#265. 'The Instigators' (AppleTV+)
Listen to this episode ↗on Substack, where the show lives now
All three hosts love The Instigators, the Apple TV+ Boston heist comedy starring Matt Damon (as ex-Marine Rory) and Casey Affleck (as boozy schemer Cobby), who are hired to rob a corrupt mayor's election-night party; Sonny calls it a superior hangout movie and repeatedly contrasts it favorably with Deadpool & Wolverine — real jokes instead of mere references — while praising a stacked supporting cast (Michael Stuhlbarg, Alfred Molina, Ving Rhames, Ron Perlman, Paul Walter Hauser, Toby Jones, Hong Chau, and a scene-stealing Rob Gronkowski cameo) and spotting deep-cut homages to Pulp Fiction and The Wire. JVL is equally enthusiastic, highlighting the "Chinese American" joke and the Zillow-floor-plans gag, and Mike — who watched completely cold — says he was laughing from the boat-on-the-rocks sequence onward and singles out Ron Perlman's blustering mayor as a highlight; all three agree Jack Harlow is the movie's weak link and that Gronk should have had his role instead. The episode opens with a long Sonny rant about his daughter's new Chronicles of Narnia box set shelving the books in internal-chronological rather than publication order — he physically re-sorted the spines himself — which spins into an extended Tolkien-versus-Lewis debate about allegory and worldbuilding (Mike recounts a childhood school librarian steering him to read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe first) before JVL dismisses the whole series as "mid" next to Tolkien and urges burning the set for a copy of Fellowship of the Ring; Mike names Prince Caspian his favorite of the books, while Sonny picks Voyage of the Dawn Treader. The back half drifts into streaming-industry shop talk, with Sonny speculating on the film's real budget as an Artists Equity production alongside Air and the trio ranking their platforms (JVL puts Disney+ first, then Apple TV+/Peacock/HBO Max, with Netflix a distant also-ran), plus a plug for the upcoming Vince Vaughn/Carl Hiaasen series Bad Monkey.
From the show notes
plus: a Chronicles of Narnia controversy
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00It's been about a week, the mayor is going to be holding a party on election night and there's going to be money there like none of you bums have ever seen. It's your first job? I know what I'm doing. A little late for a credit change, ain't it? What are you, 60? Quick question. If I'm giving instructions and they're not doing them. Just say, "I have a gun." What are you doing? Taking notes. Taking notes on a criminal conspiracy. Get down on the floor! Get on the floor!
?00:00:30Tie 'em up! You got like six zip ties, genius.
Guest00:00:32I have a gun! Welcome to another episode of the Sub-Beacon Podcast. I am your co-host, Mike Warren. Joining me as always are my two co-hosts who are more from Quincy than from Lynn. Welcome to another episode of the Sub-Beacon Podcast. I am your co-host, Mike Warren.
?00:00:38Joining me as always are my two co-hosts who are more from Quincy than from Lynn. Welcome to another episode of the Sub-Beacon Podcast. I am your co-host, Mike Warren. Joining me as always are my two co-hosts who are more from Quincy than from Lynn. Welcome to another episode of the Sub-Beacon Podcast. Welcome to another episode of the Sub-Beacon Podcast. I am your co-host, Mike Warren.
Mike00:00:45Joining me as always are my two co-hosts who are more from Quincy than from Lynn. Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Join us over at Sub-Beacon.com where you can become a patron. Tell your friends and family they want to listen to the show. They can only do it at Sub-Beacon.com. Leave a comment. Become a part of the conversation. It's a whole community. Sub-Beacon.com. Over there at Sub-Beacon.com. We're going to be talking about the instigators on this episode. But first, Sonny, you had something you you had something sticking in your craw that you wanted to discuss.
Sonny00:01:32You know what grinds my gears? Here we go. Oh, boy. No, I I bought I bought or I didn't buy it. But my daughter got for her birthday recently. The the Narnia books. The Chronicles of Narnia.
Mike00:01:46The Chronicles of Narnia. The Chronicles of Narnia.
Sonny00:01:48Books. Books. One through. What is it? One through seven. Seven. Seven. By C.S. Lewis. Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, etc. And I I have I have a complaint. I would like to register with you.
Mike00:02:07Register it with us. We will get it to the right people.
Sonny00:02:10So because I you know, you get this you get this set. You get this set of books and it comes it comes in a box, right? It comes in a comes in a box. And in the box, the books are arranged in order. And they're you know, they're numbered and one again, one through seven. And when I was growing up in the good old days, in the before times, in the long, long ago, when we used to be a country, when we used to be a proper society, the order of the books. The order of the books was the order they were published in. It was you got you had book one. It was Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe. And book two was Prince Caspian. And then Voyage of the Dawn Treader, then the Silver Chair. And then there were some some prequel books, right? There was the horse and his boy and then the magician's nephew. I can't remember which order.
Mike00:03:08It was the horse and his boy and then the magician's nephew.
Sonny00:03:10Yeah, it was the horse and his boy and then the magician's nephew. And then the final book. The final book was The Last Battle, which was essentially, you know, these are Christian metaphors, whatever. This is the Book of Revelation. I always loved The Last Battle because it gets to the end and we find out that Susan doesn't get to go to heaven because she became a slut. She became a she became a, you know, she was a slattern who was taken with the ways of the world. She was too worldly for C.S. Lewis. She wanted to go to parties and get dressed up. There's no heaven for her. Good on C.S. Lewis. You can't have a heaven without a hell.
Mike00:03:48Sonny, there's hope for you joining the church with that.
