If you like legends of the big screen, then prepare yourself. In the first major deal to come out of the Toronto International Film Festival, star-studded noir thriller Sniff has assembled Morgan Freeman, Al Pacino, Helen Mirren and Danny DeVito to headline a project set to be directed by Taylor Hackford.
To put that into perspective, between the four onscreen talents and the filmmaker they boast a combined haul of four Academy Awards from 22 nominations, as well as appearances in a whole host of cinema classics dating back decades. Sniff is said to be a reinvention of the noir genre, and the synopsis is undeniably exciting.
Two residents at a luxury retirement home die under mysterious circumstances, with Freeman and DeVito’s ex-cops pulled back into their old lives to try and crack the case. In doing so, they discover that Pacino runs an illicit underworld of sex, drugs and murder inside the community of retirees, with Mirren playing his femme fatale enforcer The Spider.
In all honesty, that sounds fantastic. Freeman, DeVito, Pacino and Mirren starring in a crime caper that hits all of the noir tropes set entirely inside a retirement community is a hell of a pitch, and the title itself is an acronym for Senior Nursing Institute and Family Foundation. Shooting is set to begin early next year with an eye to releasing before 2022 is out, and Sniff is definitely one worth keeping an eye on.