''Viper Club'' is a 2018 American

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super ...

directed by

Maryam Keshavarz Maryam Keshavarz ( fa, مریم کشاورز) is an American filmmaker(Iranian pedigreed) best known for her 2011 film '' Circumstance'' distributed by Participant Media and Roadside Attractions, which won the Audience Award at Sundance Film F ...

and starring

Susan Sarandon Susan Abigail Sarandon (; née Tomalin; born October 4, 1946) is an American actorMcCabe, Bruce"Susan Sarandon, the 'actor'" ''Boston Globe''. April 17, 1981. Retrieved January 21, 2021. and activist. She is the recipient of various accolades, ...

. The film was produced by

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in association with CounterNarrative and MaraKesh Films and held its world premiere at the

Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, attracting over 480,000 people annually. Since its founding in 1976, TIFF has grown to become a perman ...

on September 10, 2018. The film was released theatrically in the United States on October 26, 2018.

Premise

''Viper Club'' follows "a veteran emergency room nurse secretly struggling to free her grown son, a journalist, from capture by a terrorist group. After running into roadblocks with government agencies, she discovers a clandestine community of journalists and advocates who might be able to help her."

Cast

as Helen *

Matt Bomer Matthew Staton Bomer (born October 11, 1977) is an American actor. He is the recipient of accolades such as a Golden Globe Award, a Critics' Choice Television Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award nomination. In 2000, he made his television debut o ...

as Sam *

Lola Kirke Lola Clementine Kirke (born 27 September 1990) is a British-American actress and singer-songwriter. She starred in the 2015 film ''Mistress America'' and the Amazon Studios television series ''Mozart in the Jungle.'' She appeared in '' Gone Girl ...

as Amy *

Julian Morris Julian David Morris (born 13 January 1983) is an English actor. After appearing in the British television series '' The Knock'' (1996) and ''Fish'' (2000) during his teenage years, he had his first starring role in the American slasher film '' C ...

as Andy *

Sheila Vand Sheila Vand is an American actress and performance artist. She is known for her role in Ben Affleck's 2012 Oscar-winning film '' Argo''. Vand made her Broadway debut alongside Robin Williams in 2011 in the Pulitzer-nominated ''Bengal Tiger at th ...

as Sheila *

Adepero Oduye Adepero Oduye ( ) (born January 11, 1978) is an American actress, director, singer, and writer. She is known for '' Pariah'' (2011), '' 12 Years a Slave'' (2013), ''The Big Short'' (2015), and '' Widows'' (2018). Life and career Adepero Oduye ...

as Keisha *

Edie Falco Edith Falco (born July 5, 1963) is an American actress. She is best known for portraying Carmela Soprano on the HBO series ''The Sopranos'' (1999–2007), and Nurse Jackie Peyton on the Showtime series ''Nurse Jackie'' (2009–2015). She also ...

as Charlotte * Paul Eenhoorn as Jim

Production

On March 21, 2018, it was announced that

YouTube Red YouTube Premium (formerly Music Key and YouTube Red) is a subscription service offered by the video platform YouTube. The service provides ad-free access to content across the service, as well as access to premium YouTube Originals programming ...

had just finished production on a film, then-titled ''Vulture Club'', directed by

. The film was written by Keshavarz alongside Jonathan Mastro and executive produced by Anna Gerb,

Neal Dodson Neal Dodson (born May 17, 1978 in York, Pennsylvania, United States) is an Independent Spirit Award-winning film producer. His producer credits include the Academy Award-nominated ''Margin Call'', the Golden Globe Award-winning and Academy Awards ...

, and J.C. Chandor. Cast members were set to include

, and

Release

The film was distributed by

Roadside Attractions Roadside Attractions is an American production company and film distributor based in Los Angeles, California, founded on July 27, 2000, by Howard Cohen and Eric d’Arbeloff, specializing largely in independent films. Lionsgate Lions Gate ...

and released on October 26, 2018. Following its theatrical run, the film was made available for streaming on

. On September 10, 2018, the film held its world premiere at the

as a featured selection in the "Special Presentations" series of films. That same day, the official trailer for the film was released.

Controversy

Ahead of the film's release, Diane Foley, the mother of slain journalist James Foley, expressed criticism of the film. Although the production team contacted and spoke to Foley during the production process, she felt the plot of the film was inappropriate and misleading in its retelling of events from her and her late son's lives. In the process of being consulted for the film, Foley shared details about the process of locating and negotiating for the release of her son. Foley thinks that although director Maryam Keshavarz claims to have made a fictional work, she used and unfairly manipulated details of her personal life to produce a dramatic story.

Reception

The film was met with a mixed to negative response from critics upon its premiere. On the review aggregation website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film holds approval rating with an average rating of based on reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "''Viper Club'' benefits from Susan Sarandon's committed lead performance, but a treacly script robs this geopolitical drama of any bite."

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, which uses a weighted average, assigned the series a score of 57 out of 100 based on 13 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Viper Club 2018 films American drama films YouTube Premium films Films shot in New York City 2010s English-language films 2010s American films