Sonny00:03:52Well, no, I mean, it's just it appealed to the Old Testament part of me. So anyway, so that was the proper order of these books. The proper order was the way they were published. And the reason that's the proper order is they don't make any fucking sense. If you do things like and this is how they are sold now. Put the magician's nephew into the book in and make it the number one book in the series. The series makes no sense if you don't start with the lion, the witch and the wardrobe, which introduces you to things like Aslan and the whole world of Narnia and the time slippage and all that doesn't make any sense. When you start with the magician's nephew, none of this makes any sense. It doesn't. It destroys the whole flow. Flow of the books. And it does not. It does not work. And then if you have the horse in his. I mean, I'm more ambivalent about the horse and his boy being, say, third in the series. If you put it third in the series in between Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian, that kind of works. I'm not totally opposed to it, but it's also not where it's supposed to go. That should go towards the end of the series. Again, they're prequels. They're written as prequels for a reason. They float. It helps with the whole flow of the series. To do it that way. Now, the reason my understanding and I haven't done any research on this. I'm not I'm not a C.S. Lewis expert. I don't I'm not going to you're going to be people in the comments who tell me I'm getting this all wrong. My understanding is the reason that this has changed is because C.S. Lewis later in life after some after getting roasted by J.R.R. Tolkien, who was like, well, you've got all these. How can there be a lamp in the woods where these children live? Where these children are? They don't know where Narnia is. There's no electricity in Narnia. This doesn't make it. There's no gas lamps and not however you powered lamps back in 1940s Britain. There's no gas lamps in Narnia. That doesn't make any sense. You have to have consistency of universe. And that's I'm sorry, Mike. I know we discussed this on the last episode. I know you're a Tolkien fetishist. But like his whole like you need like seventeen thousand years of history to get us to the ring being tossed in Mount Doom. I'm sorry. That's not true. You don't need any of that. You don't need consistency of universe or vision. That's how you do things. That's how you end up doing dumb things like putting the sixth and fifth book in the series number one and number two in your collection. It's stupid. It's stupid. So I have thoughts, but continue. I I am so my daughter again, my daughter gets this book series and, you know, the magician's nephew is number one in the series. And I literally I literally took it out of the box and put it in its proper space in the series. It's now the fifth book where it should be. And I took the horse and his boy out and I put it in the sixth slot or this. I'm sorry. I put horse. Wait, was it? I forget.
Mike00:06:54It's horse. It's horse and his boy, the magician's nephew. Horse and his boy.
Sonny00:06:57Yeah. So I put horse and his boy and then magician's nephew. And that's where that's how God intended it to be. And now I look at I go into a room sometimes and I see the books and they're looking at me with their wrong numbers on their spines.
JVL00:07:11And I sit there in a Sharpie and I sit there.
Sonny00:07:14I sit there and I think to myself, well, what if she takes them all out and tries to put them back in? She'll put them back in in the wrong order. She doesn't know. She's ignorant. She's she could be led astray. She could be led astray by the devil, a.k.a. book publishers, and put these books back in the wrong order. Put them back in the wrong way. We can't have that. We can't have that. We can't have that. So now my question becomes now the question becomes, how do I want to fix this problem? Do I want to label this problem with? Well, do I want to do I want to just get some get like a sheet with numbers on them? Numbers one through seven and just put them on the spine in the proper order, which is what I'm really considering doing. I could also get a Sharpie and Mark, but I feel like that would be ugly and messy. I feel like the number sticker solution is the best way. To go here. I welcome your thoughts on.
Mike00:08:04So problem I find. So I have a unique experience regarding this whole issue. This whole problem. Because what your daughter really needs is what I think all children need, which is an actual well read school librarian who cares primarily about helping children. Helping children learn to read things that they might even be considered too young for. And I had this in the mid 1990s, which just so happens to be the in a year or two after the American publisher committed this blasphemy. And put them in the wrong order. So the story is that you're right, Sonny. So Lewis basically like offhandedly in a letter to someone who suggested a reader was like, hey, maybe the order of the books should be in chronological order. And he was basically like, yeah, sure. I like that order. Like this was like a offhand. For all we know, there was there was something of a he was just brushing aside something. He was humoring some moron. Exactly. There is no there was no clear indication that he felt strongly about this, accepting this suggestion for this different order. But the stupid American publisher, Houghton Mifflin, I believe, is who is who published. I took that and ran with it probably as a way, if I had to guess, knowing publishers as a way to like. Market a new edition of the box set to say, ah, you thought you had them in the right order. But we have now the new right order. And you should come by our box set because because it's the right order. And it is ruby, ugly, money grabbing. And I don't like it. And it's wrong. But but I had a school librarian about the time when I might have wanted to start reading this. But I really didn't know much about them who recognized that it would be of that they would be of interest to me, who schooled me on this. At that point, new and fresh controversy. And what she told me was, you're going to see these in the wrong order. You're going to see them with the magician's nephew first. But what you should do is read the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe first. And maybe I was just impressionable. I was an impressionable young first grader or whatever it was when I read this. But I took her knowledge and care as as gospel. And I was able to recognize as a young lad that the numbers on the books that I had were wrong. And I read them in the right order. And I just think I think. I think a serious conversation where you sit down with your daughter and explain to her what's right and wrong is the best way.
Sonny00:11:31There's no there's no conversation here. The decision has been made for her.
Mike00:11:36We're reading them in the proper order. Then you've done all you need to do so.
Sonny00:11:41That's right. Oh, I wasn't. Oh, I wasn't asking you how to broach this topic with my daughter. That's not a that's not an option here. She's doesn't she doesn't have the choice to read them out. Good. Well, then that's as far as I'm concerned.
