We’re guessing Channing Tatum is officially Queens-bred musician/writer/director Dito Montiel’s cinematic muse. The filmmaker’s new crime drama, The Son of No One, is his latest collaboration with the actor. Despite his rural Mississippi origins, Tatum has consistently taken roles reflecting struggles of an inner city Caucasian male, adopting a gully accent, and usually flexing an emotional angst caused by poor parental guidance or twisted childhood trauma. Will the The Son of No One be any different? Well, the trailer doesn’t seem too original. All of the familiar “dramatic cop film” elements (tests of loyalty, wrongful framing, threats against family) are included. The Son of No One was selected as this year’s Sundance Film Festival closer (January 30), though, so perhaps there’s a chance of it not being totally derivative. Curbing those hopes significantly is the sight of Al Pacino playing the same character he’s portrayed a dozen times before, and then there’s Tracy Morgan in a serious turn, which worries us. The Son of No One probably won’t top Montiel’s A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints (2006), but it has to be better than the director’s second Tatum pairing, 2009’s Fighting. Check out the trailer to decide for yourself.
