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Listen… We know pants are important to you.
You probably wonder, “how are these movie detectives constantly running around in full length pants??” That’s why this week’s episode is about 1993’s Striking Distance with Bruce Willis and Sarah Jessica Parker. It’s a movie about grown ups, who go to work and solve crimes, in shorts.
Quick question: Is there a distance left to strike? Play along with our drinking games, important questions, and insightful tips on how to have a conversation in the middle of a car chase. This movie is a who’s who of “hard boiled” male actors chewing the scenery. Secure the stern line and get ready for a movie where MOST of the people seem to be enjoying themselves, minus Bruce Willis. Probably because of the shorts? Probably because of the shorts.
(If you’ve read this far, you should know that we determined there was no distance left to strike.)
Joe’s Back of the Box
Get your life vests fastened and hold on as this fast paced whodunit keeps you guessing right up until the end. Bruce Willis is Tommy, a cop relegated to patrolling the waterways around Pittsburg due to testifying against his own cousin. Meanwhile, the city is paralyzed with a serial killer on the loose. The victims pile up and each one is now connected to Tommy. Can he catch the killer before the killer catches him?
The REAL Back of the Box
If you loved Hill Street Blues, you will love this movie. Also, you should probably take your blood pressure medication. This is a movie made in the early 90’s, trying to be a movie made in the early 70’s, and it kinda works but mostly is a paint-by-numbers alcoholic cop movie. Thankfully, Bruce Willis has perfected this character and it is fun to see him in this role.
Note: This transcript has been auto-generated, so… You know… It’s not our fault.
Greg: Joe in the movie we watched this week, Bruce Willis is continually punished by his colleagues in his family for telling the truth in court. My question to you this week is when was the last time you told the truth?
Joe: Well, that’s a good question because I just constantly lie anyway, so.
Greg: I don’t know. I don’t know how to take this right now.
Joe: Yeah. Just assume everything that I say is a lie. I think is the best way to go.
Joe: I’m trying to think of like a clever answer to. Speaking truth to power. I had to do it for my job, which is a really cop out answer.
Greg: So who’s the power? You’re like the CEO.
Joe: Yeah, well, I mean, like when I’m talking on, like, panels and or I’m talking to funders and I have to tell them why what they’re doing is inappropriate or why they need to do more because they’re bad people for not doing worse until they have. Nice. Yeah. And then that makes me sound a lot better than it probably is in the room in my head, I’m like, yeah, I stick it to them.
Joe: They need to hear this, but usually not. What about you? When was the last time you had to you told the truth or had a fight to tell the truth because everyone wanted you to lie?
Greg: The last time I told the truth. I’ll tell you what. I don’t tell the truth. It’s when somebody at work asked me how I’m doing. I always just go, great fan. I say it in a way that they know I’m joking, but I also don’t actually answer the question. Right. And I learned this from a guy I used to work with, and every time I heard him do it, I thought, and that said that he does that all the time, and now I do it 100% of the time.
Joe: And that’s nice to know. Mine’s really? So you don’t know.
Greg: How’s it going, Greg? So good. It’s like the most passive aggressive thing. It’s aggressive, but it’s a passive aggression. And that’s why I’m on board with it. Yeah, this reminds me of when I was little, over the summer. My mom was tired of us watching TV. Parents out there can probably relate to this. Their kids are watching a few too many screens, and something about their attitude changes in life after they’ve been on screens too long.
Greg: So I think this was happening with my sisters and me, and so my mom let us know that the TV broke and for like a week over the summer, the TV just wasn’t working. We had one TV in the house and it just wouldn’t turn on. And then I looked behind it about a week later and it was unplugged.
Greg: And I said, mom, I think I found the problem. And she said, oh, was that just unplugged? We plug it back in and we were good, And later it occurred to me, after I was no longer like six years old, that my mom had been on a purpose.
Joe: Right.
Greg: So I was talking to my mom a little while ago, and I said, do you remember that time you unplug the TV and told us it wasn’t working? And she said, that was the first lie I ever said to you. And then there was this long pause and she said, and that was probably the second.
Joe: That’s amazing.
Greg: All right. Nobody knows what we’re talking about right now. Let’s get to the show.
Joe: Let’s do it.
Clip: Detective Thomas Hardy was once the most decorated officer on the Pittsburgh police force until he broke rank and told the troops he’s got a new assignment, a new partner and a river full of dead bodies. They should have never put him in the water if they didn’t want to make waves. Bruce Willis, Sarah Jessica parker. Striking distance.
Greg: In 1993, director Rowdy Herrington called up Bruce Willis and said, you know what? Let’s see if there’s some distance to strike and make a movie called Striking Distance. We’re talking about Bruce Willis, a murderer’s row of people in this movie, Sarah Jessica Parker, Dennis Farina, Tom Sizemore, Brian James, who you have seen in 83 movies and you didn’t realize that Timothy Bus Field, Andre Brower, John Mahoney I can keep going, but I’m not going to go.
Greg: Sky Tucker I don’t even know if you like this movie. What what did you think of Striking Distance and if you liked it, why is it a great bad movie?
Joe: I remember watching this when it came out right around there, and I loved it. I was in on this movie. I thought it was great. We were friends around this time. I think you made the joke. What distance is there to strike in this movie that they even talk about? There’s none that’s better than it has Bruce Willis.
Joe: I think my favorite part about this is it is the beginning or kind of the follow on to Die Hard, and then the kind of the alcoholic cop character that he plays. So later on in the episode, we’ll go through some of his movies and TV and see if they’re like, what’s the order of the movies I’m going to give you of, like his character as an alcoholic cop.
Joe: This one is one of them. It does have an incredible cast. It’s one of those classic 90s movies where it’s like every great male actor you’d ever want to see in kind of a in the crowd and all of that. And then like one woman, of course. And.
Greg: Right. There’s some scenes where it’s so noticeable that there is only one woman in this movie. It’s very awkward.
Joe: It’s also kind of a it feels like a throwback to me. It feels a little bit of like a 1990s movie masquerading as a 1970s movie in some sense. So I’d be curious. I was wondering, and I didn’t do any research on this to prove out any of this. So this is all supposition on my part, but it’s like, was this script written in like 1974?
Joe: And it just kind of made the rounds. So it’s not a great movie now. It doesn’t necessarily hold up when you look at it, but there are still some fun parts about it. And it’s fun to see Bruce Willis in this role. It’s got the bones of a good story. That’s the other piece of it. Like, yeah, when we get to how this movie can be fixed, I have an idea that it could be because the story is interesting.
Joe: We’ve seen it’s not like revolutionary, but it’s an interesting story. Has got serial killers and alcoholic cops and some interesting characters in it. So I posed the question back to you, Greg Swineherd. Why is this a great movie or a great bad movie in your mind? Or is it?
Greg: It is. I mean, I think that Bruce Willis had a blank check in 1993 because of Die Hard, and it was one of many kind of second tier Bruce Willis movies that happened where we wondered if it was going to be the next great one or the next great bad one. And you and I were on board with all of them.
Greg: All of us discover. Yeah, an example of one that was better than it should have been. Like punched above its weight was the fifth element.
