EP. 325 — Hangman

Paul Scheer [00:00:00] It’s a goddamn children’s game played by a killer. We saw Hangman. So you know what that means.

 

Music [00:00:18] [Intro Song]

 

Paul Scheer [00:00:26] Hello, people of Earth and welcome to How Did This Get Made? I’m your tall John Scheer, and this is the podcast where we talk about movies that are so bad they are actually great, better than great, they are fantastic and this is no exception. The 2017 film Hangmen, starring Al Pacino, the ninth time he has played a cop. It’s the lowest ranking cop movie of his on Rotten Tomatoes with below 40%. The movie is simple. There is a serial killer out there who is killing people and also leaving clues to a game of hangman. But who is it? Doesn’t make a difference. It won’t be something you can figure out. Here to break down the movie are my two costar, Jason Mantzoukas and June Diane Raphael. How are you both?

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:01:15] I’ll be honest, Paul, getting getting it took you almost as long as it took me to get through this movie, to get through the intro for this movie. I’m sure it will be edited perfectly, but this this movie was as impenetrable as it was to summarize for you.

 

Paul Scheer [00:01:34] This is an odd movie because I haven’t found myself laughing out loud as much in a movie that we’ve watched for this show than this film. But at the same time, when you get to the last 40 minutes, you’re like, What?

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:01:52] Yeah.

 

Paul Scheer [00:01:53] I invested all of this for this? It’s it’s so wild. But I mean, I did enjoy I. The first hour. I’m loving it. I’m loving it.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:02:06] Oh, you’re like, go into McDonald’s. Yeah.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:02:10] Yeah, yeah.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:02:11] June, are you okay?

 

June Diane Raphael [00:02:19] You know, here’s what I’ll say. I want to start with the positive, actually, because there is a lot I really did like much like Paul. I mean, we were laughing. We were truly having some L.O.L and. I. I never heard of this. When did this movie come out? I don’t know.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:02:41] This is one of those movies that doesn’t exist. This, I feel like, is the kind of movie that they make for foreign sales.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:02:49] This is AI. You know, this is on when you says impenetrable. That’s exactly right. This movie is unknowable. And you can’t it’s it it doesn’t ever happen. It doesn’t. It’s not a movie. It does not a podcast at all. Does not. The actors are not there in it. It’s just not it’s not a it’s not it’s.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:03:15] Not a real movie. It’s not a real movie. If you told me, like June said, like AI. It was assembled and cobbled together from the pieces of other movies. It would make sense why it doesn’t add up. Because say.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:03:27] One thing. Can I say one thing? Sure. So there’s a lot is there a lot that happens in this movie. Who knows? But we’ll get into all of it. But one of the things that I was so confounded by was the way this movie was shot, because there are multiple moments where important action is happening. And I mean, like someone’s getting, you know, we’re revealing the killer or someone’s stabbed or someone got away. And I simply couldn’t see, they didn’t ever show.

 

Paul Scheer [00:03:59] So dark.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:04:00] It’s so dark. And I kept on rewinding.

 

Paul Scheer [00:04:03] Me too.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:04:04] I did the exact. I kept rewinding to see, did they just reveal something I’m supposed to pick up on.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:04:10] The reaction time cutting to reaction shots, but I can’t see yet what we are all everybody else has seen.

 

Paul Scheer [00:04:19] You can’t see it. And even if you did, it wouldn’t make sense because we didn’t know that information beforehand. It’s not like a twist.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:04:26] Yes. If they had shown us anything there, it’s there. It’s the movie is trying to create suspense, trying to create all these things that it is not itself bringing about. So by teasing you. But, you know, like the reality is correct me if I’m wrong, but when we see who the killer is. Yeah, it’s not anybody we’ve ever met in the past. Correct?

 

Paul Scheer [00:04:51] Nor is it anyone that has been referenced.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:04:53] But Paul, we did me the person in the first scene.

 

Paul Scheer [00:04:56] No, we met somebody else. The person getting out of that truck was not him, was it?

 

June Diane Raphael [00:05:02] It was.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:05:03] Yes. That’s the only connection, though. That’s the only connection, though. And we don’t know anything about him that helps. But I mean, like we haven’t seen he’s not one of the cops. He’s not one of.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:05:14] The by the way, I would have been okay with that. So that man who sideswipes Al Pacino in the beginning, that’s him. And he did it on purpose. That’s the killer. And that’s more the we find that out because he was in jail for nine months for that sideswipe? Which seems like a pretty heavy sentence.

 

Paul Scheer [00:05:30] Was the goal to just drive that day and sideswipe Al Pacino while he sits outside of a bar?

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:05:38] So that this whole plan can be set in motion? Because here’s the other thing that occurred to me at the end of the movie. If you’re going to set up a movie where in the the game of Hangman is like the serial killer’s calling card, right? That’s like then we’ve got a hangman murderer. We’ve got, like, the press would be on this. We’ve got, like, a whole thing. And the whole ethos of it would be trying to figure out what’s the word. Yeah, right. They never say never engage in trying to solve the puzzle. Not only that, but you would think that we have to solve the crime before he solves the before all the letters are revealed and in fact, they don’t. The guy wins, the serial killer wins. Because by the time all the letters are filled in, he’s killed everybody.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:06:29] Okay, first one, I just have you guys have you both now and then Paul on here, it goes to say, But for someone like me, a winner of Celebrity Wheel of Fortune.

 

Paul Scheer [00:06:37] Oh, my gosh. Here we go. I’m also a winner of celebrity wheel of fortune.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:06:41] Did you win $160,000?

 

Paul Scheer [00:06:42] I didn’t win that much.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:06:43] I didn’t think so. So as a winner of Celebrity Wheel of Fortune $160,000 for wonderful organization called Oceana, they Protect and Restore the World’s Oceans.

 

Paul Scheer [00:06:56] I won about $80,000. So okay.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:06:58] So I guess won double. So as a winner, once I realized, hangman, we get to figure out a word puzzle. I’m ready. I am ready. Give me a couple letters.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:07:09] If I’m within the Monroe police force, I’m calling in Vanna White. I’m calling in June Diane Raphael.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:07:14] I  hope I get a call in.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:07:17] Hangman experts.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:07:18] Yes.

 

Paul Scheer [00:07:19] Hangman experts. It’s not even a long phrase. It’s one word.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:07:22] And also there’s no attempt. So they start figuring out these clues. But it’s like at a certain point, like just throws some words on the table.

 

Paul Scheer [00:07:31] Well, but June, we meet Al Pacino. Or we meet him a year later in a car doing crosswords in Latin. Latin, which, by the way, makes no fucking sense.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:07:45] So is the are the questions in Latin?

 

Paul Scheer [00:07:53] Well, that was my whole thought. It’s clearly not because he’s getting like a consumer crossword. It looks like a book that you would buy at the airport. That’s what he’s doing. And he’s like, Oh, you’re doing it in Latin is like, I’m always an altar boy. But you could it wouldn’t work. But yet they go so far to get you to. Not only is he good at crosswords, but he doesn’t mean Latin. And then this whole movie is a crossword in Latin, and he only figures it out here at the end.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:08:23] Every letter is present. But the last one.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:08:27] I, i.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:08:29] I, I was the I.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:08:33] But here’s my problem with that.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:08:34] They’re bad cops.

 

Paul Scheer [00:08:36] He knew it. He already drew the line of the eviction.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:08:40] This is my problem with the serial killer. Aside from, obviously. What? The fact that he’s killing people. But he doesn’t have, Al Pacino did not a victim as a child.

 

Paul Scheer [00:08:55] Yes, he did.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:08:56] Wait. What?

 

Paul Scheer [00:08:57] That was the flashback.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:08:58] He’d know what was the.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:09:00] What’s the Latin word meme?

 

June Diane Raphael [00:09:02] Eviction.

 

Paul Scheer [00:09:03] Eviction.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:09:03] Just eviction?

 

June Diane Raphael [00:09:04] Just eviction. But Al Pacino is just a cop. I thought he was just a cop who found. He evicted him?

 

Paul Scheer [00:09:10] Yeah. Listen. Listen to this clip.

 

Movie Audio [00:09:12] I remember the last time I saw you. You were just up to here. Just a little boy. Five or six years old. I was a cop. I was doing my job. When that day was over, was I wash my hands of you. I did. I know I did. And I know now that was a mistake. It was a tragic mistake, Jim. I remember it was the lions looking at me as if I was the one who killed your father. But I didn’t. I didn’t do it. He hung himself. I was there. I was there witnessing that trauma.

 

Movie Audio [00:09:54] You know what? Fuck you.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:09:56] Paul, this clip didn’t explain it.

 

Paul Scheer [00:09:58] Well, if you listen on it, he was.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:10:00] I listened to this clip. He was upset that you didn’t take care of him and like the home for wayward children. But. Yes, but that doesn’t make him an eviction. It doesn’t make him an eviction man.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:10:10] Yeah, that’s what he.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:10:13] He’s gonna kill nine people so he can spell out eviction?

 

Paul Scheer [00:10:16] Who do you. Who do you get more upset with? The repo man or the company like Allstate? Who’s repossessing your car? The repo man. You don’t get mad at Allstate.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:10:25] Oh, but he wasn’t evicting them.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:10:28] He wasn’t the repo man.

 

Paul Scheer [00:10:30] He was.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:10:31] He just found the body, though. He was doing his job.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:10:34] Paul is saying, Jason, is that Al Pacino, young Al Pacino shows up to evict them and happens to find the body, which I do not think is the case.

 

Paul Scheer [00:10:44] But don’t police put eviction notices on doors?