Mike00:11:53It doesn't matter what the numbers are. That's what I'm saying.
Sonny00:11:55It doesn't matter what the numbers are. Of course, it matters what the numbers are, because there are many impressions. There are many you know, there are many families out there who don't have. That's true. Parents who care for them like I care. I care for my children and will just be like, here, read these books. Oh, this magician's nephew. I hear that's good. No.
Mike00:12:14By the way, wrong. I feel like I feel like this deserves a discussion of why it's right. You touched on a little bit, but there is. The magician's nephew is written explicitly as a prequel. Like it is because because what Lewis does in these novels is he sort of there are moments where he sort of talks to the reader and sort of addresses the reader. The narrator addresses were like, I believe in the magician's nephew. He he writes something like Narnia, which I'm sure you've heard of speaking to the reader. Like it requires you in the narrative that you read to be familiar with something. That yes, if you started with this book, you would have no familiarity. So can I can I defend the talking Lewis dispute on this? Because I think sure, because I think what if JBL's JBL's pulling a gun out of his pocket?
Sonny00:13:08We'll get to you. We'll get to you. We'll get next to his head.
JVL00:13:12You don't need to get to me. So so talking did not like what Lewis did.
Mike00:13:20With the Narnia books, because he believed because he's smart that he believed that there were internal consistencies in in mythology that were necessary. And he thought that Lewis like mixing mixing like Hellenic mythologies with Germanic mythologies was and all other kinds of things like sort of English mythologies. Like if he was going to do that, he needed it to be he needed he needed to do all of the building of the entire mythology from the beginning, which is exactly what Tolkien did, which is exactly what Tolkien did.
Sonny00:14:08And so what you're saying is that Tolkien had a problem with Jesus being sacrificed at Stonehenge.
Mike00:14:14No, that's not what he had a problem. I don't think he had a problem. What he had a problem with was that. There was a Jesus figure in the first place because he detested allegory.
JVL00:14:24He, you know, look, the entire.
Mike00:14:26Yes. The entire. Preach. I'm preaching. I'm preaching. Let me cook, as the kids say. The entire Tolkien, the entire Tolkien legendarium, the premise of it is that these are stories that like all the stories that we know, everything from like nursery rhymes to the story of. Atlantis, you know, which is a Greek myth, myth, all of that is like real. But the what we now know in modern in the modern world is like messed up because it was passed down from different sources and things were twisted and and and didn't, you know, things were left out that and added on that weren't there in the first place. And that his legendarium is like, I'm giving it all to you straight from the source. And so he. Had to build all of this stuff. Lewis was not interested in any of that. Lewis wanted Lewis was a convert and he was a convert to Christianity and he had the zeal of a convert. And what he wanted to do was to tell the kids that Jesus was good and he died for your sins and you should feel bad for all the things that make you feel good. And let me tell you the whole story. And I will literally call the last book in my series, The Last Battle, which is essentially a translation of. You know, Armageddon or whatever you want to call it. So, like, he was just very literal and Tolkien was like, if you're going to do this, you've got to put some time and care into it. And to be fair, Tolkien had been thinking about this whole universe that he created since age of 17.
Sonny00:16:04And I mean, the problem with the problem, what you're describing is like and look, I like I like the Lord of the Rings books. I like Hobbit, The Hobbit, and I like the Narnia books fine. And then I think the Lord of the Rings books are probably better just as right. They are better. Whatever. Whatever. Probably better. They are better. That's neither. That's that's neither here. Well, I mean, again, the Chronicles of Narnia books for children and Lord of the Rings is books for teenagers.
JVL00:16:30So the proper comparison is not Tolkien to Lewis. The proper comparison is Lewis to Sandra Boynton.
Mike00:16:37The proper. OK, JVL. That's a little. We could we could talk.
Sonny00:16:41We could talk about J.K. Rowling, the J.K. Rowling of it all in a second. And Harry Potter. I don't want to. I'm not taking a lot of slander from the guy who went to the. Midnight book sellings of the Harry Potter books. But the the the the the the issue here is like I like I'm Tolkien. I'm saying I want to say this in a non derogatory way. I don't mean this in a derogatory. But Tolkien was autistic about his universe. Like it was like he was like doing this whole thing in his head for, like you say, decades and like putting it together and trying to make it all work. And in C.S. Lewis was like. Like, LOL, Father Christmas machine go like it's like it's it's a different it's a different it's a totally different mode of writing and like and like and that again, the Narnia books are their books for kids and they're perfectly fine in that in that way. And like I just the broader point here is that trying to trying to make that whole world internally consistent. In a way that mimics what was happening in the Lord of the Rings books is foolish and leads to things like the magician's nephew being the first book in the series. When if you read the magician's nephew, you will have no idea what the fuck is happening in it because you like have no context for any of the stuff that came before. It would be like watching God. I don't even know what the proper referent here would be. It would be like watching that terrible John Wick series on Spike or wherever that was. On on Paramount plus or whatever. It's like watching the star. It was on Peacock. It wound up on Peacock.
Mike00:18:24It'd be like watching the Star Wars John Wick. You know, it's like watching the Star Wars prequels before you watch the originals and knowing and watching the prequels to and knowing that Anakin Skywalker is Darth Vader before you watch the reveal in Empire Strikes Back. Spoiler alert that Anakin Skywalker is Darth Vader wouldn't make any sense. Couldn't do it. Look, I agree with you on this. I agree that the I actually I like the Narnia books and my kids read them. And in fact, my wife read them for the first time because she didn't read these things and she enjoyed them. So JVL, why are we wrong?