Joe: Yeah, absolutely. As I was looking through his canon of movies, you can almost there’s like Bruce Willis in the military. There’s Bruce Willis fighting aliens, and then there’s Bruce Willis as a cop, and then there’s Bruce Willis as the bad guy. Those are like the the main categories of his movies. And so I almost spent more time than necessary putting all these movies together.
Joe: I figured I would keep it just in the lane. So how about this? I’ll give you the four movies, okay? You give me the order with which you think they are of this character.
Greg: What order am I looking for? Not like chronologically. When the movie came out.
Joe: I cried a lot. But of the character of like the alcoholic cop character. So we have Die Hard, 16 blocks, Striking Distance and The Last Boy Scout. What is the order?
Greg: Okay. Die Hard is the earliest, I think.
Joe: Yeah, because I.
Greg: Remember drinking much in that movie.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Still in pretty good shape. Hairline fairly intact. Okay, so I’m going to say I haven’t seen 16 blocks in a long time, but I will say this movie and then last Boy Scout and then 16 blocks.
Joe: That is the correct order.
Greg: Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you very much. So here’s the list that I put together.
Joe: Awesome. I’m so happy right now.
Greg: Because I don’t know if people remember there really was just this second tier of Bruce Willis movies. And you’re right, there were the cop dramas.
Joe:
Greg: And then there were the, the supernatural ones. And then there were like, what was the other one was like, historical Sam. Oh, Army. He’s in the.
Joe: Army. Yeah. And then where he’s the bad guy.
Greg: Right. So before this movie, I’d say the second tier movies were the last Boy Scout. Billy Bathgate.
Joe: I might fight you on the last Boy Scout.
Greg: Really? That’s top tier.
Joe: That I feel like I’d have to watch it again. But of the time I would put Last Boy Scout above striking distance.
Greg: Oh, sure.
Joe: It’s a really, really dark movie. Yeah, but I love that movie, so I it’s hard.
Greg: It is the best of those three that I just listed.
Joe: Yes. 100.
Greg: Then after this, there are other movies kind of in this same league like Color of Night, which I never want to think of or speak of again in my life. That movie has been a net negative on my life since I saw in the theater. The Jackal is in this lane. Mercury rising is basically this movie, if I remember.
Greg: I always confuse Striking Distance and Mercury Rising. Yeah, hostage was a little bit later.
Joe: I think I’ve seen hostage, but yeah.
Greg: We’ll get the.
Joe: Hostage. Yeah.
Greg: 16 blocks, which we definitely are going to get to. And then surrogates. Surrogates was a movie that probably should have been good but just wasn’t.
Joe: I don’t think I saw that one either.
Greg: You know, I don’t know where our board of directors had landed on on that movie. That seems like kind of a year for year five movie.
Joe: We’ve tapped out. Yeah.
Greg: Maybe after we’ve accidentally watched a really, really good movie, we will then feel okay about sitting down and watching surrogates. But I think the common denominator amongst all these movies, except for maybe Hudson Hawk, which was a passion project for Bruce Willis, is he wasn’t that interested in what he was doing for a living while he was making all of those movies, apparently doing Striking Distance.
Greg: He was pretty rough to be around. He was changing the script that I think had been written within the last couple of years by the director, we should say. Randy Harrington also did Roadhouse a couple movies before this, that that’s how he got all these people to be in his movie. I think Roadhouse did surprisingly well with Patrick Swayze, and we’ll we’ll get to Roadhouse.
Joe: We will 100% get to Roadhouse. I’m kind of out on Roadhouse. I didn’t buy the hype, so I didn’t love that movie. I still have seen it multiple times and enjoyed myself every single time and still don’t like it. Doesn’t that make sense? Yeah.
Greg: But anyways, so this movie is fairly well made, but it’s old school in all the ways you were talking about. Like if the script isn’t from the 70s, kind of the movies they were trying to emulate were, you know, cop movies from the 70s and probably the 80s, but it seems so old now. It might as well be the 70s.
Greg: That’s how old this movie feels while you’re watching it. Like like the hubcap coming off the car during a car chase. That’s just quintessential 70s cop movie. My big theory on this movie is it is basically the first two episodes of a TV show, and then went on to be ten seasons of of a television show. That’s what this movie is, but it’s accidentally a movie.
Joe: I think I texted you that, like, this felt like a Hill Street Blues episode. Yeah. You know. Yeah.
Greg: So it’s got the cars, like going down a hill and they’re they’re getting midair at every second, you know, like, I don’t know how to describe this other than cars are just constantly mid-air as they go down this hill.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: And then they flatten out because of Cross Street and then they jump again and then they flatten out and then they jump again.
Joe: Yeah. It’s like they watched a bullet one too many times. And I’m like, we’re going to make everything like that slightly.
Greg: What are some other old cop shows that were on TV that this is emulating Streets of San Francisco.
Joe:
Greg: Is one Kojak.
Joe: Maybe Hawaii Five-O that that said that Hawaii is such a problem. There aren’t like streets like that but like. Yeah. Got that feel to it of like, right where the men are men and the women are quiet basically as well. Yeah. You know, I feel like we have to state that, like we could love this movie, but like Sarah Jessica Parker, this character is so one dimensional.
Joe: I think there’s one other woman in it that has lines and I honestly don’t remember. I think it’s like his mother or aunt or something like that at the Policeman’s Ball.
Greg: I think that you are just forgetting about Kim Lee, a character that is only referred to by first and last name throughout the movie.
Joe: That’s right. Hey, Kim Lee.
Greg: So this movie is like a lot of other shows and kind of cop dramas that were made at the time. It’s definitely leaning on those productions to have a shorthand, but it’s also kind of a thriller. It has like a twisty turny plot. You don’t know who the killer is, and then it’s sort of an action movie sometimes.
Greg: Apparently that was something they kind of they re-edited it at the end to become more action oriented. It was, I think, more of a cop drama before.
Joe: It’s got one of your other favorite things. It’s not quite the same one, but so you have you remember cliffhanger and the conversation that they have as they’re driving down the freeway together. That’s right. At the beginning of the movie, it has on the opening scene, Bruce Willis and his father having a regular old conversation about grandchildren and all of that in the middle of a car chase, literally being shot at and swerving and running into people and cars, all while having this just normal father stuff conversation.
Greg: Totally very Hudson hawkish, actually.
Joe:
Greg: Pretty funny. And I guess that Bruce Willis was not really around for when the dad had his one shot, the isolated shot of just him on the frame. He was speaking to someone who was reading the script to him, and he was responding to someone other than Bruce Willis.
Joe: Awesome.
Greg: Because Bruce Willis is not around for those.
Joe: All right. Good job, Bruce Willis.
Greg: When he was not in the frame. Yeah, that scene is pretty amazing because they’re racing. No, they were just driving to the police officer’s ball or something like that.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Which this movie is a little bit exposition heavy at times, like, hey son, it’s time to go to the police ball or whatever it is, like just using way more words in a sentence and, you know, letting you know how they were related in every line. And then not a bad car chase.
Joe: No, this movie’s.
Greg: A great movie when it comes to that car chase. Right there. Open strong tunnels open. Strong. Yep. Totally.
