Carry-On (Netflix - 2024) ft. Alonso Duralde

[00:00:00] Hi, I'm Brandon and I love Netflix Christmas movies. I'm Dan and I despise Netflix Christmas movies. I'm Alonso and do I have to take my belt off or not? And this is the Deck The Hallmark Podcast. Deck The Hallmark, it's this podcast. Friends host this podcast. We hope you like this jolly podcast. Yes. Yeah, you do. Belt yes, shoes no. TSA pre-check. Make up your mind, y'all. Like every airport I go to feels like it's a

[00:00:38] different deal. Like belt and shoes off, belt yes, shoes no. Like does the bag go in the bin? Does the bag not go in the bin? Like it... TSA pre-check has been a game changer for me at big airports. At small airports, TSA pre-check is just the same line as everyone else is in. Sure. They don't follow any of the rules of it. I, uh, yeah, I, I, I belong to clear, which helps a little, but you still got to go through the dang, you know, x-ray machine and that's where all the confusion sets in. Big confusion. Well, I think we can't.

[00:01:08] Uh, handled that. Yeah. What goes in your, uh, do you do a check bag ever, Alonzo, or are you strictly carry on? I always check a bag. You always check a bag. I always check a bag because I don't want to get caught in that Oklahoma land rush of trying to get every last centimeter of the overheads. Also, I have recent age where I have to travel with my pillows. I can't sleep in another bed if I don't have my actual pillows.

[00:01:34] I gotta be honest. I'm with you on that. I'm, I'm about to go on a trip and I'm not taking my pillow. It's probably the first trip I've not taken my pillow in a long time. And I'm pre pre mad about it. Yeah. No, it's, it's, it's anxiety. So, um, yeah. I, and, and here's the thing. I think as someone who does check a bag, I should be able to board first.

[00:01:52] I think I should be able to get in, sit down and not because I'm not going to be fighting for that space. Like I, that should be my reward, especially because I usually have to pay to check a bag these days. Um, but, but no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm still in group six. You know what's crazy is. It's going to start making you pay for all these years. Some things were sacred.

[00:02:12] Yeah, we thought so all these years I've been picking Alonzo up at the airport when he comes to Greenville and all these years I've known that he's checked a bag and all these years I've, we cover all of Alonzo's travel expenses. I've never once asked to reimburse him for a bag. Not once. Have I been like, I, that comes out of my pocket. God bless it. I, I, that's on me. That's just bad. It's just being a bad human being. I didn't even cross my, literally took this in the year of our Lord 2025.

[00:02:40] Hey, I could have, I could have asked if I, if I felt like I needed it, but you know what? You could, I'm just kidding. No, I, I, we're going to be better about that in the future. So, you know, but, but if we start paying for his bag, then we got to give him, you know, what's, no, what's next? First class. Yeah. What's next? What's next? No, I think we can safely say to Alonzo first class. He's on his own. I've always said this about Alonzo. You give him an ad. The bag would be free. The bag would be free. You give Alonzo an inch. He's going to ask for a cookie.

[00:03:07] And, and that's been known to happen. And that's too much. Let's talk carry on. Shall we? The Netflix movie. We're ready to dive in. Yeah, man. All right. Apparently originally premiered on Netflix on December 13th. So I'm not totally sure. So we could have done it is what you're saying. Well, so there was the week. So, okay. So Thanksgiving was late. Yeah. I'm just, I'm going off to the top of the dome here. At some point we made a decision to do a different Netflix movie. We just did. It was the last one to come out. So I think we were going in order.

[00:03:37] And we didn't have anywhere on the calendar to put it. So we just did the first five. There it is. It's ridiculous. We were going to forfeit. You were with me. That Christmas. I didn't know who was in it. When we did this, I had no, I saw the name carry on and I'm like, whatever. Who cares? I didn't know that it was a big deal. I didn't know that there was definitely more money in this one than at least two of the others combined. It may be all of them combined. Yeah. Thank goodness. I saw the Chad Michael Murray movie that was terrible.

[00:04:04] We watched that dumb movie, Christmas at Stripper's Point or whatever it's called. It was awful, but it was very much in the zeitgeist. I think you guys probably had a lot of viewers because we talked about that and because we talked about Hot Frosty, I think this movie was a big deal when it finally aired, but by that point it was really late. And this is like a, you know, this is like a more April Christmas movie than a Chad Michael Murray dancing in Santa pants. No, stop it. Well, I just think it's important to, there's different levels.

