we're on a mission from god

wendy so i got that going darling

i picked the wrong way to quit sniffing

blue light of my life

we enjoy your films

i thought they smelled bad on the

outside

[Music]

welcome to vintage video where we're

re-watching the 80s so you don't have to

we'll be reviewing every major film

release of the 1980s in real time

i'm patrick o'reilly i'm jesse bayless

and i'm richard wells and today marks

the 40th anniversary of the release of

brubaker on june 20th 1980.

it was written by w.d richter based on a

story by richter and arthur a ross

and an uncredited story credit for bob

rakelson

suggested by the book accomplices to the

crime

written by thomas o merton and joe hiams

directed by stuart rosenberg

and also a little bit bob rapelson and

released by 20th century fox

i don't understand this suggested by did

you get any more information about what

the health suggested by

yes we'll go into that now okay the film

is based on the real life experiences

of warden thomas merton co-author with

joe hims of the 1969 book

accomplices to the crime the arkansas

prison scandal

in 1967 he was hired by governor

winthrop rockefeller

that's a classy name of the rockefellers

winthrop

rockefeller to reform arkansas's tucker

state

and cummins state prison farms

but merton was dismissed less than a

year into the job

because his work was creating too much

bad publicity for the state's penal

system

in particular the discovery of numerous

graves belonging to prisoners who'd been

killed in these prisons

much of the squalid conditions violence

and corruption depicted in the film

was the subject of a 1970 federal court

case holt vs sarver

in which the federal court ruled that

the arkansas prison system violated

inmates constitutional rights

and ordered reform the first script

written by arthur ross was the true

story

but ross passed on the opportunity to

direct

duties to direct the fictionalized

adaptation which is the reason we get

stories suggested by

it's not the actual story in the book

it's kind of like when time ran out

yeah but i thought that generally you

would do it based on

like based on is the terminology that we

tend to see when it's not an exact

apparently it was loose enough that it

wasn't it wasn't based on anymore

but i think in win time right now they

still use based on even though

it's even less based on the story than

this is i mean they they changed the

characters names and they changed enough

i guess

of the events because like he never went

in

to the prison right so as a as an inmate

that was not part of the real story but

duties to direct the fictionalized

adaptation

by w.d richter of ross's draft were

dismissed by george roy hill

robert wise mark robson and robert

mulligan

some good people in there yeah richter

achieved success in the mid to late 70s

with slither and his body snatchers

remake the 78 version my favorite

and uh paramount commissioned him to do

a rewrite on the script that he had

turned in before

they passed on the finished script at

which point alan j pacquiao expressed an

interest in directing

but he wanted too much time to start so

producer ron silverman got the script to

director bob rafelson to direct

paul newman and jack nicholson both

turned down the role before redford

redford was attached for a paycheck of

three million dollars

director bob rafelson was fired after

nine days of shooting

for already being five days behind

schedule

what in nine days he managed to already

be five days so he was he was only four

days into the

scheduled shoot and uh also for

allegedly assaulting 20th century fox

executive richard berger

an accusation that he eventually

admitted to but to hear him tell it

it was as much assault as what brubaker

does to the doctor in this film okay

we did it for five days yes he just

beat a fox executive for five days on

set and let

cost them nine days worth of time

richter and ross received academy award

nominations for their writing

after the film rifleson fired a breach

of contract and slander suit against fox

for 10 million dollars

he also asked for 500 000 in directing

fees

for the nine days that he spent on set

and 100 000

in deferrals and profit percentage and

he won the case so i don't know

i don't know how much he was actually

awarded but he won the suit that he

filed that's surprising

so we start the film in pre-dawn as a

bus is leaving town for wakefield prison

fully loaded with

new inmates they stop at early light

when a pair of trustees is carrying a

wounded man onto the bus

the trustees are also prisoners but for

some reason they're allowed to have

rifles to staff the prison

one prisoner in particular played by

robert redford is particularly disturbed

by what he

sees uh we call this character collins i

think for now

the prisoners are marched through mud

into wakefield and then into a barber

shop where everyone's getting their

required haircuts but it doesn't really

seem like they took a lot off

oh no they were paying off the barber to

not come

back but it just seems like at least one

of these guys would have been like i

don't care

it's like some of them some of them did

get haircuts well none of the main

characters have haircuts for the rest of

this movie because they paid him off

yeah it's just weird to me that

literally every actor was like no don't

cut my hair and everyone that wasn't an

actor was like i'm fine with it

yeah it's a weird coincidence then they

are moved into the bunks

where there's not enough beds for

everybody and one of the trustees says

that nobody gets a bed until someone

gets out or dies

because there's just straight not enough

beds for everyone

we have like a long montage of listless

prisoners here in the barracks just

playing games and talking to each other

and eventually one of them is grabbed

and they say that they want you down at

the bars

and he's like but i didn't do anything i

don't understand why

this is happening and they drag him away

and he gets

tied up to this it's just a row of bars

and he's beaten with this short whip by

some of the trustees

and he they leave him hanging there on

the bars

the next day a pair of prisoners are

forced to stand barefoot on tops of

glass bottles

for an extended period of time i i guess

that's a punishment

i thought i thought the camera was gonna

pan up and they were gonna have like a

noose or something around their necks

that was my expectation too i think it's

just super painful

but uh they seem pretty good at it at

this point so yeah it doesn't seem like

it's their first time on there

the prisoners are put to work in the

field slinging hoes

the second in command bothers the warden

about doing some paperwork that needs

his attention but he doesn't seem to

care

the next day someone finally unties the

hanging prisoner

and a man sweeping the floors with one

messed up eye shakes his head

just disappointed by the whole scene on

a quick break from the field work a

fight breaks out between some prisoners

an uninvolved prisoner wearing

sunglasses pops a switchblade or like a

uh

like an exacto knife or some kind of

like a shield shield yeah sharp piece of

metal

he tries to break up the fight before

the guards fire a few shots in the air

a switchblade guy is forced to hold his

friend down while he's getting whipped

by the guards

because they determined he caused the

fight yeah he caused the fight by being

he was being hassled

uh because the night previously he had

been raped yeah

and uh they were like oh yeah but you're

liking that

um so he threw his plate of food at him

and

that started the fight but he got

punished for it in the end

yeah and his friend had to hold him down

for it back in the prison hospital

hospital in quotes uh prisoners are

selling their blood for money

as the doctor is stepping out of the

room he's not offering much care to the

patients there's one who's

beaten almost into a coma not gonna make

a joke about blood money

no i'm not unacceptable in the cafeteria

switchblade asks for a sandwich

and they tell them that they're all out

but after he insists

the guy behind the counter tries to sell

food off of a trustee's plate from in

the kitchen

he's like are you done with that and

he's like yeah two bits and so he brings

this

it's like a piece of steak with one bite

taken out of the meal

i think it's just the gristle left on

the stage yeah it's like

there's barely it's been eaten around

basically he brings it back to the

counter and then redford tries to outbid

him and says 75 cents

and then he says a dollar and

switchblade gets the meat

as they're walking back to their tables

switchblade tells redford

he just cost me 50 cents of his name

messed up my day by trying to outbid me

on this

the regular food that they're forced to

eat in this prison just has maggots on

it and everyone's urging

redford to just eat it because of the

protein we cut back outside as a tractor

is loading wood onto a truck

a local carpenter is angry that it's not

as much wood as he needs from the prison

farm

huey is basically trying to negotiate

with this guy it's uh emm at walsh is

playing the character yeah

he's great it seems like he's getting

shortchanged here and he's upset about

it and huey's like promising to make it

up to him

later he takes a couple prisoners

including redford

to a local diner where they are forced

