Four Dicks Live Blog - Passenger 57

I've never done this before. Usually when I write about films I do this then work out points and shit afterwards but this time it's raw, baby, raw and ready. Passenger 57 - Wesley Snipes vs crime. 1992. Let's go...

20.15 – Programme Start. The menu reads, in order, JUMP TO A SCENE (!), SUBTITLES and PLAY FILM, so I select that. The print is scarred as fuck but the music. Is. Amazing. I like Warner Brothers’ commitment to preserving shitty looking film prints. I’ve downloaded this music by now.

20.17 – Watching the credits - Ugh. Tom Sizemore. No, wait, I like Tom Sizemore. YEAH – BRUCE GREENWOOD! (Is in the film, too) Also Liz Hurley whose name is nowhere on the box. So the music is by Stanley Clarke. My actual quote was “this is really good music. This is the sort of music i would listen to if I was just hanging out”.

20.18 – THE REAL START. Oh we have some serious ham on offer here. “I never live in the past.” “There will be no pain”. Also the actor’s name is Payne so that’s a fucking lie.

20:19 -  A grey van just with SWAT written on the side- I don’t believe they’d ever look like that. The villain, Charles Rane, he’s changing his face in a hospital. I cannot stress how much i want him to change his face to Wesley Snipes. This notion I just had is probably the entire basis for the movie Face/Off. Also I keep calling Wesley Snipes Snesley Wipes, so I’m just abbreviating it.

20:20- A footchase. We’re cooking with gas now. A really needless shot of water cooler bottles spilling all over the perp. Footchase over...?

20:21- Snes appears and Dominic says “it’s the Sniper”. I think he looks like he’d smell really fresh and lovely in this film. 

20:22- Is he messing? IS SNIPES THE/A CRIMINAL!?

20:23- No, it was a fakeout and now some exposition. Tom Sizemore appears. Dominic says “it’s the Size.” Wesley Snipes is a hard case. SO much info thrown our way in one scene. His lady Lisa is dead.

20:24 - There’s one shot of Wesley snipes looking sincerely upset and it hits me how much I completely adore him. I could do a watch-all-his-movies thing like I tried with Hanks, Denzel and DeNiro and am currently doing for Cushing.

20:25- So, OK, the villain is pacing in a cell. This guy’s the hammiest fuck out. All the rest of the cheese in the film doesn’t nearly stack as high as this fella.

20:26 – He makes the lawyer say “Charles Rane is not insane” like a wee motto.

20:27- Snipes lives in the best flat ever. Black and white flashback to Lisa’s death. Flashback robber is the worst actor in the film yet, but then Snes says “oh my god” and it’s worse than in Troll 2. Also in the late 80s and early 90s the best way to be moody is with rain. Stand in the rain and you’re moody. The music sounds like early Dream Theater if they replaced their singer with a sax player, honestly, that’s a considered statement from a DT fan.

20:30 -  Greenwood slumming it just. He offers Snes the vice presidency but I’m not sure if it’s of the country or just of badassery. Or his regular job.

20:31 - One of those shots where a regular person eyes up the main character all sexy like so the audience gets that he’s sexy.

20: 31 (but later in the minute) another two lines as the shot changes indicate the previous scene was reinserted in the edit- this was DEFINITELY meant to be the first scene at the airport and also I thought the airport was a mall.

20: 32- A suspicious man! I WILL CALL HIM SUSPERIO AND MAKE HIS A PRIORITY OF KEEPING TABS ON HIM THROUGHOUT THE FILM.

20:33- FUCK ME! THIS FILM IS SET ON A PLANE! THAT IS pretty much my AW SUSPERIO AWWWW TOTALLY UP TO BADNESS ON THE PLANE, also there’s Liz Hurley making no impact at all, so anyway, planes are pretty much my favourite setting for things.

20:34 - Liz Hurley is a posh bitch

20:35 - I register the thought “I think she is with the bad terrorist” aloud as Dominic concurs as they are both English.

20: 35 - The terrorist gets on with kids. I want HIM to win.

20:36 - More lines about Rane’s dead father, and Snes is reading The Art Of War on the plane. This is some of the laziest storytelling just. 

20:41 - Snes is black, as is Arsenio Hall, so Snes is introduced as Arsenio to a white lady and she doesn’t know the difference

20:41- “The old ‘go into the bathroom before shit kicks off’” says Dominic– this film’s just gonna be Die Hard isn’t it?.

20:42 – Hurley. Terrorist. CALLED IT.

20:43 - “Shut up or be killed”. I LOVE IT. There’s an amazingly coiffured terrorist too.

20:44 - We keep thinking Snes is called John Connor. He pulls out the old ‘I’m a coward’ like Hans Gruber when he’s discovered

20: 46 - A bit early for a Mexican standoff. How is this going to maintain for the rest of the movie?

20:47- Was Brad Bird an actor? Yeah. Brad Bird doesn’t care about the terrorists because he is one. 

20:48 - Snes has the best fighting face ever, better even than, like, Blanka.

20:49 - Dominic chuckles at the plane being called “Atlantic International”

20:50 - Dominic tells me there’s a famous quote to come later in the movie. To say I’m stoked is just about adequate

20:52- It’s fuckin’ roastin’ in the living room so unrelatedly we take a break for some more Russians and I’m super pissed I haven’t any Wild West Honey BBQ Beef Jerky and consider going to ASDA for some. Not Aslan, that’s the lion. No, not the band. FUCK ME? FUCK YOU, COCKSUCKA!

20:57 - I kinda wish I had a bloody Mary. Never had one before. Bet they’re rank. But then I like beef jerky and there’s no denying that shit is disgusting, oh, and Peperami and all. Just give me dried meats and tomato boozes and I’ll be a happy DOMINIC RETURNS.

21:01 - You gotta get into the underplane to be safe in these films. There’s no way this could ever happen. Snes has put on an amazing jacket. They’re communicating on the plane’s phone- DIE HARD. Also the shot of the phone being picked up looks like it was directed b someone who guest-directed that single shot and tried to steal the film.

21:05 - SUSPERIO kicks Snes off of the plane?

21:06 - Dominic says “do you reckon that guy with the earring is a fruity pop?”

21:07- Probably fair to say it’s not just Die Hard anymore now Snes is off the terror plane.

21: 11- Dominic - “he has British hair”

21:18 -  This film is boring as shit. If I’d paid more than a pound for it I’d be pissed.

21:28 - Ten momentum-sapping minutes later and we’re back on the plane.

Then, but later, the villain falls out the plane and the music cue is just like that bit in Die Hard when the exact same thing happens at a window. JeSUS. 

21:43 – You know, it says on the box they call Charles Rane “Rane of Terror” but it never happens, also the sticker on my copy says “The Perfect Gift For Christmas”, and the tagline is “He’s an ex-cop with a bad mouth, a bad attitude and a bad seat”. After the movie, Dominic points out the famous line of dialogue that we missed altogether so we rewind and watch the scene then have more cocktails.Here it is: enjoy it for what it is -

Note – never do this unless the film is awesome.

LUKE?

PREDATOR.