The Fugitive / Green River Straight Rye Whiskey

0:00 In 1993, director Andrew Davis and star Harrison Ford gave the world a thrilling chase drama that never, ever quits. In 2024, we take a trip across the river to try the Pride of Owensboro. The film is The Fugitive. The whiskey is. Green River Rye. We'll review them both. This is the. Film and whiskey. Podcast.

0:44 Welcome to the Film and Whiskey Podcast, where each week we review a classic movie and a glass of whiskey. I'm Bob Book. I'm Brad G. And Brad G, it is time for a movie that I've actually been looking forward to this season because we're in the year 1993 to check out Best Picture nominee. The Fugitive, you know, I I talked a few weeks ago about how I was very happy that our birth year had Home Alone as it's movie like like if you have a top grossing film like Home Alone in the Year of Your Birth, like that's pretty good. But man, I I kind of wish it was The Fugitive, Bob. Well, to be clear, The Fugitive is not the highest grossing film of 1993. Brad, do you remember what is?

1:31 Oh, I. Don't right now. It was, for a time, the highest grossing film of all time. One of my favorite films, Jurassic Park. And you know, of course, we've already done Jurassic Park, so I had to skip down a. Few great year, Bob. I'm telling you, man, what an. Incredible. Even if those were the only two movies. I don't know anything else in 93 but those two alone. Cinema baby, we're back, Brad. OK, so if you are new to the podcast, welcome in. We are theming this season of the show around 1:00 Central premise and that is money. We're all about money, this. Year. We are reviewing the highest grossing film or thereabouts every year from 1988 to 2019. So we kicked off with Rain Man in 1988 and we are bringing it all the way up to the five year anniversary of Avengers end game.

2:26 A movie that I cannot wait to shit all over. And once again Brad, if I could be honest with you, but we are only a few seasons in, we're in 1993 and we are joined by one of our favorite people in the whole world. If you weren't excited enough about The Fugitive, then you should be excited about the I believe 5th appearance on this podcast by our friend Patrick Williams. Patrick, how are you today? I am doing so well guys, Thanks for having me. I'm assuming my 5 Timers Club jacket is in the mail. Yeah, it is. By the way. Great. Great. Can't wait? I don't know if you guys were in households like mine growing up, but when you talk about your Five timers jacket, when I was a little kid, there was this promotion that was being done, I think by like Wheaties, the cereal.

3:16 And if you got enough boxes of Wheaties and sent in something or other, they sent you a commemorative jacket of the dream team. And this jacket is legitimately made out of paper. It is a paper jacket that my parents kept for posterity and I remember like, it was folded in a drawer. I found it when I was like 10 years old and I was like, this is awesome, I'm going to wear this. And I walked downstairs wearing my dream team paper jacket and they were like, how dare you, you will tear the paper jacket. You have to take that off. So all that to say, the Five Timers jacket will absolutely be made of that material, Patrick. And can I just have the Wheaties Dream Team jacket? I was going to say, and it'll weirdly feature the Dream Team. Look, as someone, so I'm I think like about 3 years older than you guys and in the 90s I was all about the dream team. I mean, they were the Dream Team. And it was that I I remember that promotion and because especially I think I probably still is, but in the 90s, I remember that was like Wheaties was like the sports cereal. They always had professional athletes on those boxes. And I was a huge cereal kid, and I always wish that I was more into Wheaties because I wanted

4:46 to have the boxes that, like Michael Jordan was on. I wanted to have. I wanted to be able to to mail away like box tops or whatever to get that Dream Team jacket. But Wheaties was never one of my my favorite cereals. Not a great cereal. I mean when the defining characteristic like think about how they named cereals like Frosted Flakes, Cocoa Puffs, like the defining characteristic of your cereal is just wheat. Like of course no one's going to like that. You've got to get, you got to have Larry Bird to to promote it for you. Flakes. I'd rather have cornflakes than Wheaties. Yeah, yeah. I mean, this is a podcast about cereal, right?

5:29 It is now. I'm trying to find a Segway. You know who probably ate Wheaties was Tommy Lee Jones. He seems like a Wheaties guy to me and really does. Once we get into talking about this movie. I do want to say if this is your first time joining us. This is not the topic that we typically introduce on this podcast, but if you'd like to find out more, you can find us on all of our social media accounts, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube at Film, Whiskey. Or you can join our discord. We are on there every single day talking to you guys, fans of the Film Whiskey Podcast, so if you want to, you can find a link to the discord at the end of every single one of our show notes. Despite what you may think, we are not here to talk about breakfast cereals.

6:11 We are here to talk about The Fugitive, a movie that I had seen many times. Brad, had you seen this movie prior to this episode? I believe I've seen it once when I was like 18 to 20 or so, like early college years, and I I remember just loving this film. I'm honestly like just knowing, you know, your age. I'm surprised you didn't see it when you were younger, because this is a movie that I maybe once, but I I'm not sure I really ever saw in full until like the past decade. But it was just a staple of what I mean. Not just like TBS and TNT, but like it would be like the NBC Saturday night movie or whatever. It was just on television so much that it was inescapable. It really is one of those movies that you've seen 5 minutes of it somewhere.

7:15 If you even if you've never seen the movie, you've seen parts of it before. But that makes our next segment much easier. Brad, you've seen this movie before, so you should be much more capable at the first segment of our podcast, which we call, Brad explains. Brad's going to give us the movie plots with only 60 seconds ticking on the clock, so let's go ahead and hear your take with this little segment that we call. Brad explains. Brad Explains is the part of the show where Brad breaks down the plot of the movie that he has just seen, often for the first time. Brad, you are a seasoned veteran when it comes to The Fugitive. You have 60 seconds on the clock. Do you think you can break down the whole plot of this film? I don't know if two times watching the film is like seasoned veteran status. I think five times is when you hit seasoned veteran. That's fair.

8:02 What? You're You're lightly seasoned, so basically a box of Wheaties is what we're saying. You were the equivalent of Wheaties. You have one minute on the clock, man. Spoil this movie folks. If you have not seen The Fugitive, this is where you hit pause, go watch this awesome movie, and then get back to us. But Brad, the timer is running and go. The Fugitive is a film about a man named Doctor Richard Kimball who is wrongfully accused and convicted of murdering his wife. As he's being transported to the prison, other prisoners commit a murder and escape the bus, which is immediately hit by a train as Kimball makes his way.

8:46 Oh man, I This is not working well, Bob. It's a movie about a fugitive, man. How hard is this? Brad Yeah, Kimball gets away and he's on the run from Tommy Lee Jones, and he's solving the murder of his wife as he evades police capture. Boom. There it is. I I always get too caught in the weeds, man. You you really do. And they're honestly, there's not that many weeds in this movie. It's a pretty lean, mean film. I'm a big fan of this one, Brad. I I know you are too. I'm really excited to dive into it. I guess the 1st place to start is to acknowledge that this movie is in fact one of our favorite things pre-existing IP. This is a remake of a very famous television show from the 1960s with which I have absolutely no familiarity. Like I I've never seen an episode of The Fugitive. Patrick, are you are you familiar with the Fugitive TV show at all?

9:40 No, never seen it. It probably is worth mentioning that I I don't know if this was the first example, but there was a real wave in the 90s of movies based on 60s TV shows, and maybe not just 60s, but 60s and 70s. I mean, you know, obviously you have The Fugitive here. You've got Mission Impossible Three years later, The Flintstones, The Brady Bunch, The The The Beverly Beverly Hillbillies. It would it would just like, yeah, Hollywood went crazy for adapting shows from the 60s. And honest, like the only thing that I'm aware of about the show is that I know the one armed man is is in it. And like the show is basically, you know, he's on the run and there's probably a trillion episodes. So he's on the run like forever and he's just trying to find the one armed man.

10:44 And that's all I know. And you you can definitely tell in this, in the film version that like the the phrase the one armed man is like really important. Like the the way they sprinkle it throughout the film, it just feels like, yeah, we did this one armed man we got, We got to find him. It's such a perfect thing because it's it sounds crazy when you hear him say it. When he's like, I didn't kill my wife. The one armed man did. It's like, sure, doctor. Yeah, the the one armed man. Yeah, you you couldn't you couldn't beat A1 armed man in a fight.

11:24 Sure, he's some guy is running around with one arm out there and he's the actual guilty party. OK, this brings up my first point of contention with the film. Now I want to say for the record. For you you have. I do have. I have. Multiple points of contention. See. Here's the thing. The greatest movie ever made. I don't. Typically get this nitpicky, But as I watched it this time, I was like, huh, Like I just. I listen. I will suspend my disbelief. I will accept that that a major shady corporation hired A1 armed man as their assassin slash security guard.

12:05 But does that not put you at a major physical disadvantage when whenever anyone tries? I'm not trying to be ableist on our on our show here today, but like the the one armed didness of it all is very like it seems like you would be a rather ineffective an assassin with only one arm. Am I am I crazy? I mean, maybe they don't use him as an assassin very often, you know, maybe that's like a part time thing. He's. Like the backup assassin when the other guy calls off. I mean, look, we don't, we haven't seen their Rolodex of assassins. We just know that he's a got. He's a former cop who knows his way around a gun who is already involved with these doctors and and their conspiracy or whatever. So I wouldn't be so like skipping right to the end when we're talking about Doctor Nichols. Also side note, I can't remember the actor's name who plays Doctor Nichols, the ultimate villain of the whole thing. But like 3 days ago I I because I'm following along with the you know, the the the current blank check series. I watched The Prince of Tides for the first time and have you guys seen it?

