Charlie Countryman’s newly released red band trailer looks very… adult? Shia LaBeouf is trying hard to break into more artistic filmmaking, but he’s still Shia LeBeouf. He still hasn’t risen to the occasion and brought a stand out performance to the table. He will always be the Even Stevens kid who was in that Indiana Jones movie that no one likes. Watching him in a red band trailer is akin to watching your 13 year old sister smoke a cigarette. It feels as inauthentic and try-hard as the beard and slick hair LaBeouf wears in this trailer.
From what the trailer gives us, it seems LaBeouf has been fooling around with the wrong lady, getting on the wrong side of the always badass Mads Mikkelsen. Not much else is revealed, which is an amazing quality for a trailer to have. It looks surreal, violent, intense, and kind of awesome. Still, the trailer gives a feeling in the pit of the stomach, as if it’s saying “Look how gritty and independent I am.” Hopefully that’s not the case. But all too often films like this fall into the style-over-substance category. What we’ve learned from Shia LeBeouf is that he usually joins projects that have neither.
Perhaps the cynicism is unwarranted. Perhaps LaBeouf is as brilliant as the trailer claims him to be. It remains to be seen. Labeouf’s other new film is Lars Von Trier’s Nymphomanic. If Von Trier saw something in him, perhaps he has potential.
Charlie Countryman is directed by Fredrik Bond and stars Shia LaBeouf, Evan Rachel Wood, Mads Mikkelsen, and Rupert Grint. There is no no official theatrical release date yet.
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By: Jill Landon
“Who’s your friend who likes to play?”
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