Tango & Cash transcript
Season 2 · Episode 24. Generated automatically, so expect the odd misheard word.
Hello and welcome to the worst movie podcast. I'm Aday.
And I'm Aaron, and this is a podcast where we watch the worst movies ever made in the hopes of finding a hidden gem. Enjoy.
So we've been doing this podcast for over a year now. Has it really been? Yeah. Because this is uh this is uh October, and we did the uh we started in September of last year.
Yeah. I remember doing the Halloween movie or the horror movies last year.
Right. And we did the the one month before that with uh modern messes.
Yeah.
Kind of crazy.
Wow. That is surprising.
Happy anniversary.
Thanks. Is it an anniversary or a birthday?
Hmm. I think it's an uh that's a good question. It's a birthday for the pod, but an anniversary for us. True. I don't know how that works. Both. Yeah. We'll have to Google that later. Yeah. Um what have you been watching lately?
Uh I started watching Slow Horses on Apple TV. Have you seen that?
I have, yeah. Um I haven't started the current season because I watched it. It just came in, right?
Yeah. Yeah. Or it's oh, it doesn't all come out at once? Right. It's too weak. Uh yeah, I just started season two, but I love it so far. Um Gary Oldman's great in it. Um He's awesome. So uh I mean there's rumors that the Jack Louden who plays uh River Cartwright uh is picked to be the next Bond already, so uh which I could see. He's good in that show.
Yeah, I like him in Slow Horses. It's I wonder if it's too close. Yeah.
Oh, you think it's too similar to Bond? Well, they're both spies. I mean yeah, they are both spies.
Yeah, it's it is a different character in like his demeanor and you know all that stuff, I guess, but that feels yeah. They're both they're both MI MI six spies.
Yeah. M I five, right? Wait, what is the difference between MI5 and MI6? I feel like I've looked this up before.
I think I should know.
Uh oh, it's like the FBI and CIA, maybe. MI5 is domestic and MI6 is foreign spies.
So Bond is MI6, right? Slow horses MI5?
Yes.
Okay.
MI5 is the security services, and MI6 is the secret intelligence service.
So it is different then. Maybe that's he can have the range of moving from MI5 to MI6.
Yeah, but he's also like kind of a fuck up in I I guess Bond is in some ways too, but like he's definitely not as like suave or uh it's closer to like uh Casino Royale Bond and Yeah than Pierce Bros.
But I do like that character in Slow Horses. I I like the uh uh I guess the switchery because he kind of has the stereotypical look and demeanor of somebody who's a great spy, but he is not actually very good.
Yeah. I don't know if this is a fever dream or if I really read this about him, but I thought I read an interview with him or something where he said that he thought he was doing like a really great job in the first season, and then the producers were like, You look really slow when you run. I don't know if that's real or not, or if I'm making that up, but when I was watching it, I was like, he does kind of look really slow when he runs like he's got feet that are too big for his body or something.
How do you fix that? I mean, that that's I don't know. It sounds like they're not even saying he's slow, it just he looks slow. Like, how can you look faster on camera? That feels like he that's the director's job or the Yeah, just shoot him from the waist up when he runs or something.
I don't know. Yeah. He needs to go work out with Tom Cruise. Yeah.
Anyway, it's a it's a fun show. Yeah, um excited for you to catch up.
Yeah, me too. So far, I'd recommend it.
Yeah, it's a fun watch. I also like that there aren't huge delays between seasons. I feel like it's always maybe the it's just on a annual cadence, but I feel like it's on season six already.
Yeah, it came out in like 2022 or 2023, I think. So they're putting out maybe one or two a year.
Yeah, that must be it.
Maybe they're putting out more than one per year, because And each each series is only like six episodes or something like that. So I which I I like kind of I kind of added to a shorter format.
I feel like most TV shows that I watch these days that are longer than six episodes. I'm just like, you're you're stretching it out. It's like this could have been this could have been a movie or two movies. Yeah. I think I've said that several times before, but on the pod, but yeah. I I don't feel that way about the British shows as much.
Yeah, I just get to.
What have you been watching? Well, I watched the Resident Evil movie in theaters. A new one. You didn't you haven't heard about this? By Zach Krieger, who did Weapons and Barbarian.
Oh. I maybe did read something about it, but I don't I'm not into the Resident Evil franchise, so I don't know that I've seen any of them.
Yeah, me I I'm not into the franchise either. I never played the game, and I've seen maybe a couple of the uh Mila Jovovich movies. Is that how you say your name? Uh like it but I don't I don't really remember any of them, and I'm not like a huge fan. I may have just seen bits and pieces while I was on TV or something like that. But um it was a it was a ton of fun. My brief letterbox review, I think, was it was the scariest comedy I've seen and the funniest horror movie I've seen. Uh Kelly and I went and halfway through she was like, I I can't do this anymore. And she left and just went shopping. Just like hung around until I was I was done. Uh it's uh it's a short, I think it's like 87 minutes or something like that. It's like a it's a tight movie. So um it wasn't like she left me for that long, but uh yeah, it it was great. I mean, it was so much fun. It was super scary, and they're like the the theater was people were jumping out of their seats scared and then like dying laughing uh many times. And yeah, it was just really well done and like a very uh straightforward, well executed movie. It didn't it didn't try to be super deep or more than it was, it just you know just hit hit all the right notes on uh what it was trying to do. Got the job done.
Is Resident Evil is that zombies or like what what's like the It's like zombie monsters.
Okay. Kind of they don't get like super deep into lore or what you know. It's it's kind of it feels like playing a video game in a sense where you see the the zombies and monsters, but they're not they're not like trying to create um It's not world building. Yeah, exactly. It's just like the main character going through this being like, holy shit, and tried to escape with his life or or you know, blow zombies away.
Do you think that I would like it?
Well, up until a year ago, you wouldn't watch horror movies at all. So I don't know. I I think you would like it, uh for sure. I think you should try to see it in theaters. I think it's fun to see with a crowd. Okay. Um but it is it is genuinely there's scary moments. Like I know you say you don't like jump scares.
Yeah.
But uh and there are a lot of them.
Yeah.
Uh but it's all it's all I don't know. I think it's uh executed well. I don't like w when we've talked about jump scares before, it's usually in the context of bad movies where you're just like, this was a cheap jump scare and it didn't really make sense for the you know, it's just uh and yeah, I guess you could you could quibble about it during this movie, but I think it's I don't know. I think it's good. Interesting.
I think I read when it was coming out that it was a little bit controversial that he was directing it and the like the type of movie he was gonna make because it was so different from the other uh movies in the franchise. Yeah, it's not like the other movies. I think that's fine.
Well, should we move on to today's movie? We don't have much of a transition. Yeah, I was just I was just trying to think of something. Speaking of Resident Evil, uh the evil that resides with okay. All right. Uh Tango and Cat.
Horrible, horrible transition.
Thank you, thank you. Uh, this month we're doing 80s action movies, October 80s action movies. Uh finally. Finally. Um, yeah, we haven't done a lot of 80s movies, we've realized. And so our first entry uh came out December 1989. So just right at the concert. They made it. Yeah, it is an 80s movie, uh barely. Um starring Sylvester Sallone and Kurt Russell and Terry Hatcher, a bunch of other uh minor characters that I'm sure we'll get to. Let's see, Rotten Tomatoes score 31%. It did well in the box office, $54 million budget and $120 million worldwide. Lots of background um issues in the production of this movie. Do you want to mention some of those briefly?
Uh well, right off the bat, they started filming without a finished script. Uh they had to rewrite it a ton of times, uh, including by Stallone. Uh, and including, I think some of the actors were writing their own dialogue and stuff in them in the movie. And there was this uh henchman character that was played by Brian Brian Jones Brian Jones, I guess. James B R I James, yeah. B-R-I-O-N. I guess that's Brian. Uh, but he claimed that his his role at the beginning was just like a background character, and then he ended up having a pretty large role in the movie, huge speaking roles and everything, too.
So did he make up his accent? Was he the one that decided he was Cockney? Yeah. I it took me a while. I was like, he sounds a little Australian at times. Yeah. Maybe there's some overlap, but I couldn't tell what he was supposed to be until halfway through the movie.
I don't know. I just looked him up. He's American, so that was definitely something he was putting on.
Yeah, I think I think part of his shti was he he had a wide range of accents in his uh in his rules. I don't know that he was necessarily good at them, but I rather he would do uh a bunch of different accents, like you know, exaggerated, like a southern accent. Uh yeah, he's from California, I think.
Interesting. Yeah, I I don't know, I don't know where that accent came from, but it was not very good. No. Um they fired the original director uh like three months in after they'd already started filming. The original director wanted to make a pretty serious like buddy cop action movie, like 48 hours or something, and that's kind of what Stallone wanted to make too. But the uh producers, uh John Peter, John Peters, he really wanted like a parody or something, some last action hero or something with crazy monologues and set pieces and villains that don't make sense. And I I guess uh John Peters won because that's kind of what they made. Yeah, he's the producer.
By the way, do you remember who John Peters is? Like, do you know did you know that name?
I know the name.
I don't remember. He's the guy we talked about on Wild Wild West. He was a producer in Wild Wild West.
Oh, yeah.
That Kevin uh um Smith talked about him winning the mechanical spider in Superman.
Yes. He's got such bad ideas. But he's been very successful, so successful. He did like Batman and the original Batman. Uh yeah. I don't know. It's like he needs somebody to tell him no sometimes.
I don't think that's his personality. He he was also um Brad Cooper played him in Licorice Pizza, the never saw Sanderson. Yeah, um, you need to see it's good. But like, yeah, he play he's this out there character that uh just kind of seems like what like a what you would imagine a Hollywood producer who has just crazy ideas and uh is like. And I my understanding is that portrayal is pretty pretty accurate. But anyway, you're saying John Peters had the these wild ideas for for the movie.
Yeah, they and he seemed to get his way, unfortunately. So he fired the director, replaced him. By the end, uh pretty much Stallone was directing it, uh, and rewriting it and starring in it and producing it. They were over budget behind schedule, reshoots. I mean, you name it, they had it.
Yeah, it was kind of a miracle they ended up being successful. Yeah.
Uh and John Peters was in the middle of a legal dispute that got this this movie got wrapped up into. Did you read about that? Uh-uh. No. John Peters ran a production company called Goobers Peters Entertainment, and Columbia Pictures hired them to run the studio, like hired John Peters and whoever Goobers is to run the studio. But they had a contract with Warner Brothers to make this movie, and Warner Brothers was like, you can't go run Columbia and work for us at the same time. So there was this huge legal dispute, and uh Peters claims that Warner Brothers took them off the movie like midway through, and that they didn't get to make the movie they wanted, and it was a mess, and apparently that's it's eventually settled where they could leave and go to Sony, but all of this was taking place during the filming of this movie, and it uh it kind of fucked everything up. What a mess.
Well, it kind of showed in the movie. Oh yeah. My after after I watched it, I I guess my insight was this felt like a movie that somebody watched their 20 favorite movies and then were like, let me write one movie that crams all 20 of those movies into it, and it ended up with a lot of fun scenes and like fun parts, but it didn't really go together well as a movie. They just kept like throwing shit in there, like everything from uh like it starts out, you think it's a buddy cop movie, and then it pivots hard into courtroom drama, and then it pivots hard into like prison movie and prison break movie, and then it pivots into like just action set pieces of monster truck races, and yeah, it's like a monster truck rally at the end. Yeah, and then it's like it becomes a high-tech spy gadget movie, like they just introduce a character that's giving there's like a Q character that has this lab that comes up with all these crazy gadgets that they give to uh to cash. Yeah, he just comes in towards the end for like four minutes of screen time and is a becomes a major character.
You know that was a John Peters thing.
Yeah. They're like, I like James Bond, let's put some James Bond in it. I like you know, lethal weapon, let's put some of that in it. Uh the very end, they're like, I like that scene from Enter the Dragon at the end where he's in the House of Bears. Let's just let's just do that scene.
Uh the the opening scene where they're chasing the the tanker truck, that is a direct ripoff of uh police story, the Jackie Chan movie. Uh okay.
