May 10, 2023

Midweek Mention... Children of Men

Midweek Mention... Children of Men

CHILDREN OF MEN (2006) is Director Alfonso Cuarón’s gloomy sci-fi masterpiece set 18 years after all women have suddenly and inexplicably become infertile. Whilst the rest of the planet is shaken by the death of the youngest person on Earth, Theo (Clive Owen) finds himself reluctantly drawn into escorting Kee (Claire-Hope Ashitey) who might be carrying humanity’s last flicker of hope through an England divided by a refugee crisis and an austere authoritarian government. Gripping and grim in equal measure, Cuarón and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki conjure up a rich and textured world as a backdrop to a plot ripe with biblical allegory and commentary about our relationship to communities in crisis. Never less than captivating from the first frame until the bleak and barely optimistic ending and featuring several virtuoso sequences of incredible action film making, the verisimilitude of the world-building and its authenticity makes this one of my favourite movies of the noughties. As Cris puts it, if you haven’t seen it this you should rectify that immediately and if you have, you need to watch it again.

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Transcript

Children of Men

Reegs: Well, I was absolutely delighted when you picked this movie, Dan, because this is right up there as one

Dan: of my

Reegs: favorites.

Sidey: Wow.

Dan: Yeah.

Reegs: Children of men.

Dan: Yeah. It's been a while since I've seen this and I dunno why it came into yes, I do. It was a limited choice of films I had to watch at the time and I wanted, this was one I thought, right? Not seen it in ages. I'd heard good things. You talk about it before.

I enjoyed it the first time, but that was 15 years ago. Does it stand

Reegs: Mm-hmm. Well, we'll find out. I guess

Sidey: I had forgotten virtually all of it apart from, I think we'd spoken about a few bits of it at various top fives.

So the car chase bit

Reegs: Yeah. One takes, we talked

Sidey: Yeah. But I couldn't remember how it ended. I was right on the edge of my seat still for a lot of it, just not knowing what was gonna happen. So yeah, it was, it was almost like watching it from scratch.

Reegs: Yeah. And

Cris: Yeah, same for me. I, I remember watching it and I, I actually thought, because I did ask, is that the Clive Owen one and I, I was halfway between, is this the one that I watched or is it shoot them up?

Because for me, the kind of, there's shooting involved and I kind of thought, which one is it? But then I, I, I'm exactly the same like side. When I watched it, I was still, what's gonna happen next? Who, who is doing this? Who's doing that? So, yeah.

Dan: Well, this is a much more serious kind of film, I guess, or, or plot line than shoot 'em up because it's sit not too much in the,

Sidey: very near future.

Dan: in the, in the future.

Yeah. 2027 and The, the world has become infertile and the youngest person in the world has has just died. And they were like 18.

Reegs: Yeah. It's Michelle. Hussein, I think is, is doing it. You know, if you ever listen to radio or wherever she, she's the

Dan: The

Cris: Oh, right. okay. Yeah.

Reegs: And she's announcing the death of Diego, I think it is. Baby Diego stabbed to death in Argentina, the youngest person in the world.

Dan: He was 18 and he'd been asked for a photograph, quite a celebrity. And I think there was some kind of

fight and the world. Yeah, the world started kind of crying, you know, it was

Reegs: Well, it's exactly, it's like, it was like Princess Diana, but like meaningful for everyone. And that's when we're introduced to our sort of protagonist, Clive Owen. Theo,

Sidey: Yeah. He's he's seeing it on, yeah.

Reegs: shop and it's being announced and everybody's just like, Agh looking at the TV and there's open weeping and that sort of thing.

And he just sort of comes in, gets his coffee

Dan: and, and the world outside is what it's like. The wartime or something, you know, it's all bombed out buildings and there's Yeah. Military on the, on the streets,

Sidey: It's a police state, I think. Yeah. Yeah.

Dan: it's a, it's a real ugly gray place,

Reegs: due to a sort of incendiary sort of fury about refugees that are in the country.

Dan: That's

Reegs: so that's why the police state is like it is. So refugees have got out of control and a sort of austere authoritarian government. Has come in to clamp down on them. Not at all reminiscent of our exact society right now.