 

June Diane Raphael [00:10:48] Landlords do.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:10:50] Well, wait, Paul, are you saying that Pacino is there in an official police duty to evict them?

 

Paul Scheer [00:10:59] Yes.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:10:59] That’s what he’s saying.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:11:00] Oh, so that’s why. Okay, if that is the case.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:11:03] It is not.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:11:04] It’s not in the movie. I don’t think. Now that’s.

 

Paul Scheer [00:11:07] Okay. So here it. Only law enforcement officers can evict a tenant after they have a court order. So Yes, you are. It’s. Yes and no.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:11:20] Maybe that is what they’re going for. But it’s it’s really not so explicitly laid out that way in the movie. I mean.

 

Paul Scheer [00:11:27] Technically, the landlord is responsible.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:11:30] We don’t know any of this story of the boy. And the hung father.

 

Paul Scheer [00:11:33] This movie happens way before we check in.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:11:36] The whodunit of this movie is so unsatisfying. Oh, God. Because when it is finally revealed and we don’t know who this person is and when his motivations are revealed, we don’t understand, nor have we been privy to those. So it’s unsatisfying in every thriller mystery.

 

Paul Scheer [00:11:56] Let me go back to the first question I wrote down when I watched this movie. And I want to ask this and not it’s going to come across snarky, but I want you to both listen to it in a way that I meant it. Does Al Pacino need the money or does he actually like this part? Because I want to get to the bottom of that. Like, Al Pacino doesn’t seem to need the money, so he must have read this and felt, yeah, this is for me.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:12:29] I disagree a little because it not that I disagree, but I think because this Al Pacino, I think, does two of these a year. Okay. Like this is like John Malkovich is doing this Bruce Willis until his retirement was doing this. There’s a lot of actors who are in movies that are that are like this, that are like police procedural, that are direct to foreign markets mostly. They sell big because these names these people are names. They sell big foreign. And so they can get paychecks for very little work. You know, this movie costs nothing.

 

Paul Scheer [00:13:05] I mean, he is on screen a lot. And I will say that. He’s not sleepwalking through it.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:13:14] No, He’s making choices.

 

Paul Scheer [00:13:15] A lot of choices. Sometimes he looks sleepy. I do have. My second question was, when did Al Pacino become Southern? I know. We just accept it now, but this is.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:13:25] First of all, where is Monroe?

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:13:28] It’s like, Yes.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:13:29] New Orleans?I have no idea.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:13:31] It looks like a big city. And I wrote, Where is he? But then they’re talking like you retired from the FBI to go back to your hometown, Monroe. Where? And yes, for sure. Pacino Sounds like he’s in the bayou.

 

Paul Scheer [00:13:44] Pacino Sounds like he’s in a Looney Tunes cartoon. He sounds like Foghorn Leghorn. I’m like, We should get them together. (Al Pacino Impression) Who now? Let me tell you, when I go over here, I’ll tell you, FDA, don’t put that stuff in. Oh, my God. What is going on?

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:13:59] I couldn’t make heads or tails of his accent at all. He’s giving.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:14:04] And it came and went.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:14:05] Hoowah, Hoowah. All that stuff. Except it’s definitely got a bayou lilt to it.

 

Paul Scheer [00:14:14] I think that Pacino was like, I like this script. Will you let me do it if I can wear my own scarves? And they were like, Yeah, you can wear scarves. And he was like, Great. Like, it didn’t feel like he was dressed like he didn’t go through wardrobe. He’s like, I’ll just wear what I’m wearing. Like, Yeah, because he does. Pacino now is an interesting character. I watched him, like, do a cooking segment with with the guy who has donkey sauce is a Guy Fieri Like, he’s like, Oh, love you.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:14:41] Oh, wow.

 

Paul Scheer [00:14:42] Yeah. So he’s like, Pacino’s getting out there. I guess what my question is, though, it’s just a money gig, but it does look like. He’s not doing the money gigs the way other people are doing the money gigs like he is on set. Looks like night shoots because every place you enter is completely dark. There’s never a light on anywhere.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:15:04] There’s they don’t have flashlights. They’re police officers who enter pig factories, private homes in the middle of the night with no flashlights. Why? They are bad at their jobs every step of the way. They are behind. The person who breaks the most clues is Britney Snow, who is an investigative reporter who is given unprecedented access to murder scenes and cases and everything for reasons that I don’t know.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:15:35] You’re so right that she’s she’s given this unprecedented access. But I said to Paul, I was like, I understand when people when reporters go on a ride along and I get, okay, the cops want a new you know, they want this profile to kind of like soften their image or whatever. What However, she convinced Captain to let her in, but ask the mayor to do this. But I’m like, that’s having ride along status is one thing I have never heard of a reporter walking into an active crime scene.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:16:09] Taking pictures. Taking cell phone pictures, not putting on gloves, not putting on booties.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:16:16] No. And I’m like, this is the. They’ll never be able to try a case had this serial killer survived. I believe he would have gotten off because like any sort of decent defense attorney, they’re going to be like, why was this random civilian walking around these crime scenes?

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:16:32] Yeah, absolutely.

 

Paul Scheer [00:16:34] I also want to know about her reporting style because she seems to report or record a lot on her iPhone, but doing it at one question at a time, like she’s in a ride along, you see her take out her phone hit record and go, tell me what about this? He answers. She hits stop and puts it away. One question at a time interview. Like I find I find that to be a very.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:17:02] And he’s like, Sure. She says, Can I record you now? Like on camera? And he’s like, Yeah, sure. Okay. Like what? No.

 

Paul Scheer [00:17:10] And he’s behind his desk. By the way, that police station look like a high class architectural office. It’s like.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:17:18] Like a loft. It was like a downtown loft. My favorite detail about that police station. Oh, this way. There’s one shot. Where behind Brittany Snow as she’s looking around the office. There are not one, but two pictures of a sunset. Same picture. Yes. Then, Paul, you saw this. I pointed out to you, Jason, did you see this? Oh, then you sort of moved from Brittany to him or I think you see those sunsets when she’s looking around and happens to find the file about his wife. But then when that scene where he’s talking to Brittany Snow for the first time behind him is the same picture of a sunset.

 

Paul Scheer [00:17:56] I thought it was a postcards. It’s not. You’re right. It’s it’s sunsets and it’s a photograph. You will see the sunsets in every picture. Maybe it’s maybe it’s metaphoric. Like, this is the sunset of Al Pacino’s career, not as an actor, but his his cop career. I don’t know. But also, when you just talked about her getting that file, she pulls out that file, which is like, right on top, Like, as if Karl Urban every day is like, All right, let me go back to the pictures of my wife, my dead wife, my murdered dead wife. She looks at that for no more than seven and a half seconds and solves the case.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:18:37] She is she is such a better police officer in terms of she’s getting clues, figuring stuff out, putting connections together in a way that they are a failure. Yeah. Karl Urban and Al Pacino, The number of times Al Pacino like, hits himself, it is like, Oh, I should have known. I. I should have known. Oh, I should have known. Oh, no. That’s the one that put chief in the house, in the drunk driver, put chief in the hospital.

 

Paul Scheer [00:19:10] He’s like, He’s celebrating. Oh, My favorite line was when he says, you know how many people are told their loved ones died gruesomely like crazy line to say it like. Like, don’t worry about that. I got that under control. I’ll tell anyone how their loved one was murdered. But it’s like.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:19:29] Okay, so here’s what I think I think they were going for. And I wonder if this was an Al Pacino pass on the script. Because what I think the story might have been was that he’s such a kind of detached and inhumane cop and so not attached to the work. So. Not attached to what? You know, this sort of humanity and the police work in these situations using and the victims that that moment really should land at the end where he realizes like eviction, like this guy. I didn’t check in on him. I didn’t care.

 

Paul Scheer [00:20:06] Just doing my job.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:20:07] Right. But but we know because we’ve watched him like this woman, you know, Urban’s wife is going to. Wanted him to walk her down the aisle. Like we see him as a quite caring man. So it doesn’t make a lick of sense.

 

Paul Scheer [00:20:24] This is the arc of the character that he learned to care. But I would argue that he cares so much that he seems to be doing police work in the beginning, surveilling the bar. Right?

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:20:36] The donut shop. I couldn’t figure out, but I couldn’t figure out, Am I supposed to be watching Pacino’s movie, Karl Urban’s movie? Like, who is this now? Who’s the story of this? Is this a story about the.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:20:48] Medical examiner.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:20:50] The medical examiner should be fired. The medical examiner should be fired. She’s having watched so much law and order, she doesn’t know anything. What time do you think it died? I don’t know. I don’t know. What?

 

Paul Scheer [00:21:06] How about this where they literally take a watch and they go, dust that for prints. Yeah. No, that’s not her job. Nor would the watch have made it this far. Like they would bring a cadaver in there. They wouldn’t bring, like, wouldn’t just be like. And look around here and see what you got. Like, she’s always giving her opinion. They die by hanging.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:21:27] I deaply appreciated that actress because she was giving us a lot. And I. Okay, so there’s two performances that I want to call out.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:21:37] She was harried.

 

Paul Scheer [00:21:39] She was excited. She was nervous. It felt like.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:21:41] I’d never I’ve never seen someone’s energy bubbling up onscreen like that where she was.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:21:46] And she’s doing an autopsy.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:21:49] It was full God comedy. I don’t know.