[00:04:32] That movie that you're talking about is a never Christmas movie. Oh, come on now. You stand by that take? What was the take? It was your favorite. When did I say it? Before, before the Richard Curtis movie. Then yeah, stand by. You like it better than Hot Frosty, the Pentatonix movie and the Lindsay Lohan movie with Ian Harding? That did not come out after. I think I have the Lindsay Lohan movie higher than that. All right. We can go back and look. That movie's trash. The other ones are all great compared to-

[00:05:01] I feel like it was that one and then Lindsay Lohan and then that Christmas and then this. I think that was the order. Stripper's was the worst. Oh, you have this one. Giving away your hot take. No, no, no. I'm saying the order in which they air. Oh, okay. Got it. Yeah. But I do have it higher than Hot Frosty and the Pentatonix movie. Wow. I stand by. Wow. Scalding. Sheesh. Listen, I've just, I've tried my best over here, everybody, to give fair and honest stakes.

[00:05:29] Not afraid of the backlash that comes for me. Yeah. It's old. It aired on Netflix and it went a little something like this. Ethan works for TSA at LAX. Lots of letters, but you know what they mean. On the busiest travel day, according to him, Christmas Eve. His pregnant girlfriend, Nora, is trying to get Ethan to try to go back through the police academy again, even though he failed last time. But that seems hard.

[00:05:54] So he decides he's going to give TSA one last go at really trying at his job and potentially moving upward in the business. So he goes to talk to his advisor, Phil, to assign him to manage the scanning lane. That's where you want to be. It's a big show. Exactly right. And he will prove himself and it'll be a big thing. That's what the big dogs do. While on duty, Ethan finds an earbud and is instructed to put it in.

[00:06:20] When he puts it in, he begins to hear the voice of a bad guy that we know as the Traveler, who threatens to kill his girlfriend unless Ethan follows along with what he's asking him to do, which is there's going to be a carry-on bag that comes through from a guy who's wearing this hat. Look for him. Look for the bag and let it go through the scanner without any interference. The Traveler's accomplice, known as the Watcher, is going to be monitoring the situation through the cameras.

[00:06:48] So if you try to make a move, we're going to know that you're doing it. So no funny business. Ethan secretly tries to alert one of his coworkers with an invisible ink message. You know the kind. But before he can act on the message, the Traveler poisons him, which causes him to have a heart attack right there. Jason's boss notices that Ethan's kind of all over the place, so he replaces him with his friend Jason.

[00:07:15] When the Traveler threatens to kill Jason, if Ethan doesn't start following along, Ethan decides, OK, here we go. I'm going to take your coffee. I'm going to put alcohol in. I'm going to go to my boss, and I'm going to rat you out for being drunk on the job. So he's back in the control of the scanner, and Ethan lets the carry-on bag that he's been instructed to let through, through. But later finds out that inside of that bag is a deadly nerve agent.

[00:07:45] You don't want to mess that thing. It's inside this bomb of sorts. It's going to explode. It's going to cause the nerve agent to go everywhere. We then meet an LAPD detective, Elena Cole, who is investigating this double homicide that is tied to smuggling said nerve gas. And she suspects that something shady is going on at LAX. She orders this terminal-wide sweep, and everything gets shut down for a little bit.

[00:08:12] And Ethan secretly flags the bag guy for inspection. Suspecting that Ethan is trying to interfere in what's going on, the traveler confronts him in the bathroom, leading to a scuffle where Ethan manages to take control of the traveler's plastic gun. The traveler's like, big whoop, and arms the bomb. Big whoop. Big whoop. That's exactly right. Whoop, there it is. Some people say big whoop. I say big whoop. Big whoop.

[00:08:39] So Ethan has to go and stop the bag guy from being inspected, and hopefully he can disarm the bomb, which he does, but not before his boss is killed by the bag guy, who then reveals to Ethan that he is being blackmailed as well. His husband, Jesse, is actually being held hostage by the watcher. The traveler then shows up, grabs the bag, and orders the watcher to kill Nora,

[00:09:05] which Ethan then uses the original bag guy's phone to warn her, and she is able to escape. On the way to the airport, Detective Cole realizes that the officer that she is with is an imposter who is working with the traveler, and she is able to do a little flipsy-go-daisy, and he ends up dying, if you will. She then gets to the airport, finds Ethan, only to find out that Ethan is trying to stop the bomb.

