Picking Nits
Poe's manslaughter conviction and legal representation; the Vegas Strip landing; who is in charge of the pursuit; the Jailbird as transport; no visibly armed guard; the DEA agent's collapse; cockpit access; Chappelle's fall from 20,000 feet
In the discussion (9)
Approx. transcript time · 00:23:15Read transcript
- Usually saved for picking nits but raised at the top: the conviction is one of the most ludicrous moments in movie history. An honorably discharged Army Ranger back from serving his country is set upon by three degenerates in a rainstorm, one pulls a knife, and in self-defense he kills one with a palm strike, nose into the brain, then somehow goes to jail with the worst legal representation of all time. The judge's reasoning that his military skills make him a deadly weapon not subject to the same laws is questioned, Alabama lawyers are invited to write in, the knife that was never found and the witness who ran away are noted, and Serial season four is proposed for the parking lot.
- Picking nits is moved up with 67 options because of the lawyers and the way movie bad guys love to antagonize military heroes; the host wants to know once and for all whether you can pull safety pins out of your hand like that, pointing listeners to themailbagattheringer.com while warning nobody to actually do it. The biggest absurdity besides Poe going to jail is landing a plane on the Vegas Strip, which is always packed and would take out a thousand people, being busier at four in the morning than anywhere in the world.
- That one did not bother this host, who has been to Vegas twice but does not go out of the hotel room after 10 p.m. and assumes it is quiet. — Shea Serrano
- Vegas is dubbed the city that sleeps at 11, going to bed in time for Kimmel.
- Resuming, the hosts note only two nits were actually raised despite the promised 67; the whole movie is a nitpick.
- Operational priorities on the cop side are unclear: the DEA guy Colm Meaney (transcribed 'Cole Meany') driving a sports car and throwing his weight around, the U.S. Marshals guy Cusack, the military's Black Hawk helicopters chasing the Jailbird and the army at the air base, with nobody clearly in charge of the pursuit of 20 terrible criminals. It is unclear where everybody was going beyond a new supermax for the worst of the worst or why non-terrible people are on board, and the Jailbird, 'no disrespect', is an old piece of junk hunker.
- Why is nobody visibly armed on the plane, up on the platform with a rifle just in case? The man secretly armed instead, the DEA agent, pulled a Fredo Corleone or a Nathan Peterman, grabbing the gun, sweating and completely falling apart; this comes from the post-Miami Vice period when movie criminals really hated DEA scumbags.
- Other nits: why not have someone with a gun shooting everybody when needed, and why is the cockpit not impossible to reach rather than a knock on the door.
- As a nitpick on Chappelle's exit, throwing a guy out of a plane at 20,000 feet would cause far more damage than shown: he should have burst like a water balloon or gone seven feet into the concrete rather than ending up lying on a Volvo.