even, just show me something interesting and show me why you both know what you’re doing even though it’s different. You say it’s different. Whatever.

Matt (01:51:20):

Sorry. All excellent, excellent points that yeah, could be solved at the script stage. I don’t know if this is just Dwayne Johnson politiced them out of ever doing anything like that.

Speaker 7 (01:51:33):

Right.

Matt (01:51:34):

So they arrived, they’re Russian friends. She’s not a Russian mobster. She kidnaps Russian mobsters and she has A-B-D-S-M house where she has,

Laci (01:51:45):

But this is a Russian mobster’s house that she just took it.

Matt (01:51:48):

No, but she’s hanging them all up and has them in bondage gear and all the people who work for her are like sexy ladies in bondage gear. And then this is Eliza Gonzalez. She’s

Speaker 3 (01:51:59):

Hot as shit.

Matt (01:52:00):

She’s very good in Michael Bay’s ambulance. She plays Margarita. She’s on the poster of this movie. She’s in two scenes. She gives Jason Statham a big deep kiss, and then the rock says, Ooh, I wish I didn’t see that gross.

Laci (01:52:11):

I’m kind of with them on that one. I didn’t need it.

Matt (01:52:13):

Well, you hate kissing too. You’re like the rock. So their plan is to do the Mick Jagger that involves somebody show boating while another person does the actual music. So we just have to let Hattie get kidnapped by Brixton. So they just turn her in, they turn Hattie in, and then Margarita supplies all them with some tactical gear. All that hops tactical gear that the Rock loves so much

Laci (01:52:36):

Except for that, it’s all for Shaw. And Hobbs isn’t fit in it.

Matt (01:52:39):

So she gets taken, Hattie gets taken to a decommissioned nuclear facility. That’s also the etn research facility, the big layer that they keep talking about, and Hobbs. And that’s

Laci (01:52:49):

The other layer. Thank you.

Matt (01:52:50):

And Hobbs and Haw are fighter jet over the facility and they parachute in. This is where Hobbs needs to get his wind back. Jason. Satan’s like, oh, Noona of three. We’re going to launch our parachutes. One, two, you asshole. Why

Laci (01:53:06):

Am I laughing at it?

Matt (01:53:08):

Fuck you. There’s that hallway parallel hallway sequence. That’s pretty okay.

Laci (01:53:14):

I like it because at least they’re playing off of each other. They’re not equals, right?

Matt (01:53:18):

They’re

Laci (01:53:19):

One of them’s trying to impress the other one,

Matt (01:53:22):

And they make it through only to come into which chamber with a billion bad guys pointing guns at them. So now they are tied up, hooked up to electrical torture devices.

Laci (01:53:34):

It’s just so stupid because you get five shocks and then you’re dead. And we’ve already seen in shock one and two and three, I’m not sure how many happened, that Eris Elba is going to cut you off while you’re talking to give you one of those shocks. But then all of a sudden they have all this fucking room to do a Mick Jagger where they’re talking Ack and sock sock sack and so and so. They never pushes the little, this doesn’t, I just don’t need it to be this impossible to get away.

Matt (01:54:04):

They’re locked up, they’re facing each other. And then Brixton starts saying, you and me, Deckard, we were brothers in MI six, but then you betrayed me or something. You shot me, you bastard then

Laci (01:54:18):

Because he betrayed in my six

Matt (01:54:20):

A, and then he starts telling them his villainous planned. I’m going to rebuild the world, get rid of the weak humanity’s on a death drive. I mean, look at you two, the fate of the world’s in your hands and you can’t stop bickering. But that’s not true. They’ve been working together pretty well. Yeah,

Laci (01:54:35):

Bickering just their kink.

Matt (01:54:37):

Yes. That’s just what they do while they go. But it’s not like it is ever. That’s the other thing. Shouldn’t there be an instance where them fighting actually hurts them? Exactly

Laci (01:54:44):

Right. No. No, because circuiting. No, it’s just that. But this is the fucking fast and furious problem. They get so many guys that they end up with two guys that have the same fucking thing, and then those two guys end up in a movie together for some fucking reason, and then they don’t know what to do with their thing.

