"KEEP BUSTIN'."

Code of Honor

tn_codeofhonorIf you are absolutely dead set on seeing no more or less than 1 (one) of the 2 (two) Steven Seagal films that came out last week, and you can’t be talked out of it, I highly recommend CODE OF HONOR for your specific circumstances only. Here, my friends, is a movie where Seagal seems almost like a co-lead. Where he sort of fights a guy once or twice. Where he stands up and/or walks in many of his scenes. This is the hardest he’s worked on film all week!

On the other hand, it’s sort of a distressing sign that he came out with two movies within a few days of each other where his main activity is using a sniper rifle. He even uses the phrase “watch your six” again. You can tell he’s into that, because it was part of the tag line for SNIPER: SPECIAL OPS. Playing a sniper is a distressingly convenient way for him to do action scenes without having to do any choreography, martial arts moves, or acting with other actors. Also sometimes he’s sitting down in a chair. This could be a big problem. If he’s a sniper in his next movie it will be a bad, bad sign.

This sniper obsession is a period within his current Goatee Era. These days his characters always look the same, with too much shit on. The goatee, the tinted glasses, a bulky coat, a scarf, a backwards hat, and now he’s big on ear protection like he’s at the gun range.

He opens the movie cutting a cigar and setting up his guns on the tower of a missile silo. Two of the unnamed (but it’s Salt Lake City) city’s gangs, one later described as white supremacists and one “the most vicious, violent gang in the city, responsible for more rapes and murders than your average third world army,” are meeting below for a big coke deal. They eye each other suspiciously and then suddenly their heads start bursting into cgi blood splatters as Seagal takes out virtually all (“over a dozen” according to the news report) of them with his sniper rifle. One of the few survivors tries to drive away in a car, so Seagal pulls out and presses a trigger, and the car blows up. Finally, thankfully, he rappels down (a pretty funny green screen shot) to slash one guy’s throat. There is only one survivor, and he got shot in the arm in such a way that the bone is broken and it kinda hangs loose.

mp_codeofhonorWhen Detective Peterson (Louis Mandylor, WRONG TURN AT TAHOE, BARE KNUCKLES) investigates the scene the next day (“Drug deal gone wrong?” “Very wrong. They forgot to take the drugs.”) he comes across FBI special agent William Porter (Craig Sheffer, NIGHTBREED, HELLRAISER: INFERNO), who has been following the sniper who did this. Later Porter gives them a number of good “just how badass is he?” lines, and here’s the meat of it:

“His name is Colonel Robert Sikes. He’s a commander of one of Special Forces’ most elite units. His service record is impeccable. His skills of hand-to-hand combat, weapons, firearms, explosives is… it’s unmatched. He’s trained to blend into any city, any terrain, and he’s using those skills and that training to go after gangs or drug dealers or anyone who in his mind is threatening the moral fabric and well-being of this country.”

He also explains that Sikes had a wife and young son killed by accident in a drive-by shooting while he was in Afghanistan. He never found out which gang did it, so he may just go ahead and kill all of the gangs while on his “self-ordered mission to protect the homeland.” He’s pretty close to the Punisher. We can call him the Codeofhonorer.

It’s also pointed out that Sikes doesn’t drink, do drugs or “sleep around.” That’s all fine, but we learn from a stripper character that he doesn’t tip, either. That is not acceptable. Anyway, Porter says they won’t be able to find Sikes because “he’ll already have changed his appearance,” because he’s “trained to be a ghost, a shadow.”

That would be awesome if it cut to Seagal with, like, a bleached blond crew cut, fake mustache and pink tank top. Instead, they cut to him looking exactly the same as earlier in this movie and in his last several movies. To be fair, he later wears a suit and tie, that’s a different look. LIKE A GHOST!