[00:09:34] He's not in on it, and he's pleading for her to trust him. They discover that the traveler's target is a congresswoman who is on a flight to Washington, D.C. for a meeting about weapon funding. The planned attack is going to implicate Russia and would get a massive defense spending approved, and bad guys like that. I don't know if you know that. Bad guys like that. Interesting. The traveler boards the flight,

[00:10:03] and he's unaware that Ethan has swapped out the bag with the bomb in it into a similar but slightly larger bag, which then needs to be stowed below the plane. And he's like, you know what? No problem. I can stow it beneath the plane. And it's no big deal. But then he realizes, he gets a notification on his phone, some funny business is going on with the bomb. He figures it out. He's able to go down there, and Ethan is able to disarm the bomb,

[00:10:32] and Nora is then talking to Detective Cole, and he's like, you've got to let the plane go off so that the guy doesn't think anything's going on. But he does. He figures it out. He goes down there. There's a tussle of sorts, and Ethan is able to push him into this airtight refrigerator, I guess, with the bomb, who he's able to then have that go off, and the nerve agent kills the traveler. The plane is able to go back safely to the airport, and we get an update a year later.

[00:11:02] Ethan, now a police officer, he's got his son. He's going on a trip. He goes through TSA checkpoint, and we find out that he's now a part of the LAPD, and he's living his best life. And now, my friends, was Carry On. We did it. We did do it. Let's take a quick break. We'll come back, and we'll break this movie down here on Deck the Hallmark.

[00:11:34] Welcome back, everybody. We're talking Carry On today, a little Christmas action flick. Who doesn't love those? We'll find out. Let's share our thoughts, and we're going to start with a hot take, and I will start with you, Alonzo. Alonzo, what'd you think? So this is directed by my Spanish countryman, Joe McCaulay-Sarrah, who directed a lot of my favorite fun, dumb Liam Neeson movies. Yeah. Including the one on the plane, nonstop. Nonstop. I'm trying to save it.

[00:12:04] Exactly. But he also did Unknown and Run All Night and The Commuter. He did The Shallows, which is the Blake Lively versus the shark movie. Oh, I saw it. Yeah. Like, I think he is so good at this kind of thing. Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-los. Oh, my God. The different one, but yes. You know, apart from, we don't talk about his brief moment with Dwayne Johnson on Jungle Cruise and Black Adam, which were terrible. Brand love Jungle Cruise. I love it. I had a good time.

[00:12:35] But this kind of thing is so his wheelhouse. The, like, wildly implausible, but paced so fast, you barely have time to stop and think about it action movie. And I have to say, I did have a great time watching this because I did not have time to stop and think about it. When I thought about it later, I realized that this is, a great deal of it is nonsense and makes no, like, just a lot of, there are entire internet articles

[00:13:05] dedicated to the weight watts of this movie. We will butt scratch the surface, I'm sure. But as, we will butt scratch the movie. But as, as a, like, big dopey, like, action thing and, you know, ooh, we're playing a deadly game of cat and mouse, it's fun. Yeah, Alonzo's right. It's real dumb, real fun. Great soundtrack.

[00:13:33] Great Christmas tracks in this movie. And, yeah, the, like, just this movie, you know, you couldn't call it nonstop because he always, already made that movie. But it is nonstop. It is going. It's the prequel to nonstop. It is fast. It's fast and furious. You couldn't call it that. But you guys get what I'm saying. It's going and it doesn't stop until... You couldn't call it orphan. He already directed that. Until the end. This, listen, it is what it is, right? Like, no one's going, like,

[00:14:02] this is the most airtight movie of all time. Of course it's not. The only thing airtight is the refrigerator that Jason basically gets put into. So airtight. Nothing to worry about. But, yeah, it's an absolute blast. I, I, no, this is my second viewing of it and I can't wait to watch it again this holiday season. A really, really good time. Dan? So there's a movie called Phone Booth with Colin Farrell and Kiefer Sutherland that I mentioned here in the office and Aaron and Brandon both looked at me like I was 100 years old and that's fine.

