Shia LaBeouf meets Mark Twain in the rousing trailer for SXSW breakout The Peanut Butter Falcon
Aux Features Coming Distractions
One of the most rousing films to emerge from this year’s SXSW Film Festival was The Peanut Butter Falcon, a sun-baked riff on Huckleberry Finn that populates its swampy Southern milieu with washed-up professional wrestlers, blind preachers, and murderous crabbers. Today, the feature debut of filmmakers Tyler Nilson and Mike Schwartz got its first trailer.
Per Deadline, the film was built around star Zack Gottsagen, a performer with Down’s Syndrome who Nilson and Schwartz first met at a camp for disabled actors. In it, Gottsagen’s character escapes from his care facility to navigate the intracoastal Southeast to attend a wrestling school. Along the way, he meets Shia LaBeouf’s Tyler, a depressed, self-destructive fisherman in desperate need of redemption. The impressive supporting cast includes Dakota Johnson, Bruce Dern, Thomas Haden Church, John Hawkes, and believe it or not, actual wrestlers Mick Foley and Jake “The Snake” Roberts, the latter of whom gives a hilariously deadpan performance.
Watch the trailer below.
19 Comments
Let me guess, he plays a retarded, math genius, drifter, rapist, circus clown, clairvoyant, farmer.
Sees John Hawkes’ name: wootHears the line “Friends are the family you choose”: dang
But I thought friends were the friends we made along the way?Or maybe it’s the friends who were inside us all along.
Aii-yaii-yaii.
I’m a complete sucker for Southern coming-of-age Twain riffs (see also Mud), and it’s nice to see LaBeouf doing something so seemingly unpretentious.
With that said, the title sounds like a parody of every mid-aughts mumblecore indie, and the song choice and blurbs from the trailer once again come off as aggressively schmaltzy.
I prefer Mud 2: Never Clean
Actually looks halfway decent, but I feel like after seeing the trailer, I have essentially already seen all the movie has to offer.
Also, every time I read about LaBeouf, I can’t ever get the hilarious image of LaBeouf “freestyle” rapping out of my brain.
I’ve decided I have given Labeouf all the shit I intend to, for now. Never really cared for him as an actor and rolled my eyes as hard as anyone when he went through his whole performance artist thing, but at this point he’s taken so much public abuse that I think it’s time for everyone to let up. So I’m going clean slate and will form fresh opinions going forward. Don’t fuck this up, Beef.
I can dig this.I’ll probably check this movie out, too.
A part of it is that Labeouf sort of accepted most of the criticism as valid and seems to have stopped doing the worst thing, which was plagiarism, and went away for awhile. I wouldn’t trust him to have any creative control whatsoever for fear he would plagiarize again, but when you consider the post #metoo world, he comes off as deeply weird but relatively harmless.He can be a very strong #2 or #3 in a good movie.He can be a bit overwrought, but sometimes that’s called for. Not for Lebeouf but just by happenstance, I rewatched Fury and Lawless over the last few weeks, and after having a few year break from seeing his antics, I thought his performances were good in both.
He’s excellent, and very likeable, in Fury. Haven’t seen Lawless – worth it?
So definitely worth it, moreso for the other performances in the film though Shia is pretty good in it. It was one of Jessica Chastain’s first big roles as well as Dane DeHaan’s better performances. Hell it’s worth it just for Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman, and Guy Pearce’s performances.
Actually looks halfway decent, but I feel like after seeing the trailer, I have essentially already seen all the movie has to offer. The movie has two strikes against it for me already:
bayou shenaniganstriumph of the human spirit
I’m with you, but…I’m getting soft in my old age. Triumph of the human spirit shit makes me cry now.
The last one counting double. Or triple.
after seeing the trailer, I have essentially already seen all the movie has to offer. You’ve essentially seen the movie.Apart from the bit where man and woman fall for each other despite their differences because they wanted what was best for the PBF all along.
Peanut Butter Falcon? Isn’t that Owen Wilson’s nickname?
I like Shia LaBeouf. Don’t @ me.
if you’re going to say “washed up wrestlers” take mick foley’s name out of your mouth.that man is a fucking saint.