Joe: That’s fun I enjoyed it. The opening of this movie and probably the the last fight scene is pretty good too, you know, nothing spectacular. But there it’s fun. But in the middle it drags.
Greg: What are we doing here? Yeah. But as I walked away from it, you know, there are a lot of characters in this movie. It’s a little bit like, I don’t know, like a crime novel where you’re kind of getting to know the the fabric of the whole police department. You’re getting to know a lot of different characters. I mean, there are a lot of characters that you recognize throughout the movie, and they’re distinguishable, which I think is unlike some other movies we’ve watched on this show where once you get three people into the bench, you have no idea who this character is or what they do with their life.
Greg: Now to introduce everybody, they hysterically just beat you over the head with the fact that Nick is uncle Nick Christmas. As the words uncle Nick. So many times in this movie. So I guess it is a little bit hilariously exposition heavy, but then it’s a bad movie because I don’t know, it’s just stupid a lot. It’s pretty stupid.
Joe: One of my favorite scenes in this movie. So the whole Sarah Jessica Parker kind of under coming under the wing, the new partner yelling each other out, and then she starts to she believes him. And then they’re patrolling at night and they see somebody dumping a body, you know, because there’s a serial killer that dumps bodies in the water.
Joe: They catch someone doing that. They have a car chase where the person’s in the car, and then they’re on a boat, and then they kill this person and nothing is said about it. It’s just like normal that they were able to kill this person running away. And it turns out to be a total red herring. Not like they were just either playing a prank I can’t remember or that’s just what they did with their run.
Joe: So they dropped know?
Greg: Yeah, they were dropping a drug in the river. Yeah, I think they have a shot of that person getting away.
Joe: Do they? Okay, I think so.
Greg: It’s been a little while since I was watching this, but I’m pretty sure after the car catches on fire because he hits it with the flare gun.
Joe:
Greg: Pretty good scene.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: There’s in a single shot. They’re both moving fast. Car on the road. Boat on the.
Joe: River.
Greg: And he shoots a flare gun and it catches the car on fire. Pretty good shot. And then I think they show the guy run away I see.
Joe: Okay. Never mind I don’t have any problems with this movie.
Greg: But I was I noticed that two times ago like oh that’s weird. The bad guy is getting away. Okay, well, I guess the bad guy is still getting away, but at last night I was rewatching it. I don’t know what I was doing during that scene.
Joe: I was not looking at the TV.
Greg: This is a movie you don’t really have to pay attention to if you’re watching it.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: This is also a movie where like, well, Bruce Willis has made a lot of movies like this, but this one is distinguished by it’s the one where he wears shorts.
Joe: Right?
Greg: I mean, as far as pants wear goes in this movie, the River Police Department, whatever they’re called.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, they just wear the funniest blue shorts on the planet, tucked in shirt and those those shorts are riding a little high.
Joe: Of the time. That was. Those are right.
Greg: So yeah, this is the one where he wears shorts. But there’s also stuff where like at the beginning of the movie, somebody is murdered and then they’re dumped into the river, and when they are dumped into the river, they kind of show the bad guy rolled the body.
Joe: Off a.
Greg: Cliff into the water. And when the body falls in the water, it is immediately floating on top of the water because it is probably just a dummy right? And I feel like every movie like this should have a signal like that. At the beginning I was like, oh, okay, okay, we’re doing that. Yeah. Okay, great. Oh, two things that made me laugh really hard about this movie.
Greg: One is in that car chase, they’re chasing like a murderer. And just the glare on the the windshield in the murderer’s car. You can never quite make out who it is. Even when they’re driving right next to this car, they apparently can’t see who this person is. They’re just like trying to shoot the tires or whatever. But there are so many opportunities where they’re right next to this car and they could get their eyes on this murderer and basically movie over in the first ten minutes.
Joe: Yeah, but nope.
Greg: That’s not what we’re doing. So that was the first thing that made me laugh pretty hard, because after I realized that the car chase just keeps going on, it’s like, well, you could have seen him there, you could have seen him there. The other thing that made me laugh so hard is, there are a couple times where Bruce Willis is sad in this movie.
Greg: Like he said, when his dad dies and the overdubbed crying is the most apathetic overdub acting I’ve ever heard in my life by Bruce Willis. And then there’s another moment where his ex partner jumps off a bridge to commit suicide, and they show Dennis Farina, Joe Sizemore and Bruce Willis, and Bruce Willis has the least convincing sad face.
Greg: They hang on, the three of them barely acting and acting sad like crying, kind of moaning into the night away.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: It almost seems like a joke. Like this will be hilarious that we’re putting in this shot this long in this movie.
Greg: I know, so they’re giving you a lot of signals up front that this is going to be a movie that almost nobody in the movie cares about.
Joe: Right?
Greg: Which is what I’m looking for. The guy who jumps off the bridge, Robert pastorally has his old partner, Jimmy decides he’s going to play that part as if the character is in third grade. He’s acting like an eight year old. How is this person ever a police officer?
Joe: Yeah, I don’t know. He reminds me of Travers from, cliffhanger. Like, he’s just like, every line is just like, middle school or elementary school taunt.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: To Bruce Willis character. And yeah, it’s awesome. He’s just there. He’s that. He’s the henchman in every movie you’ve ever seen. It’s kind of what he is, especially in that like 80s and 90s, he was always the bad guy. Yeah. So he it’s perfectly cast and he’s perfectly played. But like there’s nothing that his character does that doesn’t exist.
Greg: But do you believe that this guy ever was an actual police officer in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania?
Joe: Well, of the time, Pittsburgh guys, you know, checks it out. Yeah.
Joe: Philadelphia. No. Pittsburgh. Yeah. He is definitely.
Greg: In this movie after his partner jumps off the bridge. His ex partner, who he has, testified against.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Testified against with cuts two years later. And that’s when we find out Bruce Willis is now a River cop. Original title of this movie. Three Rivers.
Joe: By the way. I like that better.
Greg: It’s better. Yeah. Have you ever been let down by a movie jumping? Two years later? I feel like two years later is the best. Years later.
Joe: No, I was fine with that. Mike I yeah, yeah, I like how they did that. So I was totally fine with two years later seemed appropriate where he was still a cop. Right on the drinking problem now.
Greg: Yeah. He’s woken up by a cat just absolutely slobbering on his face the way no cat ever has in history. What do they put on his face to make his cat lick him like that? It’s it’s so ridiculous.
Joe: No, I mean, like the bacon or some butter.
Greg: But we have a little bit of a montage. Like our hero is now down and out and drinking too much. There’s some Alka-Seltzer in water. There’s a towel that he heats up in the microwave, and then I think it’s a microwave and then puts it on his face. Can you explain to me, hot towel on the face, how how does that relate to drinking last night?
Joe: I don’t know, wakes you up refreshing, I don’t know, instead of a shower, he’s he’s running late, so.
Greg: Okay. I was like, oh, why would his stomach feel weird? Does your stomach feel weird if you’ve had too much to drink? The night before in the morning? And this Alka-Seltzer help.
Joe: I know this whole montage.
Greg: I was like, I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me right now. Is this the thing that happens?
Joe: This is back on Alka-Seltzer. Was king of the world, so.
