New Tom Hanks trailer gets 'Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close'

Posted Thursday, September 29, 2011 at 3:56 PM Central
Last updated Friday, September 30, 2011 at 2:26 PM Central

by John Couture

Even a decade later, the emotions that are evoked when someone says 9/11 are pretty raw. Sure, as a country, we have come so far since that dark day when the towers of the World Trade Center fell and tarnished our innocence forever, but in many ways we are still reeling from that one singular moment in history.

Eventually, we will heal and won't mind too much when Michael Bay exploits our memories and history for a glossy buck. Oh wait, they already made that movie and only had to wait five years instead of 70, but I digress.

The bottom line is that films that try to exploit the events of 9/11 are still a sticky subject for most moviegoers. This Christmas, Warner Bros. is betting that a decade is more than long enough to grieve. That and they have Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock on their sides.

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close was a well-received book, but it's a complicated story carried by a young protagonist and the film has opted for an unknown in the role of nine-year-old Oskar Schell. The other main hurdle that the film has to overcome is being the first film to use the events of 9/11 as the backdrop for a fictional story.

In essence, the main sell of the movie is to use those strong emotions tied into 9/11 to essentially tell the story of a boy who lost his father. Yes, it's true that many boys (and girls) lost their fathers (and mothers) on that day, but to me, there's just something wrong about using these emotions to spin a tale of precocious boy who seeks something that his father may have left for him.

If that wasn't enough, the trailer uses a U2 song to further elicit an emotional response. It's a risky gamble, but if it pays off, you can expect more movies like this and the stock of Kleenex to take off like a rocket.

Watch the trailer and let us know what you think. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close will debut on Christmas.

More 9/11 Films

As pointed out by Jeremy and Christopher, the Adam Sandler movie Reign Over Me also was a fictionalized account based on the ramifications of 9/11. I totally forgot about that film, and based on its meager <$20 million box office, so did many of you.