Netflix is queuing up what could be one of its most interesting hits yet, bringing together one of the hottest actors in the game with a director who's on a real streak – and it looks genuinely ravishing. The biggest streaming service on the market just unveiled Ballad of a Small Player with a short, extremely evocative teaser trailer, and it looks like a brilliant vehicle for star Colin Farrell.
It's not just Farrell, though. The movie comes from director Edward Berger, whose two most recent blockbusters, All Quiet On The Western Front and Conclave, have both garnered rave reviews and awards aplenty. That's quite a pairing to lead your movie, and Netflix probably has a sense that it might have a special movie on its hands, if this excellent teaser is anything to go by.
Farrell plays Lord Doyle, an implicitly wealthy man fallen on his version of hard times – drinking and gambling away his time in Macau, and trying to vaguely keep his head down. Netflix's blurb says that he'll be offered a lifeline by a casino employee with a plan, Dao Ming (Fala Chen), although we don't know what that might consist of yet.
Doyle won't have it all his own way, though, because there's a private investigator sniffing him out with the aim of bringing him back to reality to face his issues. She's Cynthia Blithe (Tilda Swinton), and in the teaser she seems to be wearing some of the snazziest spectacles I can remember seeing recently. Whether she can track him down, or indeed pin him down, will remain to be seen.
Regardless of how the plot unfolds, it's very clear that Ballad of a Small Player will be unbelievable to look at. The neon lights of Macau are captured pretty exquisitely, as are Doyle's various journeys into depravity, which seems to be something he'll do more than once during the film.
As teasers go, this is a pretty special one, and it's no surprise that Netflix is releasing the movie in cinemas before it hits streaming. The gap is really small, though; it'll be in cinemas from 15 October, then on Netflix just a couple of weeks later on 29 October. It could well be a sizeable hit by then!
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