Jonathan Hemlock is a government assassin -- with a taste for murder.

I'm sorry, that didn't actually mean anything.  Let me start again.

Jonathan Hemlock is a government assassin.  He's retired, but wouldn't you know it, his super-secret agency needs him for one last job.  He tells them, on no uncertain terms, that he's out of the game, but his Pure Albino boss Dragon (How do we know he's a "Pure Albino?" why, he obligingly tells us so when we meet him -- "Dr. Hemlock, did you know I'm a Pure Albino?" he says, coiled up in his dark, climate-controlled lair, licking his lips from the sheer perversity of it all, looking for all the world like Jabba the Hutt's sickly little brother) --

I'm sorry, where was I?  Oh yes, Dragon lures Hemlock (these names, I swear, and we haven't even gotten to Pope, Jemima or Miss Cerberus yet) --

Anyway, Dragon pressures Hemlock into pulling one last -- no, wait -- two last jobs for the agency.  (Christ, this is turning into the "Spanish Inquisition" sketch.)  Which agency?  Oh, you know, the super-secret US spy agency that crops up all over the place in 1970s spy thrillers -- Three Days of the Condor, Marathon Man, etc., the super-secret spy agency that was known only by its members and all Hollywood screenwriters. 

( tons more )

left to right: Ronald Reagan, Sudden Impact, George W. Bush, Bring it On.

Please tell me I'm not the first person to notice this:

When Ronald Reagan wanted to talk tough, he lifted a line from a Clint Eastwood movie.  When George W. Bush wanted to talk tough, he lifted the title of a cheerleading movie. 

Makes perfect sense: Reagan (although an evil, lizard-faced moron) saw a kinship in Eastwood, a fellow conservative, cowboy and Last Good Man.  And Bush was, literally, a cheerleader.  I can actually imagine him watching Peyton Reed's cheerleading drama (a wonderful movie in its own right) for the fifth time in the screening room at the White House, nodding his head sagely and thinking "Yes, this is how it really was."  And then, the light bulb goes off: this is the message he will bring to the terrorists.  He sets his jaw, grits his teeth and speaks the words aloud: "Because I'm a cheerleader, dammit."

UPDATE: It has come to my attention that there are people unfamiliar with the Reagan quote.  When standing up to somebody or other (Gadaffi, the Russians, who knows) he invoked Sudden Impact's catchphrase, "Go ahead, make my day."  It was as obscene then as saying "bring it on" regarding international terrorism is now.  Imho.