Thief

Thief

Dan: I'd not heard of this. And we, we welcome back Howie.

Howie: Hi.

Reegs: Yeah. Howie, you gifted us with Michael Mann's debut,

Howie: Mm-hmm.

Reegs: 1980 ones

Thief.

Howie: Yeah. Oh, well I was a bit bored recently. I've spent a lot of time

Reegs: Well, just

Howie: putting, well, I've been putting together this submarine for a while now and I ran outta Blue

Reegs: Tack.

Yeah. speaking of things put together with Blue Tack. Yeah. Your shoulder.

Howie: My pectoral.

Reegs: Yeah. So you've been out of action for a little while. You had both arms gone for a little while. One arm very severely.

Howie: I was trying to recreate my own boxing Helena. Yeah. But what actually was a Frenchman had a good crack at it with his skis and ripped.

Various things off my body.

Reegs: And it's nice to see, even if you are sort of missing an arm now it is

Dan: And the other one's kind of developed a Popeye

Howie: term. Popeye. Yeah. So, it looks like some form of weird growth now where it ripped off. So yeah. I mean, everything's coming up millhouse now.

The summer awaits, I can't wait to show this absolute husk of a body off. Yeah. So cross between a crippled vampire. It's kind of the look I'm going for this summer. It's good. It's good. But no, it's nice to be back. Thank you for having me.

Reegs: No, thank you.

for coming along. It's been too long.

Howie: I was confused by the handshakes at the start.

There's obviously a code to get

Dan: so awkward out. I never know. The fist pump, the high five give a firm hand shake.

I never know what I'm getting these days. Finger. Yeah, there's that. I

Howie: is he, is he now recording or is he not recording?

Reegs: Yeah. Yeah, yeah,

Dan: yeah. Just playing with levels. He just, cuz side's not here. He's got all technical, we've put him in front of the

Howie: mixed master

mash,

Dan: the pod track.

Reegs: Literally anything could happen.

Dan: just sliding those dials up and down.

Reegs: Yeah.

let's get on and talk

Howie: the actual film.

Reegs: Yeah. Michael Van's 1981 debut right last week, which in real time, who, who knows when this will episode will actually go out.

But we talked about Danny Boyle's debut in Shallow Grave and how it had a lot of the sort of stylistic and cinematic trademarks and flourishes that you saw throughout his. Career, and this is absolutely the truth with Michael Mann's film Yes. Thief as well. It's like all there, fully formed, straight away from his debut movie.

Everything that you would like about his movies is right there.

Dan: Obviously, he goes a little bit harder and more to town as budgets get bigger and things.

But yeah, the, the flavor is, is firmly kind of on the, on the paper in this film from, from the beginning. It was released as you said, sort of March, 1981.

Reegs: Yeah.

Howie: and he's got a, I mean, for his, for his. Debut directorial ship. He's got James Carn as the lead

Reegs: Yeah. Well, he'd done a load of television and stuff before, so it's not like he was unheard of, but this was his jump to feature length films.

Dan: but it, you're right. It's, I mean, James Cann at the time is a huge

Howie: God, just the godfather's

Reegs: nine years after Godfather, so

Howie: is nine. It's that long.

Reegs: Yeah. And James Kahn famously rates a scene from this movie as the best work of his career. So we can get

Howie: He's a what I was gonna say. Yeah. He is a charismatic guy.

Dan: I'll go out there and say that I've not seen him in a better performance than this. Right from the beginning.

Reegs: think this is my favorite. Yeah.

Dan: I thought he was fantastic. It just made me look at him actually in a whole new light, and I thought, why have I not seen more? James Cann films him as the lead?

Cuz I, I'd often see him

Reegs: you're going with James can, are you?

Howie: Is it Cann, as in the

Reegs: can, Yeah,

Dan: It's Kane. Probably Canne. I dunno. You can or you can

Reegs: You can or you can't. Yeah.

Dan: But yeah, I was really impressed with his performance all the way through this. So, yeah. Excited to start talking about it cuz I'd not heard of this,

Howie: I think it was linked. The only reason I saw it, it was one of those recommended you watch on

Reegs: Mm-hmm.

Howie: And obviously I obviously watched

Dan: algorithms. Yes. Yeah. Referring this up.

Howie: it's it's a lot better than some of the usual crap that comes up because the kids have obviously watched some other utter DRL on

Reegs: that Yeah.

Dan: Well Michael Mann wrote this as well.

Reegs: He did.

Howie: He seemed to have done quite a lot of this.

Dan: Yeah. I think with debuts that's kind of the, the way forward isn't it? You're trying to save money, you're trying to be in control. I mean it's a huge. I guess for any movie director to go, right, this is it, you know, if it flops, you might not get another film. If it makes it, you might have a career like Michael Manz had in which you're gonna get a, a load more.

So he had this script and he got the, the right actors in as well.

Reegs: Yeah. So let's get into it. So we start with a heist. It's that typical synth score going and the sort of neon and water drenched streets. And there's a safe being drilled. And it's very patient, very relaxed.

There's a guy. Doing on Lookout. And another guy on the alarm, I think

Howie: Belushi James Belushi's character Barry.