Dan: Yeah, exactly. Well, we've, we've then got we find out that Clive Owen and Theo is part of the government he's,

Sidey: no. He leaves. He leaves, he leaves the coffee shop where the news and it fucking blows up. As

Reegs: blows up in a great little long take. So he goes in, buys his coffee, comes out, he's fumbling around with it, and then it just blows up. And he's shaken by this. He goes to work, he does go to work, does, he works for the government guy.

And he's like, oh, you know, I've

Sidey: department of Energy or something.

Reegs: Yeah. I've been so affected by Diego's death. I've gotta go home like he's trying

Cris: how he says that, that he was affected by Diego's death, not by the fact that the coffee shop exploded two seconds after he left from it.

Sidey: Mm-hmm.

Reegs: Yeah.

Cris: But

Dan: Yeah. Maybe said something about the kind of world that they're living in that that was a

Reegs: oh, that woman comes wandering out, holding her arm,

Sidey: I,

Reegs: think, or le

Sidey: Does, yeah.

Dan: horrendous.

Reegs: It's full of great little details like that. And,

Sidey: Yeah. So he, he does go home.

Reegs: Yeah. Well, eventually he hooks up with Jasper. Who's listening to Roots Maneuver in his car, witnessed the fitness

Sidey: Yeah. It's a tune.

Reegs: and it's Michael Kane.

And he's taken him back to his place,

Dan: got a great cardigan. Yeah.

He's got this kind of real grandpa look going on his long white hair. So it, it was good. He was in a good character for Michael Kane actually, I thought. And yeah, he, he comes and.

Takes into his secret layer. Basically they've got some trees that then bushes that they just kind of sweep out the way.

Reegs: Well, he's a cannabis farmer. Yeah. And, and it's, cannabis is illegal, so he grows weed and sells it. And he's basically this aging hippie listening to like square pusher and stuff.

Sidey: it's a bit

trade when he,

Reegs: It was ax twin. I didn't

Sidey: yeah, it was when he cracks it and he's really go

Reegs: yeah.

Sidey: Not

very chilled music. I wouldn't have thought to.

Have Aiff too.

Reegs: They have a really realistic conversation while Clive Owen gets stoned. And yeah, so they've obviously been friends for a while. His wife Jasper's wife was a war photographer, but she's now kind of, what is the catatonic not,

Sidey: yeah,

Reegs: what is that? Sta is it

Dan: She's, yeah. She's just kind of frozen, isn't she? She's she's not able to do anything, and that's something that's happened to her.

Uncovering a story, I think, about the government, about how the refugees and, and how all these decisions has affected. The world and, and potentially the reasons why. You know, I think it was a lot to do with the farming, the agriculture, wasn't it? That they started the infertility, but they're not sure exactly

Reegs: There's no,

real explanation really given for it. It just kind of stopped as there's later on in a scene, a nurse will describe kind of how everything just slowed down.

Dan: Yeah, it's bleak. It's bleak. And you are.

Sidey: as bleak as it gets. This is, I mean, it's, there's not really much levity in this at all.

Reegs: No. And the levity continues when what is his name?

Theo ends up, he's back in the city and then he's just randomly abducted

Sidey: back over the HeadStyle. Yeah. In, in a van. Yeah. Taken off.

Dan: Yeah. Roughed up a little bit and presented to his

Sidey: Well, he's just, he's just put in a room. He doesn't know where is in, in the room.

He is just, Made, it's blacked out by much like your wall there down with newspaper cuttings, just all around it. And he's got a light and just beamed into his face. And when he has the bag taken off, he's like, fuck, it's, it's his wife who's become this militant Yeah. Terrorist kind of organization.

Reegs: and there's a load of world building in those newspapers. There's a lot of stuff that's interesting that fleshes out what's been going on in the background, but yeah, his wife Julian she's abducted him.

Sidey: Yeah.

Reegs: And she tells him it's because she needs some kind of papers. Is it?

Dan: it?

Yeah.

Sidey: yes. Movement papers or something. Moving papers.