13:26 This is the Barbra Streisand movie. Yeah, I have not seen it. I know it got a Criterion released like last year, right? Got a Criterion release 1991 movie. Also a Best Picture nominee but same actor. Plays Barbra Streisand's like asshole husband who's a world famous violinist. And he and I've seen The Fugitive before but he came on screen this. I was like wait did I I just watch a movie where this guy was also a like kind of shady character there in in that movie he's just like cheating on her.

14:07 He's not, you know, having people killed. But I but yeah, I I just saw him anyway. Anyway, I I'm just going to say that I don't think Doctor Nichols knows a whole lot of people personally who are like ready to murder somebody and know how to murder somebody. And so I'm going to say his options were limited. I mean and and boy, was he ever ready to murder. Because you get this scene where he chases down Harrison Ford, he's got him cornered on the L train. And the moment anyone like there's a cop that the janitor from Scrubs is a cop in this and he says, hey, hold it right there and my guy just turns around and immediately just starts shooting. Like what?

14:51 An assassin. He's just drawing all the attention to himself. He's he's also kind of perfectly framing Doctor Richard Kimball for killing that cop because we're just talking about the end of the movie now. But like right after that then you have Chicago PD being like this guy's a cop killer shoot on site. And it just raises the stakes. See again, he's he's, you know he. Even though he's not able to stop Harrison Ford there, you know he does at least manage to frame him for a murder. Again. Another murder. Another murder, and maybe he's more effective than I gave him credit for, is what I'm saying. This is wait WAIT. OK.

15:32 Bob, you said you had multiple grievances. I I do they they are all related to the end of the film. So we'll we'll get there in an appropriate manner. Let's jump back to the beginning of this movie and kind of reset things here. OK, so. Can we talk about the 15 minute opening? Yes, you can see us which is it is OK. I every time I watch this movie I am in awe of the the beginning of it because it gets to what you want to see so God damn fast. I I I paused it and checked the time. 24 minutes into the movie Harrison Ford is is on the run of fugitive. Tommy Lee Jones has been introduced. The entire premise of the movie like it. It's happening.

16:26 It's like other movies might take 40 minutes on their first act to to to set up like the premise that you showed up for no 24 minutes into a movie. That's two hours. In the like 11 minutes long you you have everything and it has started the they condense so much time in the 1st 15 minutes. Oh yeah. That that like they like a basically I think like almost a year passes in that time. It's like they're jumping through like you know I police investigations and a trial. He is sentenced to death. He's on a prison bus before. Directed by Andrew Davis.

17:07 Appears on screen. The other people, the other prisoners on that bus, get more screen time and character development than his dead wife did. Like, that's how fast we're moving here, to the point where like 11 seconds into this movie, she is dead. Like it's just there's like a shot of a staircase and then you just see his wife, just gonzo. It's a really brutal opening, I have to say. But to your point, Patrick, it's like they just sat down in a room and said, OK, what do we need to establish, OK, his wife needs to be dead and he needs to get convicted of her murder. And and we have to set up the fugitive aspect of this. So let's just do all that during the opening credits. Like, it's not even really established narratively. It's just kind of like is this big montage in which you get little snippets of things and piece together everything that's happened.

17:57 Yeah, it it in those first 15 minutes, it jumps around in time a lot. Like it basically starts with the murder where it'll do this kind of like effect that that I think is meant to mimic like crime scene photographer you where it'll kind of like flash and invert the image and like freeze on it and then it'll like jump to earlier in the night at when the you know they're at they're at a fundraiser and and it'll it's cutting back and forth between like the murder and and the events leading up to it that night and then also and then suddenly we're jumping through him being questioned by police and all this stuff. It's the kind of thing that I mean, look. So a thing that I I think is fascinating is this movie written by David Twowhee, who is best known for creating a beloved character, Riddick, and writing and directing Pitch Black and the The Riddick Trilogy. But many years earlier he was just a screenwriter and and he wrote what I think is very nearly a perfect script. Like for this movie, I'm just like there, there's no better version of this.

19:11 This is like, it's like Immaculate and I and I want to give him a lot of credit, but I could also totally imagine a reality where the movie spent a lot more time and did linearly. Like, like I I can imagine what if they shot all of those full scenes in order And then what if this was all just done in editing? I think there are three credited editors. So, I mean it's it's possible that they decided like, no, we got to get to it faster. We got to chop down like the the, you know, maybe it took 40 minutes for him to be on the run.

19:54 I don't know. You know, there's a, there's a thriller from the late 80s called No Way Out with Kevin Costner and Gene Hackman and I I started watching this movie, I don't know, a week ago on Tubi. It was late at night. It was a Tubi film. I was like, I'm going to watch this movie. It starts the way that this movie should start in terms of like what was happening in thriller films at the time, which is there's this extended, you know, like ballroom banquet scene at the beginning where we're establishing all the characters and here's this person's wife and. Here's this interpersonal dynamic with this asshole Gene Hackman guy. And then you get into the meat and potatoes after this big establishing sequence. And you're absolutely right, Patrick. Like the edit on this is wild.

20:37 You You start with the murder and then you flashback to little snippets of what happened earlier in the night, but only what is absolutely vital to know in terms of giving you information that's going to pay off later. Like, it's a complete Chekhov's Gun kind of a thing, but told out of linear order. And I think that's like one of my absolute favorite things about this film is that they give you just enough information you need to understand why the action is happening. And as the movie rolls along, like like at the very start, all you know is that he did not kill his wife, 'cause you see somebody else do it. And you know that he's wealthy, 'cause he's at some sort of gala. And that's it.

21:20 Like eventually you hear him call doctor, so you kind of learn that he's a doctor. And then as the action progresses, they they feed you little bits of information that inform why the action is happening. Like the first time they go to interview his friend Doctor Nichols. And he's like, yeah, I saw him outside, you know, my Tennis Club and I gave him some money and I I don't know what's going on, but you will never catch him because he is the most brilliant man I know. And it's at that point that you start to realize, oh, he's not just a doctor. He truly is like thinking way beyond just how do I get away from the cops.

22:00 And and the way they continue to introduce information throughout the movie, I don't know if I've ever seen another action thriller do it as well as they do here. Yeah, I think that I think they do. That's also really smart is in terms of like the actual night of the murder, The only times we really have flashbacks to it are like when he falls asleep. And I like, I just, I like this idea that it's like he's under too much pressure to even really, like be properly haunted by what happened or deal with like the most traumatic event of his life.

22:47 And then it's but but of course it makes sense that like, oh, right. It's only when he like, like he would like dream about that when he falls asleep, it's like, so they find the right moments. That makes sense, I think from a character perspective, to give you those little flashbacks, to show you his wife, to show you what he's thinking about. But when he's awake, it is all business all the time. He hasn't. He hasn't. Like there is no time to go mope and cry about his dead wife because he is on the run. He has a mystery to solve. I and and I've been. I don't even know where to begin. I could.

23:28 I I love, like every of this movie. It it is. It's it's one of theme. I think the most purely like, enjoyable and satisfying movies ever. It's so the reason it was like a cable classic. It is just so compulsively watchable. It's a movie that you stumble across in the middle of and you're just like, well, here's the next two hours of my life. I'm not going to turn this off now. Well and and and they flesh out the world so well. Like you have Tommy Lee Jones in the middle of this chase making fun of his. You know like junior partners Ponytail, right. And you have him that you have Kimball Harrison Ford renting an apartment and the the son of the owner gets arrested for drug dealing like there there's so much of this movie that feels like the whole world isn't just about Richard Kimball.

24:22 Things are happening around him and and it's it's it just feels so lived in and and immersed. That's the thing I I was thinking about so much watching it because in the scene where Tommy Lee Jones and his team of US Marshals are introduced, you know, obviously Joey pants as Cosmo, his right hand man almost. It's the kind of thing where it's like you're watching the movie and you're like, man, this is great, this is great. Then Tommy Lee Jones shows up with Joe Joey pants like over a shoulder and you go, wait, never mind, this is the best American film ever made. But in that scene, their whole little team is like walking down the railroad tracks to the the accident scene, you know, where the like a train collided with the prison bus and all of that.

25:09 And and he's kind of razzing the woman on his team about like not wearing the right boots for it and like you. And and it's implied that like this is like a running thing of like her insisting on like wearing heels to this and you're just like Oh my God, there's like these characters have existing relationships like they had lives before they entered the movie here and everyone you meet. It's a situation like that, Like like there's just the extra effort put into everything that is just it. It just makes every bit of it so much more satisfying. But it's done so economically too.

25:49 Like they don't have to have a whole scene establishing Tommy Lee Jones's relationship with these people. It's a couple, you know, frankly throwaway lines, but they're not throwaway lines because they get at pre-existing relationships. So, well, guys, I do want to just kind of talk broadly about these performances. Let's start with Harrison Ford. And I want to go back to something that Patrick was saying about like, because the movie is so propulsive, he doesn't really have time to just, like, sit and bemoan his dead wife. But I also think that that's another area where the script so perfectly sets you up to sympathize with him throughout the movie and to be on his side. Like, yes, we know he didn't kill his wife, but you get that crucial emotional breakdown in the police station at the very beginning of the film, when he's first confronted with the horror of her death, with her blood still all over him and the accusation that he murdered her. And I think that that scene might be the best acting Harrison Ford has ever done in the sea. And I love Harrison Ford, and he is great in many, many things. He is so believable and it is so naturalistic and it it never seems excessive.

