Mercury Rising

It is called Mercury.

The most sophisticated national security code ever created.

Once we complete its installation, it's going to be very hard for our adversaries to compromise our communications.

And it has just been broken...

...by a nine-year-old boy.

What did you get this number?

I... so... no... no...

He's calling from his own house.

Simon, put down the phone, honey.

We slipped a message in the back of a puzzle magazine.

We basically dared the amateurs to be a guru.

I'm not sure that no one would ever call, but somebody did.

Some people believe there must be nothing that connects the boy to this office.

Am I clear that anyone is expendable?

But for a special Agent Art Jeffries...

What is this?

It's supposed to be a missing kid.

It is.

He's the parents.

This isn't just anyone.

Hey, come on out now.

Nobody's going to hurt you.

Yeah!

Well, my name is Art.

I'm your friend.

I'm a little stranger.

He's autistic.

I'm not going to be able to question this boy.

Probably not.

I'm your friend.

See? Art is your friend.

Give him up.

Take him back.

Would you give your own kid up?

It's not your kid.

All right now, there's nobody's kid.

By this evening, this entire situation will be contained.

What's going on?

We're talking about people who have the ear of the President.

This is way over our heads, Art.

You're telling me a nine-year-old kid cracked the government's supercode?

Simon?

What does that say?

Well, it doesn't matter.

You can read it.

That's why it's life is endangered.

Right now!

No!

From Universal Pictures,

from Universal Pictures,

and Imagine Entertainment,

Bruce Willis,

a kid that's your responsibility.

Whose responsibility is he?

Mercury Rising.

Hello, and welcome to unclear and present danger.

The podcast about the political and military thrillers of the 1990s

and what they say about that decade.

I'm Jimelle Bowie.

I'm a calmness for the New York Times' opinion section.

I'm John Gans.

I am no longer a calmness for nation.

I write the sub-stack newsletter on popular front

and I am the author of When the Clock Broke,

Conman, Conspiracists,

and How America Cracked Up in the early 1990s,

available on paperback,

wherever good books are sold.

On this week's episode of the podcast,

we watched the 1998 Action Thriller Mercury Rising,

directed by Harold Becker,

and starring Bruce Willis as the protagonist of our Jefferies,

Miko Hughes as Simon Lynch,

and I'm going to read the description of the character,

a nine-year-old autistic savant

to unwittingly cracks the Mercury Code.

Alex Baldwin as the villain,

Lieutenant Colonel Nicholas Kudrow,

and Chiming Bride as Tommy Jordan,

arts fellow FBA agent.

There are lots of other,

somewhat recognizable character actors

in this movie, Peter Stromer, shows up.

But, yeah, that's the main cast there.

I guess Kim Dickens, Stacy Sebring,

who helps Art Look After Simon.

You also notice what's his name?

John Carroll Lynch shows up early in the film

as a character,

and a few other, again,

mostly recognizable character actors.

Mercury Rising concerns Simon Lynch,

a nine-year-old autistic savant,

who unwittingly cracks a secret NSA code.

Here is a brief plot synopsis.

The film begins with a bank robbery-hosted situation

in the South Dakota,

where we meet FBA agent, our Jefferies,

who's undercover among the criminals.

He tries to reason with the gang leader,

who you'll recognize from office space,

and protect one of the robbers,

who is a young man,

who is, as Willis says later,

just a kid.

Despite appeals for more negotiation time,

the FBI storms the building kills,

the criminals,

and art is demoted to death duty

as to after punches his superior

for making the decision.

Fast forward years later,

the NSA has created an encryption cipher,

called Mercury.

They believe it to be unbreakable.

And as a test,

they embed this code in a puzzle magazine.

We meet nine-year-old Simon,

who is, how I say this,

an offensive caricature of a child with autism,

who solves the puzzle through autistic magic,

this was the movie,

the movie strongly suggests,

his like gears are working.

You hear like computer noises in his head.

Yeah.

It's, it's not great.

Art cracks the code

and calls the number embedded in the solution,

which reaches a pair of NSA cryptographers.

They repeat the breach to their boss,

Lieutenant Colonel Nick Kudrow,

who says that Simon is a national security threat

and needs to be eliminated him

and everyone he knows.

We then see a assassin show up to kill Simon and his parents.

The parents are killed but Simon flees.

Art is sent to investigate the homicide

when he finds Simon in the house

and they go on the run.

This first takes them to a hospital

or Simon was placed for, you know,

to be checked up.

They then end up on a train.

They then, I mean,

they kind of feel like they're,

this movie takes place in Chicago,

which they're going through Chicago.

And they're being chased by assassins

sent by the NSA to kill them.

One of the NSA cryptographers,

realizing what is happening,

try to put an end to it

by providing information to art.

One of those cryptographers is assassinated

by the NSA assassin.

The other creates,

writes two letters exposing Kudrow's crimes

to provide to the Senate oversight committee

but he is then killed as well.

But these letters,

the cryptographer made copies.

The girlfriend gets the copies,

provides them to the FBI.

The FBI arranges a meeting with art.

Sorry.

Things say a little convoluted here.

We'll just fast forward.

