Penn Badgley and Shiloh Fernandez Star in Our Exclusive Clip of Mob Movie The Birthday Cake
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Directorial debuts often dabble in coming-of-age or a tried-and-true genre like crime. It’s just easier to fit your voice into something established when you’re getting your sea legs. For director Jimmy Giannopoulos, he’s trying a bit of both. Starring a massive ensemble including Shiloh Fernandez, Penn Badgley, Ewan McGregor, Val Kilmer, Lorraine Bracco, Ashley Benson, Aldis Hodge, Emory Cohen, Vincent Pastore and Jeremy Allen White (note the mob media staples amidst the star cameos), The Birthday Cake sees Giannopoulos—who wrote the film alongside Fernandez and Diomedes Raul Bermudez—tackle a crime family movie. And we’ve got an exclusive early look at the film.
Gio (Fernandez) is headed to a memorial for his father, hosted by his mafia boss uncle (Kilmer), and along the way starts to understand how his father died and how exactly he fits into the criminal underworld that’s housed his family for so long.
In our clip, which you can see below, Gio gets a heads-up from his bartending friend (Badgley) that a few patrons might be thinking about stirring up trouble in their circle. The most exciting part of the sequence is Good Time cinematographer Sean Price Williams’ neon-lit focus on faces, with a slick rack focus casually helping things along.
Take a look:
The Birthday Cake hits theaters and comes out on VOD on June 18.