Our 'movies about presidents' series continues (probably for four more years) with a much better movie this time. 1993's Wolfgang Peterson joint In the Line of Fire, featuring Clint Eastwood again (are we... doing a Clint Eastwood season now?) as jaded old Secret Service agent Frank Horrigan, veteran of a particular epic fail in Dallas 1963, up against the 90s serial killer shtick of rogue CIA super-assassin John Malkovich and, even more dauntingly, the merciless side-eye of fellow agent Rene Russo. A superior slice of 90s Hollywood nonsense with a nice line in gentle self-mockery and some adorable early digital effects. This is a fun one, kids. Full episode exclusive for Patreon subscribers. Please consider donating to help us make the show and stay independent. Patrons get exclusive access to at least one full extra episode a month. Daniel's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/danielharper/posts Jack's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=4196618&fan_landing=true IDSG Twitter: https://twitter.com/idsgpod Daniel's Twitter: @danieleharper Jack's (Locked) Twitter: @_Jack_Graham_ Jack's Bluesky: @timescarcass.bsky.social Daniel's Bluesky: @danielharper.bsky.social IDSG on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i-dont-speak-german/id1449848509?ls=1
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Here's a preview of the new one.
Wanted. Ambitious individual for leadership position.
Be prepared for difficult application process and stressful work environment.
Challenges? Many.
Rewards? Numerous.
Failure? Apostle, your employer, the American people.
The few chosen have been the presidents.
I mean, we'll get into this, but this is the same guy who did Air Force One, and Air Force One comes after this, and this is just so much better.
It's so much better than Air Force One.
It's just so much better than Air Force One.
It's weird, isn't it?
Because it feels like Air Force One is consciously an attempt to kind of do this again.
This is something that...
Struck me watching in the line of fire was, oh, so this was before Air Force One.
So, Air Force One is one of those movies where the director is kind of, you know that really good thing you did, that thing you did that was so successful and made a lot of money?
Do that again.
Just do that again.
It's like, what am I thinking?
The Green Mile.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's what the Green Mile was like.
Everybody said, oh, we'll just get, everybody will get Stephen King back and we'll get whatever the director's name is back.
And we'll just have another Shawshank Redemption.
And no.
Right. Yeah, it was Frank Darabont.
I couldn't remember if it was actually Frank Darabont.
Darabont, that's right.
Yeah, no.
Yeah, no.
I remember it because it was released as like a series of six books or something like that originally.
Yes, yes.
It always felt like a gimmick to me.
I mean, you know, Stephen King is like, you know, I really like Stephen King, but he's such a commercial writer that sometimes he just...
Does that kind of shit?
I don't know.
Like, it's just weird shit, but...
No, I mean, the movie, I mean, it's okay.
It's not a bad movie, the movie The Green Mile, for what it is.
But it's so obviously, you know, we get another Stephen King property set in a prison period piece, and we get the same director back, and we're going to have, going to recreate the magic.
And that's how I felt watching In the Line of Fire.
That's how I, suddenly, Air Force One felt like that.
It felt like...
Do it again, Wolfgang.
Yeah, I agree.
So yeah, we'll talk about all that more, I'm sure.
Yeah, because this is another bonus episode in our series of episodes about movies about presidents, and we are talking about 1993's In the Line of Fire, directed by Wolfgang Peterson.
So I've done my research this time.
Starring Clint Eastwood.
And Rene Rousseau and John Malkovich and loads of other people whose faces you will recognize when you see them come on screen.
Oh, yes, absolutely.
Most notably, for me, it was Tobin Bell.
I'm like, who do I know that guy from?
Where do I know this person from?
And it turns out, oh, right, he was from Lost.
But I never watched Lost, but I knew his face from Lost.
And he plays the counterfeiter at the very beginning of the movie.
He's like the lead guy.
Yeah, yeah.
And let me think.
You've got John Hurd pops up.
That's the dad from the Home Alone movies, for people that don't know the name.
You've got the actor that was in Life Force, Toby Hooper's Life Force, the U.S. astronaut.
You've got Frasier's dad.
He doesn't have a name, he's just Frasier's dad.
He's just Frasier's dad.
That's just his name.
Gary Cole?
Gary Cole?
Last time we were talking about characters and subplots appearing and then disappearing inexplicably in Absolute Power.
In The Line of Fire, I think we probably agree a much better movie than Absolute Power.
It does have a mild case of the same syndrome because you do have what looks to me like a subplot being set up with the Gary Cole secret service agent and his antagonism towards Frank Horrigan, the Clint Eastwood.
And then that just sort of...
Nothing happens.
I mean, I kind of have a hypothesis behind this, and I watched this twice.
Yeah. And I kind of have, we can get into that, I think, shortly.
But I kind of have, I kind of think I know kind of what's going on here.
Because it's not just, you know, Wolfgang Peterson, like, coming in and doing his, like, bring it through another thing.
They're aping another type of movie as well.
But just while we were mentioning the cast, I want to mention Fred Dalton Thompson.
As the White House Chief of Staff.
The evil White House Chief of Staff?
Although in this case, he's just more obstructionist.
He's just more like, you know, well, it doesn't matter if the president dies if he doesn't get re-elected.
It's like, yeah, Christ, man.
He doesn't say it in that many words, but I mean, that's kind of the implication, right?
It's like, well, look, we've got a campaign event to do, and you need to stop making...
Sorry for the language here.
You need to stop making the president look like a pussy already.
It's like, Jesus, man.
Yeah, no.
I mean, he's great in the role.
I mean, I don't know.
Fred Thompson, he has horrifying politics, but I always love him as an actor.
I just can't not like him as an actor, even when he's saying despicable things.
Yeah, he was a good actor.
If people don't know, Fred Dalton Thompson was also a Republican senator for quite some time, or congressman, I can't remember which, for...
He was a senator.
Mississippi or Louisiana or something like that.
I'll look it up for you.
Very right-wing guy.
Tennessee. Tennessee, there you go.
It's all the same.
It's all the same place.
It's kind of right, you know.
Given the amount of...
I couldn't name like three British counties, so, you know, I think you're okay there.
So that proves I'm right, yeah.
But yeah, he is good on screen.
I like Fred Dalton.
And he is more, he's less an evil White House chief of staff and more just a cynical, cowardly, you know, just a politician.
Just a goddamn politician.
I mean, I read him as he's a guy who's doing his job.
Like, his job is not, like, look, you're the Secret Service.
You take care of your guy.
I'm supposed to, like, run the White House.
And that means, you know, doing what I can to get re-election.
In six weeks or whatever.
I don't know.
I found it hard to hate the guy.
I don't know who will get into this, but I kind of found it hard to hate anybody who was kind of putting the brakes on Clint Eastwood's character in this.
Despite everything that we're kind of told by the movie, I was kind of like, yeah, these are people doing their jobs.
Horrigan's the one who's really stepping out of the line for most of it.
I mean, he ends up being right in the end.
But again, this is something that, like, I think this is a little bit more detailed than we want to get into here at the very beginning of the podcast, but there's just these threads of, you know...
I agree.
We are told tonally that the White House chief of staff is a bad guy, whereas, in fact, he doesn't really do anything.
Like, the film is very disapproving of the fact that he dives for cover when there appears to be a gunshot.
And it's like, yes, that's fair enough.
That's what you should do.
Yeah, that's, you know...
No. He's not a secret service agent.
I take a bullet not even to protect the president.
You know, I'm just supposed to take the bullet.
Like, no, I'm sorry.
Not gonna happen.
Nope. And I'm afraid that's all you're getting of that, at least for the time being.
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