Sonny00:19:00And the JVL is a hater. JVL has got his hater hat on. Like he's at the haters ball right now. He's got his pimp cup.
JVL00:19:06It's it's not worth spending more time on.
Sonny00:19:09It's we got plenty of time here. We're not doing weekend.
JVL00:19:12It's the Internet. It's the crappy, crappy kids books. And the real answer is you should. Simply burn that box set and give your daughter Fellowship of the Ring.
Mike00:19:23But it's all just give her Fellowship of the Ring. What's wrong? What's wrong with what? Why not both? Why not both?
Sonny00:19:32Because you can't have a well-rounded childhood without Lewis and Tolkien.
JVL00:19:36Because our time on this earth is limited, Michael. We don't have forever. If we were infinite beings who could who could live for thousands of years and had time to read everything, then sure. What's the harm in it? But, you know. We don't have time. We don't have much time. And so you should read the best things and not the mid things.
Mike00:19:55Have you ever have you guys ever read Lewis's Space Trilogy, which is a adult books? Have you guys ever read those? I certainly have not. No, it's I've read them in the last couple of years for the first time. I tried to read the first in the trilogy for when I was a kid and I just couldn't get through. But it is actually much closer to Tolkien in terms of. He's there's. Again, they were all talking. They were all friends. They were sort of all conversing about this. But it is clings. Yes, the inklings. But it was a it's a very interesting and the main character, at least in the first two, is is basically Tolkien. And it's like poking fun at Tolkien. And it's it's great. But it's also very it's it's very much a pushback against H.G. Wells's approach to science fiction. So it's I make sure he has. Space Jesus in it.
JVL00:20:50No, I also I hate I hate allegory so much. I hate. Yes.
Mike00:20:54Well, then you would like the space trilogy because it's not allegory. It's it is not allegory. But I agree with you on on allegory. It's just like it's it. It works for a child. It does not work for a girl. Yes.
JVL00:21:05Leave leave me alone with your preaching.
Mike00:21:07Leave me alone with your preaching. Can I just say and then we'll move on. Sonny, I don't know what your favorite is. JVL, I don't care what your favorite is because you don't like any of them. Sonny, my favorite in the books. Was always and even was as an adult when I was reading to my kids. Prince Caspian. It's the best of of the series in my thoughts.
Sonny00:21:32I. Oh, boy. I don't know. I always I always had a soft spot for Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
Mike00:21:37Yeah, there's there's a bit of like all of his travels to it.
Sonny00:21:40Yeah. Voyage of the Dawn Treader had a nice kind of short story construct. Each chapter, right? Each chapter was like they went to a different land. And they were I'm sure there was some sort of allegory for all the play, like all the different types of savage tribes, the the the world of Christianity conquered over over and over. But I always liked I always liked that one a lot.
Mike00:22:04I think what I liked about Prince Caspian was it was the first place that introduced me to this idea of like two kind of parallel timelines of a story and then like reading both of them. And then they converge. Sort of halfway or two thirds of the way through the book where like you're watching like the original kids from the first one. And then this like other character who you don't know much about. You like kind of learn about his universe a bit and then you you know they're going to meet, but you don't know when. And so I really enjoyed that aspect. But I think we should move on. Shall we move on? Let's move on. Box office talk. No, we're not talking box office. We are talking about the instigators. The instigators. Sonny, do you want to give us a big boy review of this of this movie?
Sonny00:22:54The instigators stars Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. Oh, wait, no, not Ben Affleck. Not Casey Affleck. Casey Affleck. The other the other Affleck. So the the instigator stars Casey Affleck and Matt Damon as a pair of what would we call them? Ne'er do wells in Boston.
Mike00:23:17Ne'er do well criminal.
Sonny00:23:19But Rory Matt Damon plays Rory. Rory is a ex-Marine. He's a suicidal. He's trying to get money to so he can pay off his debts to his kid or something. Cobby is Casey Affleck. And as best as I can tell, he's just a drunk. And they are they are teamed up together by Michael Stuhlbarg. I can't remember his his name as as a pair of criminals who will go and rob the Democratic mayor whose victory party will be flushed with illegal campaign contributions that are never going to get declared. And so you steal them and it's like free money. It's like free money right there.
JVL00:24:01And this is going to be the score of a lifetime.
Sonny00:24:04The score of a lifetime, which is like three hundred thousand dollars. It's like it's not it's not it's not.
Mike00:24:11I remember when they said that I was like, did I did I mishear that?
Sonny00:24:14Did I did I hear that right? Is that is that the correct number? And and I look, it's the the mechanics of the plot of this film are fine. And what you have to understand about it is that it's basically just it's basically a 100 minute hangout movie with Casey Affleck and Matt Damon, who, again, like Matt Damon is just like our Deadpool and Wolverine. You described them last week as Deadpool and Wolverine. And that that actually is about right. You know, you have the taciturn Damon, the taciturn Matt Damon, the kind of like smart malachy Casey Affleck. And then in it and it works very it works very, very well. And what I love about this movie is that like every five minutes somebody shows up in it who I'm just like, oh, I love this. I love this guy. So, like I said, I mentioned Michael Stuhlbarg, who, you know, I totally underrated actor and like I feel like should be in a million more things than he is, but has kind of weird. I don't know. You know, who knows? He's a character actor, but he's not in enough stuff. To like be like he should be in more stuff. He should be in more stuff. Alfred Molina as Michael Stuhlbarg's like right hand man who runs a runs a little donut shop in in Boston. Ving Rhames, who's like the corrupt cop slash fixer for the mayor, who's played by Ron Perlman, who I love Ron Perlman. You can't you can't go you can never go wrong with a good Ron Perlman performance. He plays the thuggish mayor with with perfect simplicity. And and then Paul Walter Hauser, who folks might remember from the Clint Eastwood movie about Richard Jewell, but also was in I, Tonya. He's he's been in he's been in a handful of things. I love I think you should leave.
