Vertical shared the official trailer for Fast Charlie, the action thriller film, adapted from Victor Gischler’s novel Gun Monkey, and starring Pierce Brosnan as a hitman named Fast Charlie. Also starring in the film are Morena Baccarin, Gbenga Akinnagbe, Toby Huss, with Sharon Gless and James Caan.
Release Date
Directed by Phillip Noyce, Fast Charlie world premiered at the 2023 Mill Valley Film Festival and opens in theaters and on demand with a release date of December 8, 2023.
Synopsis
Charlie Swift (Pierce Brosnan), aka “Fast Charlie,” is a fixer with a problem: the target he’s whacked is missing his head. And he must prove it’s the intended target to the man who paid for the hit – New Orleans’ most prominent and most ruthless mobster, Beggar Mercado (Gbenga Akinnagbe). Charlie enlists Marcie Kramer (Morena Baccarin), the victim’s ex-wife and a woman with the backbone and skillset Charlie needs. Dragging Marcie back into a past she was determined to escape sends the two of them on a wild and unpredictable odyssey that’s unexpectedly amusing, action propelled, and ultimately heartfelt. Along the way, Charlie and Marcie fight to protect the legacy of Charlie’s best friend and mentor, Stan Mullen (James Caan in his final performance), while bringing down Beggar and his entire operation.
Reviews
Deadline review called the film ‘Rasty and nasty with a cherry on top’ writing, “Fast Charlie is a down-home Southern gangster yarn with a staggering body count but a sweet taste awaiting the survivors at the end of the day. This adaptation of Victor Gischler’s 2003 novel Gun Monkeys is an inelegant affair that gushes hot blood all over the place but leaves enough room for an appealingly credible May-December romance to grow in the midst of the constant mayhem. This is James Caan’s final film and it’s one that genre fans should eat up but will do so more at home than in theaters.”
In their review, Variety raved about the film, writing, “Noyce, the director of such disparate movies as “Dead Calm,” “Salt,” and “Above Suspicion,” has always been a fastidious filmmaker, and in an age of made-for-streaming action comedy that seems to spill over the sides of its own wretched excess, you’re grateful for his old-school craftsmanship, which now looks like rigor. In “Fast Charlie,” he streamlines the action without hyping it, makes poetic use of helicopter establishing shots, and stages a scene worthy of the first “Bourne” film in which Charlie hides out from an assassin in a hotel laundry chute, squeezing against its sides to keep from sliding down, a task that becomes appreciably more difficult when the assassin, a relentless ogre known as the Freak (Christopher Matthew Cook), fires his gun up the chute and hits Charlie in the thigh.”
Official Trailer
Watch the official trailer for Fast Charlie.