 

Paul Scheer [00:21:52] I mean, it’s it’s it’s crazy.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:21:53] She’s like, I seem to be broken before so she had been in the hospital a couple of times. Like she was so struck by her own work, which I would imagine at a certain point you become a little detached from. But she was so thrown by every piece of information.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:22:11] I like it, which would which would almost make you think like, Oh, is this a small town? They’ve never seen anything like this.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:22:19] But I don’t think that’s the case.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:22:20] No, I agree. It’s not the case.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:22:24] More like Gotham.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:22:25] She’s she’s acting as though I’ve never seen anything like this. This is crazy. I’m, like, out of my element. Where is what they’re coming to her for. And she’s hugging Pacino. Oh, my God, I missed you. You’re supposed to be fishing, blah, blah. And he’s like, What do we got? And this should be old school rat a tat tat. Let me drill it down for you. Here’s the info. This should be an exposition dump. And basically every question they have for her, the expert, she’s like, I don’t know. I’ll be honest. I don’t know.

 

Paul Scheer [00:22:54] It’s going to take some time.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:22:56] Meanwhile, there’s a random reporter standing in the room, too. I’m like, Isn’t this a sterile environment?

 

Paul Scheer [00:23:02] I also think, by the way, just to go back to that, Al Pacino hugging her like clearly Pacino’s been retired for a little bit because I think you tell me when he got his car sideswiped, he was kind of in the same spot doing the crosswords. So was he retired at that point? I think so. Right. Yeah, maybe.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:23:20] No, he wasn’t.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:23:20] Oh, no.

 

Paul Scheer [00:23:21] He was active. Okay.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:23:22] He was on the radio. He was okay there.

 

Paul Scheer [00:23:25] Yeah. Okay. So I love that like, just to go to with June saying, like, a cop who doesn’t care, he hugs everyone in that precinct, like the captain loves him like. And I think that that’s Pacino as Al Pacino like “Come here, give me a hug.”

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:23:39] He’s the man everybody’s got to love. Everybody’s got to love me.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:23:44] There’s another performance in this in this picture that is remarkable. It is absolutely outstanding. And I really.

 

Paul Scheer [00:23:54] Oh, yes, please. I know what you’re going to say.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:23:59] Call out the the actor who plays the priest.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:24:04] Oh, yeah.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:24:05] Who has to describe. And I, I almost want to watch the scene again because it was so well-done. First of all, moment he’s on screen. I was just taken with him. I was like, oh, everybody else is acting and this man is just existing. And I just thought he was so fucking good. But he is has to tell a tale about how someone took his blood in the middle of the night in a vial.

 

Paul Scheer [00:24:30] Okay, This is the former criminal turned priest that they’re talking to.

 

Movie Audio [00:24:35] You don’t know her? Well, you’re going to do some explaining that because your blood was in her apartment.

 

Movie Audio [00:24:44] My blood, you know, but I don’t. I don’t have it. You’re not going to believe this, frankly, I still don’t understand it myself, but a couple of months ago, I woke up in the middle of the night, someone standing over me, a man. And he. I struggled, but he put something over over my face and eventually I passed out. When I woke up. There was blood coming out of my arm. I mean, it was dripping down my arm like I’d gotten a shot or something. So.

 

Movie Audio [00:25:24] Okay. So you’re telling us that a guy broke into your house and stole your blood? That’s the story you telling?

 

Movie Audio [00:25:33] That’s. I told you. I told you you wouldn’t believe me. This rings a bell to me as a kind of a coincidence. When you think of it. Last Thursday. I don’t know if I told you I woke up in the middle of the night, and for some reason I had a pink tutu on. I’m a serious fuzzy feather sticking out of my ass.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:25:57] Real talk. I have a real question here. What? What? Why did the killer take his blood? And why wasn’t that ever woven into the rest of the? Why isn’t that? I’m the real question here. The. The motives of the killer make no sense. So he stole the blood from a priest?

 

June Diane Raphael [00:26:20] A little bit of it.

 

Paul Scheer [00:26:22] Because he’s.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:26:23] Months ago. So he could spread it? And the priest is like, You’re going to like this. This is actually pretty funny. When the priest delivery of this information, they’re like, How can we find your blood? And he’s like, okay, you’re not going to believe this. But I woke up in the middle of the night.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:26:40] But I did believe it. I believe it.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:26:46] Why? But they’re not curious as to. They don’t even put that up as part of the killer’s like MO.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:26:53]  Because if you’re a serial killer, I imagine that you actually do want credit for your work.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:26:58] Yes. This is not seven. Seven. I get it. I get it. Zodiac. I get it. Like, this is just this. I feel like June, your statement earlier in the podcast that this feels as though it was done by AI. Is absolutely right, because I feel like it’s pulled a lot of the esthetic choices from other things, but none of the story elements. So this story doesn’t add up at all. But all of the the all the stuff that’s been. Yes, all the trappings, all the tropes are there.

 

Paul Scheer [00:27:31] Because here’s the thing. If you take a step back, you have a cop who has a murdered wife who is killed in a grisly way. You have people being killed in a grisly way. Being a part of a game of Hangman. You have a reporter who also had a run in with a criminal where the police saved her and she has a permanent scar. Like these people are getting scarred because they’re getting the letters written on their body. Then you have a police officer who is retired. But we don’t really. He seems great. It doesn’t seem like he was.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:28:01] All is the whole? Is the serial killers? And forgive me, I know we’re spending all of this just really trying to parse the plot.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:28:09] What else can you really do?

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:28:11] Exactly. Is the serial killer’s motivation just to get back at Pacino, a.k.a. Eviction Man?

 

June Diane Raphael [00:28:21] That’s the twist, isn’t it? That I think.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:28:23] And as a result, Karl Urban and Britney Snow are innocent bystanders, right?

 

Paul Scheer [00:28:28] No. Because Karl Urban’s wife was the first.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:28:32] Victim, number one.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:28:35] Is that because Pacino loved her?

 

Paul Scheer [00:28:38] I think what happened was the first person who was killed, Karl Urban’s wife, was killed by that man where they go to his house and he’s already killed himself. And then this guy picked up the torch. Could that be part of it? Because Karl Urban’s wife was killed. He didn’t finish the job. I think that he’s copying.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:29:05] Is he a copycat?

 

Paul Scheer [00:29:06] I think he is, right. I thought that that was part of the twist.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:29:10] No, I think there is a twist. But I do agree with you that there’s two killers out there.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:29:15] Whoa.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:29:16] There’s definitely two. Because there’s our killer who was the little boy and is now, you know, current date serial killer. However, I do. And he he was the one who did the V on Karl Urban’s. But I believe that we might pan out in that scene, that little boy scene, to find that he has a twin.

 

Paul Scheer [00:29:38] Whoa!

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:29:39] Wait. When are we going to do that?

 

June Diane Raphael [00:29:41] In the sequel. In the sequel is when.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:29:44] When what?

 

Paul Scheer [00:29:45] Well, the sequel is. The sequel is happening. I mean.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:29:48] That’s what I’m saying. Because we don’t get to know.

 

Paul Scheer [00:29:51] Wordle.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:29:51] There is another there is another hangman. And he is clearly now I think what might have happened is his what the sequel will be is that that boy was adopted by a wealthy couple and like went on to this like has a prestigeous powerful job.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:30:09] To be another person, a nature-nurture scenario?

 

June Diane Raphael [00:30:13] Yeah, definitely.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:30:13] Wow.

 

Paul Scheer [00:30:14] All right. So. All right. Wow. I guess what we’re saying is this. If we were to take the plot at face value, what we saw on the screen, what we were to understand.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:30:24] That’s hard.

 

Paul Scheer [00:30:25] If we were to take what we what the material on the screen and the words said. Dictated. Al Pacino was a part of the eviction of this young boy because his father didn’t pay the rent. The father killed himself. And then the young boy was mad that Al Pacino never checked in on him. So the first.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:30:45] Such. acrazy thing to be mad at.

 

Paul Scheer [00:30:46] I know.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:30:47] That’s not worth holding on to and killing nine people as a result.

 

Paul Scheer [00:30:51] No.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:30:52] Well, why? I want to hear the rest of this, Paul. But why would a child, if a police officer. Expect a cop to take care of them?

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:31:02] And maybe and I’ll give you maybe a five year old in grief and mental duress makes a logical leap that doesn’t make sense. But why, as an adult, can he not look at the situation and be like, oh, that police officer was not the person who did this?

 

Paul Scheer [00:31:21] Here’s what I’ll say that maybe answers this. I think you talked earlier about Al Pacino doing a pass on the script. Yes. I think Al Pacino might have toned down his character because what would make this all make sense is simply this. He goes to the boy, “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you. I’ll look out.” He needed to promise him. You know what? “I know your dad’s not here, but I’ll be here for you, forever.” you know.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:31:55] (Foghorn Leghorn Impression) I say, I say.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:31:56] (Foghorn Leghorn Impression) “Is that. Is that your daddy up there?” Yeah. He’s like a full blown Southern. Like, gentleman.

 

Paul Scheer [00:32:02] By the way. Just so we know. Monroe, Georgia is where it takes place.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:32:05] Oh, wait. Okay.

 

Paul Scheer [00:32:07] Monroe, Georgia.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:32:10] Karl Urban is from the South as well? Everybody in this movie is from the South.

 

Paul Scheer [00:32:14] Well, yeah, because it’s Britney Spears’ home. Sorry. It’s Brittany Murphy, bah. Brittany Snow’s hometown.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:32:19] Wow. Spears. Murphy. Spears. Murphy. Snow? That’s your ranking of Britneys? Okay.

 

Paul Scheer [00:32:28] By the way, population of Monroe, Georgia, 15.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:32:32] 15 people?

 

Paul Scheer [00:32:33] 15 people.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:32:35] That makes sense for why a lot of these scenes were so empty. I was like, how does no on work at the pig factory? Go ahead.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:32:42] Okay, my favorite. My favorite. One of my favorite moments. Again, I got some little laughs. Is after we’re in that church and Al Pacino gets knocked over. Although, again, I had to rewind that scene because I didn’t see the impact of him being knocked over. So I was like, What just happened?

