John Wick revolutionized the action genre. Based on a new trailer, it looks like he’s coming for our supernatural thrillers too. Since its release, Wick‘s breakneck pacing, elaborate set pieces, and relentless beatdowns have become standard issue for modern action cinema. In fact, action movies that don’t subscribe to the new paradigm have been suffering at the box office. Johnny Depp is not a traditional action movie star. While plenty of his films have action and adventure, he’s never done a classic shoot-em-up or martial arts movie with complicated fight scenes. Known more for having scissor hands instead of a trigger finger, he’s generally been the comic relief or the star of an adventure trying an offbeat approach, like Pirates of the Caribbean. His only true action performance was Robert Rodriguez’s Once Upon a Time in Mexico. The trailer for his latest film appears to change that, while also maintaining Depp’s proclivity for the odd.
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The first trailer for Lionsgate’s Day Drinker from The Amazing Spider-Man director Marc Webb has arrived. The movie’s official description reveals that a private-yacht bartender encounters a mysterious guest. They find themselves entangled with a criminal figure and connected in ways no one saw coming. The teaser showcases Johnny Depp as a mysterious Irishman who seems to have angered a lot of people, as the clip opens with him being slammed to the ground. The movie also features Glass Onion’s Madelyn Cline and reteams Depp with his On Stranger Tides co-star Penélope Cruz.
A Return of The Depp
Depp’s dialogue in the trailer lets the audience know they’re in for something a bit supernatural, hinting at the film being both a revenge and ghost story. Madelyn Cline encounters a ghost in the trailer, but there are also subtle clues that Johnny’s character is more than he appears. He’s unfazed by being stabbed and seems to be very handy with an axe. Penélope Cruz is doing some witchy work in one scene before we see the flash of a full moon and hear a wolf’s howl. The eyes may be windows to the soul, but good luck figuring out what’s going on with Depp’s in Day Drinker‘s trailer. The look has led some fans to proclaim Depp is playing “Vampire Wick,” but we’d be just as happy with Werewolf Wick.
The tone of the trailer seems to be landing somewhere between Polanski’s The Ninth Gate, which featured Depp investigating a mysterious book with connections to a cult, and The Rum Diary, based on Hunter S. Thompson’s semi-autobiographical story of going on a bender in Puerto Rico, with a huge splash of Jack Nicholson’s Wolf to boot. If you pause at just the right time during a barrage of imagery, you can see Depp urinating in a public fountain, much like Nicholson’s famous scene in Wolf. Depp has played a supernatural being before, but for laughs instead of thrills. He starred in Tim Burton’s tonal misfire Dark Shadows as Barnabas Collins. Neither adapting Dark Shadows faithfully nor making a true parody.
Day Drinker marks the fourth collaboration between Penélope Cruz and Johnny Depp. The two actors have played across multiple genres together: crime drama, pirate fantasy, murder mystery, and now… action-genre mashup? The pair previously starred in Blow, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Murder on the Orient Express, and Day Drinker. Madelyn Cline is moving up in Hollywood. This is the Outer Banks star’s biggest billing yet, and she’s managed to get name-dropped between Depp and Cruz. That’s one hell of an indicator that you’ve arrived. As for Depp, audiences are clearly happy to have him back after a tumultuous few years, with much of the commentary on YouTube praising his return to form. The trailer even has a line to canonize the moment. Fans are taking it as Depp’s own view on his career: “I’m done when I say I’m done.”
Johnny Depp’s latest has him trying his hand at stylized action. What was your favorite genre performance from the eccentric actor? Let us know in the comments below.
