If the career of Sam Worthington — bland and boring in leading man roles, much more interesting when he gets to play character parts in indies like “Somersault” or “The Keeping Room” — was anything to go by, people maybe shouldn’t have been so quick to dismiss his fellow Australian Jai Courtney. Yes, Courtney was a bit of a charisma vacuum in films like “Terminator: Genisys,” but he was a lot more fun when he got to ugly-up in “Suicide Squad” — indeed, he was probably the best thing in the movie.
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Courtney’s next attempt to show a different side of himself is about to arrive with “The Exception,” a drama that debuted at TIFF last year, and that A24 will release in theaters next month (though it’ll come to DirecTV first, this Thursday in fact). Directed by award-winning stage helmer David Levaux, it sees Courtney play a German soldier in 1940 who is assigned to guard the country’s former leader, Kaiser Wilhelm II (Oscar winner Christopher Plummer), and falls in love with a Jewish maid (Lily James) at the Kaiser’s residence, even as his colleagues search for a British spy there.
Originally titled “The Kaiser’s Last Kiss,” the film has a strong supporting cast including Janet McTeer, Eddie Marsan and Ben Daniels, and picked up some respectable reviews from the relatively few critics that saw it at TIFF. You can take a look at the first trailer for the film, courtesy of USA Today, below, and judge for yourself whether you’ll be seeking it out in homes or in theaters. It hits VOD on Thursday, April 27th, and arrives in theaters on June 2nd.