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:32:58] Well, it’s also shot so bizarrely, in order to cover the stunt double.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:33:02] I could not for the life of me figure out the geography of what I was watching. Yeah, so I. But he gets knocked over by a man who’s hanging from a maybe a crucifix or the ceiling, and there’s a pig head on that man. And then. And then he gets knocked over and. Then later on, an autopsy is being done by our favorite medical examiner who’s just as flummoxed. The thing that I love so much that there’s the body and then just to the side, there’s a table with the pig head on it.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:33:32] Yeah.

 

Paul Scheer [00:33:34] By the way.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:33:35] And then Pacino’s like, You know what? All these pig heads have an I.D. number. I know. I know that.

 

Paul Scheer [00:33:41] By the way, which, by the way.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:33:42] I say. I say I say.

 

Paul Scheer [00:33:44] When I grew up in the barnyard, I knew.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:33:47] Listen to me, listen here.

 

Paul Scheer [00:33:48] I’m going to also say that the FDA is not getting up in meat. That would be the USDA, right? FDA is more like packaged foods, the like when you get meat.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:34:00] And again, I wouldn’t be surprised if ChatGPT wrote this.

 

Paul Scheer [00:34:08] All right. But can we go back to the pig head scene? Because this is I don’t want to skip over my favorite part, which is Al Pacino goes down. “Oh, my back!”

 

June Diane Raphael [00:34:18] But you can’t you can’t even really see.

 

Paul Scheer [00:34:20] And everyone stops like they let the bad guy get away. It’s like because in a movie, it would be like, and this is the AI of it all. He’d be shot and they, Oh, no, we got to put pressure on the wound. He’s at my back, like.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:34:34] It’s just a little sore.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:34:36] And they were repeatedly. They repeatedly are pointing a gun at the murderer. And don’t shoot.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:34:43] Multiple times.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:34:45] Multiple times they have the guy in their sights and they do not shoot that person. And I just don’t understand. I don’t get it. Like, this feels, like, antithetical to what their whole job is.

 

Paul Scheer [00:34:58] I think. But by the way, good work on them as police officers are not going to just shoot first. They’re there. They have to get the evidence. They have to figure out the evidence first, you know. But I did like when Britney Snow went “Pigs. Pigs, cops. Cops are pigs.”

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:35:12] Taunting you. He’s taunting you.

 

Paul Scheer [00:35:14] No shit.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:35:15] Did anyone else have trouble when when. Okay, so there is later.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:35:19] I did.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:35:21] Later on there. There’s. The captain is one of our victims, and she. We’re in her house. And I’m trying to figure out. We’re trying to find the killer. And there’s another cop who’s in the house who’s left for dead in a bathtub. And we realize that our killer’s walked out in the cop clothes, and this was in.

 

Paul Scheer [00:35:46] And road away on a dirt bike.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:35:47] Where the reason why we realized this is because Karl Urban turns around and looks over the toilet bowl and sees like a cop belt there. I looked at that. I don’t know if anyone else did. I had to stare at it. I reviewed it three times to figure out what am I looking at a point I thought I was looking down a drain or a through a window. I was like, What am I? I can’t see what this is.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:36:13] None of the clues are clues. They were giving me things that were feeling as though, Oh, this is important. But then they weren’t giving me things that clearly were important. Like again, the hangman game. They never sat in a conference room and said, What might this be and how might that inform the crime spree that we are? Every 24 hours someone is murdered. I’m not, and they only ever are the three of them. You would think the entire city would be shut down.

 

Paul Scheer [00:36:42] Here’s the thing I also want to bring up. Just just hit this back for one more second too. When we see evidence, people sometimes don’t name it as well. Like when Brittany Snow looked at that thing that the woman had on the porch. She’s like.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:36:59] What was that? What was she was. What was in the ashtray, Jason?

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:37:04] Oh, I do know what that is.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:37:05] What was it?

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:37:06] It was the same. Okay. So that when they go to that house, it’s to find Joey, the guy who it was on a date with the woman who, the first victim, Right?

 

Paul Scheer [00:37:15] Right.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:37:16] But what they realize is the woman is Joey. Not the man. They realize that because Brittany Snow notice is in her ashtray, the same dark cigarets that were in the ashtray at the murdered woman’s home. So that that that woman. I must have been there. Not the guy on the side.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:37:35] Another moment for me.

 

Paul Scheer [00:37:35] Why did that woman run? She Ferris Buellers through the town.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:37:40] Ferris Buellers because she doesn’t know the woman is dead. But it’s again, this is a lie. Because she got scared. Because she’s afraid she.

 

Paul Scheer [00:37:49] For a drug charge? Or abuse

 

June Diane Raphael [00:37:52] A well, both, maybe.

 

Paul Scheer [00:37:54] And then. And then what my favorite thing. This might be my favorite thing in movies. Again, with the AI element. A person running mid-run from a cop going. I didn’t do anything. I didn’t do anything. It’s like I get like, once the cuffs are on. But to do it mid-run to do it. Mid-run like. Like, Oh, okay, sorry. And then blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, that’s like an improv scene. I didn’t do anything. Yeah, You are actively running away.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:38:26] Like this is this movie is, I’m going to say, 95% to being a Naked Gun movie. Like, you could you could pivot Al Pacino into being Leslie Nielsen right now in the world with minimal effort. Oh, he’s already basically there. He, Al Pacino should start making Leslie Nielsen style Abrams brothers.

 

Paul Scheer [00:38:51] Oh, my gosh. Yes.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:38:53] Instead of it being Liam Neeson, who I know it is, it should be Al Pacino. Which would be delightful.

 

Paul Scheer [00:39:00] Oh, him just too. I mean, we know that he can do it because a dunkaccino from the Jack and Jill movies. He can do comedy.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:39:06] Oh, he can do it. He would kill. And it’s like because that’s where this movie is. This movie is almost a parody of a bad Al Pacino cop movie.

 

Paul Scheer [00:39:15] And there’s so many things said that make no sense throughout that could be funnier jokes, like when they’re trying to find the janitor in the church, the priest says, Oh, he cleans whenever he can. It’s it’s like it’s not like that would be something he would say to somebody who has a hobby. It’s not like, Oh, yeah, he paints whenever he gets a free moment. It’s like this guy, like he’s a janitor. He loves whenever he gets a chance to clean at two in the morning, four in the morning that’s going to be clean. I mean, he’s going to.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:39:42] You know, it’s it’s a church in in small town Georgia. So we’re packed all day so he can only clean from 2 to 6 a.m.. I mean because we are just so busy here at the church in Monroe, Georgia, you know, come on.

 

Paul Scheer [00:39:58] But whatever he can, he loves he loves it. He loves it so much.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:40:01] What I don’t but what I don’t understand about the serial killer is why he’s choosing certain victims. And some of.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:40:09] Some are related to our people. Some of them are.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:40:11] And some aren’t. And Joey. Joey does end up getting murdered later on, correct?

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:40:16] Yeah. And the reason that Pacino gives is he is punishing us for saving the chief because they saved Sarah Shahi. And as a result, that means that he’s got to kill someone else now. And so he kills Joey.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:40:34] Their dear friend Joey? I mean, they don’t know Joey.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:40:37] I know, but that’s what that’s again, what’s so confusing. I think by the end of the movie, I don’t understand the killer’s M.O. at all. In a world that we live in that is so obsessed with true crime and serial killers and documenting and documentaries and podcasts about all this stuff, this is so slapdash. This is so, like, not compelling casework that I’m like, why do they think we’ll just go along with this? None of this is satisfying. None of this is there’s no aha moments. I’m not ahead of the movie ever. None of it.

 

Paul Scheer [00:41:13] If you can’t have the killer be someone who is not introduced or even spoken of, like again, go back to a scene and have Al Pacino say, I made some mistakes in my career. I let things fall through the cracks. He never says that. Like, yeah, you know, at any point, like we I think that we’re also trying to figure out who murdered Karl Urban’s wife. And when Karl Urban is confronted with the most logical explanation. Yeah, this is the guy. There’s a V on your wife’s chest. He’s like, No, no, it’s not his M.O. Oh, it’s not. It’s like, why wouldn’t you choose to believe it would? You are looking for. You are looking for it.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:41:51] You were an FBI agent. You were an FBI agent. Do your casework. Do your due diligence.

 

Paul Scheer [00:41:56] But this is a man who is looking for connections, who refuses the connection.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:42:00] Well, he isn’t. He’s like he actively. Okay, so here’s another possible twist. And I know I said this to Paul while we were watching it. I said, Urban’s the killer. And Paul was like, No, but there’s something very strange to me about the way he’s treating his wife’s death. Because even later on, when Al Pacino’s like, again, trying to sort of reopen the investigation and also reopen it, it’s only been a year. Why is this a cold case?

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:42:27] Oh, I don’t know. Has it only been a year since his wife was killed?

 

June Diane Raphael [00:42:31] Yeah.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:42:33] Oh, okay.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:42:33] Yeah, because it was nine months when the killer was in jail. Yeah. It’s been a year.

 

Paul Scheer [00:42:38] But by the way.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:42:40] Karl Urban’s on the on the phone with someone. He’s like, I’m just. I guess I’m just trying to figure out where am I? What happened to my wife? And hangs up frustrated. So Karl Urban is clearly some. Who’s he talking to?

 

June Diane Raphael [00:42:50] I don’t know. But then when, when.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:42:52] Why isn’t that part of the story?

