Focus Features has released a trailer and poster for the thriller Closed Circuit.  Per the official synopsis, “Two ex-lovers, Martin (Eric Bana) and Claudia (Rebecca Hall), find their loyalties tested and their lives at risk when they are joined together on the defense team in a terrorism trial.”  That may be the simple plot description, but judging by the trailer, the film looks far more complicated.  The title comes from the closed-circuit cameras that litter London, and the plot also involves the legal drama as well as the machinations of MI-6 and terrorist cells.  I’m curious to see if director John Crowley has found a way to bring all of these aspects together into a solid flick.

Hit the jump to check out the trailer and poster.  The film also stars Riz Ahmed, Jim Broadbent, Kenneth Cranham, Anne-Marie Duff, Ciarán Hinds, and Julia Stiles.  Closed Circuit opens August 28th.

Screenwriter Matthew Michael Carnahan (State of Play) is ready to make his directorial debut with the Chicago crime thriller Violent Talent.  Garrett Hedlund (TRON: Legacy) has signed on to star—Margot Robbie (Pan Am), Tony Kebbell (War Horse), and Riz Ahmed (Four Lions) will take supporting roles.  Per Deadline, Carnahan’s script centers on “Eamon (Hedlund) as he and his two oldest friends Angel and Quan (Kebbell and Ahmed) try to build a criminal empire in a contemporary Chicago where he feels crime might be the most honest job around.”

Hedlund is from the Midwest (Minnesota), but I find it curious to cast two Brits (Kebbell, Ahmed) and an Aussie (Robbie) around him when the setting is so heavily accented.  Better to surround him with good actors than good accents, though, and I like what I’ve seen of Kebbell, Ahmed, and Robbie.  Plus, Robbie’s American accent was good enough for me in Pan Am and, more importantly, good enough for Martin Scorsese to cast her as the female lead in The Wolf of Wall Street.  Carnahan’s work will next be seen (amid rewrites) in World War Z, opening June 26.

The dramatic thriller The Reluctant Fundamentalist tells the story of a Pakistani man named Changez Khan (Riz Ahmed), who came to the States in search of the American Dream, but found himself in the middle of a hostage crisis.  In the aftermath of 9/11, Changez finds himself caught between his family’s homeland and the country that now looks at him suspiciously.  From acclaimed director Mira Nair, the film also stars Kate Hudson, Kiefer Sutherland and Liev Schreiber.

During this recent exclusive phone interview with Collider, filmmaker Mira Nair and actor Riz Ahmed talked about what it’s been like to get such great feedback about the film, how challenging it was to successfully weave the love story with the thriller aspect, and what it added to the experience to shoot some of the film in the real locations.  Mira Nair also spoke about the experience she’s had turning her popular film Monsoon Wedding into a Broadway stage musical.  Check out what they had to say after the jump.

The first theatrical trailer for director Mira Nair’s (Monsoon Wedding) adaptation of the Mohsin Hamid novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist has been released online.  The film tells the story of a young Pakistani professor (Riz Ahmed) whose success as a businessman in America takes a turn following the events of 9/11.  The pic is told in a frame story, as Ahmed’s character is being interviewed after the fact in Lahore by an American journalist (Liev Schreiber) who is trying to uncover the truth behind a kidnapping.  The pic looks like a rather engaging thriller that also tackles some serious social issues that our nation faced in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer.  The film also stars Kiefer Sutherland and Kate Hudson.  The Reluctant Fundamentalist opens on April 26th.

We’ve got some new posters for you today with all sorts of genre confusion.  Here are the movies in brief:

• The Possession, a horror-thriller from director Ole Bornedal that stars Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Kyra Sedgwick and Natasha Calis.  The film opens August 31st.
• Trishna, from director Michael Winterbottom, stars Freida Pinto and Riz Ahmed in an adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s “Tess of the d’Urbervilles.”
• Grassroots, a policitcal comedy/drama from director Stephen Gyllenhaal, stars Cobie Smulders, Jason Biggs and Joel David Moore.

Hit the jump to check out the new posters.

Production is set to begin next week on the untitled international suspense thriller starring Eric Bana and Rebecca Hall, and Working Title has announced a few additions to the cast.  Julia Stiles, Jim Broadbent, Ciarán Hinds, Riz Ahmed, Kenneth Cranham, and Anne-Marie Duff have been added to the cast, with John Crowley (Boy A) set to direct.  The story centers on two ex-lovers who “find their loyalties tested and their lives at risk when they are joined together on the defense team in a terrorism trial.”  Not much else is known plot-wise, but Crowley has assembled a fine international cast and I’m looking forward to seeing how the suspense thriller plays out.

Hit the jump to read the full press release.

A teaser trailer for director Michael Winterbottom’s (The Killer Inside Me) drama Trishna has landed online. Starring Freida Pinto and Riz Ahmed, the film is an adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles set against a contemporary Indian backdrop. For those unfamiliar, Trishna centers on the relationship between a rickshaw driver’s daughter (Pinto) and the son of a wealthy property developer (Ahmed). As you can probably guess, their vastly different socioeconomic backgrounds do not make a happy, healthy relationship all that easy to come by.

The film features original songs from Indian musician Amit Trivedi as well as an original score by Shigeru Umebayashi (House of Flying Daggers). If this cut is any indication, the contributions of each of these musicians are at the forefront of the film. Check out the teaser trailer for yourself after the jump. Trishna will make its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 9th.

I don’t remember the last time I posted this many image articles in a single day.  This is number five and it’s got new images from Roman Polanski’s Carnage and Michael Winterbottom’s Trishna.  The Carnage images are just stars Jodie Foster, John C. Reilly, Christoph Waltz, and Kate Winslet doing dramatic stare downs at each other and even at the camera.  Carnage—which only runs 79 minutes since it plays out in real time—focuses on two sets of parents who come together to settle a schoolyard fight between their kids.  As for Trishna, the movie is based on Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles but set against an Indian backdrop.  I’m sure star Freida Pinto will have more to work with than she did in Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

Hit the jump to check out the images.  Carnage opens this December and will play at the Venice and New York Film Festivals.  Trishna will play at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Terrorism can be funny if you use the transitive property that stupidity is funny and terrorists can be incredibly stupid.  Idiotic terrorists (seems redundant to write that) aren’t just the premise of Chris Morris’ great comedy Four Lions, but they actually exist.  As Jon Stewart joked on The Daily Show when comparing the shoe bomber to the underwear bomber, it took seven years for the terrorists to devise the ingenious plot of moving the explosive up a couple feet.  However, there is seriousness to terrorism that cannot be ignored and Four Lions walks a delicate line of being outlandish without being offensive.

Two of the biggest movies of the upcoming holiday season, Sci-fi actioner Tron: Legacy, and the Ben Stiller/Robert De Niro comedy, Little Fockers have released new posters.  In addition, Magnolia Pictures has tapped renowned British comic artist Simon Bisley to create a new poster for Neil Marshall’s latest thriller, Centurion, featuring the film’s main characters played by Michael Fassbender and Olga Kurylenko.  Hit the jump for more: