21 Bridges Trailer: Chadwick Boseman, Russo Brothers Reunite For Action-Packed Thriller

The Russo Brothers aren't done with all of Marvel's heroes just yet.

The first trailer dropped this morning for 21 Bridges, a police thriller produced by the Marvel Cinematic Universe alumni and starring Chadwick Boseman, who first suited up as Black Panther for the pair in 2016's Captain America: Civil War. 

Making his big-screen directorial debut with the flick is Brian Kirk, a TV veteran who has handled episodes of more critically acclaimed series than you can shake a stick at; his credits include Dexter, Luther, Boardwalk Empire, Penny Dreadful, and Game of Thrones. The script was penned by Matthew Michael Carnahan (Deepwater Horizon) and Adam Mervis (The Philly Kid); starring alongside Boseman are Taylor Kitsch, Sienna Miller, J.K. Simmons, and the never-less-than-totally-awesome Keith David. The film's premise is, shall we say, intense: Boseman portrays a police detective whose father was gunned down in the line of duty years earlier. When eight fellow officers are massacred in the course of a high-stakes robbery, his character succeeds in effectively shutting down the island of Manhattan to prevent them from making their escape, and the hunt is on.

The spot opens on the future detective as a young man at his father's funeral, where he is informed by a priest, "Your father died protecting this city." We see an absolutely massive turnout of officers for the ceremony, as the priest's voiceover continues, "He taught you to follow your conscience... in an often cruel world." We then jump forward to the future, as Boseman's character attends to a horrific crime scene covering what looks like an entire city block. "Worst day in eighteen years," laments his superior officer (David), who informs him of the death toll. "They responded to a robbery... automatic weapons. Two shooters... they had training." 

We get a look at said shooters preparing to make their flight, as Boseman's detective lays out his plan. "If we don't catch these guys in the next 24 hours, they vanish," he says. "How you gonna do this?" he's asked, to which he has a simple three-word response: "Close the island." His voiceover then helpfully explains the flick's title. "There are 21 bridges in and out of Manhattan... shut 'em down. 20 rivers... close 'em. Four tunnels... lock 'em. Stop every train... then, we flood the island with blue."

Sounds like a plan, but there may be a snag — as in the next scene, the shooters are being counseled by an accomplice, "They'll have to open Manhattan by the morning. Eight dead policemen is one thing, but the stock market losing billions of dollars is quite another." We then get an idea of just how high-stakes the robbery was, as the shooters had planned to loot an evidence locker of 30 kilos of cocaine, only to find 300 instead. "You know how mean you gotta be to move 300 kilos of cocaine?" Boseman's character is asked, but the detective is a mean one himself; it's revealed that he has a reputation as "the cop who kills cop killers... [who] sees his Dad in every cop who dies." The closing action montage teases a breathless subway chase, a gunfight involving a helicopter, and a standoff between cop and killer which suggests that the criminals may have had ulterior motives beyond simple robbery.

The flick looks pretty incredible, and Boseman is charismatic as ever — although it'll take a bit of a mental adjustment to get used to hearing him speak with a New York accent, rather than the Wakandan one to which we've all become accustomed. Boseman has effortlessly inhabited the character of T'Challa over three films (so far) in the MCU, but credit the Russos for recognizing that his star power makes him more than capable of headlining an actioner that doesn't carry the Marvel Studios banner. 

Having said that, it's likely in the extreme that we'll see Boseman back in the cat suit in the very near future. Sure, Black Panther was among those dusted in the Decimation at the conclusion of Avengers: Infinity War, but his solo vehicle outgrossed even that hotly anticipated film domestically en route to a $1.3 billion dollar worldwide take; if the character is not resurrected somehow during the events of Avengers: Endgame, we'll eat our hats with a delicate pan sauce. Besides, Black Panther 2 was already confirmed by Marvel even before Infinity War's release last year, although those in the know have been extremely coy about T'Challa's fate when questioned. At the Endgame world premiere, Letitia Wright (who portrays T'Challa's genius little sister Shuri) had this to say: "It all depends on [Endgame], really, it all depends on this movie. We want to do it, we would love to do a Black Panther 2, but if something happens that is crazy we might not see any other of anything." Uh huh. Boseman's response to the same line of questioning was hilariously curt: "I'm dead," he said, repeatedly, proving himself to be slightly more difficult to pry sensitive information from than your Mark Ruffalos or Tom Hollands of the Marvel fold.

At any rate, it'll be great to see the magnetic star back in action, cat suit or no, and this trailer has us firmly on board. 21 Bridges hits the big screen on July 12.