0:00

I'm a fish boy

0:02

who skates with team

0:04

X blades with a

0:07

leprechaun Who plays basketball,

0:09

come to my smart

0:11

house We buy alien

0:14

system, come hungry Because

0:16

I'll bet my mum

0:19

can't cook Hello

0:24

everyone and welcome to Mum Can't Cook a Decom Podcast I

0:26

am one of your hosts Andy and Luke, you will not

0:28

believe the night I've had I went on a date with

0:31

the president's daughter Who I guess is

0:35

Ashley Biden Sure

0:38

and we had all kinds of wacky

0:40

adventures We drove all over town Andy

0:45

stop Cease your whimsy I'm

0:48

not the secret service for following Cease

0:51

your whimsy, I hear what you're doing

0:53

With the carnival I hear what you're

0:55

doing with the free form Cold, open,

0:57

improv Normally it's very charming But

0:59

then we get to the end of a two hour

1:01

episode of Mum Can't Cook And we realise we forgot

1:04

to talk about the Patreon With our bonus feeds and

1:06

no one's listened that far We're not even listening at

1:08

that point That's what we did on

1:10

the date We went to patreon.com/extra helping

1:12

Andy I swear to god To

1:15

the Mum Can't Cook Patreon No I'm

1:18

doing both I'm not playing your game We're not

1:20

doing both The only words I want to hear

1:22

out of your mouth are patreon.com/extra helping I just

1:24

said that Hello I'm Luke Westaway Yes but you

1:26

said it whimsy Say it

1:29

normal patreon.com/extra helping With

1:31

a bit of enthusiasm though patreon.com/extra

1:33

helping Give them context Come on

1:35

Go to it Go to your

1:37

web browser and do it Why

1:39

should they go to it? Because

1:41

you get bonus episodes of the

1:43

show every other week Thank you

1:45

And we're doing so weird from the Disney Channel TV

1:47

That's right Series That's

1:50

right And Fi just went back in time thanks to a magic

1:52

soda jerk Now was that

1:54

so very hard? No I'm sorry

1:56

Right let's hear the promo for my date with

1:58

the President's dud Tomorrow on

2:00

Disney Channel. I'm Hallie. Uh, Duncan. Duncan

2:03

Fletcher. Boy meets girl. Uh, Pinky Piep

2:05

and Seven? Where you live? Boy

2:08

asks girl out. Wait till big white

2:10

house, she can't miss it. Boy gets

2:12

a big surprise. Come on, I want you to

2:14

meet Daddy. Daddy, you mean the president? Disney

2:17

Channel presents. You will be sure to

2:19

take care of my little girl. My

2:21

date with the president's daughter. My

2:24

date with the president's daughter. Tomorrow

2:26

at 8, 7 central on Disney

2:28

Channel. So, my date with

2:31

the president's daughter. A 1998 movie

2:33

from The Wonderful World of Disney. So

2:36

technically, not a D-Com. Yes, it's

2:38

one of the, it's D-Com adjacent though. And it

2:40

has, it very, very much has the energy of

2:42

a Disney. Tara was a Wonderful World of Disney

2:45

as well, I believe. Yeah, crucially, it's a TV

2:47

movie. And I think if there's any, if

2:51

there's anything that this podcast tries to hold

2:53

sacred, and I don't think there is, it's

2:55

that it has to be a TV movie. It's Eric

2:57

Von Denton. Yeah, it's Eric Von Denton. Eric

3:01

Von Denton, the TV movie. The

3:03

TV movie, yeah. So this

3:05

is, yeah, 1998, it stars Will Friedle, who

3:07

you may know from Boy Meets World. Dabney

3:10

Coleman plays the president, a

3:12

famous actor who recently passed away sadly. And

3:15

Elizabeth Harnoy, I believe, is how you pronounce

3:17

that, as the president's daughter. Halle the president's

3:19

daughter. So,

3:21

do you have anything you

3:23

want to get off your chest before we

3:25

begin the recap? I thought this was

3:27

quite charming, I enjoyed it. Yeah, yeah.

3:30

Yeah, just a fun little romp. It reminded me

3:33

a bit of Mum's Got a Date with a

3:35

Vampire. Not just because it

3:37

had dates in the title, but also because it's

3:39

like, there's a date going, and there's a bunch

3:41

of people running around trying to stop the date.

3:43

Do you know what? I had a note that

3:45

maybe this is the only movie that we've covered

3:47

that takes place over a tiny time span. But

3:49

I think Mum's Got a Date with a Vampire

3:51

is also set over 24 hours, isn't it? Yeah,

3:54

over the course of one night. What I would say though is

3:56

that because this one is also set over 24 hours, over

4:00

24 hours and because it's about

4:02

the president's daughter being kidnapped, it

4:04

does make it feel like a kid's version

4:06

of 24 with Kiefer

4:08

Sutherland. Yeah, they should have done the split screen

4:11

thing with the president. Events occur in real time.

4:13

Oh, that would have been so good. The

4:20

secret service in this film are terrible. No one

4:22

ever, ever recognises the president's daughter who is presumably

4:24

one of the most famous women in the country.

4:27

Yeah, but then when it's useful for the plot,

4:29

they just do. Yeah, several people don't recognise

4:31

the actual president, even though he's

4:33

the president. So, yep. So

4:36

that's fun. It took me about a million hours

4:38

to do this recap because this movie keeps weirdly

4:40

dropping references to late 90s punk bands. And

4:43

that, unfortunately, is exactly my s***.

4:45

So, yeah, I have to, every

4:48

time one sort of came

4:50

blurrily into half focus, I had to pause and

4:52

do a sort of reverse. I had to pause

4:54

and do a deep dive and listen to their

4:56

entire discography to truly understand what every band member

4:58

is doing. Truly understand sprung monkey. Well,

5:02

good. At least someone does. Okay,

5:05

well, let's get into it. So we open on

5:07

some kind of president's daughter. She's sleeping in an

5:09

ornate bedroom. A chipper woman strides

5:11

in saying it's time to get up. She

5:14

slings open the curtains. The girl is not

5:16

pleased about this. She complains that it's Saturday.

5:18

Yeah, she's shown that the clothes she has

5:20

to wear their sort of door. Yes,

5:23

addressed that Wednesday Adams would reject for being

5:25

too gloomy. Yeah, a few near real. The

5:27

nuns at school get to wear hotter stuff

5:29

than that. She complains, press

5:31

X to doubt. In Holly's

5:33

opinion. She's like, damn, damn, that's hot. Damn,

5:35

these are some oddly dressed nuns. Yeah. This

5:38

is a girl who doesn't have much control

5:40

over her life. We are to take from

5:42

this. Yeah, she's told about all of the

5:45

things that she's going to be doing today.

5:47

It sounds like a packed schedule

5:50

of, you know, meet and greets and photo

5:52

opportunities. Fundraisers, photo ops, yeah. Fundraisers meet the

5:54

press, that sort of thing. She says another

5:56

boring day in the life of Hallie Richmond.

5:58

And then she flings those the curtains

6:00

to reveal that she is stood in a

6:03

PS1 cutscene of the White House. Yeah,

6:05

it sort of zooms all the way

6:07

out to reveal the White House in

6:09

increasingly unconvincing PlayStation

6:12

graphics. But don't worry,

6:14

because it's all fine, because the song

6:16

My Date with the President's Daughter starts

6:18

playing. And this

6:20

movie has its own theme song. And the

6:22

theme song is by the Presidents of the

6:24

United States of America. I mean, a lovely

6:27

bit of synergy. Yeah, brilliant. Who you might

6:29

remember from their songs, Lump and

6:31

Peaches. And they cover a video

6:33

Kill the Radio stuff. Oh, yeah, man.

6:35

Yeah, a real real slice of life. This I

6:37

really enjoyed it. It's a really nice bit

6:40

of music. I really like it. It's really catchy. It's been in

6:42

my head all week. Yeah. So we have a, should we have

6:44

a bit of it? Yeah, definitely. It's really catchy. My

6:56

date with the President's Daughter. Oh,

6:58

yeah. My date with her. So

7:01

happy. It's all night.

7:04

I feel so good.

7:08

We took the Volvo office by

7:10

surprise. You should have seen

7:12

the Secret Service agent's eyes. His

7:14

jaw must have dropped about a hundred yards.

7:17

When we stole a dad his big blood

7:20

card. My date with the

7:22

President's Daughter. My date with the President's Daughter.

7:24

I also just want to mention that we

7:27

see Halle's bedroom at this point,

7:29

and she has an eclectic mix

7:31

of posters. There is a poster

7:33

for the rapper Jason. And

7:35

she also has a poster for Scarcore

7:38

punk band The Suicide Machines. Fairly

7:40

intense musical act. For

7:45

the Disney Channel. Yeah. But at first

7:48

I thought that this was a little

7:50

poorly thought out that maybe it

7:52

was, you know, set decorators just

7:54

getting lazy. But actually having concluded

7:57

my watch of the movie, I think this is actually

7:59

thematically laid out. the groundwork for

8:01

Halle being an insane tornado of

8:03

chaos. A

8:07

totally unpredictable sprite. Yeah,

8:11

capricious. Unbelievably capricious. Yeah,

8:14

total lack of impulse control. What

8:17

I'd like to point out is that this film came out

8:19

in April 1998. And I went on the Presidents

8:23

of the United States Wikipedia page. And

8:25

apparently they broke up in late 1997.

8:28

So I think what we can draw from that is that

8:31

they did this and then the band dissolved. Having

8:35

achieved all its aims. Having achieved

8:37

all it was possible to achieve

8:39

with the medium. They

8:42

decided it was simply time to

8:44

disband. Or they broke up due

8:46

to acrimony and creative differences. And it was

8:48

this that brought them back together. But they

8:50

got the call for the final. Yeah, they

8:52

broke up in 1997. They were like, that's

8:55

it. I guess I'll never speak to those

8:57

guys again. But then the call came in.

8:59

Will you do one last song for the

9:01

movie My Date with the President's Daughter? And

9:04

we'll pay you a million dollars. I

9:07

think maybe what it was is that they

9:09

recorded that song. And then they

9:11

saw the movie. And they were like, Oh, God, we

9:14

need to pretend we've never been a band. Oh,

9:16

yeah. Did you do this song for this president

9:18

movie? No, I'll tell you what you're in a

9:20

band, aren't you? No, no, I'll tell you what,

9:22

presidents of the United States of America, the band

9:24

have done a pretty good job of making it

9:27

seem like they were never a band because although

9:29

this wouldn't have been a concern for them, they

9:31

are completely un-Googleable. Yeah,

9:33

they are an SEO

9:35

nightmare. Yeah, it is very

9:37

hard to make Google understand that you

9:39

want to hear music, not the president,

9:41

not the president of the United States

9:43

of America presidents. It's like, Oh, you

9:45

want Bill Saxophone? No, yeah. No, there

9:47

was a band, I swear. You don't

9:49

know Obama on the oboe? No, I

9:52

don't want any of these things. So yeah, the song

9:54

is good. Yeah. The song also includes the lyrics we

9:56

stole the president's car, which isn't a thing that happens

9:58

in the United States of America. the film. Yeah,

10:00

but they probably think the band hadn't seen the film.

10:02

Well, the film probably at that point hadn't been written.

10:05

No, no, it's true. They were

10:07

like, Oh, I imagine they'll do fun stuff, like steal

10:09

the president's car. No, no, simply

10:11

no time. So yeah, Hallie comes in for

10:13

breakfast, we see the president and the first

10:15

lady. I thought it was very

10:17

interesting, Luke, that the president has a mustache. Did

10:20

you? That's unusual. Yeah. Well, as you as you

10:22

probably know, the last president to have a mustache

10:24

was William Howard Taft in 1908. And

10:27

there have only been two major candidates in the past

10:29

98 years who've had any facial

10:32

hair at all. It's very unusual for

10:34

a president to have any facial hair.

10:36

Well, we do find out soon that

10:38

this president is up for reelection imminently.

10:40

So it's possible that he was hired

10:42

on a, he got the job on

10:44

a no mustache campaign. No mustache platform.

10:46

Yeah. But since then he spent four

10:49

years growing it and that might explain

10:51

his, his terrible polling numbers, his extreme

10:53

unpopularity, which he really does seem to

10:56

be suffering with. He holds up a

10:58

newspaper. It's, it's

11:00

got a big picture of his political rival

11:02

on it, a sort of Kennedy like called

11:04

Olson. Yeah. For some reason, the photo is

11:07

in black and white, even though this is

11:09

1998. You think they could do a

11:11

color photo of the, of

11:13

the president. Maybe we never see Olson in the

11:15

movie. Maybe he's black and white. Yeah,

11:17

it's possible. Yeah. This

11:20

president Richmond believes that the young people are

11:22

the one and only hope for the country.

11:24

And yet he ignores his daughter, Hallie, when

11:27

she asks for jam. Oh, hypocrite, hypocrite, hypocrite.

11:30

The movie likes this president though, even

11:32

though he is devastatingly unpopular, we learn

11:34

also, we find out that he's being

11:37

murdered in the polls and you're like,

11:39

okay, I imagine the events of this

11:41

movie will eventually see him rise

11:43

again in the polls because he does something nice and has

11:45

an arc, but that does, he wins.

11:48

He wins around one, exactly one voter. He

11:50

wins at

11:52

the cost of his entire campaign. Yeah.

11:54

And also we get the merest hint that

11:56

he's embroiled in some kind of really terrible

11:59

scandal. Yeah. Yeah, I know. We'll get to

12:01

it. We'll get to it. Yeah, I kind of get

12:03

into the politics of this movie, but it's so he's

12:05

talking about young people, he's ignoring his daughter, asking for

12:07

jam. Hallie asks to jam again

12:10

and the president angrily slides it down the table.

12:12

So it seems, you know, they don't have the best relationship.

12:15

He holds up this newspaper of Olsen, told

12:18

it up to his wife and he says, honey,

12:20

are you telling me those aren't hair implants? So,

12:23

again, this is a devastatingly insecure president

12:25

on top of that. In terms of

12:28

hair. Yeah, his his wife

12:30

is like, oh, you're much better looking than he is,

12:32

honey. And he's like, I'll kill everyone. I've

12:35

got the nuclear football. Pass me

12:37

the football. So mum tells

12:39

Hallie, mum being the first lady, of course, tells

12:41

Hallie that she has to hurry up because they're

12:43

leaving in 15 minutes. Hallie asks if she can

12:45

stay home because she doesn't want to do this

12:47

thing that they're doing today. But mum says dad

12:50

is doing a speech about family. It

12:52

would be nice if people could see

12:54

his family. Yeah. So Sulkily Hallie takes

12:56

a sip of orange juice, then clutches

12:58

her throat, her eyes bulge. She

13:00

grips her neck and collapses off the

13:02

chair and nobody, nobody

13:05

moves a muscle. The Secret Service

13:07

agents all roll their eyes. They're

13:10

all like, oh, Hallie's faking. Yeah.

