Wonder Woman 1984 star Chris Pine is reuniting with his Hell or High Water co-star Ben Foster for Violence of Action, a new thriller from STXfilms. The one-two dramatic punch of Pine and Foster should hopefully prove to once again be as gruffly charismatic as in their 2016 collaboration in this story of black ops and betrayal.
Violence of Action is being helmed by Swedish director Tarik Saleh whose previous credits include the likes of the 2017 crime drama The Nile Hilton Incident as well as episodes of popular series Westworld and Ray Donovan. Violence of Action stars Pine as “James Harper who, after being involuntarily discharged from the Green Berets, joins a paramilitary organization in order to support his family in the only way he knows how. Harper travels to Berlin with his elite team on a black ops mission to investigate a mysterious threat. Barely into his first assignment, he finds himself alone and hunted across Europe, where he must fight to stay alive long enough to get home and uncover the true motives of those who betrayed him.”
The script comes from JP Davis, with Violence of Action also set to star Gillian Jacobs (Community), Eddie Marsan (The Disappearance of Alice Creed), Fares Fares (Child 44), Nina Hoss (Phoenix), and Amira Casar (Call Me by Your Name) alongside Chris Pine and Ben Foster. STXfilms has acquired the U.S. distribution rights to Violence of Action and is being produced by Thunder Road Films’ Basil Iwanyk and Erica Lee (the John Wick franchise, Greenland, Sicario), with 30WEST fully financing the movie. 30WEST’s Dan Friedkin, Micah Green, and Dan Steinman are executive producing along with Pine, Jonathan Fuhrman, Tom Lassally, Josh Bratman, and Thunder Road’s Esther Hornstein.
“We’re incredibly impressed by what we’ve seen so far of Violence of Action,” Adam Fogelson, Chairman, STXfilms Motion Picture Group, said in a statement. “Chris gives the kind of unforgettable performance that will resonate with audiences everywhere. It’s an elevated action film that has real franchise potential and we are tremendously excited to be working with Chris, Tarik, and the teams at Thunder Road and 30West.”
Violence of Action has a whiff of Jason Bourne to it, and the project sounds like the perfect outlet for Pine’s effortless charisma, giving the actor the opportunity to put his all into a powerful central performance as he evades bad guys while trying to uncover their nefarious schemes.
The first time that Pine and Foster joined forces was in director David Mackenzie’s superb neo-Western, Hell or High Water. Written by Academy award nominee Taylor Sheridan, Pine and Foster star as brothers Toby and Tanner, who are forced to carry out a series of bank robberies in order to save their family ranch, while being pursued by two Texas Rangers played by Gil Birmingham and a career best Jeff Bridges. Hell or High Water proved to be a huge critical success, thanks in no small part to Pine and Foster’s central performances, with their reunion in Violence of Action hopefully providing the same cinematic delight.