"I can't hear you, Ray..."

what a captivating flick with an awesome final, the end credits make it look like part of some cop tv series though, the background music is sometimes distracting, i remember clint eastwood once saying in an interview background music sometime can be seen as a weakness if it's being overused, like you need to lean on it, i mean just look at the daytime soap operas. when he sits alone quiet and still in the car you just knew someone would pop up in the back seat, that is such a common theme in movies.



🚓




average clothes,
cant stop luscious forms,
just like my mind about to explode as they mould,
mesmerized as hair you throw,
like in wild weather my senses blow.

A terrific, ‘sad sack’ performance by Stallone and a great line!

I think I can tell you why. This line resonates on two levels. First, Ray's henchman Rucker (Robert Patrick) fired a gun next to Freddie's head, blowing out his eardrum, and (temporarily, as the film shows later) rendering him almost completely deaf. Freddie literally cannot hear what Ray says. But he also metaphorically can't hear it anymore. Freddie always looked up to Ray and the other cops. (He had always wanted to be NYPD himself, but couldn't because of his partial deafness.) But now he's found out that Ray and other's he looked up to are dirty, and they're complicit in conspiracy, kidnapping, and attempted murder (among other things). His respect and admiration for them is gone, and he feels betrayed, both by the fact they've proven corrupt, and because of how they turned on him personally. So he's also deaf to what Ray says because he has nothing but contempt for what a dirty cop thinks.

We, the audience, can't hear clearly what Ray is saying either, but you can read his lips very easily -- "fucking piece of... shit."
Freddie's flat, unemotional delivery of "I can't hear you Ray," is the perfect way to say "who cares what a corrupt, murdering scumbag like you thinks?"