It's December, which means we have an excuse to watch movies that people say are Christmas movies, but aren't actually Christmas movies. And we're starting with the action film everyone always insists is a Christmas movie, Reindeer Games. Featuring Ben Affleck's eyebrows, Sinise at his most Sinisiest, and Theron giving more depth to her character than she deserves, this case of mistaken identity is one for the ages.

As always, this episode is edited and produced by Riley's podcasting company Podigy, who have put out a Complete Guide to Podcast Editing which will get your podcast sounding phenomenal for free!

Or if you want us to take your podcast to the next level, come see why people love Podigy's podcast editing

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It is the joy of every movie podcast to finally get to do a Nicolas Cage film. When the synopsis of the film is Cage is a man who is on a mission from God to hunt down Bin Laden, you become even more excited. Everything is primed for something to go gloriously wrong. And it does. It’s horrible. Not in a fun way.

As always, this episode is edited and produced by Riley's podcasting company Podigy, who have put out a Complete Guide to Podcast Editing which will get your podcast sounding phenomenal for free!

Or if you want us to take your podcast to the next level, come see why people love Podigy's podcast editing

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Flock of Seagals is changing things up.

We've done 12 episodes of FoS that we're immensely proud of, that we did without the knowledge of the recent allegations against Steven Seagal. In light of these new accusations, and learning the full breadth of what they encompass, we've decided we're not gonna give him any more publicity, however small it might have been.

However, we're keeping our RSS feed and our name for the time being, and we are still going to do what we do best on this podcast: seek out the most ill conceived and puzzlingly shot films we can find and give them the critical analysis they never deserved. Steven Seagal was our shorthand for that, but from here on out, we will be seeking out shining examples of movies where directors, actors, producers, lighting techs, audio mixers, editors, caterers et al all decided to "just show up", give it 50% and be home by 5.

And by god does 2016's The Assignment fit the bill on that account. Directed by Walter Hill (director of The Warriors, producer on all the Alien films), The Assignment sees Michelle Rodriguez as Frank, a male hitman who has his gender reassigned against his will by Sigourney Weaver as revenge for assassinating Weaver's brother. The film features about 20 minutes of Michelle Rodriguez as a 110 pound male with a generous endowment, Sigourney quoting Poe to Shalhoub and not one, but two characters using flashbacks as framing devices. It’s also the grittiest Toronto has ever looked.

We hope you'll come with us through this change, as we're really excited about making more great podcasts about bad movies, not bad people.

As always, this episode is edited and produced by Riley's podcasting company Podigy, who have put out a Complete Guide to Podcast Editing which will get your podcast sounding phenomenal for free!

Or if you want us to take your podcast to the next level, come see why people love Podigy's podcast editing

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Pistol Whipped is a film the way Totino’s Pizza Rolls are calzones. There are recognizable shapes and textures, it seems vaguely familiar to something you’ve enjoyed before, but ultimately you’re left feeling empty inside. With Totino’s all you need to do is rip open another pack, but there is nothing to fill the void Pistol Whipped will leave in you.

This isn’t to say there isn’t a lot going on. In many ways, the story mirrors that of Ant Man: a man down on his luck has his vices exploited by a wealthy businessman, who promises a path to redemption and reconciliation with his estranged daughter. While it’s debatable whether Seagal is more charismatic than Rudd, the former definitely brings his signature “breathless charm” to the picture.

In a Lynchian twist, many of the locations are recycled, but change every time Seagal revisits. What is at first the service entrance to a hotel lobby is transformed to a 2-table casino and then a cubicled mafioso restaurant while its labyrinthine network of staircases always leads Seagal to the same exterior shot of an abandoned warehouse. What are we meant to read into this? Perhaps this whole movie is actually a dream Seagal’s character had after drinking himself unconscious. It would explain why none of this is properly fleshed out.

Pistol Whipped: badbadnotgood.

As always, this episode is edited and produced by Riley's podcasting company Podigy, who have put out a Complete Guide to Podcast Editing which will get your podcast sounding phenomenal for free!

Or if you want us to take your podcast to the next level, come see why people love Podigy's podcast editing

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This week Dan, Tony and Riley go back to the days when a cop could get clearance and a shotgun from his lieutenant to go kill William Forsythe. Simpler times indeed. They dive into the crack epidemic, the lack of “beefy boy” fights in modern cinema and Chekov’s garbage puppy. They also discuss the legendary pants accident Seagal allegedly suffered on set. This also marks one of the best shot Seagal films, with a 1991 budget of $14 million, which in today’s dollars is much more than what his films cost to shoot today, because it’s more in 1991 dollars as well.

I don’t know how inflation works.