13:12

And it turns out she is faking to

13:14

try and get out of doing this. But I

13:16

don't know. I don't know. I probably would react.

13:19

I think we have to assume that she's done this

13:21

like a thousand times, which is why they feel confident.

13:23

But then that would be the easy way to kill

13:25

the first daughter, wouldn't it? Yeah, exactly. Poison her. Also,

13:28

I don't care if they've done it a thousand times.

13:30

It's the president's daughter. She

13:32

is a target. America's enemies have

13:34

poisoned Dotus, the daughter of the

13:36

United States of America. Not Dotus.

13:39

Yeah, someone tell Flotus. Yeah,

13:42

if the if the president kept doing a thing

13:44

where he was like, started

13:47

acting like he'd been shot, yeah,

13:51

just started like doing the thing from platoon. Yeah,

13:53

just like doing that. Yeah, the Secret Service agents

13:56

would have to dive on him every time. They

13:58

wouldn't be like, oh, he's doing it again. Even

14:00

if the president said, guys, I'm going to

14:02

do my platoon bit, I'm going to pretend

14:04

to be shot for fake in three, two,

14:07

one, and then did it, they would still

14:09

have to check he wasn't shot and try

14:12

and dive in front of him because it's

14:14

their whole reason for existence. Literally, yeah, their

14:16

job. Yeah. So these things, this is your

14:19

first hint that the secret service in this

14:21

movie is not quite the elite force that

14:24

it is elsewhere. Not fit for purpose. Yeah.

14:26

So anyway, they're not convinced they say that she she

14:28

has to go and we see the family roll out

14:31

on the way out. She criticizes

14:34

the some of the secret

14:36

service for always wearing black because she

14:38

loves fashion, even though she doesn't get to partake in it.

14:41

So in the car on the way, an advisor is telling

14:43

the president that he should work the word family into his

14:46

speech about family, which is good advice. Yeah. The

14:48

motorcade goes past some campaign posters. We see

14:50

some Richmond for America, reelect Richmond's with a

14:53

picture of him sort of grinning weirdly. We

14:55

get Olsen for president. It's time for a change

14:57

posters. It's not clear throughout this movie who is

14:59

a Republican and who is a Democrat. Yeah, they

15:01

don't tell you what political party. Yeah, like

15:04

Alex Garland's civil war. He deliberately

15:08

stares away from that and lets

15:10

you draw your own conclusions. Yeah.

15:12

And so President Olsen is like

15:14

running on this family values platform,

15:16

which would lead you to believe

15:18

he's some kind of like conservative,

15:20

presumably. Yes, you could normally tell

15:22

by what color tie they're wearing. Yeah,

15:24

but even the posters, they're both like red and

15:26

blue and stars all over them. The posters look

15:28

like they're from the same political party. The film

15:31

is so is so timid about engaging with any.

15:33

Yeah. Any kind of political aspect, even though it's

15:35

about the president of the United States of America.

15:37

Yeah. And even though it was made in the

15:40

late 90s when I don't know, I think

15:43

the vibe was less sort of polarized and

15:45

you could make a fun movie about being

15:47

the president's daughter. Like the Disney Channel wouldn't

15:49

make a film about the presidency now, would

15:52

it? No, it's just yeah, it's not that

15:54

the energy's changed. Yeah, it would be. Yeah,

15:56

it would be unpleasant. Yeah. So.

16:00

Yeah, we'll keep trying to guess and at the end we

16:02

can we can lay our bets on Republican

16:05

who's Democrat So there's

16:07

big dance coming up at a holly school. She asks if

16:09

she can go to it, but is told no on that

16:11

date She'll be in Houston.

16:13

Yeah, it's an election year. We all

16:15

have to make sacrifices She's told this

16:17

by a character who is a sort

16:19

of PA to the president speechwriter election

16:22

campaign chief chief of staff campaign Yeah,

16:24

I could not figure out his name. I

16:26

couldn't hear anyone say it I

16:29

couldn't identify who he was in IMDB. So

16:31

we need to know he was several I

16:33

thought he was several characters. Yeah

16:35

for a while. She was because he's so

16:38

bland. Let's call him chief of staff. That's

16:40

yeah Yeah, that'll do for staff Lemson

16:43

chief of staff from Lemson Yeah,

16:45

tell so that it's election year. We all got

16:47

to make sacrifices sacrifices. Yes, Halle I'm the only

16:50

one in my class who hasn't gone on a

16:52

date, but the press the press shuts her down

16:54

Yeah, she asked if read is gonna be at

16:56

this thing that they're going to we don't know

16:58

who read is But mom says yes, and it

17:00

turns out that read is the vice president's son.

17:02

Halle says oh He always tries

17:04

to make a move on me dejectedly and

17:07

her mom says Halle disapprovingly

17:09

as if as if that's her fault as if

17:11

that's her fault and as if like raising it

17:13

or mentioning it or telling her parents About it

17:15

is a is the wrong thing is the wrong.

17:17

Yes, exactly So we cut to a

17:19

daycare center. The president is opening this daycare center and

17:21

giving a speech I grew

17:24

up in a traditional family starts the president.

17:26

Oh When

17:30

I got home from school there was always

17:32

someone there But times have changed and most

17:34

parents what he goes on to say is

17:36

mercifully overshadowed by read the 30 year old

17:38

looking adult Son of the vice president who

17:40

comes up and tells halle that there's a

17:43

hot new dance club opening called Club Alien

17:45

I grew up in a traditional family when

17:48

we got home from school There

17:50

was always somebody there But

17:53

things have changed since then most

17:55

of the parents listen. There's a great new

17:57

dance club opening up tonight called So

18:00

yeah, you probably got the sense from that audio

18:28

clip that this read is a real

18:30

unlikable POS. Yeah. Yeah.

18:33

The speech, so the speech ends. Well,

18:36

the speech, yeah, you get a little more

18:38

of the speech in the background. I have

18:40

one. The vice president has three, the president

18:42

is saying, apparently having to prove his family

18:45

credentials to the press. Don't think

18:47

I'm a family man. Simply look at my

18:49

daughter. Simply look at the daughter

18:52

I produced. Daughters? I have one.

18:54

Yeah. The vice president, even more.

18:57

That's how much I care about America. The

19:00

thing is though, I know that does sound a

19:02

bit like you're skewing Republican, like

19:04

sort of traditional family values, but even the,

19:06

you know, the Democrats have to say that

19:08

stuff as well though, don't they? Like the

19:10

Democrats don't come out and be like, yo,

19:12

I was raised in a hippie commune. We

19:16

all had the same name and it was Gaia.

19:19

Every day we burnt the flag. Yeah.

19:22

I don't know. I just get

19:24

Republican vibes from this guy. I

19:27

think it's more going on about like traditional

19:29

family is quite the thing. As

19:32

much as the movie is trying to

19:34

do anything, Olsen looks so Kennedy and

19:36

later we get the merest hint that

19:38

I'm pretty sure President Richmond is on

19:40

the cusp of a Watergate style scandal.

19:43

So I think he is Nixon. Yeah. He's

19:45

a Nixon type. He's a Nixon

19:47

type. He's not really, you know, he's not like horrible

19:50

like Nixon in the film, but we don't see, I

19:52

mean, we don't see him actually doing

19:54

really any politics. No, we don't. We

19:56

don't. But I think that if there's a, if

19:59

the movies like. trying to work to

20:01

a political template to a trope. I

20:03

think that's it. I think it's Kennedy

20:05

Nixon. Which is interesting to cast the

20:07

sort of sympathetic dad character as Nixon

20:09

in this dichotomy

20:11

rather than Kennedy. Yeah. Although I

20:14

guess maybe that was important to them that he was up for

20:17

re-election or something and they probably didn't

20:19

want to cover an assassination in the

20:21

D-Com. It would have been quite the

20:23

third act. Wacky

20:27

hijinks and then everything becomes like

20:30

unbelievably serious as the president

20:32

is assassinated. Oh yeah. It

20:34

would be a bit like the D-Com Tiger Cruise.

20:36

Yeah. Which we haven't done yet. Yeah. Which has

20:38

an incredible third act twist that

20:41

we won't spoil. Oh my god.

20:43

But yeah. Okay. So um.

20:46

I have one. The vice president has three. So

20:50

think again. Yeah. Think again. Before you

20:52

call us childlings. Think again America's enemies.

20:54

So the speech ends and the president

20:56

is told by Mlemon. Was that it?

20:58

Mlemon? I've forgotten. Mlemson. Mlemson is told

21:01

by Mlemson, we have a few minutes

21:03

if you want to work the crowd.

21:05

So the Secret Service agents look panicked

21:08

as the president wades heedlessly into the

21:10

throng of people. Into a roiling mass

21:12

of potentially armed people.

21:15

The president is awful, wades into

21:17

them like Khaleesi or something in

21:19

Game of Thrones. It's swept away

21:21

by the crowd. Yes. My trust

21:23

in my people is total. Yeah.

21:26

So because the Secret Service agents are distracted

21:28

trying to keep the president alive while he

21:30

does this. Yeah. They're easily distracted Secret Service

21:32

agents aren't they? Very. And also crucially there

21:34

are only ever like two or three of

21:36

them. So meanwhile

21:38

Dotus Halle looks over the street

21:41

and sees a mall

21:44

and she smiles. Yeah.

21:46

Temporarily forgotten about. She sneaks away and

21:48

runs to the mall. Yeah. She walks

21:50

in, epic music starts playing. She looks

21:53

at a sunglass hut and goes, wow.

21:55

Yeah. It's brilliant. She's never seen such

21:57

wonders. The music swells with orchestral patriotic

21:59

glory. as she just regards

22:01

a sunglass hut. And

22:04

the movie tells us this is the real America.

22:06

This is the real peak of American culture. This

22:08

is it. So

22:10

basically, we don't really see how she snuck

22:12

off. I suspect, I don't know,

22:14

it's like she's, cause she stood being witnessed

22:17

in a big speech with loads of photographers.

22:19

And then question mark, question mark, question mark,

22:21

she is in the mall. She is in the mall. Yeah.

22:24

But fine. We cut to a record store. Yes.

22:27

We meet two new characters, Curtis and Arthur. They're

22:29

debating the best music to make girls go mad

22:31

and kiss you in a car on the way

22:33

home from a dance. Yes. Picture this, says Curtis,

22:35

holding up a CD. You're driving her home from

22:37

the dance. You pull over and put this on.

22:40

And he holds up the album, Make Your Mama

22:42

Proud by punk band Fastball. I'm

22:44

telling you my friend, she'll lose control. He

22:47

is speaking to Arthur, who is wearing a backwards

22:49

kangal hat. What a time this was. She'll

22:52

lose control and barf on me, he

22:55

retorts. You want makeup music, stick with

22:57

the classics. And he holds up Rock

22:59

Band Flip's self-titled album. I

23:02

checked these. They are both terrible music choices

23:04

for a date. I

23:06

genuinely thought they'd made both of these. No, they

23:08

haven't. No, no. It's yeah. The Fastball CD cover

23:11

is like a black and white picture of a

23:13

man in a dunce cap. Yes. That is the

23:15

cover of Make Your Mama

23:17

Proud by Fastball. That both of these

23:19

albums are just angry or sad or

23:21

unhinged punk rock. Like they

23:24

are not good date music. Well,

23:26

there's not really much time to consider that

23:28

though because suddenly a man accosts Arthur, grabbing

23:30

his nose. He then makes change fall out

23:33

of it. This is Duncan, our hero. Come

23:35

on, Duncan, says Arthur. We're

23:38

in a public place. He says, Curtis, you've

23:40

got to cut this stupid magic stuff out,

23:43

people will think you're a dork. They're

23:45

both pleading with him to stop his amateur

23:47

magic show. And he's like, well, how can

23:49

I stop when there's coins behind your ear?

23:52

Curtis' reaction is so funny.

23:54

He's like, no, no,

23:56

no, no, no, no. Not

24:01

like, cut it out please Duncan, he's

24:03

just like... Like

24:05

Duncan is showing him live footage of his

24:07

family being loaded into a vassavass. Do

24:10

you know, in The Matrix,

24:13

the one who dies when they're... is she

24:15

called Switch? The one who dies when she's

24:17

unplugged by Cypher in The

24:19

Matrix and she just looks and goes, not like

24:21

this and then dies. That's

24:24

the energy with which these lines

24:26

are delivered, a sort of desperate

24:28

resignation. Yes, it's like, please

24:30

don't do magic, Duncan. Don't

24:32

do magic. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

24:35

Yeah. Let's see if you can conjure up

24:37

a date for the dance tonight, Duncan's

24:39

bros challenge him. I'm not going,

24:41

says Duncan, the dance is for

24:43

morons. Now, it's worth saying here

24:45

that even though Duncan has been

24:47

introduced, doing close-up magic,

24:50

and with very 90s shoulder-length hair and...

24:52

Oh my god, the hair, we haven't

24:55

even mentioned the hair. And

24:57

saying that dances are for morons,

24:59

he is actually a lot more

25:01

likeable and charismatic than all of

25:03

that makes him sound. Yes.

25:06

Well, so a leather-clad man collides with him

25:09

on purpose at this point, probably because he

25:11

hates close-up magic. Yeah. Hey, says Duncan. Hey,

25:13

yeah. Hey, what, says the man. Hey,

25:16

sorry, I didn't get out of your way

25:18

fast enough, sir, says Duncan. So this is

25:20

our hero, a sort of magical boy coward.

25:22

Yeah. He's got a sort

25:24

of charismatic energy. He reminded me a lot of

25:26

Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future, the

25:28

way that he plays this. He does a good

25:30

line in a sort of eye roll at the

25:32

end of the scene before going, oh brother, and

25:34

having to run off somewhere. Yeah, so this

25:36

is Wilfred L. from Boy Meets

25:38

World. He is very likeable. He

25:41

does have that good Michael J. Fox energy,

25:43

and he does spend most of this movie

25:45

in a sort of like prolonged panic attack

25:47

about what's happening. So this

25:49

leather-clad bully is Steve Ellinger. He's

25:52

still hanging around even though he flunked out of school,

25:54

and he has a history of bullying. Yeah, he must

25:56

have flunked out of school about 18 years ago, because

25:58

he... What age would you

26:00

put Steve Elinger at? Genuinely. 35? 35. 35, 36 is

26:03

honestly my guess. Honestly

26:07

my guess. That's what he looks like. I

26:09

do not believe that I'm older than Steve

26:11

Elinger. Yeah. Yeah. Like honestly, I know we

26:13

have a lot of fun with the way

26:15

that like, there's often like grownups playing teens

26:17

in these movies, but Steve Elinger, he is

26:20

just, he's a, he's a man. Yeah.

