On this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John watched Tomorrow Never Dies, the 1997 action thriller, the eighteenth film in the James Bond series and the second to star Pierce Brosnan as fictional MI6 agent James Bond. Directed by Roger Spottiswoode, it follows Bond in his effort to stop the media mogul Elliot Carver, played by Jonathan Pryce, from starting World War III in order to expand his reach over the world’s information environment.

In The Jackal, Willis plays the titular assassin, a feared hitman who has been hired by Russian mobsters to assassinate the director of the FBI, in retaliation for American activity in Russia. As the Jackal makes his arrangements, FBI Deputy Director Carter Preston (Poitier) and Russian Police Major Valentina Koslova (Venora) scour their sources for leads in a search that leads to imprisoned IRA sniper Declan Mulqueen (Gere). Mulqueen knows the Jackal and will help the FBI find him — if he gets his freedom in return. What follows is a chase across the world, as Carter, Koslova and Mulqueen race to stop the Jackal, whose ultimate target is the First Lady of the United States.

On this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John watched Paul Verhoeven’s 1997 science-fiction action thriller Starship Troopers, starring Casper Van Dien, Dina Meyers, Denise Richards, Jake Busey, Neil Patrick Harris, Michael Ironside and Clancy Brown. An adaptation of Robert Heinlein’s 1959 novel of the same title, Verhoeven’s film takes a satirical pass on the material, turning a fascistic coming-of-age tale into an unusual piece of meta-propaganda. Starship Troopers takes place in a future, fascist society, where democracy and universal suffrage have been overthrown, and a military government leads humanity, with full citizenship reserved for those who serve in the armed services. Casper Van Dien plays Johnny Rico, an eager young recruit in the Mobile Infantry, who is sent to the frontlines of a war against the Arachnids, a supposedly hostile race of alien insectoids. The film tells the story of Rico’s training, his experience in battle, and his eventual rise to command.

On this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John watched Red Corner, a 1997 legal thriller directed by Jon Avnet and starring Richard Gere, Bai Ling, Bradley Whitford and Peter Donat. In Red Corner, Richard Gere plays Jack Moore,, an American businessman who becomes entangled in nightmarish legal ordeal after he spends the evening with a Chinese fashion model and wakes up the next morning to find that she has been brutally murdered. Jack insists that he’s innocent, but learns that the Chinese legal system is very different than what he’s used to in the United States. He is denied access to an American lawyer, interrogated without counsel, and pressured to sign a confession rather than defend himself.  His state-assigned advocate, Shen Yuelin, assumes that Jack is guilty. But as she investigates the case, and grows closer to her client, she starts to doubt her conclusions. Gradually convinced of Jack’s innocence, she uncovers signs of a larger conspiracy involving high-ranking officials and powerful business interests. As political and legal pressures mount, Jack and Shen race against time to try to expose the truth, navigating a perilous maze of corruption and authoritarian control.

On this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John watched Hostile Waters, a 1997 made-for-TV movie directed by David Drury and starring Rutger Hauer, Martin Sheen and Max von Sydow.  Hostile Waters — based on a real-life incident, the loss of the Soviet Navy’s K-219 — was a joint production of HBO and the BBC, released first in the United Kingdom and then the United States. It received good reviews from critics on both sides of the Atlantic.  Hostile Waters takes place on October 1986, off the east coast of the United States. A Soviet ballistic missile submarine, the K‑219, collides with the American hunter-killer submarine USS Aurora. The impact ruptures a missile tube aboard the Soviet boat, triggering seawater to seep in—causing a violent chemical reaction, toxic gas buildup, and a fire that threatens the entire submarine and its nuclear warheads.

On this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John watched The Assignment, a 1997 political thriller directed by Christian Duguay and starring Aidan Quinn, Donald Sutherland and Ben Kingsley. In The Assignment, Aidan Quinn plays Annibal Ramirez, a U.S. naval officer recruited by CIA agent Jack Shaw — played by Sutherland — for a special operation to capture the elusive terrorist Carlos the Jackal. Shaw, with the help of Mossad agent Amos, played by Kingsley, trains Ramirez to impersonate the terrorist so convincingly that he can infiltrate Carlos’s network and destroy it from within. As Ramirez dives deeper into his double life, the lines between his identity and that of Carlos begin to blur, testing his sanity, loyalty, and sense of self. The tension escalates as the mission nears its climax, forcing Ramirez to confront not only Carlos but the cost of becoming the enemy in order to defeat him.

On this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John watched Executive Power, an obscure made-for-TV movie directed by David Corley and starring Craig Sheffer as Nick Seger, a Secret Service agent who gets entangled in a web of political intrigue and moral compromise after he assists the president in a deadly cover-up. There is not much more to the movie, but Jamelle and John try very hard to extract something like political insight from the proceedings! You can watch Executive Power for free on YouTube (although I would not recommend it).