[00:14:32] I get it. What's a phone booth there? And that movie is a Joel, probably the best use in my opinion of Joel Schumacher as a director but basically Colin Farrell's in a phone booth talking to Kiefer Sutherland for the entire runtime of the movie. I think, and I've not looked it up, I don't even think that movie's 80 minutes long. I think it's 75, 75, six, seven minutes. Like, I think it's very, very short. So, that movie sustains this crazy, bonkers, new,

[00:15:01] new premise perfectly. Hour 21 with credits. 81, yeah. 81 with credits. without credits, probably 76, 77. And that movie has this, it's so taut and just tense the whole time and it's a fun time. Like, if you've not seen it, at least I think so, it's a fun time, it's mindless, it's silly. Written by the great Rob Cohen who is like the guy who did cue the winged serpent in a lot of great 70s and 80s genre movies. Did you enjoy Phone Boost? Did you enjoy it? I did. Yeah. So,

[00:15:31] I would say the first 80 minutes of this movie, I really enjoyed. Like, I love, like, I was so invested in the phone conversations, even the, one of the first bathroom conversation with the two of them together. I think they're both, Jason Bateman and Taron Egerton are both wonderful in these roles. I think the guy that, I hate when we group all of those Liam Neeson movies together because there's a hundred of them where there are some clear standouts that he did after Taken and you mentioned all of them. I did not know it was a Spaniard.

[00:16:01] I just knew that this guy directed all the good Liam Neeson post-Taken movies. He holds that. The last, this movie's about 220, right? This movie's, is it two hours? It's two. Two. The last 45 did lose me. I did not, the best mindless action movies, I think to Alonzo's point, you don't realize how ridiculous they are to afterwards or you don't realize how many gaping holes until afterwards. You're so invested in what's going on. That was not me here, but the first hour

[00:16:30] and 20, I, I really loved and I thought it was Christmassy enough. Christmas played an important part in the film. I thought both of these actors were great and the, the tension of is this bag going to get through this guy's line could have been its own phone booth movie. As soon as we, I didn't care if I ever found out what was in the bag. I, it could have been, it could have been a MacGuffin. I, I could have been just fine with it being, this is the movie. Is this, this, him trying to get

[00:17:00] this bag for nefarious reasons through this guy's line and I would, I think it would be like a five star watch it every year experience. As it stands, still had a fun time. It does lean, lean into whatever it is after that and it, to me, it loses all steam. I don't care if it doesn't add up. It lost all of that momentum of being like claustrophobic and very of, of that moment. It lost when I'm like nerve gas, terrorist, big plane. At that point,

[00:17:29] I wasn't nearly as involved, but make no mistake from a qualitative standpoint, aside from the Richard Curtis movie, this is the best one of the Netflix holiday season by a mile, I would say. And then Pentatonix after that. And then Lindsay Lohan, Ian Harding, and then Hot Frosty and never to speak again of the Chad Michael Murray film that I called Christmas is Tripper's Point. I don't know the name of it. It's just Chad Michael Murray with a show off just grow up again. Yeah, that's the problem.

[00:17:58] That's what it was. Gosh. The pants stay on. That is the big problem of the stripper movie. That's right. Let's get to the feels of this one. You got any feels? Alanto? Yeah, well, I am a big fan of character actors, like really great character actors where you see their name in the credits, you're like, okay, this is at least these scenes are going to be great. So this movie gives us Dean Norris from Breaking Bad as the TSA boss

[00:18:28] who's amazing and the amazing Danielle Deadweiler who, if you don't know her name, you should. She starred in Till where she played the mother of Emmett Till. She was just in the Netflix piano lesson, the August Wilson play that one of Dental Washington's sons directed. She's a dynamite actress. Her name very regularly comes up in the Oscar conversation. She has not breached that short list yet, but her day will come. She's an amazing, amazing actress

[00:18:57] and she is committed to the bit. She is invested into this movie and gets the wackiest sequence where she decides that the best time to confront a guy who is an imposter is while he is driving a car into LAX rather than wait for them to be, I don't know, stopped. Flipsy go Daisy. It's always an option. It always turns out well. Flipsy go Daisy. So many different ways she could have done that that weren't the way she did it.

[00:19:26] But anyway, she's amazing so I was thrilled to see her. And then also, I did not know before this movie that peppermint ho-hos are a thing. I've never had one but I haven't. I haven't had one either but this, you know, this Christmas, I'm going to keep an eye out because like little Debbie, sometimes I find them locally, sometimes I don't. I'm not blessed to live in the South these days. But if I can't find a peppermint ho-ho, what are we even doing? I have to be honest with you really quick, Alonzo. I'm so used to you

[00:19:56] saying names that I don't recognize. When you said peppermint ho-ho, I thought it was an actor for a minute. And I was like, I'm not. And not to be outdone by Dean Norris, peppermint ho-ho in this movie? I'm not familiar with their world. Please welcome to the stage peppermint ho-ho. That actually was a character from the Chap Michael Marie stripper movie. Yeah. So, yeah, no, not it. I will say this. There's so many Little Debbie options in Greenville. Like, at the Publix where I shop,