26:23

Crow's feet and five o'clock shadow. And he's

26:25

a man who started to think about whether

26:27

it's time to buy a boat. To

26:30

get rid of the bike and trade it

26:32

for a boat. Yeah, exactly. But he's, he's

26:34

started talking to two girls in the record

26:36

store. And so the lesson that Arthur takes

26:38

from this is that girls like aggression, not

26:40

magical boys. Yeah. Girls like guys who are

26:42

aggressive, not geeks who do magic tricks. Yeah.

26:44

I could get a date for the dance

26:46

says objectively fantastically handsome Duncan. Yeah. I just

26:48

don't want to. 50 bucks

26:50

says you can't says Curtis. And Arthur

26:52

is like, it's easy money unless you're scared.

26:54

So Duncan rises to the bait. He,

26:57

he takes the bet and his friends

27:00

are delighted. No paid

27:02

escorts says Curtis. I

27:04

mean, there's

27:07

only 50 bucks on the line. He

27:11

might win the bet, but it would be fine

27:13

immediately making a loss, wouldn't he? Well, yeah. And

27:15

you probably turning up to a school dance with

27:17

a paid escort is probably considered. Yeah. Thinking about

27:20

it, his financial return is probably the least of

27:22

the problems. With his worries.

27:24

Yeah. So Duncan strolls out of the record

27:26

store. He's going to get a date now

27:28

because this dance is tonight. So he walks

27:31

out, he strolls through the mall, be aggressive.

27:33

He says to himself, talking to himself, he

27:35

vows to be aggressively romantic to the next

27:38

girl he sees. But then he walks past

27:40

an old lady and goes, Oh, well, well,

27:42

after, then he sees a tiny child. And

27:44

then he sees a scary punk who probably

27:47

listens to flip. Yeah. He

27:49

sees a punk and the music goes, wow.

27:51

And he's like, he is sexually intimidated

27:53

by her. Obviously not. She,

27:55

she is just, she

27:57

is just a girl. She's just a girl. with,

28:00

you know, pink hair. You could ask her

28:02

if you'd probably like the same music. Anyway.

28:05

I give up, he says, having seen an old

28:07

woman, a child and a punk in quick succession.

28:10

But the fourth girl he sees as he goes

28:12

up on an escalator is the surely nationally famous

28:14

president's daughter. Yes, but he doesn't. She's in a

28:16

hat shop. She's trying on a normal hat and

28:19

laughing about it. This is weird

28:21

to me because she's snuck out of the mall

28:23

to finally get a bit of fashion

28:25

in her life. And we see her in

28:27

a traditional hat shop trying on like first

28:30

lady hats. Trying on like, yeah, hats you

28:32

would wear to Royal Ascot. Yeah, right. Yeah.

28:34

It's like the kind of thing that, you

28:36

know, the first lady would wear to a

28:38

memorial service or something like that. Yeah. They're

28:41

really sensible, boring hats. But anyway, Duncan approaches.

28:43

You got to start small, haven't you? If

28:45

you've only been used to like fancy hats,

28:47

if you try on something too normal. Oh,

28:49

yeah. Yeah. It could cause your

28:51

brain to implode. It could slice your ears off. You need

28:53

to work up the calluses

28:56

on the side of your head, don't you? Yeah. You can't

28:58

just put a baseball cap straight on. It would go straight

29:00

through you. Shear off

29:02

your arms and sign through

29:05

your body cleanly. You

29:07

need those behind the ear calluses that you

29:09

only get from an Ascot hat. Yeah. You've

29:11

got to start small. Yeah. Work your way

29:13

up. Start with a nice woolen beanie. Yeah.

29:15

Work out. So once you've recovered

29:18

from that. So

29:20

Duncan makes his move. Oh,

29:22

hey, excuse me. Do you

29:25

happen to have this

29:27

in a smaller

29:29

size? I don't work here. Oh,

29:32

sorry. It

29:34

will tell me anyway. Which one do you

29:36

think would look better on me and be

29:38

completely honest? Okay. Actually,

29:41

I think they both look good. Typical

29:44

boy. Can't make up your mind. You

29:46

know, when I said that, I just meant that I'm sure whichever

29:48

one you buy, it's kind of great on

29:50

you. Oh, that's

29:52

sweet. I'm

29:54

Hallie. Duncan. Duncan Fletcher. Nice

29:57

to meet you. What you got there?

29:59

Oh, it's just something I bought. You bought at the Magic

30:01

Sporting Goods store? Oh, so what sports

30:03

are you into? The usual, uh, bungee

30:06

jumping, some karate,

30:09

rock climbing. Rock climbing? I've always

30:11

wanted to go rock climbing, but my dad won't

30:13

let me. He thinks I'm made of porcelain. Ah,

30:16

that's a shame, it's a rush. Just,

30:18

uh, actually just go back in the Grand

30:20

Canyon. I bungeed off the

30:22

northern rim. Really? Yeah, bungee snapped halfway down

30:24

it to tie it with dental floss inside.

30:28

Uh oh, uh, I've gotta

30:30

go, my ride's here. It was really nice meeting you. I

30:32

know this is kinda last second, but I was wondering, would there

30:34

be any chance that maybe you'd want to come with me tonight

30:36

with me tonight to, like, a dance? A

30:40

dance? You mean with people

30:42

our age? Yes? I'd

30:45

love to! Seriously? Yes. He's

30:49

gotta be here somewhere. Uh, well, I'll pick you up at

30:51

seven. Where do you live? Oh,

30:54

1,600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It's a big white house, you can't

30:56

miss it. I'll see you tonight.

30:58

Okay, I'll see you. 1,600, 1,600.

31:00

That was almost easy. Oh!

31:06

Sorry! So the

31:08

music change there was Halley spotting Secret

31:10

Service agents looking for her. I

31:13

wanna know more about this bungee jump, where he

31:15

had to fix the cord with dental floss. I

31:17

couldn't, I didn't really catch what he was saying

31:19

he did. Yeah, I couldn't catch that either, but

31:21

I think if a bungee jump goes wrong, that's

31:23

more or less it. I don't think there's a

31:25

way out of that situation. What

31:29

I've written down that he said is, his

31:32

bungee snapped halfway down and he had to tie

31:34

it off with dental floss. Right, okay. But I

31:36

don't know what that means, what does tie it

31:38

off mean? Does he mean tie off all his

31:40

smashed limbs that were founted in blood when he

31:42

landed in the Grand Canyon? He used dental floss

31:44

to craft a tourniquet. It's like 127 hours, kind

31:46

of, situation. Oh

31:49

yeah, he used dental floss to cut off his arm. Yeah,

31:51

he sort of corrupted it off through the nerves. I

31:54

don't think, yeah, I don't think he could bungee

31:56

jump with dental floss, or I mean, presumably he

31:58

made it through the nerves. means he tied the two

32:00

ends together with dental floss, but then, how did he get

32:03

hold of the other one if

32:05

it's... anyway, it's not a very convincing story and

32:07

yet Halley buys it. I want to know how

32:09

you can hear their conversation over the choppers

32:11

circling overhead because bear in mind the president's daughter

32:14

has gone missing. Oh no way, nobody cares. The

32:18

mall would have been locked down and

32:20

probably flooded with some kind of nerve

32:22

agent. Yeah, you'd be like, well, let's

32:24

just make everyone stay where they

32:26

are right now. Let's knock everyone

32:28

out with gas and then we'll just pick

32:30

up the president's daughter from the floor. Because

32:32

the president's daughter has gone missing.

32:35

We touched upon this in First Kid, but

32:37

the whole way through this, the movie treats

32:39

it like, ah, well, it's only the daughter,

32:41

not that the president's important. The

32:44

president's daughter is very important. Obviously, she

32:46

has worth as a human being, but

32:48

quite aside from that, she is an

32:50

enormous bargaining chip for the most powerful

32:52

man in the world. Just kidnap the

32:54

president's daughter and then, you know, whatever.

32:56

Yeah, that's profit. All

32:59

your political demands met. Exactly.

33:03

But anyway, they send two Secret Service

33:05

agents into the mall, sort of, it

33:07

harves. Who are sort of walking unconcernedly

33:09

around the mall. Just casting their eyes

33:11

around in case they happen to recover,

33:13

dota-style. They're probably like Sinbad in First

33:15

Kid. They're probably off at the frozen

33:17

yogurt store, getting a scavenger free yogurt.

33:22

The other thing is she gives her address to

33:25

him. She says she lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

33:30

Did you know the street address of the White House before

33:32

this movie? No, I didn't. You didn't?

33:34

No. Okay, I did. Yeah.

33:37

I don't live in D.C. I think if you lived

33:40

in Washington, D.C., there's no way you don't know that

33:42

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is the White

33:44

House address. I think that's probably fair. And

33:47

in that situation, Duncan would be like, oh, I

33:49

see. It's like giving a fake phone number, isn't

33:51

it? But, you know, but to someone's face. And

33:55

then she says it's a big White House. You

33:57

can't miss it. It's like, all right. Yeah,

33:59

very funny. It's like giving a phone number is 999. It's

34:04

it's there's just no way he wouldn't know

34:06

this. Yeah. But but anyway, Duncan doesn't and

34:08

he's delighted. So back

34:10

at the White House, the president is telling Hallie

34:12

that she cannot go out on a date with

34:14

some strange boy that she just met in a

34:16

mall. Just as a point, you might

34:19

think that this White House set is quite impressive for a

34:21

Dcom. I actually did. I

34:23

thought all of the at the White House set

34:25

looked good. Yeah. Well, it wasn't made for this

34:27

film, apparently, according to the

34:30

movie trivia. This was made for the Wesley Snipes

34:32

movie Murder at 1600, which

34:38

obviously had a much higher budget. And then they

34:40

just I, I assume they asked

34:42

if they could use it. Snuck onto the lot

34:44

once all the lights were turned off.

34:46

I mean, I mean, they

34:49

did shoot all this at night because it's, you

34:51

know, a night film. Powerful torches to light it.

34:55

But then one night they were again

34:57

for the 16th consecutive night, they used

34:59

the bolt cutters to cut the chain on

35:02

the door of the sets. But who's that stood in

35:04

a spotlight is Wesley Snipes. Oh, no. He

35:07

kicks everyone. He starts kicking everyone's ass.

35:09

Michael Eisner pours laxative into the coffee

35:11

of everyone working on the Wesley Snipes

35:13

movie. Wesley

35:15

Snipes is one weakness. Yeah. Uncontrollable.

35:19

Now, quick deal. You've got about 40 minutes. Get in

35:21

there and film. Get in there and film a movie.

35:25

We don't have a script. It doesn't matter. Just

35:27

say president. I imagine that when we apply some

35:29

compression to these audio clips, you will be able

35:31

to hear the cast of Murder at 1600 all

35:34

shitting themselves noisily just in the background.

35:36

So yes, the president is bollocking Hallie

35:38

on the presidential seal. The

35:41

first lady and the president send Hallie

35:43

out of the room to have a

35:45

talk. The first lady says that she's an

35:47

ordinary girl. Face it, George, with the parents of a real

35:49

life teenager. An instance like this is going to happen

35:51

more often if we try to keep her locked up

35:53

in an ivory tower. What about

35:55

security, says the president. That's what the secret

35:57

service are for, says the first lady. lady

36:00

clearly unfamiliar with the capabilities of

36:02

the Secret Service. So

36:04

they relent, they let Halle go on the

36:06

date. The president says when that boy gets

36:08

here, he wants to talk to him.

36:11

And we cut to Duncan's room. He's

36:13

putting on Aftershave. He's wearing

36:15

a terrible boxy suit, but it's really hard

36:17

to tell if the movie thinks it's bad

36:19

because it was the late 90s. So

36:22

maybe he's... Yes, this is how everyone wore

36:24

their suits back then. Yeah, exactly. He's wearing

36:26

a sort of Mulder style big boxy suit.

36:28

Yeah, huge boxy suit. It looks like he's

36:30

wearing his dad's suit or something. He's

36:33

listening to At A Girl by Sprung Monkey. Wish

36:36

me luck Harry, he says to a poster of

36:38

Harry Houdini, this f***ing dog. Downstairs

36:41

his all-American family are eating snacks and

36:44

watching TV. We find

36:46

out that the dad, his dad's trying to

36:48

get a promotion and so tonight they're hosting

36:50

a party for his boss. The

36:53

president is on TV in the room. Dad

36:56

calls him our do-nothing president.

36:58

Duncan comes in, he says he wants to

37:00

borrow the nice BMW company car that the

37:02

family has tonight for his date. And his

37:05

dad is like, absolutely not, you'll be taking

37:07

the station wagon. But he does give him

37:09

a credit card in case of

37:11

emergencies. In this scene we also meet

37:13

Duncan's sister, who is the worst character in

37:15

this film. She's

37:18

barely in it. Yeah, she was, she's barely in

37:20

it. But also all she does is sort of

37:22

like make unfunny jokes and weird faces. She's

37:25

just a classic Disney Channel

37:27

annoying little sister. Yeah, exactly. I think

37:29

it's worth mentioning, I've mentioned like BMW

37:31

company car and credit cards and stuff.

37:35

These things sound deluxe, but the movie

37:37

is telling us that these are normal

37:39

folks. They live in a normal

37:41

house. They are hardworking Americans

37:43

trying to, you know, the dad is trying to

37:46

sort of make it up the corporate ladder at

37:48

work. They are not wealthy. In

37:52

the garage, Duncan looks at both cars and then he

37:54

steals the BMW. As he backs

37:56

it out of the driveway, we see it has an

37:58

Olsen for President bumper sticker. It's a

38:00

great looking car. It's not often

38:02

that my eye is turned by a company

38:05

car, but oh man, this is a

38:08

lush car. The Olsen for President Bumpersticker

38:10

is, like all the kind of presidential

38:12

graphic design in this film, terrible. It's

38:14

just like a sans serif

38:16

font that says Olsen for President. Well, to

38:19

be fair, they've probably told props department, make

38:21

an Olsen for President, but do not suggest

38:23

he is Democratic or Republican. Anyways suggest which

38:25

political party he is affiliated with. Or what

38:28

his views are or anything. So it's like,

38:30

okay, well, am I allowed to use his

38:32

name? Maybe. Make it

38:34

and then we'll check. We'll allow

38:36

it. So he goes off, he

38:38

drives up Pennsylvania Avenue looking for houses. 1600, he

38:41

says, he looks up and sees the White House. He

38:44

makes the obvious assumption that he's been given a

38:46

false address. Maybe there's a south Pennsylvania Avenue, he

38:49

says, and we

38:51

see him driving up to a White House

38:53

security gate. He decides to ask the White

38:55

House security gate, is there a south? Is

38:57

there a Pennsylvania south? More

38:59

trivia here. The gates guard is

39:02

played by Ron Reagan, Jr. Is

39:04

the son of the former president Ronald Reagan.

