Four Play

Last Free Nation

Four Play selects four iconic films from a theme or genre to meticulously analyze and place in their proper historical context. Hosted by veteran esports commentators Richard Lewis, Duncan "Thorin" Shields, and Christopher "MonteCristo" Mykles, Four Play showcases both legendary Hollywood movies as well as hidden gems outside the mainstream. Be sure to watch along with our hosts each week to get the most of each conversation!

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111 episodes
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Episodes111

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Yesterday · 1 hr 46 min
Tenet Is the Only Film You Can't Watch Once
Richard Lewis turned Tenet off three times. On the fourth attempt he finally made it to the end, and he came out calling it an unfairly maligned film. That is the story of this episode. Thorin picked Tenet expecting a bloodbath, hoping to be the lone defender of Christopher Nolan's most divisive movie. Instead Richard converted, MonteCristo landed somewhere in the middle, and the argument turned into something more interesting: is a film allowed to be incomplete after one viewing? Thorin's posi
July 26 · 2 hr 19 min
Nobody Attacking The Odyssey Has Actually Read The Odyssey
Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey spent a year being called woke by people who never opened the poem. Then it opened to $264 million worldwide and a 95% on Rotten Tomatoes. Richard Lewis, MonteCristo, and Thorin recorded this one last, after filming an entire Nolan arc worrying on camera about what he would do to Homer. All three landed between a seven and an eight, and all three reached the same verdict: the loudest critics exposed themselves. Calling the non-linear structure a betrayal means yo
July 19 · 1 hr 38 min
Inception's Biggest Flaw Reveals Everything About Christopher Nolan
Inception is a nearly perfect film. It reinvented the summer blockbuster, proved a two-and-a-half-hour original movie about dream architecture could nearly make a billion dollars, and it's the reason Christopher Nolan gets to do whatever he wants in Hollywood. Richard Lewis, Thorin, and MonteCristo kick off the Christopher Nolan arc with his best original film, the Hans Zimmer score that might be the best since Gladiator, and the one flaw that reveals a fundamental limitation in everything Nolan
July 12 · 1 hr 30 min
Satoshi Kon Predicted the Internet and Nobody Was Ready | PARANOIA AGENT
Thorin thinks Paranoia Agent sucks. MonteCristo and Richard think it's an 8 out of 10 and one of the most prescient pieces of media ever made about the internet. This is not a polite disagreement. Richard Lewis, Thorin, and MonteCristo spend 90 minutes arguing over whether Satoshi Kon's only TV series is a masterpiece of social commentary or everything wrong with anime condensed into 13 episodes.
July 5 · 1 hr 41 min
The Most BIZARRE Anime Film That Will BLOW Your Mind
Christopher Nolan has never mentioned Paprika. Not once. The dream heist machine, the corridor where people fall through shifting gravity, the entering of dreams to steal information, the characters who are shockingly similar. Inception came out in 2010, the same year Satoshi Kon died of pancreatic cancer at 46. He never got to respond. Richard Lewis, Thorin, and MonteCristo break down why Paprika is the masterpiece Inception borrowed from, why Kon might have been the best director of the 21st c
June 28 · 1 hr 25 min
The Miyazaki Movie You Haven't Seen Is His Best One
Everyone's seen Spirited Away. Everyone's seen Princess Mononoke. Almost nobody has seen the 1984 Miyazaki film that's better than both of them. Richard Lewis, Thorin, and MonteCristo break down Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, the pre-Studio Ghibli masterpiece that handles environmentalism with more intelligence and nuance than anything Miyazaki made after it.
June 21 · 1 hr 33 min
The Matrix Stole Everything and Understood Nothing
The Wachowskis walked into a studio with a copy of Ghost in the Shell and said "we want to do that, but for real." Four years later, The Matrix made a billion dollars. Ghost in the Shell made nothing on release. Richard Lewis, Thorin, and MonteCristo break down why the 80-minute anime the Wachowskis ripped off is deeper, smarter, and more relevant in the age of AI than the franchise it spawned.
June 14 · 1 hr 37 min
Why The Internet Is WRONG About Akira
There is a sentiment going around that Akira is mid. Richard Lewis, Thorin, and MonteCristo are here to tell you that the internet is wrong, but also that the people who told you it was a flawless 10 out of 10 masterpiece were wrong too. The truth is more interesting than either side. Akira's animation is a genuine 10 out of 10. Nothing from 1988 looks like this. Almost nothing from 2026 looks like this. The craftsmanship is immaculate, every frame hand-drawn with a fluidity and detail that make
May 31 · 1 hr 37 min
Robert Duvall's STANDOUT Performance In A Feel-Good Western | OPEN RANGE
Open Range (2003) proves Robert Duvall can carry a western on his back — even when Kevin Costner is standing right next to him.
May 24 · 1 hr 39 min
Robert Duvall Is the Smartest Person in Every Room | A CIVIL ACTION
A Civil Action has the most stacked cast of any movie you've never seen. Robert Duvall, John Travolta, James Gandolfini, Tony Shalhoub, John Lithgow, William H. Macy, and Stephen Fry. It's a 6.5 out of 10 film elevated to must-watch by performances alone. Richard Lewis, MonteCristo, and Thorin break down why Duvall's Harvard defense attorney is the best thing in the movie and why the movie itself can't keep up with him. Into the AM: men's apparel from tees to bombers to denim. Memorial Day sale
May 17 · 1 hr 43 min