Reegs: Yeah. And it's, it's all authentic, detailed. There's no sense of tension per se, apart from the actual risk of the crime. They're just patiently doing this thing. He's using a drill with like a magnetized plate to bore through

the, the safe until the tumblers are exposed.

And then he just pops 'em out with a just with a screwdriver. I

Howie: quite surgical, isn't it? Yeah. He's clearly a professional who knows what he's doing. It's not like,

Reegs: And they taught him to do it for real. So they

bought a 10,000 pound dollars safe. And the safe that you see him do at the beginning of the movie, he, he is taught how to crack that safe and he does do it by an actor who was in the movie.

So really pretty cool.

Dan: Well, that's right. Yeah. I did read with my extensive research on this film that Michael Mann really went to town on his research for it by speaking to other well, well, criminals

Reegs: and well, teaching James Carn how to crack a safe and then filming him do it. It's pretty cool.

Howie: isn't, isn't that indicative of kind of where Michael Mann's career then goes, which, I mean, we'll go into it, but obviously you can see he's looking for.

Realism. He's looking for authenticity

Reegs: and there's like a level of detail and he won't spoonfeed you every element of the plot. You'll sometimes not know why things are happening and then later they'll become relevant and that sort of thing.

Yeah. Cool. So anyway, they break into it and he's obvious as well. There's no, like, when they get into it, he's, he's only interested in a particular score he rifles through looking for envelopes, right? Yeah. And he pockets these envelopes. He knows what he's looking for after he pockets all that stuff, they take away all of the gear.

They split up, go off into the night, there's a pre-packed car. The lookout drives off with all the equipment. They go back to a garage, which will later turn, learn his Frank's garage. And everybody disappears at perfect heist.

Howie: Yeah, it's all very

Reegs: job's done.

Howie: and as I said earlier, surgically done. There's no looking around, firstly panicking. It's just controlled.

Everything about it is just very controlled,

Reegs: and it's maybe the first 10 to 15 minutes of the movie is this heist. So yeah,

Howie: And there's no, yeah, very no dialogue, no nothing. So very little soundtrack as well

apart from at the start. But during the actual. Safe part. I think it's more

Reegs: mostly it's the noise of the

Howie: drill.

Yeah. Yeah.

Dan: is Tangerine Dream

Howie: Yes. That's the name.

Dan: this With their synth. Yeah, through this film, but not all the way through. And yeah, as you say, there's real realistic sound effects with drills and, and just the quiet and still at those moments,

Howie: Yeah.

Reegs: So anyway next we see his covers. So Frank has a sort of car dealership slash garage, and I think he owns that bar as

Howie: well. Yes, he does. Yep.

Reegs: That he is going to

arrange to meet on a date, a waitress who works there, Jesse.

Howie: played by Tuesday. Weld.

Reegs: What a name. What a name. And so after the score, he's, he, he arranges to meet his fence. Who's an amazing looking guy.

Howie: God. Joe Gogs. Gags. Gags. Joe gags. And he looks like he's someone who gags.

Reegs: Yeah, he looks like somebody. You should check his hard

Howie: Yeah. Yeah.

Reegs: and

Howie: what a strange

Reegs: they're in the diner just doing like brazenly.

He's got like half a million dollars worth of diamonds there. And he knows his fee is $185,000 and the guy's gonna take him and bring the fee back and he like, sort of freelances his work, basically.

Dan: Yeah, he, you, you come. Quite quickly to the realization that Frank is a professional and that he has a way of doing things, a way of operating. And that is it.

You know, his work is professional. He expects everybody else to just go

middle, be straight down the

middle.

Reegs: He has his code.

Dan: Exactly. Yeah. He's got that kind of code and and he looks like he's on top of things that way. He's, he's obviously. You know, made a few quid. He's, he's driving around and he seems to be relatively going, going well.

But then,

Reegs: he comes to learn some unfortunate news, which is Joe Gags who had his money was also taking some money off the side as well and has been clipped. So he's lost Joe Gags and he's now down 185,000.

Dan: Well, Joe Gags is falling out of a window, isn't he? Yeah. And yeah, that along with the 185,000 that.

He's owed. So he wants Frank then

Reegs: this is amazing this

Dan: to, to claim this, this money

Reegs: because he does just go like waltzing straight. He comes to know the guy who had it, he works at a manufacturing place

and

Howie: Plates or something.

Reegs: Yeah. He's got some code word that he says that will allow him to come in and just talk to the guy and he just marches straight in there to these, like, he knows that they're gangsters and he demands his money. Paul's had gone he's

Dan: taking any shit. Yeah, he's he, he has right on his side. Yeah. And he goes in saying, look, you owe me money. I don't want a dollar more than that. I, I, I don't want a dollar less. You owe me that money. And after threatening he, he goes out and says, you've got 24 hours or so,

Reegs: That's right. And

he ends up in it just in a room of like a typing pool and a whole load of like

Dan: yeah, it's, it is, it is a crazy scene cuz it's just like, Any open plan office, and nobody knows that he just pulled a gun inside, but he comes out with the gun and starts

Reegs: pretty ballsy to pull

Dan: flashing it around a little bit, and all the typists are kind of going and there was no need for him really to take.

