A good trailer is instantly addicting. It leaves you not knowing what’s going to happen, but fidgeting with anticipation and frustration because however long it’s going to take for this movie to come out, it is too, too long. And when the trailer is for a movie like Robert Pattinson’s Good Time, a gritty, Scorsese-esque crime thriller filmed on the mean streets of Queens, New York, the likes of which have been very hard to come by in these superhero-obsessed times, the anticipation can be unbearable. I saw the movie at the Cannes Film Festival and I’ve already watched this new trailer on repeat seven times, getting excited all over again.
Be excited. Be very excited. It’s coming out on the coolest distributor around, A24. Young directing team Josh and Benny Safdie are literally Scorsese-endorsed (he’s producing their next movie). And while the movie’s first trailer before its Cannes debut painted it as a moody tragedy, this new one filled with critics’ raves better captures the propulsive, neon-lit energy of what you’ll experience for 99 minutes — as Pattinson’s bank-robber character races through one desperate night trying to get his mentally disabled brother (Benny Safdie) out of jail, bloodying a lot of faces and ruining a lot of lives along the way. Jennifer Jason Leigh is there. Barkhad Abdi, too. A body falls from a high-rise. There’s an awesomely creepy amusement park. But most notably, this is the first extended taste the world will have of Pattinson’s excellent American accent and insane blond dye job. If having the most hideous peroxide-head since Christian Slater in Gleaming the Cube isn’t proof of Pattinson’s total commitment to being taken seriously as an actor, I don’t know what is.