27:01 It never seems overblown. Everything is an appropriate response to what he's being confronted with. And again, it doesn't spill over like 2 extra minutes. It's done really economically, but it's more than enough to get its hooks in you and keep you on his side for the rest of the film. And I I think that this is an example of where acting small pays off because he doesn't really act big throughout a lot of the movie, but in a few moments he lets his emotions push through and it just rips your heart out. And Bob, you're right. That opening scene when they are in the, you know, the cell being interrogated, Well, when when Harrison is being interrogated, I I mean, I almost started like tearing up.

27:47 Like you can feel the rawness of that emotion and the anger he's feeling, that he's being questioned and the the the grief and sorrow and his wife's death. Like it's incredible, man. Yeah, Harrison Ford, it it's he's such an interesting movie star because you know, the guy, he's like never won an an Oscar or anything like that. He. I mean, has he ever even given what you'd call a showy performance? I mean, like, it depends on if you think that some of his later action films like Is Air Force 1A hammy version of Harrison Ford?

28:27 But even then, like, what's a hammy version of Harrison Ford look like compared to everyone else's hammy? It might be hammy for him, right? But But like, let's Let's talk for like 2 seconds about 1991's Kevin Costner and Alan Rickman, Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, if we want to talk about hammy performances. Right. I I mean the the thing with Ford is just like, he's always been a guy who, and this is a many of his characters, just like a guy who shows up and does the work and he just who seems to have like no time for any bullshit. But also is just one of the most compulsively watchable people who's ever been on screen. And like so much of this movie, like this movie is a testament to like why Harrison Ford is maybe the most exciting actor to watch walk of all time.

29:24 Because so much of this movie is him not talking to people just walking in a hurry and looking at things and looking over his shoulder and just being focused and stressed and but but just just moving and and he has such an interesting run and he runs a lot in this movie. His run is like, you know, it's like the opposite of the Tom Cruise run which is like so fluid and mechanical and Harrison Ford's run has always been like a little bit stiff. But I there's something that I find so engaging about it. I was literally about to say, did did Harrison Ford walk here, here in The Fugitive so that Tom Cruise could run? Quite possibly, I, I, I, but I think Ford has also just been really, really good at being a guy who is repressing feelings. Like he does not have a lot of big emotional breakdown scenes and movies.

30:29 But you know, so many of his characters, what you know, whether like Deckard and Blade Runner or whatever, are like very haunted people who clearly, like, have, you know, dark shit in their lives they're not dealing with. I are are there like, you know, I, I, I, I watched a witness recently which I well, I it's incredible. It's so good. A movie that has on paper, like the silliest premise ever, like Harrison Ford, is a detective who has to go undercover as an Amish person to solve a murder.

31:09 And then you watch it and. I need to see this movie. It is incredible. Yeah. It's a Peter Weir movie. I but I and it and it Oh my God. It it is it's it's great. It's so great. And so much of the movie is just Harrison Ford like as a detective trying to you know connect with this little Amish boy who witnessed the a horrible murder and and then and and and you know navigate a relationship with an Amish woman where neither of them are talking about anything they're feeling at all and yeah I I mean yeah with Harrison Ford is there anyone better at just visibly trying to put aside the the the big well of emotion that that they that they contain but they cannot let spill out. Well, I think crucially with Ford, though, you always see the tenderness there.

32:14 It's not like he's, you know, Stallone or Schwarzenegger, like a person who is playing impenetrable and incapable of emotion. And I think, Brad, you brought up Kevin Costner a minute ago. You know, it's a joke about how bad that movie was. But I think it's really interesting chronologically. He falls in between Clint Eastwood as a star and Kevin Costner as a star and I think he is also a combination of both of those people like it's such an interesting. They all have ranches. Yeah, there you go. That's what. That's that's the tying bond here. But no, Costner has that Gary Cooper sort of earnest tenderness to him. Also kind of a limited range as an actor. Eastwood has that gruffness to him and I think Ford is this like platonic ideal of both of them. Like mixed together where you get the gruffness, but you never doubt for a minute that there is like a beating heart underneath all that.

33:08 And I think that really is kind of like his superpower as a star. And it's on display here every time he like talks about or thinks about his wife or like in the flashbacks where he's interacting with her, the like the scene when they're in the car together or or when he rescues her from an awkward conversation and and she just kind of like, I'm glad you got me. That was my last joke. Like there's a a familiarity and tenderness that we all kind of hope for in a 2530 year marriage that feels so believable. Yeah, I I got to say, you've kind of blown my mind by pointing to Ford as like the the link are like the connective tissue from Eastwood to Costner because just obviously, you know, they showed up they became movie stars in that order. But I, I it's so correct where like when I picture Eastwood it is him scowling all the time.

34:11 When I picture Costner, it is him with like a a little smile look like like a bull Durham smile and he's still like a manly man but but he's fun. And then when I picture Ford, it's a guy who's like grumpy but actually kind of has a heart of gold And that I I I'm going to think about this forever now. So thank you. I did it. All right. Let's let's end on a high note with Harrison Ford. Let's segue over to Tommy Lee Jones or as Google likes to refer to him, TL Jones. Which absolutely not. What the hell goo. I typed in Tommy Lee Jones filmography and it said do you mean TL Jones? And it had a little picture it like. No, no, Google I.

34:58 Did not mean that I've met Tommy Lee Jones, who has never been credited in a film as TL Jones. I don't know what's going on there, but here's where I want to start with Tommy Lee Jones. Even before we get into the particulars of the performance. He wins an Oscar for this movie in an era where you could still win Oscars for things like this. You know, we just talked last week Brad about sister act and how Whoopi wins the Oscar for Ghost and how you could still do that in the early 90s. I don't know how I feel about Tommy Lee Jones winning an Oscar for this movie. It's like I'm glad the man has an Oscar. He is incredible in this movie, but based on what we have come to know as an Oscary performance over the last 20 years, this this does not check those boxes.

35:45 So I'm I'm really glad that it doesn't. But I want to pick your guys's brains a little bit about what does this say about what constituted an Oscar winning performance in 93 versus 2024? I'm looking up right now who he was up against. That's that's. Patrick, One of them was. One of them was Ralph Fiennes in Schindler's List. So, I mean, he had some definite competition. Shit, yeah. I am not going to lie, I think Ray Fiennes probably deserved the Oscar there. I Does Ray Fiennes still not have one? I don't believe he does. I don't think he won for The English Patient.

36:29 He should have won Best actor for Grand Budapest Hotel. His best performance, Yes. Hey, I was on that episode. Yeah, we were. There's a, there's a point. Yeah, OK, I'm looking at it here. So up against Ray fines Leo in his first Oscar nomination for What's Eating Gilbert Grape? John Malkovich for In The Line of Fire, another kind of movie and performance that is not an OO movie, but he is wild in that movie. And Pete Postle plays for In the Name of the Father, which I haven't actually seen. Nor have I. But it's a Daniel Day Lewis movie, so you know, it's got the Oscar prestige behind it. Yeah, Jim Sheridan.

37:14 You know Ireland. So I guess, OK, amongst this crop of actors, there's some serious competition. A, what is it that puts TL Jones over the top here? And B, like especially Patrick, you're so good at situating us historically, like what does this say about the Oscars in 92 versus the Oscars in in 20? Four. It's really interesting because, I mean, you know, Schindler's List obviously won Best picture and best Director. It was kind of the big winner of the night, even if, you know, Liam Neeson didn't win. But yeah, I'm looking at the rest of the Oscars this year. This is Tom Hanks's first win for Philadelphia, but which was, you know, also a pretty big, like, mainstream hit movie. But then, like, you know, Holly Hunter wins for the piano, which is a, a, a basically silent performance, you know, not a classic kind of oh, and then Anna Paquin also wins for the piano.

38:22 And so, you know, honestly, really interest, I'm like, I'm not an Oscar person. I quit watching the Oscars in 2011. So I, you know, people are like Oscar people and like really track this stuff. And I'm not one of them. But I mean, the big thing here is all these winners are from like mainstream Hollywood movies. You know it, it. And not even in the in the era of like, you know, like the Weinsteins and Miramax being like, here's what an Oscar movie is. It's like this kind of, you know, it's sort of important semi art house movie.

39:06 It's like, no, these are like proper mainstream Hollywood dramas that were also hits. And it's honestly a really cool variety. I mean the the Tommy Lee Jones thing is actually fascinating because Leo is like, that's such a big performance. It's like, OK, he's playing a mentally disabled person. Also, he's really young and and you know, you can see them being like this guy is going to be a big star. But then also it's like he's very young, he'll be back and he was back like 10,000 times before they finally gave him one.