[00:20:26] there's an end cap that just says the Little Debbie seasonals and I feel like it changes every week. No, I went to a Publix there right after the marathon and it was just like this ziggurat of Little Debbie holiday products. I'm like, yes, please. We don't smoke ziggurats anymore. That's bad for your lungs. Next time, I'm bringing an empty suitcase with me just so I can... Check in a second bag. You can pay for that one yourself. You pay for your

[00:20:56] Little Debbie bag That might be my carry-on. I don't want it to get crushed. One bag for your pillow, one bag... For your Debbie. For your Little Debbie. For your peppermint ho-ho. Because if I had a pillow made of Little Debbie's, I'd be like, poor Brett. Poor Brett. Had to grow up in a house. Do the math, man. Do the math. Listen, you know, Jason Bateman is a great bad guy and I think we're all aware of that but there's nothing quite like... As good as he is to see him

[00:21:25] be a bad guy, his voice in this, especially early on to your point, is so good at like... You're just like intrigued by this person more than you are like, this is a really bad guy. You're just intrigued by what's his story? Why is he doing this? He's your evil therapist. And the scene early on where, you know, he's got him in his ear and he's looking around trying to figure out the context clues of where he could be. Like, oh, I hear...

[00:21:55] I just heard a script or whatever it is. I hear someone like chomping down on... Like, looking around trying to find the little things. That was... Great scene. As good as this movie gets is the tension that is in that scene and it was just brilliant. Yeah, I'll piggyback there a bit. I would say, you know, Jason Bateman has, I guess, it took him a long time to evolve to realize that what he does, the very, you know, fast-mouthed, quick-witted thing

[00:22:24] works very well as a sociopath. You know what I mean? Like, that he... All of these roles he played in sitcoms and Hogan Family and Silver Spoons and all that stuff, Arrested Development, and then he does Ozark where he's accidentally a bad guy and I think that's what allowed him to go, oh, I can do this, but it makes perfect sense and as good as that scene is, the first time you see him and you're like, oh, they didn't make him just a sneaky middleman bad guy. He's a terrorist. He's like a full-blown

[00:22:55] terrorist and he crushes it. He's really, really good in this movie and... But what's great is he's so good at what he does that you end up being convinced like, oh, yeah, he didn't really have a choice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, for a second, he's just hammering you like, oh, you're so stupid if you don't get it. The best bad guys you love to hate and you do love... You love the lines that he gives and I think there's an inherent promise he's not gonna win and so I think you can enjoy how terrible he is

[00:23:25] and every line he just puts extra relish on it and he's, you know, classic Bateman. And I think, like, you know, your usual terrorist is gonna be very sort of politically motivated or have some sort of, like, great agenda that they put above the safety of others whereas this character, I think, a lot like Hans Gruber in Die Hard is just like, he's there to get paid. That's right. And he's good at his job. His job just happens to be, you know, this nefarious thing. And that's what happens

[00:23:54] in Ozark which is a show that does kind of go off the rails but early on it's like, I'm great at cooking books and great at numbers and it turns out I've gotta do all this terrible stuff and I've fallen backwards into it and he becomes, like, a crime boss. That's the premise of the show and I think that that really does fit what he, and he, like, if you ever listen to their podcast, he will, he's honest about what he is as an actor. Like, he knows very well what he is. He doesn't think he's Daniel Day-Lewis. You know,

[00:24:24] he knows exactly who he is and I think he's just now starting to really show, like, he can be a heavy hero. Wheelhouse, yeah. Let's take a break. We'll come back. We'll get to the wait what's and the what the flicks. Here on Deck the Hallmark. Similar arc for Peppermint Ho-Ho is, like, realizing kind of,

[00:24:56] if you will. And I will. That was the chandelier in Brett's house. Wow. Peppermint Ho-Ho's. Amazing. That explains a lot. Yeah. It's time for the wait what. It's where we talk about what in this movie made us go what. I'll start with you, Alonzo. Yeah, seriously. Like, this is one of those movies where go to the goofs page on IRB and pack a lunch. You know, but this is just the stuff that leapt out of me. Okay. Very, very early scene. Jason Bateman,

[00:25:25] you know, shows up at the nursery where the Russians are, tosses a bag of money at the guy, and then the guy dies. And how? How? What happens? He just suddenly is coughing up blood onto the cache and it's like, How did they kill the guy, the security guy, early in that movie? You mean, oh, the policeman? Yeah, the policeman. That they killed the airport? Yes. Well, they explain that later that they like, they just scraped him with the thing.