He could have just sneaked in, but. Obviously he's a professional. He thinks, well, maybe somebody will come out the back and shoot me if I've got my gun. So he's, he's ready. He knows high stakes.

Reegs: Anyway, all this 24 hour deadline and whatnot leads to a meeting with the big guy. And this was the debut of a character actor that you'll know from loads of stuff, but mostly, I'm just gonna say Gremlins two.

It's Robert Prosky.

Dan: Yeah.

Howie: Li Yeah.

Reegs: And the guy with no teeth at the, the front sort of thing. And,

Dan: I really, I really liked him in this.

Reegs: Yeah, he's great.

He's,

Dan: he's Leo.

Howie: Leo.

Reegs: there's a bunch of like guys who don't look like much until they're utterly terrifying in this, and he's one of them. And so Leo has been the boss man that Joe Gags was fencing money the Diamonds through.

And in fact, it turns out he owns quite a lot of the town because he knows Frank's other dealings when Frank works with other contractors, so to speak,

Howie: and he admires Frank's work.

Reegs: He does. Yeah. And he wants to set him up. He's like, you know, come and work for me. I'll make you a millionaire in four months.

He says

to, him,

Dan: Frank, Frank don't want to take no shit though, cuz Frank's happy working for himself. And he says that. He goes, why? Why am I gonna do this?

Reegs: I don't have to manage egos.

Dan: Exactly. I just go, I go in, I have an amount, I come out, that's it. My work's great. And he goes, Yeah. Well that, why don't you let me do it?

We'll, case the joints we're only gonna give you high scores. It's only gonna be this. He gives him the money, the 185 grand. He goes, have a think about it.

Reegs: but he's not interested. He says to him specifically, I don't want the exposure, the heat that working for you brings and it's gonna bring a lot of heat.

Dan: Yeah. But we sense, or I did, that might not be the last time we see Leo in this film. And he might have to have a reason to, to come back and take him up on his offer and sure enough,

Reegs: Well, his reason is he comes up in the next scene is when he goes to meet Jesse the waitress. And there's a bit of a, they, they go and listen, listen to some blues in a blues bar, the Mighty Joe Young Band,

Howie: really good.

Yeah, it's, it's really good bit of music on

Reegs: Yeah, it's brilliant. And but then there's a bit of an altercation and Frank is deeply paranoid as well. He thinks people are pulling guns on him and you know, he flashes his piece and pushes people outta the way. And it's a stormy introduction.

And before long they're having this shouting match where they're shouting their histories at each other.

Dan: I, I think he must be about an hour late and she's not impressed. No. And he kind of man handles her into it. Into the car. As you say, he has shows of his gun to some guy who, who steps in and he goes like, fuck off, do one.

He he bundles you into the car. And then he's almost, he just wants to cut through the bullshit. He doesn't want any games. And he just says, look, what's so terrific about your life, I'm telling you, like, I'm sweet on your, I've been coming in here every six months. What'd you think I'd do? What'd you, you know?

And he's, he's laying it out. He's, you can see his heart on his

Howie: well, he's been told to do that by the strangest, shortest cameo. Willie Nelson.

Dan: Willie Nelson.

Reegs: Yeah.

Dan: Yeah.

Howie: So, He's previously gone to, to visiting in a jail. And Willie Nelson plays, I think it's Okra. Okla. Okla.

Dan: Oprah.

Howie: Oprah. Oprah. Yeah. Plays Oprah. Gives free cars everywhere.

Reegs: His boss?

Yeah.

Howie: he's kind of his mentor. His boss. He's

Dan: Master

Howie: Yeah. Master

Thief.

Dan: in jail?

Howie: wants him to get him out of jail. Yeah. Which leads to a

Reegs: he's got angina something. Something. Yeah. And he's only got 10 months to live. That's what he says.

Howie: And he, but he, he basically tells Frank that if you wanna be with this person, why stress about not sharing your history with her in the history being that he's been a prisoner if,

Dan: if, if you're a stranger Yeah.

And what you, what you do, he says, you know, there's no point bullshitting it. And you're right. He's got 10 months of prison and he said he won't last 10 months. Yeah. So he wants to get him out. And

Reegs: and yeah, you're right. That is the fuel to the conversation that Frank has. And then there's this great, great scene, Frank and Jesse in the diner.

Yeah. Maybe a 10 or 15 minute conversation. And this is, this is the stuff that James Kane, can

Kane, he rates is the, Best, you know, acting of his career. And I can see why it's a great scene where, you know, they slowly open up, she talks about an abusive relationship and traveling around and then her boring, practical life and how she likes that now after what she's been in.

And he tells her I'm a thief. For, and I've done time in

prison. but this is what I want. And he lays it all out on this like postcard?

yeah. That he

carries around. It's like a collage of all of his, it's like a perversion of the American dream because it's like him and his wife and kids and the master thief and a farm that he's gonna own, I

Dan: of skulls in the

Howie: Yeah.

that's the bit, yeah. The skulls, which is what,

Dan: and he Yeah. He kind of puts down this confusing collage to impress her and say, look, you're on there. Yeah. You know, you are part of this dream. That's you in the top corner,

Reegs: Well, she says, I can't have kids

Howie: Yeah. Yeah. And she just suddenly says, but I can't be part of this because I can't have the kids.

