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The Rock (film)

1996 film directed by Michael Bay

The Rock is a 1996 action film about a mild-mannered chemist and an ex-con who must lead the counterstrike when a rogue group of military men, led by a renegade general, threaten a nerve gas attack from Alcatraz against San Francisco.

There's something I've gotta do, Barb. Something I couldn't do while you were here. I tried. You know I tried everything, and I still don't have their attention. Let's hope this elevates their thinking. But whatever happens... Please don't think any less of me.

Directed by Michael Bay. Written by David Weisberg, Douglas S. Cook, and Mark Rosner.

"How old are you, Chief of Staff Sinclair?"
"I'm 33-"
"Well, Mr. Sinclair, you've probably got no fucking idea what I'm talking about. By your ninth birthday, I was running black ops into China. My men were responsible for over 200 enemy kills. Now put some rigging tape over Mr. Sinclair's mouth, he's wasting my time!"
"DO NOT MOVE THAT! Your muscles freeze, you can't breathe, you spasm so hard you break your own back and spit your guts out. But that's after your skin melts off."
"My God."
"Oh, I think we'd like God on our side at the moment, don't you?"
Well, it's been a long time since I've said thank you to anybody... but thank you.

Brig. General Francis X. Hummel

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  • [Visiting his wife's grave] I miss you so much... [places flowers] There's something I've gotta do, Barb. Something I couldn't do while you were here. I tried. You know I tried everything, and I still don't have their attention. Let's hope this elevates their thinking. But whatever happens... Please don't think any less of me. [Places his Medal of Honor on the tombstone and kisses it]
  • [addressing Marines] We'll be branded as traitors. The gravest capital crime, punishable by death. Couple of hundred years ago, a few guys named Washington, Jefferson, and Adams were branded traitors by the British - and now they're called patriots. In time so shall we.

