iTunes Exclusive Episode Good Kill

The following is a sooner orgator production.
The following is a sooner orgator production.
The following is a sooner orgator production.
What?
Who?
Yeah!
What?
I have to admit that
Greetings, Empire member and our members.
If you are hearing my voice right now, it means the following things.
We are assuming it means at least once in your life you've listened to the Clubhouse podcast,
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Exclusive!
Welcome to iTunes exclusive number 102.
Triple Digit has been established.
My name is Rob and I'm the executive producer of the Clubhouse podcast share one-stop shop
for all things sports entertainment normally.
And since we're doing this particular episode, a little bit less than that.
But I'm not alone for this particular episode.
Joining me across the desk as he tends to do is my co-host.
And a man that we are proud to say is the veteran on staff here at the Clubhouse podcast.
He is Chad Welcome sir.
Are you doing sir?
Am I?
I just I.
I was sort of going back to the gym last week, something.
You're feeling it?
And through that whole going back to the gym, like moving very slowly, phase.
Joining me also across the desk as the official fact checker of this show.
And a man who has owned more than one pair of aviator sunglasses in his life.
You may know him as fun, don't go, but as my name is Don Ford, I'm going to call him Don Ford.
Welcome sir.
Usually get this $20 pair sunglasses at Target.
Hey?
That's all I buy mine?
It works.
Especially the way I go through sunglasses.
You can't afford to spend a lot of money on sunglasses.
But normally when we do one of these, it's to review something in this episode is no exception to that rule.
Today we are here to review the latest film from director Andrew Nichol.
You may know him from movies like Gatica.
Gatica.
I'm sorry.
In time, Lord of War, he also was the writer producer of the Truman Show.
He is also the writer of the film we're reviewing today called Good Kill.
He is also an Ethan Hawke, January Jones, Zoe Cravitz, Bruce Greenwood, amongst others.
Here's what you need to know.
Ethan Hawke plays major Thomas Egan.
He is a guy in the Air Force who lives in Vegas, but flies planes over in the middle
east.
He is a drone pilot.
His boss is Bruce Greenwood, playing Lieutenant Colonel Jack Johns, and Zoe Cravitz,
Aaron and Vera Suarez comes into their lives one day and shortly thereafter.
They find out that they're going to start getting orders from somewhere inside the Pentagon,
via phone, voiced by the great Peter Coyote, CIA, actually, Langley.
They call them Langley.
OK, OK.
And the missions shall we say maybe a little less than what they think is on the up and up.
And it also focuses on how his job used to be a combat pilot he no longer is.
How it affects his home life with his wife, Molly Egan, played by January Jones.
Think that pretty much sums it up, and there's anything you don't even want to add.
Oh, that's pretty much the filming a nutshell.
Before we get, we got to think our best friends.
All I did in great marketing, thanks for Josh for letting us screen this thing.
Absolutely, and they're so good to us, both in this air, then they ever totally be.
Let us screen this for them so we can give them a review on it.
Travis start with you being, again, being the veteran on staff here.
What did the story, how did the storyline work for you?
I mean, you are a Navy guy.
This is an air force thing, but for me, veterans or veterans are veterans.
I don't care what branches served in.
If you served, you have my respect.
Go.
Yeah.
I feel for anybody that's put in the position that guys that are having to do a job of this nature is
forced to do.
I mean, it's not something that you can, you know, use your own judgment.
It's not your decision to make orders as orders as orders.
And the moral conflict that it puts you under the psychological conflict that it puts
you through, the personal conflict that it puts you through, you know, it makes you feel
for people that have to go through this.
I mean, combat, you know, as war as hell, as I always say, as it has always been said.
And people may not seem like you and I actually had a discussion, was it you that brought
up that you really don't consider this a war film?
I'm like, I don't.
But that's what we're going to play into that when we get into this.
And honestly, this is the state, this is the state of war that we are currently fighting
now.
So wars are fought, you know, in order to, in order to keep casualties low on our side,
this is how we have to fight the enemy.
You know, we take the fight to them, but we keep ourselves at a distance at the same time.
And that's part of where the conflict of this guy's story comes from, because he wants
to be closer to the fight than he is.
But he just doesn't have what it takes anymore, and he's having a real hard time dealing
with that.
Are you saying Chad that's more like the Barney 5 syndrome of wanting to find something?
Barney 5.
What do you mean?
Yeah, it's like give me, you know, give me a bowl of A and give me a bowl of A and leave
me shoot him, you know.
Okay.
I see where he's going.
Yeah, kind of.
That was the, that was the, that was the conflict that this, that Ethan Hawks character
was having with himself was that he felt like he wanted to make it an actual fight rather
than just, I'm, I'm playing at a video game on a screen.
Yeah.
You know, I want to be in control of pulling the trigger.
All right.
Well, I might take a look at the plot.
It was kind of interesting at first, kind of watching the thing.
Kind of different.
The look I thought was fine for everything for what it was, basic Vegas, nothing fancy.
But if you read on my written review of clubhouseplotcast.com, that's our website.
I've seen this before we screened it this last week weekend.
I've seen it twice before.
This film.
First one saw the movie called The Heart Locker.