Greg: Absolutely, absolutely. We then meet Timothy Bus Fields. How do you best know Timothy Busfield?
Joe: So for me, it’s two places. It’s 30 something is the first. Yeah. For me. And then West wing.
Greg: West wing. Yeah. West wing for me.
Joe: Yeah I love him. And West Wing 30 something is more just where I think I first saw him. So that’s where I remember him first from. But he’s amazing in the West Wing and I think he’s ends up becoming like a pretty prolific director on that show as well.
Greg: Oh, interesting. And he ends up with C.J. Craig in the end. What spoilers for The West Wing? I’m so.
Joe: Sorry.
Greg: You know how we’ve talked about how, I have this theory that people aren’t really good at swearing. There’s like a very small handful of people who can actually swear on this planet. Timothy Butterfield has the longest string of forced, poorly said swear words. And his main scene with Bruce Willis. I mean, this is the worst. The worst forced swearing I’ve ever heard in my life.
Joe: It’s pretty hilarious. It’s it’s amazing that that whole scene, that first scene, when you meet him, it’s so over the top of what his character is. And it’s like they’re telegraphing exactly what you want. Like, oh, he’s the partner. That’s kind of the nerdy partner that we can not pay attention to. And boy, do they lean into that hard.
Greg: It is so C minus it’s really rough D plus I don’t know I did like the one thing he said was Henderson’s really pissed. And I don’t know who Henderson is in this scenario. We don’t know who Henderson is yet, but just the fact that Henderson was pissed.
Joe: Henderson really pissed.
Greg: Me. That’s really hard. And then he launches Timothy Butterfield off the back of the boat because Timothy Butterfield is like his diver or something like that. And at that moment, I realized this is basically a Steven Seagal movie with Bruce Willis. I think Striking Distance is basically a Steven Seagal movie.
Joe: I can totally see that. Like, they probably have to take out some of the, like the drinking, because I don’t know if Steven Seagal can. Well, he can look morose, but he probably not want that to be how his character is perceived or something. I don’t know if you have seen any of the people talking about Steven Seagal when he hosts Saturday Night Live in like, the 90s.
Greg: I heard he was horrible.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Staff. Yeah.
Joe: And so there’s a scene at the end that they put in where it’s him and like a board meeting for like an oil company, and they had to hire extras who were stuntmen and he there. None of the cast are in it. And then he just beats them up and like, throws them through the walls and onto the table.
Joe: And then at the last line is, and that’s why you don’t pollute the earth or something like that. And what is the craziest thing I have to after this, watch that and hear people talk about how like, he was awful to work with. Yeah. And that he forced he like he made them do that and they just kind of capitulated like the last get to the night and nobody got why or the one he was trying to do or say is so awesome.
Joe: So Steven Seagal.
Greg: So yeah, that’s this movie. It’s basically, yeah, but trying a little bit harder, punching above Steven Seagal’s ways. This could never be a Steven Seagal movie.
Joe: Now, this is the sequel that he wished for. Under Siege or this is Casey Ryback, you know, either prequel or sequel. I don’t know which one.
Greg: I bet Steven Seagal would say, why can’t it be both?
Joe: Yeah. Done.
Greg: This is the kind of movie where, while Bruce Willis is watching the news and they’re announcing that a woman has been murdered, he’s holding a frame of him. And the woman who’s been murdered, like a picture. And this is the type of movie where the clothes that she’s wearing in the photo that he’s looking at are also the clothes that she’s wearing in the photo on the news.
Joe: Just in case that we were not.
Greg: Going to pick up on the fact that it’s the same person. It’s just like a flight attendant that made me laugh so, so hard. And the other thing that kind of floored me about this movie was Tom Sizemore is amazing.
Joe: He is so.
Greg: Good in this movie.
Joe: He, for.
Greg: Sure is the best performance in this film.
Joe: 100%. He is steals every scene he’s in. Yeah, it’s very early in his career at this point, so he’s like, he’s really trying. He is like, I’m going to make a mark. This character probably built a backstory on this character probably all the way through. So he is he is amazing. And actually the relationship between him and Tommy Bruce Willis, this character is probably the most interesting.
Joe: If they fleshed out totally relationship in the movie. But yeah, he is. He is spectacular in this movie.
Greg: I mean, and it feels effortless to me after I recognize this, I was watching everybody else in the scenes and they were all like, well, I’m acting right now. Bruce Willis is like, I’m acting because I’m moody and I’m drinking, or Dennis Farina is like, I’m acting and you and I’m proving it because I keep yelling, you know?
Greg: But Tom Sizemore, it’s all coming from some other place, some other real place. We are going to talk about many films that Tom Sizemore is in. He had quite a run, but he might be my new favorite actor. After watching this. I don’t think I ever really paid attention to him. And you know, he was in heat. He was in a lot of movies, but I don’t think I ever picked up on how amazing he is.
Greg: But maybe you just have to be in a horror.
Joe: Movie, like.
Greg: Striking Distance and, you know, that’s all I have to do.
Joe:
Greg: Can we have the conversation?
Joe: I mean, we’re having the conversation that needs to be had. So absolutely.
Greg: Okay. Here’s my question to you then is Sarah Jessica Parker good. What’s your take on Sarah Jessica Parker.
Joe: You know, I feel like history is not going to be kind to her in that sense. You know, she was kind of like the it girl of that time. Kind of played the, you know, love interest, sex interest. Yeah. And then she had sex and the city. Which I think of its time was a pretty good show and then doesn’t age super well.
Greg: Have you watched it.
Joe: And watched the reboot of it. But I did watch sex and the city when it was on. Okay. And that’s a good show. It’s not Earth shattering or anything like that, and she’s good in it, but I don’t know that she’s very good in this movie. I don’t know that anyone but Tom Sizemore is very good in this movie either.
Joe: So I.
Greg: I think she’s really funny. I think we need her funny in movies. She was on a show called Square Pegs for like a season, but it had like, there was like a cultural wave that came out from Square Pegs in the early 80s. I think it was like a show with Valley Girls, and I think she was pretty funny in that she was pretty funny in LA story with, Steve Martin.
Greg: She can be silly. And I suppose in this movie, at first I thought, oh no, what are we doing here? And then they I think she punches above her weight as well. In this film.
Joe: She she holds her own. Yes. Like, I mean, character is like incredibly poorly written then, right? Like it doesn’t stand out that she’s doing her best in it, like she’s not spectacular. And I agree that she’s better in the kind of the comedy realm than she is in the drama realm. But this movie’s definitely leans way into the thriller melodramatic view.
Joe: It does not have a sense of humor about it at all.
Greg: I mean, there are times where it feels like a movie from the 40s.
Joe:
Greg: Where she’s like Audrey Hepburn or something like they really try to make it into I think Bruce Willis is doing Clint Eastwood a lot in this film. Like they’re both drawing on kind of older things, older references like that. And I, you know when, when they were going for that like around the courtroom scene later in the movie, it really did feel like an old school movie from the 40s or 50s.
Greg: And I was kind of I was kind of on board with it. And that’s just pretty good. Yeah, there are.