39:06

No way. Yeah. So

39:09

that's fun. I know

39:11

weird, isn't it? Did Ron Reagan

39:13

ask for a cameo or? No,

39:16

I think he was just trying to be an actor. Wow.

39:19

Like his dad. You're trying to be an

39:21

actor. You're the president's son and you

39:24

get you're like, oh, there's a role

39:26

for you in my date with the president's daughter. Ah,

39:28

great. What have you got for me? President? Like my

39:30

dad? No, no, no. Gatehouse guard. You'll be playing the

39:32

gate guard. You have

39:34

one line. How do you explain that to Ronald?

39:37

Say, say drive up to the visitor's lot, please.

39:40

Did I, I nailed it, dad. Hey,

39:42

dad, just like you, I'm acting. Surely

39:44

the presidency will come after. Yes.

39:48

Ron, Jr. I'm sure you're

39:51

really on track. So

39:54

next thing, Duncan finds it

39:56

obviously wasn't expected to be told. Oh

39:58

yes. You're expected. here. Next thing

40:00

he's in inside the White House. He's being swept

40:03

for weapons by the Secret Service. He's getting wandered.

40:06

That, you know, they're using those bleepy

40:08

paddle things to check him. And down

40:10

comes Hallie for the date. Why didn't

40:12

you tell me you were the president's

40:14

daughter? Says Duncan. Must slip my mind,

40:16

says Hallie. Come on. I want you

40:19

to meet dad. You mean the president?

40:21

Yes, says Hallie. Of our country, says

40:23

Duncan. No, says Hallie of North Korea.

40:25

I have a note that this film

40:27

is funny. Okay. I think I have

40:29

a note. I have a note that this

40:31

movie has a fundamentally flawed premise. This

40:35

movie made me laugh a few times, though. Yeah,

40:37

it's yeah, which I did it made

40:39

me laugh six times. The famous

40:41

Mark Kermode six laugh test. I

40:44

don't think it made me laugh six times. Okay.

40:46

Oh, wait, maybe it's only three laughs a movie

40:48

has to do is maybe it's the three laugh

40:50

test. I can't remember. Make up your mind Kermode.

40:52

Yeah, Kermode. Anyway,

40:54

maybe laugh two times. Two times.

40:56

So anyone under the amount is

40:58

needed to be good. Yeah, we

41:01

see the president. He's playing golf.

41:03

Yeah, he's being bollocked by

41:05

the head of the Secret Service. He's explaining that

41:07

it's hard to protect him if he keeps wandering

41:09

aimlessly into crowds. Yeah. I mean, it's actually hard

41:11

to protect him because of their total incompetence. Yeah.

41:13

But he cut you can't be reelected if you

41:15

get shot. Shouts the Secret Service guy. And he

41:17

does say it like that. Yeah,

41:19

I like this is my note

41:21

because it's raising the specter of an attempted assassination.

41:23

So you're thinking, I think we're going to see

41:26

the president get attempted. We're going to see

41:29

a Lee Harvey Oswald situation. You're not going

41:31

to see that. So

41:33

it's just weird that they mentioned it. It's weird that they

41:35

sort of Chekhov's gun, a presidential assassination

41:37

in this way. I mean, it would

41:40

really have raised the stakes towards the

41:42

end if Halley's free spiritedness somehow led

41:44

to her father. Yeah, having an attempt on his

41:46

life. Yeah, it would. And then Wesley Snipes comes

41:48

in but because of what and says, I'm sorry,

41:50

I just came in here because I forgot my

41:52

wallet. I'm sorry, I

41:55

thought we could get started a bit early today because we've got a

41:57

lot to get through and I didn't

41:59

realise you were in here. How did you get

42:01

through the chain? Oh, I see you've cut the chain. Well,

42:04

everyone lined up. I'm going to spin kick

42:07

all of you carefully in the background of

42:09

some of these scenes. You can see Wesley

42:11

Snipes showing up for work with a Starbucks

42:13

and then doing a sort of U-turn as

42:16

he sees they're still going and

42:18

then spin kicking various background extras. Okay. We've

42:20

got about a minute and a half before

42:22

he gets to the principal cast. Let's finish

42:24

these lines. But all the

42:27

extras between the principal cast and

42:29

Wesley. It takes him about 10

42:31

seconds to spin kick someone. So

42:33

you've got dialogue fast, dialogue fast.

42:35

If you look closely throughout this

42:38

film at the characters faces, you

42:40

can see Wesley Snipes' shoe print

42:43

on all of them. They're doing

42:45

close up facial

42:47

framing mostly so that you don't

42:49

see all of the spin kicks

42:51

happening to the torso. Yeah.

42:54

Just a head of shots in every scene

42:56

Wesley Snipes is speed bagging their torso. In

43:02

a way that says get out of my set. That's why

43:04

all the dialogue is like, oh, how are you? You can't

43:06

go out on a date. That's why I thought it was

43:08

a weird choice for the actors. Yeah, I thought so. I

43:10

thought it was weird the way that they have Duncan

43:13

occasionally exclaim, please Wesley.

43:16

Wesley. Wesley, Wesley.

43:19

Can't take it anymore Wesley.

43:23

Bracket Snipes. So Duncan is led in

43:25

to meet the president. He does an

43:27

awkward bow and sits down

43:29

for the grilling of a lifetime. Tell

43:32

me about yourself, says the president. And he does. He

43:34

says, I would have voted for you, but I'm

43:36

too young. And the president intimidates

43:38

him by saying you also had your appendix

43:41

out last year. And after you got your

43:43

driver's license, you've got one parking ticket. And

43:46

he holds up a Manila folder with all of

43:49

Duncan's sort of private life

43:51

information sort of. Yeah. He has,

43:54

he has a file on Duncan. He's showing

43:56

that in one day he's easily violated his

43:58

privacy with a Manila folder. he's

44:00

boasting about it to his face. SL.

44:02

Yeah. Sometimes being president has its advantages,

44:04

he says. JG. He says in a

44:06

way that makes you think he probably

44:08

says this once a day while doing

44:11

something extremely evil. SL. Something presumably illegal.

44:13

JG. Yeah, while like pulling the arms

44:15

off an alien or something. SL.

44:19

Stamping on an alien. Sometimes being a president

44:21

has its advantages. Not everyone gets

44:24

to stamp on an alien like this. JG. Yeah, pretty sweet.

44:27

So Mr. Thornhill, who is the head of

44:29

the Secret Service, explains the

44:31

deal. He provides Duncan with a paper printout

44:34

as a list of places that he is

44:36

allowed to visit. The school

44:38

is not on there, it's just a sort

44:40

of list of safe restaurants and movie

44:43

theatres and stuff like that. But

44:45

see, we were going to go, says Duncan. SL.

44:47

Yeah, but Halle sort of interrupts and is like,

44:50

we're just going to go to dinner and a movie.

44:52

Good night, Daddy. JG. What about the dance? SL. The

44:54

dance, says Duncan, as they walk away. We'll talk about

44:56

it later, says Halle. We

44:58

cut to the car. JG. As they leave, the president

45:00

says sometimes it's harder to be a dad than

45:02

it is to be president. No, it

45:05

isn't. SL. It

45:07

shouldn't be. JG. It shouldn't be.

45:09

If you're saying that, that is, then you're doing

45:11

it wrong. SL. If it is, you're not presidating

45:13

hard enough. So anyway, we cut. JG. You're just

45:16

stamping on aliens and placing files about people. SL.

45:18

We cut to the car, then

45:20

we cut to a wide shot of the car,

45:22

and we see that the backseat is crammed full

45:24

of Secret Service agents. This

45:26

is Rumpelstiltskin. We are moving west towards the

45:28

movie theater with Snow White and the Frog

45:31

Prince. They say into the radio. JG. Duncan

45:33

objects to his codename. He's not happy about

45:35

Frog Prince. He puts some music on the radio.

45:37

He turns on the radio. It's mostly sort of

45:39

banjo and yodeling music on the radio. SL. Yeah,

45:41

which is odd. JG. Yeah, he tries to cover

45:43

saying that his dad's been borrowing the car. SL.

45:45

But he eventually finds some cool rock and roll

45:47

music. He then, he

45:49

lies to Halle. He says that he

45:51

does karate. He says

45:54

he's a black belt level at that. The

45:56

Secret Service agents sort of scoff in

45:58

the background. Again, Even

46:00

though on paper what Duncan is doing is quite

46:02

bad, which, you know, just sort of lying. Again,

46:05

he is, this is kind of carried

46:07

off in a sort of, with a

46:09

nervous energy that makes him

46:12

seem quite likeable. Like, yeah, he's got an

46:14

aura this whole time that he's being swept

46:16

away by a situation completely out of his

46:18

control. Which of course he is. He suddenly

46:20

finds himself in the car with the president's

46:23

daughter. He's rambling, he, you know... Yeah, his

46:25

general demeanor and I think particularly his haircut.

46:28

You know that Simpsons in-universe

46:31

magazine, Non-threatening Boys. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

46:33

He's like exactly like a cover model

46:35

for Non-threatening Boys magazine. Yes, yeah, exactly.

46:37

So even though, you know, he is

46:40

sort of lying and stuff, it's

46:42

all coming from a reasonably good

46:44

place. So we cut to the

46:46

movie theater. It is, maybe

46:49

I'm just saying that because we're following

46:51

on from Pixel Perfect and like, it's

46:53

just so refreshing to have a non-threatening

46:55

boy. Anyway. Yeah, yeah. Cut to, um...

46:58

Such a threatening boy. Cut

47:01

to the movie theater. They are watching a

47:03

horror movie. It's way too

47:05

intense. Did you... They're watching 1986's Class of Newcom

47:07

High. Yes.

47:09

The, the Troma film. It's an R-rated

47:11

Troma horror movie. And the

47:14

bit that they've put in the, my date

47:16

with the president's daughter is quite a scary bit.

47:21

How can they stand this, say the secret service

47:23

agent standing at the back? I was in Vietnam

47:25

and this stuff makes me cringe, says Juan. Quite

47:27

the thing to say. Yeah, quite a thing to

47:29

put in your movie. Um, so anyway, sat just

47:31

ahead, a few rows ahead of them are

47:33

Halle and Duncan. Halle says that they can go

47:35

to the dance. They just have to ditch the

47:38

suits. Now, Duncan isn't sure it's a good idea

47:40

to ditch the secret service while he has the

47:42

daughter of the president. To essentially

47:44

what will almost certainly be seen as

47:46

him kidnapping the president's daughter. He is

47:49

signing his own death warrant to,

47:52

to, to do anything like

47:54

other than fear from like

47:56

the, the plan. But

47:58

Halle has a... scheme. And here

48:00

is the scheme. Let's hear

48:02

it. Okay. So what Hallie does is

48:05

she reaches over to Duncan, puts her

48:07

arm around him, then she sort

48:09

of pulls him in as if for a kiss,

48:11

but then at the last minute, hurls him to

48:13

the ground, like on the floor of

48:15

the aisle and straddles him

48:17

on the floor. In quite a sexually aggressive

48:19

manner. The Secret Service agents see this happen

48:21

and they're like, hey, cool. I

48:24

think he's the one that needs protecting

48:26

right now. So Secret Service agent number

48:28

two. So Hallie and Duncan crawl

48:30

along the aisle, like under

48:32

everyone's feet. The Secret Service agents assume

48:34

they're still down on the floor, presumably

48:36

making love. Secret

48:39

Service agents completely content to just

48:41

leave Dotas like on the floor

48:43

of a cinema. This

48:49

is extremely weird, but

48:52

it works because we cut to the

48:54

car, which you'll remember is dad's company,

48:57

BMW. His red BMW. They're listening to

48:59

some cool music. I tried for ages

49:01

to Shazam it, but I couldn't. It's

49:03

I don't know. It's like Sleater Kinney

49:05

or it might be Tsunami Bomb.

49:07

I don't know. It sounds like I'm making these

49:09

up. I've made up one band name. You

49:13

have to find out which one. It's not Sprung Monkey. So

49:16

we cut to the agents outside of the theater. They're on

49:18

the phone. They're

49:22

talking to Thornhill. They're trying to explain

49:25

how they lost Dotas already. Yeah, they

49:27

thought that they were just engaging in

49:29

some adolescent passion. Should

49:31

we notify the the DC police? They say and

49:33

the head of the Secret Service says, no, I

49:35

don't want the media getting wind of this. In

49:37

the car, Hallie says they can

49:40

go to the dance just as soon as she

49:42

stops to buy some new clothes. I think you

49:44

look nice, says Duncan. And she says, I don't

49:46

want to look nice. I want to look hot.

49:49

So the president and the first lady

49:51

are informed that their daughter is

49:53

missing. But Mlemson is like,

49:55

hey, I know your daughter's missing, but should

49:58

we go to the fundraiser that you we're

50:00

about to head out to. Because you

50:02

know, we might as well. Your daughter's probably

50:05

being dismembered right now. She's going to need all those

50:07

funds to buy a new daughter. Well,

50:10

it's like, I mean, she's not going to be

50:12

any less dismembered if you go to the fundraiser.

50:14

Yeah, exactly. But you will have some funds. So

50:16

you'll be up. So the president's like, well, I

50:18

suppose you're right, Malemison. You're always right. So

50:21

they decided to head on to

50:23

the fundraiser, but they tell Thornhill

50:25

to bring Duncan's parents to the

50:27

fundraiser. So fine. Cut

50:29

to them all. Hallie is taking forever trying on

50:31

dresses for the dance. A bored

50:33

Duncan who's waiting outside uses one of

50:36

those capsule toy. Yeah, he's got a

50:38

there's like a gashapon machine in this.

50:40

Yeah. Clothes shop for some reason. He

50:42

get he gets a cheap little ring

50:45

out of one with a lenticular eye

50:47

on it. So it's

50:49

it's remember lenticulars from the

50:51

90s. Yeah, you would you would

50:53

tilt the thing around and the picture on

50:56

it would would change. Yeah, it would change.

50:58

So it's a little eye that opens and

51:00

closes. He looks at it and

51:02

says, little winking lenticular. He says,

51:04

this is cool correctly, because it

51:06

is cool. Lenticulars are cool. Yeah.

51:08

And then he hears Hallie

51:10

go, Oh, Duncan. And she reveals that

51:12

she is now wearing a tight pink

51:15

dress. Yes. The note I have is

51:17

that half the IMDB trivia for this

51:19

movie is about this dress for some

51:21

reason. Oh, really? Okay. Yeah. It

51:23

appears to be quite iconic. Right. Okay. Yeah, maybe this

51:26

is one of those things where if you watched it

51:28

when you were young, it was like, you know, a

51:30

sort of iconic piece of fashion. It

51:32

appears to be velour is the note I

51:34

have on the dress. Yes, it's odd. Yeah.

51:36

It looks like material from

51:39

a couch. Yes, it does. Or some

51:41

curtains, maybe. Yeah. But anyway, so the

51:43

music goes all like bow, chicken, wow.