Okay.
And the second time when I saw American sniper.
This thing is a major mirror of American sniper.
Except of one guy being a sniper, he does drones.
That's the film.
That's the plot.
I was very disappointed.
I hate to tell you, but when I saw this go, this is American sniper, but not as good
and it's just a different job that he does in the military.
For me, I can't make that comparison.
I can't even, I know you can.
And your opinion is your opinion.
Yeah, we agreed to disagree, and that's what this is all about.
But I can't agree with that because I can't even put these movies in the same room.
Oh, yeah.
Don't get me wrong.
This is nothing compared to American sniper.
But the basic plot is American sniper part two.
From a writing standpoint.
I felt like a lot of the dialogue was really, really diluted.
Where it was like, yeah.
The dialogue didn't further the story, which I also think is the problem with this film for me is that
I don't know that the film ever knew what it wanted to be.
Do you want this to be a character study?
Do you want this to be an anti war message?
Do you want to be anti drone message?
Do you want it to be?
We need to pull out of and let other countries handle their own business movie.
It was like it was so cautious.
It was almost like he wrote this film walking on egg shells.
I don't want to upset one group of people too much.
So I'm going to write this real vanilla script.
And I'll just let people take from it what they may.
And I had a problem with that.
The question for you then, Rob.
You talk about how when someone writes and directs the film.
Sometimes it could be a blessing in disguise.
Sometimes it could be a curse.
You think this was more the curse situation?
I visually I had no problem with it.
Oh, visually I mean either.
No.
I mean, I thought the film was shot well.
I just felt that the script wasn't strong.
Oh, not at all.
That was my problem.
And apparently this debuted at the Venice Film Festival did very well.
It's got a 6.3 rating from the from the users of IMDP.
And a 65 out of 100 metascore from 22 critics.
It's just this film never really went anywhere for me.
Like you look at a film like American sniper.
Like it wasn't supposed to be an action film.
You knew that going in.
But it was such a great character study.
And it wasn't making any statements about war or the warriors.
It was just about this one guy.
Where this film was trying to do multiple things.
And I don't think it did any of them well.
Which I don't fault the actors involved.
You know, if you know me, you know Ethan Hawke is on a two game win streak for me right now with boyhood and predestination.
But I felt we're on the other side of the belt curve now.
Like we're back to it was like Ethan Hawke was trying to overcompensate for a lack of a decent script by almost
walking the line of overacting with this.
And I don't know how you boys feel about this.
But for me, that's how it felt.
Chad.
I didn't have a problem with the film.
It does kind of pale in comparison to better films of its ilk.
Especially giving the plethora of films of its ilk and circulation current.
It's really, you know, when you have to follow something like American sniper,
you've got some pretty big shoes that you're trying to fill.
And there's no way you're going to succeed if that's what you're trying to do.
And you also have to remember, this is not Andrew Nicholson's 4A into the genre.
He did Lord of War.
Which I never saw.
Which I've heard many things about.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He was a director writer and producer on that film.
Just like he was on this one.
And I wanted to kind of ask you produced it, didn't he?
I think he did.
Good kill.
I think he, yeah, I think he played all three of those roles.
I think that was, I think that was the last line in the credits.
No, he's not listed as one of the producers.
Really.
I could just want to he was doing triple duty on that.
I don't according to the, the im, the im, the im, the im, the im.
But it's, I didn't have a problem with it.
And maybe it's because it's, I, I, I hold films like this a little closer and near to my heart
because I was in the Gulf War twice.
Right.
And again, your, your opinions when we're kind of focusing on this because this is kind of something
you kind of sort of in a way around about lived.
I mean, you know, everybody that went through it or everybody that was ever
sent over there at any point has their own personal story that
haunts their dreams to this very day.
You know, there are things I saw over there that I wish I could unsee.
And the fact that this story was told from the perspective that it was told from
this guy is fighting this war and he's unbilical front on multiple fronts.
He's, he's on the front line, but he's a thousand miles away.
He's basically fighting the war from the comfort of an arm.
And another, another front.
He's a thousand miles away at home.
Mm-hmm.
He's a, which is addressed in the film.
Mm-hmm.
And, and he even though he's one of the safer fighters in this war,
he could, he still feels completely isolated.
You know, he's, he's at war with himself more than he is at war with the enemy.
Which I got that as well.
But I felt he, that, that Nicole could have written that better.
Yeah, I, I, I would like to know, I would have liked them to have.
Doug a little deeper into his own personal psyche that we didn't get to see
enough of his, we got to see part of his dark side, but we really didn't get to see
enough of his dark side.
And the dialogue never took us anywhere.
Yeah, and which was my problem with it because I was like,
go deeper into this.
Yeah.
Because it was just like when he was sitting there, okay, I'm doing this.
Now, this might be kind of shady, but you know, whatever I'm doing this.
And you know, that's not what that character should be going through.
Right.
It is, there were, there were too many things that were left unanswered.
Too many questions unanswered.
Too many things unexplained.
I want to see your path back to the point of hockey.
I, he, he, he always gets a pass with me because he has done some incredible stuff.
I've got depth.
Yeah.
