It’s been a few years since Clive Owen was really in the “movie star” discussion, hasn’t it? Aside from a few appearances in the likes of Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, Owen’s profile has been on the lower side than it was in the days of Sin City and Children of Men. Mostly, his fans have had to content themselves with a few well-regarded seasons of The Knick, but perhaps Owen is due for a comeback via his latest effort, Netflix’s Anon, which released its trailer today. Here’s our synopsis:
The story is set in the future where the government is trying to fight crime by eliminating privacy, thus creating total surveillance and de facto self-censorship. A police officer named Sal Frieland (Clive Owen) is a tough cop who is doing his best to fight crime in his city. However, things take a huge turn when he meets a hacker known as The Girl (Amanda Seyfried), with results that might lead him to blow the whistle on his own government.
A bit on the nose for our current political climate, perhaps? We’ve seen such scenarios over the years, from The Twilight Zone and straight on through Black Mirror, but hopefully Anon can turn over some kind of new leaf. Seyfriend co-stars as “The Girl,” described as “a woman with no digital footprint, who is invisible to police.” The description does sound as if it could conjure up an almost Shadowrun-esque setting, minus the magic, but if the trailer is to be believed things are hewing fairly close to reality. In it, Owen comes to realize that his own senses can’t be trusted, as apparently folks in this universe are capable of, as one character puts it, “hacking a human.”
Anon hits Netflix on May 4. Check out the trailer below for your daily dose of technobabble and drab future colors. Why does no one own neon tank tops in the future, anyway?