Tag Archives: action thriller

Trailer: Zero Dark Thirty

Posted on by Arleigh

After the success Kathryn Bigelow had with her award-winning film The Hurt Locker it was just part of the norm that people began to wonder what she would do to follow-up the film which gave her the Oscar for Best Director. There was talk of her making an action thriller about the Tri-Border Region in South America that many intelligence agencies consider a major haven for global organized crime and terrorist groups of all kinds. This particular idea bounced around for months then nothing came of it. Then news came about around late-Spring to early Summer 2011 that Bigelow and The Hurt Locker writer and collaborator Mark Boal came upon the idea that would be Bigelow’s follow-up.

The film that the two decided upon would be an action thriller detailing the global manhunt for Osama Bin Laden. Maybe it was just a coincidence, but this decision became even more important once news broke out on May 2, 2011 that the hunt for America’s Most Wanted criminal was finally over and that Operation Neptune Spear was a success with the death of Bin Laden.

Zero Dark Thirtyis the title of Bigelow’s film about the details and backstory which led up to this special operations mission on May 2, 2011. The first trailer for the film has been released by Sony and it’s short on details other than some voice overs over satellite imagery. I’m sure there’ll be more trailers that will open up what this film will truly be about leading up to it’s December release date (just in time for awards season).

It’s going to be interesting how Bigelow will do with this follow-up to The Hurt Locker. If her history is anything to go by then it shouldn’t disappoint even if some of her detractors will be chomping at the bit to see it fail and further see her Best Director Oscar win as a fluke done to keep the award from her ex-husband James Cameron.

Zero Dark Thirty is scheduled for a December 19, 2012 release date…just two days from the end of the world.

Trailer: Taken 2 (Official)

Posted on by Arleigh

Taken was the surprise hit of 2009 as audiences bought into Liam Neeson as the baddest of badasses. One would rarely think of him as an action-thriller hero. He’s done tough guy, man of action roles in the past but they tended to be of the mentor types. It was the Luc Besson-produced Taken that first made Neeson as a believable action hero.

The film was a simple enough revenge fare. One would thnk that the film’s ending was closure enough that a sequel wasn’t needed, but Hollywood won’t have none of that. It took a year or so, but soon enough 20th Century Fox purchased the rights to the sequel to Taken and quickly greenlit the project.

It’s now 2012 and Neeson’s former CIA black ops character, Bryan Mills, is back to do what he does best and that’s kill, torture and main (not in that particular order every time) every gangster and criminal who gets in his way as he tries to save not just his daughter (again), but his ex-wife as well as they vacation in that hotbed of spying and intrigue,

Istanbul. Luc Leterrier is not helming the sequel but another Besson protege in Olivier Megaton. Now with a name such as Megaton one should expect some explosive action and the trailer hints at such. Here’s to hoping that the film doesn’t go too overboard with the killing and maiming and torturing (again not in that order when they occur each and everytime).

Taken 2 is set for an October 5, 2012 release date.

Trailer: Act of Valor

Posted on by Arleigh

Act of Valor is a film that I’ve been following for quite a bit now. For those who haven’t already heard about this film the premise is quite simple. It’s a film about a team of Navy SEALs who undergo a mission to stop a terrorist plot against the U.S. It’s a plot that has been done countless of time and not just with Navy SEALs as the protagonists. But with the Navy’s elite special-operations team having been involved in several well-documented events this past year (mainly the operation to find Osama bin Laden and his subsequent killing) they’ve become the go-to special-ops team Hollywood has latched onto.

What separates Act of Valor from other war action-thrillers of the past, present and future is the nature of it’s cast. While the film does have professional actors such as Roselyn Sanchez, Emilio Rivera and Nestor Serrano the ones who make up the SEAL team in the film are actual active duty members of the Navy SEALs. The film also uses actual SEAL team missions which the writer, Kurt Johnstad, had been given access to in order to create the screenplay for the film.

The trailer makes mention that the SEAL team members are real SEALs and they’re also using up-to-date tactics and equipment which every action filmmaker from Kathryn Bigelow to Michael Bay must be drooling to get their hands on. There is one question that will pop up as more and more people are exposed to this film leading up to it’s release.

Will the active duty SEALs be up to the task of actually emoting for the camera when not conducting the very operations in the film they’ve trained for years to perfect?

I guess we will have to wait until the film’s release date on February 17, 2012 to find the answer to that question.

Trailer: Killer Elite (Theatrical)

Posted on by Arleigh

Not to be confused with the 1975 Sam Peckinpah film about elite assassins, this 2011 action-thriller is purported to be based on the true life story that was the basis for the controversial novel, The Feather Men, by British author Sir Ranulph Fiennes. The film has quite the cast of testosterone with Jason Statham, Robert DeNiro and Clive Owen, but also Dominic Purcell and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje.

This action film is the first full-length feature for the Northern-Irish filmmaker Gary McKendry whose short film, Everything in This Country Must, was nominated for Best Live-Action Short Film for the 77th Academy Awards. It’s going to be interesting how this first major production turns out. One thing for sure the trailer made some great use of the classic Scorpion heavy metal anthem, “Rock You Like a Hurricane”. That use alone made this trailer a success in making me want to see this film.

SDCC 2011: Haywire (dir. by Steven Soderbergh) Exclusive Trailer

Posted on by Arleigh

It would seem that Steven Soderbergh was quite busy doing something small and simple leading up to his upcoming world-encompassing viral apocalypse film, Contagion. He managed to film an action-thriller (still feels new to say Soderbergh and action-thriller in the same breath) starring MMA fighter Gina Carano as the lead. The film’s title is Haywire and from the synopsis bouncing around the film looks to be quite a throwback to the late 80’s and early 90’s action-thrillers where the main lead is a super-spy or operative betrayed by those they work for and must now take them out to save their loved ones.

It’s going to be interesting to see how Soderbergh handles action on the level Haywire seems to be promising in the trailer. Even if he punts that side of the film the cast alone should make this film worth a look when it comes out. I mean outside of Carano there’s Michael Douglas, Michael Fassbender, Ewan MacGregor, Bill Paxton and Antonio Banderas (channeling a wicked imitation of Saddam Hussein’s fugitive beard).

Haywire is set for a January 20, 2012 release date.

Trailer: Contagion (Official)

Posted on by Arleigh

If there’s one type of genre film I always will end up watching (sometimes to my regret if they turn out to be awful) it will be the apocalyptic-themed film. It doesn’t matter if the apocalypse about to hammer down on the planet in the film is nuclear war, some cosmic event, zombies, the Rapture, etc. As long as the world is in the brink of snuffing out I will watch it.

To find out last year that Steven Soderbergh was going to make his next big project just such an apocalyptic film was exciting. He was to take the worldwide, multi-subplot storyline and a huge cast like he did with Traffic and substitute an lethal pandemic virus for the drug war. It’s cast was to include Matt Damon, Marion Cotillard, Kate Winslet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Laurence Fishburne, John Hawkes and Jude Law to name a few. The film was going to be filmed around the world to truly give it that international feel to it.

Contagion will have a release date of September 16, 2011 and if any film really could benefit from a really great viral marketing it would be this.