I yeah, I didn't I haven't seen that, so I didn't realize that.
There's this scene where he's chasing these bad guys on a double decker bus, and it's a way better scene. Like he's like on and off the bus several times while it's driving, he's being dragged behind it, and then he gets like ahead of them in a car, stops it in the road, pulls out a Smith and Wesson Model 36 revolver, reloads it with the like quick, quick reload thing, spins it, slaps it closed, points at the bus, shoots into the he shoots into the air in in police story. Yeah, it stops short, and everybody falls out of the front windows onto the ground next to him. It's completely ripped off.
That's so funny. Yeah, yeah. I I mean we could kind of go through chronologically a little bit. I had so many notes uh just in the first 10 minutes. I was like pretty sure this is illegal.
Oh yeah. Yeah, he's shooting so much, and I'm like, you have to file so much paperwork for every shot you fire as a police officer.
Yeah, you can't just it's not how you stop the bad guys, or no, hopefully not. Uh I didn't understand why they stopped. Um I know, just run them over. Yeah. Uh but yeah, it was it was just like a really crazy scene.
And then it was a reshoot too. They shot that. That was like the last scene they shot.
Oh, wow.
And you could tell Stallone was fucking done with this movie by that point. He was so wooden and yeah, he was horrible in that scene.
Yeah, there there was a lot of where he was yeah, he did not seem like a good actor.
I told Amanda he sucked when he was in a suit, but as soon as you bloodied him up and and ripped his his clothes a little bit, he was back to normal stallone that we all love. Uh so I don't know.
There's a lot of winking at the camera that that had one of the cheesiest lines where they were like, he thinks he's Rambo and he's like, Rambo's a pussy.
Yeah.
This is like come on.
That was like when the within the first five minutes of the TV, I think.
Yeah. I was like, all right, we're this this is gonna be a grown heavy movie. Uh yeah, I I do feel like throughout they just try to throw as many like catchphrases or quips in as possible. Um Yeah.
I mean, they even had the trope of the old woman pushing the cart full of cans slowly across the street while the vehicle races towards her. Yeah.
Uh while I'm on the topic, jumping ahead real quick, I had to look up the there's a point where during the prison break scene where he escapes and uh Kerr Russell says something along the lines of, would you stop for coffee in a pastry or something? And he says, I hate Danish. I hate Danish. Did you look that up? I was like, is that a reference to that? Apparently he had just uh divorced his Danish model wife. I for I forget what her name was. So that was a reference to that.
And I was like, Do you think Stallone wrote that line?
I I don't know. Uh but it was like so out of it took me out of the movie so much I was like, there had to have been some meaning here.
Yeah, Amanda mentioned that line when you said it too. She was like, that was weird. Yeah, why would you why do you hate Danish? Who hates Danish?
Yeah. Um what'd you think of the movie?
It was fine. It was one of those movies you could uh again squint and see what was there, and unfortunately, I think the production issues doomed it. It's fun if you like Stallone and Kurt Russell, uh but plot-wise it it makes almost no sense. Uh there's some shitty dialogue. Uh some of the times the acting is bad. I mean, the acting's often bad. Yeah. For an action movie, it's okay. Uh it's fun enough. I didn't hate it. I sp not one of my favorites, but not the worst movie we've done.
Yeah, I actually I had fun watching it. I thought it was once once you I I think the first part of it sets expectations pretty low.
Yeah.
And then once once you're able to free your mind.
I think the first third was like a drag.
Yeah, it is especially drag during the courtroom side. And uh that was so weird.
I was like, what is this like my cousin Vinny now, or what is this?
Yeah, there's a big like courtroom speech, like a closing speech from Stallone's. Character and then yeah, it was just everyone it was again a bunch of different movies, and everyone kind of seemed like they took their own character and played it as if they're in their own idea of what the movie was was.
Yeah. It had a little bit of everything from all those movies that you'll find something in here that you connect with, but it's not a good movie.
Yeah, it's a buffet. Uh it's like that one uh it's like the steak and seafood buffet or whatever, where you're like, who who is it that goes to this buffet and is like, yeah, I want all these different types of food in the same.
I want crab legs and pizza with uh Chinese noodles and some sushi, please.
Yeah, this is just you're like, I have time for one movie this year. So I want all of it.
And it's gotta have Clint Howard in it.
Yeah, your favorite.
Yep.
I don't really know the best way to cover this movie because I just have a bunch of like random notes. Uh do you like a synopsis? Oh yeah, yeah. Skip the synopsis. Why don't you give a synopsis?
Uh okay. Uh Stallone plays Ray Tango, who is West Hollywood's best detective. And Russell plays Gabriel Cash, who is East Hollywood's best detective. They couldn't be more different. Uh Stallone's this like Armani suit wearing, stock trading, smooth detective, and Kurt Russell's like a cowboy. He drives a Corvette and wears ripped clothes and has his guns in his boots. Uh they get framed uh by this crime boss played by Jack Pallance named Eves Perret and get sent to prison. Uh they escape and they have to basically clear their names and prove their innocence. It's it's all over the place.
Yeah. I guess we can start with the premise. What did you think of the premise of the these two hot shot cops?
I mean, it's done to death. It's it's very uh typical buddy cop.
They push this really far. I mean, like Stallone's character, like you said, he's making he's really wealthy from trading stocks, I guess.
And he says he just does the police work for the action. Which if I know anything about police work It's all action, baby. Yeah.
Yeah. The the world of cops that this portrays seems so far from reality. Do you do you know the names of any cops other than you know your friends or family or like you know, through knowing person, but like do you who is the celebrity cop in the country that you that you know of? Oh my god.
The guy that Dirty Harry is based on. He investigated the zodiac. Um but he's starts with a B. Oh my god.
Yeah, that's cheating though. I know one. Like you well, uh that's zero. You couldn't name his name. But uh that's somebody from the 70s that you only know because of Dirty Harry and like stuff about the zodiac. It's not like there's a like there's no cop that would walk up to your door and you're like, hey, you're the you're the guy that from the front page of the paper. Like, yeah.
This they were celebrity cops for sure.
Yeah, they they had headlines all the time. Like Cash was driving through the street and kids would yell his name.
Yeah, hey Cash. Well, I mean, they had two front page stories. Like Tango had the headline, and then Cash had the story under the fold. Yeah. Like, well, who are these guys?
Yeah, and it seems like it wasn't the first time either. It was just like that, that was just an everyday occurrence for them. Yeah. I wrote down um, I think this was the parking garage scene. He did so much property damage, like just trying to catch. Oh, yeah. Like, like, do you think it's hard? I mean, they were both incredibly destructive. Yeah. Do you think people in 1989 watched this and were like, oh, that's crazy? Or is that was that just like yeah, that's normal. Because I feel like that's a common trope of like the cop. I mean, it's yeah, everything from diehard to you know, yeah, 48 hours. Yeah, bad boys. And yeah.
Um every one of them ha has a chase scene where they destroy 40 cars and and the police chief's like, you caused 20 million dollars in city damage. Yeah. Every time. Yeah. Uh I have no idea. I don't I was alive in '89, but I wasn't uh conscious. Uh I don't feel like there was a ton of this stuff going on on the news from the 90s when I was like reading about and when I was finally watching stuff.
Yeah. I mean, no, my question isn't like, yeah, I don't think this, I don't think there's any way this was happening. Like nonstop.
You're just wondering if people thought it was weird.
Yeah, like is it was it socially like I don't know, would you accept watching this in a movie? Because I feel like today that would be the number one criticism. Like I was like, this just doesn't feel really good.
I mean, that was the big criticism with uh Man of Steel was the amount of damage that he caused and but e yeah, even um was unrealistic.
Right. I don't know enough of the Marvel DC canon and like study those films well enough to like pinpoint with accuracy on this, but I both of those lineages of movies refer back to that destruction. Like I think if you if you like a lot of the Marvel movies talk about the incident or whatever where um Yeah, what was the name of that city that they dropped and yeah I don't remember. Anyway, like you know, it's it's they have to deal with that realistically in the in the films about yeah, that was a lot of damage, yeah. Yeah, it it wasn't just like kind of yada yada. They just brushed past it in the eighties. Right. Uh gratuitous damage. There's also a uh a nice gratuitous boob shot. Um There were a couple from from the eighties, yeah.
Yeah, that he crashes into a car that apparently two people are having sex in the back of, and you get get some boobs there. And then there's the uh the nightclub scene that I again feels just gratuitous and unnecessary.
Yeah, I mean at least that was a that made a little more sense. That made more sense. I felt like the garage one was like why what is that's just John Peters. Yeah. Uh uh presumably uh coming in like we don't have enough boobs. We don't have enough boobs in this movie. Let's just uh where can we drop drop a shot in there?
John Peters, if you're listening, please contact us. We'd love to interview you.
Don't sue us. I wrote down a quote, this shirt cost me $9. How much should shirts cost in 1989?
I he said that and I was like, that is that a lot? I don't know. There that couldn't have been that much. Yeah, because I'm imagining I'm imagining he said that as a juxtaposition to like Stallone's Armani suits and stuff. It's like he thinks nine dollars is a lot. I'm guessing.
But yeah, that's I mean that's how was that's how he said it is is it he was mad that he lost nine dollars with the d with the destroyed shirt. But yeah, I feel like I I wasn't I mean, I was still pretty young in 1989, but uh there's there's no way that like anybody would would have been like nine dollars, that's a ton for a shirt.
Yeah. I don't think this movie aged that badly. Yeah. I I don't think there was like pro problematic uh language in it or uh that I remember. The stunts I thought were okay.
There were many stunts where I was like, that is not Stallone. That is not we did the same thing. They did not try to hide uh when they switched to stunt doubles.
Yeah. Uh they were not very good about that. No. But it wasn't it wasn't the worst movie. It wasn't the best.
Yeah, definitely wasn't the best. Uh the can we talk about Jack Pallance a little bit? He was over the top. Uh, so this this is the evil mastermind character who uh the whole movie he's arguing with his co-conspirators or whatever. He's he just wants to play with them. Yeah. Um I thought the so we're introduced to them. I think it's in that scene where he stops the tanker and they drive by slowly in their limo. Yeah. And they're like tango and cash always. And I'm like, way to be inconspicuous. Yeah they're in the middle of nowhere, uh this like deserted highway seeming, and then they drive by slowly in their limo.
Yeah. At the scene of the crime that they're guilty for. Why didn't they just arrest them there?
Yeah, I don't know. And then he has this lair and he's like watching them on 16 TVs at once. And I'm like, what is this setup? He's got he's watching all this like hidden camera stuff, but it's no way to consume information.
I know. Uh the other thing that I loved about that scene, other than you could tell they had to frame it in such a way that the two characters' faces both appeared in the middle of one of the 16 screens. Yeah, they weren't like this was the 80s, they didn't have bezel-less LCDs, it was like CRT uh technology. And so that they were stand the two characters were standing in the frame very strangely looking at the camera, and then there was clearly somebody like holding the camera and zooming in and out on their faces when they would get to like this is a like a zoom call, but somebody has to be the cameraman for the zoom call. It was just so awkward, yeah. So weird. He was over the top. Uh, everything he said was 110%. He liked mice way too much. Yeah. He also said too much television that that dot that dot that that can hurt your eyes. It was like the longest pause.
Uh yeah, he was insane. Um by the in staying with the beginning, uh, I did laugh out loud at how cheesy it was, Tango and Cash following that cockney guy through the abandoned building. Like he was leading them to the trap. Yeah. And then and they were, I mean, it was almost like a cartoon where they're like uh like making big I don't know how to describe it, but it was like you're not good sneaky cops. Creeping along like Bugs Bunny. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. And the the villain keeps like stopping and waiting for them to catch up. It is so obvious in doing so.
Yeah, and he like looks right at them over his shoulder and they like hide and they're like, Oh god, I think he saw me. Like, you know you're being led to a trap.
Yeah. Um they went to trial really quickly. I think if if I understood the context presented in the movie, they got captured and sent to prison in two weeks.
Yeah. I don't remember the timeline, but it was it did seem very quick.
Because the villain said something about he has a shipment coming in a couple weeks. And so he has to get them out of the way.