FBI has letters, art confronts Kudrow

at a birthday party,

and demands that Kudrow admit

the Mercury Project is a failure.

The FBI attempts to put Simon

into the witness protection program.

But Kudrow takes control of the operation

to kill Simon and get rid of all of this once and for all.

This all builds into a big rooftop confrontation.

Kudrow attempts to kill Simon,

but is killed by art.

It's killed by art.

A very very diehard moment,

very derivative diehard moment,

where Kudrow is shot and falls off the building.

The movie ends.

Simon trusts art.

He has foster parents,

art visits Simon

and the film closes

with Simon embracing art as friends.

I really can't emphasize enough how bad this movie is.

It's really bad.

It's one of the worst we've watched perhaps.

Well, I don't know.

We've watched some real stinkers.

This is pretty bad.

All right.

But we got to do the whole thing.

You got to do the whole thing.

Yeah.

So quick, a little more information on the film.

All right, Harold Becker.

Born 1928, still living.

He's 97 years old.

Well, wow.

He's made some good movies.

He directed City Hall.

Movie that we were like.

Yeah, we were really enjoyed.

He's directed a few,

a few decent films.

He's a producer as well.

His next film after this is domestic,

the disturbance with John Travolta.

This sounds terrible.

Although it was more successful than Mercury Rising,

but still not all that successful.

He directed Malice,

another Baldwin film written by Aaron Sorkin,

Crime Thriller,

which was a big success.

So that's Harold Becker.

The tagline from Mercury Rising

was someone knows too much.

The movie had a budget of $60 million estimated.

I think made.

It made, I think about $10 million.

Sorry.

Yes, it's opening weekend.

It was $10 million.

It was third behind Lost in Space.

You might remember that.

The film adaptation of Lost in Space.

And then Titanic, which was number one,

it had a domestic gross of $33 million,

just about international gross of $60 million.

Okay, I guess it made back its money,

but was not all that successful.

Critics savaged it.

Ebert gave it only two stars.

Other critics for much harsher.

There's praise for Willis.

Who does the job well?

And the film basically got no,

really no recognition or anything.

It, it, it, it, it's just a dessert of it.

Yeah, I mean, it's sort of a forgotten film.

I thought this was funny.

Back in 2011, there's a Blu-ray edition of this movie

that was double packaged with the jackal,

another forgotten Bruce Willis vehicle from this period.

Which was better.

Okay.

Which was better, yeah.

We're not great.

But better.

All right.

Mercury Rising was released

April 3rd, 1998,

so let's check out the New York Times for that day.

Isn't it weird that recently

the movies are almost lining up

with like where we are in the year?

Yes.

It's kind of, I don't know if that's just coincidence,

but I've noticed it.

For Salvadorans, say they killed US nuns

on orders of military.

Jesus Christ.

Yeah.

San Salvador, March 28th,

after 17 years of silence,

all four of the former National Guardsmen

convicted of killing three American nuns

and the layworker in 1980 have said for the first time

that they acted after receiving orders from above.

The declarations made from prison are because

are an important development in the case

because El Salvador in the United States

have always officially argued

that the killer is acted on their own.

Human rights groups and relatives of the victims,

however, have always maintained

the executions were ordered,

improved and directed by the military authorities.

The churchwomen, Mara Clark,

Jean Donovan, Ida Ford,

and Dorothy Castle, were abducted, raped,

and shocked to death on the 9th of December 2nd, 1980.

The next day, peasants discovered their bodies

alongside an isolated road

and buried their remains in a common grave.

The family had been driving

when stopped at a military checkpoint

and turned up 20 miles away, burned and gutted.

The killings came as the United States

was beginning a decade-long $7 billion,

$8 effort to prevent left-wing guerrillas

from coming to power here.

And the case quickly became the focus

of a bitter policy debate about Central America.

This particular act of barbarism in 1993,

State Department Reports said,

did more to inflame the debate over El Salvador

in the United States than any other single incident.

In 1993, a United Nations Truth Commission report

concluded that Colonel Carlos Eugeneo Vidius Casanova,

the Director of the National Guard in 1980,

and General Jose Guillermo Garcia,

the Minister of Defense at the time,

had organized an official cover-up.

All right, well, this is something I knew about.

For certain, it's a horrible crime in America's history,

the policy of the United States

to insult the American South Central America

up, especially during the Reagan years,

was terrible.

We funded all kinds of horrible death squads

and things like this, and this is it.

And this came to light.

I mean, it was known, but it became clear

how much the United States and its client regimes

were responsible for this kind of tortures

and disappearances.

We've missed it before.

But the Oliver Stone, the Salvador,

has a dramatization of this atrocity.

Yeah.

Let me see.

Let me read this.

This is very interesting.

It's a really interesting case, right beneath it.

XVGA is convicted in reaction ranges wide.

A French court's historic finding today

that Maurice Peppan is guilty of complicity

and Nazi crimes against humanity

because he turned over,

during Jews over to the Germans in World War II,

has both comforted and disconcerted the country

as a high-ranking civil servant for 50 years.