to carry frozen meat into the kitchen

and again it seems like he's

shortchanging this guy he says what the

hell is she told me two steers i need

two stairs

i don't think i'm sorry i just couldn't

do it this is i'll make it up to you

somehow just

you got to deal with this for now i'm

sorry i thought i had more and he's like

well suppose i stopped giving you free

beer

he's like look it's we'll make up for

this it'll happen eventually

the prisoners return back to the truck

unsupervised but uh this guard huey

is allowed to just walk into the back of

the restaurant and into the attached

home

where the guy who owns the diner lives

with his sister

of which this guy uh uh huey raunch

has a relationship with right i i don't

these trustees seem to have an awful lot

of freedom and they they don't seem to

really care about these other prisoners

are they outside the prison here yeah

they're they're not like they're out in

public right yeah

there's like a there's like there's a

restaurant with a bar

yeah i mean it has to be a kid the

restaurant can't be on the prison

grounds

it's just weird that he's allowed to

walk around anywhere and

and he has a gun and everything and that

he's allowed to just walk into local

businesses and they trust him in a car

with other prisoners

is the implication here that they're

selling the meat that was supposed to go

to the prisoners

correct so the pres the prison has a

farm

but the goods on the farm are not being

distributed to the prisoners like the

cows

are being sold to people outside and the

same thing with

food that is being shipped by the state

to the farm to feed the prisoners

specifically

but yeah he sneaks into this home

attached to the diner and

sneaks up behind this girl in a

she's like brushing her teeth at a

kitchen sink and it surprises her

and then we realize very quickly that

they're actually in a relationship

another trustee named floyd dresses down

the prisoners for taking too long

loading the wood

after multiple lectures one prisoner

purposely breaks the chain on the truck

to dump the whole load of logs on the

ground yeah and waste everyone's time

yeah this is a

this is bullen yeah uh he got a big old

like

wooden spike through his hand yeah and

he was just taking the time to pull it

out when they hassled him for like

sitting down on the job and that's when

he got

out the chair and he breaks the chain

and lets all the lock off break the

chain never

break the chain yeah the size of that

thing that's stuck in his hand

is so disturbing yeah it was pretty

gross the next night switchblade is

informed that he has a

phone call and screams while he's being

dragged away

redford as the collins character asks

what phone call is code for nobody

answers they just kind of shake their

heads and scoff at him for not knowing

because clearly it's just being beaten

well though he seems like

he seems like jack nicholson at the end

of cuckoo's nest yeah maybe it's

electroshock or something

uh because he's just totally out of it

he's he's just walking

under the power of other people putting

him in a direction

yeah the next day yeah he he looks

pretty messed up

a few men are selected in the yard to

attend to the death row prisoners

and empty their buckets they have little

buckets in their cells

redford and larry lee bullen the

the current he's currently a zombie from

having been beaten or electrocuted all

night

are chosen to do this when larry lee

gets into

the death row area suddenly one of the

prisoners is holding him hostage

in exchange for a conversation with the

man which

he means the warden when he says the man

but the trustees don't care about

switchblade so

the ransom doesn't work the inmate here

the

death row inmate played by morgan

freeman

starts singing r-e-s-p-e-c-t which if

you'll recall is a song sung by aretha

franklin from our previous episode

released the same day blues brothers

some [ __ ] respect around here

r-e-s-p-e-c-t

i know what it means to me

but you want no respect

but you need little respect

all i'm asking all the respect when you

come home

this is apparently where quote unquote

collins draws the line

and asks to be let into the cell

claiming to be the man

but here i don't think the the other two

trustees yafet kodo and the other guy i

don't think they know that he's serious

yet

no but and morgan freeman's character

isn't totally all together there either

yeah uh so he's able to convince him and

i thought this was gonna go a totally

different way

i thought that he was gonna i i i

because i read up about the movie so i

know who he is

for real yeah but i thought what was

gonna happen was i thought he was gonna

stay in

undercover longer and i thought that

this was just gonna be like a joke

like to the guards like he's telling

morgan freeman

i am the man i am i am the man

i'm the new warden here my name is henry

brubaker

oh that he was going to come out and be

like i can't believe he bought that or

something like that yeah

uh but then he's like no oh this whole

scene takes a turn

yeah uh i actually completely forgot

when you told me what this movie was

about

or wasn't listening but either way

either way i thought he was joking here

like he was just trying to get his

way so i think if you didn't if you went

into this movie not knowing anything

about what this movie was you might

think what i was thinking which was oh

he's just

trying to gain this guy's trust and then

he's going to get in there and save this

guy and

that's not actually what's happening and

based on the reaction from jaffe koto

and from the joe spinel character

they both seem to think the same thing

that he's just [ __ ] with him because

he's of a diminished capacity for a

reason and he's just gonna buy whatever

you say

so we can get this guy out of the cell

but he he says i am the warden i'm the

new warden here

and he says how come you look like a

scumbag and he says because i'm trying

to fool those boys out there

and he looks into his eyes morgan

freeman does and he can see that he's

being serious

and he also knows that these other guys

don't believe him and they think he's

screwing with them

so he starts laughing maniacally and

demands a whole laundry list of things

that he's had in his head

he wants a paint job for the whole death

row area he asked for yellow

specifically

he wants a window in his cell he wants

liquor and a tv and maybe a skylight

he's just

coming up with more and more things that

he wants as he goes and

brubaker says well why don't you come in

here show me where the picture window

should be

and as soon as freeman gets into the

smaller cell brubacher turns tail

unlocks a minute

and as he steps out he points to

larry lee the switchblade guy who's

still collapsed on the ground from

having been choked out

and he says you need to get this man

some medical attention

you paint the cell whatever color

freeman wants basically

so on their way back to the main office

yafet koto is telling him

you need to stop screwing around like

all i got to do is raise my right hand

and that tower guard will blow you away

and he says i think you're going to make

a great escort why don't we keep moving

so together they walk to the warden's

office

and brubaker just goes right into the

office and lets him know that he's been

relieved of duty

but the warden thinks this is just a

prisoner so he pulls a gun out of his

desk

to point it at him but then he

unconvincingly like lifts off lifts off

the information a lot of guys like

what he got most of it wrong yeah you

feel like this is information that you'd

want to have memorized before you went

in undercover

well and also as a way to convince them

that you're the new warden

knowing things about the other prisoners

is not super convincing yeah what should

have happened was call

so and so right now and they'll explain

to you who i am well but he would never

make that call

he would say so-and-so is going to call

in 15 minutes that that's what i would

have

yeah but instead he says to prove to

them that he's the actual new warden

he's just giving information like oh

this guy's name is something

and he screws up the guy's name and he

says he's been here for three years in

june and he's like well july you're

close but

it's it's kind of like watching like

crossing over with john edwards like

i guess well i knew a guy whose name

began with b maybe he is the warden

i'm sensing you know someone with a

little name a first name that's right

i'm guessing some of you believe in

ghosts is that correct wow all of you

what are the chances

psychic but uh even though he screws up

these details they seem to believe him

because of how close he's getting

and the outgoing warden is just about as

pissed off as he is delighted to be

finally free of this prison

first order of business brubaker speaks

with some of the inmates

he gets a megaphone and he goes up to

the fence and they line everybody up to

listen to him

and he lets them know that he's the

reform warden that they might have heard

about that was sent here from the

governor's office

he holds up the whip that he's seen

people tortured with and he says that's

going away

and any trustee caught using this will

lose his position

one of the other trustees says so what

do we do if we catch someone escaping we

just sort of wave him back in

he says shoot him because he's trying to