Mike00:26:00I think you should leave.
Sonny00:26:02I love Paul Walter Hauser. He's very funny and like kind of dumb in in a he's he's like pleasantly dumb as opposed to annoyingly dumb, which is a hard thing to pull off. You like a lot of a lot of people can play dumb. Like, for instance, Jack Harlow is in this movie and he plays dumb, but he's kind of annoying, dumb. And I'm not saying it's a bad performance. It's what the character needs. But like, it's a difference. It's a different sort of dumb. He plays he plays a more annoying dumb than Paul Walter Hauser's dumb, which is a pleasing, pleasant, dumb. Anyway, again, you're forgetting Toby Jones and Toby Jones is in this Toby Jones, Andre DeShields, Andre DeShields. I like Rob Gronkowski in the back. In the background. It's a very Boston movie. And that's the thing that, like, I can't really emphasize enough that this is like a very explicitly Boston film. It's it is a it's a movie that is that takes place and has lots of references to places in Boston, people in Boston that I don't necessarily know and I'm aware of it again. This is another way. It's like the Deadpool and Wolverine of of, I don't know, crime heist movies where there's like lots of self-referential stuff to Boston that I didn't necessarily understood. But like, it didn't really matter that much. Like when they make a joke about Hong Chow's character being from Lynn is like is one of these things where I'm like, I assume Lynn is like a snooty part of Boston or like and I was like, oh, and they're from Quincy.
JVL00:27:35Of course, they're from Quincy.
Sonny00:27:37That makes sense. Sure. I know Quincy kind of. I feel like that's a that's Tommy from Quincy.
JVL00:27:42Right.
Sonny00:27:45So anyway, I the movie, the movie is very fun. And it's it's it's the perfect streaming movie in the sense that it's really it's actually not that good. Like if you if you broke down the plotting of this movie, if you if you broke it down like on a script beat by beat level, things just happen like they there's literally a get out of jail free card in this movie that gets deployed in the last five minutes. So they don't all go to jail, which is like fine. It's I mean, it's fine, whatever. It's it's fine. But it is. It's very funny. And it's mildly clever without being annoyingly clever. I kind of want to go back and rewatch this picture with the sole purpose of finding all of the film and TV references in it. There are a number of them. Like, for instance, we first see Ving Rhames and my wife is the one who notices credit credit to her. But we first see Ving Rhames from behind with the cameras like in Pulp Fiction, just like in Pulp Fiction. But he also has a bandaid. Yeah, turn turn the Contrast way up on your screen because I missed it the first time. She's like, does he have a bandaid like Pulp Fiction? I was like, oh, yeah. And there are like verbatim quotes from The Wire. Somebody asks, are you taking notes on a criminal conspiracy? And like, there are things like this throughout like the Casey Affleck calls their characters Longball and Parker, which are reference to the way of the gun. Well, it's a reference. You could say it's a way of the gun, which is itself was a reference to Butch Cassidy and Sundance kid. So like. I feel like there is something like this in almost every scene. And knowing Doug Lyman and kind of how he thinks, I would not be surprised if there was literally a reference like this in every scene, if they like made it a challenge to have a reference like this in it in in every scene. Anyway, again, it's fun. It's 100 minutes. It's amusing. Everybody on screen is really good with each other. I like I like Casey Affleck a lot. I know he he has come. He's. It's a me too trouble, you know, at the height, all that stuff. But the I like seeing him on screen. He was so good in Oppenheimer as the hero of that film, Colonel Pash. And I, I just I and Matt Damon, like just again, natural star like that. That dude is watchable all the time at everything. Fun movie. I liked it. Not great. Not a great movie, but a fun movie.
JVL00:30:12JVL. Your thoughts on the Instagram. I'm just right where where you are, Sonny. It's so funny. And the funniest thing in it is a little throwaway line. So they are the whole heist is predicated on the idea that this mayor in Boston, this corrupt Italian mayor, is going to win like what is his fifth consecutive term or something.
Sonny00:30:39Yeah.
JVL00:30:39And as this is being laid out. They they say that as the plan is being laid out, the job is being laid out at Damon says, yeah, but I mean, what if he loses? You know, that guy Choi he's running against is a he's a viable candidate. And but that's not what's funny. What's fun. I mean, it is funny. But what's funny is when we get to a scene with Ron Perlman raging about having lost this election. He is coming up with a list of insults for this guy, Choi.
Sonny00:31:18And in the middle of him, he calls him a Chinese American.
JVL00:31:23And this is so funny on so many levels because it is the character would clearly be calling him a Chinaman. But also it is 2024. And so that character, we are so steeped in everything, understands that he shouldn't say Chinaman. And he says instead, Chinese American. And because it just again, the layers in that little joke were so funny. And I just I just love the crap. I love when when the the annoying guy who is running the scheme is walking Casey Affleck and Matt Damon through the planning of it. Casey Affleck keeps like like, well, you know, those floor plans from Zillow because it's it's all I mean, we're used to the scene in Heister. Movies where someone's like, you know, this guy, he won't give any trouble. He went to, you know, three years of Crevasse. Yeah, he's not brave. He's not going to be here or whatever. And it turns out everything is wrong. Every like everything, you know, the floor plan they had was wrong. And the characters question that stuff, right?
