Rewatchables Reference

• Kyle: Thomas the artist seducing Emma – 'the painting and the sculpture and the wine. It's fantastic. It's why you watch this movie.' The whole sequence from dinner to the wine bottle smash to him bleeding Bret Hart-style. She says 'What are you doing?' and he just does it.
• Bill: Simon and Emma running alongside the frozen river, then Val goes into the freezing water, looks like he's going to die, she pulls him out. 'We needed like two more of these scenes in this movie.' Also: the Mouse Race club scene ('evil Russians with hot women and weird gambling'), Simon dressed as Tretiak saying 'The hardest part of being you? Pretending to be bad in bed,' and Emma stripping down to warm him up.
• Also great: Dr. Emma Russell's cold fusion lecture ('the raw natural power just waiting to be harnessed'), Emma confronting Simon after his escape ('I would have given them to you if you asked'), the Moscow microchip heist with the roof jump (removes mustache mid-fall), and the embassy sprint.

• Bill: The Nokia 9000 Communicator – 'a cutting-edge phone, clamshell pocket computer with a keyboard and apps. I might not have ever seen it until this movie.' Also: every Internet scene in the movie. 'We could have done a Rewatchables month of just how they got the Internet wrong in 90s movies.'
• Kyle: Val Kilmer blasting Smashing Pumpkins in his apartment while negotiating with the mafia – 'there was some exact bill that went to the filmmakers, we got to get some Pumpkins in. They're hot.' It's a Cars cover playing during a car chase.

• Bill: Crazy Wild West 1990s Russia and post-USSR Russian villains. Using Catholic Saints as aliases. Runs to an embassy – 'my favorite thing, you're 75 yards away, if you don't get there you're getting captured.' Opening credits: 'Produced by Robert Evans.' Elizabeth Shue's presence. Bad guys with a prop (the cane). Cold fusion as a concept.
• Kyle: Laser force fields you have to navigate to steal something. 'Kill him but bring her back alive' – always sets up a great dynamic. The Tretiak villain being in 'Eyes Wide Shut' too.

• Bill: Sneaker Pimps '6 Underground' – 'I like how they weave it in. So good.'
• Kyle: Also Sneaker Pimps. The Smashing Pumpkins 'All I've Got Tonight' (Cars cover) during the chase. Bill: 'Billy Corgan and Val Kilmer together probably would have lasted about four minutes before one of them offended the other.'

• Kyle: Simon when he's not in disguise – 'he's not terribly charismatic. He's underplaying it, doing this puppy dog love thing. I don't love when Kilmer is just being Kilmer in this movie.'
• Bill: Val Kilmer, master of disguise – 'you can recognize him every time. There's not one disguise where you're like, that's not Simon Templar.' Major third act problems.

• Bill: The first 7 minutes in the orphanage – a kid gets caned by a priest and then two 10-year-olds kiss and one falls to her death. Kyle: 'I don't want to see dead kids in the first 5 minutes of my Val Kilmer movie.' The Internet of 1997. Phillip Noyce publicly blaming Kilmer and saying he should have cast Russell Crowe. Paramount limiting disguises because of Mission Impossible.
• Kyle: The stunts aren't up to par in 2025 – 'Cruise does this before he has breakfast now.'

Bill: Couldn't find anything – there was mostly under-acting. Kyle: Elizabeth Shue in the bathroom before the sex scene – 'This is happening, this is happening.' She's 35 and 'acts like she's never kissed a boy in her life.' Also Kilmer going for it after the freezing water, 'but he should be going for it.'

• Bill: Already gave his at the top – 'This should have been born Mission Impossible. There should have been six of these.'
• Kyle: Elizabeth Shue is the greatest movie kisser of all time. 'She is fucking going for it in this movie. Every time she and Val kiss, it's intense.' Went down a YouTube wormhole: 'Cocktail' with Cruise ('real weird, full tongue'), Karate Kid outside the arcade, even Leaving Las Vegas kissing a guy drinking himself to death – 'it's still gorgeous.'

• Mid-80s: Pierce Brosnan was allegedly attached.
• 1994: Sydney Pollack was set to direct with Steven Zaillian writing. Ralph Fiennes offered $1M, turned it down calling spy movies boring. Bill: 'Fuck you, Ralph Fiennes.'
• Mel Gibson developed it for months, passed because he'd been away from home too long for Braveheart. Hugh Grant met with Noyce, didn't like his approach. Kenneth Branagh and Schwarzenegger were mentioned but Bill doesn't believe it.
• Kilmer later turned down 'Batman' and Robin – 'made the right choice, he dodged that bullet and gave us 'The Saint' instead.'

• Bill: Tommy Flanagan (Scarface) – 'the face scars guy who's been in a couple other movies. I swear I've seen him in other stuff.' Kyle: He's in Braveheart, The Game. His character's name is literally 'Scarface' – 'so on the fucking nose.'
• Also: Ilya (Valeriy Nikolaev) – his real first name is Valeriy and he goes by Val. 'Two Vals on the same set.'

