"I like all you navy boys every time we got to go someplace to fight you fellas always give us a ride"; "should we or should we not follow the advice of the galactically stupid"; "you have to ask me nicely"
Nominees include 'these are the facts of the case and they are indisputable', 'I'm sorry I lost your set of steak knives' (prompting a Glenn Gary (as transcribed) and Ginsu knives aside), the 'you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall' speech, 'we live in a world that has walls', the softball-player line, a profane threat from Jessup, 'you, Lieutenant Weinberg' and 'thank you for playing'.
The presenter reveals a personal favorite early: the navy-boys line, a great dig full of contempt for Cruise.
Asked for a favorite, one panelist likes the galactically stupid line, and another, allowed to add one, says the favorite is still 'you have to ask me nicely', savored and applicable to any situation, though the impersonation is not good enough yet for office use.
From the same scene another adds 'I'm a fair guy, but this fucking heat is making me absolutely crazy'.
Three choices: 'You want answers. I want the truth. You can't handle the truth'; 'Harold, you don't need to wear a patch in your arm to have honor' followed by 'Ten hut. There's an officer on deck'; and 'Did you order the code red?' answered 'you're goddamn right I did'.
One panelist's favorite is the 'why the two orders' moment, when everyone gets up and shouts at once, staged so each voice is audible, ending with Cruise's 'you cut these guys loose' as the hosts quote it.
Cruise was reportedly self-conscious about how high his voice got when yelling, audible in Risky Business, but by this film he had worked on it, joked to be with a German vocal scientist.
'You want answers. I want the truth. You can't handle the truth' is called unbelievable, recalled as raising the scene to another level when watched with a daughter for the first time.
Asked for a favorite exchange, another says it is definitely 'you can't handle the truth', which exists outside the movie, memes before there were memes.
Putting Jessup on the stand; Caffey calling Jessup a son of a bitch in court; whether Joe Galloway was a terrible lawyer; who should have played Joe Galloway
Putting Jessup on the stand was insane: they gamble six months and their careers on a fake-out with the two airmen whom Sam almost fails to get to court in time, a huge bluff that, like Rounders, is fun to rewatch even knowing how it ends.
Cruise's 'Don't call me son. I'm a lawyer and an officer in the United States Navy, and you're under arrest, you son of a bitch' would not really happen in court, though another notes the formality had already gone once Nicholson was screaming his own threats.
Was Joe Galloway a terrible lawyer? A prepared list argues she is good: she knows what a code red is, a quote from her advisors calls her a hell of an investigator, and she memorizes extensive biographical details.
The list continues: she believes in due process, unlike Caffey's '12 years and out in six' deals, and at the Gitmo lunch she angers Jessup into admitting off the record that he condones code reds and will take any bait, which becomes the winning strategy.
Further points: being a lawyer is client services, she is not friends with the prosecution, she has the idea to put Jessup on the stand, and she is never held in contempt; she is not a litigator in a film about litigation as performance, so she gets no credit, but he would not win without her and she motivates him.
Non-legal points in her favor: her jeans are back in style, she has great taste in bar-and-grills such as the crab shack, her hair, the business suit she wears off duty on the first night with the tower logs and Chinese food, and Malcolm X glasses worn in one scene.
The 'twice as hard as you' dynamic is called a good foil for Cruise's character and an honest picture of a woman in that workplace, making her one of the best Sorkin female characters despite the disrespect; 'I strenuously object' is bad, but she earns credit for the 'exceptional lawyer' speech that pumps Cruise up, and a host wishes Ringer colleagues gave speeches like that.
The case against her: she is blamed for Downey, having befriended Aunt Ginny without learning Downey was not in the room; the reply is that Weinberg did witness prep, Caffey was lead counsel, and the defendants never volunteered anything they were not asked, which is when Cruise freaks out.
'Strenuously object' is her scarlet letter, before she was in The Scarlet Letter, along with saying 'we're going to win'; one panelist calls it a bad performance with Demi Moore miscast.
Julia Roberts is floated as better, though she could not have been cast for the same reason as Bacon's haircut; Roberts and Cruise never made a movie together; asked to split the blame 65 to 35 between Demi Moore and Sorkin or blame 1991, the answer is that it is majority Demi Moore's fault.
In a 2017 version the character could not just be stuck in middle-management paperwork; one suggestion flips it, making Caffey a woman and Joe Galloway a man.
Jodie Foster was also up for the role, with one other name forgotten; Foster with Cruise is mocked as having no chemistry, measured against McConaughey and Foster in Contact and Helen Hunt with Nicholson in As Good as It Gets.