Mike00:32:31It's like it's like it's like the scene is supposed to unfold like an Ocean's Eleven where it's like, we're going to do this, we do this. And except Casey Affleck keeps like going, well, wait a second. Why would we do that? How?
JVL00:32:42How do you know that? Yeah. How do you know that this guy's going to react that way?
Mike00:32:46And yeah, he's right about, you know, hey, he was right about that, about the guy losing, you know, all that's so.
JVL00:32:53I laughed throughout. I laughed with all of the stuff with the psychiatrist and then Casey Affleck's like coming on to the psychiatrist. Again, this movie worked for me like crazy and totally agree. It's not like it's a. Great movie or anything, but it is a fun hangout movie and it felt like it should have come from a novel, but it's not. It's it's a it's original screenplay. It was written for the screen by Casey Affleck and his writing partner. But again, I just in comparison to Deadpool and Wolverine, which is just references without jokes, this is both like it is. It is funny references. That are there, not really maybe to flatter the off the audience, but mostly to amuse the filmmakers. But with actual humor and jokes and funny things at it, that's all I wanted. Just funny things.
Sonny00:33:56And also, like, again, I really can't emphasize enough just how good everybody is on screen together. Like, like the stuff with the Shields, who plays the bar owner and is like and like who Casey Affleck's character. It thinks is like real is like thinks treats him as like a, you know, surrogate son. Yeah, and like, really, it's just like another annoying customer at the bar. Like it just it's it's just perfect.
JVL00:34:25How about how everybody knows exactly who Ving Rhames is? Every time he walks into a room like it was like, oh, Frank, Frank.
Sonny00:34:34And when he shows up to Alfred Molina's bakery looking for information and an Alfred Molina just says,
JVL00:34:42Tom, look, man, do what you got to do. He understands that Frank is there and he has to bust up the place.
Sonny00:34:47Got to bust some stuff up. It's got to bust some stuff up.
JVL00:34:51This is all they do. And the stuff with with Alfred Molina and the other guy, you know, about moving to Stilberg, going to Montreal and going to Canada.
Sonny00:35:04Yeah, I this is this was a repeated line about going to Montreal is is Montreal that close to Boston? I like don't actually know my geography, I guess, of the Northeast.
Mike00:35:12Well, it's definitely the biggest city in Canada closest to.
Sonny00:35:16Yeah, I mean, I guess you just you just closest big city and can just drive across the border.
JVL00:35:20The big car chase when when Casey Affleck is sitting back in the car and he's like, wait a minute, that that cop was from Rhode Island. The fuck are they doing in Vermont? Oh, they got all New England here.
Mike00:35:34It's great. Michael, did you love it? I loved it. I was laughing constantly. By the way, five hours from Boston to Montreal, I loved it. I was always like I wasn't quite sure. I love going into a movie like this completely cold. Like I had no idea if I had the general sense it was Boston and heist like that was all I knew. So I didn't know if it was going to be, you know, an Ocean's Eleven type movie, a town, you know, rip off or like what what it was going to be like. And so that I think. My first real laugh where, like, I had figured out what was going on was initially when they've got the boat and like runs up on the rocks or whatever, like that whole kind of that that whole sequence. I was just like, oh, this is about to go extremely wrong in a bunch of hilarious ways. And then like from that to opening up to the kitchen where like they've already showed you the kind of fantasy or the place. You know, there's supposed to be like two people in there, you know, and they're going to and it's like they open up and the place is just the kitchen is full of two brings trucks have already come through because there's been so much money and bribes. So so I love that. The only kind of big character that I didn't recognize at all was Hong Chow. I don't know where what she's been in. I'm sure she's been in things. I just like everybody else I recognized and I love. I loved watching them all and I even love kind of figuring out who they were because a few of them I was like, wait, who is that? So like Paul Walter Hauser, for instance, was like, oh, that looks like that Paul Walter Hauser guy. Then I realized it was him, you know, and I thought I thought he's only in it for like what two scenes probably. Yeah, he's he's like it's so funny.
Sonny00:37:34It's so funny, too, because he's set up to be like a character who's going to be in the rest of the movie. Yes. And then and then even like when they blow him. Up, they like blow him up at the house and he just like kind of gets knocked down and you're like, he's going to show up later. Right. And then just never does. He just never does. Just never. Again, this is what I'm talking about. Like I the plot. This is this is a you know, what happened was they did a first draft of the script and they were like, here, why don't you tweak this one thing? We're good. We're good. We're good. We're just going to shoot this. And I there. So this is an artist's equity movie. So this is a movie that's made by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck's company, the existence of which. This company's existence, I think, mostly just serves to extract money from streaming companies to funnel into the pockets of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck's friends and family, which good for them. That's a that's a perfectly that's a perfectly fine thing to do. But like it definitely it's one of these movies where you see guys show up and you're like, why are they in this for? Why is Alfred Molina in this for like four scenes? And it's probably because like I got like a four hundred thousand. Dollar check from Apple to do it like, OK, that that works.