39:47 I. Would say he was back in 2015. Yeah for you know he he not the movie he should have won for but I but yeah and and then Ray finds makes so so much sense because great performance. Really serious. The biggest winner of the night. Honestly, here's what here's do you? Think it's a split vote? Well, here's the thing. Two of the nominees here are villains. Malkovich and Fines are villains. In those movies, Fines is playing one of the most, like, appalling cinematic characters of that decade at least. And I wonder if some people were just so repelled by, like, he's so good in it, but maybe we're just like so disliked him that that they resisted voting for him. While Tommy Lee Jones is the antagonist of this movie, but is also is such had like has such a insane charisma. Is so like watchable the like every second he is on screen, like in a way that like he almost shouldn't be. It's like you're almost rooting for him because he's the hero of a different movie.

41:15 Like you could if you cut out the Ford scenes. Tommy Lee Jones is just is just the hero of a movie about tracking down a a killer. And it's called US Marshals. Yeah, exactly, exactly. He he he's so good. They're like, we got to give this guy another movie. Yeah. You know I Pete Postlethwaite. I don't I don't see him with his own spin off movie. But yeah, it it, I do feel like every so often you know the Academy will be like you know we're we're going to actually and usually in the in the supporting categories they're like we're we're going to you know toss a nomination to to you know the kind of big populist thing that doesn't normally get recognition. It's like we're we we're going to nominate Johnny Depp for playing Jack Sparrow.

42:07 We're going to nominate Robert Downey Junior for Tropic Thunder. Like, that kind of thing. And and look, it happened here and it and it won. But, but, and. And and and hey, this was right around the same time that Marisa Tomei won for My Cousin Vinny, and so maybe the Oscars were just having fun in the early 90s. I would say my My Cousin Vinny very fun movie. Yes. All right, guys, I think this is a perfect time for us to press pause and drink some whiskey. Brad, what do you say we take a trip to Owensboro, KY, to try some Green River Rye? Let's get to it. All right.

42:54 So today we are checking out Green River, Kentucky Straight Rye Whiskey. Now we have had Green River products on the show before. I think last season, Brad or or end of the prior season, we tried both their original bourbon and their weeded bourbon, which I think we should probably bring back and do full reviews of those on a regular episode, 'cause we do that kind of abbreviated thing on bonus episodes sometimes. But these are major releases that are widely available and they're really affordable, and I think we should probably just kind of like, give them the reviews that they deserve. Yeah, and so do the entire trio. Yeah. And so we're starting today with this brand new release. It just officially became available on February 1st. And Brad, I I have to admit, I I kind of jumped the gun a little bit on this one.

43:44 I got a bottle in the mail and immediately took a picture and put it on Instagram. And I heard very quickly from their PR representative that this was still under embargo and that I need to take it down immediately, so. I put that thing back where it came from or so help me. I'm very sorry, Green River, but we waited an appropriate amount of time and our review is posting now, so I still haven't tried it. I've been waiting for this moment. We have a a deep affection with Green River because the master distiller at Green River is Aaron Harris, who used to be the head distiller at Watershed in Columbus, and we struck up a really good relationship with him when he got named their head distiller at Green River.

44:26 I couldn't have been happier. And so everything that comes out of Green River, I'm like my guy Aaron Harris, thank you for this. Yeah, I'm I'm really excited to get into this one today, Bob. So it's labeled as a straight rye whiskey, but everything in here is at least four years old. It's a blend of four to six year old barrels. It's bottled at 95 proof and the mash bill is 95% rye, 5% malted barley. Everything in this bottle was distilled, aged and bottled at the Green River Distillery, and MSRP on this bad boy is only $35. Brad, you love to see it. Yeah, it's it's like a 90 minute movie. I was just going to say like there's nothing better than when you see the runtime of a movie is like 93 minutes and there's nothing better than when you see an MSRP of $35. Yeah, 3499 is often a really nice value point where they've put enough into the craft that they're not going to charge in the 20 range, but it's not going to cost you a pretty penny. So a lot of there's a lot of whiskeys in that $35 range that I'm a big fan of.

45:30 Now, before we dive into the liquid itself, let's talk a little bit about this bottle. It is a really, really cool bottle. Very hefty. I feel like you could really just bludgeon someone with this thing if you wanted to. If only Harrison Ford's wife had had a bottle of this on the night stand, things would have turned out different. She could have clocked him real good. It is a horseshoe shaped bottle. It it's like AI don't know, it's still cylindrical, but it's in the shape of a horseshoe and the flat part of the horseshoe is the front of the bottle. It's just really cool looking. I think they do a great job with their design and their packaging and that's always worth noting, especially when you're debating like whether to buy a bottle or not and you're not entirely sure about what's inside of it. It's always cool to have something to look at, if nothing else.

46:14 Yeah. And it's it's very grabbable there. There's something about the the shape that just feels nice. To grab Girthy. Yeah. Hey, all right, man, Let's go ahead and dive in here. What are you picking up on the? All sorts of girth Bob. Girth and viscosity. Yeah, this nose is pretty nice. It's got a lot of rice spice coming through very quickly. I got some really really pleasant vanilla bean notes and then the the longer I sat with it the more it it almost felt like a little bit like an over ripe Peach. Like not not quite sickly sweet, but definitely on the end of like yeah, I don't know if I'm going to eat this or not I I think it's a decent nose.

47:02 I'll I'll give it a 7 out of 10 here. Yeah, I think for me, the bright notes are what really stand out on this. This reminds me of like a children's apple juice box. And not, like, the really, really sweet ones, but like, yeah, once in a while when we're on the road, we have to stop somewhere. My wife wants a coffee, We'll stop at a Starbucks. And they have like, bougie juice boxes that are like, no sugar added or whatever. And it's the it's just a little more tart apple juice. But it really does smell like apple juice. I get a ton of green apple on this. I like it a lot, Brad, But I'm not even getting a lot of rye spice on this. I'm just getting really bright fruit, almost like Jelly Bean, you know, like lemon, lime, kind of notes on this.

47:44 It's really nice. I just don't know where it's going to go from here. So I'm I'm going to be at a 7.5 out of 10 on the nose. Yeah. And as we moved into the palate, it really had the flavor of a young rye for me. I was a little surprised, Bob. I I was hoping for a little bit more out of the flavor. I did get some black pepper. It had some like fresh wheat bread kind of feel to it the longer I spent with it. There was some caramel drizzle, but overall there wasn't quite enough flavor for me to be really pumped. Here I give it a 6 1/2 out of 10. I can see where you're getting tripped up by this one, because I'm also getting tripped up. I'm not getting the same notes you are, but at the front of my pallet to the mid pallet is really really bright fruit. Still like it's a it's just a lot of green apple on this and and not like a green apple sucker like just tart Granny Smith apple.

48:41 Reminds me of a little bit of like some of the notes we get on like blended Scotch and as it goes to the back of the pallet I don't get a lot of rice spice. It gets kind of bitter and not oaky bitter, but like almost like a malt kind of bitter to it. And it drinks more like a bourbon in terms of the mouthfeel, in terms of the the type of burn that I'm used to getting, the the interplay between the grains and the oak. It just doesn't really drink like a rye. It drinks like a bourbon that has notes of Scotch or Irish whiskey on the front of the pallet. So it's really interesting to me. I don't think this is unpleasant, but I'm really struggling to figure out how to score it because it's a rye. Should I score it as a rye or should I just score it as a whiskey?

49:24 I think I'll go ahead and give it a 7 out of 10, with the caveat that like, this just does not really taste that much like rye. Yeah, it it's it's kind of an oddball Bob, that that's kind of where I'm at. Especially when I got to the finish, the rye kind of fell away from me and I got some like saltine cracker with like, have you ever had bubble gum that's kind of old and dusty? Have I ever had bubble gum? Yeah, of course, man. It kind of tastes like a a stick of gum that sat in your car for a little bit too long and like baked in 90�� weather one too many times. And then also got frozen over those Ohio winters and it's just yes, well.

50:10 Seasoned. Yes. Well seasoned. Bubble gum. It's not a bad finish, but it's not what I'm going to write home about. I'll stick it a 6 1/2 here. Man, I am. I'm kind of jealous of your palate today because you're picking up on a lot of different things here. Like I, you know, again, I don't know that I would necessarily call this complex, but for me, I would go so far as to say this is almost like one note in terms of what I'm getting on my tasting notes. It's just green apple all the way through and it's a much spicier green apple on the finish. And I get some oak notes and I get some of that kind of raw malted grain here, but it's like there's just Granny Smith apple all over this thing. It's kind of nice that it's this consistent, but I'm just not getting a lot of depth on this one right now. I'm wondering like after a couple years of producing this, if as these barrels age and mature, what kind of character this is going to take on?

51:06 Because to me, it doesn't taste young the way it did to you, Brad. It just, it just isn't very complex. So I'm going to give it a 6.5 on the finish that takes us to balance where I'm going to give this a 7 out of 10. Once again, you know, it might, it may be one note, but that note is really consistent throughout. Brad, where are you falling on balance? 6 Out of 10 There's just kind of a lot going on here. And it's it feels like an oddball and oddity in the world of rye whiskey, which isn't a bad thing. It just didn't hit a home run for me. And if you are a whiskey novice out there, if you ever hear somebody say I'm jealous of your palate, what they're really saying is I'm questioning your palate. No, I'm just saying you're not questioning your palate. I'm just like, man, Brad's getting a lot on this. Maybe it's something I ate today or or something else, but I'm just not picking up a ton here that takes us to our value score.