Well, they took the plea, so maybe that's why it was a short trial.
It was already in a full they had witnesses and stuff like that. So it wasn't like they took a plea deal before it went to trial. They did they they weren't in trial. Yeah. Yeah. Huh. Yeah, there were people on the stand. He got to make it. This was like a murder trial. Yeah. The whole thing cops. Yeah. I mean, it would take months and months. I mean, it would be like I feel like uh the in real life it would take years for this to resolve. With appeals and stuff. I know I need to shut my brain off watching these movies, but it just didn't make a lot of s like everybody seemed to feel like they were innocent. Like there was no nobody in their world, like I know cops stick together, but nobody was like, Yeah, I hate Tango and Cash. Like maybe they did this. They were just like, Yeah, sure. They broke out of prison. Let's just talk to them normally.
Yeah. They just like they broke out of prison and then met the police chief like immediately.
And he helped them. And I'm like, Yeah. I I mean, another was it the like assistant warden or whatever helped me. I'll help you, I'll help you break out of prison. Like, it sucks what happened to you guys. I'll just put my job and my life on the line to break you guys out of prison. And he lost both. They walk into prison and uh they're just like fires, like full-blown fires in the main prison hall.
This has to be John Peters again. Uh trash is constantly raining from the ceiling. Yeah. Everything's on fire, and the guards don't give a shit at all.
I'm like, what is this prison? This is this is crazy. I don't know.
Yeah. It was like a prison riot all the time. Yeah.
I understand the trash. Except for the shower. Yeah, nobody was in the shower.
The shower scene was very strange.
Yeah. Yeah, I understand the trash. I just I didn't understand how the prison guards weren't reacting to the fire because it feels like at some point It was dangerous.
Yeah, yeah. There was big fires.
Yeah, it was it was a lot. It was like a bowl was on fire. Yeah, I know I'm spending a lot of time on this, but it was the building is on fire, guys. It was it was insane. But nobody noticed the fire and was trying to deal with it.
It was like they were trying not to notice. They had their sunglasses on and they were like walking all cool. Yeah next to every day.
It was right there. Yeah. It's gonna kill you guys soon. All these people in cages.
This is releasing smoke indoors, guys. You're gonna die.
Uh this prison is is insane. Like, why do they have so much electrical equipment on the top of the prison and then just like one of the big scenes are trying to escape and they have to uh what's it called?
Like the zip line?
Yeah, zip line. Yeah, zip line across these electrical wires that are just shooting sparks sparks. Like constantly.
That's normal. Like that's the normal function of them.
Yeah, like I I mean the fire is insane, but the fact that you have these electrical wires across the prison yard just shooting sparks non-like huge firework displays of sparks. Yeah. Somebody should call the electric company and be like, hey, this doesn't feel right. I mean, I don't know if technology's just gotten a lot, electrical technology's gotten a lot safer since 1980.
I don't think it was that bad in the 70s or the 80s. Uh I mean that be real, this was 1990.
I mean, it was shot in the 80s. Uh yeah. Anyway, it seemed very dangerous. But then also at the same time, like, don't have a zip line taking you from the ceiling of the prison.
From the building of the the from the top of the prison to safety.
Yeah.
Uh and then it was they get over the it was outside the prison walls. Like they zipline over the fence.
Right. Yeah. I just it just stopped, right? At the end of the fence. And they get over the fence, and then that was it. They escaped.
It was just like never brought up again.
Yeah, nobody nobody tried to chase them from the prison walls to the uh there's no like manhunt. Yeah, they just they just run back to the city, I guess.
Uh well, so they escape prison, and where do they go? Right to uh Stallone's house that his sister lives in. Yeah. Like you don't think they're gonna look for you there first. Uh what'd you think of the prison torture scene in the laundry laundromat?
It it was a little out there. I was like, how did the villain guy get into the prison?
Jack Pallant shows up.
Yeah. I mean, I guess he could bribe anyone. I mean, he he bribed people to get they thought they were going to a minimum security prison with a golf course, I guess. And so he had a lot of power. But um yeah, what'd you think of it?
Wild. Uh I mean, what do the guards do at that prison? They don't put out the fires or clean up the trash. They don't guard anything. There was like a hundred prisoners had gathered here to beat the shit out of them. Yeah, at night.
So how did Yeah, how did they get out of their state?
Yeah, this is after lockdown and everything for sure.
I I just I guess I wrote that off too. He paid off a lot of guards, and then it was the friendly assistant warden or whatever that brought that final wave of guards to stop as he realized. Yeah. Yeah. Um did you if if you were in prison, would you would you try that escape path that they did? Would you do the zip line? I don't know.
I think I would I think if I were to escape prison, I would try digging. Yeah. I'm not a heights person. I wouldn't do a zip line like even if I was harnessed in, I don't think.
Not one that was shooting off sparks.
No. Yeah. Would you?
Well, I I guess if I was in that situation and that was the only thing.
Yeah, if I'm on the roof.
Yeah, already had to get out of there quickly. Yeah, the thing about digging, that's like a months-long thing, and they didn't they certainly had didn't have time for that in this movie. No.
They even mentioned, like, oh, I'll grab my spoon and start digging.
Yeah, they were gonna get killed pretty quickly in prison.
Yeah.
I wouldn't say I'm scared of tunnels, but man-made tunnels, like close tight, like that that scares me just as much as jumping the zip line. At least like that'll kill me quickly and or it'll work. Uh I feel like a cave in would be suffocate. Yeah. Slowly. Starve to death. Yeah. That'd be worse. Yeah. Well, on that note. Uh yeah, they escape they escape prison and then eventually Kurt Russell ends up at Terry Hatcher's club looking for her.
I Stallone told him to go look for what was her name? Catherine? Catherine, but she went by Kiki. Yeah. At the show. Yeah. What is her? Stallone's sister. I don't know. It was not like a strip show. She didn't strip. She was dancing. Yeah, she just danced. I mean it was.
Yeah. Yeah. So uh we gotta move through this a little slower. She's she's in a aerobics outfit. Yeah kind of. It's it's a little you know uh suggestive, but not really. I mean, it's just like a leotard and like a I don't know.
