Idris Elba is a washed-up rugby star in dire need of an intervention in the melodramatic new trailer for 100 Streets.
Directed by Jim O’Hanlon, the ensemble thriller finds Elba in the role of Max, a former sporting hero who’s left staring a mid-life crisis square in the face. He cheats on his wife Emily (Gemma Arterton), drinks like a fish, and ultimately loses control of everything around him. All of that comes to head when Elba’s lead becomes embroiled in London’s criminal underground, and it’s here that 100 Streets opens up to become a multi-faceted affair revolving around “three extraordinary stories.”
Despite the calibre of Elba and Arterton, this is a formulaic trailer that is heavy on the melodrama and light on the subtlety. Idris Elba’s Max is a stereotypical anti-hero circling the drain, essentially, and that internal struggle to carve out a life beyond his rugby career is an arc we’ve seen play out time and time again. Maybe 100 Streets will surprise us when it launches across VOD and select theaters in January, but let’s just say we’re harboring our doubts.
100 Streets, also starring Franz Drameh, Tom Cullen, Ken Stott, Charlie Creed-Miles and Kierston Wareing, is already screening in select theaters across the United Kingdom. Look for Jim O’Hanlon’s pulsing crime thriller to make its way across the pond in time for January 13.
100 Streets, a powerful ensemble drama, follows three contrasting and interwoven stories as they play out in one square mile of modern day London. A former rugby player, Max (Idris Elba), struggles to find a life off the field while fighting to save his marriage to former actress Emily (Gemma Arterton). Kingsley (Franz Drameh of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow) is a small time drug dealer desperately seeking a way off the street. While completing his community service for a misdemeanor, Kinsley meets Terence (Ken Stott), a local thespian, who gives him the push he needs out of his dead end life and into a very different, creative world. George (Charlie Creed-Miles), a cab driver, and his wife Kathy (Kierston Wareing) dream of having kids, but a devastating road accident puts their hopes on hold even testing their otherwise strong marriage. Anybody can make a wrong turn, but it’s the journey that allows us to find the right path.