Joe: Those moments in this and maybe it’s where Bruce Willis doesn’t have, say, or isn’t rewriting things or whatever is happening. Yeah, they’re actually following the script or not for who knows. But there are moments where you see the bones of a really good story in there, and moments that just don’t add up to anything in the end. Unfortunately.
Greg: Apparently they they had a script and they were making the movie, and then Bruce Willis was demanding changes, and then they had to do quite a bit of reshoots later because it just wasn’t making any sense. And the director said the things that broke the movie were the things that Bruce Willis was insisting be in the movie. So Bruce Willis kind of broke it, but the director was also complimentary towards Bruce Willis.
Greg: I suppose he probably had to be.
Joe:
Greg: I found a clip of Bruce Willis talking about this movie, 2004. So 11 years later and he’s talking to Bob Costas, who used to have a late night kind of conversation show. And Bob Costas asks him the question, what’s it like to be in a flop? And the conversation leads to Bruce Willis saying this, let’s listen to it.
Clip: Which one sucked? Which is not necessarily the same thing as failing. I’d say. Well, there was a movie that was done that I did. It was that was originally called, Three Rivers. They changed the title a striking distance that that one sucked. That was really pathetic. But if it weren’t for that film, I wouldn’t have said never again will I let myself be put in this position.
Greg: And so I’m happy to say, Joe, that Bruce Willis made nothing but great movies after this one. Yeah.
Joe: He’s completely right. And he struck every distance that was to be struck afterwards.
Greg: Absolutely. And that’s what we learned.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: He apparently did this quite often in the like. IMDb trivia, it said that he said the same similar things about die hards. Two, three and.
Joe: Four.
Greg: Afterwards. You like he would say nice things about a movie and then later on kind of crap on it. This movie has no idea what it is. Often like there’s a scene where a woman is leaving, I think like a hospital. And just like from the very first moment of her stepping away from her coworkers, she’s super scared.
Greg: And it’s filmed like a horror movie, and she’s super scared at every turn and trying, you know, doors are locking behind her and that freaks her out. And there’s no reason for her to be scared other than the movie is giving. Like giving you music cues that she should be scared. That made me laugh pretty hard.
Joe: Yeah, it’s something that she does every time she leaves work, you know? I’m like, this is the time that she’s scared. Happens to be the exact time that she’s kidnaped. Oh my gosh, this happens.
Greg: This is her walking to her car every night after work.
Greg: Bruce Willis and Sarah Jessica Parker are pretty great at yelling at each other in this movie.
Joe: They have a couple fights in it that are pretty good. Yeah. It’s fun. Yeah, yeah.
Greg: Yeah, there’s a lot of yelling in this movie that doubles for acting, I think. But, it wasn’t so bad. Dennis Farina is great in everything he does. How excited were you and Andre Braugher walks into this film?
Joe: I’m very excited. I’m like, in the tank for Andre Brewer. Yeah. I first met him on Homicide Life on the streets. Yeah, one of my favorite shows, and I also loved him in Brooklyn Nine-Nine as Captain Raymond Holt. It’s one of those castings where you don’t realize the range of an actor and like his ability to be funny, I would never have guessed that he would have been that hilarious in that role.
Joe: Yeah, it’s oh, it’s so that’s really that’s probably why I love homicide. It’s probably my favorite role for him is seeing him in that, just because I kind of plays against everything that we’ve ever seen him do before. Yeah, he’s kind of that character and everything. But this is now played for laughs instead of played straight. And so yeah, I love seeing Andre Braugher in that.
Joe: Wanted more of more of him. You know, more of that piece. Like there’s I’m gonna jump ahead a little bit, but like this movie to fix it. My fix would be actually, let’s create an eight episode arc, set this movie in the 70s, and it’s a cop show where you kind of then get to delve into all of the different characters because you kind of have an interesting character, begins and ends with kind of, you know what?
Joe: I would do it a little differently in the sequencing. So I would have really the opening chase scene be the beginning and the end of it. And then you kind of draw out, how he got to ostracized from the police force. And then that’s why he has to be on the river. And basically it’s the same kind of arc.
Joe: And then you discover who’s the killer and the end, the kind of the same way. But I think there’s an interesting story in there. And if you slow it down. Yeah. And you kind of build out the characters and have more of a interesting cast, you can take a little bit more time, a little bit more breadth. And it’s not it’s not an action show.
Joe: It really is like kind of a thriller and kind of a dark cop drama would be how I would save this movie, because that’s what I kept thinking, like, wow, there’s there’s some interesting pieces in here that I want. You know, Andre Bruce’s character could have a three episode arc or a four episode arc within that kind of eight episode period where you kind of see how they’re going to get Sarah Jessica Parker, his character, who’s with Internal Affairs close to Bruce Willis or something like that.
Joe: So right there moments that I wanted them to explore that you can in the TV show and you kind of really lean into the 70s vibes that it has and say, okay, let’s set this in 1974. We’ll put it in Pittsburgh in 1974 and not have a serial killer drama set there. That’s what I would do, that time saving this.
Greg: That’s a great idea. I feel like this movie can’t decide if it should be a prestige cop show like you’re kind of describing The Wire, where there’s, like, a season of Internal Affairs. Yeah, and then there’s a season of the River police, and then there’s a season of, like, David Simon did, homicide. So Andre Braugher is on board, obviously.
Greg: Yeah, that’s interesting because as I was watching it, I was like, this is a trash. CBS show that like grandparents watch. Yeah, for ten years. And then there’s nothing that ends. This is like JAG.
Joe: Or.
Greg: Other shows. That’s just like, what’s that one? That, the Tom Selleck is on?
Joe: Oh, yeah. That’s exactly what I was thinking. Yeah.
Greg: Yeah, it’s been on for 37 years. Yeah. And that’s what this movie is to me. But you’re right. They could be. I mean, the actor, Tom Sizemore, Dennis Farina, Andre Braugher, I mean, just a murderer’s row of actors right there. Be like a total prestige show.
Joe: Yeah, it could be. And either way, I would be good. And because it doesn’t pick Lane, it suffers because of it. Like, I would love it just as much as if it was. We’re just going to lean into every kind of stupid cop trope, and good guys always prevail and truthful when out, right? That is that show and I wish I could remember the name of it.
Joe: I can totally see. That’s exactly the show that I was thinking of when they or it is, you know, just go highbrow with and you know, it’s on HBO and it’s appointment viewing every week because you love this show.
Greg: But in 1974, I don’t know, maybe now I want it to be in 1993.
Joe: I mean, it could be.
Greg: Mostly for the shorts. Yeah. We’re forgetting that about Kim Lee, a character who works at the riverboat police station. I’m sure that they have a better name for the station.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: But Bruce Willis, it’s like, what’s up, Kim Lee? And then when she ends up getting murdered at the end, he’s like, no, Kim Lee.
Joe: Kip Lee. No, but yes, let me after.
Greg: Just like hammer at home. But it was, Well, we’ve been talking a lot about this movie, but I don’t know that we’re really giving the full picture of of what it is. And so I’m wondering, is it time for you to read us the back of the box?
Joe: I think so let’s let’s get into the back of the box.
Joe: It’s the back of the box. All right. This is how you’re walking down 25 years ago, Blockbuster Video. You ground striking distance. You read what’s on the back. This is what the back of the box will say. And I have my real one. We’ll get to that in a second. But get your life vests fastened and hold on, as this fast paced whodunit keeps you guessing right up until the end.