It's like a sexier leotard. Sure. A little higher cut and lower cut.
But she's dancing, but it's not really it's not suggestive dancing. Not really, no. But the crowd is going wild. They're cheering like this is the last, you know, 10 seconds of a football game, and and their favorite team just scored a touchdown.
Like I'm pretty sure that's the direction they were given.
But it's just like normal dance moves. I mean, I don't I don't know how to describe the dance moves she's doing, but it's just men and women both just going nuts.
Yeah.
And then she's like, hand me my drumsticks.
Yeah.
And she starts banging on these, and it was way off beat of the music.
Oh, horrible. It was not even close. Like, and it wasn't, it wasn't like she just it was just timed wrong, like it wasn't seeking up. There was no rhythm to the to the drumming at all.
She just like whacked it's like a five-year-old just like let me go to town on this set of drums. And yeah, didn't even know, yeah, stylistically, not even close to the music I was playing. And everyone just like
Again, lost their minds thing.
Yeah. Yeah. And I and I just couldn't tell what this nightclub is. I I I don't know. It was uh call that show. Yeah, if you walked into that, if I took you to that, I'm like, let's go out tonight and took you to that show. You'd be like, what the hell is this?
This woman named Kiki, she's gonna dance. She's amazing. Wait till you see her. There's music and drums.
Uh yeah. I don't know why the cops are there, but uh Kurt Russell sneaks out and drag. What'd you think of that scene?
I thought it was hilarious. Uh it was a very elaborate drag outfit. Yeah. That he wore for a little while. Like he took the makeup off and the wig, but he kept the like leather skirt thing that he was wearing in the fishnets for a few scenes.
Yeah, he was wearing that at her house.
Yeah. Uh I mean, it was ridiculous, but it was funny. Like he was getting hit on by the cops and he didn't look like a woman at all, but fooled that one cop. Yeah, that one cop was really into it.
Yeah.
What are you an aerobics instructor? That's what that kind of ripped.
He was buff. Oh, okay. I was like, I don't understand this line. He's not dressed like he's like it's aerobics.
Okay. She was dressed like she was an aerobics instructor, but he was dressed so like a uh biker or something. Like he had a leather skirt on. Yeah.
Uh yeah, because back then back then aerobics was how you got strong, I guess.
Yeah.
Women couldn't lift weights back in the 80s. What do you think of the whole switcheroo of like uh Terry Hatcher being his sister, not his girlfriend? Because they they didn't say that at the beginning. Like it seemed like that was his girlfriend, right?
Yeah, it did seem like that, but I I was so confused as to who she was from the get-go because the her first scene is with him in his office with Stallone, and I couldn't tell what she was wearing. I was like, is she wearing a cop uniform? Like, is she but it was it was some sailor themed thing, so I didn't know what she was to him, like if she was an informant or a relation or a love interest, uh, because their dialogue didn't make it clear. Yeah. Uh that's fair. And she didn't show up until I mean, we did the whole chasing the villain, getting captured and framed, the whole trial hour before she came back. Prison prison escape, and then we see her again. And I was like, I'm pretty sure that's the character that we saw at the beginning. Yeah. So yeah, I it was not like a big I wasn't like, oh my god. I was like, oh, okay. Yeah, that's who she is. Yeah.
Uh should we move on to like the last 20 minutes of the movie?
Yeah, I mean, that's kind of where it lost me.
Well, so uh so they go find this like Q-like character, which who was he? Was that like an LAPD lab or was that they had police equipment?
I don't know if they were part of the police force or if they were like stealing equipment and because it was it was like Q's laboratory in there.
Yeah, they had a lot of people working there because there was a scene earlier where he goes and he gets some clothes and some guns, and yeah, they were experimenting with that like dog that had a gun in his mouth or whatever.
Yeah, I mean it seems to just be putting guns and stuff because his other invention is putting guns in Kurt Russell's boots that shoot out the soul. Like he he has to lift his leg up with as a very specific scenario for that to be useful.
Yeah, I don't know how guns work, but that that doesn't seem safe.
No. Uh yeah, so he just had he was hiding guns and stuff. You put a gun in a like a stuffed dog's mouth, and you put guns on the truck that he built at the end.
I mean, now that you say it like this, it seems like this character, this Q character, probably isn't a really smart inventor. Like it probably isn't a scientist. He just likes putting guns and stuff.
Yeah. It was a very strange character and plot point. Why did they need that?
Yeah. Yeah, but where's the budget come from? Because like even the truck that they got, like that's gotta cost a lot of money. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, he's he's fretting about nine dollar shirts, so he's gotta He's not funding it. Oh yeah, clearly.
And he seems to be somebody that's linked with only cash because it didn't seem like he was friends with Tango.
Yeah, Tango, yeah.
Tango didn't have to be like, Tango's not going down there for his like, I gotta get my new guns issued or whatever. I need a new uniform.
Uh it was very weird. They I yeah, they clearly didn't try to explain it. So they're they're on a mission to clear their name. They don't even know who framed them. And then they're like, let's ask, I forget the character's name, so let's just call him Q. They're like, let's I'll ask Q. Q will send the information, and it was just kind of the God in the machine, like, oh yeah, here's where he is.
Here's all the man in the chair, too, for him.
Yeah, yeah. Just I mean, again, this is just like the last 15-20 minutes. We'd we'd never seen it before. So they just squeezed him in there.
He was a very convenient character for them to introduce there.
And then I was confused at what this compound was that they show up.
Same. I don't I still I like I don't I have no idea.
So yeah, the the bad guy is presumably a drug dealer. Yeah right? Like, I mean that that's at least from the tanker. It was a shipment of drugs. They arrive at this compound that seems like it's a mine mining manufacturing.
Yeah. Like there's huge like caterpillar machinery. Yeah, they're like gravel pits and like Yeah, it's all I mean it's it's just a monster truck rally.
It's like dirt with some ramps to jump off of and some things that are gonna blow up all over and but but every vehicle has rocket launchers or machine guns mounted. They're like hundreds of security guys, uh at least a hundred security guys, right? In the middle of the night. Yep. And I guess they're just patrolling nonstop. They're just waiting. Yeah. Jack Pallance, it just keeps shutting uh cutting to him. He's looking at the TVs and he's just getting more and more excited.