Dan: And he's like, why, what you, they, they're really hard to get. And then he is, he's shown, he's entrusted with this kind of information where a young girl is, is pregnant.

She's

Reegs: well, he doesn't know that to

Sidey: know straight away.

Reegs: No,

Dan: no.

Sidey: She, she shows him that later. He's just told we need to move this girl from across, across the border. Effectively. We need to get her from X to Y.

And we need papers. Your cousin can get the

Reegs: That's right. And he goes to see his cousin. I can't remember the actor, but it's a guy I really like in a really slimy scene where he is got his boyfriend, I think who he, the population is kind of suppressed through antidepressants that are handed out antidepressants and suicide kits.

Yeah. Yeah. That are handed out to everyone, which is

Dan: Yeah. And he's, he's just kind of not able, Theo's not able to understand why he can just sit there and drink these fine wines and food and have a beautiful view over kind of this dystopian

Sidey: Mm-hmm.

Dan: And he's. He's just like, well,

Cris: he's

also got the David in

Dan: give a shit. Don't think about it.

That's right.

Reegs: right. Yeah.

Dan: his answer.

Cris: He's got the David in his

Reegs: office, the statue of David. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sidey: It's all right. It,

Cris: Which is.

Reegs: yeah,

Sidey: I think I, you know, nothing would have any value though in this world because other than the, the pure aesthetic of it. Because what's the point? It all, there's,

Reegs: Yeah, everything's gonna die out.

But he does get the papers, but the papers require hi, get the papers.

Get the papers, and but the papers require that he has to travel. Theo has to travel with,

Sidey: that's right. Yeah.

Dan: Whoever has

Reegs: whoever it is.

Dan: Yeah. And

So he's then thrust into this, rather than just getting the papers, he now needs to be the person that's going to be

Sidey: Yeah.

Dan: This young girl. And that's when he. Kind of gets to know

Reegs: This is where, well, this is where we get the amazing sequence where

Sidey: so this surprised me because thinking back on it, I thought this was much, much later in the film because you've got Julie Moore, who's, who's like big star and yeah.

She goes like, now that's it.

Reegs: And I dunno whether it's, we haven't talked about it, but Theo and Julian's relationship.

Ostensibly broke down because they lost a child,

Sidey: feeling. Mm. Yeah.

Reegs: And when he was

young, And so their relationship is obviously pretty complicated. Yeah. And it, it, it's the part of the motivating force for for, for the, I, well, I've gotta ask side outside, honestly, this is difficult to talk about, but was this difficult for you to No.

Sidey: No. No, not really

Reegs: I wanted to, I wondered whether you were triggered at all because

Sidey: No, but we. When we talk about what we watched this week, there was something else, but in this and their, their relationship is complicated and they still have a connection cuz they share a kiss and they're not Yeah, they're not like completely at Loggerhead.

So there's obviously like it ended, but it's still something there. And Exactly.

Dan: Well she, she went

Sidey: was going off on her mission, which was more amazing

Dan: and he's working for the government. So maybe

Sidey: maybe

I think her mission meant more to her, you know, that she had to do that and so she went

Reegs: well, I suppose, I suppose that's how it affected them in different ways because he's become an alcoholic.

We see him drinking, you know, his, he drinks quite a lot throughout the movie. And she's gone on to be, yeah. Politicized I guess. Or more politicized. But anyway, yeah, they're get in a car and they're driving along her, it's key is who we meet and the midwife, I forget her name, that she's along for the journey, Miriam.

She's a kind of hippie midwife thing. And Julian and Theo in the car. Yeah.

Cris: Also is I, I obviously, I'm not very familiar with names or maybe I'm just stupid, but is Julian a man's name or a woman's name?

Sidey: Yes, it's, I've never heard it as a lady's name

Reegs: No,

Cris: I, I thought that was very strange.

Yeah. Right. So it's kind of like Rocky, Adrian,

Dan: Yeah, yeah,

Sidey: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: And so all throughout the film, actually, the camera's been very fluid and kind of following them along and moving around. It's very dynamic. And here it's in the car

Reegs: and lots of one, one takes and little the, the camera will wander off. From the main characters for a minute, just to like look at a stack of shanty towns that are being bulldozed or stuff that's being thrown out of a window or people begging on the street or just some detail.