Matt (01:55:03):

It’d be like if the next spinoff was Ludacris, ISS hacker character and Natalie Emmanuel’s, also hacker character,

Laci (01:55:08):

And then also also this sister. Like what do I do? I don’t know. What are you doing? You fucking, you fucking laying in fruit. I am running out of words and I

Matt (01:55:21):

Should stop beyond this. Your brain needs a little implant. Maybe all of humanity needs a brain implant.

Laci (01:55:26):

Big tit on the

Matt (01:55:27):

Side of my head. Why don’t you join? And the rock’s like, you know what? I think maybe we should. And Hobbes is like, what? Or Shaw is like, no, what are you talking about? He’s like, yeah, I think he made a lot of sense and I’m sick of you disagreeing with me. You’re a diva. In fact, if we were in a band, you know who you’d be? You’d be Mick Jagger. And he’s like, huh,

Laci (01:55:47):

I get it. Like my plan.

Matt (01:55:49):

I

Laci (01:55:50):

Got it.

Matt (01:55:50):

So then they fucking start monologuing about, we’re not going to join. We’re going to kick all your guys’ asses. I’m going to kick that guy’s As And that guy’s, that’s not your guy. That’s my guy. They’re

Laci (01:55:58):

Mouthing off. Right? Not like, you know what the smart thing to do would be like, oh yeah, man, if we had the implant, if we were on your side, oh, we’d be swinging our dicks around and you showboat like that, you’re on their side. But no, instead you’re telling ’em the plan of how you’re going to ruin all of this. At no point, eat yourself as character doesn’t want to push to let button. Yeah, just push button. It doesn’t

Matt (01:56:19):

Make

Laci (01:56:19):

Sense. Yeah,

Matt (01:56:20):

Because it’s like the movie’s presenting. It’s just too good. You got to let ’em go. You got to listen to what they have to say. I’m waiting. Even the bad guys got to hear, oh, let’s let ’em cook. And then Hattie shows up with a gun, but it doesn’t work because these guns, we haven’t said this, these guns are biometrically assigned to a person, but then the scientist comes out with a blowtorch and causes havoc. Very scary.

Speaker 3 (01:56:41):

Science bitch,

Matt (01:56:44):

Another problem. So it begins a huge fucking fight in car sequence. And I think a big problem with this movie, David Leach mainly makes R-rated violent movies. This is a PG 13. There’s no blood, so nothing has any impact. And this is the absolute worst looking stretch of the movie where they’re outside in a car chase by the nuclear silos. It is all green screen and it sucks, but they make it out of there and they’re like, our three heroes get together. And they’re like, we didn’t get the device. No, we got the device, but it’s broken. We’ll need the world’s best mechanic to fix this. But who? And at the same time, we’re going to need somewhere to hide and lay low because the whole world wants to fucking get us right now. What are we going to do? And the rock’s, like I know a place and then just cut Samoa.

Laci (01:57:33):

How do you say it though?

Matt (01:57:35):

Samoa

Laci (01:57:35):

Samoa.

Matt (01:57:36):

That’s how they say it. I think first they’re like, what place are you talking about Hobbs? And he’s like, the last place on earth. I want to go. I’m coming home. I’m coming home to Samoa. But this was filmed in Kauai, although maybe there’s some second unit shots of actual Samoa. But yeah, they get on the phone with Kevin Hart and they’re like, Hey Dink, thanks for getting us that charter flight to Samoa. And he is like, yeah, no problem. I’m glad I did that. Okay then. Alright there. So they go to the rocks, family’s house to the house of the Hobbes. And Hobbes is very nervous to knock on the door and reunite with his family. He knows what’s going to happen when his brother sees him and his brother’s like, you got a lot of nerve coming here after 25 years, you know what comes next? And Hobbes says, yes. And then his brother punches him in the face and he falls down and he’s like, you’re not welcome here. Police. So the hints of like, Hey, it’d be kind of interesting. You betrayed us by joining up with the law. You work for the fucking American empire that has oppressed us,

Laci (01:58:39):

Right?