Dialogue

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Chief of Staff Hayden Sinclair: Three tours in Vietnam, Panama, Grenada, Desert Storm, three Purple Hearts, two Silver Stars and the Congressional Medal of– Jesus. This man is a hero.
General Al Kramer: Well, I think "legend" might be a better description, Mr. Sinclair.
Sinclair: Yeah, well, now we can add kidnapping and extortion to his list of accolades.
Gen. Kramer: [mildly indignant] Mr. Sinclair, General Hummel is a man of honor.
[In the Pentagon situation room, General Kramer and other military and civilian staff receive a call]
General Al Kramer: Frank, it's Al Kramer.
BG Francis Hummel: [chomps a cigar] Hi, Al, how you doin'?
Kramer: I don't know, Frank. Ah, why don't you tell me. Got a lot of very, very worried people here, Frank.
Hummel: I'll come straight to the point. Eighty-three Force Reconnaissance Marines have died under my various commands. Forty-seven in northern Laos and southern China.
White House Chief of Staff Hayden Sinclair: Southern China? We never admitted we sent troops into China.
Hummel: Who is this? Identify yourself.
Sinclair: White House Chief of Staff Hayden Sinclair, General.
Hummel: [stands up] How old are you, Chief of Staff Sinclair?
Sinclair: I'm 33-
Hummel: Well, Mr. Sinclair, you've probably got no fucking idea what I'm talking about. By your ninth birthday, I was running black ops into China. My men were responsible for over 200 enemy kills. Now put some rigging tape over Mr. Sinclair's mouth, he's wasting my time!
Kramer: Ah you want to continue, Frank?
Hummel: Remember Operation Desert Storm? Those surgical hits made by our smart bombs, covered so well on CNN? It was my men on the ground that made those hits possible by lasing the targets. Twenty of them were left to rot outside Baghdad after the conflict ended. No benefits were paid to their families. No medals conferred. These men died for their country and they weren't even given a goddamn military burial. This situation is unacceptable. You will transfer 100 million dollars from the Grand Cayman Red Sea Trading Company account to an account I designate. From these funds, reparations of $1 million will be paid to each of the 83 Marines' families. The rest of the funds, I will disperse at my discretion. Do I make myself clear?
FBI Director James Womack: Except for the Red Sea Trading Company. What is that?
Hummel: Identify yourself.
Womack: This is FBI Director Womack, General.
Hummel: It's a slush fund where the Pentagon keeps proceeds from illegal arms sales-
Kramer: Jesus, Frank! This is classified information!
Hummel: You alert the media, I launch the gas. You refuse payment, I launch the gas. You've got 40 hours, till noon day after tomorrow to arrange transfer of the money. I am aware of your countermeasure. You know, and I know, it doesn't stand a chance. Hummel from Alcatraz. Out. [disconnects video call]
[Stanley Goodspeed's girlfriend Carla has just revealed she's pregnant with his child]
Carla: You didn't really mean what you said about bringing a child into this world... being an act of cruelty, did you?
Goodspeed: I meant it at the time.
Carla: Stanley, "at the time"? You said it seven-and-a-half seconds ago!
Goodspeed: Well... gosh. Kind of a lot's happened since then.
[Mason just had his haircut at the Fairmont Hotel balcony]
John Mason: So what do you have in store for me, Womack, when this is over?
FBI Director James Womack: You'll get your life back, Mason.
Mason: But you could have given my life back years ago. [walks away, but turns back to Womack] Why should I trust you now?
Womack: You've got my word.
Mason: Will you shake on it? [Womack nods. Both men shake hands but Mason attaches a rope on Womack's hand and throws him off the balcony.]
Commander Anderson: Have you ever been in a combat situation?
Goodspeed: Define combat, sir.
Anderson: Shep?
LT Shepherd: An incursion underwater to re-take an impregnable fortress held by an elite team of US Marines in possession of 81 hostages and 15 guided rockets armed with VX poison gas.
Goodspeed: Oh. In that case, no, sir. Excuse me a moment. [runs to the bathroom and throws up]
[While the US Navy SEAL’s are breaching through the tunnel system in Alcatraz]
Goodspeed: You enjoying this?
Mason: Well, it's certainly more enjoyable than my average day: Reading philosophy, avoiding gang rape in the washroom. Though it's less of a problem these days. Maybe I'm losing my sex appeal.
Mason: [Gives Goodspeed a handgun] Are you sure you're ready for this? [walks up staircase]
Goodspeed: I'll do my best.
Mason: [stops and motions back to Goodspeed] Your best? Losers always whine about their best. Winners go home and fuck the prom queen!
Goodspeed: Carla was the prom queen.
Mason: [faintly impressed] Really?
Goodspeed: [Cocks his gun] Yeah!
[Mason and Goodspeed are defusing a poison gas rocket when Goodspeed notices a twitching corpse]
Goodspeed: You've been around a lot of corpses. Is that normal?
Mason: [looks at the twitching corpse] What, the feet thing?
Goodspeed: Yeah, the feet thing.
Mason: Yeah, that happens.