The no-tipping incident happens in the city’s “most notorious strip club,” The Snake Eye Strip Club, which is a phrase you will hear many times throughout the movie. It’s the one that’s next to The Ass Factory, I noticed. Sikes sits there smoking cigars, his face spookily covered in shadows. He’s stalking some mobster guys that hang out there, but he totally looks like a sex killer. It reminded me of an old Sir Mix-a-Lot song called “The (Peek-a-Boo) Game,” from before they caught the Green River Killer. I was gonna embed it but it sounds wrong with the Siouxsie and the Banshees sample replaced.

One of the dancers, Keri (Helena Mattsson, IRON MAN 2), notices Sikes as “the scary guy in the back,” but doesn’t predict that he’s gonna walk out and leave a briefcase bomb. Because he cares, it’s a “precision bombing” that destroys everything but the dressing room, sparing the women. Dubbed “The Super Vigilante” by the media, the Codeofhonorer also kills a pimp and some crack dealers (all white, so it avoids possible racial discomfort) but leaves their hoes and customers alive (sometimes covered in blood). The crackheads that do get killed are two guys hired to guard the remains of the strip club, who get into it with Porter and – since he has a special ops past with Sikes – he pulls out two knives and slashes them up.

Important note: one of the crackheads is wearing a GOONIES t-shirt. It does not survive.

This clever thing about the movie is that as Porter tracks Sikes he keeps getting into it with all the different gangs, some of whom think he’s the one coming after them, and it’s not long before Porter has a higher body count than the guy he’s chasing. Sheffer also does more martial arts in this movie than Seagal, which is ridiculous, but at least when they face off later Seagal keeps doing his trademark knife fighting moves.

I kinda enjoyed Sheffer in this one. He’s playing a guy who’s a mess, and his hair always looks like he just woke up. The first time we see him he’s in a hotel and there’s a photo of a wife and kid on the night table, but he puts a liquor bottle in front of it. There’s a real funny part where he’s asleep in the hotel while a (laughably fake) news report is on the TV, the camera moves in dramatically toward his face and as the Snake Eye Strip Club is mentioned his eyes open wide, like he’s possessed.

When Porter and Sikes sit down together and talk there are some good lines. Mr. Straight Edge, Colonel Sikes, brags about “I never missed a soccer game, I never forgot an anniversary” and chastises Porter because “You fucked everything that moved. Foreign and domestic.”

He tries to justify his super-vigilantism as part of his sworn duty as an officer, and Porter brings up his vow to uphold the Constitution. Here Sikes actually makes a good argument for rebelling against the law:

“Slavery was the law, and if it wasn’t for men like us standing up it might still be.”

Then Seagal’s character generously hands the movie’s best action gimmick to Sheffer’s. He tells him that he’s sitting on a bomb that will go off if he stands up (he says “like we used on that Iraqi general” instead of the more obvious “like the toilet in LETHAL WEAPON 2.”) Sikes leaves just as the mob comes in and starts attacking Porter, so Porter slides the chair around to shoot and stab and snap necks all while still sitting down.

This is also the rare Seagal film that includes a show-offy twist ending. Not as head-scratching as the one in KILL SWITCH, it’s a more traditional one, but still unexpected for Seagal. Except that now I told you to expect it. Sorry.

This is another one from a writer-director, in this case Michael Winnick, who according to IMDb started in Norwegian television in the ’90s and has a couple of features under his belt, sci-fi and horror type stuff I haven’t heard of, and a 2012 crime comedy called GUNS, GIRLS AND GAMBLING that has a big cast including Christian Slater, Powers Boothe, Jeff Fahey and Gary Oldman but also Dane Cook and Chris Kattan. At least this one didn’t have any comic relief characters.

CODE OF HONOR is not a good movie or use of Seagal, but it has enough laughs and weirdness to keep me somewhat entertained, and is kinda different from other Seagal roles. Even in his recent ones where he’s sort of a villain or anti-hero it seems like he really is supposed to be admired for his code of honor. Here, as the poster says, “there is no honor in revenge.” He’s going too far. No one is above the law.

It’s a big step up from the one I reviewed yesterday, at least.

