Bluff City 08: The Eighty Six Pt. 2

Overview

Episode on Patreon

Episode Description

The Eighty Six at RTR Moonlight Cinema - ★ (1 Star)

Reviewed by Noah K.

i did not mean to go and see this movie! i wanted to go and see love in the heights and both the ATTENDANT and the SIGN ON THE DOOR said that love in the heights was showing and instead of an AWARD WINNING ROMANTIC DRAMA, SWEEPING VIEWERS FROM THE SWISS ALPS TO THE SANTORINI COAST it was some ** movie about cops!

i did not like the cast! i wanted to see donna bianchi being lifted into the air by tobias luchsinger and instead it was MASON LOWRY!

i did not like the SOUNDTRACK! were there the strings of the vienna philharmonic orchestra guiding viewers through a tale of love and intrigue?? there were NOT.

p.s. teaser trailer made it look like there’d be more elephants

Cold Open

As read by Jeff Moran.

Music

The Eighty Six by Jack de Quidt

Cast

Plot

Janis, Max and Sebastian head to the Zoo Casino, and we open on them going down the escalator to the Africa wing. They have difficulty finding the tusks Evelyn told Sebastian to look for as there is a lot of fake ivory in the Africa wing. Janis asks Max if rhino horns count as tusks and Max says he doesn’t know, and so she asks the same of Sebastian. Sebastian says that a tusk would be attached to the mouth of an animal (“damn they’ve updated the academy curriculum”).

They discuss how they’re going to check the tucks, and Sebastian says it’s probably not in the live elephant. As they search, Jakowsky, McKeen and Season come down the escalator. Janis, Max and Sebastian meet up after unsuccessfully searching. In frustration, Janis hits one of the columns, noticing that it’s hollow. As she looks up, she can see that the column is shaped like a giant tusk.

Season and McKeen spot the group, heading towards the group. Jakowsky attempts to head towards them but he is in an area too crowded to get through. The camera pans through the tusks wall, showing the audience a “den of corrupt cops” - a map of the city showing the addition of the new casino in place of homes in the Cove in the background, with cops playing cards, putting together fake evidence, and carving small fake tusks made to look like souvenirs.

Janis puts her ear to the column tusk and can hear Chief Grimes inside ordering people around before leaving (“let’s clear the dirty dishes”). McKeen sees them, cracking his knuckles, back, and neck at them. Season begins heading towards them from the other side, looking towards Jakowsky to cut the group off, but he has been badged into pouring a drink for an old woman who’s drink he spilled.

Sebastian says a one-liner, causing McKeen to become enraged and charge him. Sebastian sweeps McKeen’s legs out from under him. McKeen stumbles, knocked backwards to the floor. McKeen kips up, hitting Sebastian and pushing him through the ivory column’s door, pinning him inside.

Season swears, grabbing his baton. Jakowsky attempts to move towards them but is stopped by the koala handler. Max makes a grab for Season’s gun, and Season slaps him with the baton. Max grins, startling Season, and Max holds up Season’s gun before taking off running through the casino in an attempt to get Season and McKeen to follow him. As he runs, Max grabs a drinks tray and throws it at Season. Season begins chasing after Max.

Janis faces off against McKeen. McKeen headbutts Janis, and she suplexes him into a poker table.

The cops who were playing cards inside point a shotgun at Sebastian, expressing surprise to see him (“didn’t expect you to be assigned to this duty”). Sebastian plays along, sitting down with them at the poker table. They ask him which table he’d like to be working on - tusks or evidence bags. Sebastian says he’s not sure of the difference, and they decide to put him on the tusk table. The others at the tusk table are cutting up ivory, which they do not have the right tools for.

Max continues his chase through the casino, heading towards the staircase. He realises that it’s closed off, as it is being repaired. Max jumps from a poker table to a slot machine, setting it off (it wins, setting off its alarms), and jumps to the chandelier. He swings from the chandelier to a balcony, looking slightly surprised at his own skills. He bows, and several members of the public in the casino politely applaud (“a show!”).

Janis hurls a slot machine into the tusk column and onto the table with the ivory, sending ivory dust into the air (“looks like it’s time for you boys to cash out”). Shots ring out, although no one can see anything. In the casino, the public begins panicking at the sound of gunfire. The footage goes slow-motion, focusing in on Janis as she walks through the smoke before she is shot at with a shotgun.