get across the point right away that

i'm not saying there's no rules here and

trying to escape is still a fatal

prospect but

we're not going to be treating you any

worse than we're supposed to as wards of

the state

so he starts with a little bit of

critical talk about how they probably

don't respect anyone including

themselves

but eventually he gets around to

outlawing things like the sale of blood

and demanding that prisoners be served

the food that the farm is making and

that it's not sold behind their backs

lillian gray and john dietch show up in

the middle of this speech in a car

and i guess they're here to swear him in

or to see that he starts the job

deech is trying to get a feel for him he

asks

what he plans to start with and brubaker

says blow up the whole place

start over from scratch and he says

you're making a joke

he says i guess i am in the background

lillian is on the phone with i think the

press

telling them all the information about

the new warden so that they can

because they were trying to keep it

under wraps until he was sworn in so

that this whole

undercover boss scheme would pay off

after they leave brubacher inquires

about the wounded man from the bus he

wrote in on

and he's informed that we must have sent

him out to the hospital and he says well

check on it tell me tell me what

actually happened because

i have like a list of things in my head

that i need to address and a dying

person is first on that list

and what were the results of that we'll

never know we never found the guy but we

did see him the day after in the

hospital just kind of screwed up and the

doctor didn't do anything for him

so i'm guessing he didn't get sent to

the hospital he also orders a dozen pair

of sunglasses here

but his his soon-to-be assistant purcell

gives him

basically the lowdown on the prison

staff and

trying not to insult them he basically

says they're all a bunch of dummies

well he's trying to make himself look

good because he wants a promotion right

and he's saying these people don't like

to do paperwork and he

reluctantly admits that he's in for

holding up a card game but claims he was

being cheated

immediately after leaving the office

purcell has to force

an inmate named abraham out of the

larger building that the office is off

of

abraham clearly has something he wants

to say to the warden but purcell is

running interference on that because

that's what he's used to doing for the

previous warden i presume

or because he knows what abraham's going

to say and he doesn't want him to say it

sunglasses in hand brubaker lets the

death row inmates out into the yard

he says that they are to be let out once

a day instead of

the previous every six months which is

ridiculous

plus how long are they on death row yeah

this doesn't seem like the state

the kind of state that uh it's not

around i'll tell you that much

there's no way they waited six months in

texas without seeing the sky or

god larry lee bullen shows up at

brubaker's living quarters that night

at his request going over his file

brubacher determines that he's basically

a victim of the three strikes law he was

caught trying to escape from a

reformatory school with his twin brother

and his brother was hit by a train quote

that's what the paperwork says

bolin explains that his brother was

actually shot and placed on the track so

it looked like he got hit by the train

he got by a train full of bullets yeah

he got hit by the bullet train

after that he got arrested for stealing

a 65 pontiac sedan

so that was his first technical felony

and he got two years for that

then he was arrested for stealing a 69

pontiac convertible

so those were his first two felonies and

then he was collected a third time

for a misdemeanor vagrancy which

wouldn't have counted against the three

strikes law

but that night he was in a drunk tank

with six other prisoners

and one of them broke the toilet so they

gave him that charge

which is a felony for destruction of

city property over fifty dollars

which means he gets life in prison

that's how the three strikes law works

three felonies doesn't matter which ones

you get life in prison so there's lots

of murderers in here with him that are

going to get out

soon and he has to stay in here forever

because he stole two cars and broke a

toilet

and he didn't even break the toilet

brubaker promotes him to trustee in

charge of the motor pool since he seems

to like driving so much

that night combs the office kodo

character

sits with brubacher and gives him the

rundown on some of the other trustees

one of them seems to be spying on

brubaker from his watchtower right now

combs explains that that guy is a forger

and brubaker says

we should replace all the tower men with

one-time killers not habitual criminals

because they're less likely to reoffend

having gotten it out of their system

than people who are in here for repeat

offenses

while they're speaking a call comes

through that the rank barracks roof has

collapsed

in the storm and there's a lot of

injured men they've all been crushed by

falling debris we see

more footage like the spike through the

hand of big chunks of wood stabbed

through people's chests and backs

because this whole ceiling just

collapsed in on them they kill the power

to the building

and use flashlights to prevent death by

electrocution in this big wet pile of

people

later in the hospital in quotes again

hospital brubacher argues with

the local large hospital about wait

times for ambulances they're telling him

that they can't send

any ambulances right now but that the

next hospital down the way can

even though they're only 20 miles away

and it's gonna be an hour

apparently before any of these men get

picked up

i said i can't afford no more shut up

what did he say

nothing mr baker i can't afford no more

shut up because it turns out this doctor

is charging people for his care

even though he's an employee of the

state and it's supposed to be helping

these people

as a requirement of the prison so

brubaker grabs him by his collar and

throws him out into the rain

and puts another prisoner in charge of

all the patients because he seems to

know

what to do he has some vague idea of how

blood works

and how uh cuts are supposed to be

covered and taken care of

the next day brubaker mentions something

about missing food

he just kind of says it in passing as

they're walking down the hallway so

something about missing chili

specifically yeah he's talking to to

willets and he's

like trying to run the math on how much

food they're supposed to be getting and

how much food they're actually like

consuming

yeah and the numbers aren't matching up

because of his experience

as an inmate brief as it was he went

through the cafeteria line and they were

running out of food

for people which they're not supposed to

do so he puts purcell on the case

and uh he also says he needs to buy a

[ __ ] ton of shoes

and purcell's putting up a fight

immediately because he's like i i can't

just get

like it a random swath of shoe sizes

like i need to know exactly how many

but then when brubaker gets to his

office he finds

cp woody woodward the carpenter from

earlier in his office with a chocolate

prune cake

in hand and he's very quick to explain i

hate brooms

they cloud my mind woody is here because

he heard about the roof

apparently purcell gave him a heads up

and he

just slides a contract across

brubacher's desk frame to sign

to fix the hole and brubacher's not

stupid he's already looked over the

paperwork and he sees that it was built

two years ago

by woody and he demands that he rebuild

it for free now the way that he should

have before

and he says well hold on now we gotta

talk about this and he says well you

guarantee your work don't you

and what he says well of course i do but

you gotta learn to deal with these

things you can't sit around complaining

and he says

i'm not complaining are you sure sounds

like it

woody gets up and walks around behind

him and closes the door and he reminds

brubaker that

he also hasn't been getting much help

from the prison lately because he's

supposed to be getting

all this free labor from prisoners and

brew points out well that's slave labor

and we're not going to do that anymore

he points to the the prune cake

and he says you gotta understand the

point whether you like prunes

it's the thought that counts you just

gotta accept it keep your mouth shut

and let things run the way they've run

for 100 years brubaker tells him not to

expect

any slave labor from the prison and to

leave and to take this

shitty cake with him on the way out

woody

sorry the prune yeah

take this [ __ ] cake with you take the

[ __ ] cake

on the way out woody asks purcell whose

team he's on

and reminds him that this warden will

probably be fired very soon

but you'll still be here at the prison

and i can get back at you

when the next warden's here brubaker

gets a call from lillian

sitting in what looks like the oval

office i think she's the president

because she's like the governor's aide

or something like that yeah but she's

got a nice office whatever it is

i was actually assuming that it was

actually she was much like when she was

using brubacher's office she's just

sitting at his desk yeah she's just

sitting at the governor's desk

maybe that's what's going on she's

already gotten word that he threw woody