52:03 Like we said, this is a $35 bottle of whiskey. About a year ago, Brad, we had Andre Houston Mack on the show to promote his new brand called Rye and Sons and that has really been my go to affordable rye since then. We don't try a ton of rye on the show, like significantly less than either bourbon or Scotch I would say. And so that one's still kind of fresh on my mind. And I think that that one had like a $2829 price point and it just had such a depth and complexity to it at that price point that I think it's really going to hurt this one that we're reviewing today because this one's 6-7 dollars more expensive. And I think that is it a really good mixer? Absolutely.

52:49 I mean, it stands up on its own. It's just like you can only really drink it if you're in the mood for rye with notes of Green Apple for me at least. So I'm just going to give this a six out of 10 on value. I don't think it's overpriced by any means. I just think there are better options at the price point. Yeah, I I'm in the exact same boat, Bob. I I give it a 5 1/2. I think that there are just enough other whiskey options at this price point as well as as you just said specifically rye options. I I think that you can get other things. I mean even I think the Woodford Reserve Rye I want to say is in the 35 to $38 range and that's that's a really good rye, Bob. So this one I'll give a 5 1/2 on value. I don't think it's overpriced, Bob. I'm coming to a 31.5 out of 50 here. I'm at a 34 out of 50, so I'm just a few points higher than you.

53:47 That takes us to just a 65.5 out of 100 or a 32.75 out of 50. Now, I will say that seems just a hair low for me when I look at, just numerically, the things that we've scored in this range. This is a very pleasant whiskey and I think sometimes we use the term inoffensive to be a little nicer than we intend to be. But like, there's nothing wrong with this whiskey. I think it's better than a lot of the mixed or the blended scotches that we've tried recently that we've given similar scores to. I would give it a thumbs up. I would say try it. I would say even if you, you know, if you're in a pinch, buy it. I'd like just don't expect to be blown away at $35 like you're getting a very reasonably priced rye and your expectations should be set right there and no higher than that.

54:37 Yeah, Bob, you said it all. This is a a solid ride that needs a little bit of improvement, but at $35 I I think you kind of know what you're getting into. All right, man. Well, from this reasonably priced ride to a movie that we've already established was reasonably priced. Let's get back into talking about The Fugitive. What do you say, Brad? Let's get to it, Bob. All right, everybody. That was Green River Rye. A whiskey that I wish lived up to the level of the fugitive. It was good, but it was not the fugitive good. I was going to say. You know what I'm. Saying it was not great like and The Fugitive is truly a capital G great film.

55:26 Can I just throw out more great things about the fugitive? Please. Yeah, I'll. Just list them. OK, well well so I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm trying to go back to like early on in the movie. So I I think one of the one of the great pleasures of this movie is just watching Harrison Ford's like, thought process of like how he is. You know, how he is making choices. Like like how he is both evading capture and trying to, you know, piece together clues and solve this mystery. And he's smart.

56:07 And he's like, he's making choices that like, like, like this is not a case where someone's making, like dumb decisions and you're like, Oh no, don't do that. If anything, like everything he does, you're just like, oh, yeah, oh, oh, good move, good move. Oh, oh that. That's cool. And and also Tommy Lee Jones is really smart and really good at his job. And the fact that the two of them come face to face so early in the movie and he basically catches him like, you know, by like the 40 minute mark of the movie. It does, yes. Just in a way where like if you're watching it for the first time, you're just like, wait, wait, wait.

56:49 But but this movie is like 2 plus hours long. How is he going to get out of this? And and like there's something like because you think he's smart. He's like, OK, you know, ditches the prison jumpsuit, snatches those coveralls, goes to the hospital. He knows how to navigate those. Really clever go went into the the, the bathroom, the, the, the guy in the coma, you know, he steals his food, shaves his beard, all of this stuff. And then that that prison guard, who he, whose life he saved, spots him. Suddenly they are on his tail so fast, they were already like, checking the hospitals in the area.

57:33 Because I'm Lee Jones was a smart and it's like, hey, check the hospitals. He'll probably go to one of those. Like everything everyone does is like what someone who's like, really smart and an expert in that field would do. It's like makes it a joy to watch. It makes it the most perfect like game of cat and mouse that has ever been put on film. Yeah, I mean other. Yeah, up there with, like, heat. Yeah. And that's the that's the great dynamic is that they are both one step ahead of everyone else except each other. And and so you have all these audience surrogates like Joey Pants, like ponytail guy, what's his name Noah, I think who's just constantly asking like why are we doing this And then he has to explain and it's great because as the audience half the time I'm like, I need I need some explanation here Tommy Lee Jones.

58:27 But it's it's so again, it's so economical at setting up how they are perfect adversaries for each other because they understand each other's psyche so, so well. Can I just say really quick about Joey? Joey Pants. Yes, we're calling him, seeing him with hair. I just am so familiar with bald matrix Joey Pantilioni that, like, it would be like if I watched a Patrick H Williams video and you had hair for some reason. It was like a flashback too early in your life. I would be like, wait, is that? Is that Patrick? But not just a second, a moderate amount of hair either. Like, it's not like he's, he's balding, He's got, I mean he's so much very thick mane.

59:15 Well, the man made a lot of movies in the 90s and you know, he's got hair in most. I mean, actually in the 80s. Risky business. The man has had a career. Yeah. Well Brad, I I had a perfect segue set up, but now I I need to talk about my male pattern baldness and your lack of it to segue us. But I was going to say something about perfect adversaries because it is time for our next segment, which we call 2 facts and a falsehood. Brad is going to try to stump your ball to our right and what is wrong?

59:56 2 facts and a falsehood. 2 Facts and A Falsehood is the part of the show where Brad presents me with three items about the making of this film. He presents them as fact. One of them is a complete lie that he is made-up and I have to suss out which one is the lie. Brad right now I am sitting at 3:00 and 2:00 on the season. I am just hovering over the precipice of 500 right now. I need to kind of dig my way out a little bit. I'm. I'm a little concerned because we've taken. We had a week off from recording. We were so far ahead that you have now had at least seven full days to come up with your two facts and a falsehood, and I have done absolutely no research. So hit me with your two facts and a falsehood, and prepare for your inevitable victory. Fact #1 Harrison Ford damaged some ligaments in his leg during the filming of the scene in the woods. He refused to take surgery until the end of filming so that his character would keep the limp.

1:00:52 Fact #2, the production crew struggled to create the bus wreck scene and actually had to reshoot the train running into the bus because the train was going much faster than they expected in the first shooting. Fact #3. The film was shot in 73 days and had one of the fastest turn around times of its era for post production schedule and as a result, the film was pushed up to a release date in August of 1993. I have heard fact #1 before. Whether it's an urban legend or not, I don't think Brad made it up and that's what the point of this game is. So I I think that is true. But that would also suggest they filmed it in chronological, like in sequential order, which is not common to do. #2 and #3 both sound kind of plausible.

1:01:44 Brad, you've done a good job today. Thank you, Sir. Which is why I'm relying on Patrick here. Now when we have a guest on, typically the way this works is if I enlist, the guests help. If we win, I still only get one win in the win column. If we lose, I get 2 losses because it's it needs to just be that much more embarrassing. Bob, I don't think you need to bring me in on this. I I'm just going to tell you I don't have any great insight. I think you'll do just fine even just guessing on your own. I don't want to give you a second loss. Is this because you think that the falsehood is so obvious, or just that you can't?

1:02:31 Help me. No, no, no no no it's not. I just, I'm, I'm honestly not sure. All right. It's it's it's. Wait, can you read the second one for me again? Fact #2 The production crew struggled to create the bus wreck scene and actually had to reshoot the train running into the bus because the train was going much too fast in the first shooting. Yeah, I don't. I I I don't know, Bob, you're on your own. Yeah, I find that it's kind of like ripping a Band-Aid off. Like in these situations I need to just go with my gut and not dilly dally. I have no basis. Last time I was here and I helped you with one, I was wrong and So what do I now? I have no basis for believing this. I'm going to say two is the falsehood final answer. Final answer, Bob was absolutely correct. Hey.

1:03:29 You nailed it, man. Way to go. I was going to say if anything, I would think the train was going too slow, like they don't usually have runaway trains on movie sets that they can't control. I was also wondering if that was done with like miniatures. Yeah, that, I mean that that whole sequence I think is like incredibly well staged in terms of like, you know, like when they have, when they have a stuntman, but you've got the money shot of like Harrison Ford. Jumping. With the things colliding and so it it it's can we talk about Andrew Davis for a minute? Yeah, the director of this movie who I was looking at his filmography the other day and he has directed some certified bangers, famously under siege with Steven Seagal.

1:04:16 That's one of his films. However, he didn't really hang around too long in terms of the popularity. I guess he made a movie in the late 90s which was another to be watch of mine Brad called A Perfect Murder. We've mentioned that show or that movie on this show before because it was a remake of Dial M for Murder. Yes. And it was just OK. You may remember him, Brad from his. Should be better. Yes, you may remember him from his adaptation of the book Holes with Shia LaBeouf. Yeah, OK. But again, I like I. Was going to say I I looked him up as I was writing my little script at the start of the show. I had never heard of him before.

