Scenario: someone walks into your office, slaps a picture of Nicolas Cage sporting a white beard on your desk and goes, “Picture this: he hunts down Osama Bin Laden. It’s a comedy.” Question: Do you greenlight it? If your answer is “yes,” someone has already beaten you to the punch. His name is Larry Charles — helmer of Borat and Bruno — and Army of One, which has just received its first trailer, follows that thread, adding in Russell Brand as God, who comes to Cage in a vision requesting the apprehension of terrorist Osama Bin Laden. Off goes Cage, an ex-con, on his quest to Pakistan carrying a sword and his most pure, unfiltered Cageist swagger.
The trailer suggests full-on farce, including Cage slicing apples with a sword, Brand speaking through different people as God, and even a tape of “Bin Laden” doing his own take on MTV’s Cribs. What remains to be seen is if some deeper thematic resonances can squeeze their way to the surface into some realm of satire, or if it will simply stand as a political gag, one leaned into quite heavily from all angles.
See the trailer below (with a nod to /Film), along with a poster and synopsis:
Gary Faulkner (Cage) is an ex-con, unemployed handyman, and modern day Don Quixote who receives a vision from God (Brand) telling him to capture Osama Bin Laden. Armed with only a single sword purchased from a home-shopping network, Gary travels to Pakistan to complete his mission. While on his quest, Gary encounters old friends back home in Colorado, the new friends he makes in Pakistan, the enemies he makes at the CIA – and even God and Osama themselves. Wendi McLendon-Covey, Rainn Wilson, and Paul Scheer also star in this hilarious tale of patriotism and one man’s quest for justice.
Army of One hits VOD on November 4th.