Reegs: And he's like, we'll

Howie: Yeah. Straight off. So,

Reegs: So,

Howie: and then it goes into a bit of language that is, Somewhat interesting is descriptions of the various types of

Dan: Yeah. Yeah. But it, at that moment, he's got her, because that is what she wants.

I think she, she thinks that that kind of life is, is left there.

Reegs: Yeah. It's another shot.

Dan: she'll never get that. And she's saying, wait a minute, I could have like a house. Mm-hmm. With

Reegs: 2.4 children and a house

in The suburbs. He wants this and he's gonna make it happen, and,

Dan: and, and so she, She accepts she's gonna be his girl.

It

Reegs: mean, even though these people are clearly dysfunctional and this relationship is doomed, it seems.

I think,

Dan: well, I dunno, it is like two people there that have obviously been through the mill. They've been in relationships, he's been in jail, they've.

Howie: he's, well, he's been an orphan, hasn't he

Dan: been an orphan. He's had loads of baggage. She's got loads of baggage and they're just saying, look, what about me? And you try and make something special happen. He's obviously a bit of a romantic at heart as well, and I think she is as well, and they go, right, let's go for it. It was, it was a fantastic kind of moment.

You thought, well, you know, you're rooting for him

Reegs: and it's like bright white against the black of the night in the background and then every so often he turns up like the noise of the freeway and the stuff in the background.

So it interrupts, their conversation

Howie: it an overpass or something?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Reegs: so

I mean, that basically moves or motivates Frank to kind of go for like the. It, the trope of one last job. Yeah. You know, I'm gonna do one last

big

Howie: I'm gonna speed up the process of ending this and getting that

Reegs: getting that

Dan: direction. Well, he, he says to, to Leo right at the beginning, I'll do, you know, two, three jobs tops. And then on the phone when he goes to accept, it's like one,

Reegs: or two jobs And, but

it's always clear as well what his terms are as

well.

Dan: Exactly. He's very clear on what

Reegs: and Leo has tried to sort of persuade him about an error of legitimacy that they invest their money from this into like building shopping centers.

Yeah.

Howie: in California or something, isn't

Reegs: Yeah. And you know, Frank has already said, no, I don't want a part of that. I want my money and. And that's that. So the terms are clear from his point. Okla does eventually get released from n not from jail, not before. We have a terrific scene

with the

Howie: court scene.

Yeah.

Reegs: yeah. Where

they're, where the shady lawyer and the judge are literally bargaining via like fingers on their face how much the bribe is gonna

be,

Dan: right. It starts off at like three. The judge puts six, I think they settle on five or, or whatever it is. And it's all done with. Three fingers, two fingers on the face. They find an agreement. Frank is in the back there kind of watching all this happen. And I think he's so happy.

He drops the, the lawyer 10 says, buy yourself a new suit. Thought it might be a bit more than that. And he is just so happy that he's getting he's coming through for his mate here and, and getting the time back.

Reegs: And it spurs Jesse and Frank on in really a, frankly, a bizarre scene for him to go to the state adoption agency. I mean, this was clearly like doomed from the start as an ex con. And, you know, they can't, they don't even have driving licenses and things with them and they're not

Dan: oh, there's a huge cure of people looking for children and, and they would not be the most desirable. And that's basically what the woman says.

Frank

Reegs: he tries to briber with his ring. Yeah, he leaves his ring.

Howie: He goes on about how many, 3.2 Kara.

Reegs: Yeah.

Dan: And how they would need parents like him, who's bribing the

Howie: We'll take anything. Yeah. Oh

Dan: give, give us

Reegs: one Give us an eight year old black chink. I think he

Howie: Yeah. I think it was the exact

Dan: Who wants them?

We'll have it like, you know, no problem. Which again, just kind of showed, look, there's a lot of love there in this family. They'll

Reegs: do it. sort of,

Dan: But it's

Howie: Yeah, it's misguided.

Dan: but. But yeah. Well this is why they were

Reegs: they were reluctant

to give him a child.

Dan: You, you definitely can, but in their minds they're like, well, why wouldn't you?

You know, why wouldn't you do this? They're obviously delusional. They don't realize the way that the world works in this. They just think, look, we're

Reegs: an idea

Dan: Yeah, yeah. We'll do it. We'll do it. Wouldn't you say I won't do it anyway? Leo. Then. Has a, he gets whiff of this. Leo seems to have fingers in all pies.

Reegs: well, on the way after the adoption thing, Frank gets pulled over by some coppers who shake him down for a little bit. They're like, oh, well, we know who you are and who you work for. We want 10%. And the guy, they'll come back again later, these coppers because he just, he just fucks 'em off.

He just says, no, it was amazing. He just says no

Dan: that that copper actually was

Reegs: the, Thief. thief who was the technical advisor that Copper. Oh, right. Yeah.

Howie: The one

Reegs: Sergeant Risi,

Howie: the one he has to go out and calls a wp.

Reegs: Yeah. Okay.

Later on. Yeah. So

yeah, he

Dan: like that in this cultural

Howie: a little bit

Dan: Dated, but I mean, that's time in the

Howie: This film contains references that a culturally dated. It is one of those

Reegs: it's depiction as well of a particular type of, yeah. Anyway, we don't need to. So, that's how he ends up going off to find Leo to say, Hey, you know, I was saying the exposure that I'm getting from you, that's what I don't want.

And that's when they end up having a conversation where Leo turns it round. This is when he tells me about the shopping centers and stuff. And it also says, I'll get you a kid.

Howie: Yeah. The way that he says, so this is the start of him. Realizing that Frank kind of needs a father figure. Mm. So he's just lost. Well,

Reegs: he's just lost his mentor in Okla. He hasn't lost him yet. He's gonna lose

Howie: gonna lose him. He knows he's, yeah.

And he's, I think Leo's done a back obviously done background check cause he, the fuck this guy is, and realized he's from, Orphanages, broken homes a lot. State ed state sort of basically spent his life in state incarceration and, and he, and he's using the whole I you, I'll take you under my wing. Yeah, I can get you anything.

I will look after you. And he's drawing him in, but at the same time, obviously making Frank, dependent on him and have links to him and have, he therefore gets more control over Frank, cuz Frank, Frank on his own is uncontrollable. He's his own man. Yes. And now Leo's putting his tentacles around him saying, I'm now gradually Yeah.

Dan: Yeah. Little does he know.

Reegs: So

he's pro promised him this baby, and then Okla is gonna die because literally in the scene after Okla dies, they're like, oh, here's a baby.

Yes. And suddenly, holy shit, this, this functional couple have actually got a baby

Howie: they've got a home.

Reegs: Yeah. now. Yeah.

Howie: James Belushi goes around there. Yeah. Who's the sort of part of,

Reegs: His debut as well. James Belushi's. Yeah.

Howie: Obviously younger brother of the other John.

Reegs: yeah.

Dan: Yeah. And he must

Howie: have died? Did he die that year or year after?

Reegs: Oh, I don't know actually.

Not sure. Yeah,

Howie: eighties. Anyway,

Dan: eighties. But you're

Reegs: So they've got

it all kind of,

Dan: they're, they're all going and they're. Obviously they've got the, the baby now, thanks to Leo's influence. It's happy families and there's a job to do. This job finally comes in

Reegs: oh, well before that they do. He does have the bit where the coppers do take him in. They give him a right beating.

Howie: Yeah,

an absolute proper

Reegs: smashing and in the middle of it, oh, what's he shouting? He's like, oh, I can't, can't believe you. You want my money? Like, why don't you work for a living?

That's what he's saying to the guys as they're beating him up. Yeah. So that was great. But he refuses to pay, he still refuses to pay, and he's let out and they surveil him and they bug his car, I think, and he loses them by putting it on a bus to Des Moines and yeah, whatever. So we see him being pretty slick and

Dan: basically. Yeah. He, he's well ahead of the game. He, he knows he's a step ahead. And he

Reegs: to and no, he does need to be, and he has been because all the way through, he's been talking about the mechanics of this heist now that's gonna come up that we're basically gonna just leap straight into. But it's we get all the core bits of it.

Michael Man shows us there's like four alarms and. Belushi can cut four of them, but there's a fifth one, which is triggered automatically and you need to phone and say a code word. So they're gonna bug phones

Howie: and Mexico,

Reegs: In Mexico and all this cool shit. And also he's been talking to his technician, Frank has been talking to his technician about he needs something that's gonna burn at seven or 8,000

Howie: which is amazing when they do.

Reegs: Yeah, yeah. It is amazing.

Dan: Well, he, he says, well, even if I make this, it's gonna be a bitch to use. Like, he goes, just do it. I don't want to cut out or punch a hole.

I wanna. Like draw a

Reegs: make a door in it.

Yeah.

Dan: I'm just gonna walk straight through it.

Reegs: Yeah,

Because this, this safe is like super, super strong and the lock, he doesn't wanna fiddle about with the lock because they move it and it's in different, in a unique place in each.

Safe and all that shit. So, yeah, they come to do the heist and this again is a cool affair that we see in loads of detail drilling through the roof of the building, lowering the equipment down onto the floor, and then it firing up this thermal

Howie: which is

unbelievable.

Bit of care. Yeah. Holy hell.

Reegs: It's magnesium pipe and they fire pure oxygen down. It, I think is the way, it is, the way that it works.

Dan: either way. So it's, it is about, 10, 15 foot long, just this iron bar that's wobbling all around the shop. And once it's lit, it's just red hot. I mean, it just, you get

Reegs: it's white, white hot. Yeah. The sound.

Yeah, just white

Dan: hot. And Frank starts on the door and it, it's. It makes a lot of noise. You, you just think, I mean now you look at it and you think there's no cameras in it, there's no,

Howie: I was

Dan: there's no real kind of

Howie: laser lights and

Reegs: Yeah. yeah. Well, but that would like, you know, all those mission impossible shit where now Frank could be like fucking back

flipping

over lasers and

Howie: And there'd be like tense music. Yeah. And it's none of that. It's really agricultural.