And yeah, so this one is one of the really good long takes. They're driving along

Sidey: out. This one? Yeah.

Reegs: and suddenly a car is rolled down and in front of them they

Dan: their path,

Reegs: their path, they reverse, they're suddenly attacked by like an army of people. Julian is suddenly shot. Really unexpectedly in the

Sidey: Yeah, it's in the neck. Yeah. Pan.

Reegs: And the car reverses away in this like great sequence.

Dan: Yeah,

Sidey: it's panic. It's always, you know, it's very, very tense and.

Reegs: well, I think it continues until they're stopped by the

Sidey: and it goes on and they're just screaming.

Miriam screaming, put pressure on the wound, put pressure on the wound, and you can see that

Reegs: she's dying.

She's dying. Yeah.

Sidey: does die. And they scream and they get away. And then there's a convoy of police go past them. And then Juan turns around and they're like, fuck, fuck. And they get told to pull over and you're like, well, what's gonna happen?

Are they gonna get outta this? And they just fucking execute. The two cops.

Yeah. Which elevates their status as proper crims.

Yes. They're now, you know, most wanted there all over the news. And it's Theo and. Is it the identified as being the, the ring leaders?

Reegs: And it's still not completely clear because half the, the camera, I don't think has still shown Oh, well it's, we've got the midwife there, but we don't,

Sidey: we dunno, we dunno.

Because she, she reveals she just gets naked and shows him.

Cris: But once they get the farm Yeah. Just once they get the farm

Reegs: in the, in, in the barn where the cows are, and sheroes to show him that she's pregnant and it's

Cris: because he's almost thinking about abandoning the whole plan and just, yeah. Kind of what am I gonna do now? This we just killed two police officers. I can't,

Dan: Yeah, my Julian's dead.

Yeah,

Cris: so I think

Reegs: haven't got any shoes he needed.

Dan: he needed reason and yeah, that, that kind of in the barn, in the stable,

Sidey: away in a manger. Yeah.

Dan: And then there's nothing more important in his life and that's why Julian had asked him to get involved cuz she knew that he would feel like that as soon as he found out that he'd be like, Whoa, this changes everything.

And well then he, he marches on, doesn't he? He decides, look, we've gotta, he, he overhears them coming in, doesn't he? And saying that they were involved in the

Reegs: Yeah.

well, cuz Luke is elected leader of the Fishes in Julian's, you know, in her, in his, her wake.

And then yeah, he overhears him saying that Charlie Hunk, it was the

Sidey: Yeah, Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Reegs: and he had actually staged. The killing

Cris: Well,

all of them, not just the dread, it

Dan: Yeah. They wanted, they wanted to. So within all this kind of

hugely

traumatic and horrible existence that everybody's You know, living in, there's no, you know, they know that in their next 50 years, 60 years, whatever, Life as we know it, everyone's gonna be dead.

But they're still jostling for position and power and, and trying to get sort of the best out of it. There's, there's rumors of a better world somewhere else. And,

Reegs: the human project.

Dan: A human project. So there's, there's this bubbling over, and this might have the answer of where they can go, but there's just double crossing everywhere, isn't there?

There's, and then Theo, he goes to Key Look. It's aia, like, you know, this is it. With the nurse, the midwife as well, because she's been helping her along and everything and she's keen and they make this mad getaway.

Reegs: There's a great bit in it because it's really quiet at night and they're going along.

And Clive Owens removing like bits, like sabotaging the cars so they can't follow him. And it's all really quiet and a guard comes out and says something and he stands up to go yet cuz he thinks he's been caught and then realizes it wasn't talking to him and ducks down. It's all like,

Dan: Yeah.

Reegs: Really cool.

Cris: It's also really cool that they, he takes out all the stuff from all the cars and the last car that he picks needs to be jumpstart.

Reegs: Yeah. It's a piece of shit. Yeah. But

Dan: that's it. And he's, and it's if you feel like you're making too much noise cuz the doors are closing and things, somebody's gonna turn around and do it and they just start this kind of car and roll it down.