Jews and some lawyers for the survivors

faulted the court for absolving Mr. Peppan

in the military of the wartime,

collaborationist government in Vichy

of knowingly furthering Nazi plans

for the extermination of the Jews

by officially cooperating with the German authorities.

Defenders of the idea that Vichy

was a lesser evil that had spared France

and most of its 330,000 Jews,

the worst at the hands of the Germans

to announce Mr. Peppan's condemnation

as an insult to the memory of the resistance

he also claimed to have served.

This is a super interesting case,

in the history of France,

not the least because it was a lot of historians

testify in this case,

including Robert Paxton,

the great historian of fascism

and Vichy France about the relationship

of the Vichy regime to the Nazi regime.

You know, the common sense about that we have

about the depths of collaboration

was something that has only been established

conclusively by historians in our lifetime,

at least me in Jamal's lifetimes,

because there was a sort of myth created

that even though he was against them,

De Gaul sort of allowed to happen

as a kind of reuniting the country thing

that, oh well, actually,

a lot of people in Vichy did things

to help the resistance

and to prevent the Germans from doing worse things.

Papal is an extraordinarily villainous character

in French history,

because not only did he was a Vichy official,

he's responsible for not one,

but two massacres of Algerian protesters

in Paris in the 1960s during the Algerian Wars of Liberation.

So he was a,

and these are famous incidents

where, in one case,

protesters were pushed into the sand and drowned.

So this is a really odious character

who was on the wrong side of French history

in two different,

under two different regimes.

And he was eventually asked to resign by De Gaul,

but he was not,

but his conviction only came in the 1990s.

But yeah, it's a really fascinating case.

And if you're interested in French history,

I'd recommend looking into it.

Let's see what else we got here.

Let's see.

Companies oppose disclosure of detail on gifts to charity.

Senate approves budget blueprint carving tax cuts.

Virtually all of the presents for those

that are rejected mostly party line vote.

After calming,

we're concerned as a Senate tonight

approved for Republican budget blueprint

that tax cuts 30 billion over five years

and reject nearly all of Clinton's products report.

His second term was really a difficult one.

Oh, Democrats raised pressure on star

to end investigation of Clinton.

Seizing on polls showing

why public condemnation of federal judge dismissal

of the parlor,

Corbin Jones,

sexual misconduct lawsuit,

the White House, Democrats, and Congress

today turned up the pressure on kind of star

to conclude his criminal investigation of President Clinton.

While the fresh political offensive orchestrated

from the White House,

even Democrats who had been reluctant to weigh in

during the course against Mr. Star,

I would hope that Mr. Star would see fit

to bring this investigation to close.

Well, as we know that it did not happen.

They didn't, they weren't able to do that.

It was Mr. Star's longest session with the press

since accused accusations about Mr.

Lewin's Clinton's relationship

with Monica Lewinsky surface 10 weeks ago.

And defiant sometimes rambling,

defensive strategy, Mr. Star said

you're very keen and powerful,

interesting completely investigation,

but seeking to draw distinctions

between Mrs. Jones's civil case

and accusations of perjury

and the obstruction of justice.

If you lie under oath,

if you intimidate a witness,

if you seek otherwise

to obstruct the process of justice,

it doesn't matter who wins and loses in the civil case.

Well, we all know how that ended up.

But yeah, we're right in the middle of this.

The Martin Lewinsky stuff is about to explode.

Very quaint.

Yeah, very quaint,

that that was a big deal.

Anyway, anything else look interesting to you here?

Yeah, that's so much.

All right.

I'll say if there's this,

and you're inside,

there's this headline,

Senate's Mr. Bipartisan,

Senator John McCain's

at the forefront of issues

like tobacco and campaign financial legislation

reaching across party lines.

McCain would lend his name to McCain

fine gold,

which is probably the biggest piece of campaign legislation

passed in the 20th century.

And that was overturned by the Supreme Court

in Citizens United in 2010.

But McCain, I mean,

you know,

it's kind of forgotten now,

but McCain was this sort of very popular figure,

especially among the press.

And you'll ran in the 2000 election

for the Republican nomination,

lost George W. Bush,

but was still broadly popular

with the American public,

throughout his career.

Despite mostly being a down-the-line conservative,

he just sort of,

I think actually unlike a lot of folks these days,

you want to sort of claim the Maverick,

the Maverick moniker,

McCain should have understood

that there are places

where you can kind of break with your party

and it doesn't really,

you don't suffer all that much.

So campaign finance in tobacco

or two good ones,

like broadly popular

with the public,

doesn't really offend

any core Republican constituencies,

makes you look good.

And then you can,

even that buys you the leeway

to kind of be a party-line guy

and everything else.

And somehow,

somehow,

a lot of like Democrats

and Republicans

who are trying to do this thing,

miss that.

So like, Federman is very clearly

trying to be like

independent,

but you don't do that

by for example,

you know,

voting for the opposition's

priorities.

You do it by finding areas

where he's so annoying.

Yeah.

He's beyond,

he's more annoying.

Well, in a way,

he's really not that different

from John McCain.

He's a bomb people pro.

It's real.

You know,

I mean, he's,

John McCain was classier maybe,

but because, you know,

he comes from this

aristocratic American family.

Anyway, you know,

he found me a knob.

I mean, there is something

to him being, you know,

a former person or a war.

Yeah.

You're right.

Coming from this kind of a

aristocratic family.

And then I got like Federman

or Kiersten Sinema,

kind of just being

dipshits.

Yeah.

Yeah, I know.

I mean, you know,

it's not good to

idealize those families

in America.

But I will say,

the country looked a lot,

I don't know if that's fun.

I mean, look at,

look at the bushes.

I mean, look at their,

you know,

they were elegant,

you know, they,

they had those

preppy outfits

and,

and the Kennedys.

And now we got this,

all these slops.

I guess that's democracy

for you.

I guess that's the

democracy.

There is, there is,

there is like a wide open

lane for just big,

like a decently well-dressed

national politician.

Yeah, I guess maybe

Jack Schlossberg will

take it.

I don't know.

John Ossoff is pretty

well-dressed.

Oh, yeah.

He's nice.

He dress is nice.

Yeah.

I ran into him,

I ran into him in an

airport a couple of weeks ago.

Oh, really?

Like Guardia, yeah.

Interesting.

I was like, is that,

is that John Ossoff?

Did he recognize

you?

It was that thing

where you pretend like

you've met before.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, politicians

absent master.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, you know, we both

pretended like we had

met each other before.

Right.

We had not.

We had not.

Yeah.

Interesting, interesting

politician there.

Yeah, I like him actually.

All right.

Mercury rising.

John, how do you

see this before?

I actually think,

I don't know if I'm

inventing a memory,

but I think I saw this

in the theaters with my

dad.

And I remember him really

not like, I don't know

what I thought of it.

I was a kid, you know?

I don't know.

I didn't.

My standards were in his

high.

I remember I was interested

in at this age, I was

starting to get

interesting kind of

computer hacking,

cryptography, privacy,

stuff.

And so I guess the topic

of cryptography

would have interest me,

but watching this again,

it basically deals

nothing with cryptography.

Like there's no,

it's just like,

oh, he's got magic

powers to solve it.

Yeah, they don't

explain how he could

possibly do that.

They're just like, oh,

yeah, he's autistic.

He's a rainman.

He's a rainman guy.

And then it's just,

I mean, the movie's

treatment of autism is like,

yeah, you know who they are.

You know how they are?

You know how they are.

You know the rainman guys.

You know, they do a rainman.

So it was pretty bad.

I mean, like also,

it was just,

it's action stuff is not.

It's par for the course

with a lot of pretty mediocre

movies.

And yeah, I mean, like,

first of all, I mean,

it's like a,

it's like rainman

without any,

I mean, I think rainman

is a garbage movie too.

And I, we've gone

deep into my berry

levels.

Hey,

and that has nothing to do

with the movie we're watching.

So I won't go,

it's good side track.

But I think that this movie

is possibly worse and more offensive

than rainman.

Maybe not.

Yeah.

So it's just like,

okay, yeah, you have this,

you know,

what they used to call an idiot

savant,

which we don't obviously

anymore.

And then he's able to

solve this code

immediately.

And then the US government

tries to track them down

and kill them.

Baldwin is obviously,

like, never that boring

to watch.

But this is like,

you can tell when he's

kind of phoning it in.

And he's like,

he's just like

leaning on his voice

and his eyes.

And like, he's just like,

I'm very bad in this movie.

It's just not one of his

great performances.

He didn't care, obviously.

He is not really

doing his best.

And who can blame him?

I mean, I just don't think

anybody would be

an inspired to do a good job

on this movie.

Politically,

what can you even say?

I mean, it's not politically

correct.

I mean, for its time,

it was probably

politically correct.

I don't think any of the

commentary right on the

movie.

The time really commented

on how bad its depiction

of autism or just

dealing with issues

like that are.

I think that maybe for its

time, people thought it

would have been sweet

or nice the way

depicted those things.

And humanizing,

obviously, in retrospect,

not so much.

I thought, so I had kind

of a political reading

of the movie.

But it was based on

a misconception, which

was that I thought that he

at the beginning,

the bank robbers, he was

undercover with were like

a white supremacist

militia.

That's, I mean, that's the

strong, I feel like that's

the strong implication.

They're decked out in

camo.

They're talking about

God's will.

I mean, it's very,

yeah.

Okay.

So maybe I'm not wrong.

Yeah.

Okay.

When the movie started,

I was like, could I have

never seen this before?

Yeah.

So when it started and it

was like, it's very

Ruby Ridge, Waco,

Codive thing.

I was like, oh, that's

kind of interesting.

Yeah.

It's an interesting way

to how I wonder how this

plays out in the film.

And it amounts to

nothing.

Right.

I guess if you could

tease it out and you were

like, okay, well, what

very, you know, non,

what's the, what is the

word I'm trying to find?

This is the tropeism

of it, I guess.

Like, okay, it has no

actual content, but they were

using like the signifiers

or the, or like the ideas of

like that kind of stuff

going on.

I mean, it is interesting,

if you think about it, that

he presents, he's like, oh,

they like murder these kids

and like, it wasn't

necessary for the FBI to

take this kind of action.

And that was definitely like,

in the air, in the culture,

you know, this is the

FBI at Ruby Ridge and at

Waco.

And then you have this, so

especially on the right,

right?

So you have the movie

potentially having kind of a

conservative or libertarian

anti-government message

where you have this

disgruntled, you have this

disgruntled FBI agent.

And then you have the

NSA up to no good.

So you can kind of

maybe make an argument

that a right-wing person

watching this movie

could be like, yeah,

right on.

Yeah.

It is more right than

left in its anti-government

fields.

Well, it's interesting,

because the FBI isn't

really the bad guy in this

movie.

No.

It's not the FBI.

The NSA is the bad guy in the

movie.

Although the FBI behaves

badly to being when they

like storm the place.

But yeah.

But the, the average

FBI special field agent

is a good guy.

Special agent is a good guy.

The bureaucracy is a bad

guy.

Right?

Right.

Yeah.

So, I mean, yeah.

I mean, like,

wittingly or not, I think

that this movie is one of

the more right-coded films

we've watched in a while.

I guess there was a, you know,

the beginnings of concern

about what we're going to do

with this movie.

I think that this movie

is one of the more right-coded

films we've watched in a while.

There's a lot of concern

about cryptography, privacy,

the NSA, and the 1990s.

That went, that was both a

right-civil libertarian

and left-civilitarian issue.

And I think that what the

movie is doing and would have

been read at its time,

it wouldn't have offended

anybody particularly.

Nobody watching this movie,

unless they were really

sensitive, would have been

like, my politics are

bothered by this because

there is like a

simultaneous being like,

yeah, we don't trust

the government exactly

with these issues.

So I don't think

it would have been

wrecked and I don't think

any of the criticism I

looked at very briefly

recognized any of those

themes.

But it's interesting that

those things kind of get

like absorbed into the

culture.

And then people are like,

they kind of lose their

political balance

and become almost

common-sensical.

It's just like,

oh yeah, the government

did that.

Which is, it's not false

that the government did not

behave well at Ruby

Ridge or Waco.

Is it a,

you know, was it the

degree of atrocity

that, you know, the

propaganda of the far

right made it out to be

it's a little more

complicated than that.

But, you know, it's

it's, yeah, there's

some of my political

thoughts about the movie

in so far as there is

a politics.

So I gotta say, I was

so stuck on the

portrayal of the

autistic little boy,

the entire time.

Not that I, you know,

I'm not on the spectrum

and my kids are

not on anything.

But, yeah.

I was just struck

by how, like, insanely

insensitive.

Like, the kid does not

even really exist as a

human being in the film.

He is mostly a plot

contrivance.

And to the extent

that he interacts

with anyone, it is

through this, like, caricature

of someone who is, you

know, basically debilitatingly

disabled.

It's, I was reading, I've been

reading some commentary

on the film, like, of course,

it's recent commentary

by people themselves

who are on the autism

spectrum.

And it's uniformly, like,

this is offensive.

Yeah.

And a step backwards.

Right.

A step backwards.

Because, I mean, the way the

way the way the way the

way it plays out in the film

is every time someone asks,

well, what's with this kid?

They're like, oh, he's

autistic.

And it's like, oh, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

When the cryptographers

are like, well, how could

this kid figure it out?

They're like, well, he's

autistic.

And it's like, oh, there you go.

You know, they're, they're

savants, you know, how they are.

And it's, like, the one thing

that, so this movie is, in a

lot of ways, a totally generic

90s kind of conspiracy

thriller, right?

You have like the estranged

law enforcement guy.

You have the Baroque

government conspiracy.

You have the assassins.

It's very much, you know, paint

by numbers here.

So the one thing

that's supposed to make it

a little interesting is the kid

is this character.

But the kid, the kid is just a

cartoon, a cartoon of children

who are on, um, who are on

the spectrum.

And I just, I find I'm so

baffled that I guess I'm not

surprised that the, um, producers

and who I've never been involved

in this project.

Yeah, this checks out.

We're going to put this in the

movie.

But it's still, it's still

really shocking because it just

it just presents the, it

presents autism as, um, as a,

uh, as,

presents neurodivergency.

I'll say that.

Yeah.

As, as they like debilitating,

well, there are, there are, I

mean, there are people who

with have, have, have, you

know, very low functioning

autism.

Right.

And that's what the movie is

trying to depict.

But it's also like mixing up,

uh, it's mixing up stereotypes

really.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's not, there's not, there

are, there are people with

nonverbal autism.

That's absolutely the case.

But the movie doesn't make

those distinctions.

The movie's just sort of like,

yeah, this is autism.

Uh, this is what this means.

And even, let's say the movie

were more nuanced, there's no

real attempt to make this

kid a character at all.

Like he's just, he's just like

a collection of tropes.

Yep.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I think it's hard, but like

yeah, they, they, they, they

develop no personality for him at

all or make any effort to do it.

I mean, it would be hard to do that.

But I think they should have

just made it like, they should

have just made him like not, like, they

should have made him like higher

functioning form of autism, like,

on the spectrum.

But it wasn't well understood at

the time.

