Sacha Baron Cohen takes on Abbie Hoffman
Sacha Baron Cohen starring as Abbie Hoffman in a movie about the Chicago 7 directed by Aaron Sorkin may sound like a dream-team collaboration, and Netflix has just announced that the release date for Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 will be October 9.
The film was originally planned to be released in movie theaters, but now it will stream on Netflix.
Oscar-winner Sorkin, who is best known for his television series, The West Wing, as well as such films as A Few Good Men, The Social Network and Moneyball, has a trademark style that seamlessly blends politics and drama, so the news that he would be directing this film pleased his fans. The movie will tell the story of Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Tom Hayden and Bobby Seale, who organized the protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. The controversial trial was followed by millions of Americans and focused attention on deep divisions in the country, which may resonate with today’s audiences.
The cast includes Yahya Abdul-Mateen as Seale, Jeremy Strong as Rubin, Eddie Redmayne as Hayden and Frank Langella as Judge Julius Hoffman.
Those who have read accounts of the trial (notably in Abbie Hoffman’s memoir which was titled, presciently, Soon to be a Major Motion Picture) will recall that it included shouting matches between the two (unrelated) Hoffmans, in which Abbie, who had grown up Orthodox, frequently berated the judge in Yiddish, using the phrase, “shonda
for the goyim.” Baron Cohen mostly recently appeared as Israeli superspy Eli Cohen in the Netflix series, The Spy.
Other cast members include Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Michael Keaton, John Carroll Lynch, and Mark Rylance.