"Thanks for the Lyft"

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iconogassed
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"Thanks for the Lyft"

Post by iconogassed »

I was watching The Equalizer 2, in which Denzel Washington's character is a Lyft driver, indicated by a close-up of his phone as he waits for his first fare, an old man played by Orson Bean in his final film appearance. When he leaves, Bean's character says "thanks for the lift" as he tips some change. Or as rendered in Netflix closed captions, "thanks for the Lyft".

Lyft presumably paid for the placement as is common practice but the captions struck me. I went back and listened again and Bean's delivery of the line is clearly not that of someone who is casually saying "thanks for the lift". The scene is also basically a self-contained commercial with a beginning, middle, and ending in which Bean's character delivers his ready-made slogan as Washington deposits the change, pennies included, into a container full of change, pennies included, and we feel a pang as we realize all that change is from the old man to his favourite driver.

The spelling of "Lyft" in the captions represents either a high degree of quality control on Lyft or the studio's part or an unusually observant subtitler. On Netflix, equally big Hollywood movies often have glaring errors in captions that would not have been made by anyone using an official script for reference or been overseen by a studio or corporate representative. Just to be sure, I went through the other subtitle options on Netflix: Dutch, German, Italian, and European Spanish. All of these with motherlands yet unblessed by Lyft use the corresponding word for ride or trip. All of them also opted not to note that the two characters lapse into Yiddish (Washington has presumably picked it up from his admiring fare).

And y'know now that I think about it the placement itself seems worth remarking on, too--I mean, he murders bad people, but he still murders people. And the placement is extensive. After he goes through a crew of presumed sexual sadists, he leaves the last man standing with firm instructions to give him five stars. He gets down to his car. His phone chimes.

Five stars.

When you gotta gut a roomful of rapists...get a Lyft.

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