Aaron Eckhart Will Go Action Mode in “The Bricklayer”

After a stint on prestige TV (Showtime's The First Lady), Aaron Eckhart is the latest actor to go the action star route. Like so many aging actors before him, he'll portray a highly skilled and ruthless assassin.

The Bricklayer - yet another espionage thriller filmed on the cheap in Europe - hails from Finnish action maestro Renny Harlin, who seemingly couldn't miss in the '90s. While he hasn't had much success in the decades since, he's found his lane in this type of film, starting with last year's The Misfits. He'll direct Eckhart as Vail, a retired operative called back in to unravel the mystery of who's killing foreign journalists and framing the C.I.A. (This being a rare case of the C.I.A. not being responsible.) The cast also includes Nina Dobrev (The Vampire Diaries), Clifton Collins Jr. (Westworld) and Tim Blake Nelson (Nightmare Alley).

Screen Media and Millennium Films will unleash The Bricklayer next summer.

About Kip Mooney

Like many film critics born during and after the 1980s, my hero is Roger Ebert. The man was already the best critic in the nation when he won the Pulitzer in 1975, but his indomitable spirit during and after his recent battle with cancer keeps me coming back to read not only his reviews but his insightful commentary on the everyday. But enough about a guy you know a lot about. I knew I was going to be a film critic—some would say a snob—in middle school, when I had to voraciously defend my position that The Royal Tenenbaums was only a million times better than Adam Sandler’s remake of Mr. Deeds. From then on, I would seek out Wes Anderson’s films and avoid Sandler’s like the plague. Still, I like to think of myself as a populist, and I’ll be just as likely to see the next superhero movie as the next Sundance sensation. The thing I most deplore in a movie is laziness. I’d much rather see movies with big ambitions try and fail than movies with no ambitions succeed at simply existing. I’m also a big advocate of fun-bad movies like The Room and most of Nicolas Cage’s work. In the past, I’ve written for The Dallas Morning News and the North Texas Daily, which I edited for a semester. I also contributed to Dallas-based Pegasus News, which in the circle of life, is now part of The Dallas Morning News, where I got my big break in 2007. Eventually, I’d love to write and talk about film full-time, but until that’s a viable career option, I work as an auditor for Wells Fargo. I hope to one day meet my hero, go to the Toronto International Film Festival, and compete on Jeopardy. Until then, I’m excited to share my love of film with you.