SPECIAL ENDING DISCUSSING SPOILER SECTION: After the movie I actually had a surprisingly long conversation about what exactly the ending is supposed to mean, which I thought might’ve pleased the filmatists. It seems like Sikes actually did exist, since we saw a file for him (was that a touched up photo from OUT FOR JUSTICE? I’m just guessing that because of the beret). I think maybe he really was M.I.A., he never came back. Meanwhile Porter, as they say, screwed around on his wife and drank too much and she left him and took the kid. But in his mind he fantasizes that he’s this awesome guy he knew, Sikes, and that the reason he lost his family is not his fault, but that ol’ chestnut the Random Drive-By Shooting. So instead of trying to make it better by cleaning up his life he can have the more achievable goal of making it better by hiding on top of a missile silo and shooting twelve guys’ heads off. And then pretending/thinking it was another guy that did it and he has to catch him.

But I also got the feeling, I can’t remember exactly why, that maybe it was implying that Sikes really was there somewhere? I don’t know.

For his part, Sheffer doesn’t seem to have the answers. In an interview at Shockya.com, Sheffer says

“Well, I became involved in the film because they sent me the script and offered me the role. I read it and thought it was awesome. I loved that it was such a page-turner, and that I had no idea what was going to happen in the end. Even then, I wasn’t absolutely sure what truly happened. (laughs)”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 10th, 2016 at 11:35 am and is filed under Action, Reviews, Seagal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

57 Responses to “Code of Honor”

  1. Don’t have anything to say about this one, but GUNS, GIRLS AND GAMBLING totally sounds like one of those star-studded, yet cheap Tarantino rip-offs from the 90s, which means I will absolutely check it out whenever I have the chance.

  2. HAHAHA! Ah, man. This movie. That scene where that hooker is talking to her pimp and Seagal snipes him in the face and she bends down to take the cash from his dead hands afterwards made me laugh out loud. Or those poor crackheads who get annihilated for loitering and that old lady keeps smoking her coke. I tell ya. The PITS.

  3. “he’ll already have changed his appearance,” because he’s “trained to be a ghost, a shadow.”

    Well, he does look pretty different from his file picture, which features OUT FOR JUSTICE era Seagal. So maybe he gained a lot of weight and grew a beard and wears tinted glasses to alter his appearance like a ghost. I do think it’s funny that they keep saying there’s no way to identify him, despite the fact that he’s like 8 inches taller and 200 pounds heavier than any other person in the movie, and he has the beard and constant sunglasses. Seems kinda distinct.

    I dunno, I saw this one in a theater and while it’s an objectively terrible movie, it’s probably the closest to a movie you could show in theaters that Seagal has made for awhile. It at least seems like it probably was shot with a completed script, and the plot is pleasingly direct. Sheffer’s hangdog mug makes him a funny choice for an ultra-elite action hero, but he holds it together, I always like seeing him. And Louis Mandylor turns out to be a pretty compelling actor, it’s kinda a shame the script forgets about him for long periods.

    I do have to object to the CG gunshots, which are some of the absolute worst Ive ever seen. The mustache-guy that Seagal (spoiler) shoots from behind… that headwound is literally a red dot that doesn’t even move with his body correctly. It’s terrible. The extras clearly don’t know the specific moment they’re being shot, and their body movement looks all wrong. Fortunately towards the end they get some better practical gore happening.

    DOUBLE SPOILERS: Vern, I’m pretty sure Sikes was real, because they recovered a body with his dog tags at the end, and meanwhile it seems like Porter was able to sneak out and give the nice stripper-lady’s (Helena Mattsson also seems like a real actress, it’s a shame she has to do stuff like this) son the baseball glove. So it seems like there were definitely two people in there, unless you think it was a ghost or something who had a the glove. I think the idea is that Sikes was trying to frame Porter to turn suspicion away from him, probably hoping to kill Porter and make people think they have their suspect. Which is quite villainous of him, when it comes down to it.

