David Ayer’s The Night Watchman is turning into quite the testosterone-soaked cop melodrama. One month after snagging Forrest Whitaker to play the corrupt captain of an elite LAPD unit who frames his protégé (played by Keanu Reeves) for the murder of a fellow officer, Ayer has now landed the easy-on-the-eyes duo of Hugh Laurie and Chris Evans to play the handsomest Internal Affairs partners in the history of cinema (sorry, Andy Garcia, but all Lauries are not created equal).
Hopefully, Laurie’s appearance in The Night Watchman will mark the beginning of an honest-to-god film career, as he’s largely been turning up in bit parts or doing random voiceover work up until now. As for Evans, this will hopefully mark the beginning of legitimately good acting, as he’s been skating on his potential since Not Another Teen Movie and Cellular (though he’s not bad as a charismatic rapist in the unreleased Fierce People).
The film is expected to begin shooting this month in order to accommodate Whitaker, who’s got forty-seven other movies to appear in this year. Fox Searchlight will distribute sometime in 2008.