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Arnold Schwarzenegger Dresses to Kill in the Trailer for Taran Killam’s Killing Gunther

The first trailer for Taran Killam’s post-SNL feature Killing Gunther was released Tuesday, and it looks like his decision to cast Arnold Schwarzenegger as the best hit man in the business has paid off: Schwarzenegger’s always been good at making fun of his own image, and Killam is certainly giving him plenty of opportunity. But despite a cast that includes the former governor of California, Marvel stalwart (and Killam’s wife) Cobie Smulders, Killam’s Saturday Night Live castmate Bobby Moynihan, Fargo’s Allison Tolman, and New Girl’s Hannah Simone, it looks like the biggest stars might end up being costume designers Reiko Kurumada and Ariana Preece. Judging from the trailer, they dressed Schwarzenegger in an amazing series of ever-more-ridiculous outfits as a sort of demented riff on Hannibal: it’s velvet smoking jackets and butterfly-festooned blazers as far as the eye can see, and Schwarzenegger fights in Mads-Mikkelsen-as-Hannibal’s kitchen while wearing an outfit stolen from Brian Cox’s version of the character. They even got him to wear lederhosen, and that’s like the third-craziest outfit.

As for the non-costume parts of the trailer, the biggest surprise is the mockumentary format. It’s not clear, in the world of the film, why Gunther would agree to participate in interviews for a documentary about people trying to kill him, but the talking head confessional format—“When I found out that there were a bunch of assassins trying to kill me, I got pissed off!—has potential here, even if it’s been overused since The Office. But the biggest risk with this kind of film is a third-act switch from comedy into poorly-staged action, and the trailer’s handheld footage of Tarram’s gang running from a bazooka attack does little to reassure on that front. Still, Killam’s assembled a cast with great comedy chops, and if Schwarzenegger’s performance throughout is as amusing as it is in the trailer, Killing Gunther could be funny enough to coast through the obligatory gunfights on the strength of his charm—and plenty of terrible sunglasses.