    MORE DOUBLE SPOILERS Which is definitely the most interesting thing about this movie: despite his “Code of Honor,” Sikes is definitely supposed to be the bad guy, here. He’s going too far (he assassinates the mayor because he insulted him, after Sikes starts a firefight in a bar which ends up killing a senator’s daughter), and you’re definitely supposed to be rooting for Porter to stop him. So it’s really the only villain character Seagal has played since MACHETE, unless you want to count his almost-villain in FORCE OF EXECUTION. And it’s good, because I think an increasingly right-wing Seagal probably identifies with this character, but the movie doesn’t, and that makes for a more interesting performance from him. It’s the exact same performance he always gives, in fact, but in context he seems like a self-serving hypocrite, listing off Porter’s many character flaws and then going around murdering anyone he doesn’t like. It’s not a good movie really, but it’s definitely an interesting wrinkle in Seagalogy, with Seagal’s normal flawless character finally crossing the line into being a (code of honorable) bad guy, without really changing anything about his usual MO.

  4. After seagal’s Russian phase we have now entered what I personally like to call Steven’s ‘Operator phase’. But Maybe it’s a more fluid transition this time. Seagal seems to keep reinventing himself into things he is not for over more than 25 years! Never change Steven, never change.

  5. Shame to hear this one is apparently no-good because the movie you were describing sounded pretty good…

  6. david j. moore

    May 10th, 2016 at 2:37 pm

    I honestly didn’t notice the Goonies shirt, but I did catch that the stripper’s name was “Keri Green.” Hmmmmm…

  7. I didn’t think the hooker running back to grab the money from her dead pimp would be topped, but Seagal doing a half-assed tuck-and-roll dive through the skylight and landing with an awkward thud on his shoulder was the funniest thing I’ve seen in a movie in quite some time.

  8. The Winchester

    May 10th, 2016 at 4:28 pm

    I had an awesome Netflix Double Feature a few years back with Guns, Girls and Gambling and Get The Gringo. Found Get The Gringo to be a better film, but Guns, etc. had a fun “yes, this is a Tarantino rip-off” vibe, but it was still better than 3000 Miles To Graceland. (Except for the CG scorpion fights).

  9. I watched it on VOD and rewound to confirm the GOONIES shirt. It was the guy who he gutted, so I think he finds the Goonies as whiny and annoying as I do.

  10. CJ Holden – If that’s what you’re looking for, I think you will definitely enjoy GUNS, GIRLS AND GAMBLING. It’s nothing mind-blowing, but has that cool, wandering ’90s vibe that’s missing from more recent movies. Well worth a Saturday night viewing.

  11. Market Trailer for Seagal’s KILLING SALAZAR

    KILLING SALAZAR (Market Trailer)

    This is "KILLING SALAZAR (Market Trailer)" by rdot on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

  12. The Glimmer Man

    May 11th, 2016 at 3:58 pm

    SNIPER: BLACK OPS was dire but I’m really looking forward to KILLING SALAZAR – Keoni Waxman integrates Seagal into these ensemble-driven movies in a way that makes sense.

  13. Maybe this will be an unpopular opinion, but I preferred the straightforward simplicity of SNIPER: SPECIAL OPS to this. The twist actually made me a little mad. It wasn’t enough merely to have a serious lack of Seagal, but negating everything we saw him do over the course of the film was just dumb to me. A very poor attempt at being clever, in my opinion.

  14. The main image is hilarious cause he looks exactly like he did in SOUTH PARK last year.

  15. Toward the end I thought they were going for some kind of Fight Club angle. Speaking of that films lead actor B. Pitt, couldn’t help but think back when he costared with Craig Sheffer in A River Runs Through It. I wonder how Craig feels seeing his co-star go on to become one of biggest actors of his generation, while he’s stuck doing DTV’s.

    Its got to eat at him on some level I would think.

  16. I really liked this film. The only thing keeping it back is the sort-of cheap feel of the productoin, but otherwise always good to see Nightbreed’s Boon.

    The twist was cool (though I didn’t like “Fight Club”), and I like that they keep it open. maybe Sikes/Porter put the dog tag on some poor shlub and walked away?