Bill: Emily Mortimer as the stewardess – a minute and a half, flirts with Kilmer, and out. They'd worked together on Ghost and the Darkness and she liked Val. 'Not a bad guy. Some people liked working with him.'

• City: Can't change it – post-Cold War Russia looks incredible. They were really filming there.
• Director: Bill: David Fincher – 'Don't do The Game. Do this instead.' Kyle: Tony Scott – 'Val's his guy. Those guys are tight.'

• The voice of the radio announcer at the end is Roger Moore, who played the Saint in the 1960s TV series.
• A May 1996 Entertainment Weekly set report cited Kilmer as being volatile on set, missing call times, and allegedly putting out a lit cigarette on a crew member's face. Elisabeth Shue and producer Mace Neufeld denied the misconduct. Bill: 'I'm going to say that's some bullshit.'
• The crew was allegedly instructed to avoid making eye contact with Kilmer. Bill doesn't believe it – 'Imagine telling a crew to look down when they see the star.'
• 'The Saint' originated from dozens of novels written by Leslie Charteris in the 1920s, inspired 14 movies and the 1960s Roger Moore TV series.

• Val Kilmer: No – Kyle thinks it's 1995 when he did 'Batman' Forever and Heat. Bill: 'Batman says Apex.'
• Elizabeth Shue: No – she won an Oscar (Leaving Las Vegas), this can't be it.
• Disguise movies: Probably not – Mission Impossible 'market corrected it.'
• The electronic music scene in the 90s: Bill: 'This is right around the apex.' Orbital, Sneaker Pimps, Moby, all happening.
• Cold fusion: Bill: 'I think this was Apex Mountain.' Did research: 'There is currently no accepted theoretical model that would allow cold fusion to occur. It's the entire premise of this movie and apparently it's just not a thing that can actually happen.'

Kyle: Scorsese – when Kilmer was young, he made an entire short movie of himself as Henry Hill to send to Scorsese for 'Goodfellas'. Also made one for Kubrick to play Joker in Full Metal Jacket. 'Completely obsessed with Scorsese.' Would move it to Rome or Milan instead of Moscow.

• Bill: The cold fusion specialist who has 12 hours to make it work – 'wearing a Scotty J shirt that's too tight.'
• Kyle: 'The Saint' himself – 'Let Phil Seymour Hoffman cook and be the Russian guy and the artist. That's what I want.'

• Bill: A cold fusion scientist telling a random handsome guy with a bad accent everything about the future of the world 3 minutes after meeting him. Simon recovers from hypothermia in about 12 minutes – 'you're in the hospital overnight.' He waltzes into the Russian president's office and they just believe him. Not enough disguises. Where does he keep all the wigs and costumes while on the run? Emma's heart condition disappears in the second half – 'she's running around like Jackie Joyner-Kersee, the heart pills are gone.'
• Kyle: His wig doesn't come off during sex. Also: after Shue lies on him with just a bra for warmth, 'is it possible he can get up and run away from the Russians with a massive erection?' She figures out his Saint aliases instantly – 'like the Tone Loc moment from Heat.'

Both: Definitely a sequel. Bill had been saying this for 30 years.

Kyle: Gus Johnson calling the Elizabeth Shue warming-up scene like an NCAA tournament game: 'Simon Templar, young fella, freezing his ass off in the Russian slums! No shot clock! Doctor Russell strips down, going tip for tip for 98.6 hot fusion!'

Bill: The score/theme song – probably Orbital's theme. The electronic soundtrack was ahead of its time.

• Bill: How long are Simon and Emma lasting? 'She's just solved cold fusion. He's a really weird guy with clear damage from an orphanage who likes to wear disguises.' Also: cold fusion saves Russia and keeps the president in charge – 'what are the ramifications globally of a warmer Russia? Does Putin even take over?'
• Kyle: If you're in a place with conflict, can you just sprint to the US Embassy screaming 'I'm an American' and they let you in? Also: is Thomas's seduction of Emma (researching everything about her through breaking and entering) illegal or immoral?

• Bill: Ilya's evil cane – 'a huge win.' Also the original Nokia phone.
• Kyle: Any boot with a hidden knife – 'whether it's from Roadhouse, whether it's from Cyborg, there's a knife in a boot, that's always going to be my piece of memorabilia.'

Bill: 'If you have an idea that can save the world, don't put them on cocktail napkins in your bra.' Also: 'Change up your aliases. Don't stick with the Saint gimmick.'

• Kyle: 'Tombstone' – 'once I see him play these little characters and do these voices, I'm putting on 'Tombstone'. I'm your huckleberry.'
• Bill: The Island of Doctor Moreau – 'I'm the only person who likes this movie.' Had it on pay-per-view constantly. Marlon Brando is 'fat and crazy in every scene' and Kilmer has this look like 'what's wrong with my career.'

Kyle: 'Val Kilmer. The late, great Val Kilmer.'