Joe: Bruce Willis is Tommy, a cop relegated to patrolling the waterways around Pittsburgh due to testifying against his own cousin. Meanwhile, the city is paralyzed with a serial killer on the loose. The victims pile up and each one is now connected to Tommy Kenny. Catch the killer before the killer catches him. Pretty exciting. I mean, that’s pretty good on that movie.
Greg: I feel like that could have actually been the back of the box. This is a movie that probably did have a back in the box.
Joe: Yeah, 100%. Now the real one. Well, cover some ground we’ve already covered, but you’ll get it. So. All right. If you loved Hill Street Blues, you will love this movie. Also, you should probably take your blood pressure medication. This is a movie made in the early 90s, trying to be movie made in the early 70s, and it kind of works, but mostly as a paint by numbers alcoholic cop movie.
Joe: Thankfully, Bruce Willis has perfected this character and it’s fun to see him in this role. So that’s my real like it’s a little bit more positive than probably we’re making it out to be necessarily, but I would still watch this movie again. That’s the sad fact about my life right now. So.
Greg: You know what? Even as we’re talking about it, I’m realizing that I had an experience watching this movie that in the beginning when you realize, oh no, somebody there’s like a killer who’s killing somebody, and then again, 20 minutes into the movie, oh, there’s a killer and there’s somebody’s killing. I have to remind myself that this movie is actually about a killer that is killing people and dumping them in the river.
Greg: I just does not at all seem like that is happening in this movie.
Joe: Yeah, they tend to forget it for large chunks.
Greg: And they’re even talking about it in the movie and it’s just like, oh yeah, I don’t know what that that’s, that has nothing to do with I don’t know what I thought this movie was about as I was watching it, but it was not that for some reason.
Joe: Yeah, it’s not a serial killer movie. Yeah. Not even like mentioned very much in it, even though it should be that they should be leading with that. But it’s really how much can we watch Bruce Willis as, the alcoholic hero. Right. What it is.
Greg: Which is probably Bruce Willis ruining the movie. Like, I bet they had a pretty good film that they were trying to make, and then Bruce Willis had to be Bruce Willis in it.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: He’s not great. I don’t feel like Bruce Willis in 1993 is really bringing it. This movie was supposed to come out in May, and then because of the reshoots, it came out in September of 93. And back then, if you had to reshoot something that was like admitting that there were problems with it, which Marvel thankfully is kind of fix this in our world where they just when they film a movie, they plan to do reshoots, which I just think is great because as someone who does creative stuff at work, like you never get it right, the first time, right?
Greg: If I ever made a movie, it would be tons of reshoots.
Joe: Every time I’ll reshoot all reshoots.
Greg: There’s no shoots. It’s all just.
Joe: Reshoots. Yeah, exactly. Do you want to get into some, drinking game?
Greg: Okay, let’s get to drinking game.
Joe: Well, how do we have our start drinking games or not? A lot of them from this one. So we don’t have a silent helicopter?
Greg: No, no.
Joe: Push in and enhance.
Greg: No.
Joe: No silent suffering. And ringing in the ears. Or two people sharing a look in the middle of chaos, maybe kind of at the the final fight scene. I think maybe they’re like in chairs and they’re tied up and then they fall over and maybe Sarah Jessica Parker and Bruce will look at each other, but I don’t remember. The opening credits scene does lock in with the with the sound.
Joe: I appreciated that.
Greg: Basically a perfect example of this. There’s like lightning crashing for no reason. Lightning is striking, I guess.
Joe: Yeah, the distance has been struck. I don’t know.
Greg: Yeah. Via lightning okay.
Joe: Does it flash back to dialog two minutes ago. No, really. There’s some flashbacks a little bit, but not in the way that we are used to in this. So I kind of I gave that way. You could kind of, you could take a half of a step for that one. I feel like they referenced the scene on the bridge, when his partner commits suicide or attempts to commit suicide, and.
Greg: Also how his dad died. They cut back to that. There are flashbacks.
Joe: Yeah, there are flashbacks. They’re exactly how we mean them. But if you’re thirsty, take a drink. You know they’re not hilarious.
Greg: Hilariously recent flashbacks.
Joe: Yeah, no crazy CGI car flipping in this at all. Which is actually, you know, classic actual car chases, actual cars on streets, driving next to each other. So that’s pretty fun. Yeah.
Greg: That was pretty fun.
Joe: I also I did have are the streets in extract will be wet because they’re on lakes or they’re on river, so they’re wet.
Greg: But you know what? Also the streets are inexplicably wet quite a bit during this movie.
Joe: Which scenes I missed that, I have to watch this movie again.
Greg: I mean, the parking lot that the nurse walks into is where it happens a handful of times. There’s one where it’s like a cobblestone road. They didn’t do it, but it is noticeable that they were doing it. And actually that beginning shot where it’s a toy car, but you think it might be a real car, a real police car kind of heading towards the camera.
Greg: They actually made the basement floor look like wet streets.
Joe: Okay, so drink a lot on this one.
Greg: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Joe: We don’t have a give us the room. And that’s our last kind of stock drinking game. So what are some drinking games that you have?
Greg: All right. Every time Bruce Willis his dad name checks a real street in the car chase. He is yelling out just real Pittsburgh names a lot. Just for cred. Every time a bad guy crashes into a car.
Joe: Yeah, I had every time there was a car crash on the spot.
Greg: Okay, okay. Every time a car is airborne going down a hill.
Joe: Yeah, I had that one, too. Every time I jump so much.
Greg: Every time Bruce Willis says uncle Nick.
Joe: Oh, nice. That’s a good one. I have every time we see his knee brace. Yeah, to take a drink.
Greg: And sometimes he’s having trouble walking on that knee brace, but most of the time seems like he’s pretty good.
Joe: Yeah. When you remember that he’s supposed to be had an injury, but he’s got to remember that he does.
Greg: Every time Bruce Willis says Kim Lee.
Joe: That’s a good one. I have, every time you see gloves on the hands of the killer, that’s a dead giveaway. And then there’s so many close ups of the glove.
Greg: No person in their right mind would wear these gloves.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Any time someone in the movie says, who’s the best cop now?
Joe: That’s awesome. I have cops yelling as one. Oh my gosh. So you you better be ready to drink a beer if you get that one. Especially if it is the blond cop who’s the henchman in every movie. Yeah.
Greg: Oh, that’s a good point. He is usually a henchman, isn’t he?
Joe: Yeah, kind of is, I guess, in this. But, you know.
Greg: Any time there’s an accidental tussle with a guy who’s holding a gun and somebody gets shot, and at first you don’t know who got shot.
Joe: Oh, that’s a good that don’t should be a trope.
Greg: That is a trope is.
Joe: You know, because it goes off and then somebody is shocked and who yeah, I’m going to put that I’m going to add that I have another one. I’m going to add to the tropes from this movie. Every time we see a remote control car.
Greg: That’s a good one. How about, every time you can totally tell it isn’t Bruce Willis doing a stunt?
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Like jumping over something? Yeah, that’s not very as well. This.