Matt (01:58:41):

Samoan history is entirely a history of imperialism and oppression and colonialism.

Laci (01:58:45):

There you go. Rationalize that. Let’s dig in.

Matt (01:58:49):

Dig into that sort of, no, no, no, no, no. Not in this movie. No. Fuck no.

Laci (01:58:52):

Oh yeah, no snowballs.

Matt (01:58:55):

So we see Hobbes is extended family, lots of brothers and cousins. One is played by Roman res, the rock’s actual cousin. He doesn’t have a single word of dialogue in the movie, but he’s always on camera.

Laci (01:59:06):

He pounds like a son of a bitch. God damn it. There are lot of fist bumps in this fucking montage. Oh,

Matt (01:59:12):

Fist bumps. So many fucking fist

Laci (01:59:13):

Bumps. And it’s like the way that our kid reflexively says, I love you every time we leave a room, which is adorable, but I can’t leave my car and then get back into my car without two. I love Jews again. Adorable. But it’s almost a tick. And no, you don’t, these guys don’t walk away from their workstation without, okay, I’m I’m going to be right back and then pound it. I’m back. Pound it. Okay. And then I farted. Did you pound it? All right. They take COVID very seriously. No. You know what they’re ready for.

Matt (01:59:45):

Yeah. That’s the thing you’re supposed to do.

Laci (01:59:46):

Yeah.

Matt (01:59:47):

So Jonah is played by Cliff Curtis, the Maori actor. I

Laci (01:59:51):

Like him.

Matt (01:59:52):

And he is a lecturing him and yelling at him and the rock’s like, Hey, don’t blow, blow. And then eventually their mom throws a shoe at them.

Laci (02:00:01):

It’s always funny.

Matt (02:00:02):

Yeah, it is funny. And she gives a speech. You’re going to help him, Jonah, he’s in trouble. You got to help him fix his machine. Okay. Alright, good. We’re all good. So, hey, I’m being chased by international terrorists. I’ve led them directly to your house. Sorry about that. But you’ll help me, right? You’ll all go to war for this.

Laci (02:00:23):

Okay. But literally everyone’s going to die except for maybe people in Samoa would’ve been fine. Honestly, it’s an island. I was like, I was thinking, wait, I mean, yeah, they’re all going to die. I mean, I guess that’s going to rally anyone. And if it’s going to get to you eventually, then it just occurred to me, wait, maybe they would’ve been okay.

Matt (02:00:39):

They’d have gotten, I mean, people go to Samoa, they brought the virus eventually, but you know what? Yes. Maybe it’s like, hey, maybe they, that’s the world outside there. So there’s a big fucking montage where everybody’s preparing for war while the bad guys arrive.

Laci (02:00:59):

You know what though? I like that. They’re telling us what they’re doing. I appreciate that because then at least the action makes sense when the fucking fireworks start going off as they’re driving down a road, they’re telling you, look, it’s, and it even helped me right away that you knew it was going to be dawn in a minute. I’m like, what? The day changed. Explain.

Matt (02:01:17):

It’s like explain very basic nuts and bolts of how to do this, of set up what you’re going to do, just the geography, the space that you’re going to be working. That’s all very, very helpful.

Laci (02:01:27):

And then do it.

Matt (02:01:28):

Suddenly I can follow things suddenly I know the stakes and the timelines of things.

Laci (02:01:32):

Yes, yes. This is why a heist movie is so good. This is probably why I love them so much. I don’t not like action. I like action and understand. And a heist always has that moment where, okay, here’s the plan, and then they say the whole thing and then I’m all like, they doing the thing.

Matt (02:01:46):

And a well-directed action sequence is supposed to set up the geography within the sequence itself. It’s not something you necessarily notice while you’re watching it, but you just feel it more strongly,

Laci (02:01:57):

Right?

Matt (02:01:58):

Versus a bad action sequence where you just kind of tune out.