 

June Diane Raphael [00:42:54] He’s like, Oh, what do you want to put a whole team on it? You put a team on it? It’s like, what?

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:42:58] Which way do you want it, man? Which way do you want it? Do you want to figure this out or do you want it to go away?

 

Paul Scheer [00:43:04] His wife was killed in a ritualistic, brutal murder. It wasn’t like a hit and run. Like, I think what you what you’re led to believe in the beginning was it was like a hit and run. It was like a accident. But then when you reveal how she was killed, literally, like, slashed up in their home, you would be like, Yeah, I think we should maybe go a little deeper on this one.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:43:26] But also remember when he’s talking about his wife’s murder, he says, you know, Pacino asked him what happened, and he said, you know, she called me up and she said to come over that we should try and work things out. So they were like broken up or separated or.

 

Paul Scheer [00:43:44] He was too involved in his job.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:43:45] And it very much seemed to me like the murder was going to be very wrapped up in Karl Urban’s character and somehow related to that storyline. And it was just coincidence.

 

Paul Scheer [00:43:59] Well, to be. No, no, no. I know. Here’s what I think. Back to my theory of if we just take what is written. Al Pacino abandons the boy, the boy grows up. He’s like, I want to take out.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:44:14] Crazy to say abandoned when he didn’t have any responsibility.

 

Paul Scheer [00:44:15] Well, let me just go. Let’s just just go into.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:44:17] No, I’m sorry, June. Only in his powers as Eviction Man.

 

Paul Scheer [00:44:23] Which, by the way, I got to say the true Latin is just eviction is not eviction man. In the true Latin. But I want to I do want any merch from this show to say. Eviction Man.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:44:35] Eviction man.

 

Paul Scheer [00:44:36] Eviction, man. Just a shirt that says that.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:44:38] Scott says it means eviction man. And I didn’t know if I thought of it.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:44:41] Yeah. Scott in the chat said it means eviction, man, and he’s smarter than us, so I believe it.

 

Paul Scheer [00:44:47] All right. He evicts this boy. The boy decides he’s going to take revenge on Al Pacino by doing this game of Hangman, which, as Al Pacino says, celebrates his dad’s hanging, which I don’t think is the right term to celebrate. Recreates might be the better word, but celebrates the dad’s hanging. And the first clue was going to be doing that to his partner’s wife. And I think that the original plan was to get people all around because the cop, the the head of the police precinct is another person that is attacked. I think it was all going to be people around Al Pacino to get maximum damage.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:45:30] Okay so the janitor was, wasn’t the janitor, someone that Al Pacino had also put in jail or something?

 

Paul Scheer [00:45:35] I think that that I’m going to just say yes to that because I don’t remember it. But but I will say that that was the original plan. I think the original plan was to go and get people all around Al Pacino’s life. But because Al Pacino has no real life anymore, with any other people that he likes, they have to go to other people.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:45:55] There’s not a niece, there’s not a cousin. There’s not. I mean, it’s just all felt. So yeah, none.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:46:01] None of it is satisfying. Non of it is satisfying it all. I agree. Paul. You might very well be right, but it’s not satisfying. None of these people, none of these clues clicking into place give us any of the thrills of Silence of the Lambs. Give us any of the thrills, because we’re never in the mindset of the villain.

 

Paul Scheer [00:46:23] I totally agree. I wasn’t saying that it was making sense. I was saying I think that’s the idea.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:46:27] Oh, I know. I know.

 

Paul Scheer [00:46:29] I will say that.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:46:29] I’m so mad at you, Paul. So mad at you.

 

Paul Scheer [00:46:32] But I guess it’s like, But I can’t figure out.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:46:34] Paul, why did you write this movie?

 

Paul Scheer [00:46:35] Well, look, I got to tell you, I made a lot of money on it. Here’s the thing. You could make it so much more compact and better by having that priest do it the “Well, well, well. David Green. I thought I put you away years ago.” And he’s like, “Well, I’m out now. I’m a priest.” “Well, I don’t know, but I don’t believe it now, and I won’t believe you.” Like, you could have just drawn connections so easily. Every person they encounter. This is my favorite toyshop go in here all the time. Love looking at manga. You know, it’s like what? You really.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:47:07] You know? Yeah, you’re absolutely right. And what’s crazy about it is the movie is so bad that it tells you immediately. The cold open of the movie is Al Pacino doing a crossword in his car. His car gets sideswiped, He pulls the van over, the guy gets out, we see the skull necklace hanging from the from the thing. Right? Right. Yeah. We never return to that van, the skull necklace again until it shows up again in Britney Snow’s apartment. And Al Pacino’s like, I know who the killer is. It’s a guy I pulled over a year ago from the cold open, and that guy has never been in the movie again, and.

 

Paul Scheer [00:47:47] And he wasn’t chasing him like that’s the other thing. Like it felt like he was like. That was it.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:47:53] It felt like we were on the case. It felt it was absolute, absolute random.

 

Paul Scheer [00:47:57] And I’ll say one more thing about that stupid pendant that’s hanging that weird nail or whatever. That would be the equivalent of me wearing one of those scented trees around my neck because it’s hanging on the rearview mirror. It wasn’t like, Oh, I know, I noticed his necklace like he was. He noticed it hanging from the rearview mirror. So he’s like.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:48:18] This is what’s crazy about it. We see it in the cold open in extreme close up on camera, shot from the interior of the car. But it insinuates that Pacino sees the skull medallion from 30 feet outside the car. He’s he’s outside the car completely. And he doesn’t see that thing. We do.

 

Paul Scheer [00:48:41] And why would it make a difference? Why would you even clock that as a cop? It’s like it’s hanging from the rearview mirror.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:48:50] Must have remembered it from. I thought maybe it was on his dad when he was hanging.

 

Paul Scheer [00:48:56] I believe that they.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:48:57] He remembers that later.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:49:00] Oh, he does. It was on his dad.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:49:01] He does it. It was.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:49:03] Oh, I don’t know that.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:49:04] But that again. Again, this is where Pacino’s bad at his job. He doesn’t remember that until even later when he remembers the the father hanging. He first remembers the medallion, hanging the skull, hanging from the rearview mirror. He doesn’t put it together that it was also hanging on the hanging father until the next clue dump. That’s the thing is exposition and clues are given to them. They don’t solve anything. They don’t have any satisfying work done for them. The guy, the killer walks them through it every step of the way. So they’re only realizing things the killer wants them to. They’re bad policemen.

 

Paul Scheer [00:49:47] I will say I disagree with you because the best clue is this.

 

Movie Audio [00:49:51] Stiff dead guy hanging in the air, right?

 

Movie Audio [00:49:54] Yeah, I agree. Yes.

 

Movie Audio [00:49:56] Now, if his body was wet, would that make him freeze faster?

 

Movie Audio [00:50:01] Yes, of course it would. Archer, what are you thinking?

 

Movie Audio [00:50:05] Well, I’m thinking when I want my beer to chill faster. I’ll wrap it in a wet paper towel. He was already wet before he’s brought it. Here you go. I think this boy wants us to sweep the river.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:50:21] I was like he does?

 

Paul Scheer [00:50:23] I didn’t get that at all. I How? What? What does that mean? I don’t even understand the paper towel do the dredging the lake. I don’t understand.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:50:31] I don’t.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:50:31] And that. And you think that’s the. You think that’s what he wants? He wants you to realize they’re both there. They’re making connections that seem fantastical and they’re not making connections that seem quite obvious.

 

Paul Scheer [00:50:46] And then the final murder also leads to like a live twitch stream of this murder.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:50:52] My favorite part of that twitch stream, Paul. There’s so many comments of people just saying this is fake.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:51:00] They were getting good numbers. I mean.

 

Paul Scheer [00:51:02] Look, it definitely inspired me to do some fun stuff like that on my Twitch channel. But now I am very interested. I mean, that was the other thing. It’s like it builds to a climax that’s so out of character, right? Nothing has been televised, nothing has been orchestrated, and all of a sudden Brittany Snow’s on camera. He’s like, I’m going to do it. Why? Why, why? Why now? Why? Why here? Why?

 

June Diane Raphael [00:51:27] Because there’s technology? I don’t know. I don’t know.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:51:30] Listen, if I swear to God, if Bosch had shown up at the first murder scene, nobody else would have been murdered. Bosch would have figured this out immediately. With good police work, solid clue gathering and tracking it down. These guys are out of their mind.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:51:50] Yeah, they’re. They are. The fact that they don’t try to solve it. It’s like the movie is called Hangman. And again, as someone who won at Celebrity Wheel of Fortune $160,000, like you’re asking us as an audience to play the game with you. And for those of us who are very good at playing that game as very hard to not be able to compete. I was frantically writing down the letters that I could see passing by to try to.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:52:17] Kept I kept freeze framing every time we got a new letter and it was plugged in, I kept freeze framing to be like, okay, I guess let me see if I can figure this out. Let me see if I can get ahead of it, because they’re going to they must be digging in on it. Now. They’ve got three or four letters. Nope. No interest.

 

Paul Scheer [00:52:31] No, the only thing they came up with was the most insane thing, which is like pull the records of everyone released in the last nine months. That’s a that would be a crazy thing to do.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:52:43] But they don’t. Here’s what’s crazy. They don’t even seem. Not until Britney Snowe really mentions it and foregrounds it a lot. They don’t seem to think it has anything to do with the two of them. Even though the movie began with their badge numbers being carved into desks. That’s just it, man.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:53:01] They’re two little dummies staring at a hangman.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:53:05] This feel like the snowman, that’s what it feels like. Remember? Remember when we found out that that movie, The Snowman, one of the reasons that it felt so bad and disjointed is because they didn’t shoot 20% of the script. They ran out of money and time and they were unable to shoot it all. That’s what this felt like. They weren’t they didn’t have.