[00:25:56] Is that how they killed him early in the movie? I assumed that the money that he taught, this is me doing a lot of work here, but the money that he tossed him, he had a little bit of that nerve stuff on him. Okay. Maybe, but he had it. I mean, like, he's standing there too. I don't know. They just, they zip by that real fast. And a thing, I didn't know this until I read up on it online. Apparently, the thing that kills the LAPD guy takes hours. Oh, cool. It would not like be this instant heart attack and, you know, there we go. Let's carry on,

[00:26:25] ladies and gentlemen. Yeah. And then it's like, okay, well, then why burn up the money that the guys coughed blood on? And it's still money, right? But whatever. This movie would have you believe that we are all still using boarding passes. good God. Thank goodness that's not true. Yeah. And the thing is like, everybody, either you, it's on your phone or like, they print you out some little thing that looks like a fax, practically.

[00:26:55] It's such a like, little floppy piece of paper. And they, they, they miss the days of the paper boarding pass and like, make it such a big plot point throughout. That was, that was kind of nice. Occasionally, I'll be at an airport and see one, like see one, like couple that has these giant boarding passes and I'm like, how do we all do this? Yeah. The idea that someone's counterfeiting them, you know, like, oh yeah. Excuse me.

[00:27:25] It made me think about like, I don't know if you've ever seen the original airport, the movie that sort of kicked off like the whole disaster cycle of the 70s, but like Helen Hayes plays an old lady who's good at faking boarding passes and that's how she stows away on planes. I'm like, yeah, that movie is also 55 years ago. Is Daniel Deadweiler good at her job? It's a great question. I'm not sure. We're led to believe she's the best at her job, but I think there's a lot of evidence to the contrary.

[00:27:55] Yeah. Like I think a case could be made that maybe not. Like there's, there's some choices there where that are definitely questionable. And then the other one, take it to the tape because this one is kind of hilarious. They make a big deal about the congresswoman getting on the plane with a baby and she talks to the gate agent about the baby and then we cut to her on the gangway, the gangplank, whatever, the thing that gets you from the airport to the plane. She's holding a different baby. Oh,

[00:28:25] no. Like one scene later, she is holding an entirely different looking baby. Like one of them has like blonde hair, one of them has brown hair. Like, yeah, most babies look alike, but this was like, it's so clearly, clearly, obviously not the baby. Like, like they switched her. You know, can we check this baby and you can take this one on instead? That one's hilarious. So I guess a baby hit its hours. It couldn't do it anymore. it couldn't do it. Just do it. We can't afford twins though, so what do you got?

[00:28:56] You can at least afford babies with the same color hair, right? I think so. Oh my gosh. This seems like a real oversight. Ask Netflix. They were spending $300 on, or $300 million on the electric state, I guess. They couldn't shell out for baby hair, right? They were busy. Anything else? I mean, there's tons more, but I'll let y'all get at them. Dan, you and I, I mean, I think this will speak to your soul too. As somebody who, you know,

[00:29:25] we've been lucky enough to live and work really close in proximity. Yeah, man. We're about to move a little bit further than we've ever been before as far as nine or ten minutes drive to the office. It sucks. I don't know how he does it every day. He gets to work. He says goodbye to his girlfriend and then he makes it to the other side of LAX and that's how he starts his day. That's like, that's going to be half the day for me. I'm just, I'm not going to. You've got to get your steps in.

[00:29:54] He's doing this running thing. He's flipping around. He's doing secret handshakes. Like, what time does your shift start? You're never going to make it on time. He's like, all right, I want to get some cardio in before then I've got my handshakes and then, yeah, we've got to drop her off. Yeah. Better give an extra 30 for the handshakes. I just can't. He made it longer than I would have. And he's late. He's late. All the time. Maybe, and my thing is, if I would do that journey one time, I'd be like, I can't.

[00:30:24] this isn't for me anymore. This job is no longer for me. And to be honest with you, it's not the work. I think the work's actually fine. I do this journey. Yeah. If you wouldn't understand. What if you had an electric bike to get you from one side of the road? Now you're talking because the thing is you do have to pedal. You do have to pedal. Workout element to it. Dan, I know you love this as well, but our guy, the watcher, first of all, I'm always amazed at what people can do with computers in the back of their white vans.

