Four Play

Michael Mann's 1995 film Heat finally arrives on Four Play, an inevitable addition to the show since it's one of all of our hosts' favorite films. Not only an excellent heist movie, Heat is unbelievably well-crafted with characters and a scope that smacks of Shakespearian or Greek tragedies. Richard, Thorin, and Monte discuss the themes of criminality, compulsion to vocation, and the satisfying conclusion to every character's arc. They celebrate the incredible cast, particularly the iconic performances of Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Tom Sizemore, and Val Kilmer whose interplay forms the heart of the film. Heat deserves your attention and multiple viewings. We keep coming back to it, and so should you.

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Satoshi Kon's seminal 2003 film Tokyo Godfathers explores the touching stories of three homeless people who have created a found family on the streets of Japan. While not as fantastical or surreal as Kon's other work, the film still indulges in the fantastical with a series of charming miracles and coincidences that befall the main characters. Tokyo Godfathers tackles a variety of taboo subjects in both Japan and the wider world: homelessness, sex work, organized crime, queer identities, alcohol abuse, immigration, and more with extraordinary sympathy. We recommend this film for everyone's regular Christmas viewings.

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Four Play revisits an all-time Christmas classic, Frank Capra's 1946 film It's a Wonderful Life. Notable for its saccharine ending and celebration of human kindness, the film provides a warm holiday glow in spite of overtly dark themes that permeate the majority of the story. Thorin, Richard, and Monte discuss the movie's many merits, its exploration of socialism vs capitalism, and provide historical context of post-war America. On the way, our hosts have a few laughs at some of the more ridiculous aspects of It's a Wonderful Life and James Stewart's character, George Bailey, but ultimately agree that the film deserves its reputation as a holiday staple.

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Bill Murray led film Scrooged as a 1988 re-telling of the classic Charles Dickens story A Christmas Carol, directed by Richard Donner. Four Play examines the success of this modern framing, which sees Murray as television station executive Frank Cross, who undergoes encounters with the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future. The film serves up some brilliant satire and witty dialogue, but stumbles at the finish line with a wordy ending and a failure to live up to the meta-narrative the film creates. Our hosts still had fun and memorable time with Scrooged, but as the screenplay writers themselves admitted after the fact, it falls a tad short of being an all-time Christmas classic.

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We thought Batman Returns was good. As it turns out, Tim Burton's 1992 movie lived in Richard, Thorin, and Monte's minds in rosy nostalgia that simply didn't hold up 30 years later. The terrible writing, plot, and dialogue drags down a film with a large budget, extraordinary visuals, and a good cast. Filled with a strange mélange of campiness and blatant sexuality, the tone completely misses the mark. Furthermore, why would anyone ever make a Batman film with hardly any Batman in the movie?

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Con Air takes flight this week's Four Play, featuring a cast brimming with top stars and character actors from 1997. The film serves up some amazing action sequences, stunt work, and excellent over-the-top performances, which should leave viewers satisfied if they "buy in" to the absurd premise. Even the movie's obvious flaws, such as the overly fast pacing, terrible writing, and massive plot holes are also hilarious to discuss given the over-the-top tone. While certainly not a subtle or artistic piece of cinema, Con Air serves its role well as one of the ultimate popcorn action flicks and stands as a symbol of the genre's excesses in the late 1990's.

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Total Recall stands apart from our other 90's action films in this Four Play cycle through its cutting satire, intriguing themes on the nature of reality, and genuine intelligence. Paul Verhoeven's 1990 science-fiction banger was frequently misinterpreted upon its release but has aged beautifully in spite of the gratuitous violence and cheesy acting by Arnold Schwarzenegger. The film toys with its main character's reality through his memory implants and leaves interpretation to the audience as to whether the film's plot happened on Mars or in Quaid's head. Total Recall injects gratuitous violence and action as a send-up of American cinema while raising intriguing questions on the manipulations of mass media and authoritarianism.

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The first Tom Cruise Mission: Impossible film debuted in 1996 and created a multi-decade film franchise that continues to this day. Director Brian De Palma created a surprisingly complex storyline, at least for a Hollywood popcorn flick, that focuses around an espionage mole hunt with a surprising twist. The movie delivers the single most iconic scene of computer hacking in film history as well as other highly memorable sequences that have held up well as the decades passed. While not entirely coherent and with some questionable cinematography at times, Mission: Impossible remains a fun and iconic movie worth revisiting.

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John Woo's 1997 film Face/Off kicks off a fierce debate among our hosts about whether or not the film succeeds in a fun, yet stupid, premise or if it's too ridiculous to be considered good. The film's Hong Kong style seems out-of-place in a Hollywood movie, but can a viewer buy into its heightened style and find enjoyment. Thorin, Richard, and Monte fiercely debate if watching Face/Off is a pleasurable experience considering the total lack of subtlety as well as the memorable nature of the premise.

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The logical endpoint of Film Noir, Curtis Hanson's L.A. Confidential stands apart as a buffet of Noir tropes devoured by a masterful cast. It serves as the ultimate movie of its genre, mashing together institutional corruption, prostitution, drugs, the seedy Hollywood underbelly, racism, and ethical policing. Upon re-viewing, Richard, Thorin, and Monte agree that it must be one of the most criminally underrated movies and possibly deserving a place on lists of the 100 best films of all-time. They discuss the intricate interplay between the three leading actors, played by Russell Crowe, Guy Pierce, and Kevin Spacey, the superb location scouting and cinematography, the intelligent complexities of the plot, and more.

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