Mark Bennett: 6 degrees of Brandon Sakbun? Terre Haute mayor's resumé now includes Travolta film
May 16—It's hard to pin the label "renaissance man" on a 28-year-old.
Then again, it seems appropriate for Brandon Sakbun.
In an interview Monday, he jokingly hinted at the diversity of his expanding resumé.
Sakbun became Terre Haute's youngest mayor ever in November, and five months later has a brief, serendipitous role in "Cash Out," a new John Travolta action movie. It was actually filmed two years ago, and the lapse of time left Sakbun figuring the movie wasn't coming out. Then, this spring he spotted it on the Amazon Prime streaming menu and discovered his scene is included in the "Cash Out" trailer clip, as well as the actual movie's first minute.
"I just laughed and looked at my wife and said, 'Well, I'm a former Army Ranger, a mayor, spent a little time in the classroom [as a substitute teacher], and now I'm an actor,'" Sakbun recalled, with a grin, in an interview Monday. (He also could've added his phone call from Vice President Kamala Harris after his historic election as his hometown's first mayor of color.)
Sakbun's wife, Paiton Roshel-Sakbun, kept his feet firmly on Hautean ground.
"She laughed and said, 'Oh, you wish,'" Sakbun said.
Still, it really happened.
The setting was Columbus, Georgia, a city of 202,000 residents on the Chattahoochee River on the Peach State's west side. A 115-member film crew descended on that town for two weeks in June 2022, according to a WTVM-TV report in Columbus. The Hollywood team's presence required streets to be blocked off, kept restaurants and catering businesses busy, and pressed construction contractors to build settings. A local frozen yogurt shop closed up for six hours, so a scene could be filmed there, the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer reported.
The influx also included a call-out for locals to serve as extras. Those chosen included Sakbun's roommate and another friend. Work commitments prevented those guys from participating. Sakbun, though, had the filming day off.
"So one of the producers said, 'Would you want to do this?'" Sakbun explained. "And I said, 'Sure,' not knowing what I'd signed up for, to be completely honest."
A plot twist soon emerged.
Sakbun boarded a bus with others to the Columbus Airport, where his scene was to take place. They saw the production crew — on a picket line, striking.
"There was a pay issue, so filming was delayed a couple hours, and I caught myself in the middle of a Hollywood production strike. So I joined the picket line. It's great — they give you the card of what to yell and what to say. All this for about 40 bucks and a Chik-fil-A sandwich, but I wanted my rights," Sakbun quipped.
The labor dispute got settled that same day and filming commenced.
"There were a lot of locals there to be extras and to participate in the film, which was a ton of fun," Sakbun said. "Next thing you know, John Travolta, Charlotte from 'Sex in the City' [Kristin Davis], Quavo, Hector [Noel Gugliemi] all come up, because they're the main actors in the movie. And I'm like, 'Oh, my gosh. This is real.'"
The 70-year-old Travolta plays the starring role of Mason Goddard, a retired longtime thief whose bumbling brother (portrayed by Lukas Haas) talks him into one more bank robbery. Their attempt goes awry, and cops surround the building. The lead negotiator turns out to be Mason's ex-girlfriend and undercover FBI agent Amelia Decker (Davis). Mason's fellow thieves include calm Anton (Quavo's character) and the volatile Hector (Gugliemi). Their bank heist's failure leads to hostage-taking and drama as the hours pass. Randall Emmett produced the film under the pseudonym "Ives."
Sakbun's moment comes at the outset. He plays an airport security guard who gets punched by Hector. Sakbun was given a two-word line — a profane outburst from being hit. His action made the final edit, but his line didn't.
"My line got cut, and I'm happy it did because I kept having to say the F-word, because I was getting hit in the face," Sakbun said. "That was my one line, and it got cut, thankfully."
Nonetheless, the film is rated R for language.
Also, Sakbun didn't actually have to absorb that punch in the face. Gugliemi — whose credits include "The Fast and the Furious" and "The Walking Dead" — purposely jabbed wide of Sakbun's head.
"He was like six inches away, not even close," Sakbun said, "but the way they do the angles, it makes it really realistic. I like to say, I'm pretty good at falling, because I fell pretty hard. It was good."
His reaction to the punch wasn't the result of preparation. "There was not a lot of training," Sakbun said. "If you can be pretty dynamic, you'll be OK in film, I guess." He didn't apply for a Screen Actors Guild card, and thus isn't named in the film's credits, but he's on screen.
The end result is a 92-minute film that debuted a few weeks ago with mixed reviews. Few were raves.
Variety reviewer Michael Nordine wrote that "Cash Out" relies on "shopworn tropes" of the bank-heist action genre, and that Travolta "is like a past-his-prime slugger dragging down his career batting average." Rex Reed labeled the screenplay "moronic." By contrast, ScreenRant's Stephen Holland stated, "'Cash Out' is a fine action movie, and Travolta does well with the material, although it pales in comparison to the glory days of [1997's] 'Face/Off.'" The Chicago Sun Times critic Richard Roeper wrote "'Cash Out' ... plays like a solid B-movie riff on the 'Thomas Crown Affair,'" a 1999 romance-crime thriller, and credits Travolta and Davis with "fine work." Rotten Tomatoes' audience had a 25% approval rating.
As for Sakbun, he's not begging Hauteans to watch "Cash Out," which can be streamed on Amazon, Apple TV and other platforms.
His review is muted. "It's not as good as a Terre Haute North musical production," Sakbun said, "but it's OK."
Ever the civic analyst, the mayor added, "But I did like the airport scenes, and I like how that community uses their airport."
Mark Bennett can be reached at 812-231-4377 or mark.bennett@tribstar.com.
