Caffeinated Clint
Teaming with Jan de Bont for action-thriller
I fuckin’ love John Cusack. I especially love him in action movies. “Grosse Pointe Blank” (Which I just revisited, and loved more than ever; when’s that damn sequel comin’ boy?), to an extent, has its fair share of action sequences, but I’m talking more about his turn in “Con-Air”. Now that was cool. That was a grounded performance in a film that just well, was seemingly ungroundable.
Cusack’s agent character was a guy you actually believed could be… would be… doing that stuff. You rooted for him to save the day, and when he teamed up with Nic Cage at the end of the film, that was sheer luster.
Bottom line, Cusack rocks in everything he does – “Say Anything” is still one of my favourite films – but he’s the force that a lot of fantastical action movies need. I’m surprised Jerry Bruckheimer hasn’t tried to recruit him since.
Jan de Bont has come to his senses (most assume he lost them around the time of “Speed 2: Cruise Control” and was still on a mad search for them by the time “The Haunting” got underway) standing outside Cusack’s bedroom window with a ghetto blaster above his head pleasing him to star in his new indie action-thriller “Stopping Power” (now there’s a cool title… has that “Speed” sensibility to it), says The Hollywood Reporter.
Cusack will play a test pilot who sets off on a series of high-speed chases to save his kidnapped daughter from an escaped thief.
What a great idea. This could be the one that not only gives John Boy one of his biggest box office moments in quite a while, but also puts de Bont back on top. There are a lot of possibilities there.
I don’t know when Cusack’s going to fit this in though… I mean…. have you seen his schedule? He has like five films to do over the next twelve months! There’s the post-apocalyptic thriller “Talking to Dog” (with Hilary Duff); “Summerhood”; “Igor” and the crime pic “Cosmic Banditos”. He’s also got three films in the can – Stephen King’s “1408”; “Martian Child” and “War, Inc.” – so he’ll no doubt be doing a bit of looping over the next couple of months too.
Make room for this one though, John – it sounds like fun and it’ll be all the more better because you’re in it.
