Movie Review: The Firm [TEASER]

The Firm, the legal thriller starring Tom Cruise, shows us that big law is sometimes worse than the literal mob. If you're not a 5-4 Premium member, you're not hearing every episode! To hear this and other Premium-only episodes, access to our Slack community, and more, join at fivefourpod.com/support. 5-4 is presented by Prologue Projects. This episode was produced by Dustin DeSoto. Leon Neyfakh provides editorial support. Our researcher is Jonathan DeBruin, and our website was designed by Peter Murphy. Our artwork is by Teddy Blanks at Chips NY, and our theme song is by Spatial Relations. Follow the show at @fivefourpod on most platforms. On BlueSky, find Peter @notalawyer.bsky.social, Michael @fleerultra.bsky.social, and Rhiannon @aywarhiannon.bsky.social. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information. Our Sponsors: * Check out Mint Mobile and use my code mintmobile.com/fivefour for a great deal: https://www.mintmobile.com * Check out Quince and use my code FIVEFOUR for a great deal: https://www.quince.com Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Speaker 00

  Hey, everyone. This is Leon from Prologue Projects. On this subscriber-only episode of Five to Four, the hosts thought it would be nice to take a break from the darkness and despair all around us and instead bring you, our most loyal listeners, something fun. A review of the 1993 legal thriller, The Firm, starring Tom Cruise.

• 0:24Speaker 01

  You want us to let you turn our bills What we charged you. Over to the government. Yes, sir. It does not in any way waive your rights to full and complete confidentiality in any other area of the attorney-client relationship. I'm your lawyer, gentlemen. Whether I like it or not, I can't talk to the government about you even when I'm no longer your lawyer. That would be breaking my word, my oath.

• 0:48Speaker 00

  Please enjoy this brief, yet action-packed distraction. And we'll be back next week to remind you how much the Supreme Court and really everything else right now sucks.

• 0:58Peter Shamshiri?

  Welcome to Five to Four, where we dissect and analyze the Supreme Court cases that have broken our civil liberties like J.D. Vance breaking the college football championship trophy.

• 1:07Michael Liroff?

  That's right.

• 1:08Peter Shamshiri?

  I'm Peter, and I'm here with Michael.

• 1:10Michael Liroff?

  Hey, everybody.

• 1:11Peter Shamshiri?

  Rhiannon out sick, also lazy.

• 1:14Michael Liroff?

  Yeah.

• 1:14Peter Shamshiri?

  Not a hard worker like us.

• 1:16Michael Liroff?

  And it's good because she hates football, especially college football. She doesn't care about University of Texas football at all.

• 1:23Peter Shamshiri?

  Nothing more on-brand than that fucking nerd trying to lift up a trophy, and it falls apart. God wouldn't let it happen. The idea of him hoisting an athletic trophy was too much for the universe to handle. It had the trophy had to break. One of them had to break.

• 1:42Michael Liroff?

  I would have preferred it was Vance. Absolutely.

• 1:45Peter Shamshiri?

  Yeah, that was a real monkey paw situation. Someone, someone, someone wished for it, and it came out wrong. All right. We wanted to do a more casual episode because we realized that we'd done multiple depressing immigration-related episodes in a row, which is not our fault. But rather than do another one, which was a real option, we thought, why not do a movie review?

• 2:15Michael Liroff?

  Yeah.

• 2:15Peter Shamshiri?

  And why not The Firm?

• 2:18Michael Liroff?

  Hmm.

• 2:19Peter Shamshiri?

  The 1993 Sidney Pollack-directed, Tom Cruise-led classic.

• 2:25Michael Liroff?

  That's right.

• 2:26Peter Shamshiri?

  A really fun thriller that I had not seen. And Michael, I think you're a big fan of.

• 2:30Michael Liroff?

  I wouldn't say I'm a big fan of, but I had seen it. I had definitely seen it.

• 2:36Peter Shamshiri?

  It makes sense that Ree isn't here for this one because it's about a law firm and...

• 2:41Michael Liroff?

  She knows nothing about that.

• 2:42Peter Shamshiri?

  She doesn't know anything about law firms. We're the law firm guys.

• 2:45Michael Liroff?

  Yeah, that's right. It's all about big law, which is, again, our specialty and Rhiannon hates. So yeah, it makes perfect sense. It all fits. And she hasn't seen the movie, so.

• 2:57Peter Shamshiri?

  Yeah, another big factor. So, first of all, pretty good movie, pretty fun thriller.

• 3:04Michael Liroff?

  Yes.

• 3:04Peter Shamshiri?

  Good 90s thriller energy. Stuff happens, it keeps happening. It's a little bit over the top, but not so much that you lose yourself entirely.

• 3:15Michael Liroff?

  Yeah.

• 3:16Peter Shamshiri?

  All-star cast, Tom Cruise, Gene Hackman, Wilford Brimley, Gary Busey, Hal Holbrook.

• 3:22Michael Liroff?

  Gene Tripplahorn.

• 3:23Peter Shamshiri?

  Yeah.

• 3:25Michael Liroff?

  Ed Harris.

• 3:26Peter Shamshiri?

  Ed Harris, dude.

• 3:28Michael Liroff?

  Did you say Busey and Ali Hunter? There are so many, so many names in this movie.

• 3:34Peter Shamshiri?

  I mean, just a ton of stars. And...

• 3:36Michael Liroff?

  Oh, and Jason Strahan.

• 3:38Peter Shamshiri?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 3:39Michael Liroff?

  He's fantastic.

• 3:40Peter Shamshiri?

  The basic plot of the movie is that Tom Cruise is like this young Harvard grad, much sought after, and he joins this small but very successful, rich Memphis law firm. And it very quickly becomes clear that they are a shady law firm. Couple of members of the law firm have recently died under mysterious circumstances that look a lot like murder. Hey, folks, if you want to hear the rest of this episode, you're going to have to subscribe. This episode is one of our premium Patreon-only episodes. Membership starts at just five bucks a month. If you want to hear the rest, join us at patreon.com/54pod. That's 5-4-pod all spelled out.

• 4:22Peter Shamshiri?

  Members get a bunch of stuff. Not only do you get access to the premium episodes, but access to subscriber-only events, discounts on merch. And at the $10 a month level, you get bigger discounts on merch and membership in the incredibly rowdy 5-4 Slack. So again, that's patreon.com/54pod. 5-4-pod all spelled out. Become a member today.