[00:30:53] It's always incredible, amazing, hacking and zooming. It's unbelievable. Apparently nobody at the airport is currently looking at the cameras. Just a gun scope just popping right through a window. he's like, okay, I gotta get my sniper out there, open up the little side window, and then the gun is out the window. If anybody's walking by, they're like, I think that's a sniper. I think it's a sniper outside of that car. That's worrisome. That van there has a sniper coming out of it. And listen,

[00:31:23] I know planes are loud. Yeah, man. You're like, it's loud. I do think that you would hear a gunshot from the baggage area right below your feet. I know that the plane is loud, but I would have to think if you're sitting there and you hear, you would be like, what was that? Is that a gunshot in the baggage area? Nobody seemed to care. Nobody blinks an eye. No one blinks an eye. It's just another gunshot in the cargo area. Dano? Yeah, they call this multiple times

[00:31:52] the busiest travel day of the year. Thank you. Yes. It isn't. It's Christmas Eve. That distinction is held by the Sunday after Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve isn't second or third or fourth. It isn't. But here's the thing is, if it is, LAX traffic is crushing. They are smooth sailing. If it's the busiest travel day of the year, why are there no cars driving anywhere aside from when we need them to drive places?

[00:32:22] Like you can't be, it can't be both. I've been to LAX. It's a cluster out there. And you're telling me on the busiest day at LAX, it's not a parking lot outside. Get out of here. It's unbelievable. And you're right, brand. No one notices the gun. You know what else? No one in the entire airport notices the red dot on her forehead. I know. Someone is going to be like, what is that dots moving holy. And they're going to start screaming like that. That is.

[00:32:52] I couldn't believe that. I also, Taron Egerton, God bless him, his character not bright, tries to text, gets caught, puts it away, still has watch, can text from watch or voice to text. And, and Bateman's character cannot see under the table. Why is he out here doing this? Like just put that watch under the table and we're all, we're all good to go here. This next one, I am well aware makes me look like a terrible human being. I'm well aware of that.

[00:33:22] While Bateman is talking to Egerton, Taron Egerton is being so inefficient to people trying to get through the airport. I know. He's stopping that belt over and over again. I know. I know that they are threatening the death of your family. People have places to be. I have put myself in. Do your job. I was the next guy in line when he stopped the belt and I was like this son of a bitch. I could have

[00:33:52] gone to any line here. It was driving me nuts. Like just keep the belt running for the love of everything good and decent. I also got a huge kick out of he finally gets Egerton finally gets the upper hand on Bateman and he pulls a taser out on him. And I immediately was like tase him. But he doesn't. And so Bateman gets to tell him

[00:34:23] where they were like you can press this button and you get like a million dollars but somebody dies somewhere. Someone you don't know. Someone you don't know dies. And they made a YouTube video that was the early days of YouTube where this guy goes if you press this button you get a million dollars and the person goes and the guy's like what? You can't do that? And you're like yes I can. I just did. But you didn't hear the rules. As soon as you pull taser out on terrorist you don't go you're going to want to hear this. You just go wham.

[00:34:53] Because whatever he's about to say he cannot implement if he is tased. You just go pop. You got him. You got him. It's done. You tased him. They didn't do that. I do love shout out to the TSA that does a wonderful job with a bunch of people who are complaining like I am about how slow it is to move the line. But not shout out to the guy who's trying to hand out his mixtape while actively working. And then he says I'll stall this guy for you. He stalls him for a second and a half.

[00:35:23] He's the most useless character in this. He is supposed to be keeping our airport safe and he's like have you heard my latest track? Grind on stop. Stop it. Grind on stop. Just stop it please. And then lastly and this was a huge one the last line of this movie. We have a lot of British actors that play American people in the movies and they do a great job. Taron Egerton completely believable as a guy from the States until in the last line of the movie he looks at the agent and he

[00:35:52] goes happy Christmas. That's a callback though at the very beginning of the movie he talks about why don't we say why don't Americans say happy Christmas when the British. Why is he as an American complaining about that? He just likes the way it sounds. I don't know. I must have missed that earlier because I was just like why would they do this with a British actor when I'm fully you would never say that. You'd never say that. We already fought the Revolutionary War.

