Writer-director Jim Sheridan has built a career off the plight of the Irish working class, with his best films (“My Left Foot”, “In the Name of the Father”, and “The Boxer”) all starring Daniel Day-Lewis.
We also can’t forget the critical acclaim that he garnered for 2002’s Irish immigrant drama “In America.”
Lately, without Day-Lewis, Sheridan has been stuck in a rut of average American films (“Get Rich or Die Tryin’,” “Brothers”, “Dream House”). I still had somewhat decent expectations for his last film, 2016’s “The Secret Scripture,” starring Rooney Mara, but it turned out to be damn-near unwatchable.
Now we’re learning that Sheridan is set to write, direct and produce a film titled “I Am A Man: The True Story Of Chief Standing Bear.”
The film with formal Resolutions of Support from the Ponca Tribe will depict the Ponca’s “Trail of Tears” march that led to the 1879 landmark trial of Standing Bear vs. the United States of America. This mostly unknown legal case helped all Native Americans to be considered “human beings” under the law, also setting legal precedent for many future civil rights matters within the U.S. courts.
One should not give up on Sheridan, but in making “The Secret Scripture”, he put another nail in the coffin of his once illustrious career and did a grand disservice to the honorably old-fashioned, tastefully artful novel he was adapting.
This latest film sounds, at least, interesting. It’s good to see Sheridan, who just turned 74, still trying to push himself, despite having not really made a good movie in over 20 years.
The studio has unveiled "The Angel Promise," a sweeping new content policy that bans on-screen sex, nudity, F-words and any misuse of God's name in its films.