    I like that the movie gave us clues to that twist leading up to the detective figuring it out.

    Overall, I think the best Seagal movie since “Pistol Whipped” and “Urban Justice”. I was very happy Seagal can still do good movies, even if the martial arts is long gone.

  17. Hey Vern, did you ever review THE ASIAN CONNECTION? I’ve been seeing it around at stores lately (in some sort of three pack no less) but not on here.

    Maybe under a different title? I know I got DRIVEN TO KILL under the RUSLAN title in one of those packs.

  18. Tigger – You reminded me I haven’t seen it yet, so I just ordered it. Crossing my fingers that he doesn’t play a sniper in it.

  19. Today, YouTube showed me a side-banner ad in which a photo-animated Steven Seagal invited me to play a video game called World of Warships. It appears that in addition to promoting the film in ads, Seagal is also a playable character in the game. So it looks like Seagalogy has spread to yet another medium.

    (Apologies if this is old news. I mention this here only because this seems to be the newest Seagal review as of this writing.)

    Here’s one trailer I found:

    World of Warships Official Steven Seagal Trailer

    The action movie star is now available as a commander in the game. World of Warships: How to Dominate with Aircraft Carriers in 60 Seconds https://www.youtub...

  20. Oh boy. Check out the gut.

    Steven Seagal - Defense Agains One-Two Boxing Combo (Aikido vs MMA )

    Steven Seagal, American action movie actor, Buddhist, producer, writer,martial artist, guitarist, and deputy sheriff was recognized in February of 1997 as a ...

  21. Vern, you haven’t reviewed a Seagal movie in over a year. Is that some form of a political statement? Are you “On Deadly Ground”ing Steven Seagal?

  22. Let’s not jump to conclusions. Maybe Seagal hasn’t had any movies out in the past year.

    *checks IMDB*

    Oh. Oh my. Carry on then.

  23. It’s true, the combination of

    1) his moronic support of Trump/Putin (including, I realize in retrospect, dutifully passing on every piece of the Russian disinformation campaign to his Twitter followers)

    and

    2) two movies in a row where he’s mostly sitting down

    have bummed me out so much that I haven’t even opened the copy of THE ASIAN CONNECTION that I bought months ago. But I promise when I’m ready I will catch up, and I’ve tentatively started working on a piece about how I feel about all this.

  24. Godspeed!

  25. I feel for you, Vern. I know Seagal’s not like your hero or anything, but you have devoted a lot of study to him. This has gotta throw off your findings. It’s like if Jane Goodall discovered that all chimps were Nazis.

  26. At least Van Damme may support Trump he doesn’t really get political so you should write a Van Damme book.

  27. A cult movie group I am on on Facebook is full on obsessed with THE PERFECT WEAPON. Posts about it every couple days at least.

    Sounds like a weird one!

  28. I’m curious, over here in Europe we haven’t really got a hold of excactly what the “Russian disinformation” is. Can any of you gentlemen from Trump land give me some examples? And I’m not taking the mick here, I’m genuinly interested.

  29. It sucks.

    I try to separate the man from the work but it’s almost impossible with Seagal now – especially when a) the man is clearly horrible and b) the work is of such a consistently low and lazy standard.

    We all know most of our favorite stars are right wing but shit, at least they keep it on the down-low. Seagal is full on asshole now (and sadly JCVD doesn’t seem to far behind.)

  30. The saddest thing with Seagal is that he made his name by avoiding the right wing politics that plagued the action movies of the 80’s.

  31. Pegsman – During the election, Russia used bots and troll farms to spread conspiracy theories, memes and fake news articles about Clinton. They were very effective in getting young people on the left repeating dumb bullshit that Republicans made up in the ’90s when they first turned her into their boogey woman. Seagal never came out and said he supported Trump, just posted attacks on Clinton, which (coincidentally I hope) was their strategy late in the election when they thought Trump couldn’t win but wanted to damage Clinton’s credibility with Americans after she became president. I’m pretty sure that if I go back and examine it many of the accounts that Seagal retweeted and the ones that attacked me for days after he retweeted me were Russian accounts. (It seemed like it to me but it also seemed far-fetched at the time.)

