If there's a fatter address book in Hollywood than Robert Redford's we'd be amazed. The legendary actor, director, festival curator and all-round good guy has put it to good use on The Company You Keep, the first film to show off his talents on both sides of the camera since 2007's Lions For Lambs. A new trailer has popped up online that gives a flavour of the extraordinary ensemble cast he's, er, ensembled.
Present and correct in the contemporary-set thriller are Shia LaBeouf, Susan Sarandon, Julie Christie, Anna Kendrick, Nick Nolte, Terrence Howard, Stanley Tucci, Chris Cooper, Brendan Gleeson, Stephen Root, Brit Marling, and Sam Elliott.
The film returns Redford to a genre he tackled so brilliantly with Alan Pakula and Sydney Pollack in films like All The President's Men and Three Days Of The Condor. Those breathless, politically-charged thrillers, boosting a jolt of Nixon-era paranoia, have stood the test of time. Attempting to match them is screenwriter Lem Dobbs (The Limey) who's adapted Neil Gordon's novel of a reporter who discovers the identity of a Weather Underground militant (Redford) who has been hunted by the FBI for 30 years.
The Company You Keep makes its bow at the Venice Film Festival and then at Toronto, before getting a wider release in the US and UK. Fingers crossed for another one of those blunt Dobbs DVD commentaries, too.