As always, this episode is edited and produced by Riley's podcasting company Podigy, who have put out a Complete Guide to Podcast Editing which will get your podcast sounding phenomenal for free!

Or if you want us to take your podcast to the next level, come see why people love Podigy's podcast editing

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This week is a doozy: 2016's The Perfect Weapon, where Seagal plays Dictator of America in 2029. We've made a lot of comparisons to Trump in the past, but this is terrifyingly real. Anyways! The film is available to rent on a lot of major platforms for a very reasonable price, and is well worth it!

As always, this episode is edited and produced by Riley's podcasting company Podigy, who have put out a Complete Guide to Podcast Editing which will get your podcast sounding phenomenal for free!

Or if you want us to take your podcast to the next level, come see why people love Podigy's podcast editing

This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Announcement: Flock of Seagals is now going weekly! You in no way demanded it and now it is a reality!

Here's how things are gonna go down: We noticed that a lot of our episodes were going over the time it would take to watch the movie, so we decided to start doing commentary tracks for the films the first week, so you'll have a chance to watch the movie with us, and then have the discussion on the film the second week. So same number of films, just twice the time with them. It satisfies our urge to talk about Seagal as much as possible and hopefully your urge to watch some of these films with 4 of your best goof around pals, us!

Don't worry, theres a signal in the episode to sync with the film, and you'll get to hear our first takes on a lot of the ridiculousness that is late period Seagal. And this week is a doozy: 2016's The Perfect Weapon, where Seagal plays Dictator of America in 2029. We've made a lot of comparisons to Trump in the past, but this is terrifyingly real. Anyways! The film is available to rent on a lot of major platforms for a very reasonable price, and is well worth it!

As always, this episode is edited and produced by Riley's podcasting company Podigy, who have put out a Complete Guide to Podcast Editing which will get your podcast sounding phenomenal for free!

Or if you want us to take your podcast to the next level, come see why people love Podigy's podcast editing

This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Belly of the Beast is the movie Riley has been waiting for since this podcast started. Cheap sets, mid-90s decor, the legendary Ching Siu-tung and an uncooperative Seagal combine to make a disasterously bonkers film that feels more like a rejected Alias spinoff with supernatural elements.

However, just because the movie doesn't amount to the sum of its parts doesn't mean there is nothing of note here. Seagal becomes the first man to perform two wire stunts laying down in a film, and a mysterious woman's bare chest displays secret gliphs to our hero in his moment of need. There's a lot to love here, if not always for the reasons the creators intended.

Also! This week we're pleased to start off with an advertisement from our friends from the Over the Kill podcast. They take an objective look at how action stars age, either gracefully or... you know. Guess where Seagal falls?

And, as always this week's podcast editing is provided by Riley's company Podigy, who recently put out a complete guide to editing your podcast for free. Check out the article at https://podigy.co/podcast-editing-guide/. You'll be glad you did!

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This may very well be the most important episode of Flock of Seagals we've ever done. Riley and Michael are joined by friends Jamie and Anthony to discuss the first four episodes of Steven Seagal's 2009 reality tv show Steven Seagal: Lawman.

What starts off as a discussion of Seagal's enigmatic persona only being enriched by the menial policing he does as part of the Jefferson Parish Louisiana Police Force and his day-to-day activities of training his guard dogs or playing a blues concert to raise funds for a childrens' charity, morphs over time as Jamie becomes more concerned with Riley and Michael's unironic love of Seagal. He puts the two on trial for sensationalizing the exploits of a Trumpian, B-list celebrity. Obviously, M&R are having none of this and things start to spiral out of control. If you listen to only one episode of this podcast, make it this one.

If you like the sound of this podcast and would like to find out more about how we do it, check out Riley’s podcast production company Podigy over at https://podigy.co/. They do everything from editing services to daily tips on social media, and later this week a complete editing tutorial is going up on the website. If you’re looking to start a podcast, or take yours to the next level, you owe it to yourself to check out Podigy.

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This week we discuss Seagal's first direct-to-video release, the unfortunately titled "The Patriot". Topics such as "why is he playing a Native American" and "why is the Army throwing the raw ingredients to a cure to the disease out of helicopters instead of making a cure and handing it out" are brought up, but no answers are found. That being said, we were all pleasantly surprised by the cinematography and tight-paced plot. Makes you wonder why so many people took their names off this project…

Also! Exciting news: We have our first sponsor for the show! Coincidentally it is also the podcast company Riley owns, but don’t look too much into that. But do look into the great sounding podcasts that Podigy makes over at https://podigy.co/. If you’re looking to start a podcast or upgrade the sound of your current podcast, Podigy offers not only best-in-class podcast editing but also will sponsor your podcast and take up to 20% off the price to do so. It’s a win-win!