out

she tells him that was a bad idea you're

stepping on a lot of toes and

while they speak brubacher is basically

training a gun on a rat that's crawling

through his office

i was really hoping he would shoot it in

this scene but he doesn't he just kind

of

draws a beat on it and follows it to a

hole and then it disappears

brubaker the next day cuts in line at

the cafeteria insists on eating with the

inmates but as a show of solidarity i

feel like he should have waited in line

to make the point better

yeah he just cuts in front of everybody

but he's also not the only one who's

eating there because willis is in there

too and he's a state employee like

right there it seems like everyone's

eating together including the trustees

which when he was an inmate the trustees

had their own table

right inside the kitchen yeah but now

that everyone's eating outside

coombs seems pissed off about it but

he's kind of impressed to see

that uh that brubaker actually sat down

out there with all the inmates to eat

later in the day out in the fields

brubacher finds the uh

corn crops smell like kerosene yeah he

determines that someone's dumping

kerosene on them to affect the yield of

the

of their field is that a thing i mean i

guess

just contaminating the soil of any kind

yeah

i thought that someone was going to

light it on fire that's kind of what i

was good and just hadn't gotten around

to it yet yeah that's possible

but yeah like a whole i guess

everything's just contaminated now but

somehow in the same scene he notices the

this truck pulling away as it's leaving

it seems to

shoot at one of the cows in the field

also

and uh not the livestock yeah he hops in

another vehicle and they follow it out

to

the the cow first and uh he inspects the

cow and sees that it's been shot in the

head

and that whoever's here trying to to

kill the crops is also killing the

animals

and they follow the road down to almost

the prison property line

where there's a small house built and

purcell and coombs pretend not to have

any idea what's going on but it's very

obvious that they know exactly what's

happening yeah like when he goes to

knock on the doors like whoever's in

there yeah

that was so obnoxious it made me angry

brubaker gets out and

as he's like sneaking up to approach on

the building you hear you hear purcell

shout

i don't know who's in there and i don't

know what you're up to but we got the

new warden from the prison out here

we're probably coming in

and uh it's obviously just to warn

whoever's in here of the situation

we hear inside a woman say i'm not gonna

hide in here like some animal

and she answers the door and it's the

woman from the diner

apparently she lives here with the guard

either she was visiting or she actually

lives here with him

no i i think she was visiting because

this is where huey ranch

lives yes this is his home away from

home uh

complete with tv and and a lot of chili

yeah she steps back into the house to

drag him to the door because he doesn't

want to come to the door

and brew just follows her in like

without asking because

it's all prison property like this house

shouldn't be here yeah

and and was she she she had a top on she

did

and then she takes it back off yeah when

he gets into the room where the two of

them are arguing she's topless again

i think she was like switching her shirt

or something but uh

she turns to face him with her tits out

and brubacher's just standing there

staring like unapologetically like nope

this is fine this is fine with me the

guy's like put those away

basically like tells her to cover

herself up because he doesn't like this

guy getting a look at his girlfriend

he doesn't respond to anything that huey

says

he's just kind of walking around the

house noticing things that have been

stolen from the prison

i i like that that he's like adjusting

the picture quality of the tv trying to

get the color balance right

he's like looking through the

refrigerator and huey's like oh you want

me to get you a beer

and he's just like this is all my stuff

that you're offering me like this

belongs to the prison this doesn't

belong to you

plus i don't think prisoners get beer

this guy does well he does he gets it

free

yeah he's gonna say he picks it up when

he drops off the meat yeah no but i mean

like what you were saying pat that this

was supposed to get delivered to the

prison right yeah but he's he's the cow

that he shot i'm assuming he was

actually going to chop up and take back

to the diner

he did owe them another owed them some

more

some more meat steers that was the unit

of measurement the diner guy was using

one steer but equal to

i don't know i i never learned the

metric system

but yeah he uh while he's looking at

this television hue he's like that's my

own private property

and he just yanks it out of the wall and

carries it back out to the truck and

puts it in the back

without speaking a word to huey they go

and bust open the

this locked shed to find all the stolen

chile that he was complaining about and

purcell immediately tries to transfer

blame to the warden who is no longer

here

he's like that'd be warden renfro's

monthly supply i imagine

man took bears and that stuff

and uh brubaker's not buying it

like that's the best one why that's all

he had

he's definitely the worst liar of all

the trustees brubaker argues with

the prison accountant will it well it's

yeah who's in charge of all the purchase

orders

and he says you signed off on all these

purchases

and you knew where they were you were

supposed to keep like track of where the

stuff went and the inventory

and he says well look i just did

whatever the warden told me to i was

just

basically he tries to i was just

following orders excuse

and it's promptly fired he tries to lean

on his status as a civil servant

to defend him but brubacher don't care

you're fired get out

purcell complains aloud that the

purchases will be much harder without

willets here

and brubaker says they're gonna do it

referring to the prisoners

he says they're gonna have an election

and they're gonna pick an inmate council

and they'll be in charge of making all

the purchase orders

purcell responds under his breath that's

a hell of an idea

and when forced to repeat himself he

changes the intonation to make it sound

complimentary

that's a hell of an idea everybody

laughs at the

guard huey when he comes back to the

trustee compound

apparently evicted from his unlawful

house on the prison grounds

and that night they burned the illegal

home to the ground yeah

which is exactly what i wanted like as

soon as they show this house i was like

that house should not be here i was like

as soon as they cut open that shed and

found all the chilies like they should

just burn this place to the ground

and they did it that night i loved it i

was so happy yeah so they they just

bring a bunch of torches out there

and one of the trustees is like maybe we

should do this during the day it'd be a

little more covert

and bolin's like yeah that's probably

why we're doing it at night

to make an example of this later the

trustees all worry that

for sure he's going to get killed for

this or for something that he does soon

he's not long for this prison lillian

gray pays him a visit the next day

and she condescends to him a lot in the

name of compromise she warns him not to

step on any toes

that he's not going to get anything done

for these prisoners if he won't go along

with some of what they want from him

a crowd of onlookers swarmed the prison

yard to watch brubacher and the

prisoners compete in a game of polo

on horseback they all seem to be having

fun and

very dangerous yeah like they're falling

off the horses and just being surrounded

by these

like galloping horses all around them

and brubaker even pulls one of them off

the horse they're

in the middle of the game but uh combs

eventually points out you know i haven't

heard these men laugh like that in years

he's like doesn't bother you does it uh

we get a quick montage of

various prisoners campaigning to join

the inmate council

and uh the selected council meets just

outside brubaker's office

they're waiting for him to sit down with

them but he invites them to start

without him because

he wants them to make decisions on their

own larry lee bolin insults the coffee

they've been

provided with caldwell this uh tall

he kind of looks like a russian

character i i don't know

like he doesn't talk much so we don't

really get a good feel for the guy with

the guy with the knit cap

yeah yeah oh everett mcgill

yeah i said his name that's the actor's

name i don't know the actor oh no

what's he from he's from twin peaks uh

people under the stairs

okay i've seen people under the stairs i

haven't seen twin peaks yet i think it

just looks like

uh jack nicholson and cuckoo's nest i

thought he looked silly and murphy-ish

yeah yes you're right he looks more like

him but uh

he's in a knit cap and he's and he's

basically just insulting what they're

doing and says it's a big waste of time

and brubaker invites him to resign from

his position

but eventually the council starts making

some preparations to fix the plumbing in

the barracks

brubaker tries some of the coffee and

looks disgusted immediately

i like that oh guys he's like no you're

right it is bad

it's like this coffee tastes like [ __ ]