    Part of their campaign was posting actual fake news stories on Facebook that unobservant internetters mistook for legitimate news sources. This was shown to have a major effect on voters so Trump insidiously co-opted the term “fake news” to mean “legitimate news stories about how bad I am” so that no one could discuss the issue anymore.

  32. Woah, I’ve heard about Seagal, but that we’ve apparently lost van Damme too is news to me. Damn, at least Arnie, the one who actually was involved in real world politics as a dayjob, is still someone to look up to these days.

  33. “Lost” Van Damme because a year ago he dared to imagine Trump’s immigration policies might be a good thing? Any recent comments from our awesome Belgian hero, or are we pushing him off the wagon? (I’m not)

  34. Thanks for the clarification, Vern.

  35. Seriously ,Vern? You´ve managed to have been caught in the middle of a global conspiracy in which the Russians influenced the American presidential election? That sounds more like a premise for a Tom Clancy novel than he could ever have come up with. Wow!

  36. I don’t spend a lot of time on Twitter, so what happened here? Vern got retweeted by Seagal? In what context?

    I’ve always believed that the idea of American exceptionalism is bullshit. There’s nothing inherent in the “American character” that means we can’t make the same stupid mistakes as the rest of the world. Last year’s election certainly proved it.

  37. I believe what happened was that Vern responded with heartfelt disappointment to some dumb, dumb, dumb, DUMB shit Seagal posted, and that drew out the Trumpkins in full force. After all, it’s not like a couple of tough guys like Seagal and Trump can take care of themselves or anything.

  38. At least Seagal’s descent into the folds of despotism will make an interesting new addendum to the next edition of Seagalogy.

  39. That chapter will be called THE DARK AGE

  40. We didn’t lose Van Damme unless supporting Trump or being Republican or whatever makes you lost. If that were the case we lost Kurt Russell.

  41. What happened is after one of the presidential debates I lost my self control and responded to a Seagal tweet asking who people thought won. Usually I would write something and delete it, but it just infuriated me that anyone would pretend there was any ambiguity who won between an experienced, knowledgeable woman who understood the questions and gave thoughtful answers to them and a sweaty, snorting, incoherent nitwit who stalked around the stage babbling idiotic jibberish, brought alleged Bill Clinton rape victims to block rape allegations against himself, and literally threatened to jail his opponent if he won. It just offended me as an American who believes in the Constitution and as a human who respects women. It was an insult for her even to be on the same stage with such an obviously unqualified shithead, so to talk about it like it was an actual debate rather than a smelly shit-stain wiped across the reputation of America made me want to fucking throw up. So I had a few comments.

    What I didn’t expect was that Seagal actually responded to me, which wouldn’t have been a problem except that he used the quote-tweet function, so thousands of Trump cultists who follow him saw what I wrote and came after me. I don’t think Seagal intended it, but by quoting me he was basically siccing them on me. It was like 2 am and I forgot about it until I woke up and the interactions thing on my twitter, which would usually be in the single digits, said “99+.” I was deluged with hundreds and hundreds of brainless Trump slogans and insults for several days.

    Notably, Seagal responded to all of my tweets except the last one that asked how the director of ON DEADLY GROUND could support a climate change denier.

    But I have subsequently watched ON DEADLY GROUND and still loved it.

  42. Ancient Romans

    May 22nd, 2017 at 6:18 am

    Only speaking for myself here, but if a person is a Republican, they are not lost. If they support a candidate who: 1) told crowds that, not only can he solve all of their problems but that he is the only one who can solve their problems, 2) administered loyalty oaths to those crowds, 3) bragged that he could shoot someone in the street in full view of the public and still enjoy the support of his followers, then, yes, that person is lost to the cult of personality of a demagogue and would-be dictator.

