A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
The story of the new film "Weapons," directed by Zach Cregger, begins when 17 elementary school children all from the same class suddenly disappear.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "WEAPONS")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) Every other class had all their kids, but Mrs. Gandy's room was totally empty. And do you know why? Because the night before, at 2:17 in the morning, every kid woke up, got out of bed, walked downstairs and into the dark.
MARTÍNEZ: Phew. Now, the parents of the children are mystified. And the students' teacher Justine Gandy, played by Julia Garner, is blamed.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "WEAPONS")
JOSH BROLIN: (As Archer) I don't understand at all. Why just her classroom? Why only hers?
MARTÍNEZ: That's Josh Brolin, who plays Archer Graff, a father of one of the missing kids. So, Josh, tell us about Archer Graff. Who is he?
BROLIN: Archer Graff, I think, is the kind of manual idea of masculinity in that he doesn't emote so much. You know, he's a construction guy. And the trajectory of what he goes through is he has the most important thing in his life taken away from him. And he realizes immediately that he didn't appreciate that thing, his son, as much as he could've when he was around.
MARTÍNEZ: Archer Graff, he's a builder, as you mentioned, construction guy. But he gets out a bunch of graphs of the neighborhood to try and pinpoint where his kid and maybe where the other kids run to, because that's the thing. The kids wake up at 2:17 in the morning for seemingly no reason and run out of their houses into the darkness. So he's trying to actually use his particular set of skills, to borrow something from Liam Neeson for a second, and actually solve this and fix this.
BROLIN: Yeah, because he has to. He resorts to anything he can possibly resort to in order to try and figure out this mystery. I mean, I think there's nothing to me that's worse. I remember my son saying it to me once. He goes, for you, the mystery is hell.
(LAUGHTER)
BROLIN: And I go, it's the thing that, you know, gives us the most propulsion. But it's also, it's like, I don't know. Am I capable? Am I capable of solving this? And another aspect that I find really interesting is that when I talked to Zach for the first time - you know, I know this has been said. And it's not a grief movie in any way, shape, or form, but that Zach had lost a really good friend. And he said every character was kind of based on a reaction to that grief that he was having. So I think, you know, Archer was anger for him, you know, and his biggest reaction. And what's behind anger, as we've learned, you know, always is fear.
MARTÍNEZ: One day, a classroom has 18 kids in it. The next day, 17 of those children are gone. And it was really hard for me not to think about school shootings. And I know that's not what this is.
BROLIN: Yeah.
MARTÍNEZ: You know, but when you saw the script, did that creep into your head at all?
BROLIN: You know, there's a lot of things that creeped into my head. And again, it's about children. And this is why I stayed away from movies like this for a long time. It's like, I have an acute enough imagination to not need a film that's about 17 kids disappearing for, you know, a reason that nobody can figure out.
And, you know, I have older kids, 37 and 32. And I have younger kids, 6 and 4. But I've come to a place in my life where, first of all, selfishly, the script was so well-designed and so good. And then there's the things that you just brought up. It's like, school shootings, and let's look at this stuff in the face. Let's not deny anymore. You know, how do we react? It's like, the idea of protecting a child before something like that happens is one mentality.
And then when it actually happens, we wish we would've. We wish we would've implemented certain laws. We wish we would've been more present with our kids and all this kind of stuff. And I don't want to live in that past tense. I don't want things to happen. I would rather foresee them coming, you know, make the appropriate shifts and then not have to live in that hell.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. When the children do go missing, your character points the finger at his teacher, that's Julia Garner's Justine Gandy. Let's listen to that.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "WEAPONS")
BROLIN: (As Archer) Hey. I want to talk to you.
JULIA GARNER: (As Justine) I don't think we have anything to say to each other.
BROLIN: (As Archer) Yeah, no, I think you have a lot to say.
GARNER: (As Justine) You and every other person in this city, believe me, the message is loud and clear. I'm the problem. Got it.
BROLIN: (As Archer) You know what? I think that's the first honest thing I've heard you say. You are the problem.
GARNER: (As Justine) What, you want to get in my face? You want to threaten me?
BROLIN: (As Archer) I'm not - nobody's threatening you right now.
GARNER: (As Justine) Oh, you're barking up the wrong tree.
MARTÍNEZ: So when I hear this parent-teacher thing, now, I know it's under stressful circumstances, what happened with the kids all of a sudden disappearing. But it kind of makes me think of, like, what we've been seeing lately, too. I mean, parents and teachers kind of going at each other, especially when it comes to what happens in classrooms. And in this case, because, you know, they disappeared only from her classroom, everyone's wondering, what did she teach them? What did she show them? What did she maybe do to get them to disappear? I mean, it becomes this kind of real-world phenomenon, in a way, to kind of have that moment.
BROLIN: Because nobody wants to take responsibility. Nobody wants to be to blame. Again, I think Zach is so smart in that he brings up things that are very identifiable that we have to look at and we go, look, where are we getting in our own way? Where are we being petty? Where are we being small? Where are we thinking small, you know? And he brings up and he uses the horror genre to be able to do it because it's the genre that creates the most reactions. And I think it's genius. And also, like, you saw the movie, everybody goes, oh, my God, this movie looks so scary. I don't know. It's this, it's so scary. And I go, yeah, but when you see the movie, you realize that it incorporates a high level of humorous absurdity.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. Yeah.
BROLIN: You know?
MARTÍNEZ: There were lots of laughs.
BROLIN: There were lots of laughs.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. Now, I think you mentioned earlier the reason why you avoided these kinds of films, I mean, horror films. I kind of looked at your films, and does "The Goonies" count as a horror film? I don't know if that counts as a horror film.
BROLIN: No, that's definitely a horror film.
MARTÍNEZ: It is? OK.
BROLIN: That's one of the scariest films. No, I'm kidding.
MARTÍNEZ: (Laughter) Because I'm wondering, what did he watch that I didn't watch?
BROLIN: It's not horror film. Somebody asked me this earlier today and I said - they said, well, this is your first horror film, isn't it? And I said, no, I did a movie with Nick Nolte and Patricia Arquette and Ewan McGregor called "Nightwatch." I did "Grindhouse" with Robert Rodriguez. But both of those films, not a lot of people saw. So, yes, this is my first horror film (laughter). If it's successful, it counts. If it's not successful, it still counts to me personally, but it doesn't necessarily. It's not on anybody else's radar.
MARTÍNEZ: That is Josh Brolin. His new film is called "Weapons" and it's out now. Josh, thank you very much.
BROLIN: Thank you so much, man. I really appreciate it.
(SOUNDBITE OF RYAN HOLLADAY, HAYS HOLLADAY AND ZACH CREGGER'S "MAIN THEME (FROM WEAPONS)") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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