51:45

Wow. Wacka wacka. Duncan's face turns into

51:48

that of a wolf's. Hallie

51:50

lets down her hair in slow motion.

51:52

Yeah. Then she says, Okay, now Duncan,

51:54

let's deal with your fashion situation. And

51:57

we smashed cut to Duncan dressed horribly

51:59

in a gigantic brown leather jacket.

52:01

Lewis Brown leather jacket, an orange satin

52:03

shirt. Ollie With a huge collar. Lewis

52:05

He's put a collar on the outside

52:07

of the leather jacket collar. So he

52:10

looks like a 1970s detective

52:13

in a cop show. It's

52:15

not a good look. Ollie Yeah, but that cop show

52:18

is about to reveal itself to actually be an adult

52:20

movie. Lewis He's like, the

52:22

private detective has come to the door with, oh,

52:25

I got some intel on that

52:27

person you were asking about. Ollie Is this some

52:29

kind of bust? Lewis Yes, it's

52:31

very impressive. Lewis This

52:34

is so you, says Hallie. Yeah, if

52:36

I was dating someone named Yoko, says

52:39

Duncan, which is not sure what that means. Lewis

52:41

I suppose it means he thinks he's dressed like John

52:43

Lennon. This isn't how I think. Ollie He's not. Lewis

52:46

No, he isn't. I don't think. Anyway, Ollie So, he

52:48

is... Ollie Oh,

52:50

and it's expensive too, this jacket. Lewis Yeah. Ollie It costs

52:52

$730. But Hallie says that it's a fashion

52:56

emergency so that he can use his emergency

52:58

credit card. Lewis Yeah, so Duncan wintzingly puts

53:01

it on his dad's card, because again, he is being

53:03

swept away by a situation completely out of his control.

53:06

After Hallie sort of flounces off, he

53:08

says to the store clerk, what's your

53:10

returns policy? And she says, there's no

53:13

returns on sales items. And he's like,

53:16

also in this scene, Hallie spots a

53:18

flyer for Club Alien, which

53:20

is the club that Reid mentioned earlier.

53:23

And it's like, oh, let's, let's go

53:25

to this. And Duncan says, Sure, sure, sure, sure.

53:27

We'll go to Club Alien after the dance. Ollie

53:29

And yeah, for the first time in this movie,

53:31

someone notices the president's daughter. Lewis Oh, yeah. Ollie

53:33

It's the clothes drop cashier. She says, well, you

53:36

look like the president's daughter. And Hallie is like,

53:38

no, I don't. Lewis How about this? No,

53:40

I don't. Ollie So, yeah, problem solved. Lewis

53:42

Outside the mall,

53:44

Steve Elinger hated Steve Elinger,

53:46

37 year old Steve drives

53:48

past on a sports bike.

53:50

Apparently, he just like spends

53:52

his evenings wheelieing around Washington

53:55

DC on his sports bike.

53:57

This movie shrinks

53:59

Washington. DC down to

54:01

around nine location. It's like,

54:03

it's like, f***ing Cluedo, this

54:06

film. There's just

54:08

like, yeah, there's nine or 10 locations

54:10

and all of the cast just move

54:13

from one thing to the other. Like

54:15

the number of coincidental meetings

54:19

it gets. Yeah, it's like Washington DC is about

54:21

three blocks. There's like the block with the White

54:23

House on it, the block with Club Alien on

54:25

it, the block with the mall on it, the

54:28

block with Duncan's parents house on it. Yeah. So

54:30

that's a four block rig of any others. Yeah.

54:33

Anyway. So, so in any case, Steve

54:35

Elinger drives past on his bike

54:37

and he makes a sort of slow motion winky

54:39

face at Hallie who is

54:41

sort of impressed, I think. So

54:45

anyway, she, she asks if she can drive

54:47

and grabs Duncan's keys. She clearly

54:49

cannot drive however, and she kind of

54:51

screeches away in the Bima. She's

54:53

driving chaotically. Duncan is afraid for his life.

54:56

Duncan's having a terrible time at his house. His

54:59

parents, business friends are all standing around telling

55:01

stories. His sister is in a dressing gown

55:03

serving canapes for some reason. Dad

55:05

goes to the garage to get ice and he notices

55:07

that the BMW is gone. I

55:10

love the, the

55:12

boss coming around for dinner trope. I wish,

55:14

I wish it was still a going concern.

55:16

Yeah, it's not really, is it? Not really,

55:18

no. I think it's like, I think it's

55:20

too, too played a bit. Promotions

55:22

used to be decided by who gave the

55:24

best dinner at their house. Yeah, exactly. Like

55:27

what an amazing era to be the boss

55:29

where you would just be hosted night after

55:31

night by all your underlings. And then at

55:33

the end of the month, you might be

55:35

like, I really liked

55:37

the salmon that, that Hixon,

55:39

Hixon put on. What a spread. Yeah. What a,

55:41

what a great spread. But then, you know,

55:44

there was that wonderful coat to birth that we had

55:46

over at, over

55:48

at Mark's house. Yeah.

55:51

And also, but maybe he, maybe he should be

55:53

the vice president in charge of shipping. It would

55:55

actually be awful because every single time you went

55:57

to one of these evenings, something would go hilariously.

56:00

calamitously wrong with the dinner. And you

56:03

would be in a sort of steamed hams

56:05

situation, wouldn't you? You would have to get

56:07

outraged and say the person's name really loudly.

56:09

Him Kingston! I

56:14

don't want to be this guy. I'm nice. I'm

56:16

a fun-loving guy. Also, if we could wrap

56:18

this up, I have another dinner that will

56:20

go calamitously wrong. It's

56:24

just cascading calamities my life. So

56:27

the mum and dad are discussing Duncan's crimes. What

56:29

if my boss finds out he took the company

56:31

car, says dad? Your boss will never find out,

56:34

says mum. And then the sister

56:36

walks in and says, mum, dad, the feds

56:38

are here to arrest Duncan. The party stops

56:40

with a record scratch. The parents are

56:42

getting arrested. The secret service agent loudly describes

56:44

the car that Duncan has stolen and then

56:47

reads the license plate out loud. Well,

56:49

I'm sorry, sir, but the president wants to see you

56:51

now. Are you sure

56:53

we're talking about our Duncan? They

56:56

were last seen driving a

56:58

red BMW-licensed T8D1016. Charles,

57:02

you let your son drive the

57:04

company car. He

57:07

was getting it washed? So, yeah, the

57:10

boss is like, Duncan's dad! The family

57:12

has all been arrested by the secret

57:14

service. Yeah. So we cut back to

57:16

the date. The car pulls up to

57:18

some lights and then a pickup truck

57:20

full of Washington, D.C. hillbilly pulls up

57:22

alongside. This

57:24

is really weird. This is really weird.

57:26

The sort of chief one of them

57:28

is doing, I mean, I'm no expert,

57:30

but what feels like to me an

57:32

extremely unconvincing sort of Southern drawl, you're

57:34

like, hey, honey, why don't you give

57:36

me a big old smooch of case?

57:39

They are credited. IMDB has them

57:41

listed as redneck, like one, two

57:43

and three. You know, Washington, D.C.

57:46

rednecks. Yeah. So like that is

57:48

what the movie is trying

57:51

to present you with here. So

57:53

yeah, they're kind of bothering. They're

57:55

bothering Halle. She

57:57

winds up decides to provoke them.

58:00

because she is a chaotic force of nature. Yeah,

58:02

to a net force of nature. She

58:04

whines down the window and asks if they're late for a

58:06

meeting at the inbred club. Pretty good. She

58:09

insults them more, and then she threatens

58:11

them with Duncan, who she

58:14

remembers is a black belt in karate. She

58:17

says he'll- Yeah, she threatens them with Duncan's

58:19

karate. He'll kick your big ugly butt. The

58:22

scariest, biggest one of them leaps out

58:24

of the truck to fight

58:27

Duncan. Everyone is screaming

58:29

all of a sudden. Yeah, but they're in a red

58:31

light, so Halle can't drive away, so they have to

58:33

just sort of sit there, waiting for the light to

58:35

change. While he kind of tries to get in, eventually

58:38

they panic and they run a red

58:40

light. They weave through traffic to escape

58:43

the aggressive man, the thug,

58:45

and they run over his foot in the

58:47

process. Halle screams

58:49

with hysterical laughter. She's like, Ha ha

58:51

ha, did you see them? She says.

58:53

Do you know when, it's like, she

58:55

laughs like the Joker. She

58:58

sort of screeches away from this. That scene

59:00

where the Joker's hanging his head out of the car

59:02

door like a dog. That's basically

59:04

what Halle's doing here. Like, ahh.

59:08

Did you see her face? Halle's

59:11

just a dog chasing cars at this point.

59:14

Yeah. So, yeah. So

59:16

Duncan, increasingly terrified, shrinking

59:18

into the passenger seat, says that they're gonna

59:20

come looking for us. We

59:23

need to get off the roads. Halle

59:25

says, okay, fine, we'll hide out here.

59:27

And she sort of Tokyo drifts the

59:29

car into a parking spot. Yeah, coincidentally.

59:32

It's Club Alien that they've pulled up into

59:34

the parking lot of. Because, yeah, there are

59:36

only five buildings in DC. Yeah. Club

59:39

Alien looks like the shittiest club conceivable.

59:42

Yes. It looks

59:44

a bit like the sort of Star

59:46

Wars theme bar at Disneyland. A bit.

59:48

But much bigger and more empty.

59:51

It looks like if you gave

59:53

me $50 and 50 minutes and

59:56

said you need to recreate the

59:58

nightclub in hackers. where everyone is

1:00:01

like rollerblading and playing wipe out.

1:00:03

But again, it's a bit like Cyberdog,

1:00:05

that shop in Camden Market. Yes!

1:00:08

It's been not as good. Yeah. That

1:00:10

feels like narrow casting, but listener, if you don't

1:00:13

know what Cyberdog is, and, but

1:00:15

like, just trust me that if you did know

1:00:17

what Cyberdog was, you'd be like, oh man, I

1:00:20

get it. Oh yeah. You'd be like, I get

1:00:22

it. So yeah. So we cut

1:00:24

to the fundraiser that the president's going to. It's being

1:00:26

picketed by protestors with signs that read, dollars

1:00:29

don't equal votes. President trades

1:00:31

family for cash and president

1:00:33

for sale. Some

1:00:35

of those are better placards than

1:00:37

others, aren't they? President trades family

1:00:39

for cash. Quite an

1:00:41

accusation. We're told that $10 million is expected to

1:00:43

be raised and people are paying $100,000 to sit

1:00:45

at the president's table for

1:00:48

dinner. Protesters are saying that this is

1:00:50

tantamount to buying the presidency. So what

1:00:52

the protesters are upset about is

1:00:55

the fundraiser dinner. The idea that you

1:00:57

can. You can pay $100,000 to have

1:00:59

dinner with the president. Yeah,

1:01:01

I mean, yes. I feel like. But

1:01:04

also, I don't know. Isn't

1:01:06

this what like Trump was doing with Mar-a-Lago

1:01:08

though? Yeah. Yeah. It's like. And that wasn't

1:01:10

popular. Yeah. It's like, um, it's

1:01:14

like they need, for narrative purposes, they

1:01:16

need there to be a protest, but

1:01:19

it can't be. Yeah, but they can't, it can't be

1:01:21

like the president gassed a bunch of people or something.

1:01:23

Yeah, exactly. Or like drone strikes or. Yeah,

1:01:25

they can't be protesting actual policy or like he

1:01:28

poisoned a river or anything like that. So yeah.

1:01:31

Yeah, or he banned same sex marriage. Yeah.

1:01:33

So it has to just be like, oh,

1:01:35

we don't. Something unbelievably. Yeah. Yeah. An unbelievably

1:01:37

tame political issue. Like, you know, oh, maybe

1:01:40

it's maybe it's wrong that you raise. He's

1:01:42

raising funds. He's raising political funds by hosting

1:01:44

a dinner. Well, I don't know if it

1:01:46

was it was different in 1998 or 1977,

1:01:51

but I mean, raising funds is

1:01:53

pretty much the whole thing now, right?

1:01:55

Yeah, my my my super packs and

1:01:57

stuff. My narrow understanding of it is

1:01:59

that raising. funds is essential. Well, I mean, I've

1:02:01

watched Succession, so actually I get it completely. Raising

1:02:04

funds is literally the whole thing. It's

1:02:06

like how all I'm doing is raising,

1:02:08

I travel around raising funds.

1:02:10

But the people in this movie seem outraged

1:02:12

at the idea that the president would raise

1:02:15

funds for their re-election campaign. Yeah, exactly. Anyway,

1:02:17

whatever. So

1:02:19

we see in the back of

1:02:21

the building, Duncan's family are being

1:02:24

hurried into the service

1:02:27

entrance by Secret Service, and

1:02:29

the president is taken from his fancy

1:02:32

pants dinner to meet them. Duncan's

1:02:34

dad is livid. He's saying

1:02:36

to the president, he's

1:02:38

not impressed to meet the president. None

1:02:41

of them are. Well, Tracy is.

1:02:43

She walks up to the president in her dressing

1:02:45

gown and says, hello, I'm Tracy. I'm a big

1:02:47

fan of yours, even though my dad thinks you're

1:02:49

a loser. Thanks, Tracy. Thanks, Tracy. That's cool. Tracy

1:02:51

just going into business for herself. Yeah,

1:02:53

right. Tracy's like, I'm going to try to cut

1:02:55

ties with my dad. Yeah. Mr.

1:02:57

President. Do you need a new secretary of agriculture? Well, you know

1:03:00

what he does need? A new daughter. Take his total

1:03:02

up to two. Getting closer to the

1:03:04

VP's three. I have two. The vice president

1:03:06

has three. Closing in on him every

1:03:08

day. So the president lays

1:03:11

out the details of what's been happening to

1:03:14

the family. Whoa, talk about a miracle. I thought a

1:03:17

girl would have to be brain dead to go out

1:03:19

with Duncan, says Tracy. This film's worst character. So

1:03:22

Duncan's dad is livid

1:03:25

that this is happening. Not that his son

1:03:27

is missing and probably about to be murdered

1:03:29

by Secret Service, but

1:03:31

that he's been taken away from his dinner. He explains

1:03:34

to the president that this is a very important night

1:03:36

for us. My boss is round for dinner. And so

1:03:38

they want to get back. I think it's weird that

1:03:40

the dinner is still happening. Like, yeah, at his house

1:03:42

without him there. If you went around to a dinner

1:03:45

party and the host of that dinner party was taken

1:03:47

by the Secret Service, I think everyone at that point

1:03:49

would head to their cars. Probably. He wouldn't be like,

1:03:51

well, let's I don't know. Let's run. Hey, just

1:03:54

getting started. Start

1:03:57

trashing the place to the liquor cabinet. Yeah.

