Armie Hammer Is Embattled and Immobile in Gripping New Trailer for Mine

Art often flourishes in the face of extreme limitation because constraints force the artist to think up inventive ways of getting the job done. This phenomenon can be seen in the extraordinary poetry that has come out of the sonnet’s 14-line restriction, the paradoxically creative works that have emerged from beneath government censorship, and the power of films like Locke, which took place almost entirely within the space of a single car. Of course, limitation exists for all art—one will always be constrained by budget caps, deadlines, shortages in materials, etc.—but some artists incorporate the motif of limitation into their pieces, creating self-consciously high-wire works that invite the audience to ask, “I wonder how they did that” or, for narrative pieces that unfold over time, “I wonder how they will make this interesting.” In film, there is a long history of this sort of self-imposed curtailment, but even within this impressive genealogy, the premise of Fabio Guaglione and Fabio Resinaro’s Mine—as shown in a new trailer that just dropped—seems extreme and, for that reason, pretty exciting.

The linchpin of the film’s self-restriction is mentioned in the title “Mine,” which leads us to think “possessive pronoun,” but actually describes the physical explosive (that said, we wouldn’t be surprised if the former usage appears in the film at the thematic level). Armie Hammer plays a soldier who, after failing to assassinate his target, ends up on the run for his life. His escape plans are quickly compromised when he accidentally steps on a mine—it doesn’t explode, but it will if he moves his foot. With 52 hours until a rescue squad arrives and, presumably, a good amount of the movie left at this point, given how much time the trailer devotes to his predicament, Hammer’s guy has to survive wolves, sandstorms, enemy combatants and his own psychological unraveling while being stuck in one spot. Amid all this, he also has to keep us entertained—a tough task, but the trailer looks promising. Hopefully, the film will amount to more than just its gimmick of limited mobility, but as a starting point, this gimmick has done its job of catching our attention.

Check out the full trailer above, and catch the film when it debuts both in theaters and on-demand on April 7.