He’s already proven he can handle dragons, inner demons, Gotham’s criminal element, 1980s Manhattan and Angus Macfadyen, but now Christian Bale is in a whole new world: South Central Los Angeles.

In Harsh Times, Bale is a former solider who joins former Six Feet Under corpse-artist Freddy Rodriguez for a little fun and a whole lotta trouble (the movie’s been described as "the West Coast version of Scorsese’s Mean Streets"). The flick comes from Training Day writer David Ayer, making his directing debut that seems to have captured Bale’s magnetism and ferocity.

Ordinarily I make it a strict policy only to post Quicktime trailers (why oh why won’t all the studios universally accept this as the only viable format?), but in this case I’ll make an exception since the material looks too solid to skip. No idea when it’s actually hitting theaters, unfortunately.

CHECK OUT THE TRAILER HERE!