basil it is [ __ ] austin

but it's not just me then uh this dual

sample

abraham shows up again in the middle of

this meeting trying to speak with

brubaker

and purcell tries to pull him away and

coombs is like don't you touch him

and then he's like thank you anyway i

have to talk to the warden and he's like

okay get him out of here yeah

he doesn't need to talk he's just

kidding get him out of here

and so they try and shove them away but

brubaker's like come in come into my

office while they have this meeting

all the bad guys around this table uh

namely caldwell

the joe spinelle character and even

combs here

is like terrified of what abraham is

saying to brubaker in the office

they're just trying to read lips

basically because i can't totally hear

what's going on

in this conversation he learns a few

very interesting things from abraham

one his eye is screwed up because he got

hit with a bat

and chain and rope hard enough to screw

up his face

he's been serving 38 years of a 35-year

sentence

and some number of years ago somewhere

around 30

he was in charge of making coffins for a

about 200 prisoners who were buried here

on the grounds illegally

abraham kind of mumbles to himself while

brubacher accepts a call

he says something along the lines of the

odd man say abraham

chop him up and turn the little pieces

and take him for a walk down on them

he tells him that he was asked to bury

200 coffins along a fence somewhere in

the field

and that he built the coffins himself

that's how he knows it happened

caldwell and joe spinell bust into the

office and unfortunately brubaker

decides

now to say will you show me exactly

where tomorrow morning

which is unfortunate brubaker starts to

drive away from the prison

to meet with some of the other prison

board staff when

coombs urges brubaker not to release abe

to just keep him in prison beyond at the

end of his sentence because

he can't function outside the prison but

after brubaker leaves purcell

takes abe walks into caldwell and spinel

and they proceed to torture him they

wrap his toes in stripped wire

and wind up a generator to electrocute

him then we cut back to the meeting with

the prison board

where diech this squinty-eyed jerk guy

the mayor from jazz yeah and he's

playing basically the exact same guy

yeah

here and uh he's complaining

that the crop yield is down 40 percent

since brubaker took over

in effect admitting that he entrusted

huey with the mission of drenching the

kerosene crops and uh giving them a

financial reason to fire brubacher

brubaker says if you give me a year i

can promise you a surplus

of potentially 150 000 and they're like

oh that's great

well all we'll all we'll need to do is

figure out where we're going to spend it

over at wall street to like get the best

return

and he says well no i think we should

recycle it into the facility

and dj's smile very quickly fades he's

not interested in this plan

see this is where you would i know

brubaker don't compromise

yeah that's where he would compromise

was like yeah you get some and the

prison would get some

sure this is this is a mutually

beneficial compromise with these people

because they're not going to compromise

with you that's the whole point is that

they're just going to kill you if they

get the chance

so they need a new boiler another board

member points out that that purchase has

already been approved and he says

how come nobody in your office will

answer any of my calls i need the money

to actually make the purchase

and they claim to be working on it

brubaker is reprimanded for canceling

woody's age-old contract

but there was never actually a contract

it was just an agreement for slave labor

and he's then taken to task for

assaulting the doctor

and firing a state employee deech

accuses brubacher of liking the men

because they're reckless like he is and

it just

makes me so angry i and i i think he

also the implication is

it was being a homophobic yeah mark so

lillian agrees that the men are to be

treated like humans that brubaker is not

wrong that

it's their responsibility as the people

running the prison to make sure that

these people are treated properly

and the board jokes about a bunch of

luxury items they might as well add oh

why don't we give them all a bubble bath

and why don't we give them all this

great stuff and then brubacher says

maybe a roof that won't collapse on

their heads and kill them

and dj's patience basically runs out

with this comment and he's like that's

enough

and brubacher says you know that roof

wasn't insured you know we have this

whole laundry list of farming equipment

that is

and for some reason deache is very quick

to admit that he personally approved all

of those insurance policies

and they he thought they were very

sensible but brubacher then explains

that not only did his own company sell

the policies to the prison

but the prison doesn't have any of that

equipment which teach must have known or

else why would he sell those insurance

policies

like the whole point of selling the

insurance policy is that you know that

the thing isn't there

so why would you say i personally signed

off on those to just

completely condemn yourself but nobody

here cares anyway

brubaker is the only person who cares at

this table so

he basically stands up and says i have i

have more important things to do

than sit here and argue with you people

so he gets up to leave and lilian

follows him out

and tells him again you know you need to

play ball with these people if you want

to make any kind of meaningful progress

and she follows him out into the parking

lot where he thinks for a second that he

locked his keys in the car

well he did but well they're not locked

in they're just in the car

because she gets in from the opposite

side i'm not sure what the implication

of

like what what is the metaphor of that

like is she smarter than him

because i don't think i think that that

he's

seeing an obstacle of which he thinks

that there's no way around and she's

trying to show him like

look there are other ways of doing

things you you're not thinking

things through you're not looking at the

whole picture but i but i think it

conflicts with the message of the film

later which is that you shouldn't

compromise like that's the message

i don't i don't know if that's the case

at all i don't i don't think that's true

i think if i i think that richard's

right here where if you had taken the

opportunity to maybe find some

opportunities to compromise

you could have stayed in this prison

longer and made more of a difference

longer

i don't get that message from it but

we'll get there more later

back at his living quarters on the

prison grounds brubaker falls asleep

drinking on his porch in the morning he

notices a corpse dangling from a nearby

flagpole

from underneath he confirms this is

abraham dead before he can point

brubaker to the burying grounds

and he immediately starts to untie the

body which he should not do

he shouldn't touch this rope but

presumably he unties him and lowers him

all the way to the ground

and then he gets into his office furious

and he finds that all the torture

equipment just piled up on his desk

and coombs enters and basically blames

brubaker for what happened

not the people who did it but brubacher

and coombs seems to regret the comment

as soon as he makes it because as he's

walking out of the office someone else

goes in to talk to him he's like just

give him some time he need he deserves

to

sit for a second without people

interrupting him combs watches through

the window into brubacher's office as he

picks up the

wires from the torture equipment and

tests it on himself

to try and feel some of what abraham

went through

again contaminating evidence in a murder

case yeah the moment he touched it was

like

like you leave it on the desk it's like

i'm just gonna dust this for prince and

i'll know immediately

yeah who did this because he's got

fingerprints of everyone

on file because it's a prison but uh he

tests it on himself and surprisingly it

hurts him brubacher puts everyone to

work digging

in search of these graves lillian gray

calls him immediately to stop

because he's stepping on much bigger

toes than he realizes now

he agrees to meet her privately at the

fairgrounds at seven

and when he gets there she's waiting

with another member from the board

and a state senator from the earlier

meeting shows up

the senator basically offers to release

a bunch of new funds

that would allow for the hiring of more

employees and to take better care of the

prisoners

and brubaker says how many bodies are

buried there senator the senator reminds

him that the field was a popper's field

before it was a prison

and that grave robbing is a felony so

you don't want to end up in your own

prison

basically if you start digging up bodies

we're going to charge you with digging

up bodies

so yeah and i thought what this was

going to go was that the senator was

saying

that there are bodies but they're

not not prisoners oh okay and that's

much worse

yeah and so i thought for sure later on

you know getting into that but

with that the bodies that they do find

spoiler alert uh we're gonna have prison

uniforms

oh okay and it'd be like you these

poppers wore prison uniforms yeah

that doesn't happen he keeps talking

about how he's gonna go further and

further up the line eventually getting

to the governor's office and they all

admit

the governor knows all about this you

wouldn't be telling him anything new

and he's hoping to cover it up just like

we are lillian doesn't a senator outrank

the governor

a state senator though not he's not like

in the senate

he's a state senator oh gosh yeah

i thought he was the state's senator

he's a state senator

but not of the two of the the body of

the senate in that state

got it there they should just have a

different word for that

i'm tired of trying to explain the

difference uh in these podcasts where we

keep running it's like

is this a state senator or a senator for

the state if it's a ship or a boat

yeah if you can put a senator on a state

senator

lillian tells him that this is his

chance to ask for more that he finally

has leverage over them

which is naive [ __ ] because he

doesn't have any leverage at all

he goes back to digging and brubacher

notices something in the grass near the

fence maybe uneven ground

not entirely clear he seems to have

forgotten that abraham did help tell him

specifically that they were buried along

a fence

so he brings a bunch of men to dig there

and hours later just as the rain starts

coming down pretty hard they find

several coffins all in a row i think

four total here

the trustees are arguing about it floyd

the joe spinell character thinks that

the prison board will stop him even

though he's already found

four bodies so the prison board is

obviously too late to stop this

particular

uh discovery huey

starts complaining that it's basically

abraham's fault

for saying anything and combs loses it

on him

he busts open a pool cue like he's gonna

stab him he he does this

amazing series of moves where he gets up

out of his chair

kicks it back grabs the pull kill slams

it down and then

flips a table like just a position and

like to make sure

the whole area is clear between the two

of them and he gets right up to him with

the pool cue but then

he comes to his senses and he's like i

don't need to kill somebody while i'm in

prison i probably have an end date

i'm going to get out eventually there's

no reason to stab this guy to death

right here he's not worth it

but i like and i thought for sure like

hugh ross was going to like scoff it off

but he immediately goes he's terrified

yeah he immediately goes into his room

and calls eddie's like

can i talk to you but yeah he's like

first he's like well hold on now

that's not really what i meant but yeah

combs

and another trustee pull up to where

brubacher's trying to deal with these

coffins

and they say hey huey just left he took

a truck and he drove off

and he's probably hiding out probably at

that diner they tell him yeah uh i

wanted to go back to something real

quick

sure ranch is asking eddie the the nit

cap guy

to come with him oh right yeah and he's

like no

i'm not doing that yeah and i thought

this was going to pay off a little bit

like that eddie was going to be like

eddie was coming around

like no i want to see how this plays out

i do think the implication here is that

he's starting to see brubacher's side of

it a little more

and he feels like he's being treated

more like a human and he's willing to

give him the benefit of the doubt

but uh you're right it doesn't it

doesn't extend beyond the because

but i mean it still doesn't excuse what

he did to abraham

no not at all but and purcell too

purcell was part of that and

combs was part of that too in in as much

as

he was not letting this information get

out yeah and he wanted to keep

abraham there they're all complicit

partially

what is in it for them to keep the

bodies a secret

what's in it for anyone to reveal or

keep the bodies a secret

well as i'm saying like who cares if

they find the body it just shows that

yeah

someone buried these prisoners 30 years

ago but

they just know that but they know how

the system works here they right

they know that there's a high

probability that this prison board is

going to find a way to put it back on

the prisoners like well

you guys killed a bunch of prisoners

well this happened 30 years ago though

it wouldn't have been them

but i think more likely it's just i know

that

the governor doesn't want these bodies

found and it's hell for me

if the governor's mad so let's just keep

everything hunky-dory and make

everything nice it's the same problem

that lillian has

which is let's just be complicit in

these terrible crimes that are happening

and uh maybe things will be slightly

better for us so all these people are

guilty by association basically

brubacher takes

coombs and does he bring coombs or does

he bring he brings larry lee

is it just him and larry lee by

themselves no no they they split up into

different groups

because they're they're trying to figure

out where huey raunch has gone

in multiple vehicles yeah but larry lee

and

brubaker take the truck yeah and the

diner to the diner yeah

larry lee says he's gonna go around back

in case anyone tries to come out of the

living quarters

and brubaker goes in through the diner

and he talks to

the guy that runs the diner and he tells

them to stay out

they're not open yet he doesn't know

where huey is or where his sister is and

what he's talking about

he says what about through this door

what's through this door he says that's

my house but that door doesn't

work uh no one's ever gone through there

in a long time so don't even

bother with it it's like what do you you

just said your house is through here

what do you mean the door doesn't work

like yeah the door doesn't open so he

moves the

escalator temporarily stairs yeah and he

says uh

he says you know i ought to call the

police and he's like okay call the

police but for now

shut up and he pushes through into the

into the home

he gets to close to the bedroom where

huey is actually hiding there with

carol he's basically using carol as a

human shield

as he moves slowly through the house and

he notices larry lee outside

and he opens a door to the front area

where larry lee is waiting

and he throws carol down to him to

distract him

and while larry is trying to catch her

he shoots

larry in the chest basically yeah i in

he just as easily it could have shot

carol he didn't

have much care who is who he was going

to hit

yeah and brubaker hears these shots

being fired and immediately shoots at

huey

who tries to return fire and ends up

like hitting his own counter

like stuff on his own counter that's

exploding in carol's counter in the

kitchen

he shoots huey and huey gets blasted

through the window out into the yard

so him and larry lee are both dead and

carol's just sobbing in the corner

because she's traumatized by everything

that just happened who would have not

this would happen if i dated a criminal

yeah who's literally still in prison

yeah

and i sometimes go have sex with him at

the prison

in our in our secret illegal house

i didn't think this through back of the

prison the board

are getting testimony from a quote

unquote doctor

that they paid for information on these

coffins that have been dug up

and he says you know we have a saying in

in doctor school and that is that you

can't tell how long a

body has been dead ever so who knows

and brubaker shows up in the middle of

this nonsense testimony

they're like he's literally suggesting

oh well maybe the

maybe the people were dead before they

were chopped up and they were

and they they were killed in some sort

of a collapse like if the coffins

collapsed and the bodies were broken

it's like

that doesn't make any sense what you

talk about doesn't make any sense then

they're like oh well it's a popper's

grave and it's like

poppers don't die in pieces though

none of what you're saying makes sense

and brubacher shows up in the middle of

this nonsense

they ask him what his priorities are and

he says well

he suggests basically the cost-cutting

measure of just shooting

inmates behind the courthouse when

they're sentenced to come here

and the board does not like his tone and

he just turns around to leave

and again lillian follows him out of the

room and insists everyone else wait

behind

and they start the same argument that

they had before anew and she tries again

to explain herself

eventually frustratingly just shouting

god damn it i

agree with you and he replies no you

don't not really

and we cut immediately to a new warden

introducing himself to the prisoners

as brubaker's leaving the prison and

combs sees him walking out

and he walks away from his formation the

trustees are all supposed to be lined up

at the gate

to tell brubaker that he was right all

along and brubaker is like almost in

tears to get this

information from combs because he cares

what combs thinks

and he's trying to do what's right and

the entire prison yard goes into the

most

epic slow clap i've ever seen in

anything

as brubaker's driven out of the prison

and their lives

a quick epilogue of text explains that

two years after henry brubaker was fired

24 inmates

led by richard dickie combs brought suit

against wakefield prison

and that the court decided that the

treatment of prisoners at wakefield

was unconstitutional and ordered that

the prison be reformed or closed

the governor was not re-elected the

undercover boss plot

of the original story was made up but it

has been suggested that this plot device

was inspired by sing-sing prison warden

thomas mott osborne

who in 1913 under an assumed name had

himself committed to

new york's auburn state penitentiary to

see what

how the prisoners were being treated but

that's uh that's where we end the film

it's it's very bittersweet i was really

hoping

for because nothing's really changed

yeah like he he affected the prisoners

lives

i mean in the long run according to the

epilogue something was changed yeah

but again and i guess he gave coombs the

courage

yeah to stand up to the system he

reminded them that they're people and

that they have rights that they can

fight for

yeah i was hoping for something some

kind of button like

uh not that that's not that about i mean

like uh some

i really like muppens and i don't like

it when people don't get them

yeah and i was hoping nobody gets it in

this movie yeah that's realistic though

yeah i know but i was hoping that's sad

i was hoping the new warden we can't

even get comeuppance in our movies

yeah i i was hoping the new warden would

say something like the well i'm putting

an end to the trustee system and then

you would just see all the trustees go

oh crap

like we now we've stepped on our own

toes but i feel like

according to brubaker's belief system

lillian grays

is half as bad as everyone else at the

table because she's willing to play

along with their game

and that if no one was willing to play

along with their game they wouldn't get

as far as they do

yeah that's true but everyone's in it

for themselves right

and that's the problem but i don't see

how she was right about anything

like none of her strategies would have

worked in the long run

like when she thinks that they have

leverage over the it's like if you dig

up

those bodies then uh then they're going

to be screwed so they don't want you to

do that and it's like

then he dug up the bodies and nobody

cared why what did she think was going

to happen

by hiring brubacher did she hire him i

don't know who hired him

the governor picked him yeah but the

governor knows about the bodies too so

well i think they picked him without

knowing he was going to be doing this

radically different from the way it's

been done now but wasn't that what he

was brought in to do

to prison reform yeah but i think that

they brought him in to do

her version of prison reform and that

didn't go that way

yeah the compromise version yeah where

it's like

we'll give you one extra pickle a month

and then you can die and we'll just kill

you indiscriminately and bury you in our

own prison

this movie was intensely frustrating to

watch the guy playing deach is doing a

hell of a job though because i wanted to

murder him the whole time yeah murray

hamilton and again the mayor from jaws

yeah it never compared me to the jaws

mayor

never uh but i feel bad that murray

hamilton

like gets kind of placed into these kind

of roles

yeah uh he's kind of reminds me of how

holbrook how holbrook

oftentimes is is the bad guy hal

holbrook is the good guy as often as

he's the bad guy though

you think i think he was a good guy in

fog and a fog

i think he was the one who was trying to

like make up for the mistakes of his

ancestors

i feel like he plays a nice guy in a lot

of stuff i've seen i actually don't

think i see him as a bad guy very often

like dirty harry

and capricorn one i named two things

but anyway the director here was stuart

rosenberg

he did another prison movie called cool

hand luke if you've heard of it he also

directed the first amityville horror

movie

writer wd richter is a badass he wrote

the 1978 invasion of the body snatchers

which is the best version and it's just

a phenomenal film

and he also wrote a little movie called

big trouble in little china

the story by arthur a ross who co-wrote

the creature from the black lagoon

so he's like old school writer but he

wrote the one that was not fictional

that was adapted

into wd richter's story it was like

there was an actual creature from the

black licorice yes

that's a true story you didn't know that

that's why the shape of water is a

documentary yeah

that's the one that w d ricker adapted

from the true story the uncredited story

credit

and nine days worth of directing were

the work of bob rafelson

who directed five easy pieces ahead the

monkeys movie

which he co-wrote with jack nicholson

the postman always rings twice so that's

three jack nicholson projects

producer here was ron silverman ron

silverman produced krull he produced

shoot to kill

and he was the grandfather of guest host

robert lininger who was in our friday

the 13th episode

robert redford was henry brubacher here

he's the sundance kid

he also founded the sundance film

festival he's in all the president's men

i think maybe emmett walsh's character

is a reference to

woodward from all the president's men he

plays alexander pierce and the mcu

he also directed 1980s best picture

winner ordinary people which we'll be

getting too soon

yafet koto was richard dickie combs he's

parker from alien

he plays kananga and live and let die

that's where he gets hit with the

inflatable bullet

yeah and he just floats away i like

i love him in he's also really good in a

midnight run

oh yes where he's the the fbi agent

who's on their tail

yeah he's great jane alexander was lily

and gray here she was nurse

edna in the cider house rules she's uh

dr grasnick

in the america version of the ring

and she plays margaret phelps and kramer

vs kramer which i think is the other

mother who they're friends with who's at

the park when

uh the kid gets hurt and then shows up

as a character witness in court

saying like oh well the kid got hurt and

i was there and i saw it happen

she's in that movie murray hamilton john

deech we already mentioned before he's

vaughn

and jaws he's also mr robinson and the

graduate also with dustin hoffman

david keith was larry lee bullen he

played andy mcgee and fire starter

yeah he's sid warley in an officer and a

gentleman

and he plays major cunanan in u571 which

has some incredible sound design

oh i really like that movie glad i saw

that one in the theaters yes that's a

theater movie for sure

morgan freeman was walter the death row

inmate he has a weirdly small role in

this movie he doesn't really show up

after this is his first movie or one of

his first

um it's one of his first it's not his

