Hot on the heels of IFC Films’ Tuesday announcement that they acquired Sundance selection The Catcher Was a Spy, the company dropped a trailer Wednesday afternoon for director Ben Lewin’s biopic about former Red Sox catcher and spy Moe Berg.
Berg’s a fascinating fellow — an intellectual and Jew in the major leagues during the ’30s, and a major force in preventing Germany from getting the bomb — and his story has been dying for a big screen adaptation. It’s got a swell cast, featuring Paul Rudd as Berg and Jeff Daniels, Mark Strong, and Tom Wilkinson in supporting roles, but we think this might be the kind of movie your dad would fall asleep watching on a Sunday afternoon as evidenced by this stuffy-as-fuck trailer.
Peep it:
It’s been a particularly Rudd-laden week in Trailer-Land, given that the Ant-Man and the Wasp trailer hit on Tuesday, and it’s nice that we get to be reminded of the dude’s range every once in a while. Sure, he’s a good comedic everyman, but he’s also got some chops that he likes to whip out every now and then, like in This is 40 (he was pretty good in it, even though we’ll never suffer through that bullshit again). He’s also a huge fucking baseball fan, as evidenced by this video from the Kansas City Royals’ 2014 World Series run:
Still, we’re not sure about this one, especially after the lukewarm reception it received at Sundance (where, once again, the flu kept us from seeing it). The scenes of warfare look incredibly generic, and if this is going to be the kind of war movie where old white men sit around and yell at one another, this will probably evaporate from our memories about as quickly as Darkest Hour did. Still, we’ll follow Paul Rudd to the ends of the Earth, so maybe he can push this across the finish line.
The Catcher Was a Spy hits theaters and VOD on June 22. Punny title, huh?
Featured image via IFC Films.