As I’ve spent the bulk of my day annoying my coworkers with constant reminders that I loved John Wick more than any movie this year, along comes the trailer for Hardcore, which looks like another two hours of hilariously mindless violence. Produced by Wanted’s Timur Bekmambetov, Hardcore asks the question that somebody was probably thinking after they watched Doom – “What would an action shooter movie look like if it’s filmed entirely from the main character’s point of view?” The answer is pretty surprising, because short of making me a little dizzy, Hardcore looks like it could be a bloody good time.
The visual star of the film is Sharlto Copley, because he’s the guy whose face we get to see as the bad guys are shooting the hat from his head, but the man whose eyes we’re looking through is hardly just some soldier accepting another man’s orders. The plot of Hardcore, which was written and directed by Ilya Naishuller, is simply inspired.
HARDCORE is a modern, action Sci-Fi story about HENRY, a newly resurrected cyborg who must save his wife/creator ESTELLE (Haley Bennet) from the clutches of a psychotic tyrant with telekinetic powers, AKAN (Danila Kozlovsky), and his army of mercenaries. Fighting alongside Henry is JIMMY (Sharlto Copley), who is Henry’s only hope to make it through the day. Hardcore takes place over the course of one day, in Moscow, Russia and it’s all shot in the same style as BAD MOTHERFUCKER to be released in cinemas worldwide.
Bad Motherfucker is, of course, that awesome POV short film that showed up in your Facebook feed a billion times last year. You know, the one with the guy throwing a dog out of a window before kicking all sorts of ass and checking out the smoking hot blondes. Yeah, I figured you’d remember that. Anyway, Naishuller has finished filming Hardcore but he launched an Indiegogo campaign to wrap up the editing and post-production so he doesn’t have to surrender creative control. Hopefully we’ll get to watch this spectacular mess sooner than later.
(H/T to The Wrap)