At last we saw Ariel Vromen, he was crafting the chilling crime tale of the famed contract killer The Iceman, anchored by an expectedly excellent performance by Michael Shannon. Though The Iceman wasn't particularly ambitious or remarkable, there was an admirable tightness to the storytelling and a willingness to depict grungy environs and unhinged people without getting too hung-up with a moralistic perspective. As ultimately inconsequential as the film was, one could never have suspected that Vromen would return to the big screen with something as preposterous as Criminal, which casts Kevin Costner, in the same elderly ass-kicker mode as in 3 Days to Kill and Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, as a murderer who is uploaded with the memories and secrets of a recently deceased spy, played by Ryan Reynolds.


selfless-ryan-reynolds
Image via Focus Features

The first trailer for the absolutely insane looking film, which you can take a glance at right below, shows Costner having flashbacks to Reynolds, which suggests an inversion of one of Reynolds' recent films, the intolerable Self/less, but also has Gary Oldman and Tommy Lee Jones as Costner's character's handlers. And the cherry is Wonder Woman herself Gal Gadot, playing the widow of Reynolds' character, whom Costner meets up with to...traumatize? Who knows? We won't get a full idea of all the nonsense going on here until April 15th, when Criminal is released by Lionsgate in theaters nationwide.


Here's the official synopsis for Criminal:

The story of the right man in the wrong body. In a last-ditch effort to stop a diabolical plot, a dead CIA operative’s memories, secrets, and skills are implanted into an unpredictable and dangerous death-row inmate in hopes the he will complete the operative’s mission.

 

Summit Entertainment and Millennium Films present a Benderspink production and Millennium Films production and a Campbell Grobman Films production, a film by Ariel Vromen.

criminal-posters-costner-gal-gadot-oldman
Image via Lionsgate

criminal-kevin-costner
Image via Lionsgate