So like, he could have a personality.

Or just, or just, I mean, honestly,

not like the movie.

Yes.

But why have this conceived in

the first place?

And in the film, one of the

cryptographers is like, yeah, we

put this thing into the puzzle

magazine because we were just trying

to test if geeks were going to

get it.

And that would have been a fine

movie, right?

Like a group of puzzle geeks who

cracked this code and end up

getting on the radar of the NSA.

That's, I mean, I think that's

much more comedic.

I mean, it's not so much like a

heart, you tug at your heart

strings drama.

It's something more akin to a

buddy comedy.

Like you could imagine a

version of this movie that is

a midnight run with Bruce Willis

and like some nerdy guy on the

run from an assassin.

Like that actually sounds like

kind of a fun movie.

And what this is instead is,

is like both paint by numbers

and just really misconceived

and misguided.

Yeah, for sure.

I think that like it was trying

to be, have that add to the drama

or the sentimentality or

whatever the movie.

And it, and it, it does, it just

misfires really badly.

I mean, it's, it's, the title is

less offensive than the name of the

novel.

The name of the novel is based on

a simple assignment, which is

not, which is pretty bad.

Oh, that is pretty bad.

Yeah.

Uh, I think it was just like, oh

well, you think that he's really

stupid, but he's actually a genius.

I wonder if the, did you, and

anything you read, do they compare

it to the depiction of rainman?

Uh, no, I don't think anyone,

I don't, I didn't read anyone

comparing the depiction of rainman,

but the depiction of rainman's

of a similar strike, right?

That like, yeah, but he has more

of a personality.

Yeah.

I mean, like, yeah.

And it's, well, it's doesn't

harm.

It's an actor.

But like, it's not a child actor.

So I, yeah, it's, it's just, it's

just pretty bad.

Uh, politically, I mean, the only

thing I, I sort of have to observe

is we don't get a lot of the NSA

as a villain in these things.

I think it's in part.

Okay, I'll take that back.

We don't get a lot of the NSA is

a villain in these kind of movies.

Um,

but when we do get the NSA as a villain,

it should have completely

disentangled with what the NSA does.

Like the NSA is a funny organization

that it is quite secretive.

Yeah.

And people don't really know what it

does.

It has a very sinister sounding name,

the national security agency.

Um, but in this isn't like a,

this isn't like ex, being ex-copy

turf for the NSA, which was famously

involved in the Bush administration

in a surveillance program on like

all American wireless communications.

Like it kind of is a sinister

agency in that regard.

But it's sinister to the extent

that like it has lots of access

to people's information and,

and can violate people's privacy.

But the NSA of this film,

which is sort of like a domestic

CIA.

Um,

it's not really a thing.

That's more like the FBI.

Uh, yeah.

Which the movie current

presents as being like full of

AOK rise as being like basically

like cops.

Right.

Um,

but it's the FBI that's more likely

to be doing the kind of like

two weeks and two weeks and

that like anything the government

would be sort of a contracting

assassins to kill people.

It'd be more an FBI kind of thing

or like an illegal CIA operation.

Yeah.

Um,

yeah, the NSA is kind of very

technical.

Yeah, it's like nerds.

It's nerds and it's a lot of

technology and math.

And they show some of that.

But then they've got,

you know,

uh,

well, I mean, it's kind of like,

oh, well,

Alec Baldwin's this,

you know,

this, this Chad

who's in charge of all these

nerds.

I'm really impatient

with their bullshit.

There's a version of this

movie that's a comedy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's much more,

I think that that is,

um,

fits more.

Yeah.

It's a little bit more,

but then you're basically making

sneakers,

which already was made.

And that is a cryptography

that's solving of cryptographic

puzzle as a

as it

is just a way better movie

in every single way.

Like, that is just

that movie,

which is excellent.

And, uh,

not

this, which was,

which is really

excurable.

I'll say the other thing

politically is that

in this was the case,

I mean, this is a contemporary,

this movie is

contemporary with the enemy

of the state.

And so here you have

another movie that's really

keyed in, I think,

to what's going to become,

well, what does become a

major political issue,

which was just just

the extent to which

the government can collect

like large amounts of

information on people.

Um,

and the, the way that,

you know,

really frightens people,

violators,

sense of privacy,

all these sorts of things.

And in the 90s,

because there isn't a

particular,

you know, there's,

there's terrorism,

obviously,

but there isn't a kind of sense

that we're under

existential threat from

terrorism.

It's much more politically

dicey for the

federal government,

sort of make the case

for all this kind of

large-scale data collection.

A couple of years later,

then 9-11

really opens the floodgates

for the ability

of the feds to, like,

sell the necessity

of large-scale data collection

to keep you safe.

So, it's an interesting example

of, you know, paranoia

and fear about

the federal government

to click information

before we get to

the age of international

terrorism and, like,

terrorism is kind of the primary

foreign policy

and domestic security concern

for, um,

for many Americans.

Right, right, right, right.

Yeah, I mean,

I don't know what else

really to say about it,

it is,

and also, like,

the act,

the kind of love interest

kind of thing is, like,

so weird.