1:04:58 So Andrew Davis interests me. I was thinking about him recently because I I I recently watched The Running Man for the first time and Andrew Davis was the original director on The Running Man. And when they were like early in production, when they were like running like a week behind schedule or so, the studio fired him and replaced him with a guy who played Starsky on Starsky and Hutch and so as. You do? Yeah, and like, I thought the Running Man was fun. But, you know, knowing that Andrew Davis would, you know, a few years later, direct The Fugitive, the ultimate Running Man movie.

1:05:42 I I was wondering, thinking like he seems really like the guy for this site and he really strikes me as just one of those very competent journeyman directors alongside, you know, like a Martin Campbell that with with the right script can like totally knock it out of the park. But also is it like, like this is not a movie, Like if anything, The Fugitive is like a movie to like refute auteur theory. Because it's like who who's the who's the auteur? Like in this you got, you got David Twowhee adapting, you know, an old TV show.

1:06:29 You got a director who's who's mostly done, like he did like a, like a Chuck Dorris movie and a Steven Seagal movie who seems like just a kind of like B action guy. And then he just fucking nails everything. Like, I mean it's the kind of movie where, yeah, it's not like a visually stylish movie and there aren't like like oh beautiful shots that you're you're thinking about afterwards. But also at no point are you even thinking about the filmmaking, which I think is like a credit to the movie. Like I it it's like it is shot so cleanly, so efficiently. Every scene is propulsive.

1:07:21 The the the filmmaking is like you. The geography makes sense. You know what's going on. It never gets in the way. It tells the story efficiently and does what it needs to do and gets out of the way. And I and I, I wouldn't change a thing about it. And it's funny because have you guys seen the movie Chain Reaction? No. I have not. So it's a movie that he made a few years later that is basically the same movie. It is a Chicago set fugitive thriller with Keanu Reeves and Morgan Freeman. I'm really wondering if Andrew Davis is a big Chicago guy because both of these movies involve like chase scenes and like major Chicago landmarks.

1:08:11 It is not very good. It's not terrible and it's one of those movies from like the 80s or 90s where you know, it's like, you know it like games, a star watching it now because it's like, well, it's not very good, but they just don't make things like this anymore and and it looks like a real movie and I just miss that. So it's one of those, and it it it's just a case where it's like, oh, he just, you know, he just didn't have like the script that he had for The fugitive. And I wish he did, but but yeah, just one of those guys that no one ever talks about. And I do wonder what would like if, if given the right material, could he have been like he he wouldn't be this good, but like could he have been like the guy that you hire when John Mctiernan turns a movie down?

1:09:09 He could have had what Yon de Bond had, right? I I, I mean, what happened to yon de Bond? He's like the the greatest cinematographer ever. Like I I I will never not be obsessed with that, that handful of American movies he shot. Then he starts his directing career with speed. Perfect Like era. Defining masterpiece. And like then OK, I I haven't seen Twister since I was a kid. But it was an enormous blockbuster. Got a ride at Universal Studios and then I guess made speed too and just lost it forever.

1:09:55 That's how you know you've made it when you have a ride at Universal Studios. Yes, featuring the single least enthusiastic Bill Paxton performance of all time. Brad, I know you want to talk about Andrew Davis a little bit more. I I, I also have this to say. I think Patrick is on to something here and I'm watching this movie and wondering what is the hallmark of an Andrew Davis film. Like, I've only seen a couple of his movies, but to your point, Patrick, like there's no visual cues to really pick up on that would tip you off to somebody with a certain aesthetic behind the camera. It is very much a journeyman director. But I also wonder, it seems like the Academy kind of had the same inner debate that I was having because he does not get nominated for Best Director for this movie.

1:10:45 The movie gets a Best Picture nomination, but I wonder how much of this was made in the edit. Because again, like when I'm when I'm trying to figure out what a director's doing, like one of the first things you're going to look to is is stylistic things behind the camera. And I got to be honest with you guys, this movie is very flat looking. Like even the lighting of this film, it it looks much more like an episode of NYPD Blue that looks like a movie to me. And the point of comparison that I kept making was Clint Eastwood's film In the Line of Fire, which came out the same year as this and which I watched for the first time in the past year. Brad, like today is a convergence of a bunch of to be movies. For me that movie is it's just impeccably shot, impeccably lit. It's a really, really great looking early 90s action thriller.

1:11:33 This movie was shot by the cinematographer Michael Chapman, who worked with Scorsese for a number of years, Who shot Goodfellas? Who shot Raging Bull. Like if you had told me that immediately after I turned this movie off, I would not have believed you. And so when you get into the whole like rushed production schedule thing in your two facts and a falsehood, Brad, I believe it because I don't see a lot of like visual creativity happening here. Honestly, it makes me think of something like Minority Report about a decade later, where that, you know, it's a similar type of film but you can like on a second watch through you can you can go, oh, this is a Spielberg film, you know what I mean?

1:12:16 Like, there's certain cues that you're talking about Bob, that clue you in, hey, this is Steve behind the camera. It's. It's pretty obvious. I mean, I think Minority Report is in a specially stylish movie, you know, I mean it's it's got the sequence where Spielberg basically like does De Palma where he has like the like bird's eye shot moving through the apartment building and all of that. Like he's got the bleach bypass, blue tinted look on all of it. I mean, it's a thing like I this is not a stylish movie, this is not a visually attractive movie.

1:12:57 But again, it's also one of these things where I'm like, I'm not sure I'd really change it. I think the totally functional just like, OK, I think that I think about a lot and I, I, I have no big take on it. But do you ever think about how even if it like you know, regardless of like who actors are, are like knowing anything about the movie itself. You can kind of tell what decade a movie is shot in simply by looking at it. It's like based on like the film stocks are based on. Just like whatever aesthetics were like, you know, in vogue at the time.

1:13:40 How good or bad the CGI is? I mean, I mean that's that's the really easy giveaway. But I think there is a very like when we're talking like mainstream like Hollywood studio movies, there is a look to a 90s movie and a lot of the time it's like no, even though it's all shot on film, like no film grain, often a very kind of like warm like almost amber look to things, you know, you look at. You know, like a perfect example is something like By A Few Good Men, shot by Robert Richardson, which is just it's like that's what a a Hollywood movie looks like in like 92 And The Fugitive is kind of the the gritty version of a big Hollywood studio film.

1:14:34 It looks like a 90s movie. It looks like like an expensive 90s movie, except it doesn't have like any of the gloss that it's like contemporaries did. And and yeah, I believe that it was shot fast, like maybe a rush production. Probably like minimal fancy lighting. Probably a lot of Steadicam and handheld work not like complicated Dolly track setups. And and look it's it's, it's it's like the characters in these in this movie. It like it does the job and moves fast.

1:15:15 Yeah, as I thought more and more about Andrew Davis directing this, I the comparison for me director wise, this kind of reminds me of like a Rob Reiner type of movie where Rob can just enter into these different genres and give a banger of a movie, right. A few good men you mentioned, but when misery. When he has a good script, like it's very similar to the Andrew Davis thing. Like when you've got the structurally perfect script, robs your guy. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, it just like because there was a time when we had a ton of directors like that who you know, we're like Guns for Hire who could direct and knew how to handle a bunch of different genres. And and they were just very skilled like Craftsman. But they, you know, they were not going to have like like film courses taught on their filmographies. And yeah, we don't have those anymore. You know we we used to have a lot of Richard Donners and and now we don't and and and and now if it's why like we we all have to just hold up like James Mangold as like the only person kind of doing that.

1:16:34 Yeah, but again, James Mangold, responsible for some bangers Walk the Line is an all time favorite of mine. So there you go. I I like Mangold. Yeah. I I I don't. I don't love every movie he's done. But but I'm I'm just like, yeah, I like that he's doing this and I wish we had like 10 to 15 more people. Basically you know what who who like mangled turns it down. Get this other person. OK, guys, I want to return to the end of this film, but very briefly before we get into that, Patrick, you've been talking about the Chicago setting of this movie. This movie is full of some great Chicago Isms, perhaps none better than represented by the the two like police chief and deputy from the CPD that are in this film. One of them.

1:17:29 One of whom at the end of the movie, I think it's like the deputy character has the just the thickest Chicago accent. And I I took note that he goes as soon as you got a clean shot, you take him out and he says it just like that. This is the guy with the glasses and the big mustache. Oh yeah, the guy that looks like he came from that SNL Duh Bear skit. I I was fully expecting to see to hear him just go you hear about duh bears. Did you see the bears on Sunday. I just like like at any point look and few things delight me more in movies then way when they shoot on location and they cast regional actors and this movie Fargo does it. Perfect example.

1:18:14 I mean look this is a movie they like the honest I look here I was going to say as as an Irish person this is the single best Saint Patrick's Day movie ever made. Is there a lot of competition? No, there is not. But this is a movie that utilizes the Chicago Saint Patrick's Day parade during a major set piece. Harrison Ford's polls like a leprechaun hat out of a trash can to blend in with a crowd. What a town, yeah. Do movies get better than this? No. They. Don't they? Don't. Well, the the thing about filming that was they actually didn't like tell anybody they were doing that. They just took a handheld out and Harrison Ford actually just started walking in the parade and he basically said like, nobody realized it was him.