Laci (02:02:00):

Do you see the, sorry, we’re looking at an image of the ancient tools, pullout weapons wall. Do you see the other weapons that are drawn onto the

Matt (02:02:09):

Yeah,

Laci (02:02:10):

There’s outlines of the weapons that were Yeah,

Matt (02:02:13):

Those, this is where we keep the Glock 19. Yeah, that’s what they used to have on there. Well,

Laci (02:02:19):

Which is funny that they repurposed the wall, just burned that, and then keep the antiques wherever the fuck they were.

Matt (02:02:25):

Hobbes finally explains his whole thing with his family to Vanessa Kirby. My dad was a criminal. He stole everything, guns, drugs. Then he abandoned the family. But he came back when he found out his sons were old enough to maybe help him join his crew. But I didn’t want my brothers getting killed. So I turned them in and then I left Samoa and I never came back. And my family thinks I betrayed them, even though after being reunited for two minutes, they now are fully on your side and love you and will do anything for you.

Laci (02:02:53):

Well, because it turns out what they actually were upset about is that he left. Right? That’s what the guy keeps saying, you left us. You left us, you left us, and you didn’t come back and you’re a fucking international fucking espionage person. So how the fuck could we even find you if we wanted to?

Matt (02:03:05):

Okay, but now you’re back. We forgive you instantly. Right?

Laci (02:03:07):

Because what they wanted was him. I’m just saying, I think to the rock’s character, it was about the betrayal. But what had actually was upsetting the family was that he was gone. They felt abandoned by

Matt (02:03:18):

Him.

Laci (02:03:19):

They lost the dad, and then they lost him. And it’s like, well, we could have at least keep one of you. The mail works. The mail goes to Samoa. Couldn’t you have written a letter, explained this?

Matt (02:03:28):

There needs to be something. There just needs to be something to set that up or to make us feel that. And there’s just the most awkward cut where he and the Rock and Vanessa Kirby are walking and he kind of has a smile on his face like, Hey, we’re just bantering here. And then cut instantly close up. And he has just a look of dread on his face as he starts talking about what his dad did to the family. And there’s so many awkward insert shots because this movie really seems like it was just tons of reshoots and weird things like where on Samoa The Rock is standing on his family’s porch, but clearly it’s the rock standing in front of a green screen.

Speaker 7 (02:04:04):

We

Matt (02:04:05):

Need to do that again, even though we actually filmed on an island. This is now Dwayne Johnson, nine months later filming in front of a green screen. Hey mama, I’m home. Anyway, the family got rid of all their tactical weapons. They’re just going to use ancient spears and stuff. But the good news is the bad guys are using guns that can be hacked and turned off. So it’ll just be old school fucking fists and spears and stuff,

Laci (02:04:28):

Which is an interesting idea. I’d forgive this convenient plot device. If it weren’t for all the other stupid shit that were happening. I would be like, oh, neat.

Matt (02:04:38):

No, it is. This is the part of the movie where, and I’m getting mad that things are working. They’re not great, but at least this is a normal movie now with ideas about they’re the technological future. Well, we’re the fucking, we’ve been here for 10,000 years and we’ll stand another 10,000 years.

Laci (02:04:55):

Right? We are the rock. You’re the statham.

Matt (02:04:57):

Yeah.

Laci (02:04:58):

I mean, in a way,

Matt (02:04:59):

Hadie manages to hack this satellite, but they can only stop the gun for six minutes. So we got that six minute timer,

Laci (02:05:04):

Matt, Elizabeth Roth.

Matt (02:05:05):

I wanted to see how you’d react.

Laci (02:05:07):

Fucking

Matt (02:05:08):

Bad. Even this.

Laci (02:05:09):

Stop that bad. No, no. He’s so relaxed. If you were making a crazy face,

Matt (02:05:13):

You think he’s relaxed here.

Laci (02:05:14):

I mean the veins are bulging on the side of his head, but his face. Okay, what I don’t like about, one of the things I don’t like about rock kisses are the approach. He can be in it and he can be pulling away from it, but him going in is so fucking cringey. That’s why I think it’s pretty key that she goes in, she gives him a quick peck,

Matt (02:05:34):

And it is a quick peck.

Laci (02:05:36):

It’s so fast.

