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Movies & TV

14th Sep 2020

Netflix offers first look at The Trial of the Chicago 7, one of the most anticipated movies of 2020

Conor Heneghan

The Trial of The Chicago 7

Written and directed by Aaron Sorkin with a ridiculously star-studded cast, this has awards written all over it.

Events in 2020 have understandably made people wary of getting their hopes up about pretty much anything and, like, everything else, that has applied to the movies too.

After multiple delays, Tenet arrived last month but reviews for Christopher Nolan’s latest effort were decidedly mixed.

The first trailer for The Batman whetted the appetite but we’re going to have to wait until at least next summer until that arrives, while it will be just before Christmas before we get a glimpse of the sci-fi thriller Dune.

In the meantime, however, we feel that it’s perfectly acceptable to get excited about The Trial of the Chicago 7, which arrives on Netflix next month and comes with a formula almost guaranteed for success.

What formula, you ask?

Well it’s written and directed by Aaron Sorkin for starters and you would do very well to better the sheer galaxy of stars that has been assembled amongst its cast.

In football parlance, this isn’t a bad starting XI: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Sacha Baron Cohen, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Michael Keaton, Frank Langella, John Carroll Lynch, Eddie Redmayne, Mark Rylance, Alex Sharp, Jeremy Strong and William Hurt. And there’s plenty more in reserve.

And if all that isn’t enough, then there’s the story on which the movie is based on itself; the arrest of seven anti-Vietnam protestors charged with the intention to start riots at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, a major event amongst multiple episodes of civil unrest in the United States in the 1960s.

The Trial of the Chicago 7 arrives in select cinemas next month and on Netflix on 16 October.

“The whole world is watching.”

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