1:19:05 He was pulling off the Incognito, hey, I'm on the run look so well and nobody realized it was him. And I'm just like that feels so Midwest and I love it. It also goes right back to us talking about just like the look of the movie and how it was shot. And it's like, yeah, that all checks out. Yeah, all right. The other Chicago guy note that I took down was the CPD chief, who at one point says this is such a special investigation that whoever catches him, I'm going to buy you a bottle of 12 year old Scotch. Now to be clear, in 1993 a bottle of 12 year old Scotch was like 30 bucks like this. This was not, this was not some grand gesture, but I love that they make him a cheapskate.

1:19:50 Like it's just a perfect little character touch. Yep. It's great and and also while we're talking about the CPD one thing that I, I I'd actually forgotten about since I last watched this that I I really love is that they they make a pretty clear especially once doctor Richard Campbell returns to Chicago that we kind of have like 2 forces against him. I know there's the the ultimate villain, but there is Tommy Lee Jones and his team of US Marshals and then there is the Chicago PD. And and, you know, those two forces are like working together a lot of the time, but also they have their own independent interests. And and as Tommy Lee Jones is starting to see, you know, what, like what he's doing with kind of like like putting together this case and like, you know, solving the actual murder of his wife and starting to realize like, oh, wait, this guy actually probably is innocent To what I like they do is to maintain the stakes is they keep the CPD there as like they have like, just an actual grudge against him. They're the ones who arrested him initially and like and convicted him and don't want to be proven wrong. And and and then you had the thing where the one armed man shoots that one cop and now they think he's a cop killer. And so it's like, look, even

1:21:20 though like if Tommy Lee Jones catches up with him, then things might be OK. But if the CPD catches up with him, they will probably kill him. And so it just like if you didn't have the CPD there, I feel like the tension would diminish as it goes on because it's like, well, Tommy Lee Jones is getting more sympathetic and you know, I'm, you know, I bet if he catches him, it'll all be OK. And and the biggest thing is it doesn't feel like a plot contrivance. Like like the the CPD feels justified in their desire to kill him in the same way that it feels justified that Tommy Lee Jones is beginning to believe his story like that. Like none of it feels like it's forced.

1:22:02 All right guys, it's it's time for my list of grievances with the end of this film. A film. A film that I thoroughly enjoy and will be giving a very high score to. But but first among them is this the worst run US Marshall investigation of all time And I ask that because. As an expert on many US Marshall investigations, I'm going to say no. Like Harrison Ford is just going in and out of the same hospital 100 times where where he has many colleagues who instantly recognize him and hold conversations with him. And then they show up hours later and they're like, Oh yeah, I saw Richard Kimball. He was just here like 20 minutes ago. You didn't see him.

1:22:46 Like why are they not keeping people posted at this? Hospital, to be clear here, I think he really only goes to the hospital that he worked at once. He's going to a different hospital. Most of the rest of the, like the one where Julianne Moore works, is. That's not his hospital. OK. OK. That's fair. No, that's that's where like the prosthetics, you know, Wing is and all that stuff. He goes to to his old hospital once, he talks to like the guy who has like the like liver samples or whatever, and he talks to Jane Lynch and that's one visit. OK, duly noted.

1:23:29 One thing crossed off my. Patrick Patrick is ready to. Scrag down these complaints. The the ire in his eyes right now is palpable. OK, here's my first question. I guess my second question since first one got shot down. Is it ever actually established how Harrison Ford knows that Nichols is giving a keynote speech at this hotel? Because he like, he tells Jane Lynch at one point. Like, I got to go see a friend and then he's just kind of like on this train. And so like, you don't really know where he's going until he's already there, which, which is fine. But I, I, I, I got you. So earlier when he called Nichols on the phone, he's he's at the conference already like this has been going on for several days. Got it.

1:24:18 This is helpful information because I didn't. I didn't remember him seeing like a flyer or anything like that. Yeah, because is it, You know, the part when Tommy Lee Jones talks to Nichols, like in the hallway, like at a hotel, It's the same place. He's he's just been there for several days. So. And also Harrison Ford, you know, Doctor Richard Kimball, he works in this field. I think he just knows when the conference has happened. OK, see. Script. This gets me to my main point, though, which is the movie is running not long, but like, it's it's at the point where you say we need to end the movie now. And I do think logic kind of goes out the window, especially when it comes to the character of Nichols. So this is Richard Kimball's colleague who is kind of the mastermind who sold himself out to the pharmaceutical company for a big kickback and has hired Sykes to go kill Harrison Ford's wife.

1:25:16 My main question. Is I think he hired him to kill Harrison Ford. Yes, and ends up killing his wife. Yeah. Why does he choose to help Harrison Ford after Harrison Ford is a fugitive like Ford asks him on the phone. Hey, can you call up Bones at the hospital and tell him to give me whatever I need? And he says, Absolutely. And what Bones gives him is the very incriminating evidence against himself in information that he would only know that Bones had. Like, why not either refuse to give it to him and out yourself as the villain, knowing that Harrison Ford has no evidence against you?

1:26:00 Or like at the end of the movie when Harrison Ford and him are like fist fighting in a hallway and out on a roof and there's a helicopter, he's like very clearly outing himself as the bad guy by hitting Harrison Ford with a number of blunt objects. And like if if you're really trying to get the attention off yourself, like why is he not saying help me, help me. The convict, like the escaped fugitive is trying to kill me. Like he's just fully embracing at that point. I am guilty here And I don't think that at any point he actually had to do that because Ford really didn't have any hard evidence other than the post dated samples, right?

1:26:40 Like, is there anything that could actually put Nichols behind bars other than just like he said? He said kind of a thing. I mean, I I think that there's enough evidence at that point that the one armed man is connected to Nichols, that there it would be clear that Nichols sent him to murder Ford, which would lead them to go. Maybe Ford didn't kill his wife and maybe there's a reason behind it. And I mean, it might not be hard evidence, but I feel like he had enough evidence that Sykes was the murderer. And. And I feel like once that gets unravelled, Nichols is probably up a Creek without a paddle. Yeah.

1:27:26 Yeah, I mean, I I, I would agree with that honestly. The the thing about Nichols having Bones give him the samples I I believe you that that happened. I watched the movie today and I I fully do not remember did. Is that what he calls Nichols about? Yeah, he's like when he calls him, you know, from like a pseudonym or whatever, and he's like, how can I help you? How can I help you? And he goes, I I have some information, I think the doctor that got murdered a year ago, I like, I have some information I need to prove something. So maybe he thinks that he's actually, like, throwing him off of his own scent by sending him to Bones.

1:28:09 I just don't understand why you even help Harrison Ford in that situation. Like, why don't you just say, like, you're you're an escaped fugitive. I shouldn't be talking to you anymore. Click. And I guess at the end of the day, here's the thing. I don't care. Like, the movie still works. You know what I mean? Like, I'm, I'm over here nitpicking A structurally perfect movie with two guys who clearly don't want to be having this conversation right now. So, like, I I get it. It's just kind of like for such an airtight script where everything is so logically falling into place, like the villain, once he's unmasked as the villain, is just like I'm going to go full Bond villain now and like just go completely bat shit where he seemed to have everything pretty tidy before then. I'd push back a bit on him going full Bond villain because at no point is, is like Harrison Ford, like collapse on the ground and he's going on like a monologue about why he did everything and why you had to destroy his life.

1:29:09 I think he's pretty much just like look, if I can just like he's he's fighting me now. It's like I I think his thing is like, like if I can just kill Kimball, then I'll say it's in self-defense. And then I'll be like this crazy fugitive somehow was convinced that I was involved in something and attacked me. And all I could do was, you know, hit him over the head with a, you know, a pipe or whatever. And I I I feel like he's behaving pretty normally. Honestly. I I want to go back now and just watch that phone call scene to see exactly what they say because I'm just like everything is so airtight that, like, is that exactly what they talked about?

1:29:51 Also, why does he need like he already knows Bones, Couldn't he just go get the samples anyway? Yeah. Yeah, I. Don't know. I don't know. I I, I, I, I maybe. I like zoned out for a second during that line of dialogue. I also love that Bones, the character, is so out of touch with the news cycle that he's just like, hey, what's going on with that thing with your wife? It's great. It's still, you know, that thing where your wife got brutally murdered? What's going on with that? My my big question about the end of the film is how is our boy Joey Pants not dead because that that I be steel beam directly cracks him in the head. But also to be fair, the thing like was not moving at top speed.

1:30:44 No, it was so. I don't know, man. I I've heard that car accidents at like 20 miles an hour can still be deadly. I'm pretty sure that steel beamed in the face. I mean it. It did not look pleasant, but I'm. I'm glad Joey Pants survived. I will say. Also, Tom at the end of the movie, I like how the movie just ends. Oh, it's just over, yeah. It's just gone. Yeah, it it's like, you know, as soon as like Tommy Lee Jones takes the handcuffs off and and you're just like it's going to be OK We don't need to see the judge like remove his sentence and him, you know, maybe he he moves out of Chicago and takes up a medical practice in the Florida Keys. Who cares?

1:31:34 He's not a fugitive anymore, and this movie is about a fugitive. Exactly. We're done. Last, last point of contention, and then we will move into brighter pastures here. But like the whole, the end of the movie hinges on this information that comes out that a call was placed from inside Harrison Ford's car on his car phone to the assassin at 7:30 PM. And Harrison Ford has been established inside this banquet at 7:30 PM. And you come to learn that he lent the car to Doctor Nichols. And the doctor Nichols made that phone call. How in the hell was that not discovered in the initial police investigation by CPD?