1:04:00

My boss is trashing my house. I need to

1:04:02

get back. I need to get

1:04:04

back. Who knows what damage he's done? Yeah,

1:04:08

it's Animal House back there. The dad

1:04:10

says that he thought they were going

1:04:12

to the spring dance at Franklin High.

1:04:15

So Secret Service agents are dispatched to

1:04:17

that. The two families bicker. Hallie

1:04:20

would never do anything to disobey me, says

1:04:22

the president. Well, says the first lady, except

1:04:24

today, dear, when she snuck out to the

1:04:26

mall and then the opposite dialogue

1:04:28

happens with the other family. Duncan is a good

1:04:30

boy. He'd never disobey me. Well, dear,

1:04:32

except tonight when he took the car.

1:04:35

So yeah, both his fathers are bad,

1:04:37

it seems. Yeah. The president is called

1:04:39

back to his fundraiser. But make

1:04:42

yourself comfortable. Say the Secret Service agents. It's going

1:04:44

to be a while and the family is imprisoned

1:04:46

in this room. Yes. Yeah.

1:04:49

Lemson comes back in and is like, excuse me,

1:04:51

Mr. President, there are a lot of donors outside

1:04:53

waiting for you. So if you could please bring

1:04:55

your attention away from your missing daughter. And

1:04:58

he's like, oh, if you could come back and talk to people

1:05:00

at this hundred thousand the play, if you could

1:05:02

just ignore the fact that your daughter is missing.

1:05:04

Yes, can do. And he leaves. Not

1:05:07

a problem. Cut to Club Alien. Oh,

1:05:09

thank God. I was worried we would

1:05:11

see the interior of Club Alien. It's

1:05:13

all dry ice and glow sticks. We

1:05:15

see ravers of varying levels of attention

1:05:17

to detail. So fast. Pounding techno is

1:05:19

playing, although not it's not really pounding

1:05:21

because like all movie clubs, you can

1:05:23

still talk at normal volume. Yes.

1:05:26

Yeah. This event looks like a

1:05:28

scam. Like if there was a

1:05:30

Facebook event advertising a rave and

1:05:33

it was like $40 a ticket. It's

1:05:35

like the Glasgow Willy Wonka experience. Yes.

1:05:37

Yes. Yeah. This is an AI generator.

1:05:39

Yeah. Club alien. So how he

1:05:45

says, Hey, Duncan, want to dance? But Duncan,

1:05:47

he says he does. But first he needs

1:05:49

to use the restroom and he excuses himself

1:05:52

probably to himself inside out because he's

1:05:54

having the most frightening night of his

1:05:57

life. Yeah. One

1:05:59

second after he. He leaves, evil Steve Ellinger

1:06:01

waltzes up to Halley. Yes, he's at Club Ailey,

1:06:03

and I guess he rode his bike here, and

1:06:06

says, hey, wanna dance? And Halley is

1:06:08

like, absolutely. Yes, yes,

1:06:11

Steve Ellinger. I can't imagine anything I'd

1:06:13

like more. So we cut

1:06:15

to the Franklin High School dance. Everyone's

1:06:17

slow dancing. Duncan calls Curtis. He

1:06:20

tells them he's on his way and he's got

1:06:22

a date. Arthur is wearing a different kangal hat.

1:06:25

He's wearing his formal kangal hat, yes. Duncan

1:06:30

goes on to say that his date is

1:06:32

the president's daughter. Yeah, right, say the friends.

1:06:34

Well, I suppose you won't mind doubling our

1:06:36

little wager then, says Duncan. Curtis

1:06:39

says, let me get this straight. If you show up

1:06:41

at the dance with anyone other than the president's daughter,

1:06:43

you pay me $100. Duncan

1:06:46

replies in the affirmative. You got a deal, says

1:06:48

Curtis. I feel like no one would make that

1:06:50

specific of a bet if it weren't a sure

1:06:53

thing. But, you know, fine. But also, I mean,

1:06:55

I know they're just kids, but it's $100. This

1:06:59

is going to be a problem because obviously, $100

1:07:01

for these kids is a lot of money. But

1:07:03

$100 in terms of what

1:07:06

you're willing to do to risk your own

1:07:08

life having

1:07:11

kidnapped the president's daughter. Kidnapping the president's daughter,

1:07:13

being shot to death by the Secret Service

1:07:15

agents on the steps of the dance. Yeah,

1:07:17

exactly. It's probably not

1:07:20

worth it, right? No, probably not.

1:07:22

So anyway, we

1:07:24

also see the Secret Service sort of comically

1:07:26

slow dancing. They're slow dancing with

1:07:28

each other at the dance in their trench coats.

1:07:31

They can't see Halle and Duncan because they're not there. So

1:07:33

Duncan said that he went to use the restroom, but in

1:07:35

fact, he had obviously gone to make this call. This

1:07:38

is the kind of nightclub that has pay phones that

1:07:42

you can use because and

1:07:44

you can comfortably hear. So

1:07:46

Duncan heads back onto the dance floor and he

1:07:48

spots Halle tearing it up with horrible Steve.

1:07:51

Yeah, she's just grinding on Steve the bully.

1:07:53

Yeah, Duncan is collided with heavily and he

1:07:55

drops his keys, which are kicked. He sort

1:07:57

of crawls after them, becomes faced. to

1:08:00

Shoe with DC Hillbillies from

1:08:02

earlier. They are

1:08:04

looking for Halle and Duncan. They don't

1:08:07

see Duncan on the floor. He just

1:08:09

looks up and they're sort of cracking their knuckles

1:08:11

and saying, come on, spread out. He must be

1:08:14

around here somewhere, that kind of thing. So Duncan

1:08:16

crawls his way over. He grabs his keys, he

1:08:19

crawls away. He pops up next to Halle. Steve

1:08:21

is angry that he's interrupting, but Duncan explains they've

1:08:23

got to go because violent Hillbillies are in the

1:08:25

club. After her date, let me

1:08:27

just finish dancing with Steve, then I'll

1:08:29

dance with you. Duncan is like, no, men

1:08:31

are here to kill me. Yeah. Hillbillies,

1:08:33

you don't understand. DC Hillbillies are here

1:08:35

to murder me. So they

1:08:38

flee, but they only get five feet because

1:08:40

then they bump into Reed, the

1:08:42

VP's son, who is... He has also ditched

1:08:44

his Secret Service detail to come to Club

1:08:46

A. So

1:08:52

Reed says, hey, Reed is kind of

1:08:55

like twitching around doing a sort of

1:08:57

jerky dance. Reed says, you

1:08:59

got to dance with me, Halle. What's

1:09:01

the deal? You'll go out with this

1:09:03

guy, but not with me. Am I

1:09:05

missing something? And Halle says, yeah, human

1:09:07

DNA, which is a pretty good comeback.

1:09:09

Pretty good. But then up walk the

1:09:11

Hillbillies and it's quite hard to spot

1:09:13

because it happens so quickly. But Duncan

1:09:16

just runs. He just exits the frame

1:09:18

in about a quarter of a second.

1:09:20

He's like, whoo. He just ditches Halle.

1:09:22

He ditches Reed. A Duncan shaped dust

1:09:24

cloud is where he used to stand.

1:09:28

So he cheeses it away. But

1:09:30

that's useful narratively because Halle then

1:09:32

turning to the DC Hillbillies, grabs

1:09:34

hold of Reed and says, hey,

1:09:37

DC Hillbillies, this is my boyfriend,

1:09:39

the karate expert from earlier. He

1:09:42

wants to kick your butt. Remember, they

1:09:44

didn't get a very clear look at

1:09:46

Duncan earlier because he was in the

1:09:49

car. He is also the

1:09:51

nationally famous vice president of the Sun. But

1:09:54

anyway, the Hillbillies don't recognize him, so they punch

1:09:56

and kidnap him. This really surprised

1:09:59

me. me, they hit him so hard.

1:10:02

The main thug hits him with

1:10:05

a devastating uppercut to the stomach. It

1:10:07

looks like it shatters ribs. Yeah.

1:10:10

And then they throw him over his shoulder

1:10:12

and are like kidnapping him. They kidnap the

1:10:14

vice president. So now, now

1:10:16

two presidential children

1:10:19

are kidnapped. Real

1:10:22

banner night for the secret service. Because Halle

1:10:24

isn't really kidnapped because

1:10:27

she's going on a wild

1:10:29

night with Duncan. But Reid

1:10:32

is for real kidnapped. I

1:10:34

would say if you're in the secret service

1:10:36

detail protecting the vice president's children, the number

1:10:38

of punches they should receive is the number

1:10:40

of... Under one, yes. The

1:10:43

fact that he has now been punched. The

1:10:45

number of shoulders they should be slung over

1:10:47

and taken away, surely, to be

1:10:49

dismembered. But it's

1:10:51

good for Duncan and Halle because the hillbillies are

1:10:53

working their violence out on Reid, the son of

1:10:55

the vice president. So they're able to escape. Horrible

1:10:57

Reid, yeah. In the car, Duncan

1:11:00

is lecturing Halle on what a

1:11:02

sexual bad boy Steve Ellinger is and how

1:11:04

that's bad news for her. But

1:11:07

Halle's like, you're jealous because I was

1:11:09

dancing with Steve. You're in

1:11:11

the real world now, Halle, says Duncan.

1:11:13

There's no secret service. There's no limousines.

1:11:15

And they decide, look, they're not

1:11:18

really getting on at this point, understandably.

1:11:20

They say, look, let's

1:11:22

just go to the dance. But all of

1:11:24

a sudden, they get a puncture. Oh,

1:11:27

no. The tyre goes. The

1:11:29

tyre goes. We cut to the fundraiser. Reid, the

1:11:31

vice president's son, is there. He's been brutally beaten.

1:11:34

Yeah, I don't really know how... What

1:11:36

happened in the... It can only have been at

1:11:39

most half an hour between him

1:11:41

being beaten at Club Alien and him being

1:11:43

at the White House. What happened? I

1:11:45

assume they slung him over the shoulder, took him into

1:11:47

an alley next to Club Alien, beat him to

1:11:50

what they thought was to death, left in their... And

1:11:52

then said, hey, is there anywhere we can drop you off? And

1:11:54

he said, the White House. And they said, fine. Well,

1:11:57

they're at the fundraiser, which isn't where the other one is.

1:12:00

way out. Oh, yeah. Oh, that's right. Yeah. So he's probably kind

1:12:02

of limped to the next door.

1:12:05

Yeah, they probably just beat him. And then because

1:12:07

there's only four blocks, he was able to crawl

1:12:09

the, you know, 100 yards or so to the

1:12:11

fundraiser. So anyway,

1:12:13

he's in here already. Smashed

1:12:16

up read tells the assembled parents, which

1:12:18

includes both, both sets of families. He

1:12:20

tells the assembled parents that he saw

1:12:22

Hallie and Duncan at Club Alien. But

1:12:24

when he tried to get Hallie out

1:12:27

of there, Duncan had his gang beat

1:12:29

him up. Duncan's not in a gang,

1:12:31

yells Duncan's dad angrily. Yeah,

1:12:33

but they do crucially find out that

1:12:35

Hallie is alive. So yes, yes, that's

1:12:37

good news. Yeah. Yeah. By the time

1:12:39

these clowns find Duncan, he'll be a

1:12:42

grandfather says dad, I'm going to find

1:12:44

him. The president follows along behind.

1:12:46

He says that he's going with with the dad.

1:12:48

No chance you're just going to get in my

1:12:50

way. Says says

1:12:53

dad. Yeah. Besides, how are you going

1:12:55

to get away from the secret service

1:12:57

says Duncan's dad. I

1:12:59

wouldn't worry. I really, really wouldn't worry

1:13:01

about that. Duncan's dad. I'll probably tell

1:13:03

say look over there. Yeah. And then I'll

1:13:06

walk in the other direction. So we cut

1:13:08

to the president and Duncan's dad disguised as

1:13:10

waitstaff at this sort of venue. They've got

1:13:12

red blazers on. They

1:13:14

are carrying stacks of cake boxes

1:13:16

past the waiting secret service men

1:13:19

outside. Needless to say, the president's

1:13:21

reaction to this crisis

1:13:23

is to go missing himself. To

1:13:27

kidnap him. If your daughter, if your daughter's

1:13:29

gone missing, the first thing you would do

1:13:31

is go missing yourself. I

1:13:33

don't, why can't he take the secret service with him? I

1:13:36

don't know. I don't know. Why does he

1:13:38

have to ditch the secret service? I mean, let's,

1:13:40

okay, let's just try and list some

1:13:43

of the things that could be happening

1:13:45

here that aren't number one. Okay. Helicopters.

1:13:47

Number two, they know what car they're

1:13:49

in and it's a very distinctive red

1:13:51

BMW. They know they could put out

1:13:53

a bolo on this on this roadblocks

1:13:55

at the least. As we've

1:13:57

established, DC is not big police road.

1:14:00

books would be the first thing. Establish

1:14:03

a perimeter. As the seat of government,

1:14:05

it is presumably set up for precisely

1:14:07

this sort of thing. You can shut

1:14:09

down roads, close things off, have people.

1:14:11

There's probably all kinds of number plate

1:14:13

scanners and things. I would imagine that

1:14:16

if the president's daughter goes missing, someone

1:14:18

reaches into a safe

1:14:20

and pulls out a

1:14:22

very specific chief of

1:14:25

papers. A binder. A binder that is like,

1:14:27

in exactly this situation, this is the playbook.

1:14:30

This happens, then this happens, then this happens, then

1:14:32

this happens. These things are all

1:14:34

smoothly set into motion because they've been

1:14:36

rehearsed a thousand times. Probably

1:14:39

not in that is that the president dresses

1:14:41

up as a waiter and ditches his Secret

1:14:43

Service detail. It's probably in the binder. By

1:14:46

the way, the president may not be thinking clearly.

1:14:48

He may try to disguise himself as wait staff

1:14:50

and sneak out of the building under a pile

1:14:52

of crayons. According to our psychological profiling of the

1:14:54

president, he will almost certainly dress up as a

1:14:57

waiter and try to leave whatever

1:14:59

event he's at. Don't let him do

1:15:01

that. Maybe keep an eye on him.

1:15:05

I don't know if the Secret Service's brief

1:15:07

includes keeping an eye on the people they're

1:15:09

supposed to protect, but seemingly not. No one's

1:15:11

keeping an eye on anyone. There

1:15:13

should be eyes on the president at

1:15:15

all times, surely. When the president leaves

1:15:17

the room to follow Duncan's dad, someone

1:15:19

should be discreetly following him because

1:15:21

it's his president. There's some sort of tracker on him

1:15:24

because he's the president. At this

1:15:26

point, the president is talking to Duncan's dad.

1:15:28

The only thing they know for sure about

1:15:30

Duncan's dad is that Duncan's dad voted opposite

1:15:33

the president and his

1:15:35

son has kidnapped the president's daughter.