Joe: And then we have every time Tom Sizemore steals a scene. Yeah, like trying.
Greg: What about every time Bruce Willis emerges from water in slow motion for a very long time?
Joe: We need that one. Yeah. Anymore.
Greg: Anytime you see a Taser.
Joe: Nice.
Greg: And if that taser is tasing while coming out of water, that’s two drinks.
Greg: And I also have that. I don’t know if this is a good one, but, anytime they talk about grandkids.
Joe: It’s a good one.
Greg: All right, Joe, let’s do a trope lightning round where you give us the tropes that you found in this movie.
Joe: All right. Sweet. So we have the reluctant hero trope. We have an odd couple or unlikely partnership.
Greg: Perfect.
Joe: In this movie, we have the trope where the kidnaper pulls a rope, rails close and tight in front of the hostages face. We have an explosion on impact and a car chase. Or just like it just hit something and it explodes instantly.
Greg: It hits the passenger part of the car and yeah, yeah, that’s obviously where the gas tank is, right? The driver is.
Joe: We have a conversation in the middle of the car chase. That is in another trope that’s in a lot of these. Yeah, you know, action movie trope from the time no women, except for the love interest and the mother are in this movie. It tastes drugs. So there’s a whole action sequence in the middle of this film that it’s not tied to anything.
Joe: It’s actually pretty awesome. But like, they’re smuggling drugs and that’s, of course, cut up on the table where anyone can see it. And like, he takes that.
Greg: Bag full of money.
Joe: Yeah. And money everywhere. Yeah. Hubcap comes off during the chase. So that was some really awful smooth jazz during the sex scene with Bruce Willis.
Greg: Which I read. They had to reshoot because it wasn’t, like, hot enough the first time.
Joe: You know, that they must abandon smooth jazz. And it was better over the top. They needed. And the last one, this is what one it’s like. Or you find out a really critical piece of information right at the end. So we find out that the killer who has happened to be the serial killer happens to be his cousin, and his family has a cabin on the freaking river where he’s been dumping the bodies from.
Joe: And it’s that piece, like, oh, out in the so-and-so’s cabin. That’s where we’re going. It’s like, of course, if we had known that earlier, we might have been able to put all the pieces together, but they just put like figure it out. So there’s lots of that. That’s definitely like a TV show cop show thing where they’re like.
Greg: Oh, hundred percent.
Joe: That’s got to be out an old man Miller’s cabin. And I’m so that’s pretty awesome. So that was my favorite one where they just like they threw it in there like, oh yeah, the family has a cabin out by the on the lake. And like, you know, you’ve been saying that it’s a killer is a cop dropping bodies in the water.
Joe: He’s got to have, you know, how does he get onto the river? And then you’re like, well, maybe it’s because their family has a cabin on the river. That makes perfect sense. We’re all just putting that together now, so I definitely enjoyed that piece of it.
Greg: Do you remember the first time you saw this or recently when you watched it? Did you guess who the killer was? They really make it seem like it’s going to be Tom Sizemore, right?
Joe: I think they’re trying to sell it, but I feel like it was not shocking at all that it turned out to be his cousin.
Greg: Right? Yep.
Joe: But the first time I saw it, Robert, pastorally is, the killer has his partner who’s, like, the best cop. And what he ends up being busted for is, like, excessive force, which also of the time is doesn’t necessarily hold up well with Rodney King and all of what we know. So it’s like 30 of them. But yeah, I don’t think I was that surprised.
Greg: I think by the time you find out I kind of don’t care anymore.
Joe:
Greg: That’s a problem with this movie. Yeah. My apathy.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Let’s get to important questions. This is very important Joe did this movie hold up then.
Joe: Kind of as my answer.
Greg: We didn’t know quite what we were getting into. We thought Bruce Willis could kind of do no wrong, despite the fact that he was in some pretty bad movies already at this point. Does it hold up now?
Joe: Not even a little bit. But no.
Greg: Okay, my answer to well, actually, I remember seeing this movie and it was better than I thought it was going to be. We probably rented this.
Joe: I’m sure we.
Greg: Did the theater. Yeah, we probably read the back to the box.
Joe: It’s the back of the box striking distance we’re in.
Greg: Absolutely. Did they sell the good guy?
Joe: Yeah. Hard. And this? He is the one that’s going to speak truth to power. He’s going to stand up for what’s right. The little guy, all of that.
Greg: So okay okay. Did they sell the bad guy.
Joe: No. I don’t even really know who the bad guy is. And yeah, why don’t we figure it out? It’s like the last ten minutes of the movie, right?
Greg: Does this movie deserve a sequel?
Joe: I mean, I think we we’ve discovered that it has two sequels. The last Boy Scout is in a 16 box, so. Yes. Sure, sure. Okay. Okay.
Greg: So this is a prequel to The Last Boy Scout, because that came out like two years before this.
Joe: Yeah. Okay. Okay.
Greg: Before the drinking had really set in.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: So it does deserve a prequel. The next question is does it deserve a prequel? You’re saying.
Joe: Yes. Yeah. I guess I’m breaking my own rule on never needing a prequel, but show.
Greg: Why is there romance in this movie?
Joe: I don’t know, you guys again have to help me on this one. This, because that’s what you just did in these movies. Halfway through, they got to have a love interest.
Greg: This movie does seem a little bit more interested in their relationship than most movies of this kind, though. Don’t get me wrong. This movie was pretty bad, but it does seem like they, in 1993 terms, tried to bring something to the relationship between a Bruce Willis and Sarah Jessica Parker as well as.
Joe: It.
Greg: Seemed like they were trying to find things for Sarah Jessica Parker to do. Unlike Roadhouse, you know, Kelly Lynch, I don’t remember anything about, her character. Maybe I’ll be proven wrong when we watch that movie. Anyways. Are we bad people for loving this movie? Do you love this movie?
Joe: I don’t know that I can say I love this movie. I like parts of this movie and in the context of this podcast, it fits right in, but I can’t say that I love it. What about you? How do you feel about this movie?
Greg: I’ll put it this way I can’t say that I love this movie, but I do own it and I’m sure I’ll watch it again.
Joe: Yeah. I mean, okay.
Greg: Finally we get to some music. Joe, what album is this movie?
Joe: I spent some time thinking about this. It’s really. I didn’t have this as an album, but really an aging band on one last tour is kind of what this reminds me of.
Greg: Okay.
Joe: And so I was trying to think of like, it’s like a, you know, a 70s band coming back around. So this is for me. The Eagles Health Froze Over tour. Wow. Where they were like, we’re never getting we hate each other. We’re not. And then it was just like, we need some money. So or cashing some checks and we’re going to get together and tour one last time.
Joe: So that’s what this is to me. What about you? What album is this?
Greg: Yeah, I kind of went with the same thing where I was excited that it came out, and then it didn’t sound as good as it should have. That was what I was going for. And so I think similar to the Eagles, had said they would never play a show together. And then they came out with health froze over.
Greg: They’ll play together when hell freezes over. That’s that’s what they said. Jay-Z had retired after the Black Album and then he came back with Kingdom Come, which isn’t a horrible record. It does have some good songs on it, but for the most part, I feel like it sounds bad and was not good, and so not as bad as I remember when I listen to it sometimes.
