There’s timely, and then there’s the Aaron Sorkin film The Trial of the Chicago 7. The flick’s trailer has premiered and teases the true story of the seven activists who descended on the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention and were charged with, among other things, trying to incite a riot. In fact, history has shown—and Sorkin will surely illustrate in his best of 2020-looking film—that it was the police that overacted and not those who sought to end the Vietnam War.
The cast is sublime, led by Eddie Redmayne as Tom Hayden, Sacha Baron Cohen as Abbie Hoffman, Yahya Abdul-Manteen II as Bobby Seale, Joseph Gordon-Levitt as prosecutor Richard Schultz, Jeremy Strong stars as Jerry Rubin, John Carroll Lynch is David Dellinger, Mark Rylance plays the defense attorney William Kunstler while Frank Langella is the judge who oversees the politically motivated trial, Julius Hoffman.
This is Sorkin’s second time behind the camera, in addition to penning the script, after the Jessica Chastain starring Molly’s Game. From the teaser above, this thing has Oscar written all over it, as well as looking to match the ferocity of the passion of those who have taken to the streets in the last several months to protest police brutality and systematic racism in America.
Look for The Trial of the Chicago 7 on Netflix on October 16.