[00:36:21] We don't need happy Christmas over here. That's what that war was about. That's amazing. It's time for What the Flicks. I think all the Republicans are against happy Christmas. It's time for us to talk about any questions that we still have that we'd like answers to. Alonzo? I mean the idea that this movie's happy ending is that he's now a member of the LAPD. Got him. Yeah. That's tough.

[00:36:51] I mean, could he be in the fire department? We all like them. You joined a force historically known for good upstanding behavior. All above board. A journey happens between our main character and his buddy that he got fired. Yes. Because at the end of the they were bodies. You got me fired for the whole thing.

[00:37:21] A year later we're going on vacation together. And I'm sure that when you find out, oh, I got you fired because I was trying to save the day. You're like, I understand. I totally get it. But like, they're going on vacation together. That's right. And so that's like another level of friendship that I wasn't aware that they had. Their BFFs. Their BFFs. That's not what I gathered from them early in the movie. They are going on trips together. And so like, I just need the movie about their friendship because it seems like it's really That year. Yes.

[00:37:51] They've really gone on their journey together and I'd like to see it. I guess he did save that dude's entire family. 100%. So, you know, kickstarted some intimacy there. Yeah. I have to have a full spreadsheet map not to be Brian Harold of how in the world Jason Bateman's character was talking to both of those people all movie. So the whole movie he's talking to Taron Egerton and then the guy in the red hat who has the carry on.

[00:38:19] We find out later that Jason Bateman has also been talking to him throughout the film. And I guess it's possible, I guess, for him to have done all that. Is it less probable than the rest of this movie? I think so. Like, he's somehow always where he needs to be. I just found that that was the thing that I think I couldn't buy or took me out was

[00:38:48] how did he do it? I want to see the other movie of carry on where he's just talking to that guy on movie. No, that's a superpower because like when I'm here doing this, say, and like y'all are saying something and then Dave walks in the room and is like, oh, blah, blah, I'm like, I cannot listen to both of you at the same time. But think about it if you're trying to blow up a plane. Successfully manipulating two people at the same time. That's next level. Especially when you're as talkative as Jason Bateman is in this movie. There's a lot of silence that the

[00:39:18] other guy's hearing. Like, what am I doing? While he's beating up Taron Egerton in the bathroom, what if that other guy makes a break for it and runs? Right. Like, all of this is predicated upon they don't know that the other one knows. Right. Because the watcher is all, there's also only one watcher. That's right. So the watcher's also having a two-man operation. It really is about a dozen-man operation. Yeah. And it's that thing where, like, you know, when you have two calls coming in at the same time back on a roof, like, you always know exactly who you're talking to. Like, he never

[00:39:48] tells the wrong thing to the wrong person. That's the most improbable part of this whole movie. Not that fridge, that refrigerator that is just made of Gorilla Glass. It's just fantastic. And they got it down there just in case. Just in case. You can lock it from the outside. It's perfect. No problem. And also, we didn't really talk about this, but you and I had a conversation, I don't even remember why it was, about can you get to the baggage from the outside of the plane? No, from up there. From the cabin. The cabin. And I don't even

[00:40:17] remember why we had this conversation. Didn't you look it up and you can't? Yes, I was like, I think that you can, but the door that Jason Bateman uses isn't a thing. That's not a thing. Even though I've seen it in other movies. You cannot get to the baggage section from the passenger Not on a commercial flight. Yes. Movies are going to keep doing it and we're going to keep being like, okay, but it's not a thing. Apparently, you also, like, unless you're a real shorty, cannot stand up in the baggage hold. Yeah, they made that area have more headroom than the cabin. Yes, they did.

[00:40:47] They did. They're going to need it for the refrigerator. That's right. Think about the refrigerator. We did it, everybody. Congratulations to us. Next week, we're going to spend some time with Satan because we're going to watch Dear Santa on Paramount+. So come on back for that. Listen, that's the movie. I don't know what to tell you. Until then, we're the first to wish you a Merry Christmas. Deck the Hallmark's a Bramble Jam podcast is produced by Aaron Shea. For more information on Deck the Hallmark, you can go to deckthehallmark.com.

[00:41:17] For more information on the Deck the Hallmark family, you can go to bramblejamplus.com. Deck the Hallmark is presented by Philo TV. For a free trial of Philo, go to philo.tv slash DTH. You're about to hear some ads that help keep the lights on here in the old studio. Thanks for listening or don't listen. It's really up to you at this point. It's at the end of the show. I mean, you're listening to me. Hi. But here they come.

[00:41:47] I promise they're coming. Yep. Here they are. Happy day.