Before it can hit her, Janis grabs the barrel and twists it upwards so the shot hits the ceiling, then breaks the shotgun over her knee. Using the chaos that has been created by Janis, Sebastian grabs a custom whip which is leaning against the wall. We see a flashback of the other times Janis has saved Sebastian through the movie as he attempts to aid Janis. Sebastian whips one of the cops approaching him, sending them backwards.

Max rejoins the group, followed by Jakowsky. There are five remaining cops between them and the chief. Janis rushes forward, clotheslining two of them over the staircase railing. Max throws poker chips at some of the cops to distract them, then shoots them in the leg to incapacitate them.

Jakowsky walks through, trying to convince them to stand down (“it’s been a long day, why can’t you just play ball?”). Sebastian steps forward, saying that “joining up won’t make the city better”, refusing to go along with him. Jakowsky shoots Sebastian in the chest in response. Max rushes forward, shooting wildly, shooting Jakowsky in the shoulder and getting shot in the shoulder and chest by Jakowsky in response. Jakowsky dies.

Season sees Jakowsky, shaking his head in a disappointed fashion before he closes the door and leaves.

Janis runs towards Max, grabbing a discarded tote bag to press against Max and Sebastian’s wounds, the team patches each other up. Instead of prioritising his own injuries, Max checks on Sebastian first.

The team heads up the stairs, walking along the red-carpeted hallway and past portraits of previous police chiefs to the chief’s door. Janis kicks the door down. Inside is Evelyn who tells them not to come any closer, as the entire room is rigged with explosives, although she is excited to see Sebastian again. She tells them that Grimes has gone upstairs to make his escape.

Sebastian stays behind with Evelyn to diffuse the bomb himself while Max and Janis chase after Grimes. They head into the emergency exit stairwell, hearing the heavy footfalls of Grimes above them.

Meanwhile Sebastian moves behind the chief’s desk, following the wires that lead from the wall to the desk. Inside of one of the desk drawers is a transistor box. Sebastian carefully unscrews the transistor box to see the wires inside.

In the stairwell, Grimes shoots a grenade down the staircase behind them, causing the building to shake from the impact. Janis and Max run up the stairs towards Grimes, and they reach the top level on the staircase just as he gets into an elevator, speeding towards the roof. One of the grenades takes out the stairs between Max and Janis.

Janis forces the elevator doors open, grabbing one of the ropes going up towards the top floor. She falls, landing on another elevator that’s heading upwards.

Sebastian sees a jazz disc drive in the transistor box, and notices that it’s running a program of some kind. He gets the jazz disc from Jamian’s house, looks at it, and then looks at Evelyn, asking her to blow on the disc for luck before he swaps the discs.

The transistor brings up a pop-up screen (“running: bomb.exe”), and it finds the closest file it can on the new disc (“located: bomb_squad.zip”). It opens a collection of midi files, which are midi versions of Bomb Squad songs. The soundtrack changes to a midi version of ‘Poison’ by Bell Biv DeVoe, which is playing throughout the casino.

Janis reaches the rooftop just as the police helicopter is attempting to land on the roof. Grimes is sitting with the grenade launcher across his lap by the helicopter pad (“you couldn’t leave well-enough alone, huh Stone?”). They exchange words, and Grimes fires the grenade launcher at her. She uses her nightstick like a baseball bat, hitting the grenade into the sky and causing the helicopter to pull back.

Grimes tells her that he has three shots left and Janis tells him he has less than that. Grimes says it’s more than enough time to frame her for the destruction and violence they’’ve just caused in the casino and fires a grenade down the vents to the casino floor. Janis dives forward in slow motion to kick away the grenade before it can reach the vent.

The grenade explodes, slamming Janis back towards the stairwell doors as Max reaches the rooftop. Grimes steps onto the helicopter, telling them that he will frame them for everything that has happened. Max pretends to fire at him with his empty gun, readying his loaded gun (it has one bullet left). We see a flashback to Janis and Max practising this move with lemons as targets. Grimes falls for it, firing his last grenade.

The camera follows the bullet in slow motion as it hits the grenade, hitting the helicopter and sending Grimes over the edge of the building, clinging to the edge. Janis pulls him up to safety and then pushes him to the ground, throwing two baggies of tusks she had grabbed from downstairs on his chest (“an elephant never forgets, even in Bluff City”).

A custom song by Boyz 2 Men plays ‘Motown Bluffy’ as Sebastian and Evelyn reach the rooftop and news cameras fly overhead. Max pats Sebastian on the shoulder, finally friends, as they watch the flames.

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