first i did see in the imdb trivia

called it his first credited role but

it's not

he had other feature roles before that

he obviously

he also hosted the electric company for

a decade before this

he's in shawshank bruce almighty seven

he's lucius fox in the chris nolan

batman trilogy

matt clark here was roy purcell he plays

chester the bartender and back to the

future three

he's the secretary of defense in

buckaroo bonsai and he plays uncle henry

in return to oz

richard ward was abraham cook he's the

dad from the jerk

and unfortunately he passed away before

this film was released he actually died

shortly after production

in 1979 emma walsh was cp woody woodward

he plays harv and critters

he's dr dolan and fletch he's detective

visser and blood simple

yeah that's one of his he gets the most

to do there

he's great albert salmi was rory polk

that's the new guy that's taking over as

the warden at the end of the film

he plays mr noonan danny noonan's father

and caddyshack later this year

he's also credited as e1 in escape from

planet of the apes

i don't know what that is yeah i know

the movie really well

but i don't know who or what e one is

are there a lot of humans in that movie

or no yeah in escape

yeah yes uh in escape there it's mostly

humans there are only three apes

yeah because i would have guessed that

e1 was like a code name given to a

prisoner

yeah an escapee yes escape e1 or

something like that

yeah don't not familiar with that one

i've only seen the first plan of the

apes movie and then the newer trilogy

and he was also greel in dragon slayer

which is coming out next year yeah joe

spinell was

floyd birdwell uh we just saw him in

cruising the ninth configuration and

forbidden zone before this

and he'll be back for melvin and howard

and the first deadly sin

and i think another one the little

dragons

um and then maniac next year so busy guy

nathan george was leon edwards that was

one of the guys on the prison board

he played washington and one flew over

the cuckoo's nest i think he's one of

the patients

and uh he was patrolman james in pelham

one two three

uh don blakely was jerome boyd here he

played abby in defiance

and he played wilson's trainer in pulp

fiction

that's the guy that bruce willis kills

in the ring

noble willingham was dr fenster that was

general taylor in good morning vietnam

he plays clay stone in city slickers and

he plays this is a great name

and he was also zebulon cardoza in the

hudsucker proxy the coen brothers are

really good with names

yeah what did you say noble willingham

is already a great name

yeah yeah but it's fine on its own but

it's zebulon cardoza

it's amazing uh i like him in ace

ventura where he plays the manager of

the miami dolphins who's

courtney cox is like it's like i don't

give a god damn about that fish

fillet and fast food if you want it

is that when he's like crawling around

in the tank trying to look for clues

no no no it's he's like he's yelling at

courtney cox

and uh uh the other guy

and he goes like [ __ ] you know how

superstitious these players

are and the guy looks down at his key

chain with the rabbit's foot on it he

tries to

cover it we also on the on the

prison board have wilford brimley which

i felt like

he's a pretty big name to play such like

an anonymous character on this board

maybe it was just at the time

but yeah i mean i don't think he was as

big of a name at this point because even

in china syndrome which was the year

before that's true it's very good i

never miss an opportunity to bring up

the china syndrome

we've noticed but yeah he's he's great

on this as just one of the grumpier

board members who's like

helping jump into the fight with uh deej

about how

brubaker is just in love with all the

prisoners and

they deserve you know hot tubs and stuff

what do you think he's most known from

because to me

he's most known for insurance

commercials it's diabetes

diabetes commercial that's it not quaker

oats i go to quaker oats

i think most people quickly grow

commercials too i think it's just

because of the way he says diabetes

diabetes diabetes that people

remember him for that specifically but

not like you don't go to the thing

for acting i go to the thing but for

real life

i always think of those diabetes um i go

to the natural

another robert redford yeah robert

redford

i'm talking like wolverine now sorry uh

or ben luckett in cocoon

yes it's probably second to the thing

for me um

but he's also uh dr blair as the thing

character

uh ben luckett and cocoon pop fisher

in the natural with rev erdfert four

years later

and uh he'll be back in borderline later

this year

and then we had jc quinn was one of the

barbers in the early

haircutting scene he was sonny dawson in

the abyss

he's duncan in maximum overdrive and

he'll be back later this year in gloria

and times square

so we'll see more of him jerry mayer was

the other barber

and he played professor milstein in

simon

which i'm assuming that's just someone

else from the school that they stole him

from at the beginning of the movie

yeah rob garrison played pretty boy

that's one of the inmates

he's tommy in karate kids one two and

the cobra kai series that's on youtube

right now he's the guy who says

put him in a body bag yeah in the

final thing he was really young on this

yeah he's also

sayer in prom night later this year and

he plays a cop in a macgyver episode

that's

i'm pretty sure that's birthday um he's

one of the ones that recognizes the

flags

oh yeah sailing flags as being a symbol

of uh distress

the semaphore flags sure there you go

yeah so semaphore is a different the

snowfall is when you're making like

pinafore is a ship right

yeah this was a i enjoyed this movie um

it's very frustrating

it's like it's like one of those

frustration comedies with ben stiller

but instead of just not wanting his

in-laws to hate him

it's about a guy trying to save a bunch

of people's lives from

the inherent racism and justice problems

in the south in the prisons yeah i want

to give this one a thumbs up

it just it's not it's not one of those

real uplifting movies because

you're like wow we're 40 years later and

things aren't really any better

yeah but you can't give it a thumbs down

just because it's depressing

it has to be because it was a bad movie

oh i know i'm still gonna give it a

thumbs up i'm just saying

i i don't know that i'll be watching it

again anytime real soon

i'm not in a rush too either it's it's

very depressing but

uh i thought it was pretty accurate i

thought the characters all worked out

pretty well

it's a thumbs up from me for sure

richard uh i also

give it a thumbs up i'm not super crazy

about this movie yeah but

i was engaged i did watch it and i

wasn't like at

any point was like sighing or checking

my watch i was just like

all right you know this is this is a

movie and it checks all the boxes of a

prison movie where it's like

everything's totally unfair there's

local people that are making a bunch of

money

and escape attempts escape attempts and

at least one prisoner is killed

that's a requirement you have it in

shawshank and

cool hand luke and all over the place

ever they all have the same

moments that you have to get to but i

think this one's just as capably written

and directed as

otherwise it's a very capably made movie

it looks really nice it's very well

shot yeah so thumbs up all right i

am going to start us here i'm putting

this just below last married couple and

just above the mountain men

that's where it's going on mine uh for

me i am actually going to put this just

above knight of the juggler okay and

just below tom horn all right

i'm going just below the mountain men

and just above blues brothers

all right there you go i believe that's

everything for this one

if you guys have any thoughts you'd like

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can find each of our full movie rankings

for the year

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here's a shout out to aaron at the new

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thanks for the kind words in your itunes

review we hope you continue to enjoy the

show thank you so much for listening

and i hope you'll join us next time when

we'll be discussing can't stop the music

which imdb calls a

pseudo-autobiographical story of disco's

the village people