Goodspeed: Well, I'm having kind of a hard time concentrating. Can you do something about it?
Mason: Like what? Kill him again?
Goodspeed: Listen, I'm just a biochemist. And most of the time I work in a glass jar and lead a very uneventful life. I drive a Volvo--a beige one. But what I'm dealing with here, is one of the most deadly substances the Earth has ever known. So what do you say you cut me some friggin slack?
[Goodspeed composes himself for a brief moment before removing its contents]
Goodspeed: A really elegant string-of-pearls configuration. Unfortunately, incredibly unstable.
Mason: What exactly does this stuff do?
Goodspeed: If the rocket renders it aerosol, it could take out an entire city of people.
Mason: Really? And what happens if you drop one?
Goodspeed: Happily, it'd just wipe out you and me.
Mason: How?
Goodspeed: It's a cholinesterase inhibitor. Stops the brain from sending nerve messages down the spinal cord within 30 seconds. Any epidermal exposure or inhalation and you'll know. A twinge at the small of your back as the poison seizes your nervous system- [Mason has lifted the chem round to look at it] DO NOT MOVE THAT! Your muscles freeze, you can't breathe, you spasm so hard you break your own back and spit your guts out. But that's after your skin melts off.
Mason: [wide-eyed] My God.
Goodspeed: [smiles grimly] Oh, I think we'd like God on our side at the moment, don't you?
[Mason voluntarily presents himself to General Hummel to save a tourist from execution]
Gen. Hummel: [thinking Mason is a SEAL] I thought I'd been in the service a long time... name and rank, sailor.
Mason: It's Army, actually.
Maj. Baxter: Answer the question. [Mason looks at him] And address him as "General, sir."
Mason: Captain John Patrick Mason, General, sir, of her Majesty's SAS. Retired, of course.
Gen. Hummel: You're a long way from home, Captain. How the hell are you involved in this?
Mason': Oh, I have a unique knowledge of this prison facility. I was formerly a guest here.
Gen. Hummel: Have they bothered to tell you who I am, why I'm doing this, or are they just using you like they do everybody else?
Mason: All I know is, you were big in Vietnam; I saw the highlights on television.
Gen. Hummel: Then you wouldn't have any fucking idea of what it means to lead some of the finest men on God's earth into battle and then see their memory betrayed by their own fucking government!
Mason: I don't quite see how you cherish the memory of the dead by killing another million, and, uh, this is not combat. It's an act of lunacy, General, sir. Personally, I think you're a fucking idiot.
Gen. Hummel: [slightly smiling] "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." Thomas Jefferson.
Mason: "Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious," according to Oscar Wilde. [Hummel strikes him in the back of the neck] Thank you for making my point.
Gen. Hummel: Where are the guidance chips? [aims pistol at Mason's head] Where are the guidance chips??!
Mason: I destroyed them.
Gen. Hummel: That's a bad move, soldier.
Mason: Does that mean you'll execute us both? [referring to the tourist]
Goodspeed: [Holding VX nerve gas] Do you know how this shit works?
Capt. Darrow: [Holding his knife] Do you know how this shit works?! [flashes his knife] Come on, come on, I don't need the gun. I'll put it down, come on. Let's play! Come on, come on!
Goodspeed: Listen, I think we got off on the wrong foot. Stan Goodspeed, FBI. Uh, let's talk music. Do you like the Elton John song "Rocket Man"?
Darrow: I don't like soft-ass shit!
Goodspeed: Oh, oh, you don't, OK. Well, I only bring it up because, uh... it's you. You're the rocket man! [he fires the rocket out the window, taking Darrow with it] How do you like how that shit works?!
[Goodspeed just told the FBI that Mason is dead]
Stanley Goodspeed: Womack tore up your pardon, John.
John Mason: But of course. I knew he would.
Goodspeed: The S.D.U.s and the scuba gear should still be where we came ashore. If you can get to the Pan Pacific Hotel, there's clothes in my closet, $200 in the Bible, Room 26.
Mason: Well, it's been a long time since I've said thank you to anybody... but thank you. Well, Stanley, I guess this is where we go our separate ways. I'm sure you understand the etymology of your name, "Goodspeed".
Goodspeed: Yeah, God speed: To wish someone a prosperous journey. Why?
Mason: Well, if you fancy a journey, I recommend Fort Walton, Kansas.
Goodspeed: I was thinking of Maui.
Mason: No... [puts something into Goodspeed's hand] Forget Maui.
Goodspeed: [reads piece of paper] St Michael's Church, Fort Walton, Kansas. Front pew, right leg, hollow. Is this what I think it is-[looks back at Mason, but he's disappeared] MASON!?

Taglines

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  • Get ready to rock!
  • Alcatraz. Only one man has ever broken out. Now five million lives depend on two men breaking in.
  • America is Rocking!
  • Cocked, locked, and Ready to Rock!
  • Honey, you wanna know who really killed J.F.K.?

Cast

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