The Galloway question is left unsolved but seeds are planted; with Julia Roberts getting every part back then, Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2 shape is suggested as a good alternative.
Bigger impact in fewest minutes, Jessup or Lecter? What position did Caffey play? Did Sam Weinberg mail it in? Who is treated more like a subordinate? Can you make a flight disappear? Did Caffey and Galloway end up together? Which on-the-rise actor should have played Harold? What if Jessup never admits it? Was the code red scene Cruise's career highlight? Did Santiago kind of deserve to die?
Bigger impact in the fewest minutes, Nicholson's Jessup or Anthony Hopkins's Lecter: Jessup, since Hopkins is in jail most of that movie while Jessup has three scenes (the letter, the lunch, the ending); Lecter is put at about 18 minutes and Jessup at 11 or 12.
The usage-rate joke gives Nicholson a 12-for-13 line with eight threes, ten rebounds and nine assists in 12 minutes, very Iguodala game six.
Caffey's softball position: as player-coach probably shortstop, or second base, a middle infielder either way, while Herby (as transcribed) wants shortstop and the others grumble.
Did Sam Weinberg mail it in? Yes: nobody found out Downey was not there to hear the order, and while a spouse watching blamed Joe Galloway, preparing witnesses was Weinberg's one job.
That is a big hole in the movie; Sam is also dunked on hardest when, after Joe storms out and Daniel trashes the apartment, he starts tidying and is told to stop, like a houseboy.
A speech shortly after about Caffey's father, meant to be motivational, backfires, since the father is recalled as an attorney general who did Brown v. Board: with a life on the line one would pick the father over the son who settles every case; Cruise is weirdly casual in a military court, as in his 'just ain't so' opening statement.
The panel agrees Weinberg mailed it in: uncommitted until late in the trial, thinking the defendants were bullies, useful as a middle position that tempers Sorkin's ideology but useless as a lawyer.
Asked who gets sent for legal pads, pens and lamps and who is treated more like a subordinate, Sam or Joe, the answer is Joe; whether an entire flight can be erased from the logs without the internet never sits right.
Did Caffey and Galloway end up together or ever hook up? No; a third draft of Sorkin's script had him ask her on a date with a matching-socks callback, which one panelist prefers to 'The End' in big script letters.
The objection is that they have less than zero chemistry, which leads to asking who Cruise has chemistry with at all, even Nicole Kidman in Days of Thunders (as transcribed), before a joke that they hooked up once after a softball game.
Caffey's love life is floated and the answer offered is that he is asexual or too busy with work.
Which on-the-rise Black actor of 1991 would have been better as Harold: the role has about ten big scenes, Cuba Gooding could have done it, the actor had to be big because Dawson leads the troop, and Morris Chestnut would make little difference and was not known then.
What if Jessup never admits the code red: Caffey (transcribed as Kathy) goes to jail or is court-martialed and ends up coaching softball; in a real-life version the marshals come in, Bacon's character would not allow it, and it is game over once contempt is called.
Caffey almost does not go for it until Jessup taunts him about phone records and toiletries; the realization that Santiago did not pack, prompted by seeing his own shirts in the closet, is praised against the usual bird-across-the-sky light-bulb moments.
Was the code red scene the highlight of Cruise's career? He goes toe to toe with a multiple Oscar winner, Sean's view that Cruise beats Nicholson is held for later, and no single Cruise scene is better, not 'You complete me', Top Gun, the barman's poet in Cocktail or the Risky Business dance; it is called his career highlight.
Whether Joe Galloway set back the women's movement by one, three or five years is answered with 'Demi Moore might have' and pushed to Picking Nits.
Did Santiago (transcribed as San Diego) kind of deserve to die? Answers range from no to just a tiny bit; one panelist inches closer each viewing to thinking Jessup has a point, since the private could not keep up, ratted on his troop and broke the chain of command, and another goes that far but not to deserving to die.
Nominees start with Cruise swinging a softball bat and drunk Cruise, which may not be unintentional, though it is funny to watch him play drunk when he has clearly never had a drink.
More nominees: randomly anti-Semitic Jessup ('You, Lieutenant Weinberg'), Kendrick's one laugh, Kevin Pollack asking why she likes the Marines so much and Joe Galloway answering 'because they stand on a wall and they say, nothing's gonna hurt you tonight not on my watch', Bacon leaving the hoops game, and Amazon billing Wolfgang Bodison first.
The presenter's choice is Bacon leaving the hoops game: walking into a pickup game and shouting about doctored logbooks is a life dream, the players protest 'what the hell, Jack' at 10-8, and his slick ballet-like half turn is called Footloose training.
