Out of all the actors working today, perhaps none are more skilled at diving into larger-than-life personalities than Johnny Depp. Over the past few years, he’s played a swaggering pirate, an upper-class vampire, the Mad Hatter and a fierce Native American badass, among other nutty creations. And in next spring’s Mortdecai, he’ll be adding “debonair art dealer” to that lineup of delightfully outsized characters.
The first trailer for the film has landed today, putting the focus squarely on Depp’s mutachioed protagonist, who resembles a slick cross between Ralph Fiennes’ Gustave H. in The Grand Budapest Hotel and Steve Martin’s Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther. It’s a little hard to tell whether Mortdecai is more of a bumbling fool or a smooth operator from this early look, but the film looks to blend action and comedy elements. There’s not much by way of plot here, despite a few thrilling snippets, but the below synopsis fills in some of the blanks:
Juggling some angry Russians, the British Mi5, his impossibly leggy wife and an international terrorist, debonair art dealer and part time rogue Charlie Mortdecai (Johnny Depp) must traverse the globe armed only with his good looks and special charm in a race to recover a stolen painting rumored to contain the code to a lost bank account filled with Nazi gold.
Gwyneth Paltrow, Ewan McGregor, Olivia Munn, Jeff Goldblum and Paul Bettany all co-star in the film, which was directed by David Koepp (Premium Rush) and scripted by Eric Aronson (On the Line).
Mortdecai opens on February 6th, 2015.