SQUIB GAMES #9: HARD TARGET

SPECIAL NOTE: SEASON 15 OF THE GOOD, THE POD AND THE UGLY CELEBRATES THE USE OF THE PRACTICAL AND DIGITAL EFFECT KNOWN AS THE SQUIB. IRL GUN VIOLENCE IS INTOLERABLE AND RENOUNCED BUT... CINEMATIC VIOLENCE WILL BE CELEBRATED IN A WAY WILL DISTURB SOME LISTENERS.   

This week, a pleasant return to cinema gun violence (after last week’s entry of Gus Van Sant’s school shooter film Elephant) as TGTPTU covers John Woo’s American directorial début HARD TARGÈT (1993). The pod’s temporal pincer movement again gets fudged this pairing to bring to you a Lance Henriksen double feature (next week’s The Terminator), skipping the late- and mid90s (good film, btw, but Jonah Hill uses no squibs in his 2018 directorial début so it won’t be covered during Season 15) and Way of the Gun (covered in a future pairing and now’s not the time or place for reactions).    

Hard Targét features Jean-Claude Van Damme in the rôle of Chance Boudreaux, a spicy Cajun seamen stranded and out of work needing $$$ so he can pay dues to ship out again and a former military badass and nephew to Coonass bootlegger Uncle Clarence Douvée played by Wilford Brimley who enters over halfway through the film in an almost surprise cameo appearance that outstays its welcome until the happy ending in a Mardi Gras float storage facility deep in the bayou where the final standoff between gooddée JCVD against baddée Henriksen (playing an inflammable globetrotting businessman in the business of orchestrating homeless veteran hunts) results in his (Brimley’s) seeming death only to be saved by his flask (yay!) but loses the last of his final stills batch (sad!) before the abrupt conclusion of the film. Oh, and there’s a woman character played by Yancy Butler looking for her daddée, whom we learned was homeless and we learn was played by the writer of the film in its opening manhunting scene. If you haven’t surmised, the plot is basically “The Most Dangerous Game” minus the island and Cossack and charm of the short story and adding in Woo’s vision of a Western and JCVD’s kicks (but, sadly, no splits).   

The majority of Henrickson’s performance in what was written and shot to be a two-hander was cut out (just like 70% of the digressions and Frenchifications in this week’s Show Notes), allegedly, by JCVD who worked with his own editor because, at the fin de la journée, this is a JCVD film and il est “aware.” (For Francophiles, please search the video interview of JCVD entitled “Jean-Claude Van Damme ‘Aware’”.)  

Listen this week to hear if host and Brimley fan Ryan will remained un-Woo’ed after seeing his Quaker Oats forever old riding a horse; see how easily host Tom is derailed by mention of Buffy the Vampire Slayer; and find out if any of Ken’s conspiracy theories are what have gotten this podcast shadow banned yet again.    

Core hosts (les deux daddées et un Zoomer) only this week as Jacque is with his stepmom and her Nugget League of Mayhem adding glitter bombs and confetti to their Mardi Gras float this week.

THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I.
Email: thegoodthepodandtheugly@gmail.com
Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/TGTPTU
Instagram: https://instagram.com/thegoodthepodandtheugly?igshid=um92md09kjg0
Bluesky: @goodpodugly.bsky.social
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6mI2plrgJu-TB95bbJCW-g
Letterboxd (follow us!):

Podcast: goodpodugly
Ken: Ken Koral
Ryan: Ryan Tobias