 

Paul Scheer [00:53:26] They had the scenes. And this is maybe where the Al Pacino sleepwalking through. It might come into play. They had the scenes that would set up a lot of connections. They they did it. They just didn’t add those lines in.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:53:37] And I will say the cold open scene where he chases the van down and comes and points his gun going to get out of the van. It does appear that his eyes are closed the entire time.

 

Paul Scheer [00:53:45] He does look his that’s where he’s the sleepiest.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:53:48] He appears to be full in a full REM sleep. In that moment.

 

Paul Scheer [00:53:53] He gets out of that car, he looks exhausted.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:53:55] He’s like, Hooah, I say. I say, you come out of that van. Hooah.

 

Paul Scheer [00:54:00] And by the way, who’s afraid of this man? Like, this is a short little guy who’s like 80 years old. Like, I mean, God, I mean, God bless him, but it’s like.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:54:07] And they’re like, there might be a bomb in there. Why? They think there’s a bomb in there, Who knows? But he’s like, Oh, fuck, a bomb.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:54:14] And we never find out what’s.

 

Paul Scheer [00:54:15] Al Pacino’s 83. He’s 83.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:54:21] We never find out why that guy, why that guy sideswiped him, why he was driving so crazy, why he was in the van. What was in the van? What he went. We never find out anything about that guy. So why put the scene at the top of the movie just so that later we can just for the, June. It’s just for the medallion. It makes no sense.

 

Paul Scheer [00:54:41] And I got to just say one thing that we haven’t talked about, but you know me, I love slaughterhouses. I think it’s a beautiful place where, you know, we really are creating we’re ending life.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:54:50] Your first date was to a slaughterhouse, right?

 

Paul Scheer [00:54:53] With June. You know, and I always like to bring there because I’m like, it’s the end of life. It’s the beginning of life because we’re creating nourishment. Here’s the thing. That slaughterhouse was treated as if like 5:00. The bell rang and they just left all the meat out on the counters like there is meat everywhere. Like meat is not put away in the middle of the night.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:55:13] It’s the middle of the night. Do you know how many rats there would be swarming and every place?

 

Paul Scheer [00:55:22] And they don’t turn on a light. Clearly, there’s a lot of lights at the slaughterhouse. Clearly.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:55:27] There’s no guards, There’s no security people. There’s nobody letting them in. They walk in the back door of a slaughterhouse. There is meat, just meat remnants all over all the tables.

 

Paul Scheer [00:55:37] All the tables. So it’s like you’re walking through a like a haunted house. That’s how.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:55:42] One of them should be like, oh, we got to call the health department to have this place shut down because this looks absolutely not up to code.

 

Paul Scheer [00:55:50] And these motherfuckers, these guys are so unfazed. That woman slices her wrists and the captain is like, What did you do, bring in a Coke can? And they’re like, All right, look, you screwed up. Yeah.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:56:03] She’s almost dead.

 

Paul Scheer [00:56:05] She’s almost.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:56:06] Yeah, he said I made a mistake.

 

Paul Scheer [00:56:08] I made a mistake. You gonna crucify me about this?

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:56:11] Once again, it’s Brittany Snow, who’s like, “Detectives. Detectives.” She’s the only person who has any semblance of situational awareness in the world.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:56:22] Yeah, and they are out of it.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:56:24] They are oblivious. They don’t. Even when there are things that are right in front of their face, they do not connect to them at all. And she does every step of the way. She’s a genius.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:56:34] I didn’t. I was confused by her, though, because I was like a she. They do something sometimes with women, especially blond women in movies where they’re like, okay, let’s put a bun on her. Let’s put a low bun on her. We got to believe she’s smart, put a bun on her, and that low bun was starting to drive me. Put a bun on her. Get her in a bun and get her out there.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:57:01] Put her in a bra. Put a bun on her. Bun and a bra.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:57:05] And it’s driving me nuts. But there were times where the two of them would be talking and they’d cut to Brittany Snow and she’d be in tears listening and emotionally connecting to them and what they were saying on a level that felt so outsized. I’m like, What’s her relationship? Paul, You said this at one point, like, Are we going to find out she’s Pacino’s child?

 

Paul Scheer [00:57:28] Yeah.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:57:29] Why is she so connected to them?

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:57:32] Why are they Yes. Why are any of them connected to each other such that they feel so like you would, you would think that she and Karl Urban might start having a romance in a movie like this. Like maybe they start to care for each other.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:57:47] Not with that low bun

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:57:51] That’s the thing is there isn’t chemistry between any performers, period, like there is. And I don’t believe that Karl Urban and Al Pacino have known each other for so long is they they’re trying to impress upon us that they are old, dear friends, that they it doesn’t seem like it. You know, I don’t get their interior relationships that would warrant the emotional investment that you’re describing.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:58:13] It does it makes sense because her so her back story is that when she was covering the cartel, someone jumped her and the cop who.

 

Paul Scheer [00:58:26] Saved her life was killed.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:58:29] Not saved her life. Not saved her life, I don’t think. But the cop who tried to find the person who did that and scarred her, he did get killed in the line of duty. So I am like, oh, okay. But what I had trouble with is for somebody who’s a New York Times investigative journalist, I’m like you. She keeps on saying, This isn’t about me. And I’m like, Honey, you are making this about you have revealed that you are not impartial, that you are very much so looking for a story where you can kind of heal this trauma and make a cop, memorialize a cop in some way. And it’s very strange.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:59:12] Okay, so that’s a larger question that I have. Is she on assignment in Monroe, Georgia, doing a character profile of Karl Urban, ex FBI agent who now works for Monroe County PD for The New York Times?

 

June Diane Raphael [00:59:29] Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

 

Paul Scheer [00:59:31] Why go to Monroe?

 

Jason Mantzoukas [00:59:33] What story is this?

 

Paul Scheer [00:59:35] We needed to bring something back. There’s so many things that are left hanging in this. And not just the tulips that he pulled from the garden, which, by the way, all the men out there. If you’re going to go into your own garden and get flowers to bring out your wife, like that’s the worst plan of all time. Like to go into your own, like. Like, I guess.

 

June Diane Raphael [00:59:55] That’s why that’s why I found it very strange. And I think we might learn something in the in the sequel, because I don’t believe he cared about that wife.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:00:03] The only way to make this movie better would be for the sequel to be all of the same events told from the point of view of the serial killer so that I can make sense of the movie I just watched. So that it’s just giving me the information because I don’t have any of it. Or give me a Brittany Snow movie because she’s the only person that I’m interested in continuing on in solving cases because she did all the work for this one.

 

Paul Scheer [01:00:32] This is what we’re talking about. This movie doesn’t have a main character. This movie has like literally every character is about one quarter developed and we still have one quarter that is not full by anybody.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:00:44] Well, that’s. Yes, all three of them together are one character, right? She she has emotions. Karl Urban is turned off, you know, like this is.

 

Paul Scheer [01:00:53] Why, this is why I feel like this is the movie where it’s like a checklist, like, okay, we need one star that has foreign appeal. Well, Brittany Snow, she’s in pitch perfect. We need one legend. Okay. Al Pacino, We got it. We need one person who’s a good up and comer. Okay. Karl Urban, right around that. Like that. Like it’s like, put them me. And we need a we need to be a cop, and they all have to be good guy. It’s like. It feels like they were three. Like they were all.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:01:16] And we need it. We need a hook. Yeah. What about hangman? The game Hangman, Done.

 

Paul Scheer [01:01:21] Everyone’s talking about Barbie right now. No one talking about hangman. This is the first kind of, you know, kids toy movie.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:01:29] The Hangmaniverse? You know, like, But that’s the thing is like that the hangman doesn’t make sense. The reporter angle doesn’t make sense. The police procedural doesn’t make sense. It’s a failure at every single level, because the minute you start to pull any of it apart, it falls apart.

 

June Diane Raphael [01:01:48] And I know you brought this up already, Paul, but it is really troubling to me that Al Pacino forces Karl Urban to look at those photos of his wife, because there’s I could see another. I could see a scene in which she’s just like, hey, so I just want to let you know that we actually realized that your your wife, Jessica, had a V carved into her. What you saw was actually a V.

 

Paul Scheer [01:02:16] And he could say let me see it. Let me see it.

 

June Diane Raphael [01:02:17] And like, you actually, no.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:02:19] And he could be like, don’t.

 

June Diane Raphael [01:02:20] There’s no need to.

 

Paul Scheer [01:02:22] And then meanwhile, he keeps it in. He keeps it in the top part of his desk as if he’s looking at a picture of his kids. Like, I mean, he’s looking at that a lot.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:02:28] Wouldn’t you, if you’re Karl Urban, be looking for any way possible to connect the cold case of your wife’s murder to any current ongoing investigation, Wouldn’t that give you hope? He literally seems to not want to he seems to not want to investigate.

 

Paul Scheer [01:02:46] Well, maybe he doesn’t want to close the case because he wants to keep his wife alive.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:02:50] Yeah, maybe. Yeah. I don’t. I wish I understood this fucking movie now because I really. I like you. I love Karl Urban. I think his his Dredd the Dredd movie that he’s in is fantastic.

 

Paul Scheer [01:03:05] The boys.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:03:06] The boys. He’s just exceptional in. I love him so much.