He's like, yes, it's just little one-liners every time it cuts to him. Get the sons of bitches.
And I'm like, he's so excited because he's funded just years of these security guys sitting around. He's been waiting. Waiting, waiting for this moment that two cops show up to try to bust him.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's uh that's every prepper's dream right there.
Yeah. By the way, at some point I was like, how is this clearing their name? Like, I know.
So oh yeah, so there's this scene where they capture the Cockney villain and they tie him to like an antenna on top of a building. Yeah. And they stick a grenade in his mouth. And I'm like, how is this proving your innocence again? And also they're in court talking to each other about all the witnesses they're gonna kill. Yeah, yeah. Or like beat the shit out of you know, every witness that comes up and testifies against them, they lean to each other like, I'm gonna kick his ass, or you know, I'd like to stick a shotgun where you know, like I think they might be villains.
Yeah. Spoiler, they never really like come around to prove their innocence to anybody. It's just like, we killed the bad guy, done. We're back on the force. Like job done. Yeah.
Uh yeah. Anyway, there was a very pronounced Seinfeld connection to this movie. Oh, what is it? There were seven actors in this that appeared in Seinfeld. Terry Hatcher. Uh-huh. She played uh Jerry's girlfriend in the implant. They're real and they're spectacular. James Hong was the mater D in the Chinese restaurant episode. He's Kwan. He's one of the one one of uh Jack Pallance's sidekicks or I don't know what the It seems like they're partner.
I don't know. They're yeah, they're partners.
I think so. I think what it is is Jack Pallance is like the crime lord of SoCal. And then Kwan controls the crime drug business in East LA, and um I don't remember the other guy's name, but he he was the West LA. Uh Richard Fancy, who was Tango's lawyer, he was Mr. Lippmann, Elaine's boss. Louis Arquette played Chief Weiler, he was Leap and Larry, uh, the appliance store owner. Roy Brock Smith, who played Federal Agent Davis, was the landlord uh in Jerry's building. David Bird, the judge, uh, was the pharmacist in the sponge when Elaine was going around trying to get her uh birth control, and Clint Howard was uh the serial killer uh in LA when when Kramer went out to LA.
Did you did you just recognize all these guys while you're watching it?
And I recognized a lot of them. Yeah, I didn't recognize Leap and Larry and the lawyer or the judge or the pharmacist. So uh yeah, I was I but I think five of them I got like as I was watching it.
Yeah, there were so many recognizable characters. Um can we go back to that final scene though? Like it was so cheesy and over the top. I mean, I that's understating it. Yes. Uh uh, I wrote down they wasted so many bullets. It's just like they're like, how hit anybody? Yeah, how many explosions can we have and how many shootouts can we have? Let's just some producer can just picture him snorting a line of coke and being like, add more.
Yeah, I mean, it was well into the movie when there were two guys that were shot. Uh Tango and Cash each shot a guy and they like like saved each other's lives. And I was like, that's I think that's the first blood like from a sh like getting shot that I've seen in the movie. Like, there's been blood in the movie, like they get cut up and beat up. Yeah. But like those I feel like those were the first two people that successfully got shot.
Maybe. I I I think I know the scene you're talking about because it was the one where uh Cash saves Tango's life, and it was like it they were standing, they were facing each other, and it was like that, you know, there was a guy behind them. Behind each of them. Behind each of them, and the guy, the villain is like shooting at Tango for a good several seconds. Cash gets him, and then Tango's just like like turns like so delayed.
Yeah.
Uh, and it was like, how did the villain not hit Tango? And then how did he not like realize he was getting shot at? Anyway.
I think everyone in the movie was just a horrible shot.
Yeah. I mean, yeah, they they waited. There was and they like keep upgrading their guns, and there was that can't remember exactly, but yeah, they just like shoot up this room and nobody died. But it was just so many bullets for yeah. Um, they just throw in like some one-on-one martial arts fighting too, just because they're like, hey, that that would be cool. Yeah. Um one of the funniest parts of the movie was so they're going through this compound. Again, they're like a hundred security guys, and they kill all of them, I guess. Um like you said, we don't really actually see a lot of blood, but they go through and they're about to get the bad guys, and then like the two sub uh the the sub villains or whatever, yeah, are just like they cock their guns and they're like, ha, let them come. And I'm like, Are you really just you're like, oh, I'm so much better of a shot than these other hundred people with than the people we've hired to literally s protect us? Yeah, with rocket launchers and machine guns on their on their uh vehicles and stuff like that. And yeah, and sure enough, Tangan Cash just like killed them right away.
They died so unceremoniously, too, for like the size of their role in the movie. Yeah, yeah. Like they shot um James Honk's character, and I was like, was that Kwan they just killed? Like it was I just couldn't even tell. He was his back was turned to the camera. I was like, okay, I think that's him. I guess he's dead. Yeah. I just wanted to uh highlight this line from Tango when they were in the prison shower and he was mad at Cash, and he said, I don't know you, I don't know your name, I don't know your face, and I definitely don't know your ass. We saw both of their naked asses in that scene.
Yeah. They were they uh look like they'd been doing some aerobics. They may be aerobics instructors.
Yeah.
I had to look up, he makes some crack during the trial about one of the uh one of the like witnesses looking like Squarecrow. Did you catch it?
I didn't know what that was. We thought it was his hair is kind of squared off.
And then they even uh it was like, was it Tango or Cash? Cash made that comment, and then Tango was like Squarecrow?
Yeah, what would you do?
In the movie, and then he like, yeah, Squarecrow. Apparently it's a reference to a cornchecks mascot from the late 60s. What? Because I was like, this seems slightly racist.
I I thought that it might have been, but I I guess it still could be, but I um yeah, I think it's because that character had really squared hair, like his hair was cut and made his face kind of look squared off, and I was like, I guess he's like a scarecrow and his head square.
Yeah, Squarecrow was a scarecrow. Okay. And Cornchecks is square.