Mike00:38:46Can I say also Ron Perlman is so good in like there's something everything he does, like in particular, playing this kind of he's not like Marty Walsh or who is the guy before Marty Walsh? And it was like the mayor of Boston for like 20 terms. But he's like his face itself is sort of. An exaggerated version of a face and and and he's playing an exaggerated version of these probably minorly corrupt, you know, Irish, even though he's Italian, Irish mayors of Boston. I every time he was on screen, I was just like, I want to like they definitely left you wanting more with him and his character, which was probably a good thing. I also loved the way that the stoic way that Matt Damon's character went through this movie where like there are hints that he's like skilled. He was in the military. He was a veteran and all this stuff. Mechanic. Yeah, but he had to find out he's a mechanic, but he's just like, you don't know that much. I don't even know what what's the story. Why did he needs all this money? They explain, right? He needs all this money to like see his kid. But like, why did they get divorced? Like, none of this makes none of it makes sense. I don't even know how he got hooked up.
JVL00:40:16He's also vaguely OCD, right? Like he's he's taking notes on everything is like, yes, so seven. We have to be out here by six or seven. He doesn't know what to do. They say to him at some point, you know, just say, I have a gun. And so, like, every time he's confronted with a stressful situation, he says, I have a gun.
Mike00:40:34No, I love that. Yeah, I mean, this is I just I enjoyed the hell out of it. And I. Enjoyed it so much more to bring it back to our discussion last week of Deadpool and Wolverine. Like, I was I was sitting there in the watching this thing and going like. How much less money did they spend on this than they did on granted? Like Deadpool, Wolverine's making money hand over fist, so it doesn't matter. But I was just like, you could just make a bunch of movies like this, you know, like, why not?
Sonny00:41:10Look, again, I. I'm I'm I'm always kind of interested about the behind the scene financials of movies like this. So like Air, remember Air? Oh, yeah. The that was an artist's equity movie as well. And that movie was way more expensive than you would think, considering it was mostly a bunch of guys standing around talking in an office for, you know, for the most part. And that movie cost a lot of money because they they got money from. Amazon and MGM and like distributed it to the actors and the staff and the crew. And like so I would be I would actually be kind of curious to know what the actual cost on this film was. I bet it is higher than we would imagine. OK, but that's definitely. But that's but that's because, again, you pay you pay a guy like Matt Damon probably ten million dollars to be in this movie. You probably pay Casey Affleck for the script and a star. And three or four million dollars, something like that, I would guess. I don't know. Again, I'm just throwing numbers out there. I'm throwing numbers out there. And then and then again, they they kind of that money all filters down and there's no there's no points because it's not theatrical. So you got to you. It's all up front. And this is this is the you know, again, the the dirty secret on movies like this is that they're not as this is a movie that looks like it should cost 20 million dollars. And I bet it costs 50 million dollars.
JVL00:42:37Yeah. But if it was done for theatrical, it would cost 20.
Sonny00:42:41If it was done for theatrical, it would cost 20 and everybody would have points and the crew would probably make less. But the the but yeah, no, it's it's it's. And look, this is what this is a very good example of what streaming movies should be. Frankly, this is it's a it's relatively forgettable, but also very well done movie that doesn't make sense as a theatrical movie. This is a movie that would be hard to market. And, you know, the Casey Affleck is not a movie star. And like you, there's a million reasons why it wouldn't work and why nobody would want to spend 40 million dollars marketing it to get it in 3000 screens where it would open to seven million dollars and then end its run with 25 million worldwide. Right. There's like it's a movie that doesn't make any sense to put in theaters. Movie that does not make any sense to put in theaters makes perfect sense to show on Apple TV. Plus is a nice like we watch. I watched this on a Sunday night with my wife and we were like, oh, this is fun. This is this is nice. And we we had a good time. And then we went to bed at 10 o'clock because the kids had to get up for school. You know, I like that's that's what that's what is that's what that's what streaming movies should be. And this is a very good example of what streaming movies, frankly, should be.
JVL00:43:58Apple Plus is so much better than Netflix in terms of quality. I would say they have a much higher hit to hit to miss ratio like this and family plan versus like red notice and whatever. The last stupid Netflix original movie was.
Mike00:44:16He just Netflix is more broad, right? And this is this is like the HBO versus CBS. Totally. Yeah, exactly. Question is being frames. OK, because I watched him on here and he is just he's just so big and old. And like I saw, I thought this in the last Mission Impossible movie as well.
JVL00:44:41Like, like, like, he's not moving great.
Mike00:44:44He is not.
Sonny00:44:46I worry about being frames. Ving Rhames is a big man who's now 65. Like, you know, he's not he's not ancient.
Mike00:44:56There was not a lot of shots of full body shots of him walking. I noticed that in the in the.
JVL00:45:02So did you guys catch the the trailer ahead of this for the Vince Vaughn series on? Yes.
Sonny00:45:08Bad monkey.
JVL00:45:09Bad monkey. Because that looks fantastic. Fantastic.
Sonny00:45:13There was a.
Mike00:45:14Is it a return to form for for for VV?
Sonny00:45:17I'm very I'm very much looking forward to it. I I'm very much looking forward to it. He had a really good interview with The New York Times.
JVL00:45:24It looks like a Donald Westlake series.
Sonny00:45:26Yeah, it's like it's like. Yeah, it's like a Elmore Leonard.
Mike00:45:31Yeah. Oh, Bill Lawrence created.
Sonny00:45:34No, it's it's it's it. It has gotten good buzz. It looks good. I like Vince Vaughn a lot. I think Vince Vaughn is interesting and smart.
Mike00:45:41There's a novel JVL. Bad Monkey is a novel. Carl Hyass. Oh, yeah. And you're good.
JVL00:45:48Have you have you read?
Mike00:45:49I've never read it, but I just looked it up because I hadn't heard of this. Rob Delaney is in it. So you'll like that, too.
Sonny00:45:54Rob Delaney is in this.
Mike00:45:56So big Rob Delaney.
Sonny00:45:58Big win.