 

Paul Scheer [01:03:10] Can we just talk about one moment though too, that no one reacts to? Karl Urban loses his shit and is about to run over the killer? Right? Who speeds away in a dirt bike. And they’re like stop, stop, stop. And they get hit by a mack truck. And no one’s like, Hey, man, you’ve lost it. It’s like shit just went on. The same thing next day. Yeah. Like no one reacts. Like they like they literally say to Brittany Murphy, You need to take a break.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:03:36] All 3 of them would also be hospitalized for a week after that accident. At least Pacino, If they were hit by a mack truck in that car the way they were hit, Pitino would turn to dust.

 

June Diane Raphael [01:03:50] You’re so right.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:03:51] He would explode.

 

June Diane Raphael [01:03:54] When Pacino’s like, basically, like tapped by that hanging pig man. He falls on the ground and can’t get up. His back hurts so much.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:04:03] Like they should, after they after they’re pulling Brittany Murphy. Not her. Brittany Snow. You got me. Got it in my head. After they’re pulling Brittany Snow out of the car, they should look over and out. Where Al Pacino was sitting should be a small pile of dust and like and and a hairpiece, like, because it makes no sense that he walks out like “Ho. Hey, that was crazy. Hooah. Y’all want to get some po boys?”

 

Paul Scheer [01:04:31] “It’s just 33 minutes to Atlanta. The deep south.”

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:04:39] “I got a crawdad in my pickup.”

 

Paul Scheer [01:04:40] I just like. And I do think that this is a movie that you fall asleep to and you think is better than it is. Like if you catch it midway through, you think it’s better than it is because you clearly like, Oh, I missed something, it sets up and all this makes sense. But when you sit and watch it, when you watch the whole thing, you see all the holes. But that’s like I always.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:05:02] I would love to watch. If there are deleted scenes from this movie, I would love to see what they chose to take out, you know? If anything, I also believe they had to put everything they shot in the movie. They’re like, well, listen, we got to put it in. This is a blooper, but we’re putting it in.

 

June Diane Raphael [01:05:19] I was obsessed with the fact that Brittany Snow in the beginning of the movie, when they realize when they’re at that school and see two dummies, two little doll dummies staring up at the hangman board and clearly, like we come to realize, like, oh, that this is a serial killer telling Urban and Pacino that they’re dummies and they’re dummies for trying to play this game. But when she says I’m good with numbers because she’s remembered his, first of all like just remembering a numbers doesn’t mean you’re good with numbers necessarily. But you’re also a reporter.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:05:51] You’re a reporter. You should know this stuff.

 

June Diane Raphael [01:05:54] But yes, but also what I was counting on is, oh, you’re good with like puzzles and games and like. Right.

 

Paul Scheer [01:06:02] You’d be good on Survivor.

 

June Diane Raphael [01:06:03] The puzzle portion of Survivor?

 

Paul Scheer [01:06:05] Yeah, the puzzle portion of Survivor.

 

June Diane Raphael [01:06:06] Okay. Yeah, there are. They do compete with.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:06:08] I will back up what you’re saying June and say okay let’s say Brittany Snow is good with numbers and has a good memory right because she’s a reporter. Or whatever. And then Pacino is not only good with puzzles, he does the crossword puzzle every day. He’s good with crossword puzzles in Latin. Right. Which again, the clue is Latin, and it is a crossword puzzle esque style. But Pacino, his character, not interested in solving the puzzle.

 

June Diane Raphael [01:06:41] They never say like, Oh, okay, do we have all the vowels yet? They’re never looking at that word. They’re never you know, they tell one of their assistance in the police station to, like, narrow the filter, narrow the search to who’s just been released. It’s also like we’ll narrow the search with those letters that have.

 

Paul Scheer [01:07:00] Just have one person working on it and say, instead of going to that medical examiner all the time. Who? Yeah, they’ve been hung. Like, what else do you need to know? Like at this point, we don’t need to keep on going back. Yeah, well, why? Why was he frozen? Why was he frozen? Who cares at this point? The the ins and outs of the murder are not important because they’re chasing someone to have an M.O.

 

June Diane Raphael [01:07:20] To 11 p.m.. Okay. And trying to solve this freakin puzzle.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:07:25] It took decades to crack the Zodiac killers cipher. People worked hard to try and crack the cipher that the Zodiac killer wrote.

 

Paul Scheer [01:07:37] Don’t have to tell June twice.

 

June Diane Raphael [01:07:38] Yeah.

 

[01:07:38] She was there..

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:07:38] They’re not interested in solving the hangman puzzle.

 

Paul Scheer [01:07:43] Her husband solved the whole fucking thing.

 

June Diane Raphael [01:07:44] Yeah, I know all about it.

 

Paul Scheer [01:07:51] Again, it’s a small town, and most of the cops are watching.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:07:56] It took them 60 takes to decipher the Zodiac Killer’s cipher.

 

Paul Scheer [01:08:01] Oh, my God. I will say that this is, I think, almost if you watch the first 45 minutes, you’ll leave happier. Because the first 45 minutes, it’s fun. It’s crazy. But when you are forced to look at the end. You yourself feel like you want to go murder someone and make a hangman puzzle. Because my big question is also this: It ends on this bullshit cliffhanger. Like there’s another hangman which are going to go to your theory, June, that there are twins, but who was the first letter killed?

 

June Diane Raphael [01:08:38] What do you mean?

 

Paul Scheer [01:08:39] The second puzzle.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:08:41] Is there a letter filled in?

 

Paul Scheer [01:08:42] One letter filled in.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:08:44] Oh, so we just haven’t found the victim yet?

 

Paul Scheer [01:08:47] Well, I guess there’s been somebody killed already. Yeah.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:08:49] The only way this movie could redeem itself would be if in the second movie, it’s revealed that Brittany Snow is the murderer or one or one of our. Or Karl Urban or, I guess Pacino. But there’s no way. Just because if if nobody that we’re inside. If nobody on the inside of this movie is part of the crime. It’s deeply unsatisfying, so terrible.

 

June Diane Raphael [01:09:12] And it’s also like this whole idea also that the murderer needs to strike by 11 p.m. I’m like why?

 

Paul Scheer [01:09:19] Celebrate his dad’s death.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:09:20] Because that’s when his dad. Yeah, that’s when his dad died.

 

Paul Scheer [01:09:23] And that’s when he evicted him, I guess, at 11 p.m..

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:09:25] That’s when the eviction man came.

 

June Diane Raphael [01:09:27] You guys.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:09:28] Eviction Man.

 

Paul Scheer [01:09:30] I ask one other question, which I guess this may unravel everything. Why was it in Latin?

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:09:36] It’sGreat question. Why was it in Latin? Why? Makes no sense. And why do you. Okay, so now let’s reverse engineer it. So they clearly thought, oh, it let’s make it in Latin so it’s harder to solve the puzzle as we’re going. But, but, but what if we. But how are we going to solve it? Okay, we’re gonna have to have a scene where it’s established that Pacino speaks. Can solve puzzles in Latin. So he’s very familiar with Latin, so we’ll just put it in early.

 

Paul Scheer [01:10:12] Okay. But here’s the thing, too. It’s in Latin. Let me tell you how it’s spelt. EVICTION. The word is there. It’s not like one of those Latin words like, Oh, that means to evict. It’s there. Eviction. It’s there. It’s not like it’s like, yeah, I figured it out. The even the Latin word, you know, maybe the Latin word for abandon.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:10:38] If you flip the last two letters, it’s evict me.

 

Paul Scheer [01:10:42] Oh.

 

June Diane Raphael [01:10:43] Here’s my question now, which is when that that hangman’s written on the wall with the eyes already in. So the words complete. Right. So did the killer do that on his fall down? How did those eyes get up there when?

 

Paul Scheer [01:11:03] I think he knew. I think he knew it was he was going to be successful in killing Brittany Snow. So he does it. He figures out the puzzle before, like he doesn’t kill and then do the puzzle because he did that at the train station, too. He may come around 3:00 in the afternoon, do the puzzle part, then go back to the train yard and then hang up the guy. Like he’s got to like, you know, it’s it’s it’s a complicated scavenger hunt.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:11:23] Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Got it. And I mean, he’s doing so much work, but, like, I never he were never even along for the ride with him, you know, like in Silence of the Lambs. When you see Buffalo Bill talking the girl into helping load the sofa into the van, blah, blah, blah, you’re with Buffalo Bill while he’s out and doing his scaryass stuff. You’re like, okay, I understand the world of the bad guy in a way that I don’t understand the world of this bad guy, even when it’s when it’s revealed to me by the end. I don’t. And his reasoning, forgive me, bad Mr. Bad Guy, Mr. Hangman, but his reasoning is is nonsense. He’s. He thinks Al Pacino’s responsible for his father’s hanging?

 

June Diane Raphael [01:12:05] Unsatisfied.

 

Paul Scheer [01:12:06] Well, the dad the dad was, okay, So. No, it’s not that. Because the landlord went to court to evict the tenant. The then the eviction notice was probably put on the door. And then the father’s like, Well, I’m going to kill myself. And then knock, knock, knock. And then Al Pacino’s arrives. It’s like there’s multiple steps. It wasn’t like Al Pacino was like, Hey, I got to evict you. And the dad was like, One second I got to take a quick shower and then kill himself. Like, it seemed like the kid was maybe home alone with this man hanging. There’s Al Pacino is working the night shift, doing nighttime evictions?

 

June Diane Raphael [01:12:42] Upsetting. Although, I thought we were going to find out that the young boy had actually hung his father.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:12:51] Oh, great. By the way, give me that. Give me anything that helps set up for me what the fuck is going on.

