I've been loving how many women in Hollywood lately have been taking on badass roles, and the newest example is Natalie Portman, who is starring in Jane Got A Gun , a revenge Western that will be out on Feb. 20, 2016. Portman's character is the gun-toting Jane Hammond, who is forced to leap into action to protect her husband after he comes home riddled with gunshots from an encounter with the Bishop Boys gang, led by Ewan McGregor as John Bishop.
Sorry, want to pause for a second to make sure you got that, buried as it was in casting details — Jane Hammond protects her husband Bill Hammond, played by Noah Emmerich, not the other way around. Sure, she enlists the help of her ex-lover, Dan Frost (Joel Edgerton), but, as the title implies, Jane is the one holding the gun and calling the shots, and I couldn't love that more.
Jane Got A Gun has been through quite a few different versions of itself already, with everyone from Jude Law to Bradley Cooper to Michael Fassbender being cast and dropping out, so some have voiced worry about the quality of the finished product. However, I'm refusing to stress about, because the real victory here is that Natalie Portman is being taken seriously as an actor, instead of being relegated to the secondary girlfriend and wife roles that many women are expected to settle for. In place of those parts, we get Portman as a complicated, empowered, gritty, tough-as-nails, badass woman who, when she spits out "I'll kill you" in the trailer, I believe her. Take a look.
That's what I want to see out of an actor of Natalie Portman's caliber, a woman who will go to any lengths to protect her family, and what that means to this particular woman. Bring it on, Jane Got A Gun. Easily one of the movies I'm most excited about in 2016!
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