The wait to see English actor Damien Lewis portraying late, former Mayor of Toronto Rob Ford — in full prosthetics and a fat-suit, mind you — is just about over.
Ricky Tollman's hotly-anticipated "Rob Ford movie" Run This Town hits theatres across the country on March 6 after a succesful premier at Austin's SXSW film festival this past spring.
As such, a public trailer for the 99-minute-long political dramedy just dropped.
It doesn't reveal much, but we do (briefly) get to see Lewis as Ford in what's meant to be the mayor's office at Toronto City Hall.
The world-famous politician, who died from complications related to cancer in 2016, is pictured sitting at his desk, twiddling an Oreo cookie.
RUN THIS TOWN on March 6th pic.twitter.com/55QJ6BPPDW
— Run This Town (@RunThisTown) January 23, 2020
Despite how much attention has been paid to Lewis' performance as Ford, Run This Town doesn't actually revolve around the former mayor.
Rather, it's said to be set against the backdrop of Ford's last year in office and focuses on the investigation into his crack abuse scandal — primarly from the viewpoints of the journalist(s) who broke the story in 2013.
Broadway star Ben Platt will play a ficticious character whose role in what came to be an international news sensation is loosely based on Toronto Star investigative reporters Kevin Donovan and Robyn Doolittle (a casting choice that sparked some controversy of its own.)
Canadian actors Nina Dobrev, Scott Speedman and Mena Massoud co-star in the film, much of which was shot in Toronto.
Be the Damian Lewis halfway dressed to play Rob Ford you wish to see in the world pic.twitter.com/QVfJZezsxt
— Gabriella Paiella (@GMPaiella) April 24, 2018
The newly-released trailer is mostly just shots of Platt's character walking through a parking garage with blurbs from positive reviews splashed across the screen throughout.
"A superbly entertaining new thriller... continually riveting, calling back to the great political thrillers of yesteryear," reads one from thefilmstage.com.
"A [Rob Ford] story made by, for, and about the Millennial generation," reads another from cinapse.co.
On the whole, reviews for the film are pretty mixed; it currently has a 71 per cent score on Rotten Tomatoes, though this is based exclusively on critical reviews. Mainstream audiences have yet to see or judge the work for themselves.
Variety's Joe Leydon notes that Ford "looms large, literally and physically" over the movie, "despite his status as a supporting character."
"There is much to admire but a lot to admonish in 'Run This Town," writes Leydon, calling it an "aggressively cluttered drama about ambitious millennials, circulation-famished editors, and other not-so-innocent bystanders who cross paths in Toronto during the scandal-rocked 2010-14 mayorship of Rob Ford."
I, for one, look forward to judging it from the perspective of an actual Torontonian who lived through the (first) Ford administration.
by Lauren O'Neil via blogTO
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