It’s a reunion on all fronts in the Forsaken trailer. Characters find each other after a long war, actors reunite with former co-stars, and, of course, Kiefer and Donald Sutherland play father and son for the first time onscreen. Anyone who’s entertained by meta-filmmaking should relish watching the two work through their characters’ broken relationship, but there’s plenty of other less obvious things to suss out from this trailer.
The big question that hangs in the air is just what kind of western Forsaken is going to be. It’s got the troubled pasts and complicated relationships that are hallmarks of the old-school slow burns, but the amount of action in this trailer points towards more modern influences. It’s possible that the bullets will start flying long before its big finale, and while there’s nothing wrong with deviating from a classic formula, the whole thing becomes more difficult to pull off when you mix old and new storytelling elements.
Director Jon Cassar has worked primarily in television, most famously with Kiefer on the many iterations of 24. The wide framing that normally comes with westerns is quite a visual change-up from those shows, and it’ll be interesting to see if he can successfully pull off this style over an entire film.
There’s some lingering question marks around Forsaken that I doubt will be answered before the film’s release. Still, I’m sure we can all agree that watching Brian Cox as another menacing villain will be a good time, and I didn’t even get to Demi Moore’s film reappearance.
Forsaken is directed by Jon Cassar and stars Demi Moore, Kiefer Sutherland, Donald Sutherland, Brian Cox, and Michael Wincott. It will be released in the U.S. on February 19th, 2016. Other release dates are not currently known.
How many connections between this cast and crew can you come up with? Let’s see how long we can make the list in the comments below!
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