Reegs: Yeah, but you and, but you watch these highs happen in quite big

Dan: Yeah. Well, it is a long shot of him drilling and eventually they do cut, he does cut through the door, which just sort of. C clunks down, they spray it cuz it had been so attention to detail

Reegs: they cut as

they're, as they're cut cutting it, he's firing a fire extinguisher at it to cool it

down so it doesn't,

Dan: And again, so the attention to detail and, and things like that and the thought that's gone into it, they

Reegs: and it's actually Belushi and Canne it looks like to me. I dunno if it was for all of it, but certainly when he fires up the lance, that's definitely James Belushi

doing

Dan: And, as, as we kind of talked about a lot of the. The machinery and the equipment was real, and it was, it was made for that. So they were getting a real sweat on, and it was as heavy as it, it looked on set

Reegs: and 8,000 degrees, that is hot

it

is factor 50 at least in it.

Dan: I, I love the, I love the way that that Frank's reaction after the door goes and he's just pulls out one of the chairs, they've flown to his side earlier and not worried about any noise or anything

Howie: wife was screaming his d n a, his d n

Reegs: none of that off

Howie: gloves off as a fag.

Dan: Ab Oh, is it just the, the, the cigarette air smoke's gonna be in the air and everything when they find this out, you know, it's they probably won't be the first thing they notice when they see a big hole and they've gone in and they're just tipping, like bin bags worth of diamonds into sacks.

And then it, I, I like the

Reegs: $4 million worth

Howie: Yes. Yeah. Which is I think it works out about 50 million at

Reegs: well adjusted.

Yeah.

Howie: Cuz his cut was supposed to be about two and a half million. Yeah. Even in real time, real

Reegs: But it's another beautifully well planned and executed heist and then Amazing. I love this bit. We get a bit afterwards, just before the. You know, it's the sort of calm before the storm of the third act where the job's been done and they go out somewhere on the beach.

It's happy families. It's Kane and Jessie

Dan: Belushi. And his

Reegs: and his bird.

and he, rugby

Howie: though he properly wipes her out.

Dan: He takes yeah, legs. Legs go up in the air and all sorts don't, and they're just kind of lying around and joking and everything. Best times on the beach, they get the phone call, their ends

Reegs: ready I was thinking if I went and like rugby tackled my, and it was, he goes

like right, in at the

Dan: Oh, he got it good.

Reegs: tackle and it's like he's quite a big guy and he's going quite fast and she fucking spins in the air.

Dan: it's just

Reegs: I did

that to my wife, she would kill me.

Howie: she properly, I think the over, she eats an absolute load of shit when she hits the

Dan: ground. Yeah, yeah. Oh, seawater and sand. All sorts. But her camera kind of pans along then and

Reegs: think we're supposed to chuckle at it, but I just thought she's probably got a brain

Howie: in there. He's gonna have to use all his winnings to fucking get long-term care allowance. Yeah.

Reegs: Anyway, so after he returns from the job, now

Dan: he's going back to, to see Leo and.

He's disappointed to find that Leo has given him about 30,000.

Reegs: no, It's

about 90 k.

Dan: Yeah. Or Yeah, nowhere near

Reegs: nowhere near the amount that,

he's supposed to. And he's on behalf of him. He is invested. Don't worry, I've invested it in the shopping center.

Dan: And he doesn't like this. And he said that he didn't like this the last time, so he, he likes it even less this time having to repeat himself. Frank,

Reegs: Well, he gives him 24 hours. He says, oh, you'll wear your ass for a hat.

Dan: But there,

Howie: which is, that's a hell of a trick.

Reegs: Mm-hmm.

Dan: Yeah. And they've but they, they go to town on him now at this point. Don't they?

Howie: Well, no. They, they, they, he

Reegs: he leaves,

doesn't he?

Cuz he.

Howie: he, he leaves and then drives off. But then he drives to the car

lot. He drives to the car lot and he's like looking around and something's not right.

And he like calls out for John Belushi's character. He is like Barry.

Reegs: Yeah.

Howie: nothing happens. And you see that Barry's being held back after being absolutely trolled by a couple of

Reegs: That's right.

Howie: And then they're like, say, say his name. Tell him you're here. Tell him you're here. And he's like, resisting, resisting.

And then he kind of, as they get closer and closer, they're like, tell him, tell him. And Belushi's character kind of pulls away and says, get da. And as

Reegs: He warns him.

There's an ambush.

Yeah,

Howie: him. they basically, now this is the bit where it does go budget. This blood bag effects?

Reegs: No, this, this was all pretty

good. I,

Howie: well

Dan: I, I dunno, I know, I know it's not real,

Reegs: The Belushi one against the, the van is

probably the worst of all of them, but the later one with Robert Prosky looks quite good.

Dan: He's, he's gone. He's gone all in cuz he is shot him in the van and it's a. Front on shot, so you can see that, you

Reegs: It's one of those tricks of cool editing where the guy kind of falls backwards and he's got the bag and the blood explodes

onto the car behind him. So you get like a real imp

Howie: cle. It's a minor infraction for the film, but yeah. And then there's

Reegs: so

anyway, Belushi's

Dan: dead. Yeah. And

Howie: I was gutted about. I thought he was quite a good charact, nice little fun.