Like, he just meets

this lady and, like,

forces her to help him

and, like,

no one would do this.

Like, it's just completely

unbelievable, especially

because there's no,

they have no personalities,

uh, there's no personality

in the, in the little boy,

so you can't believe

that she's built

some kind of bond with him.

Yeah.

You know, like, it's just,

so, like,

wooden and nonsensical.

I mean, it's just,

you know, I was just,

like, I just imagine

somebody, like,

whose favorite movie this is.

Like, I was just, like,

like, it's just,

it's, it's inconceivable

that anybody

could like this.

You know what I mean?

Like, it's just,

it's just like,

it has,

it's got nothing

for nobody almost.

I don't know.

It's, it's just extremely

poor.

Um,

yeah, I, I,

I kind of put it,

I kind of block out

some of the worst movies

we've watched,

but this has got to be

up there.

What do you think?

I put this up there.

I mean, if I were,

I haven't rated this

on Letterbox or anything,

but this is like a

solid half-star movie

for me.

It's, um,

it's just,

it's too generic

to be interesting.

Like, again,

the one interesting

thing that happens

is the opening sequence.

Right.

That's a little compelling.

And then after that,

it's just, it's paint

by numbers,

it has to defend

to portrayal.

It doesn't,

it's not only doing

anything, it doesn't even

have, you know, I watch

over the weekend,

my wife and I

rewatched TimeCop,

the Peter Hyam's

John Claude Van Dam movie

about what else,

a TimeCop?

Yeah, TimeCop.

Uh,

uh,

a cop who stops time

crimes.

Uh, which I'll say

watching that,

uh,

I was struck by the lack

of due process

for TimeCriminals.

They just like

immediately execute them,

um, which is a

problem.

Yeah.

Well, I don't know about

Time law.

Uh, I don't

either.

The movie suggests,

I mean, the movie has

like a court, a tribunal,

like, in the time,

the department of,

like, time enforcement

or whatever,

uh, exist,

uh, in the federal government.

So they actually,

there would be like

case law about TimeCrim

and Time law.

And it does the

constitutions,

protections for due process

apply.

Well, isn't this like,

what's your call?

What's that other movie

with Tom Cruise?

Uh,

minority report.

Is it like,

minority report?

Yeah, yeah.

It's like,

Dumber minority report.

Okay.

Um,

but the thing about TimeCop,

bad movie,

but it has like,

these great performances

by Ron Silver,

by, um,

what's the guy's name?

Uh,

he's in all kinds of stuff

you some taxes.

Uh,

Bruce McGill.

So,

you know,

I think the movie is a lot

of fun to watch,

but it also has these great

performances that really

kind of make it's like,

oh, yeah, I'm not,

it's not wasted by the time.

I can see Ron Silver

really chewed the soap

scenery here.

Um, I was about to say,

Ron Silver chewed the,

uh,

silverware here,

but that makes no sense.

Um,

uh,

but, uh,

Mercury Rising

doesn't have that at all.

There's actually no

group.

There are good characters

in this movie.

They are given nothing

to do.

Yeah.

It's pretty,

it's pretty garbage.

It's just garbage.

Absolute garbage.

Uh,

I guess those were our final

thoughts on Mercury Rising.

Yeah.

It's,

you know,

it's a real piece of shit.

It's a real piece of shit.

Uh,

I mean,

of course,

it's hard work making a movie

don't want to

disparage the craft's people.

Uh,

but the movie doesn't work.

And politically,

it's,

there are some zeitgeisty stuff

there.

There are some ways in which

it is plugged in to,

you know,

emerging political disputes.

Um,

but for a movie that does involve

like a government agency that,

or two government agencies that

it's supposed to be about the

cryptography,

which is,

it doesn't,

it's just not much there.

Um,

enemy of the state by contrast.

It's just so much more

politically interesting movie.

Um,

in addition to being like a

better made,

better in every way.

Um,

so it's for,

in terms of like the remit of

this podcast,

it's like,

is this

a remit?

Yeah, we do.

Okay.

Um,

is it,

is it in within our remit?

Yeah.

I mean, kind of,

it works.

I can,

yeah, we have a remit,

um,

which is just to sort of try to

like break down these films

in terms of the politics

with the decade.

Yeah.

So in terms of that,

I just feel like you're

not missing anything.

Um,

there's not really that much

to say it's,

in all form,

it's kind of a generic

late 90s action thriller.

And it's rightfully

forgotten.

Um,

no one,

when Bruce Willis

retired from acting,

because he's suffering

from basically sort of

dementia,

neurological

generation,

it's very sad.

No one was like,

and remember Bruce Willis

is performance in Mercury

rising.

And remember,

we'll never forget

the work you're

rising,

starring also a bunch

of other people.

Uh, so it's a very

much of a forgettable film,

um,

rightfully consigned

to the ash heap of history.

Yep.

Uh, and that's,

that's, I feel like

it's all we got to say.

Yep.

Uh, that's it for me.

I would not recommend

watching this film.

Okay.

That is our show.

Thank you,

as always,

for listening.

You can find us forever

podcast are found.

Uh, if you

leave a rating

and review on say Apple

podcast,

it helps people find the

show.