The hallway scene where she says they are going to do this and he answers no, you're not, is also very good Bacon.
Asked for a pick, another goes with Galloway's 'they stand on a wall' answer, noting the panel keeps dancing around the Galloway question.
A third pick is Cruise holding a bat, with a subsection for him shooting Nerf basketballs while asking 'where's my bat?', two sports at once.
Cruise's screen sports: hustling basketball in Cocktail with a shot like a six-year-old's, a suspicion he was a wrestler, All the Right Moves, football and a future Super Bowl in Oblivion, a catch in War in the Worlds (as transcribed), and volleyball in Top Gun in jeans on the beach.
His softball swing is too fast: the tight shot has him hitting ball after ball like a batting machine; the early grounders are fine, but the batting practice when Joe comes to talk is not.
A favorite nineties screenwriting trope: after 'you don't even know me', a character recites the other's résumé from memory, which one host plans to try on Amanda in their next argument.
JT Walsh gets an 'Apex for me for sure' and a second yes calling it his most infamous role, prompting a joke about how seriously the question was taken.
Aaron Sorkin is close but not the apex, a nice view but not the top; the first season of The West Wing and The Social Network are his apex, this film is likened to his 63-point Michael Jordan game with not a bad scene in it, and Moneyball is set aside because he rewrote somebody else's script.
Kevin Pollack is a no because of The Usual Suspects, which another agrees with.
Kevin Bacon is a no from one panelist, who calls him great and underrated here but notes how many films he has made, with The River Wild mentioned; another says no too, theorizing his bad haircut was deliberate so he would not distract from Cruise, like Kiefer's haircut, and puts his apex at Footloose, also liking him in Mystic River.
A third panelist disagrees with both and says this is Bacon's apex: not a meaty part but memorable, likable, with a dash of unintentional comedy, and hard to imagine anyone from that era, such as Matt Dillon, playing it without competing with Cruise.
Bacon was taking smaller parts in bigger movies then, as in JFK; though he is on the prosecuting side backing Jessup, he has some morality, saying he does not think the guys deserve jail but does not make that call; after an aside that his leaving the pickup game is unforgivable, a 'yes' for him is restated, possibly by the same panelist.
Wolfgang Bodesen (as transcribed) is a yes: 'that's the Apex for Wolfgang. I wish him well.'
Jack Nicholson's career overall draws four 'No' answers; then 'Late Jack Nicholson. Yes.' is offered, with one voice naming As Good as It Gets, and challenged over The Departed the late-career yes holds, because the Departed performance with its accent as a Whitey Bulger figure is called out of control and the weak link of that film.
Tom Cruise gets two yeses, with this chosen over Cocktail and a 'this or The Firm' aside; no one else in 30 years could bring this mix of unintentional comedy, good acting, sarcasm and bravado, Leo DiCaprio could not, though Matt Damon ten years later might have.
A TV version is planned for next year with Alec Baldwin, who is called amazing, but Caffey has not been cast; James Franco was rumored, a terrible idea, since the part needs an airhead who is really smart, a lawyer who plays softball, attractive but not a romantic lead; Demi Moore is left off the list as the nadir of her career.
The token black newsstand guy; Cruise zoning out during the Jessup examination; the gay slurs; JT Walsh's farewell speech; Joe Galloway; Cruise rehydrating with Yoohoo
The token black newsstand guy, just shouting, is rough, and 2017 barely has newsstands.
Cruise melting down during the Jessup examination, with about ten extra seconds of zoning out while the water glass shakes, is too long; not even Christopher Darden did that in the OJ trial, he is already in contempt, and an edit could save it.
The gay slurs reflect 1991 and are rough in the unedited version, less so on TNT.
JT Walsh's farewell speech as Lieutenant Colonel Matthew Markinson, the letter saying the son is dead because 'I wasn't strong enough to stop it', is a tough farewell that is done in ten seconds before he shoots himself.
Joe Galloway is nominated but tabled as a major conversation; a sixth nominee is Cruise rehydrating with Yoohoo after softball practice, with a joke about Paul George chugging one in the playoffs and his diet of Yoohoo, Cocoa Puffs and Jack Daniels.
Cruise's D.C. apartment shows a TBS Padres-Braves game and then an Orioles game, each with amazing plays such as an inside-the-park home run; one panelist personally thinks Joe Galloway has aged the worst.
Nominees: the ending, the 'galactically stupid' tirade when a drunk Cruise loses it on Demi Moore, the mess hall cross-examination that Bacon later praises as a great redirect, Cruise's Nicholson impersonation, Harold's 'ten hut' with Cruise, the 'why the two orders' brainstorm in the Jessup cross, and Jack Ross's face at Jessup's code red admission.