Greg: But I do kind of skip ahead to the songs that I know are good, and then I’m out. But this is a Jay-Z’s Kingdom Come.
Joe: All right.
Greg: Coming out of retirement. And it just didn’t sound good. I kind of like how this movie just didn’t look amazing at times. Okay, how could this movie be fixed?
Joe: Well, I kind of got into this, but it’s, Yeah, we either go one of two ways, and honestly, if I’m, if I’m picking a and I actually like yours better because I’ve watched a lot of those bad cop shows, they’re really easy to have on in the background when I’m kind of either just on my phone, kind of doing other stuff or working, and so you don’t need to pay attention to them.
Joe: And then they have a real easy formula to follow. So you can if you want to play along at home and go, oh, here’s here’s the character that we rule out very early, who then we find out a really critical piece of information later in the episode that point the finger back at them and it all comes together, that sort of thing.
Joe: So I kind of lean towards fixing it by making it even worse, just leaning in there, making it that. But you could also make it like a gritty crime drama, really digging into the characters and make it feel elevated. So that’s how I would do what about you? How would you fix this or make it better?
Greg: Well, so the prestige show kind of leans into the world that they’ve built and all the characters across the board. I think this just is a ten season cop show that could be made at any time, but it lives in the world. But it mostly hinges on Bruce Willis and Sarah Jessica Parker as partners, and I feel like they could have been pretty good partners for a ten season show.
Greg: I mean, this could be a show that’s on right now. I have absolutely no idea this might be a cop show that exists and is in its 10th season. So I feel like that’s the answer for this movie. It should have been a show and it should have been on for ten years. But a crime of the week, you know, the shenanigans are happening on these rivers in Pittsburgh.
Greg: What’s happening?
Joe: You can have a crime of the week with like an overarching crime that has to solve kind of throughout the series or different character arcs that come up for sure.
Greg: But again, that’s a better show that I’m saying. Yeah, our show doesn’t have that.
Joe: Just a procedural every week.
Greg: Something absolutely crime of the week. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Joe: Okay. Perfect.
Greg: The wrap party at the end of the 10th season, the creator says, you know what we should have done? We should have had an overarching thing each season.
Joe: We should have had a plan at the beginning of every season.
Greg: Yeah. No, but this is like an ABC show, CBS show. Then they’ve got Bruce Willis and Sarah Jessica Parker. Let’s lock him into a contract. And it’s bones. It’s, you know, it’s it’s whatever. It’s Jag. Okay. So last important question. What rating do you give this movie? Great bad movie. Good bad movie okay. Bad movie. Bad bad movie.
Joe: I think it’s an okay bad movie. Yeah.
Greg: That’s where I land.
Joe: I wanted to go higher, but I just. I can’t even talk about it. Even when we talk about it. And I usually love them more. I just get there with no one.
Greg: Me either.
Joe: Yeah. It’s rough.
Greg: It is rough. Well.
Joe: And I loved every second. Yeah.
Greg: And I’d watch and I own it and I watch it again. All right, Joe, I think there is no more distance left to strike here. Yeah, we did it.
Joe: Now that we have the conversation that need to be had about this movie.
Greg: Absolutely.
Joe: But no one’s asked for. Also, we should very clearly point out.
Greg: Can we talk about reviews for a second? Oh, yeah. This movie costs $30 million to make at the time.
Joe: That’s pretty high.
Greg: Yeah. I mean, die Hard was like 70 or 80 million. Okay, 65 million, something like that. So it low. But that to me says if we can get a hubcap to fall off in one of our action scenes, this will be more exciting. That’s a $30 million movie. Hubcaps falling off. This movie made $24 million in the theater.
Greg: This was a not as bad of a flop as we’ve talked about in the past, but this was this was a disappointing movie. This movie has a 20% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Joe: Feels about right.
Greg: Does that feel? Yeah.
Joe: See, I feel like it’s bad and I’d go I do about 50 higher.
Greg: So 25,000 members of the public have rated this movie on Rotten Tomatoes, and it has a 35% audience score.
Joe: Wow. That is not it sounds like a 70.
Greg: Yeah, it’s basically a seven. Let’s hear a couple reviews that I really liked. One is from the New York Times, Vincent Canby. If Striking Distance were a book, it would be called A Good Read. Instead. It’s a painless.
Joe: Watch. Oh, I’ll take that. Yeah.
Greg: Oh, this is Roger Ebert, who doesn’t come up on this show very much, but Roger Ebert said striking distance is an exhausted reassembly of bits and pieces from all the other movies that are more or less exactly like this one.
Joe: I think he knew what he was talking about.
Greg: My favorite review was a positive one from Nick Rogers in the Midwest Film Journal, and he said, the hard truth is that Bruce Willis is just one of many faces going forth here as gamely as possible. And yet for its crude and compromising stitching, striking distance remains weird, wobbly and eminently watchable, weird, wobbly and eminently watchable.
Joe: I can see, like the movie posters as eminently watchable and not a good read, but.
Greg: Bad guys like they always take how weird and wobbly strange. One little bit of trivia I want to get to.
Joe: Is.
Greg: According to articles and reports at the time, test audiences hated the initial cut of this film because of confusing parts of the story, parts which were added into director Rudy Harrington and Marty Kaplan’s original script by Bruce Willis. One source mentioned how the original cut was like Hudson Hawk without the laughs.
Joe: Awesome, which just.
Greg: Sounds so rough. All right. Oh, hey, this has been great, but, I need to go have a drink in my houseboat because of all the sadness.
Joe: But that’s too bad. I have to go have a heart to heart while in the middle of a car chase. So, you know, these things happen.
Greg: Okay, okay. That’s great, because, they just pulled another one of my ex-girlfriends out of the river. I gotta go check this thing out.
Joe: That sounds serious. I got to go follow a police chase so I can add to my hubcap collection. So.
Greg: Okay, that’s great, because I actually do have to go. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m sopping wet because my partner keeps launching me off the back of our work boat after I swear at him.
Joe: Oh, that’s that’s too bad. I have to go to the policeman’s ball. So.
Greg: I hope you wear your red dress. You know, it turns out there is just a little bit of distance to strike before I’m done with this thing at work. So I got to go.
Joe: All right. Understandable. I have to go, practice tasering people in the mouth. So,
Greg: Okay, well, that works for me because I’m thinking about rethinking my whole professional career and showing it by exclusively wearing shorts.
Joe: Oh, I’m in, I’m in. I also, I have to go secure the stern line, so I’ll be right back. Yeah.
Greg: Absolutely. I’m going to go, refer to all my coworkers who are named Kim Lee by their first and last name exclusively.
Joe: I think that’s a good idea, just to point out the fact that they’re the only minority person in the entire film. Oh my gosh. And she was.
Greg: Good, by the way. She had a couple lines and they found the right person for Kimmy’s role.
Joe: I’m going to go drink whiskey from a paint bottle. So that’s that’s my plan.
Greg: I’m going to go have a fight with my girlfriend in the smallest houseboat kitchen in history.
Joe: I’m out. I’m out of iron. I don’t have any more.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: All right. See you soon.
Greg: See you soon.