Dan: yeah, I thought he was gonna make it, but he, he didn't, and. Then you think, whoa, is Frank gonna make it?

He's taken back to Leo's le, if you like, and Leo is going to town and says, and he is a really, as you talked about him earlier, being frightening. He was frightening in

Howie: Yeah. Cuz they've got it so that you see what Frank sees. So he's, he is looming over him and he's telling him, look at him. Yeah, look at him.

And the dead body's there. And he's like, look at him.

Reegs: Well, he's been like you say, quite fatherly all the way through, and he's such an

Howie: this is a switch

Reegs: he's like really menacing

Dan: he, he's even, and he's saying, he's telling him like, look, I've got you, I've got you. Even your family, you know, I've got you, your, your

Reegs: son.

He says, I'll,

I'll have your cunt wife on the street being fucked by.

And Puerto Ricans. Yeah.

Dan: Yeah.

Howie: And he, and he, but he says, I've got your family, I've got your house, I've got your business. Which is what Frank always said. He didn't really, he wanted to be

Reegs: separate And he's like, I'm gonna bleed you dry. That's what I do. You know, I'm gonna just

Dan: you're gonna work until you can't work anymore, until you're busted, until you're dead, or until you're Absolutely no use to me whatsoever anymore.

Reegs: It's really chilling and it's obvious that it's, you know,

and not an idle threat.

And he's done this kind of

thing, but thought before

Howie: in the acid dip.

Reegs: Yeah.

Oh, is that what that was? Acid,

Howie: an acid dip for car bodies.

Reegs: Ah,

Dan: and, and so, that's now Frank's life. He has to get used to the fact that Leo is no longer gonna give him. Anything he, he completely controls him. But Frank being Frank and anybody who'd watched this film, like we had realized that Frank wasn't gonna take this sitting down.

Reegs: No.

Howie: And he

Reegs: Well, sorry, go

on.

Howie: I was gonna say, does he, does he drive back to the family house now and he's just got this incredibly cold persona of Right. Get up. I can't be with you anymore. Yeah. Here's $400,000. You take it, you haven't got time to pack, you're just gonna go, you're

Reegs: take the kids

Howie: and you're going

Reegs: I'm never gonna see you again, but I'm gonna send you

Dan: if I, if I've, you just think heat, don't you?

Like if I can't walk away from anything in 30 seconds. Yeah. Like that kind of thing. Frank, Frank has gone straight into that mode where he is. He's just made that decision and said, no, like everything, my honor, I can't live with myself unless I sort this out. So. Everything else, the kid, the wife, the dream, all that, that's gone now I'm just gonna make sure this fucking knows about it.

And that's all that's in his mind. And he quite coldly, as you says, tells the he's

Howie: got his friend, the guy who's name We didn't really, you didn't, he's the guy who just monitors the radios.

Yeah. And frequencies during ev all the heists. So he's like Frank's last reliable associate. Yeah. From the old way. And he just gets in the car, gets the girl in the car, and they just drive off. And then Frank goes in and basically detonates the house

Reegs: blows the house. up.

Howie: a hell of an explosion in the house.

Reegs: is, yeah.

Howie: It's not cgi. That's actually the house has gone up.

Dan: Yeah, that was Guido, that kind. And he, he just kind of wa wanders out and he's, he just decides

Reegs: well he's gonna d get everything going up in flames cuz then he does his he does the club and then the garage as well.

Yeah. Just blows it all up.

Dan: He just thinks what You are gonna take everything I've got. Yeah. There's nothing fucking left. I've sent the, the girl away, the kids, I've blown up all my business. I've got nothing left to lose. And he talks about this mental state earlier in the, in that great scene that we talked about in the cafe of being in the mental state.

In prison where he had to just not care about living and dying. Yeah. And he had to get back in. He, he'd allowed himself to dream a little bit. And I think you see that reflected when he realizes it's all gone pairs.

Reegs: Oh yeah. Cuz he told that story about how he'd beaten up that guy.

Dan: E? Exactly. And he just kind of got into that mental state.

It didn't matter if he lived or died. And.

he

was back in that mental state for this last kind of chapter where he's gonna go.

Reegs: Yeah. Well we're in

the last revenge 10 minutes of the movie now. And he's gonna, we get some shots. This is quite cool, of the gangsters just like having a sandwich and reading the paper and

like

a bit of suburban, because that's where Leo is.

He's in kind of in a sort of suburban mansion type thing. And Frank is now armed only with his pistol. He's going to take him on. And he does, he take pretty swiftly to be

fair, he

Howie: one in the fridge Yeah. To begin with. And then there's that woman, is she watching the telly or something?

Yeah. And he just looks at her and she looks at

Reegs: she looks away. and he,

Howie: Just looks away.

Reegs: She's allowed to live. And then there's a sort of cat and mouse thing with Robert Prosky and you don't know exactly where he is in relation to Kane. And

Dan: it was, it was funny, the, the maid, cuz we had a, a similar scene in Sicario the other week where a guy had just gone into a house to kill the boss.