Matt (02:05:37):

She’s standing out by the sunset and he’s like, Hey babe, what you do? And she’s like, just taking in the sunset might be more or less. And he’s like, oh yeah. Well, it’s a beautiful island. And then I spin my whole life running away. My own daughter doesn’t know her family. She’s like, yeah, well, you can fix that. We save the world. You come back and you bring that daughter, let’s make a promise. We’ll fix everything. She’s like going, why in my life? She seals it with the briefest kiss ever just to seal the pack. And he’s like, you want to seal it again? She says, no.

Laci (02:06:15):

It was so dry and bouncy the first time

Matt (02:06:20):

Right

Laci (02:06:20):

Out

Matt (02:06:20):

It was like, like kissing talcum powder.

Laci (02:06:23):

I mean, it’s like repellent. It just, his lips are just going, you can’t get me.

Matt (02:06:29):

So Jonah’s machine works, but it’s going to take 30 minutes to suck all the poison out of her. And the bad guys have arrived. They all prepare to go to war. The rock tells his brother, I’m sorry, and I had my reasons even here, he can’t admit Hobbes’s character, can’t admit he was wrong. He’s like, I’m sorry that you think I did something wrong. I may have had my reasons, but I understand now how you could have felt the way that you felt. I see now how you could have felt that way. And I’m sorry. I love you. I love you too. Okay, good. Good. That’s all settled. I do like that they inject a lot of actual Simone words into their speech. I

Laci (02:07:03):

Do too. They

Matt (02:07:03):

Don’t explain. I mean you, it’s easy to understand a lot of it. Obviously USO means brother, but they’ll say words and it’s okay if you don’t understand every

Laci (02:07:13):

Word, right? Context.

Matt (02:07:14):

Yes. The bad guys arrive, the rock and their family come out and do a pretty cool war chant.

Laci (02:07:19):

Then

Matt (02:07:19):

The bad guys realize that guns are offline. It’s pretty cool. Like, oh fuck,

Laci (02:07:24):

I like this whole part. I like that the trucks are in a circle shining light into the fighting circle. I like that ham’s role is to then set that ring on fire in a very practical, interesting way

Speaker 6 (02:07:36):

To

Laci (02:07:36):

Make the world small and fight here. If you give me an entire nuclear power plant, these guys are going to get away. They’re going to have all kinds of different ways of getting one over on me. But now I bring you to my turf. I give you a circle. I’m not even giving you the island. I’m giving you the circle at first.

Matt (02:07:51):

Right, right, right.

Laci (02:07:52):

It’s just the smaller it is, the more interesting it is. And it’s just tactically smart.

Matt (02:07:56):

And Roman reins is actually very good with how physically he is. He does some of his wrestling moves. He does the spear and then the big scream that he does when he wrestles and Idris album manages to grab Vanessa Kirby, put her on the helicopters, thus begins the one really good sequence in the movie, the car chase, where Hobbs and Shaw team up. We got to work together. Okay, let’s work together.

Laci (02:08:18):

Have we not been?

Matt (02:08:20):

So Shaw is driving a tow truck. The Rock Hobbs is on the back of the tow truck, throws the tow cable onto the helicopter now fast and furious. Six ends with the whole crew on a runway chasing a giant plane to keep it from taking off. So this is just an iteration of that idea. It’s okay that you’re doing a similar thing. It’s all in the execution. It’s a lot of fun. Hey, let’s stop that helicopter from flying away. Let’s pull it down. Cool. That’s cool. But the tow truck isn’t powerful enough by itself. So Hobbs’ brothers all join in one by one and reinforce his truck as they’re all dangerously close to falling off a cliff. But

Laci (02:08:58):

Then they, and sometimes soaring above it being

Matt (02:09:02):

Seen.

Laci (02:09:03):

I think it’s interesting. That’s

Matt (02:09:04):

Cool. That’s this movie’s actually good.

Laci (02:09:07):

No.

Matt (02:09:08):

And so then they all crash, but they all crash down to the bottom of a cliff because a squall comes in and they have their final confrontation with Idris Elba. And we get some really annoying Zach Snyder, like 300 slow motion, fucking fighting. And then Hobbes and Shaw realize if we double team, then he can, it says, you take a punch and then I’ll punch him because his machine won’t figure, yeah, work together.

