After years spent scheming and worrying on The Sopranos, James Gandolfini could be forgiven for only wanting to play well behaved characters like, say, Santa. Yet he’s always up for interesting work and has decided to dip back into the criminal undercurrents for Animal Rescue. Michael R Roskam, who brought us the superb Bullhead, has rounded up a great cast for his new crime drama, with Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace, James Frecheville and Bullhead’s Matthias Schoenaerts already aboard. Working from the Dennis Lehane short story (with Lehane writing the adaptation), Roskam will craft the tale of a man (Hardy) who wants to leave behind his illegal past, but is drawn into a heist gone wrong and murder all because he finds and cares for a lost, contested pit bull. Roskam is cranking the cameras now in New York. Gandolfini was most recently seen as the CIA director in Zero Dark Thirty. He’ll next show up as a greedy casino owner in The Incredible Burt Wonderstone. | 