Mike00:45:59OK.
Sonny00:46:00No, I'm pro. I'm very pro Apple TV plus. I think they they have done. They they have done a very good job of putting together a lineup of things. I want to I love Mythic Quest. I know you've mentioned that. I feel like I need to watch.
JVL00:46:13I like Mythic Quest a lot. Honestly, if I had to choose. Just two streaming services. Disney's number one. Obviously has to have Disney and then probably Apple or Peacock. Netflix would be so far down on my list of choices. Like it'd be. Number two would either be HBO Max, Apple or Peacock. And there's no. No chance that Netflix makes my top four even easily my fifth.
Mike00:46:46I agree. But my but my kids watch so much rap on Netflix. It's like it's it's annoying. It's it's all crap. It's all like bad kids sitcom crap. But it's they love it.
JVL00:47:01Just give them the good Disney sitcoms. Like Disney has a copy of good.
Sonny00:47:06Give them a copy of Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to read. Now, I would. For me, for me, it's for me, it's HBO Max still, even with all the shit they've been through and Apple TV plus. But the problem is with kids, I like Disney plus winds its way into the mix. It's it's like.
JVL00:47:27Absolutely. But Netflix, I feel as though Netflix is quickly becoming the kind of ghetto that people like us, gentlemen of elevated tastes won't need. To have any more.
Sonny00:47:42If I did not do this for work, I would not have a Netflix. I would not. I would I would tell my kids they have to watch Disney plus instead of Netflix or.
Mike00:47:51Yeah, I'm getting to that point.
Sonny00:47:53But I would I would just not I would not have Netflix if it was not for work, if they did not have multiple shows and movies and stuff. No, Netflix is network TV. Netflix is Netflix is the replacement for CBS.
Mike00:48:06OK, any other thought we're running kind of kind of. This is. Perfectly good show.
JVL00:48:12The shows have been much too long.
Sonny00:48:13Shows have been too long recently. Shows have been much too long. All right. With a with a bonus talk, it'll be a 50 minute show. That's a good that's a good length. We're taking a page from the instigators.
Mike00:48:23There you go. Any other final thoughts, though, on the instigators before we.
JVL00:48:28Casey Affleck underrated.
Sonny00:48:30I love Casey Affleck.
Mike00:48:31Oh, I like him a ton.
Sonny00:48:33We'll do this.
Mike00:48:34All right. That is all the time we are giving to this episode. Join us over at sub beacon dot com and we'll talk to you next. Time. Who is Jack Harlow? Is he he's a singer. He's a singer and a rapper or something.
Sonny00:48:53I want to say I want to say he sings the music, the pop tunes that the kids are listening to these days.
Mike00:48:58Oh, he's he's he's got those sounds.
Sonny00:49:02Oh, OK.
Mike00:49:03Or I, I, I, I kind of thought he sucked.
JVL00:49:07I was happy when he when his character. Totally. Yes, it was great.
Mike00:49:13He was he was like the weak part of the of the.
Sonny00:49:16Absolutely. He's terrible. Nobody likes him. I would rather that role should have been Gronk.
JVL00:49:23Gronk should have that role. Yes.
Sonny00:49:25Instead of the instead of the like guy on the stage at the in the background of the the fundraiser, he should have been he should have been part of the job.
Mike00:49:33So was Gronk playing Gronk? Like, yes, I think Gronk. I think Gronk was playing Gronk.
Sonny00:49:38Oh, it's so great.
JVL00:49:39Yeah. The idea that the mayor is. Just barricaded in his office because he can't leave because all the evidence of his corruption is locked in the safe that he can't get into. I'm sorry. It was just so funny.
Guest00:49:51It was hysterical.
JVL00:49:53It was absolutely hysterical. And you know what? Doing House of Pain. That was my favorite music drop in that I've seen in a in a movie in a while. Again, compared with Deadpool and Wolverine, which has music drop after music drop after music drop. I'm going to be clever. This was good.
Sonny00:50:13What about like a virgin? In Deadpool and Wolverine.
Mike00:50:17Oh, that was we didn't talk about that, but that was so annoying. The whole like a virgin sequence just suck.
Sonny00:50:26But there are so many Deadpools.
Mike00:50:30There's so many. There's so many.
Sonny00:50:31There were so many Deadpools. There was a baby.
JVL00:50:34There was a baby Deadpool.
Sonny00:50:36There was a baby Deadpool. There was a dog Deadpool. There was a handsome Deadpool.
JVL00:50:41I thought back to the scene in the Spider-Verse, the last Spider-Verse, across the Spider-Verse movie where you are in the whatever the Spider-Verse prime is and he's being chased by all of the different versions of Spider-Verse.
Mike00:50:55That is a great scene.
JVL00:50:57And I don't know how like if you are making Deadpool and Wolverine, why are you not embarrassed to do a scene which is so, so close? In format to something which has just been done basically within your universe within the last year and a half, but in a cartoon and in a cartoon and to have done it in such an inferior way. But wouldn't you be embarrassed?
Mike00:51:25But Girl Deadpool was Ryan Reynolds's real life wife. Gwen Poole was who is his real life wife? Blake Lively.
Sonny00:51:33Blake Lively.
JVL00:51:34Oh, she was playing Gwen.
Mike00:51:35That's why he said he there the human I did. I did laugh at this and I hated myself. We're laughing at this when he said there are 206 bones in the human body, 207 if I'm watching Gossip Girl.
JVL00:51:49Oh, I get it now. It's another reference.
Mike00:51:52Sure, it's fine.
Sonny00:51:54You meant an erection. What?
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