That's right. And the maid looked so yeah, this,

Reegs: trope, isn't it? Top five maids.

Dan: that's it. Top five maids that look away. Well we've got two of them here, but yeah, he, he's, he's goes in and I really like the way He, he did all this from the way that he steps around the house, the gun. He's obviously had training and everything to, to do this and he's really careful going like two steps back and he's

Reegs: checking the corners and checking the

Dan: corners and everything.

Leo has heard the. The guy's not coming back from going to get some milk from the fridge or something. He's not come back and he's hiding now behind a wardrobe. He's picked up a gun. And you realize that he might have a, a kind of shot at Frank here as he comes around the corner. But Frank's a pro and he's, he kind of levels up.

Employs this, the, the right kind of stand and takes a couple of shots as Leo gets, I think his shot off and misses. Yeah. He gives him one into the gut and

Reegs: It's a bit of a weird death scene where he kind of dies and then

Howie: grabs his gun,

Reegs: his gun, and goes up again. It's a bit, it, it works though. It works. And, and the blood like splatters on the thing behind. It's a cool bit of

Dan: And he has taken a shot. Actually.

Howie: No, no, no.

Dan: But he's got a

Howie: No, no, no. You don't. No, he cuz he goes outside and he faces,

Reegs: this is cuz you don't know, he's got a,

Howie: He faces a guy whose name is gonna really Oh, Dennis Farina. Did you spot him?

Reegs: him? Yeah. Yeah.

From snatch and gets shorty and

Howie: shut up and sit Down. You Big Bald Fuck. Which is one of the best lines in Snatch.

And so he pulls out a machine gun on him and that's when one of the bullets hits. James can Yeah.

Dan: and he, he, yeah, he goes, he goes down, doesn't he? Can

Howie: fucking nails them and

Dan: Well, there's two guys. One of them's running away. And he shoots him as he gets, then turns and gets shot. And he gets a, a shot away and it, it comes down to who's gonna get it off quicker. And you see canne again, just in a perfect pose on the floor, shooting up and finishing off the machine gun guy

Howie: then pulls the bulletproof vest Yeah. To reveal. Yeah. But he's been like, kind of side sh he's, he's got, I think he's slightly

Dan: just grazed him, I think, on the side. And he's got a bit of a limp going on, but he just then walks down the, the street. Into the dark of the night and you're thinking, oh, he is gonna go and hook up with the misses.

And, and the kid again, he's given her load of money and this guy Guido to protect her for the next few months or something. But you also get the feeling because that's where the film ends as he just kind of walks off that he might not be going back to her. And Frank is again, just a, a man

Howie: On his own. On

Dan: on his own.

Reegs: Mm-hmm.

Howie: But you alluded to it just then there's the clear links to this being the starting point.

The most obvious starting point for my, for Michael Mann's films, Miami Vice Heat.

Reegs: Yeah. What they being in a shared universe where

Howie: Yeah, yeah. Like the, and the filming techniques. And the style. And the detail and One of the things I, I like about the o the, the, the kind of the stylistic approach that he takes is what you've alluded to both of you, was the silence that took place.

So you just heard the actual action.

Reegs: Mm-hmm.

Howie: Mm-hmm. And an example that carried very much so into is the, obviously the gun scene in heat. Yeah. Where it's not like,

it's just like, you know, them guns real. Bang sounds the footsteps, the, the atmosphere. And it's amplified by the fact that it's not overzealous synthesizer in the background, which at the start you think, oh God, is this some weird cop film at the start with the synth?

And then it goes and it's done.

Dan: Help you set the, the decade and everything.

Howie: No, I did. I did, but I didn't want it to be all the way through. No, that's what I meant.

Dan: I, I was just thinking if, if you are watching as a producer or A writer or or something. This young director Michael Mann, doing this first feature film.

Reegs: Mm-hmm.

Dan: You're just thinking, wow. Yeah. You know, because it, it's so manly the way, you know, it's like, you know, he's just got these dark atmospheric sounds and things. It's action. He's got tough characters.

Howie: It's intelligent though,

Dan: And it's really intelligent. You know,

Reegs: you know, and it,

Dan: He's thought about each and every scene to give it that realism and it, I thought it was fantastic.

I was, I was just, Really pleased that to find one of these gems or to be get, you

Howie: I was really happy with it too. Yeah. I was happy with it.

Dan: And it, it is one of those, it's, it's a classic. It's

Reegs: been

Dan: around for sort of 40 years. Yeah. But it's still, you wouldn't think that's a 40 year old film. No. You know, to, to see It's still got, well,

Reegs: well, some of the things that we talked about, dead data, you know,

Dan: the technology side and

Reegs: side, But

that pure crime drama story and the sort of attention to detail and

authenticity and yeah, the strong characters, the macho characters. Yeah. All there from,

Dan: all, all the, all the signs of what Michael Mann is, is delivered, is future, is come from this. I

Reegs: man and can

Dan: man and canne

Howie: can of man.

Dan: The man can for

Reegs: The

man. Can,

Yeah.