  43. Russell is, as far as a I know, a libertarian. Completely different kind of asshole.

  44. Ancient Romans

    May 22nd, 2017 at 6:38 am

    And if Kurt Russell supports Trump, just don’t even tell me.

  45. If he does, he’s smart enough not to say so, to my knowledge.

  46. Libertarians are my kinda assholes. As insane as dems and republicans but at least some of the shit they stand for actually seem sensible. Still. Fuck politics.

  47. Libertarians sound great in theory, but listen to Gary Johnson speak for five minutes and you’ll see how the reality differs. It’s the party of “That doesn’t affect me so it’s not my problem.” You know, the opposite of, like, society. It’s for bunker hermits and rich people who think they were self-made.

  48. Libertarian is just another name for Objectivist.

  49. Crushinator Jones

    May 22nd, 2017 at 9:36 am

    That’s not fair to libertarians. They are a bankrupt, bullshit ideology but there is a continuum and they are not as far down the hole as say, Christian Fascist Pence or even Randians. Non-Objective Libertarians genuinely believe that a tiny-ass government that just got out of everyone’s way would lead to broad growth and success because a) they are insanely ignorant of history and b) they secretly believe they personally could be one of these Masters of the Universe if they just didn’t have to pay their damn taxes, and that they could take care of the problem for a fraction of the cost of the evil “government”.

    At least you can nominally get them on board for things like “don’t throw people in prison for drug use” and “don’t bomb the shit out of other countries and kills hundreds of civilians on flimsy pretext” and “privacy is good, unmitigated spying is bad” which is, at least, something positive. They believe dumb things but the better ones believe them for moral reasons.

    Also can we please stop with the whole “if you did something I don’t like, I write you off forever, and I don’t have to explain myself to you” mindset when it comes to politics? If you consider yourself politically active then your whole shtick should be to explain your moral and policy vision to as many people as possible. Even the shitty ones.

  50. I agree with your post. I especially agree with your point about artist’s whom we disagree with politically or any of that or least be more consistent with the personal blockades. Recently listened to a podcast that went off on a tangent saying they are not ready to forgive Mel Gibson but then almost immediately start talking about what a great artist Casey Afleck is. I see it all the time and it grates me.

    I in no way align with my co-workers politically but at least they are consistent with their silly blockade of any celebrity who is an outspoken liberal.

    Full disclosure: I have my limits too. I find it hard to support anything Orson Scott Card is a part of anymore due to the knowledge that the proceeds may go to try and block someone else’s personal rights. Similar to how I know many who can’t support Tom Cruise because a lot of said proceeds will go to the Church of Scientology.

  51. I feel for Vern and everyone else who has people they admire who threw their support behind Trump, who have such conflicting feelings about it. It’s been such a sadly divisive time, especially when it gets down to these kinds of brass tacks.

    While we’re on the subject of Vern’s Twitter

    Vᴇʀɴ on Twitter

    “https://t.co/9QgzRnfP2u”

    This made me laugh pretty hard, coming from the Midwest and being a little familiar with that of bread. I have a strange sense of humor.

  52. onthewall – I saw that in Tennessee. I don’t think we have that brand here. I don’t know why I thought it was important to share.

  53. You want to know what the damn rabbit said like all of us.

  54. David Tenenbaum

    May 24th, 2017 at 2:39 pm

    Hey Vern,

    Screenwriter here. The plot twist in Seagal’s “Code of Honor” is driving me crazy. Your explanation helped but I’m still confused. You said that Robert Sikes is William Porter’s alter ego, which makes sense up until the conclusion of the film. It’s logical that Seagal character really is an element of Porter’s imagination until the end when the two actually fight. But if Sikes really does show up in the finale, then it still doesn’t make sense that in an interview with Winnick, the director admits that Seagal actually dies in this film. If the Sikes character was actually killed in the explosion, wouldn’t they have found his body in addition to Porter’s. Please help me out here!

    Thanks,

    Dave

  55. I’m sorry David – this one has mostly left my brain. If I watch it again and figure it out I’ll let you know.

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