Laci (02:09:32):

But we have to be equal. You take one. I take one. You take one. I take one. Don’t worry. Don’t worry. The movie knows. The movie knows.

Matt (02:09:39):

And they affirmatively have to say like, we’ll work together. Let us now affirm our bonds of affection with the bumping of fists

Laci (02:09:45):

And steal it with a kiss. That’d have been something.

Matt (02:09:48):

And wasn’t that a pin in that? So they start knocking him out with a hammer and it turns him offline. And the three heroes stand in formation over their vanquished foe. And for some reason Shaw’s like, I’m not going to kill you again. You already made me kill you once. And he throws his gun down and the rock’s, like, brother, you may believe in machines, but we need to believe in people. And then we’re cutting away. We’re seeing the rest of the island of Samoa has come to the aid of the Hobbes family to fight off the rest of the etn guys who all lay down their arms. And then we hear Brixton’s boss, Ryan Reynolds is like, shut. Brixton down. And then Brixton sees in his eye thing, he sees a countdown to his death and he’s like, so that’s how it’s going to be. Hey, hell of a ride now. And then he falls over to his death and then the director starts talking to them and he’s like, you three outperformed your analytics. You don’t remember me, do you? Hobbes, you will

Laci (02:10:39):

See. That’s Ryan Riddle.

Matt (02:10:41):

It’s going to be a hell of a reunion. You’re on our radar now. And you’re on ours. You some bitch

Laci (02:10:48):

Are. Is he? Do you know how to find him?

Matt (02:10:52):

Yeah, the guy, the voice. The

Laci (02:10:53):

Voice guy.

Matt (02:10:53):

The voice from the

Laci (02:10:54):

Thing he’s using a fucking his fucking ghost face. Also on your radar. You dunno who that is. Either voice thing.

Matt (02:11:02):

Fucking okay, so Vanessa Kirby, then they start an annoying debate of thanks for being my sidekick. So your sidekick, oh, I dare you, you’re my sidekick. And then Vanessa Kirby grabs both of them and she’s like, boys, boys. And I assume she’s going to make ’em fucking kiss each other or

Laci (02:11:20):

Something, right? I think she’s just standing in for the audience at that point. Shut up, you guys. Shut up.

Matt (02:11:26):

Shouldn’t there be one nice suggestion that they kiss or shouldn’t they just kiss, just kiss each other? I

Laci (02:11:31):

Think so,

Matt (02:11:31):

But no. And she’s like, boys, let’s go home. And then the credits start rolling. And I was thinking, holy shit. Thank you. Movie. You just ended. No you didn’t. It’s a fake ending.

Laci (02:11:42):

Fake ending.

Matt (02:11:42):

We got to see the rock bringing

Laci (02:11:44):

Unions. They’re equally important. So we’re going to put them both to credits

Matt (02:11:48):

And we got to check in with Ryan Reynolds again. He’s like, Hobbs, bad news. The Snowflake virus got out. It’s really bad. And also a Lanster always pays his dad’s teary. And Lancaster really killed his father. That’s fucked up if you think about it. Yeah, just say Game of Throne stuff. It’s very funny. That’s it.

Laci (02:12:07):

Except for when the Rock delivers it. When she says, what does he say to his daughter? You’re fool.

Matt (02:12:13):

Nothing John.

Laci (02:12:14):

Nothing John Snow. Nothing. John Snow. It’s just the easiest thing ever to fucking imitate. What are you doing?

Matt (02:12:21):

Oh wait, there’s one more post credits thing where Shaw’s drinking at his pub. Hobbs calls him, he’s like, hello, best friend. Oh, hello brother. What’s that? I hear outside of your brew pub. It’s cops. And they’re like, come out of there with your hands up Hugh Janus. And he’s like, oh Hobbs, how could you? And then he goes out and he’s like, I’m going to kill all you cops. And that’s the end. That’s the of the movie

Laci (02:12:47):

Fun. That’s like with that weird trend of super gamers getting their other gamers broke as they’re streaming and doing their gaming, it’s called swatting them. You report some sort of horrible federal crime and you watch as a SWAT team comes and takes them down while they’re Twitch streaming

Matt (02:13:11):

Fun,

Laci (02:13:12):

A neat trick. These are nerds who dunno how to defend themselves. What if one of ’em is black? You’re going to get someone that’s a real thing. It’s called Swatting Me.