And one of the greatest actors out there.
But the one scene that really kind of made the point to me was he's laying in the bed
with his wife and his wife's kind of over the shoulder and he just gets up and leaves.
I saw where he's trying to say this detachment, the wife's trying to cling on.
And all that.
But when I saw that and how he did it, it just fell short to me.
I got no motion watching this.
It fell short for me too.
Yeah.
And as I said, I, and I've been emotionally into this character.
These characters at all.
I could see with, you know, Zoe, as, you know, her getting mad of what are we doing this.
This is not right.
This is not right and stuff.
Zoe credits there.
But, um, I just, yeah.
Yeah.
I know it.
Let me, let me have.
Let me grab it to play in the background.
This daughter's in the film.
Thank you, internet.
You're welcome.
You're welcome.
Let's, let's meta.
Yeah, it's just, they tried to do that emotional stuff in it.
Just fell short.
I got no connection with the characters on it.
It's not too much at all.
And it's just after, first 20 minutes I'm going.
Got it.
This is like American sniper, but it's not hitting it.
And for me, Zoe Kravitz was really the bright spot of this film.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't know.
I just figured it out.
If you voice Batman, you get a pass with me.
But the way I felt about him in this film, and I said this, in my written review,
I'd wwwwdetaclubhousepodcast.com, which is our website.
It was like he was shoe warning.
Thumb scared its performance as Viper and top gun into this thing.
Which wasn't necessary.
And Christopher Pike from Star Trek.
They're just, they're just the harder edge version of it.
You think when you got green in hawk in the same film, this would be, you got some great actors
here.
And I just, it just never went anywhere for me.
Not me neither.
I did not get emotional attachment at all.
And I can't say hawk did a bad job.
No, he didn't.
But not nearly as good as he was in the last two films of his that I saw.
So was it a decent story that was just hobbled by a lackluster script?
I think so.
And I think the actors tried to overcompensate for it.
They did the best they could with what they were given.
My thing with January Jones.
You know what you're getting with her.
She's not a terrible actress.
I just don't see her garnering any Oscar nods anytime soon.
She's good for what she does.
And that she sticks in that pocket.
She doesn't.
She doesn't.
You know, I've never seen her in a role.
I feel like, wow, she really stretched herself there.
So you don't, you feel like she was trying to grasp at what CNN Miller did in American
rapper and just did.
Oh, not even.
Not even the ballpark.
Not even the ballpark.
But she also, it also could be a part of the script.
Or she just didn't have enough meat on the bone to handle.
She really didn't.
She, I don't think she really had enough time on screen.
She's putting too much in that in two little time.
Well, plus the fact of her emotional range.
Not on the level of Kristen Stewart.
But you could put them on the same bus.
Oh, that's arch.
Did you not see X men first class?
And she went in and enough for her to really make an impression on me.
I just, you know, she's good for what she does.
And that's what that is.
But she didn't have to carry this thing either.
No, no, it wasn't.
It wasn't on her shoulders.
Anything else we want to add before we go to the final analysis here?
Um, except we got to think of press friends again.
Josh, everybody that like.
And we, and something we don't say often enough.
We appreciate that they let us give our honest opinion.
Yeah.
And, you know, they know that we're, they're going to get the real real good.
We give them to them.
Exactly.
But they're, they're so good.
That's what we got to think of.
Awesome.
Now the way we do the final analysis on this show.
We don't give you letter grades or thumbs up thumbs down or stars or one to ten or whatever.
Our audience, the empire is better than that.
We're going to ask two questions.
Question number one is, would you see this film again?
No.
You have the answer is no than we're done here.
You have the answer is, Jasmy, go to the follow-up question.
Would you watch this in first run full price, twilight, matte nay, early morning?
Would you wage four seconds second run at the dollar theater?
Would you.
Take yourself to a red box?
Would you watch it on Netflix?
Would you wage four on cable?
Don't even start with you.
Would you see this film again?
No.
Okay.
Check that out that.
Would you see this film again?
I would probably watch it again.
How so?
Hows out?
Uh, if it came on cable, you know, it's nothing I would rush out to see a rush out to rent.
I'm kind of with you on that. I might watch it again, just to see if there's stuff that
maybe I missed. Or if I'm doing, if I'm just doing stuff around the house and I need some
background noise on. Yeah. And there's nothing else on. Right. I won't, like,
I won't go out. I won't see it out. I won't see it out. But if I don't go out of my way
to see it, but if it's there, it's there. Yeah. The film is good kill directed
ridden by Andrew Nicole. Nicole. Nicole. Nicole. Nicole. Nicole. I don't have no idea.
And I see COL. That's what I'm going with. Nicole. All right, gentlemen, let's see the plugs.
Visit our website www.theclubhousepodcast.com. Find out everything you need to know in some stuff you don't.
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And Jules Womick. She doesn't have to sit through this teaching. So she can't give me the
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Your one stop shop for all things sports entertainment. We look forward to
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So until next time, for Don, for Chad, for the Empire, my name is Rob.
The clubhouse is closed. Brittany Palmer has the wife. You see now you've got something there.
The preceding was a sooner or later production.
Why? Because I have to.