We appreciate it.

Uh, you can reach us for

feedback at unclear and

present feedback at fastmail.com.

Um,

for this week in feedback,

we got another recommendation

when we just got

someone who sent

us an email,

Michael sent this

email that said,

this is straight out

of one of the movies

for the pod.

And to link to

your time story

about opening this up,

uh, headline,

former green beret is

behind a failed coup.

No, former green beret

behind a failed coup

in Venezuela's

on the run.

The U.S.

government said the

military veteran,

Jordan G.

Goodrow has been

missing for months

and that an ankle monitor

assigned to him had

been found hidden

in the piece of furniture.

This is very,

uh,

90s.

Crazy.

Um,

if former US green beret

who was arrested

in charge after mounting

a failed coup against

Nicholas Maduro

of Venezuela,

who's been missing for

months since considered

a fugitive,

according to court documents

filed this week.

There's a documentary

about its coup attempt

called Men of War.

Um,

this was a 2020 attempt

to overthrow.

I've never heard of it.

I've never heard of it

either.

I guess the weather is

the pandemic over your

order and everything.

Um,

the, here's a description

from this review,

the strain,

square draw,

the strain,

square draw,

Goodrow ends up

resembling a doomed

middle manager,

who referenced his

starship troopers,

um,

and Herocletus.

The film's often

fredic editing tends to

weaken this strong story.

Uh,

huh.

I might check this out,

directed by Billy Corbin.

Is this actually

pumpkin?

Pumpkin's guy?

No.

No.

Corigan,

Corigan,

Corin.

Corban.

Corbys.

Corban.

It makes sense.

We're just

going everything.

It's just

turning into a kind of 90s

slush.

Yeah.

Uh, yeah.

Just a documentary

in, um,

director of a film called

Cocaine Calboys

from 2006.

Oh,

I feel like I've seen that.

Why have I seen that?

I don't know.

It can't be that good.

But I mean, it's an interesting topic.

Also a documentary about MMA called dog fight.

No, not interested.

Me neither.

I hate MMA.

I like boxing.

It's old school.

I don't like MMA.

Boxing seems to be specialized.

Yeah, McCain.

McCain didn't like MMA either.

No.

Yeah, people are in a boxing anymore, but it feels, I mean, obviously boxing in brutal

sport.

But there's something, I don't know, MMA just feels too like, doesn't feel like there's

rules.

I mean, they're obviously rules.

But you know what I mean?

It just feels like.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's just, it's just too brutal.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

Thank you for that email, Michael.

That's sort of, uh, clearing us into this insane story.

I'm going to watch this documentary.

Yeah.

I'll check it out too.

It sounds interesting.

90 minutes, too.

So that's perfect.

Perfect for a weeknight movie for me, uh, episode to this podcast come out roughly over

two weeks.

And so we will see you then.

Let me actually, we will, we may not see you in exactly two weeks because I will be on

spring break vacation with my family.

So we'll see you after that, uh, and we will see you then with pull up the list, uh,

okay.

With the, uh, the TV movie, um, actually, we haven't done one of these in a long time.

Um, is this even available?

What do you call it?

Oklahoma City.

It's survivor story.

Oh, wow.

Maybe we can find out on YouTube or it's, it's on YouTube.

Yeah.

Okay.

Cool.

So we're going to do this TV movie from 98 direct by John Cordy, Oklahoma City, it's

survivor story.

The story of the rescue recovery of an Oklahoma bomb, Oklahoma City bomb survivor.

Uh, this sounds interesting to me.

I'd be curious to see how this is depicted, it's just three years after the bombing at

this point.

Um, and then we're going to just let you know where we're going after that.

We're going to have like a trio after this of, of like peak 90s movies.

So, uh, our next film after this TV film is Bullworth, uh, the Warren Baby Film, uh,

which I've never seen.

I have this, I have listened to the song Getto Superstar by prize many times, you gotta

listen to that, which is from the soundtrack.

Yeah.

So, uh, uh, that's the extent of which I know this movie, uh, and I really would like

to see this.

So, uh, that's Warren Baby's film, uh, then there'll be Godzilla 98 with direct by Roland

Emmerich with Matthew Broderick, John Verno, Hank Azaria, Kevin Dunn, a lot of people

on this big movie.

I saw this in theaters as a kid.

And then Armageddon, Michael Bay, um, the, the, the, what are the dumbest of the, something

is coming towards earth movies of the 90s, but I have a lot of affection for it.

Eventually, this year at some point, we'll get to the siege.

Yeah.

Great.

So, I'm very excited.

Well, not great movie, but interesting movie, let's say.

Yeah.

Very interesting movie.

Yeah.

I'm prescient movie in a lot of ways.

So that's what's coming up next, uh, for the podcast.

We're coming to the end.

We're, we'll soon be at the end of the decade.

And, uh, soon enough, at the end of this genre of film, uh, but we will then continue on

with the post on 11 films.

So they'll be, they'll be more of this.

Okay.

That's it for the show.

We'll see you next time for John Gantz.

I'm Jim Elbowey.

And this is unclear and present danger.

Thank you for listening.