Matt (02:13:22):

Note to self Cancel the swatting on Laci for our black Adam episode. I don’t do that. I hate this movie. One and a Half stars, two

Laci (02:13:45):

Stars piece

Matt (02:13:46):

Of shit. It makes this

Laci (02:13:47):

The most only reason. It gets two stars and each of the people besides the Rock have something. Although Iris El is on my last nerve as well, he can’t fix a thing. He can be a cool addition to the thing, but he’s been riding high on the wire wave for me for a long time. He can’t come into a movie and fix it. He just can’t. But he’s still really good to look at and compelling. I believe he’s bad, but he wasn’t enough to give these guys

Matt (02:14:15):

What they need. No, it’s not his fault. It’s

Laci (02:14:17):

It’s not his fault. I’m saying there’s people like Kevin Hart and into a lesser extent the female lead in this movie that do make them more palatable. And maybe as a bad guy you can’t do it. But even if Ryan Reynolds had been in the scenes, at least he’d been there pointing out the weird tension and the dumb like fucking sophomore back and forth between these two. He needs someone to think it’s weird or doesn’t stop.

Matt (02:14:46):

But Ryan Reynolds’ whole thing is like, because Ryan Reynolds, Ryan Reynolds is the Rorschach test where every political affiliation looks at him and says he’s on our side. Then if you watch the Deadpool movies, he’ll be like, oh, you’re a hot man. I want to suck your dick. Just kidding. No I don’t. Or am I kidding? No, I don’t really. And that way everyone can watch and be like, yeah, he’s on. He gets it. So he couldn’t,

Laci (02:15:12):

I don’t know. They don’t put him in a room with both of them. Maybe he could, but that’s saving it for the movie. That’ll never be. Number two,

Matt (02:15:19):

The things that work about the movie are undermined by everything that doesn’t. If you actually invested in Hobbs a character and his relationship with his family, put any weight behind that. It’d meant something. Statham comes across better, but he is also not really a character. Don’t know how much he has in common with the two movies from the series he’s been in before. I don’t know. I hate this movie. I think it’s worse than Tooth Fairy because it could have been. It could have been. And it has resources. It’s fucking 200 million. Why should it be this shitty looking? Yeah, two and a half stars. Wait.

Laci (02:15:56):

No, you mean one and a half.

Matt (02:15:57):

Sorry. One and a half stars. Thank you. Thank God. Alright, next week we conclude.

Laci (02:16:01):

Is this going to be

Matt (02:16:02):

The Summer of Rock?

Laci (02:16:03):

The worst or the best or what is it?

Matt (02:16:05):

This is Black Adam, the movie that maybe killed the Rock’s Courier

Laci (02:16:12):

And

Matt (02:16:12):

Ended the DC Universe. Okay. Took

Laci (02:16:16):

One for the team.

Matt (02:16:17):

It is not a good movie. It’s definitely, I think it’s better than Hobbs and Shaw, but hey, who knows? It might be even worse.

Laci (02:16:22):

Did you see it in theaters?

Matt (02:16:23):

No, I saw it in the house.

Laci (02:16:26):

Yeah, that’s the other option.

Matt (02:16:29):

Shot in the car. The other thing.

Laci (02:16:31):

Right?

Matt (02:16:31):

So episode one 70 of Lord Bring Bes the conclusion of Summer of Rock. We will rake the Rock movies. We’ll give our final thoughts on The Rock on Dwayne Johnson.

Laci (02:16:40):

It’s funny. I really did. It’s not because the movies, I guess it might be the order that we saw them in, but I was really had low expectations for him and then every movie we saw, I’m like, I like this guy. This is working. This movie specifically is the one that we are reviewing right now. Today is probably the one that just, I mean if you can take the charisma of Jason Statham, you’re a fucking monster.