Reegs: Well, they're being chased, aren't they? Yeah. And he's trying to jumpstart a car

Dan: and they know that they've killed already. So they're prepared to do it again. But yeah, they, they just managed to get to get away. And. And roll down the hill in time. And they, they've then got nowhere else to go. So they go to Jasper's.

Reegs: Jasper's,

that's right.

Dan: And Jasper.

Sidey: It doesn't play out too well for Jasper, does

Dan: No, not, not as it goes. So, so Jasper becomes a hero before he, he departs,

Reegs: Pull my finger.

Dan: Yeah.

Reegs: It's like the most childish joke ever. And he goes down like, pull my finger. Gets shot I think in the

Sidey: Yeah. He gets shot twice before they

Reegs: And he does pull my finger again. Yeah. Shoots it with a foot. So

Dan: that's Theo lost and he's kind of on the on the cliff edge, looking down at the house and seeing this unfold and thinking, that's my last mate gone there. I've got nothing else. He's been giving it a tip to get to a army or captain or something That Sid, Sid, Sid, that Buys the weed.

Reegs: Tel him, he's a fascist pig.

Dan: that was the that was kind of the coat. Don't make sure you call him a fascist pig for me. Right. Okay. And sure enough, Sid is a fascist pig. Yeah. And he, he lives right up to that to the point where he, he

Reegs: talks about himself in the third

Cris: Yeah. I, I was confused initially because I actually thought, is he taking him to Sid?

Reegs: Yeah.

Cris: then I realized, you know what, while this kind of monologue goes, I kind of realize that Oh, right, okay.

He's talking about himself. So he is obviously clearly something wrong there, but.

Dan: Yeah.

he, he is, he's unhinged, but he's also knows the, the

Reegs: Well, they've gotta get into

Dan: do what he's gonna do.

He's break, they're breaking into

Reegs: into Becks Hill refugee camp because there's a boat coming called the tomorrow.

And they've gotta try and get key onto the boat,

Cris: at a certain time or at a certain place. Yeah. And, and these are the people from the Human Project. That's right. Which, On the way to the Bexell refugee camp, we find out that they've never spoken to the, it was only Julian that did

Dan: legend almost. The way that they've set it all up is, is one person will be speak to one person who who'll have another word to somewhere else.

Reegs: and where they've gotta meet them is by the second boy out in a buoy.

Dan: Yeah.

Buoy,

Sidey: Mm-hmm. Don't like that.

Reegs: Out in the sea. Yeah. I'm not navel.

Dan: Which seems an impossible mission because it, it is like a scene from Saban Private Ryan, when they've got the other side of

Sidey: Yeah, the last half an hour could be out, straight out of saving private

Dan: It's just all bombs and, and and derelict buildings and snipers and, and all sorts going on.

Cris: Well, they get all the instructions from Sid going to the camp, go by the horse or the statue, find this woman. She could be a gypsy or she could be Mexican, whatever. And then she's gonna give you accommodation.

They find this woman, they get accommodation, but on the way to prison, the girl's water breaks. So she's going to have the baby very soon.

Dan: Yeah.

Cris: Yeah. So then as soon as the

Reegs: to deliver it. Clive Owen has to deliver it.

Dan: Yeah. They're up in this room and it's

Sidey: pretty graphic.

Dan: It's,

yeah. It, it, it's and the, and the baby little girl is delivered. Mm-hmm. And Well, you know,

Sidey: this up, up the fucking anxiety for me now, like from this pit, like, fuck it.

Hell,

Reegs: Now they've got a baby. Yeah. And Sid, the fascist pig has started to realize that there's something else going on when he turns up.

Dan: In, in the morning. I mean,

Cris: yeah, because he's watched them on the news.

No, that's what he

Sidey: Yeah. There's a reward. There's a reward on their heads. There's a bounty.

Dan: Keys had no time to, to.

To kind of get over the pregnancy before she's,

Sidey: get up, go your

Dan: Sids in, get on your feet, let's go. And they see the baby. And Sids.

