During the next few months, we’re going to see some major releases of violent crime dramas.
The first, opening on August 29, is Lawless, written by musician Nick Cave. It is set among moonshiners in Depression Era Appalachia. The cast includes Tom Hardy, Guy Pearce, Jessica Chastain, Gary Oldman, Mia Wasikowska and (why is he a movie star?) Shia LaBeouf.
On October 19, we’ll see what I expect to be the best of the lot, the stylishly violent Killing Them Softly, a big hit at Cannes. It’s a contemporary story with an ensemble cast featuring Brad Pitt, James Gandolfini, Ray Liotta, Richard Jenkins and Sam Shepherd.
Those two movies were going to sandwich the release of Gangster Squad, a mob movie based on Mickey Cohn’s 1949 sojourn in LA, starring Sean Penn, Ryan Gosling, Nick Nolte, Josh Brolin, Emma Stone, Anthony Mackie (The Hurt Locker) and Giovanni Ribisi. But one scene in Gangster Squad is a shooting in a movie theater; the Aurora, Colorado, tragedy made the distributor skittish, and the release has been delayed to January 13.
You can read descriptions and view trailers of upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To. Here’s the trailer for Killing Me Softly: