Now that he’s moved on from giant shark pictures to landlocked action, Jan de Bont is casting some smart muscle. He’s just added Jason Isaacs to the cast of Stopping Power, the film in which John Cusack plays a father forced to cooperate with a kidnapper when an RV with his daughter onboard is hijacked as a criminal’s getaway sled.
Isaacs, obviously, is the heavy here. 30 Days of Night‘s Meliassa George is also on the cast list, to appear as Cusack’s girlfriend. He’s getting older, yes, but he’s still dreamy enough to snog a sexy Australian that’s a decade his junior.
(Sorry about ‘snog’ there. I’ve read about three British books in a row and it just slipped out. But hey, Black Swan Green, lovely stuff. First bit of ‘post-modern lit’ I’ve read in a while that doesn’t make me feel like a trendy cunt. Go ahead and buy it from us at Amazon.)
As for the story at hand, I like this matchup. As befits his age, Cusack is getting to the point where he can pull off a complex leading man/hero role, and Isaacs is definitely able to bring a threatening performance to the table even without a cascading revolutionary / sea captain / warlock wig. Though the man-made locks definitely help because you know anyone who looks hard instead of like a Pricilla extra whilst wearing them will .
Stopping Power, as I wrote about ages ago, is based on a story and screenplay by Eric Red. It’s part of his comeback, and sort of an elaborate way to tell us how much he likes From Dusk Till Dawn. But Isaacs is an inveterate rewriter, as I saw in action several years ago and friends working on Brotherhood have recently confirmed. So this could end up an About Schmidt remake instead.
(In his defense, the script I saw him rewriting was utter crap. And he wore a wig in that movie, too. What’s he trying to cover up?)