1:15:38

Duncan's dad is an opponent of the president.

1:15:40

Duncan's dad is one of

1:15:43

America's enemies at this point, you

1:15:45

have to assume. They

1:15:48

go off together in a car. He sees the

1:15:50

Olsen bumper sticker on the station wagon and he's

1:15:52

like, nice bumper sticker. Duncan's

1:15:55

dad is like, nice Secret Service.

1:15:58

Zing! Correct. And then they drive. drive

1:16:00

off together, the president and his enemy. Yeah. Luke,

1:16:03

you're not going on your date with the

1:16:05

president's daughter dressed like that, are you? What?

1:16:09

This John Lennon outfit? I mean, I thought I might. I

1:16:12

guess you could call it that. It's not really the sort of

1:16:14

stuff that John Lennon used to wear, but OK.

1:16:18

Yeah, but you know, that's what it's...

1:16:20

Yeah, you know, I've got a large,

1:16:22

very thick, heavy brown leather jacket. Yeah.

1:16:25

And I thought this satin shirt with the

1:16:27

enormous collar was quite sharp. What do you

1:16:29

think? No, the girls are going to laugh

1:16:31

in your face, Luke. As you know, girls are

1:16:33

only interested in licensed video

1:16:35

game apparel. Ah, yeah, that has been

1:16:38

my experience. Yeah. So if

1:16:40

you want to impress your

1:16:43

date, then you are going to want to

1:16:45

head to insertcoincloathing.com and check out some of

1:16:47

the great stuff that they've got there. OK,

1:16:49

I'm tearing this jacket off right now. I'm

1:16:51

tearing the satin shirt off right now. Girls

1:16:54

like aggressive Steve Ellinger's and licensed video

1:16:56

game apparel. You should know this. Yeah, you're

1:16:58

right. OK, well, so what can

1:17:00

I browse here? I'm sat

1:17:02

here torso-less now. Yeah. Not

1:17:05

torso-less. You really did rip everything off.

1:17:07

I enthusiastically tore off my torso. I

1:17:09

tore my own torso off like a

1:17:11

Johnny Cage. I didn't say coin-do-torso's. Yeah,

1:17:13

like a Mortal Kombat fatality. Yeah, tore

1:17:15

my torso clean away. Well, what you

1:17:18

can get, Luke, you can get licensed

1:17:20

apparel based on all your favorite games

1:17:22

like Diablo 4, Doki Doki Literature Club,

1:17:24

Sekiro, Shadows Die Twice, Persona series, the

1:17:27

Yakuza series, The Witcher, Super Monkey Ball. Super

1:17:30

Monkey Ball, amazing. I love Streets of Rage. Yeah. Oh,

1:17:32

man, I could get a Streets of Rage cushion cover.

1:17:34

It's not even just clothes. I can get a floor

1:17:37

chicken enamel pin. This is amazing. Oh, that's amazing. I

1:17:39

want all of these things. So you can impress your

1:17:41

date with your Super Monkey Ball apparel, and then when

1:17:43

it goes so well that you move in together, you're

1:17:46

like, hey, check out my Streets of Rage cushion. And they're like,

1:17:48

I will check it out and marry

1:17:50

you. Yeah, exactly. So visit insertcoinclothing.com

1:17:52

and use the special code that

1:17:55

they've given us, Hocus

1:17:57

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1:18:00

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1:18:02

codes are not applicable on charity items, bundles, gift cards,

1:18:04

postage and some products that launch codes cannot be combined

1:18:06

with other deals or promotions and are valid until the

1:18:08

end of 2024. So

1:18:11

Luke, now I can see that you're wearing

1:18:13

a Doki Doki Literature Club, a Yakuza Satin

1:18:15

jacket, you're wearing some pajama

1:18:17

pants. Yes, and a Streets

1:18:19

of Rage cushion cover on my face. Yep,

1:18:22

you've got some Sackboy pattern PJs on down

1:18:24

there I see and yeah, the cushion cover

1:18:26

just obscuring your face. I think now you're

1:18:28

finally ready. I'm date ready. Head out on

1:18:30

your big date. Let's do it. So good

1:18:33

luck. Okay,

1:18:40

so, so, so. Yes.

1:18:44

So Duncan has finally fixed

1:18:46

this flat tyre and he

1:18:48

stands up from underneath the car to find Hallie

1:18:50

is missing. Hallie is gone missing.

1:18:53

Hallie has simply disappeared. He asks

1:18:55

a nearby unhoused man if he saw where she went.

1:18:57

The man holds his hand out for a bribe and

1:18:59

then he points down Hallie way to a seedy

1:19:01

looking pool hall. Yeah, there's a neon sign that

1:19:03

says pool hall. There's a row of Hallie's outside.

1:19:07

It's you know, it's a biker bar. Inside

1:19:09

this skeezy joint, Duncan finds

1:19:11

Hallie playing pool for a crowd of

1:19:13

bikers and Hallie does not want

1:19:15

to leave. Duncan at this point

1:19:17

loses his temper, his frayed nerves

1:19:20

give in and he shouts, I demand you

1:19:22

come with me, which causes a huge

1:19:24

biker dude to square up to him. Get

1:19:27

out of here. The biker dude says. Yeah,

1:19:29

over my dead body says Duncan and then a

1:19:31

knife flings past his ear into a dartboard. Bikers

1:19:34

advance on him. My pleasure says a large one

1:19:36

and he has lifted up into the

1:19:38

air. Maybe

1:19:42

we'd better go now after all. What

1:19:45

about his dead body? Just

1:19:47

a bigger speech. Here,

1:19:50

pick a card. Any card.

1:19:53

Call it a last request. A last request.

1:20:00

Okay, I'll show it to everybody. Show it

1:20:02

to everybody. Show it to your friends. I'm sure everybody sees

1:20:04

it. You got a memorize?

1:20:06

You know what it is? I know what it is. Okay, uh,

1:20:08

you need that? Just put it anywhere in the deck, anywhere you

1:20:10

want. All right, you ready? Is

1:20:13

your card the... We

1:20:17

have clubs by any chance, was it? Way

1:20:19

to go, Duncan! So,

1:20:23

so... So,

1:20:27

magic not so uncool now, is it, Link?

1:20:31

Not so uncool now that it can be used for press

1:20:33

bikers, is it? Okay. Oh,

1:20:36

you were all saying that now you see an

1:20:38

episode, you're like, oh, close-up magic is so stupid.

1:20:40

Well, you're laughing on the other side of

1:20:42

your face now, aren't you? Eating those words. On the one

1:20:44

hand. How do they taste, Luke? How do the words taste?

1:20:47

I am more convinced than ever

1:20:50

of the inherent,

1:20:52

inherent uncoolness of close-up magic.

1:20:55

And again, we kind of

1:20:57

covered this, and I certainly received many messages

1:21:00

on the subject. Close-up

1:21:03

magic, I don't think

1:21:05

it's cool, but I like a lot

1:21:07

of things that I think are objectively

1:21:09

not cool. Like Lord of the

1:21:11

Rings, you know? You'll never hear me argue

1:21:13

that Lord of the Rings is cool, but

1:21:16

I sure like it. I don't like

1:21:18

close-up magic, and I think it's uncool.

1:21:21

Those two things are sort of separate.

1:21:23

Okay. But what I will say

1:21:25

is, well done this movie

1:21:28

for the narrative payoff of

1:21:30

this thing that they see in the

1:21:32

first few scenes, Duncan can do close-up

1:21:35

magic. Well done that having some actual

1:21:37

payoff, because in most of these movies,

1:21:39

he just wouldn't do any more close-up

1:21:41

magic, and it wouldn't be a thing

1:21:43

again. But here... It's Chekhov's close-up magic.

1:21:45

He helps him out of a problem

1:21:47

later. You know, it helps him overcome

1:21:49

an obstacle. So, good. I

1:21:52

didn't enjoy the magic, but I did enjoy

1:21:54

the narrative. So while he's doing this magic

1:21:56

to get out of being violently killed,

1:22:00

of the Secret Service looking for

1:22:02

the president, the dad and the president.

1:22:04

They go to the mall, they stumble across

1:22:06

a photo booth where you can take insulting photos with

1:22:09

a cardboard cutout of the president. They

1:22:11

see two teens wearing the same clothes as Duncan

1:22:13

and Hallie, despite those

1:22:16

not being the outfits that they last saw them

1:22:18

in. They're wearing like facsimiles of

1:22:21

the outfits they bought at the mall after

1:22:23

they'd left the president and dad's side. No

1:22:26

one's seen them in that. Yeah, but it's

1:22:28

two other teens and the boy is shocked

1:22:30

and scared and he says, I'm sorry, Mr. President, I was just

1:22:33

kissing her. I won't do it again, I promise. At

1:22:36

this point, it becomes clear

1:22:38

that the film is struggling to

1:22:40

juggle its premise and its resources.

1:22:42

Because I can sort of get

1:22:44

on board with a low budget president's daughter

1:22:46

goes missing situation. But at this

1:22:48

point, the Secret Service have also

1:22:51

realized that POTUS has gone AWOL.

1:22:53

This is a national emergency. Yeah,

1:22:55

national security crisis. Everyone in the

1:22:57

country would get a text on

1:22:59

their phone. But

1:23:01

this movie doesn't have the budget. Reid's dad

1:23:03

should be being sworn in right now. Yeah,

1:23:06

exactly. But yeah, taken to a bunker and

1:23:08

sworn in. There's

1:23:11

a designated survivor somewhere being informed of

1:23:14

what- Being briefed. Being briefed. But

1:23:16

none of that is happening because this movie obviously

1:23:18

doesn't have any of the budget to

1:23:20

show these scenes. It only has the budget for

1:23:23

like three Secret Service to sort of bumble around

1:23:25

in a room and talk on telephones. So

1:23:28

back at the biker club, everyone is enjoying

1:23:30

Duncan's incredible magic act. Yeah, it's still going.

1:23:33

Yeah, it's still going. He escapes some handcuffs.

1:23:35

Skull and Hog, who are two of the

1:23:37

bikers, wants to see more. But instead, Duncan

1:23:39

says, I'm really sorry, I gotta go. And

1:23:41

he takes Hallie, he leaves to go to

1:23:44

the dance. But before he goes, a final

1:23:46

flourish. He says, good night, Washington. And

1:23:48

throws a smoke bomb on the floor

1:23:51

that explodes spectacularly. And my note

1:23:53

here is, you'd think the Secret

1:23:55

Service would have discovered he had

1:23:57

a smoke bomb on him when

1:23:59

they- Scanned and they wanted and patted

1:24:01

in there they searched imagine if they see

1:24:03

you searched someone coming into the White House

1:24:05

and discovered a smoke bomb In his pocket

1:24:07

if you love those his with those his

1:24:09

handcuffs to use for the handcuff escape No,

1:24:12

I don't think so. It was okay because

1:24:14

that would have been Here

1:24:18

I am coming into the White House to take the

1:24:20

president's daughter I've got hang of Yeah

1:24:25

Well in any case the pretty had secret service didn't

1:24:27

find it and if they had they probably wouldn't have

1:24:29

cared They'd been like is this for kidnapping. He said

1:24:31

no, it's for magic and they've been like, okay, then

1:24:34

very cool Very good. Very cool. Very cool indeed. Um

1:24:36

as they leave how he says I didn't know you

1:24:39

could do magic That's so cool. You really think so

1:24:41

says Duncan. Yeah, I don't know anyone our age who

1:24:43

can do that Which is

1:24:45

like such a subtle dish.

1:24:47

Yeah Yeah, what

1:24:49

she means is mostly it's like eight-year-old

1:24:51

children who do this Anyone

1:24:56

grown up who can do I

1:24:59

only know America's greatest kid magician. Yeah Um,

1:25:02

so outside they see the red BMW

1:25:04

speed past. Oh, no, it's been stolen

1:25:07

at this point. The film loses

1:25:09

me Um, so the

1:25:11

car has been stolen by just some weird

1:25:14

randos who start making like I think this

1:25:16

is Like the natural they're like the natural

1:25:18

born killer. Yeah, I think this is like

1:25:20

a natural born killers or true romance Like

1:25:23

parody that's going on It's a it's a young

1:25:25

man and woman and they're sort of like laughing

1:25:27

and making out with each other as they Wheel

1:25:30

around on this cross washington crime either.

1:25:32

They're on they're on a tarantino esque

1:25:34

crime spree It's it's parody,

1:25:37

but it's not it's not close

1:25:39

enough parody To sort of and

1:25:41

it's certainly not parody that would work for For

1:25:44

young children and also it's quite late in

1:25:46

the movie to be introducing Another

1:25:48

subplot about some like just some

1:25:50

randos. They feel like they're from

1:25:52

a different movie these characters Definitely,

1:25:54

they're just sort of like just

1:25:56

introduced and then they just

1:25:58

sort of like f**k s**t up for like the

1:26:01

next 20 minutes and then leave the movie.

1:26:03

It's so bizarre. The reason they're here is

1:26:05

so that the Secret Service can keep chasing

1:26:07

this car thinking that Duncan and

1:26:09

Hallie are on a crime spree,

1:26:11

but it never feels plausible that

1:26:13

that would be the case, because

1:26:15

all you would need to do

1:26:17

is see inside the car, which

1:26:19

they do at many points. And

1:26:22

also they would be able to stop

1:26:25

them quite easily, I expect. This isn't

1:26:27

a couple who look eerily similar to

1:26:29

Duncan and Hallie. No. The

1:26:31

woman has black hair. Yeah, short

1:26:33

black hair. The guy is blonde. Yeah, they

1:26:35

are. With short hair. Yeah, exactly. You know,

1:26:38

they are sort of cartoonish

1:26:40

opposites almost of Duncan

1:26:42

and Hallie. So I

1:26:44

don't know. But so Duncan is absolutely frantic

1:26:47

about his dad's car being stolen. There are

1:26:49

so many scenes. There's so many

1:26:51

scenes. He's like, we've got to report this to

1:26:53

the police. And Hallie says, no, they'll call the Secret Service. And

1:26:56

they both realized that they're in such enormous

1:26:58

amounts of trouble that they may as well

1:27:00

at least go to the dance. Because when

1:27:02

they finally come home, they're both going to

1:27:04

be bollocked to oblivion. This is our last

1:27:07

night of freedom. Hallie tells Duncan. It's

1:27:09

certainly his last night of freedom. He's going to

1:27:11

jail. He's going to go on to get a

1:27:13

run back. Yeah. Yeah,

1:27:17

to join his parents who are probably already there. So

1:27:20

anyway, Duncan is convinced by Hallie's appeal.

1:27:22

And to keep track of their relationship,

1:27:24

they're sort of starting to grow a

1:27:27

little bit closer, having bonded over escaping

1:27:29

the biker bar by doing

1:27:32

magic. Back at the

1:27:34

fundraiser, the moms, which

1:27:36

Duncan's mom and the first lady are in the back room, they're

1:27:39

concerned. I'm sure the Secret Service will find them,

1:27:41

says Duncan's mom, who clearly hasn't been following the

1:27:43

events of the film. And

1:27:45

we cut to the maniacs from

1:27:47

Natural Born Killers. They've

1:27:50

robbed a convenience store. But because

1:27:52

it's Disney, they've stolen all the candy

1:27:54

corn. All the candy. They're wearing masks

1:27:56

made out of paper bags. And they're

1:27:58

sort of making out. out and stealing

1:28:00

the car at the same time. Yeah,

1:28:02

we never see a gun or anything,

1:28:04

but it's implied that they've killed everyone

1:28:08

in this convenience. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the

1:28:10

president and dad are just driving around, they're

1:28:12

out of ideas. But then they see

1:28:14

the car speed past. Dad's like, that's

1:28:16

my car, that's them, let's chase them. So

1:28:19

they start chasing, they're sort of up behind the natural

1:28:21

born killers honking and flashing at them. I'll

1:28:23

lose them, says the man, criminal. I

1:28:26

don't think they're ever named these days. So the

1:28:28

car chase sort of carries on. In the background, we see Duncan

1:28:30

and Hallie get on a bus. Dad runs

1:28:32

a red light chasing the natural born

1:28:34

killers, the cops see and they start chasing them.

1:28:37

Yeah. So, okay, so the

1:28:39

red BMW with the crime randos in

1:28:41

it has got away. And

1:28:43

the president and Duncan's dad, still dressed in their

1:28:45

red blazers, are now being pulled over by the

1:28:47

cops. I'll handle this,

1:28:50

says the president, remembering that he's the president.

1:28:53

He's being a president has its

1:28:55

advantages, he says, and we smash

1:28:58

cut to the president is jailed.

1:29:02

The door swings shut in his prison

1:29:05

cell. Yeah, and he is imprisoned.

1:29:07

You're making a mistake, says the president of the

1:29:09

United States to the policeman. Yeah, well, we called

1:29:12

the White House and they said the president's at

1:29:14

a fundraiser and has been all night. Yeah, ignore

1:29:16

the fact that you have the exact face and

1:29:18

voice of the president. Yes. Duncan's

1:29:21

dad goes on to... I reckon if I

1:29:23

came across Joe Biden and he was dressed

1:29:25

in a red jacket, I would... He

1:29:28

said, I'm Joe Biden. I'm Joe Biden.

1:29:30

I'm like, I would... The president's

1:29:33

in America, probably. Yeah.

1:29:35

Yeah. If my doorbell

1:29:37

went off and when I opened the door, Joe Biden was

1:29:39

there and he said, hello, I'm Joe Biden. And

1:29:41

I checked online and I said, ah, it says

1:29:43

here that the president lives in America. So

1:29:46

what are you doing going to jail? I

1:29:50

would violently wrestle into the ground and handcuff

1:29:52

him. You're making a mistake. I'm the real

1:29:54

Joe Biden. Yeah. Sure, sure. Tell

1:29:56

it to the cops. You

1:29:58

go away for a long time. time.

1:30:02

So Duncan's

1:30:04

dad reveals that the president angrily

1:30:06

tore up the ticket and

1:30:08

also doesn't carry ID. News

1:30:12

is for some reason a TV with news. Why would you carry ID

1:30:14

if you're the president, though? Your face is

1:30:16

the ID, your voice is the ID,

1:30:18

you're the actual president. For some reason

1:30:20

in this prison there's a TV showing

1:30:23

the news, facing the

1:30:25

cells. It's just nice, isn't it? So yeah,

1:30:27

the news is showing the protests outside the

1:30:29

fundraise, and the dad is loving it. And

1:30:31

then the president complains about these protesters and

1:30:33

how hard it is to be president. He

1:30:35

says that they get riled up if you

1:30:37

raise money, but if you don't, you lose. So

1:30:39

think about that. There we go. Oh hey,

1:30:43

look, there's your fundraiser. Yeah,

1:30:49

it's funny, they get riled up when you raise money,

1:30:51

but if you don't, you lose. Sometimes

1:30:54

I think the best thing that could happen to me is

1:30:56

I lose this election. I can't even

1:30:58

remember the last time I did something with Hallie just for

1:31:00

the fun of it. It's not

1:31:02

easy being president and a parent, believe me.

1:31:05

Hey, it's not easy being a parent

1:31:07

even when you're not president. Duncan

1:31:09

and I are practically strangers. I

1:31:12

work six days a week. I don't

1:31:14

get a chance to play golf anymore. You

1:31:16

play golf? Yes, I

1:31:18

do. In fact, I was captain

1:31:20

on my college team. Hmm.

1:31:23

You play? Not lately.

1:31:26

Too busy with the campaign. I don't

1:31:29

have time for anything. So

1:31:31

it seems like these two dads have more

1:31:33

in common than they thought, because at the

1:31:35

end of the day, like all dads, they

1:31:38

both play golf. At

1:31:41

the end of the day, like all dads, they're too

1:31:43

busy to play golf and working to do anything with

1:31:45

their children. At the end of the day, they're too

1:31:47

busy to play as much golf as they'd like. I

1:31:51

said Disney channel screenwriter steps

1:31:53

away from the keyboard like,

1:31:55

damn, that's relatable. Damn, that's

1:31:57

relatable. The golf link stretch away.

1:32:00

He still has more D-con to

1:32:02

write. Yeah. Oh, God, it's

1:32:04

such a hard life. Honey, I won't be home.

1:32:06

Yes, I'm going golfing. The

1:32:08

president gets his one phone call, so he's going to call

1:32:11

the Secret Service. On the bus, the kids are talking

1:32:13

about... If they pick up. Yeah. They're

1:32:16

like, incoming call from the president.

1:32:18

I don't believe it. It says here, he's at a

1:32:20

fundraiser. It says, yeah, I won't answer. Yeah,

1:32:23

the kids are on the bus talking about anything else they could do

1:32:25

before they turn themselves in. Hallie

1:32:27

asks what Duncan likes to do in his normal

1:32:30

life, and he says nothing. You seem to think

1:32:32

having a normal life is glamorous, but it's not.

1:32:34

I just live life as a regular kid magician.

1:32:36

Yeah, he says you wake up, you go to

1:32:38

school, teaches Hassel you, parents hassle you, you go

1:32:41

to bed, wake up, repeat. Hallie

1:32:43

complains at every moment of her day, is

1:32:45

planned out. She says she doesn't have any

1:32:47

time to have a boring moment. Yeah, Duncan's

1:32:49

just a regular kid magician who happens to

1:32:51

be a truly impressive trickster. So

1:32:58

the bus goes past... The

1:33:02

bus goes past the protest. Just

1:33:07

a regular kid magician who has to be

1:33:09

a truly, truly, truly... I'd

1:33:14

forgotten. Oh my God.

1:33:17

If you're a new listener to the podcast, listen

1:33:19

to the Now You See It episode. For

1:33:23

more. For more magic content. For more

1:33:25

regular kid magicians. Oh my

1:33:27

God, okay, yeah. So yeah, the bus goes past

1:33:29

the protest. Hallie wants to check it out. This

1:33:31

is... For fun. This

1:33:33

is nuts. They're like, hey, what else can

1:33:36

we do before we hand ourselves in on

1:33:38

our crazy night? We've done biker bar, we've

1:33:40

done alien dance. What else can we do

1:33:42

to escape our lives? And then

1:33:45

they drive past the presidential fundraiser,

1:33:47

and Hallie says, wait, stop the

1:33:49

bus. I want to go there.

1:33:51

I want to check out the president fundraiser where my

1:33:53

dad will be. That's where you were supposed to go

1:33:55

anyway, isn't it? That was the thing that

1:33:57

you were desperate not to go to. Yeah, it'd be like they

1:33:59

drove past. a sort of photo

1:34:01

op at the opening of a library. And

1:34:03

Hallie was like, oh, I got a chair. Yeah,

1:34:05

I want to check this out. So it

1:34:07

doesn't make, also you're the president's

1:34:10

daughter and you're trying to evade capture.

1:34:13

If you go to the fundraiser, you will be

1:34:15

seen by the secret service. It's a baffling decision.

1:34:18

I have no idea why she does this. So

1:34:21

anyway, but so she does. And

1:34:23

she wades into the protest with

1:34:25

Duncan. Hallie moves

1:34:27

amid this throng of people who

1:34:30

all hate her and her dad. A

1:34:32

news reporter is interviewing the crowd. One

1:34:34

woman says that Richmond and his administration

1:34:37

has destroyed everything this country once stood

1:34:39

for. And this fundraiser proves they're all

1:34:41

crooks. It's not true, interrupts Hallie, and

1:34:43

proceeds to give an interview to the

1:34:46

news. You look a little bit like

1:34:48

the president's daughter, says the news reporter,

1:34:50

who presumably sees her almost daily in

1:34:53

her job. No, I don't, says Hallie. No,

1:34:55

don't you remember I interviewed you? You

1:34:57

are the president's daughter. You are the president, we know who

1:34:59

you are. No, I don't, she says. So

1:35:03

yeah, for himself. We

1:35:05

see agent Thornhill, head

1:35:07

of the secret service, on the phone,

1:35:09

failing to see in his peripheral vision

1:35:11

that this is occurring on a television

1:35:13

that he's pacing past. He gets

1:35:15

a call from the president who's in jail and

1:35:17

he says, you'll never guess where the president is. No,

1:35:20

says Duncan's little sister, you'll never guess where Duncan

1:35:22

is. And she points at the TV, where

1:35:25

Hallie is still being interviewed. So

1:35:28

at this protest, the

1:35:31

news is covering this anti-president

1:35:33

protest, and they're speaking to

1:35:35

the protesters. And the person they're speaking to

1:35:37

is Hallie, who says, I think the president

1:35:40

is basically an okay guy, except he could

1:35:42

probably lighten up some. And then the newscaster

1:35:44

says, and what do you think? And hands

1:35:46

the mic to Duncan. I

1:35:48

think the president is a great, great man.

1:35:50

And forgiving, says Duncan, because

1:35:53

he- And we should all get behind

1:35:55

him. Yeah. Then the first

1:35:57

woman, the one who was complaining, gets back on the mic.

1:36:00

You obviously disagree with this young man? Well,

1:36:02

totally. This president is using

1:36:04

the Secret Service to spy on our

1:36:06

organization. That is not true. He would

1:36:08

never ever do that. Oh, honey, you

1:36:11

are so young and naive. President

1:36:14

Richmond is a very corrupt and evil man.

1:36:16

How can you say that? Do you know

1:36:18

how hard it is to be the president?

1:36:21

24 hours a day, 7 days a week, people

1:36:23

wanting something from you every moment. He never

1:36:25

has any time to do anything for himself,

1:36:27

anything fun, anything normal. You don't even know

1:36:29

him. Sorry. I

1:36:32

know what he does. I'm

1:36:35

surprised he hasn't already sent in his goon

1:36:37

squad to break up this legal protest. There

1:36:39

they are! Right there! I got him!

1:36:42

Secret Service, Secret Service, here they come! Come

1:36:44

on, come on, come on! Excuse me, here they come.

1:36:47

Here they come! So

1:36:49

that amusing swing band music is indeed the cue

1:36:51

for government forces to move on this peaceful protest.

1:36:55

Yeah, as described by the woman,

1:36:57

this legal protest. Also,

1:36:59

she's like, oh, the Secret Service is

1:37:01

spying on our ill-defined organization. Yes. So

1:37:04

what is your organization? You don't want

1:37:06

people to raise campaign funds? I don't

1:37:08

know. But it's wild to

1:37:10

me how the movie just drops this

1:37:12

thing about, oh, the Secret Service is

1:37:15

spying on our organization and

1:37:17

then breezes past it. Because

1:37:19

isn't this what Nixon did? Like,

1:37:22

didn't he wiretapping the Democratic

1:37:25

headquarters? Yeah, all sorts of

1:37:27

people. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, that

1:37:29

was specifically the Watergate thing. Yeah, right. It

1:37:31

was the Democratic National Convention,

1:37:34

right? Yeah. So the

1:37:36

movie sort of

1:37:38

just drops this, but it drops it

1:37:40

in at a point where the president

1:37:42

is watching the TV. I

1:37:45

don't know if this really came across in

1:37:47

the audio clip, but when Hallie is speaking

1:37:49

and defending her dad and saying that he's

1:37:51

awesome, we see the president watching on TV

1:37:53

and he's getting all misty-eyed. And

1:37:55

he's like, oh, this is so nice. Hallie loves me

1:37:57

and she's defending me. And he

1:37:59

is not. reacting to

1:38:01

the accusation of wiretapping, and

1:38:04

Halle is not reacting to the

1:38:06

accusation of wiretapping. This

1:38:09

woman is dismissed as a paranoid fringe

1:38:11

random. Yes.

1:38:14

Whereas in fact, she's saying, yes, secret

1:38:16

service overreach is in full effect. Here

1:38:20

they come right now. They're spying on my

1:38:22

organizer. That is absolutely consistent with what we've

1:38:24

seen the president do. He has a manila

1:38:27

folder on Duncan. On Duncan,

1:38:29

yeah, that of like personal information that

1:38:31

he shouldn't be using. Yeah, shouldn't be

1:38:33

able to access. Certainly not

1:38:35

for these purposes. So yeah,

1:38:37

but the film, the film

1:38:39

doesn't, I care that this president

1:38:42

appears to be extremely corrupt,

1:38:45

corrupt and overreaching. The film doesn't. The

1:38:47

film only cares that Halle is defending

1:38:50

him and the president sees this and

1:38:52

the president's like, Oh, that's nice.

1:38:54

Halle said a nice thing about. So anyway,

1:38:56

even though the president's

1:38:58

daughter is like

1:39:01

her location is known and televised.

1:39:04

Yeah. They managed to effortlessly

1:39:07

elude the secret service. They have

1:39:09

like a Scooby Doo chase through a jazz

1:39:12

band. They climb a fire escape and lose

1:39:14

the secret service. If you ever, if you

1:39:16

ever kidnapped the president's daughter, and

1:39:18

you're being pursued by the secret service, here's my

1:39:20

tip. Try climbing a fire escape. It

1:39:23

should Fox them. Should be. Yeah, they can't do it.

1:39:25

They can't see it. I mean, obviously, a heavy vision

1:39:27

is based on not that they won't dispatch a helicopter.

1:39:29

No, no, they won't. They won't. There will be no

1:39:32

road closures. Nothing. So

1:39:34

the secret service let the kids get away.

1:39:37

The president is let out of prison. There's a

1:39:39

bolo out for the kids. The president wants to

1:39:41

go back to the White House. But Lemson says,

1:39:44

we've got to go back to the fundraiser. It

1:39:46

had cost us 10 million. If you don't go