Sidey: he flips, eh,

Dan: a, a new kind of Sid. He, he lives up to his fascist pig and, and starts trying to take control of the situation and Theo's not having any of it. And they have this massive kind of fight, which he

Sidey: Sinces got a gun and he fires there.

There's a few shots go off and I'm like, right, someone's gonna have been hit here.

Reegs: know, but you're just thinking, my God, not the

baby.

Sidey: I was thinking that as well. Or maybe key. I dunno. And they, they, they kind of wrestles him to the ground. And then, what's the lady called?

Reegs: Miriam

Miriam.

Cris: Oh no. The maka or something like that.

Sidey: Mari Marish.

She comes and batters in with a table leg or something. Yeah. But then just lets, like, they don't knock him out or anything, and they, they, they go out of this, this corridor at the end of the house where they're stuck and the door is kind of wedged. It's just a jar, and it's this really tense moment of them trying to squeeze through.

And you think that Maurice has run off with the baby at first

Reegs: yeah, yeah.

Sidey: disappears around the corner, then she comes back and Oh God.

Dan: Oh, that

Sidey: just, you're just waiting for the camera. It does flip a couple times and you see Sid starting to get himself together and he's coming after them

Dan: and he'd left the gun there

Sidey: gun and he gets off a few rounds and like, oh fuck.

And then, but then he has the same problem of trying to squeeze through the door and when he pokes his head around it, fucking leathers in with a car battery. Yeah. Yeah. It's fucking

Reegs: It's dark. Yeah. Yeah.

Dan: Boom. He's gone, idiot. And, and they have to kind of go through these different

Sidey: and now, now

Dan: And now

Reegs: take

just

Sidey: Now it is just bullets writing down and fucking tanks and just relentless

Cris: which,

which has all been started by the fishes.

Yeah, yeah. That try to bra Well they, they basically blow up a, a hole into the fence of the camp. That's right. So they came in and then the army had to intervene. So now it's a war

Sidey: I was kind of like, Ducking around. I'm watching like, what fucking hell?

Reegs: Oh, it's an incredible sequence.

And there's so much to it, and it, it eventually reaches this kind of crescendo when people well, Luke kind of gets shot. He's ranting and raving, isn't he? And

Cris: Well, they take the, they take key and the baby. As soon as they escape what's his face? The police officer then Luke and Charlie Hunter and all these other guys. Take the key and the baby. That's right. And then tell that he tells the dreadlock guy kill him once we're around the corner.

And then the army comes, and then there's all this battle. Once they go upstairs and clones trying to rescue her from these guys, that's when they have this kind of dingdong and he's, while he's shooting in the street, he's trying to speak to, to Clive Owen and to keep her there. Yeah. But in the end, he

Reegs: He gets taken out, don't he? But then we

Sidey: there's also

Reegs: this incredible sequence. Then when people start noticing that there's a baby, and the, basically the entire battlefield just quiets in. Like, you see a soldier first, like cease fire and the, you know, the, and then just this like breathtaking, like maybe 90 seconds maybe as she wanders out through the street and the battle stops and then it just starts raging again behind them.

One,

Dan: 1, 1 bullet again, just sort of kicks it all off again. But It's, yeah. Incredible. Just how,

Reegs: Yeah. Just, yeah.

Dan: they can't believe it, you know, it's a baby. They never thought they would,

Sidey: Yeah. I mean, most of 'em wouldn't have seen one, I guess if they're young enough. Yeah.

Reegs: So recognizing the significance of the moment they're allowed to carry on, to get a boat and row out to sea,

Dan: not before. Of course, our hero has taken one in the gut and it's that slow kind of bleed out. Where

Reegs: She thinks it's her at first, doesn't she? And then he's like, no, it's all right. It's me.

Sidey: And he says, just, you know, keep the baby close. Don't listen to anything they say. You know, stuff like that. And, and she's already said before they left the building, she says, I'm gonna call the baby bazooka.

And he's like, I dunno, it's,

Reegs: was brilliant.

Dan: what was it, Freek first or something.

And then she got Folio or

Sidey: Yeah.