1:32:18 Like they didn't pull any phone records from my guy and see like, hey, what's this call place from your car at 7:30? Oh, it's this guy named Sykes who has one arm corroborating his story the entire time. Like this is the easiest open and shut investigation ever. Bob, you don't know how phone records are pulled in 1993. Like maybe he has a whole separate phone company for his car phone. Also, Speaking of phone parts, I love the part when he he goes to Sykes's apartment and then he calls Tommy Lee Jones and just lets it just like puts the phone down but doesn't hang up, just lets them trace it. It's so.

1:33:05 Yes, it's smart. It's brilliant alright also. Anyway, Sykes is so Sykes is such a cool character. That actor is great. Oh, he has my favorite line in the whole movie when he's walking into his apartment and sees all the cops and he says, what is this, a trench coat convention? Great line. Great line. That feels like, do you Do you ladies like peanut butter sandwiches? All right, guys, I have vented enough about my minor grievances with the movie. It's time to get into our final segment of the day, which we call. Let's Make it a Double. We're near the end of the episode, so thanks listening to the film and whiskey show.

1:33:46 Let's pair another film with this one, even if it's struggling. It's a final segment of the day. Now let's make it a double. Let's make it a double is the part of the show where we pick a movie to pair up with this one to make the perfect double feature. Brad, I'll go first because I've already outed myself on mine. I think the perfect double feature for this is the Clint Eastwood film In the Line of Fire. It came out the exact same year as The Fugitive. It has very similar vibes. You get Clint Eastwood playing the the grumpy old Secret Service man chasing John Malkovich. It is a great cat and mouse movie and you get, I think, a much better example of when a movie has a proper budget and proper lighting and proper time to shoot. Like it just looks more like a movie than The Fugitive. I don't think it's a better movie, but I think you could do a hell of a lot worse than those movies back-to-back. Yeah, I mean that that sounds like a great pick, Bob. It's not one that I've seen before. I think I'm going to go a little bit older. It's not necessarily focused on a fugitive. However, it is a police procedural. I am going to go with the Toshiro Mifune starring high and low.

1:35:00 I think that that would just be a really fun night of watching movies. I'm so glad that having exposed you to that movie like not even a year ago, that it has come up on like 7 episodes of film and whiskey now. Like it. It clearly worked on you and I'm very excited. It's so good. Hell of a movie. Have I told you yet about my master plan? I I, you know, last season with two facts and a falsehood. Every falsehood ended up being #2 and I didn't catch on the entire season. I I would like knowing that it is my favorite film of all time and knowing that you don't like it that much. I'm I'm going to spend a whole season making ET, my 2 facts and a falsehood or my Let's make it a double for every film.

1:35:44 I just hadn't figured out how to link everything to ET yet. But it'll happen eventually. That's because ET is not a perfect. Movie. Oh my gosh dude. That is not a 10 out of 10. Sorry, but I'm, I'm with Bob on this. Oh, perfect. Bread. Have you no heart? Apparently not. That is not a 10 out of 10 film. Patrick, we have vamped. We have stalled for you. What's your, What's your? Let's make it a double here. Oh, it's OK. I, I, I, I I knew this right away. I am going to apologies for, you know, a cancelled director, but I'm going to pair this with Roman Polanski's Frantic so that you have the double feature of Harrison Ford saying my wife.

1:36:35 That's the movie where Harrison Ford and his wife go to Paris and she disappears and he tries to find his wife. Also the inspiration for those immortal bards, the Barenaked Ladies like Harrison Ford I'm. Getting frantic. Like Sting, I'm tantric. And I'm Tantric. Why do I still know all of them like? Snickers guaranteed. Disarantic satisfy. But yeah, I Frantic is good. Not as good as The Fugitive but it is Harrison Ford running around a city saying my wife a lot. Yeah. And I mean, what board could you honestly ask for from a movie?

1:37:17 You could throw a screening of Borat in there just for a third My Wife movie, and then it would just be like a perfectly curated set of three films. You know you're not wrong. I'm I'm I'm now jumping ahead to be like can I like curate a my wife Film Festival. Can I make a video about people in movies saying my wife. Yes, yes you can easily that. That's a nebula bonus content. Simple. Oh yeah. All right guys, it is time for us to give this movie some final scores. I'll jump in again first because it sounds like I'm the only one that had any nitpicks with this movie.

1:37:58 I think Brad is, this is kind of in that die hard range for me where like I can't actually point out anything wrong with the movie, like even though you did, I mean, but those were like those were nitpicks. Like it's it is like a structurally perfect movie. I just don't know, like I don't know that I would call it A10. I think it's like it is hit the ceiling for what this type of movie can be. And for me that's like somewhere between a nine and a nine and a half, which is like, I mean I'm, you know, it's a nine and a half. Like I it's nothing to complain about. But for me it's not like not the the transcendent masterpiece of some of the 10 out of 10s that we've given on the show, but it's like a damn good movie that is nearly flawless to me. So I'm going to give it a nine and a half. Oh man, I I want to give this movie a 10 out of 10. I don't know if I've watched a more enjoyable film in the last year.

1:38:57 Like this movie just is incredible and it and it drags you along at a breakneck speed. I mean, we haven't even talked about like one of the most famous lines from the film, but truly famous for a reason. When they first meet and he just looks at him and he has, he has his gun and he goes, I didn't kill my wife and Tommy Lee Jones, just honestly, like, it's such an honest line and he just goes, I don't care. Like that's not what I'm here about. I'm here to catch you. I'm not here to convict or to investigate the murder. All I'm here to do is catch you.

1:39:37 And it's just a perfect encapsulation of what this movie is all about. I I'm going to give it a 10 out of 10. Wow, I I love this movie. Patrick. Whoa, it's me. So I before we recorded I I logged it on letterboxed and posted little review and I saw that I had previously had it at a a 4.5 out of five and I was like. Look, I got to be honest with myself watching it again, movies don't don't really get better than this. I'm bumping it up to five out of five.

1:40:19 But now I will say, I will say, but now you're doing things on a 10 point scale and it's not quite as simple as just doubling it, because if you double the 4.5, you just get a flat 9, right? Suddenly there's a 9.5 like floating around in there as an option. That doesn't break my letterbox review, and I I think I'm gonna give this a 9.5. And I say that because what I give a 10 to can basically only be the most transcendent masterpieces. Like in the world. 10 is so many points, and I'm like, I would only give 1010 out of 10 to like a handful of movies. I I know, Bobby, you were saying like this basically hits the ceiling of what one of what a movie like this can be. But also just like, you know, has America ever produced a more purely entertaining movie than this? Can you have a better time watching a movie? Is there a better version of this that could exist? No.

1:41:35 Like, like, do I want to watch The Fugitive basically every day of my life. Yes, I do. Yes. Very much so. Yeah, and I'm just going to give it a 9.5 because I'm just like, I don't know, I didn't quite see the face of God while watching it, and that's what I asked from a 10 out of 10 movie. Yeah, I get it, man. All right, so it's a 9.5 from me and Patrick. It's a 10 from Brad. We want to know what you think. Have you watched The Fugitive lately? If you have, congratulations. You can let us know what you think of The Fugitive at any of our social medias. Hit us up and tell us where we were, right or wrong. Rake me over the coals for having nitpicks if you'd like. You can find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube at Film Whiskey.

1:42:24 Or jump into the conversation on Discord. You can find a link to it at the end of every single one of our show notes. We want to say thanks again to our five time guest Patrick Williams. Patrick, where can we find you? What are you working on right now? Very soon my new season of videos will be starting up. My my my break is over. And so you'll watch the videos I make, which are, you know, long, weird, silly video essays about movies. Incredible. You can watch them on YouTube and then you can watch them ad free and with bonus materials on Nebula where you can also what I know it's February and you know the time for this has passed. But this past December we released our big 1960s style musical holiday special that is also a video essay about Star Wars, which is a project that I'm very proud of and that is available exclusively on Nebula.

1:43:28 And then I'm on social media platforms at Patrick H Williams and that's me. Yeah, and I I will say free plug here as a Nebula subscriber. Big fan of the content on Nebula Patrick. I especially love the moments where you're you can tell the regular video splits off like the YouTube video splits off and I'm like I didn't have to listen to any ads. It's great. It's great. No ads is like, you know, real. I feel like that's like, what more selling point do you need? Yeah, that's that's it, man. All I see on my news feed lately is like YouTube waging war on ad blockers.

1:44:12 There you go. Well, thank you for like building on my own plug. Yeah, that's what we do here, Brad. Next week. I don't know that we will quite achieve the heights of The Fugitive, but we're going to get darn close because we are looking at a movie by none other than James Cameron 1994's True Lies, another certified banger. Lots of stuff blowing up Arnold Schwarzenegger. I cannot freaking wait for you to watch this movie, man. It's amazing where this season has started. Like Rain Man, Robin Hood, Sister Act, fugitive, true Lies compared to where it'll end. Oh yeah, we're getting into the portion of the 90s where the the operative mantra was just blow shit up.

1:44:55 So join us next week for True lies. But until then, I'm Bob Book. I'm Brad G. And we'll see you next time.