Matt (02:17:06):

But we have really enjoyed digging into a person and we felt this way last year with Summer of Spielberg.

Laci (02:17:12):

Yes, that is enjoyable.

Matt (02:17:13):

We also found weird parallels between the two men that I want to get into next week

Laci (02:17:18):

And I really enjoy that. All his flaws. He’s a good, he’s not a bad person. He has some bad people he might still be protecting in real life, but I’m just saying nothing was revealed That makes me not like him in a way that I didn’t change my feelings on him except for to maybe respect him a little more and feel a little bit closer to him.

Matt (02:17:49):

Yeah, you definitely feel closer to him.

Laci (02:17:51):

It feels like one of my guys the way Steven Spielberg does now too.

Matt (02:17:54):

But I think before Baywatch, I was starting to feel really bad for the theme song I wrote where I’m like, you’re the worst person ever and your name is The Rock. But then Baywatch and this movie reminded me, oh, this is who he is now is I’m not going to do anything interesting ever.

Laci (02:18:10):

But that’s for interesting reasons. So I think you can’t think he’s bad person for,

Matt (02:18:17):

But I never think about it like that. You

Laci (02:18:19):

Think he’s a bad actor, you think he’s a boring actor and then he takes up space and then if he’s in a movie it’s a negative. Although, what’s that one coming out now that looks interesting?

Matt (02:18:27):

Yeah, he’s in a Ty Brothers movie or not both Sty Brothers just onesie. I

Laci (02:18:32):

Don’t know if it’s, maybe he’s having, his kids are grown up and he realizes he wasn’t a very good dad, so all these fucking heirs he’s been putting on or making him rediscover himself, maybe he’ll actually dig into the hard stuff or maybe he’s kind of slowing down a little bit because your body does, he feels invincible. He can keep this up forever. Eventually you need to reckon with the fact that you are mortal, but

Matt (02:18:52):

He is playing a fighter. I don’t remember if it’s MMA or boxing, but it is like obviously if your movie star career is not going well, then you try the other thing. I’ll try to be a serious actor and that’s what we have said multiple times. You need to find a serious director who you have to listen to

Laci (02:19:09):

And a therapist and do both because this is why he keeps avoiding these better good roles in these people who want to slow him down. A good director will slow him down and will demand his attention and time and we’ll extend the fucking shoot time if they need to.

Matt (02:19:25):

I know Tom

Laci (02:19:25):

Cruise, he has to be accessible.

Matt (02:19:27):

Tom Cruise at the height of his movie, star Powers gave over two years of his life to Stanley Kubrick.

Laci (02:19:33):

Right, right. Yes,

Matt (02:19:34):

Exactly. Moved him to London away from everyone including Scientology. Imagine the rock having to do that to, hey, you’re going to have to go live in London. You’re not allowed to work on anything else, and a monster is going to be directing you. Jesus Christ. That’d be awesome. That’d be awesome. Come back, Stanley, please. If the other thing he should do, if he doesn’t want to do serious roles, then you need to make your beekeeper. You need to make a small action movie. That’s what you need to do.

Laci (02:19:59):

Or just finally do your final pivot and get onto the late night or whatever it is your last boss is going to be because acting in it.

Matt (02:20:08):

Jesus. Okay.

Laci (02:20:10):

I mean, I’ll see, I’ll see. I’ll watch the thing you put out in a minute.

Matt (02:20:14):

We have a Patreon Load Bearing Beams, collectors edition Subscribe for $5 a month. To get two bonus episodes, Load Bearing Beams, collectors edition patreon com slash Load Bearing Beams. Check us out on Letterboxd. I’m @ Matt Stokes9, Laci’s @ LoadBearingLaci. My band has music called The Joy of Averages is the name of the album. The band is called Rural Route Nine.

Laci (02:20:31):

That’s what the music is called. It’s its own genre.

Matt (02:20:34):

Links in the description. Thanks everybody.

Laci (02:20:36):

Hey, I smell you. Bye.