Like a decanted wine, the subtler moments should age best, which rules out Cruise doing Nicholson, since people their age have spent their lives watching others imitate Nicholson.
'Why the two orders' always gets one panelist, and another answers 'me too'.
Picks the mess hall cross-examination: rewatched it last night, it is subtle and lands every time, and the way Cruise grabs the notebook back from Kevin Bacon is peak Cruise swagger. — Amanda Dobbins
The scene has an early Noah Wiley (as transcribed), later important on ER, and shows the cleverness of the script solving problems without being showy or straining plausibility.
Another pick is Harold and Cruise's character finding common ground at the end, which still gives chills on the 557th viewing: 'Harold, you don't have to have a badge to have honor' and the 'Ten Hut'; Harold is never seen again.
The actor playing Harold appeared in a couple of nineties action movies and is believed to have been Rob Reiner's assistant before being thrown into the film.
The ending leaves the film dying for a coda: it is unclear how much trouble Jessup is in, unlike the court-martial that follows the submarine battle in Crimson Tide, and the two Marines are still dishonorably discharged.
A small flaw: after the code red admission Bacon's character later says he has to go arrest Kendrick, prompting the question of why he waited a week.
Offered the ending, the lunch in Guantanamo Bay, or Cruise and Bacon meeting for a beer, one panelist calls the last scene the best last scene of a movie ever but, despite hating to be too cute about these answers, goes with the Guantanamo Bay lunch as the sneaky choice.
Another likens the question to picking the home run scene in The Natural, then, getting cute, names the favorite interaction as Jack and Caffey getting a beer that ends with 'you're a lousy fucking softball player'.
In the bar, Cruise orders simply 'a beer' and makes a big show of refusing the frosted glass, which suggests he had never really done bar interactions on screen; the Vin Diesel beer tilt from the Fast and Furious films is the comparison.
One panelist agrees the ending is the best and the most rewatchable, but says you cannot sleep on the Guantanamo Bay scene.
The lunch makes them want the deleted small talk; Kendrick, whom Sean Phenasy (as transcribed) called 25 years early for what the alt-right looked like in 2016, is played by Kiefer Sutherland, hard to believe as the future Jack Bauer and the guy from The Vanishing, in a supporting part he was probably too big for.
Kiefer slummed it, and Bacon a little too; the hosts recall the Flatliners period and the collapse of the wedding with Julia Roberts, 'the all time greatest getting left at the altar story'.
Kendrick never cracks a smile, and when they ask to see the room where Santiago died he says the private died because he had no honor, no code.
A fourth alternative is Jessup reading Santiago's letter, asking who PFC William Santiago is and sarcastically proposing they surrender their position in Cuba; Josh Malina is in that scene too.
At the lunch Kendrick laughs only once, at Jessup's crude joke to Demi Moore's character about a superior officer, which TV prints cut; the hosts think it belongs because it shows how vicious Jessup is, and joke about a milder substitute word.
The child’s final throw is described as mechanically terrible despite Jerry treating it as evidence of athletic promise; Tom Cruise’s later throwing form is offered as an explanation. — Bill Simmons
The hallway embrace after a regular-season touchdown is judged disproportionately momentous, even after allowing for a great catch and fear of paralysis. — Chris Ryan
Tidwell’s extended celebration is joked to merit roughly seventy-five yards of penalties, while the concussion is offered as an explanation for his behavior. — Bill Simmons
Cameron Crow is proposed as peaking here; Almost Famous is countered as his life story and therefore easier material to assemble. — Bill Simmons
This film is proposed as Tom Cruise’s best movie and as the complete Cruise experience; 1996 is accepted as a career year because it also included Mission: Impossible. — Bill Simmons
The performer rendered as Jay Moore is treated as a probable peak, with a later agent television show recalled but not named. — Bill Simmons
The performer rendered as Glenn Fry is initially placed above the Eagles and his Miami Vice appearance, then removed after the Miami Vice comparison wins out. — Bill Simmons
Roy Firestone’s Rod Tidwell interview is called his peak. — Bill Simmons
Jerry O'Connell is proposed as peaking here; Stand By Me is raised, but the response prefers his Cush role. — Bill Simmons
The Springsteen soundtrack is nominated over Philadelphia, while the Philadelphia lawyer-office scene is offered as a strong counterexample. — Bill Simmons
Beau Bridges is added as a late-career peak. — Chris Ryan
The Michaels-Deerdorf-Gifford broadcast trio, using the transcript’s observed spelling, and Wayne Fontes’s lobby appearance are added as peaks. — Bill Simmons