When a train carrying nuclear warheads crashes in rural Russia, nuclear specialist Dr. Julia Kelly is brought in by the U.S. government to investigate. She quickly discovers the incident was no accident, but part of a larger conspiracy to steal the warheads. Assigned to work with her is Lt. Col. Thomas Devoe, a brash U.S. Army intelligence officer who specializes in field operations. Together, Kelly and Devoe uncover a plot involving a rogue Russian general and a vengeful Yugoslav diplomat named Dusan Gavrić. Gavrić plans to detonate a nuclear bomb in New York City as a twisted act of personal vengeance and a misguided attempt at political "peace." As they chase the warheads across Europe, facing betrayals and dangerous obstacles, Kelly’s strategic thinking and Devoe’s action-driven instincts clash but ultimately complement each other. Their pursuit culminates in a high-stakes showdown in Manhattan, where they must stop Gavrić before he detonates the bomb in a crowded area. Risking everything, they race against the clock to prevent a catastrophic attack and avert a global crisis.

On this week's (somewhat delayed) episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John are joined by Matt Duss to discuss the 1998 conspiracy thriller Enemy of the State, directed by the late great Tony Scott and starring the late great Gene Hackman, as well as Will Smith, Jon Voight and Regina King. In their discussion, Jamelle, John and Matt talk the film's vision of the American surveillance state, its spiritual connection to The Conversation, Will Smith's superstar performance, and the ways the movie anticipated some of the political disputes of the post-9/11 era. The tagline for Enemy of the State was "It's not paranoia if they're really after you." You can find the film to rent or buy on Amazon.

In Conspiracy Theory, Gibson plays Jerry Fletcher, a cab driver who is consumed with all manner of conspiracies, using his captive audiences to share his ideas and delusions. He is fixated on Alice Sutton, played by Roberts, a Justice Department lawyer who tolerates him because he once saved her from a mugging. When Gibson is kidnapped by secretive government agents — led by the mysterious Dr. Jonas, played by Patrick Stewart — both he and Sutton become embroiled in a genuine conspiracy that centers on Fletcher’s mysterious past and raises difficult questions about the circumstances behind the murder of Sutton’s father.

On this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John are joined by Max Read — of the Max Read Substack — to talk Air Force One, the 1997 action thriller directed by Wolfgang Petersen and starring none other than Harrison Ford as The President. Air Force One also stars Gary Oldman, Glenn Close, Wendy Crewson, Paul Guilfoyle, William H. Macy, Liesel Matthews and Dean Stockwell. In Air Force One, as I’m sure you know, the president’s aircraft is hijacked by a group of terrorists who demand the release of their country’s imprisoned dictator. Rather than flee for safety, President James Marshall decides to take things into his own hands, confronting the terrorists one by one in an attempt to retake his plane.

On this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John watched Contact, the 1997 science-fiction drama directed by Robert Zemeckis. Based on the book by Carl Sagan, Contact stars Jodie Foster as Dr. Ellie Arroway, a SETI scientist who discovers extraterrestrial life and is eventually chosen to make first contact with the alien life. Foster is joined by a stacked cast of character actors, including Matthew McConaughey, James Woods, Tom Skerritt, William Fichtner, John Hunt, Rob Lowe and Angela Bassett. In their conversation, Jamelle and John discuss the distinctly neoliberal politics of the film as well as the extent to which Contact is a prominent example of the “end of history” utopianism that marked political and cultural life as the 1990s came to a close.

On this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John watched Men in Black, the 1997 sci-fi action comedy directed by Barry Sonnenfeld and starring Tommy Lee Jones, Will Smith, Linda Fiorentino, Vincent D’Onofrio and Rip Torn. Men in Black was written by Ed Soloman and shot by the late Donald Peterman — whose credits include Flashdance, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Planes, Trains and Automobiles and Point Break — with a score by Danny Elfman. In Men in Black, Smith plays James Darrell Edwards III, a New York City police officer who finds himself in chase through the city with a unnaturally fast and agile criminal, who later commits suicide. He soon learns that this criminal was an alien from another planet, and that New York is host to a secret government agency tasked with tracking alien lifeforms on Earth. He is recruited into the Men in Black by Agent K, and is deemed Agent J. Agents K and J are soon on the hunt for a Bug, an extra-terrestial cockroach who seeks “the galaxy,” a precious energy source that has been left on Earth. As the Bug, donning the skin of a human farmer, rampages through New York, K and J try to mitigate the damage and protect the galaxy, and the Earth itself, from the Bug.

In The Saint, Kilmer plays Simon Templar, a professional thief known as “The Saint” for using Catholic saints as aliases. He steals a microchip from a Russian oil company but is caught by the owner’s son. He is then hired by the owner, a billionaire oligarch named Tretiak, to steal a cold fusion formula discovered by Emma Russell, an American chemist. Tretiak plans to use the formula to monopolize the Russian energy market. Once he obtains the formula, he also plans to kill Simon. Simon seduces Emma but falls for her. He abandons his plan to steal from her until Tretiak threatens to kidnap her.  At this point the plot becomes a little convoluted to me but here’s what I think happens. Simon does end up stealing the formula but when analyzed, Tretiak finds that it is useless to him. His plan now is to sell the incomplete formula to the Russian president and then attack him for spending billions on worthless technology, using the resulting chaos to make himself president.  Emma finishes the formula, Simon delivers it to a scientist who hopes to use it for good, and in a confrontation in Red Square, Tretiak is exposed as a fraud when it becomes clear that the formula works. Emma and Simon reunite, they start a relationship and it is revealed that Simon has donated billions to charity using money from Tretiak’s accounts.  All ends well!

