Leo’s a great actor, but it’s not just seeing his interestingly aging mug a bunch that gets me excited about his projects, it’s that he is almost always associated with interesting projects. Case in point: he is apparently trying to figure out a way to play a lead role in Todd Field’s 6-year-delayed follow up to Little Children, an adaptation of the novel The Creed Of Violence.
While it’s not a sequel to The History of Violence (though that’d be a great title for such a thing), it will definitely be tackling themes of violence with a story about an early 20th century gun-runner traveling into Mexico who is caught and then saddled with a shadowing government agent that hopes to find entry into the underworld for intelligence reasons. The smuggler is called “Rawbone” and he is shadowed by Lourdes, who harbors knowledge of a secret connection between the two.
Word is that the film is patterned as a western (which will not be done any favors by Cowboys & Aliens opening), but obviously more in a Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada or True Grit sense than a high-concept blockbuster. It’s a shame that interesting A-list actors can’t open westerns (see: 2007), but this one is modern and sounds interesting enough that if Universal pushes it (and Django Unchained does well), it could catch some attention.
Into this? Would you prefer to see Leo go for another law-enforcement role that he’s gotten so adept at, or would you want to see him branch out (perhaps too far?) and play the gritty gun-runner? Twitter, boards, comments– take a shot.