Is This Robert Duvall's Best Performance? | The Apostle
Robert Duvall wrote it, directed it, and delivered his career-best performance in it. The Apostle is a $5 million Southern Gothic character study about a charismatic Pentecostal preacher who murders a man with a baseball bat at his own children's Little League game, flees to small-town Louisiana, and builds an entirely new congregation from scratch. He is a wife-beater, a womanizer, a killer, and a true believer. There is no rug pull. Richard Lewis, MonteCristo, and Thorin break down why this is
May 10 · 1 hr 16 min
The Most Realistic Gang Film Ever Made Was In 1988 | COLORS
Colors came out in 1988 and was the first film to put the Bloods and Crips on screen by name. It feels cheesy now. It would have felt raw as hell then. Richard Lewis, MonteCristo, and Thorin open the Robert Duvall arc with the movie that crawled so Training Day, The Wire, and End of Watch could run. PrizePicks — Visit https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/FOURPLAY and use code FOURPLAY and get $50 in lineups when you play your first $5 lineup!
April 12 · 1 hr 54 min
Oscars 2026: What They Got Wrong...
Marty Supreme should have won Best Picture, One Battle After Another is a career Oscar that might age like milk, and Michael B. Jordan playing two characters in Sinners is basically Mario and Luigi in different colored hats. Richard Lewis, Thorin, and MonteCristo break down every major film of the 2026 Academy Awards in a sprawling and contentious Oscars special. Manta Sleep — the Manta Pro sleep mask has 100% blackout coverage, fully adjustable Velcro eye cups, cooling gel, and is fully machin
April 5 · 1 hr 36 min
Inglourious Basterds Has Two Perfect Scenes. The Rest Is the Problem.
After Kill Bill nearly broke them, Richard Lewis, Thorin, and MonteCristo close the Tarantino arc with the film that was supposed to prove he still had it. The verdict: Inglourious Basterds contains two of the finest scenes Tarantino has ever directed (the farmhouse interrogation and the basement bar), but the rest of the movie can't sustain the altitude those scenes reach. What could have been a profound meditation on the power of cinema, the banality of evil, and Jewish catharsis instead settl
March 29 · 1 hr 38 min
Kill Bill 20 Years Later... It Did Not Age Well... | Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair
Kill Bill held a special place in a lot of hearts. The Whole Bloody Affair was supposed to be the definitive version: Tarantino's original vision restored as a single four-and-a-half-hour film. Richard Lewis, Thorin, and MonteCristo sat through all of it, and what they found was the precise moment Quentin Tarantino disappeared up his own references. Everything that made Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction brilliant, such as the compelling dialogue, the clever homage, the subversion of genre, is repl
March 22 · 1 hr 44 min
Is Pulp Fiction Still Good 30 Years Later?
Pulp Fiction is one of the most hyped films in cinema history and Richard Lewis, Thorin, and MonteCristo are here to confirm that even after 30 years the hype is entirely earned. What shocked them most wasn't the violence or the nonlinear structure, but how slow the film actually is. Strip away the iconic moments seared into cultural memory and what you find is a movie dominated by two people talking, and it's riveting every single time. Mint Mobile: Ditch overpriced wireless. All plans come wi
March 15 · 1 hr 58 min
The Tarantino Film That Was Too Dangerous For The UK... | Reservoir Dogs (1992)
Before Pulp Fiction made Quentin Tarantino a household name, there was Reservoir Dogs — a film so raw and transgressive it was banned in the UK for years, circulated on pirate VHS tapes, and became the blueprint for an entire generation of filmmaking. A guy who worked in a video store in LA wrote and directed this. Wrap your head around that. Richard Lewis, MonteCristo, and Thorin kick off Four Play's Tarantino Arc with the film that started it all. They dig into why Reservoir Dogs was banned i
March 1 · 1 hr 34 min
This Forgotten 1995 Film Predicted Our Entire Dystopia | STRANGE DAYS
In 1995, a film predicted POV recording technology, VR experiences you can buy on the black market, deepfake manipulation, police brutality caught on camera, and a society addicted to experiencing other people's lives through a screen. It starred Ralph Fiennes, Angela Bassett, and was written by James Cameron. Almost nobody saw it. Strange Days bombed at the box office, nearly destroyed Kathryn Bigelow's career, and has been virtually impossible to find ever since, as right now no streaming ser
February 22 · 1 hr 38 min
The Matrix Has a TERRIBLE Script (But We Still Love It)
Four film lovers revisit The Matrix (1999) for the first time in years. The action still holds up. The philosophical ideas still land. But the script? That's where things get complicated. We break down the Hong Kong cinema influences Hollywood never credited, the Dark City and Invisibles connections, what Keanu Reeves actually brings to Neo, and whether the Wachowskis wrote a cyberpunk masterpiece or got carried by everyone around them. Plus: our 10-point rating and the one scene that still di
February 15 · 1 hr 36 min
The Movie That Predicted The Matrix | DARK CITY (1998)
Was The Matrix the first film to ask whether our reality is manufactured? No! There are huge parallels between Dark City and The Matrix, with both films using some of the same themes, visuals, and even sets. In this episode of Four Play, we dive into Dark City (1998): Alex Proyas’ noir-drenched sci-fi cult classic that arrived one year before The Matrix and explored memory, identity, and control in ways that still feel unsettlingly modern. Is Dark City just a forgotten cyberpunk curiosity or i