Trailer Debut: The Company You Keep

Ahead of the world premiere of Robert Redford‘s latest film, The Company You Keep, at the Venice International Film Festival, the first trailer has been released and it’s certainly… interesting.

It concerns an intrepid young journalist (Shia LeBeouf) who is investigating the story of a former Weather Underground member (an early 70s activist militia) arrested after 30 years in hiding. Robert Redford plays another former member of the group, spooked by the arrest and noticed by LeBeouf’s sharp journalistic nous.

Conceptually the film sounds intriguing but the trailer is flat out horrible. An object lesson in trailer clichés, we get countless ominous crash-fades to black and a truly cheesy text tag-line near the end.

Redford has had a spotty directorial career to say the least (The Legend Of Bagger Vance and The Horse Whisperer) but he can be classy when he needs to and with a cast this epic (Susan Sarandon, Julie Christie, Sam Elliott, Richard Jenkins, Anna Kendrick, Stanley Tucci, Nick Nolte, Chris Cooper) it’s certainly worth paying attention to.

Here’s hoping for a tense political thriller rather than a clumsy, left-leaning, old man on the run, action piece.

Discuss: Does this trailer excite or worry you?