On this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, we watched the The Second Civil War, a 1997 satirical film directed by Joe Dante for HBO. Starring James Earl Jones, Elizabeth Peña, Denis Leary, Beau Bridges, Phil Hartman and James Coburn, The Second Civil War takes place in a future where rapid, unlimited immigration has produced a balkinized society of ethnic enclaves. California is essentially been re-absorbed into Mexico and Rhode Island is home to millions of Chinese migrants. When an international relief organization makes plans to bring Pakistani refugees into Idaho, the state’s governor, played by Beau Bridges, orders the its national guard to close the borders, sparking a stand-off with the federal government. As both sides escalate, Americans start to choose sides, with other western states joining Idaho in its pushback against Washington. Eventually, the war of words becomes an actual war, as shooting starts between the U.S. Army and the various national guards now allied with Idaho. As viewers, we see all of this unfold through the eyes of a news network, whose anchors and reporters are on the scene, covering developments as they occur.

On this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, we watched the 1997 thriller The Devil’s Own, directed by Alan J. Pakula and starring Brad Pitt and Harrison Ford. In The Devil’s Own, Pitt plays Frankie McGuire, an IRA soldier who travels to the United States to obtain advanced weapons for the fight in Ireland. He is put up in the home of NYPD Sergeant Tom O’Meara, played by Ford, who does not know McGuire’s mission. The two develop an easy rapport and McGuire becomes a part of O’Meara’s family, of sorts. When McGuire’s mission begins to intrude on the O’Mearas, however, the relationship — along with the family’s safety — is threatened.

In this week's episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John watched Absolute Power, the 1997 conspiracy thriller directed by Clint Eastwood from a screenplay by William Goldman and based off of a David Baldacci novel of the same name. In addition to Eastwood, Absolute Power stars Gene Hackman, Ed Harris, Laura Linney, Judy Davis, Scott Glenn and Dennis Haysbert.  In Absolute Power, Eastwood plays Luther Whitney, a master thief who makes the fateful decision to rob billionaire Walter Sullivan, a close friend and ally of the president of the United States. During the burglary, Whitney sees President Alan Richmond assault Sullivan's wife, Christy, with whom he is having an affair. When she fights back, the president's security detail kills her. Sullivan, who witnesses the altercation, escapes with evidence of the killing. When he becomes prime suspect in an investigation led by local police, Whitney devotes himself to exposing the president's misdeed while evading Sullivan's hired assassin — who believes Whitney is responsible — as well as a secret service agent who wants to silence the only witness. 

On this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John watched Shadow Conspiracy, the 1997 political thriller directed by George P. Cosmatos and starring Charlie Sheen, Linda Hamilton, Donald Sutherland and Sam Waterston. In Shadow Conspiracy, a young White House aide uncovers a plot to assassinate the president, making him a target of the conspirators. What follows is a race to evade the assassin, expose those responsible, and save constitutional government from a shadowy group of deep state operators. If this sounds generic, that’s because it is! The movie feels like it was written by ChatGPT. Despite the total absence of anything original, Jamelle and John do find much to discuss in the film, including the ways in which it is rooted in the anti-political ethos of the 1990s.

On this week’s episode of the podcast, we watched Tim Burton’s 1996 sci-fi comedy Mars Attacks!, starring Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close, Annette Bening, Pierce Brosnan, Sarah Jessica Parker, Michael J. Fox, Martin Short Pam Grier, Rod Steiger, Jim Brown, Lukas Haas, Danny DeVito and Natalie Portman. Mars Attacks! was based off of the 1960s-era trading card series by Topps. In the series, Earth is invaded by cruel, hideous Martians who hope to colonize the planet and enslave its population.  In the movie, Earth is invaded by cruel hideous Martians. But they don’t seem to want to colonize the planet as much as engage in wanton destruction for its own sake. To the extent that the film has a plot, it follows several groups of people. There is President James Dale, played by Nicholson, his wife and daughter. There is a young donut shop employee and his family in Nevada. There is an aging boxer turned casino employee, his ex-wife and their children. And there are a pair of talk show hosts. The film shows first contact followed by the Martian war on Earth. Most of the characters are either weak and incompetent, like President Dale and the American military, vain and oblivious, like the various members of the media, or outright rubes, like some of the more ordinary people in the film.  The Martians rampage across the country, killing everyone they see including the president and the first lady. They are eventually stopped when two characters, the young donut shop employee and his grandmother, discover that the yodeling on Slim Whitman’s “Indian Love Call” is enough to cause their heads to explode. They defeat the Martian invasion and are awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for their exploits. The taglines for Mars Attacks were “Nice planet. We’ll take it!” and “Yikes! They’ve landed!” Mars Attacks is available for rent or purchase either Amazon or Apple TV.