 

June Diane Raphael [01:13:02] Yeah.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:13:03] Like, almost like at the end of the movie, at the end of Burn after reading, there’s that great scene with J.K. Simmons and David Rashi where they’re trying to explain the events of the movie and and they’re just like, Honestly, I don’t know, It makes no sense. This happened and then this happened. He’s like, Really? That’s crazy. Yeah. No, I know it doesn’t make any sense. Like, they break it down on a level that is like the events of this movie were preposterous. So I don’t know what to tell you. Like, the movie should have had one of those because none of it added up, and they should have just been like, This was a weird one, right?

 

Paul Scheer [01:13:36] Yeah. This one was, you know, look like or the have the hangmen just go “I had a plan, but I had to work fast because when you came out of retirement, I just had to kill people willy nilly.” Like, like just make somebody say something that makes. When, when she started following you around, I knew that she was the smartest one. So I had to make my tracks even harder to cover.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:13:55] Like when basically the whole thing comes down to, like, Pacino having to, like, apologize to the serial killer and be like, I failed you. Because when I was like, a beat cop, I didn’t, like, adopt you. Like, I just don’t.

 

June Diane Raphael [01:14:12] Because I followed the letter of the law?

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:14:13] This man, this serial killer, I’ll be honest with you, is like he’s emotionally like he’s attached too much emotional weight onto Pacino. It’s inappropriate.

 

June Diane Raphael [01:14:24] Absolutely inappropriate.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:14:26] And he’s saying to Pacino, All of my personal trauma is because of you.

 

Paul Scheer [01:14:32] Pacino didn’t even work in that place where he was abused. That we think he was abused. I don’t even know. Let me take your place. He wants to take the blame. Why? Why does he have the guilt? Like again? Make him the dad. Make him like the. Like he was having a relationship with that kid’s mother and he abandoned.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:14:52] Make it personal is what this movie is lacking, because there’s a lot of personal stuff. Karl Urban’s wife is killed. The the the you know, all these. There are relationships, but they’re all circumstantial. The direct, the criminal, the serial killer. And Pacino, there is nothing really personal between them.

 

June Diane Raphael [01:15:13] No, This movie is a lot of people meeting each other for the first time.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:15:17] Yes. And that’s what I can’t. That’s what’s so tremendously unsatisfying about it and why I would not recommend people watch it.

 

Paul Scheer [01:15:29] Oh, my gosh. This is. I mean, this is a lot. It’s a lot that we went through here. I feel like we had an emotional reaction to it. I was coming in, enjoying it. Now I’m really frustrated. Makes me want to just kill somebody and send them run around town to solve a hangman puzzle.

 

June Diane Raphael [01:15:44] Stop that, Paul.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:15:50] If you did, June and I would be on that case.

 

June Diane Raphael [01:15:52] I really did enjoy watching this movie, actually. And it is so deeply unsatisfying. And there’s no there there. And it’s again, not me, not anything that I saw or anything that happened, But I did still have some really good laughs. So. Oh, yeah, I just did, you know. And as far as our movies go, I thought this went down pretty easy.

 

Paul Scheer [01:16:14] Oh, yeah.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:16:14] It’s an hour and a half. That’s fine. And especially if you’re not expecting, I think. I think because of the people involved in the type of movie it was, I thought it was going to be a little bit better. Like in terms of story, like like if this had had even a more slightly cohesive storyline, it would have been a blast, I think. But it wasn’t enough just because I was doing so much work on the movie’s behalf that I was like, Why am I working so hard if the movie’s not going to work this hard?

 

Paul Scheer [01:16:44] I went away feeling stupid about myself. Like, maybe I missed something, but clearly we might have all missed something because there are people out there that love this movie. It is now time for second opinions.

 

Music [01:16:58] [Second Opinions Song]

 

Paul Scheer [01:17:18] All right. Here are some reviews from Amazon. The average rating of this movie is four out of five stars. 57% are five star reviews, M.D, Windhorst writes, “Looking at some of the reviews by, quote, expert reviewers, I just call mine just an opinion. It’s a cop movie, people. You are probably the same critics that think you know everything about the hops in your freakin local craft beer.”

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:17:50] Whoa.

 

Paul Scheer [01:17:51] “If you enjoy watching a legend school younger actors that hope to one day achieve half of what Pacino has and help them hone their craft, then you should watch it. Was anyone great in this film? Was the plot weak? It’s a freaking cop movie, people. Pacino should have stopped and could have stopped long ago. But he loves his craft. Can he call it in and still be better than most of today’s herd? Yes. For a cop movie, it was extraordinarily well acted. Was it interesting enough? Yes. Was it worth an hour and a half of my time? Yes. Did it shove down my throat some social warrior message? No. There aren’t many movies left that are purely entertainment and escape. And this did the trick for me. That’s just my opinion. Five stars.”

 

June Diane Raphael [01:18:49] Oh, God.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:18:50] Wow.

 

Paul Scheer [01:18:51] And. And then this one was I like this one. The title was Al Pacino is Great. Paul Urban is a good actor as well. Five stars. Paul Urban.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:19:07] Oh, wow. That’s amazing. And then. I mean, I don’t even think you can level the claim that this is cop agenda simply because they’re so bad at police work.

 

Paul Scheer [01:19:17] I mean, my gosh, by the way, I would say the like. Anyway, Debra, Gail writes this “I don’t understand the three star average. I do probably watch too many serial killer documentaries, series and movies. And I have no idea why I’m so interested in it, but I am. This is now one of my top ten on my list for the best movies about serial killers. It was exciting. It got my pulse racing and I was nearly white knuckling it. The body count was high and the pace was fast and all the actors did a great job even though most of the movie was filmed in a night setting. And I never once thought about it because you could clearly see what was happening at all times. If this is the kind of subject matter that interest you, you will be really glad to spend an hour and 33 minutes to watch this film. It’s like the movie seven. I’ll also be watching that movie again, too. Five stars.”

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:20:03] I mean, this is not anything like Seven, this movie wishes it was Seven. I feel like they were like the pig heads scene was what made me feel like, oh, these guys think they’re doing Seven.

 

Paul Scheer [01:20:16] Oh, my gosh. If. Boy, oh, boy. So, I mean, I know we talked about what we recommended. I think we’re kind of mixed on it. We kind of I mean, there’s enough in here.

 

June Diane Raphael [01:20:25] That I think. Watch it. I think. Yeah, yeah.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:20:29] Watch it. Fine. But, you know, don’t. It’s a boy. Boy, What a mess.

 

Paul Scheer [01:20:33] I will say there’s one connection to how did this get made past. Which is the director of this movie, Johnny Martin, was the stunt coordinator for Old Dogs.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:20:43] Okay.

 

June Diane Raphael [01:20:47] Okay.

 

Paul Scheer [01:20:47] Yeah. And just drawing connection, that’s all. And. And. And the beginning of the episode, I said I got caught up in saying, This is Al Pacino’s lowest rated vehicle under 40%. I thought I misread something, but during the podcast, I did do the research. No, no, This is Al Pacino’s. This is Al Pacino’s lowest rated starring vehicle with 4%.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:21:13] Oh. Oh.

 

June Diane Raphael [01:21:16] Oh.

 

Paul Scheer [01:21:17] When I saw the 4, I though a zero wasn’t added. 40% is what I assumed. But no, it is. It is now verified. Four, 4%. 4%. So it’s the low is the low. It’s rare to see the rotten tomatoes scores in the in the single digits.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:21:35] The guy, the guy who is revealed to be the serial killer at the end. Is simply not smart enough or capable of pulling off all of the kills in the movie.

 

June Diane Raphael [01:21:50] No way. No.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:21:51] He’s simply not. He’s I don’t believe for an instant that this moron has been three steps ahead of these two police officers and this New York Times investigative journalist.

 

June Diane Raphael [01:22:03] I think we’re going to find in the sequel that he has not been.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:22:06] Yeah. Yeah, I guess you’re right, because it it was so dumb. I think he was so. Yeah, go ahead.

 

Paul Scheer [01:22:13] Think we should be giving up hope that there’s going to be a sequel on this one.

 

June Diane Raphael [01:22:16] What?

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:22:18] How do we get. Can we help this? I mean, because of the strike. You think? Because of the strike? You think they were in the middle of writing it, and it was pencils down.

 

Paul Scheer [01:22:27] I mean, maybe they were trying to really they were you know, they were trying to find the right Latin word. And it’s taking them too long and they’ve just given up. What would be the best Latin word with a V? We’ve already backed ourselves into the V. What if it was just eviction again? All right. Before we end today’s show, I just want to give a shout out to Francis Rizzo, who has sent so many amazing things to us over the years. And Francis is unfortunately in end stage kidney failure and he is doing everything he can to try to find a match for a kidney transplant. So the more potential donors he can reach, the greater chance he has. And if there are any potential donors out there right now, you can go to Kidney Registry.org, or call 516-562-0550 or email. Transplantsurgery@northwell.edu. And mentioned the name Francis Rizzo.

 

June Diane Raphael [01:23:29] Yeah. Best of luck, Francis. Yes.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:23:31] Good luck, Francis. And thank you for all your songs.

 

Jason Mantzoukas [01:23:35] All right, So that brings us to the end of our episode. Make sure you always head on over to Teepublic. I’m sure that we will have some sort of eviction man merch. I feel like we’re going to need a shirt and a shout out to our producer, Avril Halley, for finding these movies. This is a true gem and our producers in-house, Scott Sonne and Molly Reynolds. Of course, all of our amazing art is designed by the fantastic Kyle Waldron. And today’s episode was engineered by Rich Garcia. And make sure you listen to next week where you can chime in about all the things that we might have missed or maybe theories that you might have about this movie. You can give us a call at 619-PAULASK and we will talk all about whatever you want to talk about. You can leave questions for me and Jason and we can also get into more theories of the hang man. All right. See you next time, everybody. Bye for now.