I no, I I don't get the reference. Like I it doesn't make sense even after you told me about it. Like I looked up just now Squarecrow and it doesn't look like that guy.
Yeah, I'd have to watch that again. I I don't know. I I Googled, like I I started searching Squarecrow and it like auto-completed to Tango and Cash. Like it was like one of the suggested searches. And yeah, it seems like that's the reference, but I don't get it.
No. That was awful.
They didn't even get it in the script. They had to like one of the characters like, are you talking about anyway? The dialogue's bad. The dialogue is bad in this movie.
Oh uh Kurt Russell and Stallone are charming in their own ways. They're themselves. If you like them, you'll like them in this. Yeah.
Uh yeah, a lot of puns. That's how you screen all your guests. Uh after he knocked the screen door on him.
Yeah.
Uh what other quotes that I read? I don't know. It's not it's not worth it. But yeah, they're just puns littered throughout. But it's yeah. It talked about foobar a lot. Yeah. But it was like almost too much. Like I know it was a running gag that he didn't know what it meant. And it's just like what like why is this funny? Anyway.
Yeah.
Um, but yeah, I don't know. I I enjoyed parts of it. It was it was boring at times. It yeah, it was very uneven. Um I feel like you could watch 15-minute clips out of this movie and have a good time.
Yeah, each segment was okay in its own snippet. Uh it didn't all go together. Uh but like I that's what you get with movies like this where the production's so fucked up that it's not it's not coherent at all. Yeah. Cohesive.
Yeah, it definitely can't. There was no there's no plot line that went through it that made a lot of sense.
I mean, all you have to know is drug kingpin frames cops. That's it. And cops cops are Stallone and Kurt Russell, and they're gonna do what Stallone and Kurt Russell do.
Yeah.
Uh what are your all picks? I think I've picked this one before, but I picked the nice guys again. Yeah. Uh I love that movie. I love it's it's my fa oh well. It's my favorite recent buddy cop movie. I just think they're so good together. The humor works in it. It doesn't work in this. Uh, this movie kept being described as an action comedy, and I'm like, I didn't laugh at all, really. Well, they they tried to have a lot of laughs.
I mean, all the puns and stuff like that. And yeah, it wasn't yeah.
This I I think that nice guys gets the chemistry right, gets the humor and the pacing and the plots tight. It just works.
Yeah, I can't remember if I talked about this last time, but I I feel like I need to re-watch nice guys because I didn't I didn't enjoy it as much as I think most people did. Because I watched it I I think when it came out, and I was like, uh, it's fine.
I think it was kind of hyped when it came out. Uh and maybe it was a letdown in that regard.
Yeah. What about you? Uh well I I'm gonna take the opportunity to uh rep one of my favorite movies of all time, Way of the Gun.
Uh one of the greatest opening scenes in movie history.
It's so choice. Um mom don't watch it, but everybody else.
Just watch that scene and it'll get you hooked on the rest of the movie.
I I mean, I watched this movie in theaters. Like, I I still remember which theater, you know, the theater's not there anymore. But like I remember watching like that first scene, and I was just like, this is amazing. It was so funny. I don't I I don't know. It's it's uh I don't want to overstate. Yeah, uh, and Benicio Del Toro. Um but it has uh so the connection to Tango and Cash is Tango's police captain is Jeffrey Lewis, who is also N Way of the Gun. He plays the like grizzled detective guy that like goes to chase after Philippe and Del Toro. He's he gets a call. He's like in a trailer and he's playing Russian roulette. Um do you do you remember the scene? He puts a bunch of guns instead of like instead of like typical Russian roulette, he puts one loaded gun in a bag of a bunch of other guns, shakes it around, and then just pulls a random gun out. Then he gets a call from James Conn's character to come do a job and he like kind of like looks at the gun and he's like he's like fine, like I'm not busy or whatever, and then goes anyway. Um but yeah, that's uh Juliet Lewis's dad. I don't know if I just said that, but oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, I uh um but anyway, he's uh he's great in Way at the Gun. Um and I love that movie.
I have nothing else to say about this movie, do you?
About Tango and Cash?
Yeah.
No, uh Yeah, where where does it land on your scale?
It's a solid three again. I think that anybody that watches it isn't gonna hate it. It's not the best movie, but if you like Stallone and Kurt Russell, it's fine.
Yeah, I think there's a i if you're a fan of 80s, 90s like action movies, yeah. I feel like it's a you know, it's a solid, like enjoyable part of the canon, but it's not, yeah.
It steals enough from all the movies that you actually like that you'll you'll enjoy parts of this enough.
Yeah. By the way, I I forgot to ask at the top, but uh had you seen it before, or what what did you know about this movie before?
Uh I only knew about it from Tenacious D uh song is that? Uh Kyle quit the band. Uh yeah. They just mentioned that the movie? Yeah, that that you couldn't split up Tango and Cash. So that's all I knew about it. I knew it was a movie, but I didn't even know it was Stallone and Kurt Russell.
Aaron Powell Which is a funny reference because in the movie They hate each other pretty much at the beginning. Uh yeah, and uh it's not even clear that they're gonna work together at the end. I don't know. Yeah.
Yeah.
They just they finally high-five at the end, but that's it, right?
It rhymed though. It rhymed with the other words in the song.
Yeah, I feel like I I'd heard of the movie and it seemed like it was in the zeitge. I like I didn't know anything about it. I hadn't seen it, but it seemed like one of those movies that like, oh, everybody's seen this.
Well, it didn't bomb. Like it it did fairly well in the box office for as badly as it got reviewed.
Yeah.
Which I mean, that's just the star power of Stallone and Russell.
I didn't look up, I I'm kind of curious why I hadn't seen it. Like, I wonder if it didn't have much TV time. It seems like the perfect movie that would have been like on repeat on whatever channel growing up. Yeah. But I don't remember it ever being on. I don't think I'd ever seen it any bit of this movie.
Yeah, same. I I didn't recognize anything from it, so it was all new. Yeah.
Anyway. Yeah, I don't have anything else to say. Um well, if you have any thoughts, questions, comments, send us an email to the worst movie podcast at gmail.com. I'm Tango.
And I'm Cash. Thanks for listening to the Worst Movie Podcast.