It's never too early to start thinking about awards season and based on the trailer for Apple TV+'s The Banker, it's possible the new streaming platform could very well have its very first Oscar contender on its hands. Based on a true story, the film centers around two revolutionary businessmen from the 1950s, Bernard Garrett (Anthony Mackie) and Joe Morris (Samuel L. Jackson), who devise a plan to help the African American community gain access to bank loans at a time when racial limitations ran rampant. They start by recruiting a working class white man, Matt Steiner (Nicholas Hoult), to pose as the head of their real estate and banking business, while they pretend to be a janitor and chauffeur in order to monitor things on the inside without being discovered.
It's a compelling story that shines a very unattractive (but truthful) light on the racial injustices that exist in American history. Add that to the star-studded cast, and it becomes more and more clear that this project has some serious Academy Award potential. The film's world premiere will take place at this year's AFI Fest on Thursday, Nov. 21, with a theatrical release opening to the public a few weeks later on Dec. 6, according to Deadline. It was then debut on the Apple streaming platform sometime in January 2020.
“The Banker joins a remarkable group of films being released this year that openly confront centuries of racism and injustice in our country, while celebrating the brave individuals whose activism has created real change,” AFI festivals director Michael Lumpkin said about the project in an official statement, as per IndieWire.
The trailer shows that the federal government will eventually catch wind of what Garrett and Morris have been up to, which threatens to destroy everything they've built. But regardless of how the story shakes out, viewers should expect to see this film receive a fair share of Oscar buzz in the months to come — and that's a promise you can take right to the bank.
