You have to go way back to 1985's Sam Raimi flick Crimewave to find the last time the Coen Brothers collaborated to write a film directed by another. After the much darker Blood Simple, it was one of the Coens' first stabs at showcasing their rather aberrant form of crime comedy, which we would see again many times in movies like Raising Arizona and Burn After Reading. But after so many years of doing things their own way, does the Coen Brothers style still translate when in the hands of another? According to the new trailer for Gambit, the answer is a resounding "Yes".
Written by the Coens and directed by Michael Hoffman(Game 6), Gambit is a remake of the 1966 crime caper starring Shirley MacLaine and Michael Caine. Colin Firth stars as the employee of an eccentric billionaire(Alan Rickman), who embarks upon a scheme to steal a prized painting from him as revenge for years of being treated like a lapdog. Cameron Diaz plays a rodeo queen who also happens to be a dead ringer for the rich guy's late wife, and hilarity ensues as she begins to fall for the target. We don't often enough get to see Firth take on broad comedy like this, and the rest of the cast seem to be having a good time as well. I'm not sure this will rank as one of the Coens' stronger works, but as a simple and fun crime comedy it'll probably turn up aces.
Co-starring Stanley Tucci, Cloris Leachman, and Tom Courtenay, Gambit will hit U.S. theaters some time in 2013....