Dan: He's going,

Sidey: he is like, well, dunno. And then on the boat he's given all this advice and he is just like passing, you know, it's just seems like it's not, it's not exactly clear. I, I think he, he's dead, isn't he? Right? Yeah.

And before, just before he passes, she says, well, I'm, I've decided actually I'm gonna name the baby Dylan. You're like,

Reegs: Oh yeah,

Dan: Yeah.

Reegs: yeah, yeah.

Sidey: and then she, she says on the boat, the boat's there. And I think it's too late for him, unfortunately. But the Tomorrow, tomorrow

Dan: turns up and they've got islands in

Sidey: the, the streams.

Dan: Islands in the sun. Yeah. Yeah, it was

as

good as I remember, to be honest, I really enjoyed it.

Again it was as bleak and, and and as, Kind of almost believable as you think it, it could be. There's real hope in it. And.

Sidey: only at the very, very end,

Dan: Yeah,

Sidey: only

Dan: but the whole, no, but the whole time, like

Reegs: like a tiny bit of hope as

Dan: this relationship between between Theo and, and you know, Julian as well, the midwife, the.

The everybody that stopped, you know, this relationship with the baby that everybody had, whether they knew it or not, when they found out, it just stopped everything. Like, you know, it just kind of cleared the, the war even for a, a few seconds or the battle. Yeah, it was yeah, a really, really good film.

I mean, it was Academy Award nominated maybe

back in

Sidey: I dunno, I didn't really look at the awards. I was too busy just enjoying it. Yeah. It was, it was slightly problematic to watch because virtually every scene has a dog in it. And I was watching it with my dogs in the room and she goes fucking mental every time, just screaming, barking at the tv, jumping up, trying to get in there.

And then if the dog like walks off the sh shot, she's like, looking for where it's gone and fucking shag. So I had to turn it off. Watch over three nights cuz she kept doing it. And I was just like, wow, there won't be anymore dogs now surely. And then a fucking another one turned up. So that was irritating.

But the film, like it's a knockout. Absolute fucking great a mm it's

Reegs: It's brilliant. Yeah. And there's so much going on, not just the world that's brilliantly fleshed out and the amazing cinematography and the inventive action sequences.

But there's also this sort of thematic stuff that's interesting and the biblical illusions, which are kind of heavy handed, but also really work in in this world. It's just great. Great, great,

Dan: Well, it was, it was nominated for three Academy Awards 2007 best adapted screenplay, cinematography and Film editing.

Sidey: No. Director nod. That's outrageous.

Dan: a, but it did win

Reegs: Alfonso Quran

Dan: Award it, the 2007 Sudden Eastern Film Critics Association Award, so I'm sure there'd have

Reegs: That's the big one.

what did, What,

did you think, Chris?

Cris: I

really liked it. I actually have to say it is, I remember watching it the first time and when, when you said the, the title, I was like, and I've realized it's not shoot him up. I was just thinking that's the dark one, because I.

In, in a way it's shortened with how, how bleak it is really the, the reality of, of the movie. But I enjoyed it a lot more this time than, than when I watched it first time, because I didn't really see the, the positivity in it and the, the hope and everything else. But I really enjoyed it this time and I was watching it with my girlfriend and even at the end she was like, oh, I was on the edge of the whole movie.

She, you know, and, and she was kind of half on her phone, half watching it. But

Dan: sucked her in by the

Cris: Yeah, it was. She was really, oh, I'm so happy he finished in a way because he

Sidey: Yeah. Yeah. It's,

Cris: tense and that it was Yeah, I was really good. I I was really impressed.

Reegs: Gripping and yeah,

Sidey: MI Michael Cain apparently based his performance on John Lennon.

Yeah. Probably most notably the bit where he shot and killed.

Reegs: Yeah. Could probably. Yeah.

Sidey: is a shame.

Cris: He does have a reference like Lennon and McCarthy at one point

Reegs: Len McCartney.

Yeah, he does talk about that.

Sidey: Strong recommend though from us. Yes.

Dan: Yeah. If you haven't seen this one, go check it out.

Cris: Even if you have seen

Sidey: check it out again.

Yeah, for sure.